Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
According to the people who filmed these tilefish back in 2003, this species had till then remained undescribed by scientists. Once again I’ve been too slow off the mark, because I described this fish in 2001. I can’t find the original video with the associated claim, but here’s some excellent footage of tilefish and their mounds.
I’ve been known to brag about having already been there and done that, years ahead of my time way back when (e.g. see “… Read more
Save the whales; save the gibbons. Yeah, yeah. But here’s how to help save the whole world. Be the first on your block to start ranching sea squirts. It seems these leathery wee bags with two openings and way-kinky social lives might be just what the doctor ordered when it comes to clean energy.
Back in 1995, at the request of White Lotus Press, I collaborated with photographer Ashley J. Boyd on a natural history of Thailand’s coral reefs, … Read more
Rude revision to one’s life plans: Florida man disappears with bedroom into sinkhole.
The news these days is enough to have us all hiding under our beds. Not that this strategem is foolproof, it seems.
Other network-newsworthy causes for alarm:
Near miss: asteroid.
Near miss: meteorite shower over Russia (largely spares pop. centers).
Near miss: fiscal cliff; sequester still plunging through atmosphere inspiring panic in many quarters.
Etc.
How many other near misses go unnoticed and unremarked? There’s … Read more
Scratch the Mayan Apocalypse. One less thing to worry about, eh?
Of course we still have all the political issues du jour—left vs right, conservatives/conservatives1/conservatives2 vs liberals/liberals1/liberals2, pro-gay marriage vs anti-gays, legalize ganja vs leave the trade to the mobsters, red vs yellow, orange vs chartreuse, etc., etc.
Beneath these lurk more fundamental issues, among them these:
Soon there’ll be nowhere left in the world to run to, no place to hide.
In response to something I posted on neural parasites some time ago — “Fable with parasites I: Bravery lies in the brain of the beholder” — Steve Hyde said this: “Reminds me of those tourists that have been taken over by their backpacks … [Like the chickens in your post], they’re … known to fearlessly approach dangerous beasts.” I believe he was referring to … Read more
Greetings. I’ve been away for a while, distracted by travel, a restive Muse, this and that.
Writers are notoriously perceptive, and so it is that, during my travels, I saw that drugstores were not the same drugstores I used to go to and say gimme some aspirin, or “I’d like a packet of those things, you know … Yeah. No, no! You don’t have to wave them around, for chrissake.” Like much else in our world, things have changed since … Read more
Following my post regarding Nigel’s attempts to kill me, I remembered another myna story, a magazine piece I’d written years ago. How did mynas come to figure so large in my life?
I’m lying there by the pool with last night’s wine pouring out of me, dozing and reading Roddy Doyle by turns, my own Muse stirring within, a touch of the Irish in her voice, rousing me, from time to time, to sit up and drip ink and … Read more
Bangkokians fall to their deaths from high-rise apartments with some regularity. These incidents are often ascribed to suicidal impulses, the next most popular hypothesis being accident, as in, “Wow! Look at that moon—it’s almost like you could reach out and touch…”
But read on, because I have a new, improved theory. Recently, in fact, I myself almost fell victim to an especially devious homicide attempt.
A couple of myna birds have taken to nesting in a cozy niche outside my … Read more
Almost exactly a year ago I posted “Submarine garrets for starving writers” (4 November 2010), which foresaw the entire city of Bangkok serving as a recreational dive site. And that piece itself contained a link to an article (“One Born Every Minute“) I wrote 25 years ago wherein I interviewed a visiting extraterrestrial who foresaw the submersion of Bangkok within another three decades. The TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand), I suggested, would hail his proposals … Read more
Here on my eight-floor balcony, watching the sun retire across the river to the west, I can almost hear the waters advancing from Saphan Kwai. Or is that merely the kerfuffle of conflicting rumor? For weeks, here in Phya Thai District, we’ve awaited the floods from the north as they advance with glacial alacrity. One of the many rumors, inconsistently promulgated by government officials, was that we might well be spared altogether.
Ultimately, though, it seems the hi-so spirits of … Read more