Balinese temple dress

Everyone who enters a temple in Bali must be attired correctly, even foreigners. Here we have a handsome group all dressed up for the three day Odalon temple anniversary ceremony. The purpose of the ceremonial dress, (or adat dress), is to focus the chakras, or energies of the body toward a higher purpose. Both men and women wear a cloth called a kamben, (as opposed to a sarong, a more casual option). Women wrap it tightly around their hips and tied on the left, men fold it into drapes and tie it in the center.

Various layers of different textiles are also worn according to the ceremony and are often symbolic in nature. For instance different parts of the male headdress, the udeng, symbolize the Ulu Candra (a Balinese letter), the gods Siwa and Brahma, the male lingga AND the female yoni. Phew.

Ask The Googly

The Googly knows all

Dear The Googly,
For the second year in a row, we are not sending out Holiday cards. Instead we have started a blog. Is this a good replacement?
~Salomé Bambang

Dear Salomé,
Anyone who spends at least 20 minutes a day, tinkering with html, gadgets, widgets, midgets (and whatever the heck these blog programmers invent next), will forever be held in the highest regard by friends, family and the public at large. Broadcasting the minutia of your daily lives is a calling answered by only the most self obsessed of net pioneers, and you should be commended for your contributions to the digital gestalt, the memory banks of a vast array of web servers, and the coffers of Amazon.com. (By the way, where is your Amazon link?)
Yours truly, The Googly
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The Man Behind the Legend

Saint Nikolaus, the original Santa Claus

A variety of stories and legends exist regarding Saint Nicholas, (or Nikolaus, spellings vary). He is the patron saint of sailors, having saved a fellow sailor from drowning.

In another story, he takes pity on a man with three daughters who was too poor to afford proper dowries, (almost certainly condemning them to a life of prostitution). When each girl came of age, he secretly left a small pouch of money, (being too modest to help the man publicly). The third daughter's dowry was dropped down the chimney, in order to remain anonymous, (word got out that the father was laying in wait to discover his benefactor). Legend has it that the daughter had washed her stockings and had hung them by the fire to dry, and that's where the money landed.

The feast of Saint Nicholas is held on December 6th a day medieval nuns used to anonymously deposit baskets of food and clothing on the doors of poor families. In many countries Saint Nicholas' Eve remains the primary occasion for gift giving, remaining separate from the typical American Christmas celebration. (click on the image above and drag it to your desktop to use it as an ipod wallpaper).

Last minute gifts

Nothing says Merry Christmas like an insulated lunch bag made of Indonesian litter.

80,000 tons of flexible plastic packaging are manufactured each year in Indonesia and proper recycling is practically nonexistent. The XSProject is working with Trash pickers and craftspeople in Jakarta, paying them a fair price and producing very well made, funky, (and CLEAN) items.

Paisley buys his in Bali, but you can visit the excellent XSProject website and online store to see the entire line of bags, wallets and other carry-alls. According to the site, all orders are processed within 24hours, (Paisley suspects US orders are shipped from the US), so there's still time enough to make it under the tree. (Paisley accepts no advertising, favors, candy, etc. for any endorsements)