(word processor parameters LM=8, RM=75, TM=2, BM=2) Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501 Sponsored by Vangard Sciences PO BOX 1031 Mesquite, TX 75150 There are ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS on duplicating, publishing or distributing the files on KeelyNet except where noted! May 8, 1993 KETOK.ASC -------------------------------------------------------------------- from NEXUS New Times - Volume 2, Number 13 ,Published in Australia (soon to be in the USA) (tell Duncan you heard about them from KeelyNet) Subscriptions $40 for six issues/one year $75 for twelve issues/two years Nexus Magazine PO Box 30 Mapleton Qld. 4560 Australia Tel (074) 429 280 - FAX (074) 429 381 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic Mechanics Jakarta, Indonesia - The World Bank knows that Indonesia's economic problems can't be solved by magic. But fixing the boss's car is another matter. Just ask Nicholas Hope, resident director of the World Bank's office here. After an accident damaged his Toyota Crown, a local garage said repairs - mainly body work - would take two weeks and cost $700. Too long and too much, Mr. Hope's staff decided, turning instead to a practitioner of 'ketok magic', or magic knock, an Indonesian hybrid in which mechanics tap unearthly powers to better wield their socket wrenches and spot-welders. Half a day later the car came back, fully restored. The bill came to just $122, and now, more than 18 months later, the car "still looks fine," Mr. Hope says. Thousands of ketok-magic shops have opened in Indonesia in recent years. Workers in these garages protray themselves as merely the tools of a magic spirit with which they can commune after long periods of fasting and rigorous study. These magicians prefer to practise their trade with no outsider looking on. At Ketok Magic Nusantara, which fixed Mr. Hope's car, visitors are kept from the inner sanctum by an iron fence. Another garage bars customers from viewing the tools. All of Indonesia's under-the-hood sages claim ties to a day labourer from East Java named Turut, who acquired a reputation as a kind of Merlin among mechanics before he died in 1986. Eddy Susanto, a 32- year-old worker at Ketok Magic Nusantara, says that, as a child, he saw Mr. Turut pick up a length of railway track with his bare hands Page 1 and tie it around his waist. Says Mr. Susanto: "It convinced me he wasn't an ordinary person." Mr. Turut guided Mr. Susanto and 29 other self-proclaimed disciples through a training regimen. They earned the right both to practise ketok magic and to train others, but proselytizing has proven difficult. Young people "aren't patient to learn the magic things," Mr. Susanto says. Sceptics abound. Ishak Ismail, owner of a Buyong Motors, a conventional Jakarta garage, says: "I don't believe in such a thing. I do the real things. No magic." Tarsikun, the driver who delivered Mr. Hope's World Bank car to its ketok doctor, is also dubious. He says that while waiting outside, he heard loud noises that "didn't sound like magic." Still, he adds, "the results are OK, and much faster than ordinary workshops." Source : The Wall Street Journal - 5 Feb 93' -------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson Vangard Sciences/KeelyNet -------------------------------------------------------------------- If we can be of service, you may contact Jerry at (214) 324-8741 or Ron at (214) 242-9346 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 2