Climb Every Mahler.... (now in Thai and English)

The following is (more or less) a note I put on my facebook account about four hours ago.  Even in a few hours, the response has been heartwarming ... enough to thaw my depression out quite a bit.  Now I am asking the readers of my blog the same questions ... on a regular day dozens of people read this blog, and when I touch a controversial subject, it leaps to thousands ... can this outreach translate into something beautiful and powerful ... like a Mahler symphony?

As all of you know, Mahler is one of my lifelong obsessions.  And so it was that, before the dawn of the 21st century, around the year 1998, I made a promise to the late HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana, shortly after the Thai premiere of my "Mahajanaka Symphony", that one day Thailand's musicians would be able to play all of the Mahler symphonies.  To make this happen I had to found a whole new orchestra, the Siam Philharmonic, which has gone through an incredible rollercoaster of an existence.  The twin climaxes of the orchestra's existence, I think, were first when we did Mahler 9 together and Stan Gayuski, a member of the NY chapter of the Mahler Society, told me I could keep Leonard Bernstein's baton which had been last used to conduct the same work.  The second climax was when the orchestra performed my music in London and for the first time our classical musicians were viewed in Europe not as curiousities, but as peers.  The orchestra played absolutely brilliantly in London, under awful circumstances.

The London tour was an artistic triumph, but a nightmare in almost every other way and as a result of it our foundation's deficit has skyrocketed, I've been in a depression for about four months, and there is a moratorium on opera production until we can pay down the deficit.  I am also personally in very bad shape after having to do things like put three days of an entire orchestra's London hotel bill on my own credit cards.

And yet, I simply cannot stand by and watch the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra, which has achieved so much whilst running on fumes over the last ten years, stagnate and stall.  This is why, trusting on faith alone, I have decided to put the Mahler program back into action.  Mahler is what the SPO does best - it's what it's known for - and we are already exactly halfway through the Mahler canon, having already performed Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9, many of these performances to amazing reviews.

I'm going to bring back the SPO with one of the greatest of all symphonies, Mahler's Sixth, about which Alban Berg once said "It is the ONLY Sixth - even considering the Pastoral."  It was also HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana's favorite Mahler symphony.

The Siam Commercial Bank is generously providing the venue for this performance for free on February 16th.  But I must find the wherewithal to pay the orchestra.

The Bangkok Opera Foundation itself needs every baht it can raise for important projects and to lower its deficit.  The Mahler project is my personal labor of love: my love for Mahler and my love for the princess, who made classical music in Thailand possible.  Therefore I, not the foundation, must be responsible for it.  I am keeping a drawer of cash in the house and paying for the Mahler Project out of this drawer.  

I've been asking some of my friends to sign up, or upgrade, their memberships in "Gustav's Angels," the small group of friends whose contributions keep the Mahler project afloat.  They all donate 5,000 baht at a time, rising up the nine rungs of angels until they reach the status of Cherubim and have sponsored nine symphonies.  If I had 100 such people, I could fund the entire project.  So far four people have pledged to up their memberships: Karen Schur-Narula, Raksak Kananurak, Michael Proudfoot, and my mother.  96 more angels or angel upgrades will get us past Mahler 6.  

But it's also true that if every single one of you facebook friends and followers of my S.P. Somtow page were to give me a mere $20, I could fund the entire rest of the Mahler Project.   Ditto, if only 20% gave me $100.  Or if 10% gave me $200.  I think the picture is clear.  If everyone who read this blog on one of the "days of controversy" gave me $1, I could put on an entire symphony.

It's time for me to find out whether having thousands of facebook friends - and thousands of readers of my blog - means something in terms of being able to realize one's dreams.  Will I be able to find support among the people out there, between the true friends, the stalkers, and the simply curious - enough to support something beautiful which makes the world in some measure a more beautiful place?

This isn't exactly like Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  If my facebook friends and blog readers don't come through — if I don't find "ten righteous men" — I am not going to rain down brimstone and viruses on your accounts.   It is however a bit of a test of whether "facebook friends" or "followers" are really a meaningful thing.  

Well, if after reading this note you are moved to become an angel, you can just click on the links right on this page.  Gustav's Angels have special perks; VIP seating, and this time around we're giving away free CDs of some of SPO's previous Mahler performances.   If you want to give a lesser amount, you can as well.

Furthermore - in Thailand, bank transfers are usually more popular ... so, Somtow Sucharitkul,  Siam Commercial Bank, 0013513547 is the account.  This is an account I'm only using for the Mahler staff.  I don't want the Bangkok Opera to accidentally spend the money on other things so I will hold it until the last minute.

 If you do decide to help, do leave a comment (death threats or abuse won't be approved of course) ...  so we can all see the power of the net at work.  Your name will be in the program book of course, if it arrives in time.

In a few hours on facebook I raised enough to pay for 2 violinists.  I still have a month, and despite the vicissitudes I've been through I still believe in the redeeming power of music.

For those not able to come to the concert, I will post the entire thing so you will have a ringside seat.

Thanks to all of you.

And also, feel free to share this post with friends and music lovers.

ผมได้โพสต์ข้อมูลนี้เป็นภาษาอังกฤษใน face book เมื่อไม่กี่ชั่วโมงมานี้และได้รับการตอบสนองอย่างอบอุ่นซึ่งทำให้ผมคลายกังวลเป็นอย่างมาก  ผมจึงขอโพสต์ข้อความเดียวกันเป็นภาษาไทยในบล๊อกของผมซึ่งตามปรกติมีผู้เข้ามาดูไม่กี่สิบคน ยกเว้นเวลาที่ผมมีเรื่องที่ต้องตอบโต้หรือแสดงความเห็น  จึงมีผู้เข้ามาเป็นพันๆ

ข้อมูลของผมจะกลายเป็นความงดงามอันทรงพลังเช่นเดียวกับมาห์เล่อร์หรือไม่ขึ้นอยู่ที่คุณ...

ใครๆ ก็รู้ว่าผมคลั่งมาห์เล่อร์มาตลอดชีวิต  เพราะฉะนั้น  เมื่อต้นศตรรษที่ 21 ประมาณปี 2541 หลังจากได้มีการนำเสนอซิมโฟนีพระมหาชนกซึ่งผมแต่งขึ้นเพื่อเฉลิมพระเกียรติพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว  ผมได้ทูลเกล้าถวายคำมั่นแด่สมเด็จพระเจ้าพี่นางเธอ เจ้าฟ้ากัลยาณิวัฒนา กรมหลวงนราธิวาสราชนครินทร์ ว่า นักดนตรีไทยจะสามารถเล่นซิมโฟนีทุกเพลงของมาห์เล่อร์ได้ในวันหนึ่ง  เพื่อให้ฝันกลายเป็นจริง ผมจึงก่อตั้งสยามฟิลฮาร์โมนิค ออร์เคสตร้าขึ้น  วงดุริยางค์ของเราผ่านร้อนหนาวมาพอสมควร  ความสำเร็จขั้นสุดยอดครั้งแรกเกิดขึ้นเมื่อเรานำเสนอซิมโฟนีหมายเลข 9 ของมาห์เล่อร์  สแตน กายุสกี้ ผู้แทนสมาคมมาห์เล่อร์นานาชาติซึ่งเดินทางมาชมจากนครนิวยอร์คให้ผมอำนวยเพลงด้วยบาตองกายสิทธิ์ที่วาทยกรผู้ยิ่งใหญ่ ลีโอนาร์ด เบิร์นชไตน์ ผู้ล่วงลับไปแล้ว ใช้อำนวยเพลงซิมโฟนีเดียวกันนี้เป็นครั้งสุดท้ายในชีวิตวาทยกร และในที่สุดได้มอบให้ผมเป็นกรรมสิทธิ์ซึ่งผมสัญญาจะเก็บรักษาไว้สำหรับวาทยกรที่เหมาะสมในอนาคต  ความสำเร็จครั้งที่สองคือวงออร์เคสตร้าของเราได้เดินทางไปบรรเลงผลงานของผม ณ กรุงลอนดอน  ซึ่งนับเป็นครั้งแรกที่นักดนตรีคลาสสิคไทยได้รับการยอมรับในยุโรปในด้านความสามารถในมาตรฐานโลก

แม้หนทางของเราจะไม่ราบรื่นเสมอไป  แต่ผมทนไม่ได้ที่จะเห็นความมานะพยายามของเราต้องสดุดหยุดลง  โดยเฉพาะในขณะที่เราเดินหน้าไปแล้วถึงครึ่งทางในการนำเสนอมาห์เล่อร์ครบวงจรตามที่ผมตั้งปณิธานไว้   การบรรเลงซิมโฟนีหมายเลขสาม สี่ ห้า เจ็ด และเก้า ได้รับการวิพากวิจารณ์อย่างเต็มภาคภูมิ  ผมจึงจะนำสยามฟิลฮาร์โมนิคมาพบท่านอีกครั้งด้วยผลงานอลังการที่สุดในบรรดาซิมโฟนีทั้งหมดของมาห์เล่อร์  ซิมโฟนีหมายเลข 6 ซึ่งเป็นเพลงที่สมเด็จกรมหลวงโปรดที่สุด  ในวันที่ 16 กุมภาพันธ์ 2555 โดยธนาคารไทยพาณิชย์จำกัด มหาชน เอื้อเฟื้อให้ใช้ห้องประชุมมหิศรเป็นสถานที่แสดงโดยไม่คิดค่าใช้จ่าย

มูลนิธิมหาอุปรากรกรุงเทพ ซึ่งเป็นองค์กรเพื่อการศึกษาโดยไม่แสวงหาผลประโยชน์ จำเป็นต้องหาทุนทรัพย์เพื่อจัดทำกิจกรรมตามเจตนารมรณ์ในการปลูกฝังให้ประชาชนคนไทยโดยเฉพาะเยาวชนเข้าถึงสังคีตศิลป์และวัฒนธรรมในระดับนานาอารยะประเทศ  แต่มาห์เล่อร์เป็นโครงการส่วนตัวที่ผมรัก  เป็นความรักของผมที่มีต่อมาห์เล่อร์  ความรักและเทิดทูนบูชาที่ผมทูลเกล้าถวายสมเด็จกรมหลวงฯ ผู้ทรงเป็นพระมารดาแห่งดนตรีคลาสสิคในประเทศไทย  เพราะฉะนั้น ผู้ที่รับผิดชอบโครงการนี้คือ ผม นายสมเถา สุจริตกุล ไม่ใช่มูลนิธิฯ  ผมจึงมีกล่องรับบริจาคทุนการผลิตมาห์เล่อร์ไว้ที่บ้าน  ค่าใช้จ่ายทั้งหมดของโครงการมาห์เล่อร์จะมาจากกล่องนี้

ผมได้ขอร้องให้เพื่อนๆ ลงนามรับเป็นผู้สนับสนุน หรือยกระดับสมาชิก ‘เทวทูตกุสตาฟ’ ซึ่งเป็นมิตรสหายกลุ่มเล็กที่สละทุนทรัพย์สนับสนุนโครงการนี้มาโดยตลอด เทวทูตของเรามี 9 ระดับตามตำนานดั้งเดิม เริ่มจากขั้นแรกสนับสนุน 5,000 บาท และจนถึงผู้สนับสนุนระดับ Cherubim สูงสุดสนับสนุนซิมโฟนีครบ 9 ครั้ง

จริงอยู่ที่เพื่อนในเฟซบุคและผู้ติดตามบล็อกของผมบางคนสนับสนุนเพียง 20 ดอลล่าร์  ประมาณ 20 % ให้ 100 ดอลล่าร์  10 % ให้ 200 ดอลล่าร์  แสดงว่าถ้าทุกคนที่เข้ามาอ่านบล็อกของผมในวันที่มีเรื่องสำคัญๆ สนับสนุนเพียงรายละ 1 ดอลล่าร์  มาห์เล่อร์ 6 ก็จะไปได้อย่างสวยงาม  ถึงเวลาแล้วที่ผมจะทดสอบว่าเพื่อนเฟสบุคจำนวนพันๆ และผู้อ่านบล็อกผมอีกจำนวนเท่าๆ กันมีความหมายในการช่วยให้ฝันของผมกลายเป็นจริง  ผมจะพึ่งใครได้บ้าง...  ในบรรดาเพื่อนแท้ ผู้แวะมาเยือน และผู้ที่เพียงแต่อยากรู้  จะมีใครบ้างช่วยเกื้อหนุนในการสร้างสรรให้โลกของเราสวยงามยิ่งขึ้น  โปรดอย่าคิดว่าถ้าไม่สนับสนุน ผมจะตัดคุณออกจากเพื่อนหรือบล็อก  ผมเพียงแต่ต้องการทราบความหมายที่แท้จริงของเพื่อนเฟสบุ๊คและผู้ติดตามบล็อกของผมเท่านั้น

หากคุณอ่านแล้วเกิดความซาบซึ้งอยากเป็นเทวทูต  โปรดคลิกลิ้งค์ด้านขวาของหน้านี้   เทวทูตกุสตาฟได้รับสิทธิพิเศษ ที่นั่ง วี.ไอ.พี. และรับซีดีการบรรเลงผลงานมาห์เล่อร์ในอดีตของสยามฟิลฮาร์โมนิคออร์เคสตร้าเป็นอภินันทนาการ  นอกจากนั้น นามผู้บริจาคจะปรากฏในสูจิบัตร หากส่งมาไม่ล่าช้ากว่ากำหนดปิดเล่ม

ผู้สนับสนุนที่พำนักในประเทศไทยโปรดโอนเงินเข้าบัญชีที่เปิดพิเศษสำหรับโครงการนี้โดยเฉพาะ ชื่อบัญชี สมเถา สุจริตกุล ธนาคารไทยพาณิชย์จำกัด เลขบัญชี 001 351 3547 ทั้งนี้เพื่อกันไม่ให้เกิดการสับสนกับบัญชีมูลนิธิฯ

หากท่านมีความประสงค์จะสนับสนุน  โปรดเขียน comment มาด้วย (การขู่เข็ญหรือใช้วาจาไม่สุภาพเป็นการไม่สมควร)  เราจะได้เห็นว่าเน๊ตมีพลังเพียงใด

เมื่อไม่กี่ชั่วโมงมานี้ ผมได้รับเงินสนับสนุนเพียงพอสำหรับค่าตอบแทนนักไวโอลิน 2 คน  แต่ผมยังมีเวลาอีกกว่าเดือน แม้จะต้องฟันฝ่าอุปสรรค ผมยังเชื่อในการฟื้นคืนชีพของพลังแห่งดนตรี

หกท่านไม่สามารถมาฟังคอนเสิร์ตได้  ผมจะโพสต์รายการบรรเลงเพื่อท่านจะได้ชมอย่างใกล้ชิด

ขอบคุณทุกท่าน

สมเถา สุจริตกุล

S.P. Somtow, Witchfinder General

Official Coat of Arms of the Zoe Katholike Church of St. Papinian of the Darker Angels

I had a dream so bizarre I decided not to write it down.  But when I don't write them down, I forget them. It's a way to avoid facing whatever message may be concealed therein.

But four days have gone by and the images still haunt me.  So, I have to write it down after all.

I dream that I was an official hunter of witches and that I had found a way to trap my prey.  It is to hang human torsos upside down from a tree branch as bait.

Presently the witch comes crawling along the tree ... she is covered in a black cloak which appears to be part of her, not a garment.  From the next of the cloak, her head should emerge but instead it is the head of a serpent.  A monstrous serpent - the head is like a human head.

The lure works because the serpent slithers down the torsos, looking for the head to devour.  There are no heads but instead there is my sack, in which I trap the witch.

Finally I am able to strip off the witch's hide which is that garment-like black leathery mass.  I put it on and it erects a huge jagged hood around my head, protecting it from view.  In my dream, I see myself only from behind, so once the hood is up there is no sign of my face visible.  I am completely enveloped in the witch's skin.

A voice says to me, "You have been given the privilege of hunting this witch because you seek your inner self.  You have been allowed to sacrifice these people, hanging their torsos on this tree, because they are the cost of your self-knowledge.  You have hunted the witch and may now wear her skin as your own."

***

So there it is.  What the hell does it mean?  I'm afraid to think, but this is the longest that a dream has refused to be pushed back down into the subconscious ... without being written down.

My Birthday Address to the World

Today will mark my 30th year as a 29-year-old.  Next year, I will probably drop the pretense of youth completely; five cycles is a momentous time in the Buddhist world view, and perhaps will finally be the time to grow up.

This birthday is in some ways a low point in my existence, in others a definite perihelion.

The low points: for all intents and purposes, I'm bankrupt.  The opera, which has been at the heart of my struggle for culture in the region, has been bled dry.  Opportunity seekers have flatlined the golden goose, and artists who owe their careers to what we did for them are hemorrhaging away.  I begin the 60th year of my existence much as I began when I came back to Thailand ten years ago ... empty-handed.

For the first time in decades, my Christmas tree stands covered with lights and mementoes from friends living and dead ... and without a single present at its base, because no one has had time to buy any, or money for that matter.  We've all been too busy battling various incarnations of darkness.  Indeed I've officially announced that my household will delay Christmas to Epiphany, the last day of Christmas, January 6 ... perhaps it's even more appropriate as the day the wise men finally arrive and give their gifts.  Wise men are few and far between these days and if they don't show up by January 6, I'll understand.

My suffering is but a pale shadow of what the city and the country around me have endured this year.  Natural disasters, weird governance, and as the year ends, a panicked attempt by extremists to turn our Buddhist, Middle Way world into a Manichaean warzone.

Yet this dark moment in my life is also a moment of supreme optimism.  It is like the moment of maximum tension in the development section of a sonata, because it is at that moment that you finally beginning to realize that you will end up coming home.

This year, my music had artistic triumphs in London and California.  This year my adopted son made a major breakthrough as a composer.  This year Trisdee became a national celebrity as people in Thailand started to realize his international credits are "the real thing".  This year I saw my adopted son Johnny in California, his natural habitat, for the first time in a decade.  This year I stood in my two other "homes" - Europe and America - and tried to assimilate the traumas and triumphs of each - and realized that my three cultures are so deep inside me that they cannot be unravelled.

This was also the year in which the orchestra of young people I built up made incredible strides, played impressive performances of real symphonies, made a CD, and was accepted into competition in Vienna. Of course I still have to raise the approximately 5 million baht it will take to get 50 young musicians to Europe but still, this is an amazing step for young serious Thai classical musicians.

It was the year in which I finally came to terms with the darkness and light of my five years at Eton, and in which the school invited me to compose a new opera for the amazing resources they have ... which will bring to fruition a process which really started at the school, where I made my first attempts to compose an opera more than forty years ago.

We are inching towards Epiphany now ... but there are still no Christmas presents and I am still wondering how I will survive the next few days.

I still believe in the mythic view of the universe: the hero's journey, the war between the dark and the light, and that my purpose in life is to rescue princesses from dragons, though the princesses come in more and more outlandish shapes as I grow older.  In myths, the fate of the entire universe always ends up resting on the shoulders of one man. This is true whether the myth is Christianity, Batman, or Heracles.  One is told often enough that reality "isn't like that" but I seem to recall that when I was 10 years old, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the total destruction of the human race did appear to hang on one person's decision.  Is is perhaps supremely arrogant for us to believe that as individuals, we have the ability to change the world.  Nevertheless, without such beliefs, the world would never have changed.

I do begin my Fifth Cycle Year at a particularly dark moment.  In 2011 I pushed the envelope very very hard.  The envelope appears to be torn, and I don't know how to mend it yet.

But there is a reason that we celebrate Christmas, the rebirth of light, on the darkest night of the year.  There is a reason that angels visit us only when we have reached the bottom of the bottomless pit.

Epiphany comes on Friday.



Oh and here is the link to where The Nation has named me on of Thailand's international top 40....

Somtow makes Thailand's top 40....

Requiem for the Mother of Songs

After three years I finally completed work on my REQUIEM FOR THE MOTHER OF SONGS, written in memory of HRH Princess Princess Galyani Vadhana, and yesterday the Department of Cultural Promotions at the Ministry of Culture agreed to co-host the world premiere at the Thailand Cultural Center. This work requires over 400 performers, is about 75 minutes long and is I believe the first setting of an entire Latin liturgy by a Thai composer; it's probably also one of the biggest concert works composed by a Thai in scale and length. However I hope it will be appreciated for its moments of inner stillness and intimacy as well as its huge gestures. I'm working now to cast the seven soloists. Festa Musicale in the Czech Republic is contributing over 100 choristers to join the vocal forces in Thailand. I'll soon be sending out a letter to choirs and university music departments to ask for their cooperation. 

The initial inspiration for this work came to me in a dream in which I saw a vision of the princess, who devoted her life to classical music in Thailand. I call her the patron saint of classical music in this country.

I thought the work would be done in time for a memorial event shortly after Her Royal Highness's passing, but the piece grew and grew and became a compendium of my life's work, using all of the techniques I learned over the 50 years in which I've been composing and performing my work. It also attempts to find solutions to the central riddle of my cultural identity by forging a link between the Thai and western sensibilities. So for the first time I'm integrating my post-serial past, my post-romantic present, and my roots in Southeast Asian musical dialectic.

I hope that putting together this production, which will be a climactic moment in my life's journey, will also be a path toward conciliation and a way in which many disparate elements of our musical communities can come together. 

Since the princess passed away, there has been a kind of strange darkness in our music communities — people unable to find their way, arguing over trivialities. I hope with this work to find the doorway in the labyrinth, to help us find our collective way back to the light.

My Requiem has been the subject of rumor (and even attempts to hijack it by slapping together other requiems) for many years. But now the score is a physical reality and a vocal score will soon be available for downloading.

I hope my friends will all join with me to make this tribute to HRH Princess Galyani an event to remember.

To All Extremists

Rhetoric is ratcheting. A big-time general and a big-time parliamentary bigwig have both stated publicly that those who dislike the law should leave the country.  Now, I never realized that "disliking" something was in fact illegal.  In fact, "sinning in one's heart" may or may not be offensive to God, but laws against thinking are neither viable nor enforceable.

Acting on one's thoughts in another matter.  But in between the total freedom of thought and the constrained freedom of action, there is an area which seems quite murky, and that is speech.  While I still can, I would like to use my rapidly declining freedom to address the extremists of every color who seem to want to hijack our national discourse.

I would like to appeal to the ultra-extremists of both stripes in this country.  Both of you are strident but minuscule minorities in a country in which most people truly believe in the Middle Way, which is the very core of Buddhist philosophy.

To the ultra-royalists who would enforce extreme penalties for the slightest infractions of the letter of the law, completely ignoring the purpose for which that law was created, I would say this:

You may legislate obedience, but never love.  We live in a country in which a genuine and almost limitless love for their revered institutions exists in the vast majority of the public.  This love did not come into being because of any law.  Your desire to enforce that love, however good your intentions are, has the potential to gnaw away at the very thing you want to preserve.

No one will dispute your desire to protect the things which most people in this country fervently believe in.  No one will mind if genuine threats or attacks are severely punished.

But your Orwellian idea of putting an electronic spy in every home and of inflicting major penalties for dubious. politically trumped up, or ill-substantiated infractions is an idea that will clearly have the opposite effect from the one you intend.

Please take a look at the history of Siam and remind yourself that our monarchs have often been at the forefront of progressive thinking.  Remember that it was King Chulalongkorn who abolished compulsory prostration.  And remember most of all the content of our present king's birthday speech in 2005.  The speech showed that he is a true visionary and really sees the big picture.

If you truly love your king, please listen to him, and have the courage to implement his wise and far-seeing advice.

Otherwise, you might want to move to country that more closely approximates your view of how things should be run.  I refer of course to North Korea.

To those extremists on the other side, the ultra-revolutionaries who would sweep away everything we hold dear and substitute a completely egalitarian society ... those extremists whom the other extremists see on every street corner, but which I suspect are relatively rare ... I would say this.  Get real.  It doesn't work.  History has shown us over and over again that it doesn't work.

There have been a number of populist revolutions against monarchic systems — against Louis XVI and the Czar of Russia and so on.  In every case, well meaning ideas that sounded wonderful when expounded by philosophers foundered on the realities of human nature.  Such revolutions resulted, not in utopia, but in reigns of terror in which nasty dictators seized power and bloodbaths ensued.

On the other hand, the constitutional monarchies of Western Europe, which took a lot of time to develop, have emerged as some of the more successful democracies in our history.

If your desire is a more perfect democracy, I implore you to work within the democratic process.  Otherwise, you might want to move to a country which more closely resembles the kind of place that Thailand would be if you were actually to have your way and sweep everything aside.  I refer, of course, to North Korea.

As I have said before, the Middle Way is the cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy.  When I look around me, I see that most people here have an enduring love for our institutions, and a distaste for extreme positions.  I agree with the government that excessive discussions of LM reform and/or bomb threats are detrimental to tourism and to the country's international image.  I myself am hosting hundreds of choristers from Europe in July, who are flying here at their own expense in order to enjoy our country and to have a good time collaborating with our artists.  Some have expressed worry.  I've had to do a lot of damage control, reassuring people that this is still the lush, friendly paradise of their fantasies.

The path to reconciliation is through the center of the jungle ... sneaking around the issues is not a short cut.  To find the light we must face, acknowledge, and forgive our own inner darkness.

The extremists of both sides have one thing in common.  If we were actually to implement their plan of action in full, there would be no need for them to move to North Korea.  This country would be North Korea.

Johnny Spencer - America's "Ah Kong"?

There's been much talk in Thai circles about Johnny Spencer, a white supremacist recently prosecuted in Lousville, Kentucky for publishing a poem on the internet that "threatens to assassinate President Obama."


I read the poem.  The guy's a sleazebag.  Yet, though I myself, as one of those non-Anglo-Saxon non-whitebread  U.S. immigrants that have polluted the purity of his utopia, might well be the object of Johnny's hatred, or in his ideal universe be at the receiving end of his bullet, I am troubled by this prosecution.  I too have written poems and they have often been about issues that mean something in the real world.  I hope I'm a better poet than Johnny, but I must acknowledge that even a lousy poet must have some kind of crippled muse.  But what I believe is that while nations have a certain right to deal with threats, attempts to destabilize, and verbal incitements to social chaos, they should not be allowed to fetter the imagination.  Crimethink shouldn't be a crime.


Mr. Spencer, it seems, decided to drop his first amendment-based defense of this case and simply to plead guilty.  That is a pity because a supreme court decision on this would really show us the real American of 2011.  And that would be a weathervane for our whole world, which, for some time now, has been drifting away from enlightenment.


Judge Whalin had ruled earlier that this poem did not fall under the protections of the first amendment because an "average citizen" could clearly view it as a threat to the president.  As an "average citizen" myself, and one who voted for Obama, and will almost certainly do so again, I have to admit that I did not "clearly" see a threat in that poem.  I saw a troubled mind, a sick fantasy, someone in need of psychiatric counselling.


Which brings us to the parallels that are being seen in the Ah Kong situation.  Those parallels do exist, but is also instructive to look at the differences.  


Similarities:


• violence has occurred.  Mr. Spencer didn't shoot a congressman, plant a bomb in Oklahoma City, or massacre a bunch of Norwegian students.  Ah Kong did not lob hand grenades in Rajprasong.  But these allegations of hate speech are happening in a time when people are panicking and ready for scapegoats.


• conspiracy theories abound and infect every side in the discussion.


• an issue of freedom of expression has come head to head with the need to protect a head of state and what are perceived as core societal values.


Differences:


• What Mr. Spencer wrote is out there for everyone to see and judge.  No one except the court has seen the content in question in the Ah Kong case, leading everyone to speculate that this content fits exactly their own theory of the situation.


• Mr. Spencer has admitted writing the poem, and apologized to the FBI about the implied threat, whereas outside observers have so far not been convinced that this old granddad did anything at all.


***


Are the critics of the U.S. right to bring up this case as an example of American hypocrisy?  Well, yes, comparisons are absolutely fair game and there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around — the U.S. is a democracy in which the Supreme Court and a few "hanging chads" preempted an election, a country that condemns "cruel and unusual punishment" while happily torturing people off-shore, and so on.  Anyone who thinks America is perfect is blind.  


But the reality is that the comparison doesn't entirely fit.  It fails the "average citizen" test.  I don't see any  concerned average citizens clamoring to release or condemn Johnny Spencer.  Johnny has elicited mostly apathy in the U.S., whereas this Ah Kong case is argued about with incredible passion — a passion fueled largely by rumor, since even the recent public statement by a court spokesperson did not actually reveal any facts; it merely stated the opinions of the judges as though they were facts.  Alas, Thailand has shifted away from the paternalistic mind-set.  Kids don't always do what they're told.  They do grow up despite one's attempts to infantilize them and keep them in the fold.  All government officials need to realize that our taxes pay their salaries, and that they work for us — we don't work for them.


It is possible that if all the facts were actually laid before the eyes of the "average citizen" that the passion would be abated somewhat?  Is it possible that one day those who run this country might trust its citizens to think for themselves, and trust that they may hold a variety of opinions and yet still coexist?


***


But now ... back to the issue of fantasy.   Let's not talk about bad poetry but instead about great art.  I think that the following quote from the prominent science fiction writer Yevgeny Zamyatin is absolutely appropriate to our times:


True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.


Insofar as Johnny Spencer took responsibility for his own words, and accepted the real world consequences of his dreaming, he must be allowed, in his own way, the stature of an artist.  A crap artist to be sure, but an artist all the same.

Thailand's Achilles Heel

I began this blog on the 6th of December and haven't reedited the opening to match the actual date.  I would like to write something safe, optimistic, and forward-looking, but I find that all I can produce is ambiguity.  Within all this, perhaps, we can find a few nuggets of hope.


Yesterday was the 84th birthday of the King of Thailand.   To Thais, the Seventh Cycle is a major milestone, a confluence of two magical numbers — the twelve-year cycle of the Asian zodiac and the mystical seven.   Every numerological resonance of felicity, fortune, and prosperity is implied in the confluence of those two numbers with the number 9 (as in King Rama IX) which for Thai people, owing to a linguistic coincidence, also represents the word for "progress" or "a step" — meaning forwards.


Yet this day of rejoicing, which Thailand celebrates in a sense as its own birthday as well as the birthday of its monarch,  has come at a time of turbulence in our society.  It is a time when our national and cultural identity is uncertain and when idealogues of many colors are trying to hijack the agenda.  Many hide their true natures under the generic, knee-jerk-generating themes of democracy, love of country, national pride, love of our king, and so on, but in fact all of the above do not preclude us living in a viable twenty-first century pluralistic society.


It has been a time of great personal darkness.  I've returned from my first visits to the UK and the USA in years (in one case, decades.)  In London and in California, I was compelled to face the fact that I have a powerful sense of belonging to both those cultures and for the first time since my ten-year sojourn in Thailand I have been torn.  I believe I'm experiencing a full blown version of those identity crises to which artists are particularly prone, and indeed which often form the very core of our creative impulse.


My personal identity problem however, is a pale echo of the crisis this entire country is facing.  I think this country goes through one of these crises about every thirty years.


Instead of worrying about extremists like Mallika or her counterparts on the other side, those radical revolutionaries who want to burn down everything, I think it is worth considering what an average, thinking person in Thailand probably feels.


I think the average person here has great veneration for Thailand's institutions and would strongly want to resist any attempts to destabilize or overthrow them.  This hypothetical average Thai person feels, I am sure, that his very identity as a Thai is inextricably woven into a certain cultural fabric and that Thailand's institutions are essential to that fabric.  Therefore I feel, along with the average, non-extremist citizen, a great deal of love for this entire system and tend to want to overlook any peccadillos.


I also think that that same average person feels very uncomfortable at the idea that a cancer-ridden old man would be sentenced to twenty years in prison on evidence that is, let's face it, rather flimsy, after being allowed to mount a pathetic defense.  Thus, again, as an average, non-extremist citizen, I am alarmed that such a thing could happen in this country, a country which most people living here view as a relatively free and open society.


Maybe the evidence isn't flimsy, but we'll never know, because our paternalistic system deems us not responsible enough to see the evidence and make up our own minds.


As an average citizen, I am alarmed as well at the warlike noises being made by legal societies and by government officials about the need for even more spying on our electronic lives.  It looks very frightening and to an outsider it must look like we are rapidly descending into a North-Korea like madness.  But read between the lines and it ain't necessarily so.


You see, amid all this censorial rhetoric, which I believe to be largely a posture of self-defense, there seems to a hidden a statement which in its way is utterly revolutionary, and I'll quote the Bangkok Post's reportage on this which states that a certain committee has made the following statement:

"wrongdoers should be separated into two groups: those with an intent to topple the monarchy and those who act with ignorance.  The former should be prosecuted according to law while the latter encouraged to have a better understanding."

It's buried pretty deep in there, and the rest of it is all very confrontational, but this statement is actually telling us what the average citizen wants to hear.

Because the average citizen would support fully and vigorously the suppression of actual, serious attacks against Thailand's sacred institutions.  And that is the same average citizen who is appalled when the law is used against those who have no such intentions, who simply say or do something that pushes the buttons of some over-zealous whistle-blower.

If the law were in fact to be applied according to its actual intent, and not according to some tenuous interpretation that extends to things that do not remotely threaten our institutions, there would be no need to rewrite or reform it.  There is simply a need to clarify the intent and narrow down its application to cases that genuinely threaten our national security.  However, if anyone is going to be able to interpret it any way they want, to misuse it for political gain, or to try to take out an enemy, our average citizen will not be happy.

My optimistic assessment is that underneath it all, there does seem to be someone asking for common sense to prevail.  And to be honest, once common sense prevails, it'll all be over.  


****
An hour after posting the above, I saw the photoshopped image of Ambassador Kenney's decapitated head on the internet.  This kind of thing can only damage the cause espoused by its perpetrators.  It is precisely the kind of thing that "average citizens" find offensive.  It certainly tempers the optimism I felt after finding the nugget of hope in our official pronouncements earlier today.  In such moments I fear that national reconciliation is slipping away even as some of us try so hard to understand all points of view.

Retraction....

Last week, my dear mama told me that no less a figure than the leader of this country had attacked me as a crypto-yellow-shirt on the red shirt channel.  I said in this blog that I had no proof of such a thing, though of course I found it flattering.  However, my sister has sent me the video in question and my attacker is a far lesser being than the prime minister.

Nevertheless, what it proves to me is that everything one says is liable to massive misinterpretation, distortion, and regurgitation in another form.  This is one of the exciting things about our evolving open society....

Refocusing

I had a wild day yesterday because I went to Nation TV to do a show about Steve Jobs.  Not that I knew him personally, but I guess they wanted me to talk about the mystery of creativity.  They are doing a ten-part documentary about him for Nation TV which included a highly entertaining panel discussion plus a session of sound-bites.

While at the Nation, I bumped into a number of journalists who have all been (to one degree or another) outraged by the Mallika scandal, but I had already decided not to pour more fuel on the flames because, after all, isn't this woman bound to self-destruct after a while?  And if the democratic party chooses not to follow my sensible advance, won't it only have itself to blame if it becomes collateral damage to Mallika's spectacular political self-immolation?

The people at Nation-TV said to me, "Let it go ... there are real issues to be discussed.  Issues such as corruption, the weird machinations behind the Thaksin 'pardon', the increasing tendency for people to abuse lèse-majésté laws for their own political gain, a serious discussion of whether Yingluck's regime is actually doing the things we all hoped it would do ... these are real issues whereas the mouthings off of a madwoman are not.

Still, they also told me things that got me rather irritated.  For instance, someone working in the offices of the party's upper echelons told me that Mallika's has dreamed up a conspiracy theory in which this "evil red shirt reporter" ghost-wrote my blog and hoodwinked my innocent self into being part of a huge "red shirt plot."  This is an amazing idea for two reasons: that particular reporter's personal ideology, which he has the professional courtesy of leaving out of his reportage, is in fact that of a centrist democrat.  I never even met this reporter in my life until yesterday when I ran into him at the paper's headquarters.  The second reason is that the idea I would need to have someone ghost-write something for me in English, is patently absurd and shows that the woman hasn't bothered to figure out who anyone is before shooting her mouth off.

But taking the cake is the fact that Mallika, after being confronted with her unethical behaviour by her bosses, reportedly went on another witch-hunt the next morning, filing a police report to try to have the satirist tweeter, NotMallikaBoon, arrested for satirizing her.  I don't know whether it was under Thailand's "criminal libel" statutes or whether she was alleging something even more outlandish like "identity theft" - but she clearly thinks what was done to her is illegal, or ought to be.  I don't know why it would be impersonation, unless K. Mallika doesn't understand the word "not".

Now, the use of satire as political commentary has a venerable history.  Aristophanes lampooned Socrates, but I haven't ever heard of Socrates trying to have him arrested.  I don't recall Tina Fey being served with a warrant for imitating Sarah Palin.  If you are in the public eye or are a "public personality" in anyway, you must accept that the public is not unanimously going to like you.  Ridicule is indeed an important part of "being famous" and indeed celebrities are judged harshly if they do not accept satire with equanimity.

Khun Mallika is has professed admiration for China, for that country's ability to shut off Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.  (Mind you, I was in China for a week and had no trouble accessing any of those services form my hotel room.)  Perhaps she also admires China's ability to imprison dissidents and send people to reeducation camps.  Thailand is behind China in many, many ways, but not in the matter of intellectual freedom.  And all citizens, red, yellow, or chartreuse, need to resist the idea that we should slide further backward.  It is patently not her party's policy to curtail anyone's freedoms to that extent, and her actions therefore make her a traitor.

Well, let's leave it at that.  The woman is not a worthy adversary.

What else has been going on, apart from my endless depression about the state of the country, the opera, and my personal life in general?  For these weightier matters, please give me another day or so....

Enemy of the People - Part Two

As people who read this blog know, I have been attacked in the past by people on all sides of the political spectrum.  I believe that is an inevitable consequence of trying to see the world in a balanced way, and of trying to understand people's motivations without being blinded by the oversimplified blandishments of any political party.

I've read certain on-line rants of K Mallika Boonmeetrakul - sent as public messages, as well as seen one of her recent television interviews.  What we seem to have is our own homegrown Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann type ... but an infinitely more dangerous one because her statements undermine her own party's view of itself as the party of intelligent, liberal-minded and forward-thinking people, and insofar as her tweets appear to come from a party spokesperson and not be clearly marked as her personal opinion, they give an extremely embarrassing impression of our country to the international community.

On her television interview she suggested that our country should become like China, and ban facebook and youtube.  I wonder if she remembers the last time Thailand tried to ban youtube, and how it backfired and got mud all over this country's face.  The idea that China is somehow a golden model to be followed on this issue is an abomination.  It is only one step from banning youtube to putting people like me behind bars, like the Chinese did to Ai Weiwei and countless others.  If K Mallika thinks we should become like China in that regard, she should move there.

Thailand has, by and large, been an open society since the 1973 student protests — something which has NEVER been true of China.  There have been numerous attempts to turn the clock back, but no one has yet found a way to reverse the flow of time for long.   They can only delay the inevitable for a time.  The most recent assault on our freedoms began in earnest in the Thaksin administration and under the guise of law, but subsequent governments have not improved the situation.

K Mallika's public tweets are not the harmless ravings of a lunatic precisely because they have the appearance of being endorsed by the democratic party.  They are extremely harmful.  The foul language that she has used in public tweets to address some of the more thoughtful members of the red brigade do nothing to help the democrats and everything to reinforce the conventional wisdom that the democrats are dismissive and elitist.

Today, I sent a note to K. Abhisit, the former prime minister and leader of the opposition.  I would like to quote some excerpts from this letter.

"All the intelligent supporters of the democratic party are going to leave in droves if this woman Mallika continues to spout her nonsense on twitter - on an account that clearly bears the democratic party's name and which everyone assumes to be the mouthpiece of the democratic party.  Many already have.   You must not underestimate the damage she has already done.  ...  The sorts of people who are leaving are precisely the sorts of people you most want to have as supporters ...

"PLEASE come out with some kind of semi-official dissociation from her statements or any hope of the democratic party being viewed as a beacon of hope, liberalism and intelligence is doomed.  Everything you have worked for is going to be shit.  We all want to restore this country's international image and this woman is going to reduce this country's credibility further.  Better still, you should publicly and clearly fire her."

The opposition leader sent me a response that suggests something will be done about the Mallika problem, but a statement which came out just now from the party spokesperson doesn't really go quite far enough.  Probably the very best thing K Mallika could do if she genuinely loves her party, and genuinely cares about the reputation of this country, is to apologise publicly, take responsibility, and graceful step down from her post.  

This isn't really about the democratic party's reptutation.  It's about the way this country is perceived and the way it perceives itself.   K Mallika is a young woman who could use some time off to think and reflect about what she has unleashed.  She has plenty of time in her life to grow and learn and become a valued player in our political system, but that time is not now.

Somtow - Enemy of the People

It appears as though the honeymoon, such as it was, is being shelved for now.  People seem intent on choosing sides, intent on declaring the red or yellow nature of their souls.

And people such as I, who as artists tend to zero in on moral ambiguity, and to hold that mirror up to the world, will tend to be forced into pigeonholes not of our own making.

Yesterday my dear mama called me to tell me that I had been singled out for criticism on the red-shirt channel by no less a figure than the leader of this country.  I haven't seen this footage, but if true it would certainly be a sad case of curing the symptom rather than the disease.

However, no one has dragged me off to the gulag as yet, so I'll continue to call it as I see it.

This morning, the papers are full of the announcement that the cabinet has withdrawn its special amnesty paper which would have made a mockery of the annual royal birthday amnesty by creating Thaksin-specific rules.  This could mean many things, depending on the level of paranoia one wishes to imbue it with.  Here are three possible theories:

(a) They decided to put the interests of the country first for a change.  (the Polyanna theory)

(b) The entire thing was a cleverly calculated mini-drama staged in order to have an excuse for Thaksin to address the nation in tones of piety and humility (his letter saying he wouldn't "accept" a royal pardon) and indeed, the yellow-shirts played into their hands by immediately planning a rally, then, humiliatingly, having to un-plan it.  (The Machiavelli theory)

(c) They read my blog regularly and do whatever I tell them. (The fantasy theory.)

Of course (c) is essentially flippant but opinion has been clearly divided between (a) and (b).  There is also the dumb luck theory: that everyone bungled it and the Thaksinites just happen to benefit ... which is conceivable, though unlikely.  I don't believe the Thaksinite management, well-fueled and expensively advised as it is, misses much.

Examining the cynicism which seems to motivate all sides of this war to achieve control over "all this" is very discouraging.

Not the Best Timing

I was in a taxi yesterday and the taxi driver was glued to the radio news.  It was being reported that that new rules were being added to the regulations for the King's Birthday amnesty, an event looked forward to every year by jailed criminals in Thailand who hope for an early release. The radio reported that a small, secret cabinet meeting had been held and the rules had been changed so that those convicted of corruption would be eligible for amnesty.

In the past, the big annual royal amnesty has excluded drugs or corruption cases.

A special provision was also added allowing those over sixty, with less than a three year sentence, to receive amnesty.

The Prime Minister was conspicuously absent from this cabinet meeting, citing travel difficulties and saying that she had no clue what had been discussed, according to this morning's papers, which I have been reading to confirm whether I had merely misheard the radio report.

The papers added that officials were removed from the room when this matter was debated and that the official press release omitted details, so one is not entirely sure where this news is coming from.

Such blatant obfuscation can mean only that such a ruling is intended to benefit only one person, though one questions how that person can receive an amnesty at all when he hasn't even been to jail yet.

The rehabilitation of Thaksin is an important aim of this government but I would submit that this is very lousy timing.  We're in the midst of a national disaster right now and the prime minister isn't looking good.

If Thaksin is to have a warm, fuzzy rehabilitation, not a fractious one that will set off more riots, I think that he should simply go to jail for a while.  It need not be a long time, it could be just symbolic.  And you know that jail for a former PM isn't going to be about eating cockroaches and lying on concrete floors.  Nosiree!  "Egalitarian" is not a word that applies in a Thai prison!

For years now, his media handlers have been playing the Gandhi-Aung San-Mandela card — the noble freedom fighter leading the disenfranchised toward democracy.  It's not a description that bears much resemblance to reality, but going to jail would lend it a lot of credibility.  Those three great human rights leaders did go to jail — for years at a time — because of their beliefs.  (Of course, corruption isn't a belief per se, but by the time the handlers get through with it, it could be.)

A few days in jail and people will be eating out of Mr. Thaksin's hand, and his opponents won't be able to say much without seeming ungracious.

There is no need for legislation disguised in general terms that "happens" to give him amnesty.  No need for secrecy.  As soon as even one day in jail is spent, the moral high ground becomes accessible ... with some difficulty, but that can all be smoothed out with the right spin.  Once that high ground is within reach, a "special case" amnesty for one person can be possible without juggling around with His Majesty's birthday amnesty, which is intended to help thousands of unfortunates rebuild their lives.  Indeed, making the birthday amnesty be about one person will ruin the entire thing.

It is rumored that Mr. Thaksin pays $1 million a month to a lobbyist firm in New York.  I'm a lot cheaper, and I think my advice is better.

How cheap am I?  Well, you can start by appointing me Minister of Culture!