Misbehaving Authors Caught in the Act

From the South China Morning Post, Oct 4, 2007:

 

AMOROUS ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN DULL WORDS AT BALI FESTIVAL
By Andrew Sun
South China Morning Post

WRITERS' FESTIVALS ARE dull, boring events full of nebbish bookworms and four-eyed librarians who wouldn't raise their voice to a mouse, right? Wrong - at least, if Nury Vittachi is there.      

The Hong Kong writer was on a panel at the recent Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali when a particularly long-winded Bali Post columnist was speaking. By most accounts, it was an extremely long and boring speech. Unable to tolerate the windbag, Vittachi started making snoring noises into his microphone.

"I guess my behaviour was pretty obnoxious," Vittachi confessed. "[He] was boring everyone to tears, so I decided to stop him. When snoring into my microphone didn't work, I took drastic action."

He grabbed Julia Suryakusuma, an equally bored writer from The Jakarta Post sitting next to him, and the two then started rolling on top of the table pretending to engage in an amorous act (pictured).

The audience went wild - remember this is a Muslim country - and even the moderator was laughing loudly. Eventually the speaker got the message and sat down.

"A book club organiser said to me afterwards: `That's the worst behaviour I've ever seen at a literary event. Keep up the good work'," Vittachi added.

When an audience member said to Suryakusuma afterwards, "that was a good fake orgasm", she reportedly replied: "Who says I was faking?"

(Copyright: South China Morning Post, October 4, 2007)

Comments

[Jan]

Sounds fun - good for you Nury - but why does the SCMP have to include the comment about "four-eyed librarians who wouldn't raise their voice to a mouse"?? Where has Andrew Sun been? Does he not know that librarians in Hong Kong are a feisty bunch ? We have to be, to ward off idiot comments such as these.

[Mr Mohogon]

The last three pictures on this blog are of you with women. I knew this was leading up to something...

[Sham]

Delicious!!

[isman]

"That's the worst behaviour I've ever seen at a literary event. Keep up the good work."

I'll second that.

BTW, should anyone be interested, Deepika (the panel moderator) describes the context in more details in her blog. http://readatpeace.blogspot.com/2007/10/shaken-n-stirred.html

[Person at the back]

I'm glad you admitted to the scmp that it was an obnoxious act because it definitely was. On the other hand, it was a shame that the final session of the festival was proceeding in such a painfully dull manner and the whole thing did start to get a bit of fizz once you and julia had stirred things up a bit. what would the world be without bad boys?

[Disgusted]

What a load of self-serving rubbish u do speak. Despicable behaviour is despicable behaviour whatever spin you want to put on it. If you folk do something like that when I am speaking I will pour the jug of cold water over you. that should put out your flames of lurrve and no mistake

[Nanon]

The version of the incident recorded by the south china morning post seems suspiciously pro-nuri. I wonder if "andrew sun" exists at all or whther it is one of nuri's pseudonyms.? I note that in the writeup in Deepika shetty's column she suggests that she was not laughing at all and that "it was a house divided." it's not hard to read between the lines and see that she is very disapproving. so let's see this incident as what it really is. just another example of a badly behaved author doing what he is best at wghich is stirring up trouble. i hope he has the decency to apologize to the author whose speech he interrupted and to the girl in question.

[Nury]

Don't let anyone think that Julia, the young lady involved, is an innocent who would have been shocked to have this strange man jumping on her. Julia is an incredibly sharp-minded individual and it was actually her idea to hit the table and roll around!!

[anonymous]

well, I look at the photo and want to heave. yuck!

[Young Non-Fiction Author]

The person who was sickened by the picture is sadly typical of people of a certain age in Asia similar to both my parents. Any show of physical affection triggers feelings of revulsion Fortunatley the younger generation is not so hostile to the display of Affection.

[I Wuz There]

Its interesting that the negative comments on the incident are all from people who werent there (except for Ms Shetty). I was actually there in the audience and I can tell you that the first speaker was incredibly tedious. The misbehavior of those two other panelists brought the session to life. While there MAY have been some who prefered the ponderous first speaker (he did not have the courtesy to tell us his real name, nor did the moderator give it) the reaction of the bulk of the audience, everyone I could see was hooting and laughing and clapping, showed that the bad behavior was the good behavior in this instance. anyway that's how i saw it, others are welcomed to disagree if they so wish.

[Balfish]

You call this stirring up trouble? I think this is just larking about. Let's see some real drama in the literary business please. no seriously, I think the ability to attract attention and get your name known is actually a key factor in the drive for success in any creative field. This is true in literature but even more true in some other fields, such as poetry and art. Damien Hirst, for example, has become one of the world's highest paid artists simply by being naughty.

[anonymous]

dear young non-fiction author.
The 'yuck' came from a 10-year old ;-)

How about some SUBSTANCE please. Or is this an example of authors (and I mean these two panelists) not being able to speak well.

[Nury]

Now it all makes sense. Welcome, youthful commentator! Delighted to have your comments on this site.
Do check out the links at the top right hand corner for a variety of extra content of various sorts, and feel free to send in ideas yourself. This is an open-natured community and we're glad to listen to views from all-comers. Thanks again for writing.
Nury

[Bad_boy101]

Can you please start a society for the protection of bad behaviour? Geez everyone is so polite these days, it drive me up the wall. I think we should all be a bit more obnoxious, so please allow me to start by pointing out that you are all a bunch of losers.

[Anonymous]

bad boy

Yeah we are all losers ... but someone who writes into a blog to tell the people that they are losers is a bigger loser... so ha ha on you :-D

or

I know you are but what am I

[Janette_P]

I think the more physical displays of affection there are, the better. Someone needs to go and give that George W Bush a hug, maybe he wont start so many wars.