Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
The Prologue to Kicking Dogs, a novel, appeared first in the Bangkok Post Sunday supplement in the early 1990s, and again over the years in at least two regional publications.
It was once shortlisted by The Paris Review for an annual humor competition, and they asked to see more stories from me. With my usual self-promotional genius, I never got around to submitting other stuff.
Next life.
Kicking Dogs… Read more
I see I haven’t posted an item since 17 March. Excuses range from “I’ve been too busy to blog” and “I’m suffering a multi-tasking deficiency” to “I’ve sustained a fit of sanity, wherein I see no percentage in posting elaborate messages into the Void.”
Mostly, though, I’ve been in thrall to a fiction project, a series of speculative novels. The Muse, revealing herself as a dominatrix this time around, has shacked up with me big time. (I speak only figuratively, … Read more
The flu season is here.
I was coming down with a massive cold yesterday. The signs arrived the night before—a fluey muzziness, a cough, soreness in the chest. Past experience suggested I’d have a ripping head cold and sinusitis by morning, fever and a sore throat the next day, and a fine honking case of bronchitis to follow.
My old friend Bibi Bulambowitz is a vastly intelligent, worldly, emotionally volatile individual who has been living too close for too long … Read more
It’s my turn to compliment Jack on a nice turn of phrase, one I’m now going to adapt to yet another haiku, which, as anybody can tell you, is easier than writing a novel.
Summer sun-swollen
Dead horse abuzz with blowflies
Conjures the World Cup.
“Not beautiful,” is Sara’s opinion. She could be right. But, hey. There are already enough haiku-ish conventions without some rule it’s also got to be beautiful.
The illustration is from David M. Hart’s webpage, … Read more
S. Tsow, whom we all recognize as a canny businessman, says the vuvuzela craze will end with this year’s World Cup series.
Ms. Mu (“Pig”), on the other hand, who knows more about “biznet” than Rockefeller and Trump combined, says that is not so. Mainstream support for her claim is to be found in news reports (e.g. this one, and this one) regarding Chinese vuvuzela manufacturers, who are moving millions of these
items, and who plan, before they … Read more
Last night at a Japanese restaurant, here in Bangkok, where you place order on an elaborate digital tablet at your table and wait to be served by giant robots. As though this weren’t enough, already, once in a while sprightly music breaks out and these outlandish machines dance furiously up and down the aisles getting in the way if you have to go for a piss. Dementia rools, OK!
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:
Squeakish-clean candidate for office.
Useful additions to the many perspectives on the troubles? Colorful, anyway.… Read more
“Looking at Thailand, indeed looking at several other Asian countries, it would be easy to conclude that democracy has served us poorly. In Thailand, we now often refer to our own political system as ‘Demo-Crazy’ to reflect our apparent fondness for demonstrations… But in thinking about the future of Asia, one is reminded that political and social developments are just as important as economic development.” (Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij)
In today’s Bangkok Post (“Bridging income gaps… Read more
Photos by the lovely Ms. Plug
Bangkok remains relatively calm. Misleadingly so, perhaps. Forget about lavish tides of good sense in the coming days, if not years—not that we had to wade through much of it in the past, here or anywhere, come to that. Dourness rools, OK!
The beast of unreason has been let slip, and it’s time for civil folk to look askance at strangers in the street, to avoid the shadows and to watch their asses. But … Read more
It’s a glorious morning in Bangkok, one so far unmarred by columns of smoke or rattle of gunfire. The Bangkok Post has run A NATION MOURNS as its front-page headline. I’d be interested to know what it is people believe we should be mourning, at this point.
One candidate: the fact that—Thai or otherwise—we’re human, all too bloody human. It’s really sad to see how reliably, everywhere and throughout history, demogogues are able to lead crowds of nice people into … Read more