nightlife

HIPPOLYTE

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Last week Jack got some much-needed exercise while negotiating Bangkok traffic en route to a rendezvous with Hippolyte Lafleur, a.k.a. Izzy Scoop.

Some previous editions

Selections from Arno Petty’s Intelligencer and Weekly Gleaner

  • FORGE ON. Could it be that the girls at Lots O’ Hots are buying their VD certificates from the same place Big Sammy Soo was getting his money printed? That would be nothing but a vicious rumor, were it not for the epidemic proportion of the complaints
… Read more

Wine appreciation night: Gold buttons & financial plans

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winesJack Shackaway here.

The financial sky is falling. (So what’s new, eh? See here and here.). China’s economy is stumbling, the world’s share markets are tanking, and here in Bangkok anonymous malcontents have been bombing public places. Never mind. Starving writers are shielded from stock market crashes, at least, a regular feature of this life you don’t even notice if you have a pot to piss in but that’s about all.

Still, life can be good, and wine tastings … Read more

*Bangkok Noir*, French edition

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A French edition of Bangkok Noir is due out from Editions GOPE in May or June 2012.

12 nouvelles de John Burdett, Christopher G. Moore, Colin Cotterill, Stephen Leather, Pico Iyer, Timothy Hallinan, Dean Barrett, Eric Stone, Tew Bunnag, Alex Kerr, Vasit Dejkunjorn, Collin Piprell.

Par-delà le sourire thaï et le wai plein de grâce, s’étend un paysage ravagé par les conflits, les rancunes, la colère, la vengeance, les disparitions et la violence. Un monde où perte de la face,
… Read more

Hot times in Thailand

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This morning I had an interesting experience, one that I will now relate, sparing you any need to conduct your own field research.

In short, don’t put namman muay (“Boxing Liniment”) in your eye.

I awoke with a sore shoulder and, in jockish high spirits, I splashed some of this fiery oil onto the offending muscles with such enthusiasm that quite a lot of it went instead into my eye. Both hands being already contaminated, I couldn’t rinse the eyeball

… Read more

Tequila Mockingbird: Magic potion divinely inspired

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The secret potion I revealed several months ago has proven a great success, in terms of interested visitors from around the world. And the world should rejoice, for  yet another formula has recently come to me in a vision. Preliminary testing is complete.

Tequila Mockingbird (serves 4-6)

Tequila                                                       500ml

Dried & roasted hot chili peppers       4-5  or to taste

Chaser/antidote

Lime juice                                                   500ml

Sugar                                                         4 tblsps or to taste

Salt                                                             2 tspns to mix in

Coarse salt                                               enough to rime … Read more

Jazz piano par excellence: FCCT Friday night happy hour

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Bob King’s pianos don’t believe in musical spaces. This rendition of “Night in Tunisia,” e.g., presents a solid wall of brilliant but super-dense improvisation. When Bob’s in this mode, he says, the piano starts playing him. He’s capable of playing the most delicate, subtlest jazz you could want; but his piano doesn’t always want him to play it this way. So Bob can appear to resist, asserting his basic autonomy by demolishing a piano with his bare … Read more