What are we having? Vibes’ Culture and Lifestyle share their cultural diet

Shazmin Shamsuddin, Culture and Lifestyle editor

KINOKUNIYA at Suria KLCC is arguably the best place for any bookworm to while the hours away, browsing the shelves for new releases and discovering titles that may have evaded you in the past, but where do you go to quench your thirst after three hours of reading back covers of overpriced books and fondling expensive quirky knick knacks and stationery?

If you are anything like me – and at this point limping with aching feet – the closest spot to take the weight off is literally opposite the bookstore, at Little Penang Cafe. Here you can have a snack of chicken lorbak or rojak buah – or a full-on meal of assam laksa, char koay teow, or curry laksa, because why not? We’re Malaysian, there’s always space in the bottomless pits of our stomachs for a full-on meal.

My favourite thing to order has always been the cendol. And the durian cendol does not disappoint. The icy sweet refreshment that is shaved ice, santan and gula melaka is only improved with the addition of a generous dollop of pureed durian. Although icy and sweet, it is not cloying and after a bit of a jaunt around the mall, it is exactly what I crave. 

The queue for a table can be long but moves relatively fast. You can give lingering diners the stink-eye though the wooden panels and you’ll find they will either completely ignore you or quickly pack up and vacate their table. Either way, the durian cendol is worth that little bit of waiting.

Haikal Fernandez, content executive

The last couple of months saw a lot of great shows. On HBO, the third season of Barry recently wrapped up with probably one of the best episodes of television in recent years in terms of pure intensity. Likewise, the end of May saw the conclusion of the first half of the sixth and final season (these half seasons are one of those annoying television trends that don’t seem to die) of Better Call Saul on Netflix in an equally jaw dropping fashion. 

Probably the best acting I’ve seen in the last few months was Jon Bernthal’s performance as Wayne Jenkins, a real-life corrupt cop in HBO’s ripped from the headlines miniseries We Own This City. Though the character is hypocritical, law-breaking, and profoundly immoral, Bernthal can’t help but imbue him with a raw charisma. You understand why his band or rogues, and the police department at large stood by him until it all fell apart. 

On a more optimistic bent, I’m tuning in every week to the third season of Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, an alternate history take on human space exploration. The show ticks a lot of boxes for me: space travel, science fiction, politics and history. It veers into melodrama and American triumphalism, but it’s so well made, and its hopeful tone stands out in such cynical times. 

Kalash Nanda Kumar, reporter

Book: A Map of Longings: Life and Work of Agha Shahid Ali by Manan Kapoor 

A recent discovery, the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri-born American writer has been a source of deep comfort for me as I navigate ongoing changes in my life: a new job, moving back to the city, and dealing with the dilemmas of adulthood. 

An immigrant in the US, he was a writer with the synthesis and sensibilities of three cultures: the West, Hinduism and Islam. Manan Kapoor’s book of the late author functions less as biography in the typical order but rather offers insights into the events, people and encounters that have shaped his work.

For any young writer or artist trying to find their voice and place in the world in which there are so many confluences of ideas, Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry can provide a refuge, blueprint and a lens to negotiate the slippery contradictions between individual Reason and the cacophony of the Collective. 

This book is an excellent primer to the author, criminally ignored in the canon of contemporary literature and allows for deeper appreciation for those already familiar.  

Movie: The Velvet Underground by Todd Haynes 

“We are not part of subculture or counterculture. We are the culture!” declares Jonas Mekas ten minutes into Todd Haynes’ documentary on the American cult rock band, The Velvet Underground (available on Apple TV+).

The documentary breezes through its two-hour runtime with impeccable use of archival footage, montages, and interviews, presented entirely through the use of split-screens. The effect of which radiates the discontent and kinetic energy of underground 1960s New York, where the band first emerged. 

Today’s streaming-era has created an explosion of interest for biopics and documentaries, but only a few offered the experience this movie has left for me, taking neither an entirely strict linear narrative structure nor a complete archival approach as typically is the format. 

Haynes’ throws the book at documentary conventions and has instead crafted something intensely personal and poetic, through densely layered montages and an explosive use of sounds.  

Lili Ibrahim, sub editor

For a break from the humdrum of urban living, pick up City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire by Roger Crowley. By turns a political and military history, it takes a spirited look at the rise of Venice up to the 1500s as the centre of international trade or as Crowley puts it, the “mart of the world”.

His prose is immediate and lucid in distilling Venice and Venetians to their essence – the people “living permanently with impermanence” in the lagoon. The lack of land, resources, agriculture and large population are embedded in their psyche and inform their raison d’etre.  

Brushes, or rather skirmishes, with neighbours (Genoa and the Dalmation Coast), the co-opting of a crumbling empire (the Byzantine) and trade and diplomacy with the Mamluks (circumventing the papal ban) are told in colourful detail. 

The great poet Petrarch from his house at a vantage point in the city marvels at the citizens’ unbridled materialism. Goods from all over the world (the Ganges, Caucasus, China and Bruges) converge here and so the defence of the Stato da Mar is sacrosanct. 

City of Fortune is the final book in a loose trilogy of the Mediterranean (the equally enthralling Constantinople: The Last Great Siege and Empires of the Sea) and makes a convincing case for the present as the past writ large. – The Vibes, July 1, 2022