Where do we go from here? COVID-19 in Bangkok

A a speculative chronology of developments over the coming months as we try to maintain our social distancing. Suggested revisions or additions are welcome.

Flu season in Bangkok

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Jack here.

The fever’s gone. I’m still sick, though. Never mind I’m sitting here like a fool—more like a two-bit hooker, actually—editing a massive, near-sadistically impenetrable document for money, not enough of it.

But let me tell you about my blissful, antihistamine-enhanced sleep last night. A serial dream—it bridged multiple pee breaks—had me much excited at a book idea. I’d decided the combination of the world’s longest palindrome (several long paragraphs) and a brand-new concept of time I’d come up … Read more

Let me explain

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There’s a new and especially antibiotic-resistant bug on the loose, threatening to spread worldwide. As though we needed another new epidemic, not to mention all the floods and earthquakes and rising seas and so on. In fact the suspense is killing me, as I await the plagues of toads and suchlike falling from the skies (Exodus 7-12).

But the near-universal spread of the consumerist virus doesn’t get enough press. (Maybe that’s because governments around the world have every … Read more

Blacksmiths & novelists revisited: The Scott Adams Theory of Content Value

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Collin’s not the only one comparing professional writers to blacksmiths, these days. Scott Adams, e.g, of “Dilbert” fame, presents his Adams Theory of Content Value: “As our ability to search for media content improves, the economic value of that content will approach zero.”

The fate of the author in the age of digital gizmodery (with apologies to Scott Adams):

Among other things, Adams predicts “that the profession known as ‘author’ will be retired to history in my lifetime, … Read more

Some dimensions are darker than others

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There are rogues, and there are rogues. There follow reports of close encounters with two very different species of actor in the current Thai political maelstrom:

Hobnobbing with the Ronin.

Squeakish-clean candidate for office.

Useful additions to the many perspectives on the troubles?  Colorful, anyway.… Read more

Message from the future

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Leary here. It seems our Jack is going native.

Appearances rool, OK! What Ellie likes to call the Cosmetic Imperative. For example, the women construction workers in Thailand who wear long-sleeved shirts buttoned up and balaclava masks under broad-brimmed bamboo hats — better all sweated up than turned “black” in the sun. Not that you’d ever find Jack working construction, with or without a mask. But it’s same-same if you’re expecting a bit of street violence. You see these things … Read more

Heroes of the Revolution

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This is Khun Kik, my hairdresser, who is a Vidal Sassoon graduate and way beyond the means of your average freelance writer, starving variety. She is also quite lovely, as is Miss Da, her assistant, on the left. These ladies are the first Heroines of This Revolution we’re teetering on the brink of  here in Bangkok.  But the wounds on Kik’s face are not from rumbling with the Red Shirts. No, she was walking up some stairs hand in hand … Read more

My list

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I’m going to add yet one more wrap-up list to the long end-of-first-decade of the New Millennium lists. (To the surprise of some, our world has survived to read these lists.) I invite visitors to offer their own notions of what the most significant developments have been—those with the greatest potential to transform our lives.

 As a starter, but not necessarily in the following order, I’d propose these:

         – advances in nanotechnology

         – digital social networking, wikis, etc.

– research … Read more