One Fine Day Indeed

Oh, and here's the "Un bel di" clip from our production of "Madama Butterfly"

Dreaming with a Forked Tongue

I'm in Singapore and I completely slept through the play I came to see. Not exactly the fault of Ivan Heng, my favorite Singapore director; it was not the play itself that put me to sleep, rather my own insane schedule and bizarre sleep deprived lifestyle. You see, in order to catch the early morning flight, I thought I'd just stay up an hour or two longer than usual, get to Singapore, take a brief nap then go to the theatre. The beds at the Hilton must be extra comfortable, because I didn't wake up until the play was over, and found a rude note from SISTIC (the Singaporean equivalent of Ticketmaster) informing me that I couldn't get my money back.

Well, the play is completely sold out (it's a Singaporean political satire) but, as it happens, I do know the director, so UNLESS I happen to fall asleep again, I think I shall get to see the play this evening....

But I digress. Having slept a lot, and at odd times, I have a peculiar dream to add to my dream diary. I woke up today from a very strange dream indeed. It was set in an idyllic country landscape, perhaps New England, lush, with lovely country roads. I was making a film or something because there was a set, but I had decided to take a little time off, and I was driving around. The roads formed a series of very big squares (almost as though they were created in a program like SIM CITY) and for some reason I decided to make a left turn that was earlier than my destination.

The reason is that I saw some Iroquois warriors standing by the road and I slowed down to look at them.

When I turned I was in an Indian village and a man with long hair, very much like someone you might run into in the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, came up to my car. He wore a blue denim shirt and had a headband. He had a young daughter. He said to me that he was going to be my guide.

It was a village of thatched houses, more like some African kraal than a village in the plains states.

My guide began speaking to me in Lakota. I was surprised because I had thought this was going to be a Mohawk or Iroquois village (the warrior I had seen from the road was definitely NOT a Plains Indian.) I knew it was Lakota because I can understand a lot of Lakota words and though I didn't grasp the sentences, I could pick out words like "oyate kin" (the people) and "akichita" (warrior) and so on. The girl said, in English, "I will be your translator. He is going to show you around the village."

But the first house we come to is more like something in colonial Williamsburg or rural Pennsylvania. There's a regular concrete pavement next to it. I go in and see typical Americana: quiltwork, a dark wood rocking chair, and so on. The guide explains things and the girl translates.

I say to her (thinking on the Iroquois brave I saw earlier) "I didn't think you people were Lakota."

"Well actually, we're not," she tells me. "We're English."

"That's funny," I said. "So am I."

And then I wake up....

***

What does this tell me about my identity crisis? I wasn't English last time I looked. But, according to my mother, when I was two, I used to think I was English. I used to say to people in my piping little voice: "I'm English — you — foreigner!"

***

The Rocky Road to Recovery

July 4 today ... my National Day! And one person, the intrepid Colonel Sinclair in Kentucky, my fellow Ky. Col., sent me a card? Were I in better shape I would go to the American community's big event, but instead I'm sitting here doing this blog.

The opera is chugging along without me, albeit a bit clunkily. This weekend I was getting a lot better; the weird breathing machine actually helps; I don't get tired during the day. Then, I suddenly found myself doing all sorts of opera work, like answering endless emails, over the weekend, and then I forgot to plug in the device so today I feel amazingly tired. Also, the weird, vivid dreams came back! That proves that when I stop breathing, that's when I'm getting these mystical visits from God. And I guess this all proves the machine works. Tomorrow, another trip to the hospital but whether I will be admitted for more medical experiments is a matter of some conjecture. Maybe they'll attempt the MRI again, using more drugs....

You'll see here a mockup poster for Butterfly; that's one of the things I ended up having to dash off in the middle of the night; I think that for the next week the opera is still going to be suddenly turning to me for something which should really be done by someone else but never has been ... but that can't be helped yet. In a sense, this illness is the best thing that happened to me and to the opera company itself.

Tomorrow, rehearsals for the chorus of "Butterfly" are already starting up with the resourceful Dominic Sargent at hand. Tomorrow, too, I return to the hospital, but hopefully not overnight. A few days ago, Trisdee returned from the Netherlands and has now learned to do an astonishing Elton John imitation. I can see now that my funeral requiem will be a lot more like Princess Diana's than I originally thought.

I'm preparing myself for attachment to the machine for the evening by reading The Gulag Archipelago. For some reason, despite being a literate person, I've managed to avoid the book so far. Right now I am reading all about Soviet interrogation techniques. Ouch! So, okay, I'm sorry I publicly accused the Ministry of Culture of being Stalinist when they tried to censor my opera. After all, theirs was not a carefully thought out campaign of terror, but merely the power grab of some bureaucrat who never thought it would actually backfire on the entire ministry... Besides, our government is gradually coming round to a proper idea of supporting the arts. It's growing pains, I suppose.

Now that I have packed off a proposal for a new fantasy trilogy to my agent, I have to consider carefully the idea of combining more closely the musical and literary sides of my life. They have always been quite distinct. Now, in the twilight of my existence on this earth, the barrier between them is crumbling. One symptom of this breakdown is, oddly enough, Facebook … I seem to be getting "added" by people from both my worlds. Inevitably, the worlds will leak.... Two days ago, I rejoined the SFWA after, I think, about a 20 year gap. Surprisingly, they still remembered me.…

A Fashion Statement for my Declining Years

Well, I now have to wear this device each night. But life as an idle layabout is not so bad, and it's only for 30 days.

Your emails and letters and even flowers (from as far away as Shanghai!) have been just wonderful. Catherine, who is running the opera company along with members of my family and the intrepid Ratana and Noo, is rather astounded at the sheer volume of what I used to have to take care of each day before getting to the creative work; after a week, she's already casting around wildly for a team of volunteers or ersatzSomtows.

And I'm hearing from friends I haven't talked to in absolute years ... here's what Alan Dean Foster says to me: "I get a chuckle out of envisioning you, of all people, after all the creatures and critters you've dealt with in your work, being terrified of something as prosaic as an MRI" … and Marti McKenna has just told me that her "baby" is now 25 years old. At least most people are seeing the possibilities for comedy in all this as well; I would hate to depress anyone; indeed, I am planning my funeral as a stand-up comic routine, with Trisdee's Requiem as a sort of intermission piece. (It will be pretty funny when my corpse stands up; it will have to be rigged with 1980s style special effects hydraulics, like the pizza of death in Nightmare on Elm Street III).

I must say that the apnea-controlling device itself is a nuisance. In my sleep, I often end up unhooking it. There must be a nice Greek-derived medical term for people who unhook themselves from medical apparatus in their sleep. If there isn't, with my trusty Greek dictionary in hand, I'll just coin one: autohypnoekiatromechanoapankistronysis. Who says I've lost my touch at creating catchy new words?

Well, now that I am back home at least for a few days (the lab may require me for more medical experiments on Monday) knowing that I'm allowed to work as long it is on creative things and not stressful organizational things, I've already written the first five chapters of a new fantasy trilogy set in Bangkok which is a sort of cross between Bangkok 8 and Harry Potter. You may not think this possible, so we will just have to see. I'm hoping to do for Bangkok what Neil did for London (or maybe what Emma and Will did for Minneapolis!) By the way, if any of you have read both Will Shetterly's novel Dogland and my novel Jasmine Nights, you will know that he and I had exactly the same childhood -- 12,000 miles apart. It is one of those extraordinary things.

But what of the opera? Well, it is not exactly running itself, but one thing that is occurring as a result of all this is that it is learning to run itself. Whether it will complete the learning curve within 30 days is an unknown quantity, but circumstances are forcing our hand and it had simply better learn.

I do of course have a new opera in the works, Dan no Ura, and I had to give up the premiere in order to place Die Walküre within this calendar year. I am not currently suffering from composer's block, so we will simply have to see how the return to two creative streams can play out.

I'm proud because this visiting young trumpet player from Belgium, Stan Nieuwenhuis, showed up in Bangkok (he was supposed to play in the Wagner, but he's come anyway in order to have his holiday) and I took him for a tour of the notorious software stews of Bangkok; I stayed on my feet for four hours without getting tired and I think they had a great time; though now I'm feeling a huge fatigue.

I just have to remember not to overdo it....

I'm not at all well so here's a video

Vergene Bella by Dufay

Posted 1 Hour Ago

Orpheus Choir of Bangkok and Musica Ficta Consort performs the Thailand premiere of this gorgeous piece by Dufay, "Vergene Bella", (600 years later) at the Pridi Auditorium under the direction of Somtow Sucharitkul.

I'm going to be in and out of hospitals, having hideous tests, and so on for a while. They say it's not life-threatening (yet). I'm home briefly to pick up a few things and sort things out. I know they have the internet at the hospital, so I will try to post in a few days.

The Savage Breast

Well, the last 24 hours started hideously enough, with two friends caught in car crashes (luckily they turned out not to be too serious), word of further sneak attacks by the anti-Somtow consortium, and so on. In the morning, the tunics for the Renaissance concert singers turned up and they seemed to be about seven sizes too small; the only local dancers who could do the Pavane suddenly absconded; and there were rumors that various local ministries were going to renege on various implied promises. By noon, I had more or less decided to go back to America.

But in the evening we had a rehearsal of this concert and the Monteverdi was moving beyond words, the Byrd had me in tears, the recorder player ornamented brilliantly, the mediaeval harp sounded just right, and I started to think, once more, that it might be worth doing all this. Again, the idea of having this music heard for the first time in this distant land, hundreds of years after it was composed, and having people be profoundly moved by it, is so powerful that it can cause one to forget the trauma.

One rarely sees God, unless it is an acid flashback. But extremely profound music is one of the things that can trigger such an experience.

Last night I came home from the rehearsal and when I went to sleep the ravishing Dufay motet Vergene Bella kept playing again and again in my head. The words, by Petrarch, say "Love moves me to begin my prayer to thee, but without thee I cannot even begin." I dreamed that I was wandering in my own house (indeed, it did not seem like a dream.) I opened the door to my own bedroom to discover a sleeping child. At first I thought it was one of the young musicians who sometimes visits the house or one of Trisdee's friends. The room was filled with blinding light and the child was golden, and he said to me, "Don't be afraid; I'll always be with you." And when I looked into his face it was simultaneously very youthful and the face of an old man. I thought that this must be a ghost. And I was flooded with both terror and exhilaration (maybe the closest feeling I can think of is when you're coming down the first and tallest hill of a roller coaster, sitting in the front car, appearing to plummet into oblivion yet sure there will be a last minute rescue.) I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep and when I was still in the half-dreaming state, my inner voice said to me, "Well, actually, that was God." And I started to shiver.

I got up and answered email and so on, unable to go back to sleep for a very long time. My next dream was of an endless audition where I was casting both Wagner and Puccini, and dispensing roles to favored persons with impresario-ish magnanimity. This dream ended in a leg spasm of such excruciating pain that I could not walk for the entire morning.

What is this all about? Well, clearly, God has not forsaken me quite yet. But he is making me sweat pretty hard along the way.

This morning the intrepid Catherine Cushing tells me that, after her car crash, she resembles a unicorn. Well, wherever there are unicorns, magic is still real.

And there was certainly magic in tonight's concert. Dufay, Byrd, Landini and Monteverdi were heavenly and brought me to tears many times. The poetry is nice but I'm afraid some of it must be cut on Thursday to make way for dining and high society chit chat. Still, it will be an even nicer event and my sister and I tasted the food yesterday; it was superb, better even than the food that we had for Dido.

The dreams seem to come constantly now. It's obvious that there's a shift in the tectonic plates of my world. The last time I dreamed so frequently and with such metaphysical dream content was in the week before I was ordained as a Buddhist monk. That was in 2001, and when I emerged from monkhood I entered a period of wild creative ferment. Six months ago, post-Ayodhya, I entered a time of utmost darkness. This time appears to be coming to an end.

A person whom I love very deeply, but who has recently decided that I am the most evil person in the universe, has been emailing my friends to say that I need a shrink. He's right of course, but no one in their right mind would want to do what I want to do.

The Yates Motel

It's not as though I didn't have enough to do, but yesterday I was in a bit of a sonneteering mood, and I decided to add a few more sonnets to my growing volume of Sonnets about Serial Killers (due out as soon as there are enough to fill a book.) For example, I did a companion piece to a sonnet I wrote years ago about Susan Smith (the woman who drove her kids into a lake). This one is about Andrea Yates, who was told by angel of the lord to drown her five children in a bathtub. Do check it out (and some of the other new ones, too.) Years ago, some of them appeared in a rather brilliant Italian translation, and a couple have come out in Hebrew as well, but those I haven't seen.

And speaking of the Bates Motel, I've often wondered how Ed Gein, the notorious Wisconsin killer who killed women who looked like his mother, flayed them and wore little pieces of them, would have reacted to the various movie killers who in some way were inspired by him.

So I wrote this little sonnet about that:

Ed Gein Critiques his Biopics

Down here in Hell, they’ve got a movie theatre
And in my copious free time, I’m aghast
To see my weird existence rendered weirder
The further it retreats into the past.

Though I liked Psycho, I’ll give Hitchcock flack,
For I was sagging, plump, no Tony Perkins,
And he omitted my artistic bent, my knack
For slicing women’s privates into merkins.

When Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out,
Trophies there were of skin and flesh and bone
Reminding me of home. What made me pout?
They had a clan – I did it all alone!

And ho-hum Hannibal? I just ignored
That Oscar and that Golden Globe Award.


The above photo, incidentally, is not the entertainment at the Bates Motel, but a picture of the Rheinmaidens from last year's Ring Cycle (Part I). For, in between bouts of sonneteering and finishing this novel (of which I have 30 pages left to write, so it has to be handed in this week) I am now hard at work on the details of Part II. Indeed, today, Sunday, is not a day of rest as I've got a big production meeting in the morning....

I think I will leave you today with a clip from Das Rheingold. You will see the wild Colin Morris in Bangkok this year, but not as the evil Alberich; instead he will be playing the mild-mannered and sensitive Sharpless from Madama Butterfly.

Valhalla!

Tomorrow the sun will rise on the first official production day for "Die Walküre". So here I am, the Roger Corman of the opera world, embattled but not embittered, still waiting for Godot, though God will do very nicely.

We've got an interesting new production manager coming on board. I haven't had the greatest luck with production managers — they seem to turn out to have been coke addicts, Trojan horses, or schizophrenics — but with each one comes hope. Hans Nieuwenhuis once told me that it took him eleven years to find the right one, and then, miraculously, many of the traumas of running his operation evaporated into thin air. Perhaps this will happen this time!

I've had a lot of comments (mostly private emails) about how to deal with "that clause" in the cultural center's contract. So, I want to say that I've signed it. Why? Because the provisions about what might constitute "the culture and good morals of Thailand" are so vague that I don't think they would hold up. Certainly, if the police should rush in and close down the opera on the grounds of protecting cutural purity, it would be a publicity bonanza the likes of which I've never seen in my life. I've signed it, but I haven't actually sent it back yet....

I'm sure Richard Wagner would be proud of me, even though I am a member of an inferior race!

I've also found out that the indefatigable Sophie Tanapura is putting on "Figaro" in July. This is splendid! One of the joys of having turned Bangkok into the "operatic hub of Southeast Asia" is seeing other people put on their own productions. It's never easy to put on an opera. More things can go wrong in an opera than in any other type of performance. That's what keeps us on the edge of our seats. Everyone needs to buy tickets and show their support.

I really look forward to the day when people in Bangkok will no longer say, "There's an opera next month" but rather, "Which opera shall we see tonight?" or, "Which did you like more, Somtow's Wozzeck or Trisdee's?" This, ultimately, is the vision that I had when I sold my house in L.A. and allowed myself to be worked like a dog with no pay. This is the reason I shrug off all the idiots dragging me through the mud, sending lying faxes and emails about me to each other, and so on. There's a higher purpose to all this and even my gratuitous torments have, in the end, helped to bring about the fulfillment of my vision.

And speaking of Trisdee, I told you that yesterday night he sent me a pop song he wrote in Garageband! Splendid lyrics, the use of the "f" word guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows ... the most surprising thing of all is that kid's got a great pop singing voice. If he tires of conducting Charpentier, he'll have to work for MTV.

I remain, at this dark moment, guardedly optimistic. In the words of Little Orphan Annie and Scarlet O'Hara, I have only this to say —

Tomorrow.....

Do I Have the Guts?

Yesterday, I had a chance to examine the Thailand Cultural Center's latest contract. It seems that that clause, the one created specially as a result of their attempts to censor my opera last year, has not yet been removed from the contract. It states that if anything in their production violates Thai culture or morals, the police can close down the production in mid-performance. Left carefully unsaid is the question of who is to determine whether such a violation has occurred, but one assumes than any bureaucrat could hold the fate of the opera in his hands.

If I sign this, am I selling out the cause of artistic freedom? Would any bureaucrat actually have the nerve to act on such a clause, knowing that the wrath of the entire international press would descend on this benighted government? After all, two hundred papers and newsmedia wrote about it when they merey threatened to close us down but didn't actually do it ... including Fox News, the Sunday Times, ABC News, the New York Times, and so on ad infinitum. Would refusing to sign it simply be an empty gesture? This is a matter of some angst to me.

In fact, this seems to be a bit of a game of chicken. Who will blink first?

While it is extremely unlikely that anything in a Wagner production would fall into the cultural crimethink they have envisaged here, what about the principle? Last time, an attempt was made to censor my opera on a completely arguable point of tradition. However, it never occurred to anyone at the ministry that such opinions were arguable. That is the danger.

Apichatphong told me in a recent email, writing to me from communist Vietnam, "it is becoming harder for me to work in Thailand." It is true that there is something very disturbing going on. Just when things were opening up, when this city was turning into a major beacon for cultural renewal, the Renaissance seems about to be interrupted by a Dark Age.

I know that the forces of ignorance cannot win, in the end, but I do have a problem seeing myself in the role of the messiah. I absolutely and wholeheartedly support Apichatpong's refusal to compromise. Perhaps he will be The One. I wonder if I have the guts. Would I be willing, for instance, to be jailed or shot for my artistic freedom? It's a question I never dreamed I would have to ask myself, but now, I see the big black ? looming in the distance.

Ganesh

Speaking to the Gods is a peculiar thing, but when they speak to you, it can get even weirder. This is especially true if, on some level, one feels oneself to be, on some level, a doubter. Whether they are manifestations of the collective unconscious, or even merely aspects of oneself who have somehow become personified, one can never entirely explain it away; one is always left with a bit of magic in the air, a glint of fairy dust.

Most of my friends know I've been in something of a depression since last December. It's perhaps partly natural after such a huge production as "Ayodhya" ... the fallout from the little censorship debate never seems to cease ... and then there was all the hate mail. But mostly I suppose what depressed me was the fact that I've dedicated almost seven years of my life to the cultural awakening of this community, only to be attacked as a venal monster by some of the very people whose careers were made possible by my efforts.

At first I thought that the only solution to all this was going to be to become completely evil ... go over to the Dark Side... as did Anakin Skywalker. But a solution did present itself and it came from the still small voice of Ganesh, patron of poets.

Well, I have a very special Ganesha statue in my house. Years ago, I saw this beautiful 14th century statue in an antiquities auction catalogue and I was drawn to it. I knew I could never afford such a rare piece but half jokingly I put the minimum bid on it and sent iit in. I did not get the statue of course; it went for much more.

Months later, however, I received a call from the auction house in New York. The winning bidder's check had bounced. Something else was wrong with the next bidder. And so on down to me. It was clear that this statue wanted to reside in my home. (The lady on the phone from the auction house began going on and on about one of my books, too, oddly enough. She had actually read one.)

When the Ganesh arrived, a Bengali friend of ours immediately went into a strange sort of trance, claiming that she could feel that her ancestors had stood before this very statue. She swayed and babbled in a way I'd never seen before. And things began to change around the house. It was around that time that music returned to my house. Around 1979 I had left Bangkok in a funk, completely burned out as a composer. Of course I had then gone on to have an entire career as a novelist, but something was missing. In the old days, there was music playing in my house 24 hours a day ... LPs stacked up on the record changer, a classical radio station ... but there hadn't been music in my house for a decade. I had stopped listening. But when the statue arrived, music came back as well. I composed the ballet "Kaki", and eventually went back to opera; miraculously, I found that I still remembered every note of every opera I had memorized 20 years before and not thought about in all that time.

When my Ganesh was shipped back to Thailand, we would sometimes bring out the statue on Wednesday mornings, present offerings and so on. On one occasion, Trisdee was playing a Haydn sonata. The housekeeper went into a wild trance, murmuring and singing in what appeared to be Sanskrit, and dancing around the statue, weeping incontrollably, and finally vomiting in the kitchen sink. Our guests, sober members of the Dutch opera studio, had of course never seen anyone be possessed before, so they immediately whipped out their mobile phones and started to videotape the proceedings. When it was all over, I asked the maid (who is a muslim, so getting possessed by a Hindu god is quite a trick!) what it was all about. She said, "You forgot the sugarcane." It's true. The offerings had not included the customary sticks of sugarcane. She then added, "Play some Indian music. He doesn't want to listen to that. I put on a CD of Shobha Gurtu, drowning out the Haydn. The housekeeper then calmed down.

Being a vessel for the gods may have its advantages, but this particular maid didn't last too long at my house; she left shortly thereafter.

Humor aside, it is a Ganesha statue of immense power. Because since settling into my home, it has been a magnet for high creativity. I've managed to compose more music than in the last twenty years put together and it almost seems like taking dictation sometimes. And then all these great artists seem to feel nurtured and comfortable in the statue's vicinity and so we've had dozens of them come through our doors.

Ours is a Ganesh of creativity, not of financial gain. We've had years of incredible artistic achievements and have ended up in quite a financial crisis. I decided to ask the God to give me some pointers about balancing creativity with survival. And so it was that I a dream. (One of those "waking dreams" -- I've only had them a few times in my life, most frequently during my time as a Buddhist monk." ) It seemed to me that Ganesh spoke to me in a voice somewhat like that of a small boy. The playful Ganesha is always the one who resonates with me the most.

This is what he said. "You will never get money by going after money directly. It is not your nature to attract money. But money will come by sharing the creative spark that I have awakened in you." He said, "In your world, too many people think only to profit from creativity and inasmuch as they do so, creativity begins to die." Ganesha then instructed me to use a few particles of the dust from the powerful ancient sculpture, say a mantra of blessing and blend those particles into the material to make a number of amulets. He said that the amulets would be like windows through which creative energy can flow into people's lives. He said that the money raised by these amulets must go only into creative enterprises: singing, dancing, poetry, and music. He said that those who hold the amulets, if they make their hearts pure and their minds open, will also open themselves to his creative power.

This dream, replete with playfulness and irony, has to me all the hallmarks of "truth" (insofar as we humans can perceive truth.). The shortest path to what we desire in life is often not the obvious road, but another. Therefore, though I am in many ways a skeptic, I know that power resides in words and in images.

As skeptics go, I seem to have more supernatural experiences than most believers....

Whose Tube is it Anyway?

I've been saddened about the youtube flap, because I really want to give this Thai government as much encouragement and good will as I can.

Many people who complain about this lot have forgotten that in the previous administration, it was okay for the government to shoot suspected drug lords on sight and though the press was free in theory, libel laws were distorted in order to file frivolous lawsuits to stifle dissent.

The Bangkok Opera has its own youtube channel; scenes from our productions are continually posted and it's a splendid chance to show off one of our most unexpected cultural achievements ... that despite minimal government support Thailand has managed to become the acknowledged trendsetter and leader in opera in this entire region.

We, like thousands of other people here who use youtube for thousands of innocuous reasons, have had our hands tied for no real practical reason, since any minimally computer literate person knows that all youtube videos have a unique ID and therefore any commputer wiz kid over the age of about eight should have been able to tell the ministry's cybernetic experts how to unobtrusively take care of the offending videos.

Now there's a ludicrous flap and more and more people's attention is being drawn to the far more serious issue of freedom of expression.

I warned officials of the ministry of culture months ago that, with a military regime in place, the international press is just going to be watching to pounce on anything that smacks of the abridgment of freedom of expression. They didn't believe me then, and their bungling was reported in hundreds of newspapers and websites worldwide.

I think bungling is the operative word here. They mean well, they really do. The attempts to censor Apichatpong's movie again show that they simply don't understand that the primary purpose of art is the elucidation of the human condition which, naturally, means that art exists to tell the truth. They don't understand that showing, for instance, a monk breaking the rules of monkhood is not a criticism of the institution of monkhood at all; it's an insight into human nature.

Suing youtube was always a silly idea and I really don't know how anyone in our ministry cooked it up. It's true that "foreigners can't understand" why that video was so offensive to Thai sensibilities. But you know, it's also true that "foreigners can't understand" why in Saudi Arabia women aren't allowed to drive, yet the Saudi government doesn't go around suing women for driving in Thailand! No one who is not a member of that culture will ever understand (on a gut level) such a prohibition. It could equally be said that many people in power in Thailand don't understand the incredibly powerful gut feelings that the phrase "first amendment" arouses in people raised within American culture. The cultural insensitivity has been on both sides, I'm afraid.

Of course, the only real way to censor the internet is to cut it off altogether. If you don't do that, there is always a way around it. In the last month, the Bangkok Opera's youtube channel has taken off -- for instance, 20,000 people viewed a clip from one of our recent productions, The Rape of Lucretia. We have had no problem posting the clips, and no one in Thailand who wanted to watch them has had any trouble doing so. There is absolutely nothing illegal about circumventing the youtube ban as it is not being done for any illegal purpose. The ban itself is, in the opinion of every constitutional expert I have talked to, not legal anyway. There has never been a legal right to censor granted to any ministry. It is in any case not enforceable.

You know, there is far more draconian and consistent repression in places like Singapore. But in Thailand, they have chosen to apply repression in silly ways, and they've only succeeded in making the country look far worse than it should.

Anyway, do check out the Bangkok Opera's youtube channel ...