Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Collecting Myself


Today, I was shocked to discover that there's a book missing from my shelf — must have vanished during the move.... it's "The Ultimate Mallworld". So I visit amazon.com thinking, I'll just order a couple of copies. The cheapest copy on amazon.com is about $35. Doing more research, I find a German website selling it for almost $500.

Help! If this book is indeed such a rare and valuable classic, why hasn't someone reprinted it? I may have to end up doing that myself ... but to do so I will need at least two copies. Does anyone out there have extras? Let me know.

Yesterday, whilsy squatting for a crap at the well known Fortune Town shopping mall, stall #1, I looked up and saw an ominous scrawl on the bathroom door:

"Wanted - red shirt protesters - 3000 baht each!" and there was a phone number to contact to be paid and be issued your shirt. There was also a slogan about Thaksin, but part of it had been wiped off and was incomprehensible.

What does this show? One of two things:

(a) the accusations that the red shirts are being funded is absolutely true.
(b) it's a dirty trick, put up by the yellowshirts in order to "prove" that the red shirts are corrupt.

I guess I should have called the number to find out.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Fiddling while Rome Burns.... (2)


And this is what my family were doing while Rome burned....

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Fiddling while Rome Burns....


Last night, a Venus-Jupiter conjunction over Bangkok turned the night sky into a smiley face. On my radio show, I played the lullaby from my Pridi Symphony and scenes from Rigoletto, plus a scandalous rap song composed by Bruce Gaston. I only realized as it was playing how subversive the song was even after a twenty-year interval.

I now read in the paper that the anti-government protests are winding down now, and that the future looks brighter in some ways. Whether this is a consequence of the smiling moon, I know not.

I also read the following in the paper: "After the search, police found many weapons together with narcotics such as weeds and cough syrups. "

What an astonishing combination of illiteracy and puritanism! For a moment, I almost thought I was back in America, in the dark times of Dan Quayle's potatoe. I've not encountered any widows wearing narcotics in a while, but I assume that with hemp-based cloth, such mourning might be possible.

(That is, assuming that marijuana is a narcotic. Cough syrup, now, that's another matter. I was once told by L.A. teenagers that if you drink several bottles of , you will have hallucinations. They also told me that boiling morning glory can produce a heroin-like substance. Perhaps that accounts for the popularity of Phra Ram Long Song, Thai dish made with morning glory and curry sauce. The teenagers in my former neigborhood in L.A. sure knew a thing or two. Here in Thailand, all the teenagers I know are too busy playing piano concertos and composing operas to have to learn how to inhale the nitrous oxide from whipped cream cannisters....)

Today, the airport has opened, and it is the birthday of the King of Thailand. A frightening air of normalcy hovers over us. One suspects the worst....