Shadow Play in PAS Territory

Osman Bakar is a specialist in Malaysia’s traditional art of shadow puppetry, but fears his craft is flickering out under curbs imposed by strict Islamist rulers in the country’s northeastern state of Kelantan.”I have lost a source of income,” said Osman, who has been a drummer for 20 years at performances of wayang kulit, as the art of puppetry, based on myths from India’s Hindu epics, is known.

Pak Lah in 2006

 By K Temoc 

In the run-up to the 2004 general election, we were assured by the MCA that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had the virtues of the legendary magistrate Bao Gong (Justice Bao).

Angelina Jolie as the Virgin, Wal-Mart as Hell

(Post Updated 7 Jan 2007)

Raleigh, North Carolina, Jan 7. (AP): A painting of actress Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary hovering over a Wal-Mart check-out line is on sale for $50,000 and has created a buzz on the Internet.

Kate Kretz has painted for 20 years but none of her previous works has garnered the attention given to “Blessed Art Thou,” which was to show at Art Miami 2007 that began on Saturday.

One reason for the attention was a posting of the painting on the popular gossip site, www.perezhilton.com.

The painting – acrylic and oil on linen – depicts an angelic Jolie in the clouds, holding her newborn daughter Shiloh with children Maddox and Zahara at her legs. Below them is a checkout line at Wal-Mart, where women wait in line. The painting is for sale through Chelsea Galleria in Miami, which represents Kretz.

On her blog, Kretz said the painting addresses “the celebrity worship cycle.” She said she chose Jolie for the subject “Because of her unavoidable presence in the media, the worldwide anticipation of her child, her ‘unattainable’ beauty and the good that she is doing in the world through her example, which adds another layer to the already complicated questions surrounding her status.”

“My intention was to ask a question and get people to think,” Kretz said in a telephone interview on Friday from Miami. “I had no idea so many people would be asking a question and thinking.”

Source: The Hindu 

Painting by Kate Kretz: “Blessed Art Thou”, 2006, 88′ x 60″, oil & acrylic on linen.

                                         Click on picture to view bigger size