Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
The gloomier prognostications regarding the prevailing civil disorder in Bangkok have missed the mark, it seems. Though things do still look a tad bleak.
How bleak? That depends on who you talk to. It seems the US Embassy is offering to help repatriate families of expat residents. Not the Fall of Saigon, just yet, but it bespeaks unease in some quarters.
An old friend and long-term Bangkok resident just told me how he’s been thinking about Phnom Penh, and how … Read more
My friend and fellow scrivener Steve Van Beek lives in the area currently cordoned off by the security forces—right there in the middle of both the political heat and Bangkok’s worst heat wave in years. He’s waiting to see whether a repairman can get through to fix his ailing air-conditioner.
In passing, Steve also tells me the expression “to be on the fritz” dates from the very outset of the 20th century, and probably derives from the sound of … Read more
Here’s something from a collection I call “Leary’s Laws.”
“Things are always going to get worse, and we just have to take what friggin’ solace we can from that. What it means, we’re always living in a golden age, at least looking back from any time in the future.”
(Leary, in Yawn: A Thriller, by Collin Piprell)
So go ahead and take what solace you can from that. You might also want to stock up on canned … Read more
Me again. It seems Thailand is having its own little Apocalypse, back there where you folks are now. What with the Red Shirts, and the Yellow Shirts and the Multi-colors and one thing and another. The past few days have seen the hopes of all right-thinking people taking a roller-coaster ride. Meanwhile, it’s plain to see some other people believe it’s to their advantage to have civil society explode into real strife, and to heck with the good of the … Read more
Jack, here. Looking back at the earlier exchange (22 April 2010) between Collin, S. Tsow and “Osho”—and then looking at Collin’s notion (today) that the iPad will end human existence as we’ve known it—I reckon the following is apropos.
Apocalyptic cosmophobia.
Just roll that one around on your tongue. A genuine cocktail party conversation stopper. DAVE BERRY HAS PROBABLY ALREADY USED IT TO NAME A NEW ROCK BAND.
Apocalyptic cosmophobia may first have been used to refer to popular readings … Read more
Leary here. I see Collin is worried about where this world is headed. And well he might be. Much of what he says about the iPad is true, but he doesn’t foresee the half of it, or the other snazzy devices coming just around the corner.
Anyway, I was reading some old notes the other day, stuff from way back at the start of my second half-century. I see that one day in Bangkok in 2010 I was riding the … Read more
In Thailand, the iPad mostly remains a rumor of digital utopia on the other side of the world. But travelers to those distant parts are beginning to arrive back here with their über-gadgets.
And they are harbingers of epidemic social change. These carriers of the current Digital Grail—and soon, I suspect, they’ll include everybody in the world with a few hundred dollars to spend—behave as though they carry new-born children, and they’re prone to dropping these items on the … Read more
I see Jack is touting Bill Page’s book The Nirvana Experiments (which is in a state of suspension, publication-wise, prospective publishers please note).
Coincidentally, given my last post regarding this universe, possible other ones, and connections between them, Bill reviewed Dawkins’ The God Delusion recently, and I’ve abstracted the following passage:
[T]o his credit, Dawkins defines his terms clearly. He is attacking what he calls the God Hypothesis: The belief that “there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed… Read more
If you were thinking our world seemed a tad out of whack at times, it could be you were right. But all is now clear (“Our universe at home within a larger universe?” Science News), and we can carry on in face of any outofwhackishness, knowing what’s what and why. (Wait. No, we don’t know why; not yet. Possibly because God wanted it so.)
I may have to revise the third book in my futuristic trilogy, as … Read more
I’ve been preparing to spend far too much time, I suspect, on my new blog/website. But more and more agents and publishing companies claim this is part of the self-promotional duties of the up-and-coming writer, in this new digital age. So it was nice to encounter a contrarian opinion (even if it was quoted on the blog—Shrinking Violet Promotions: Marketing for Introverts—of some writers who themselves tend towards novella-length posts):
… Read moreJust write your heart out. I promise you
