Last week I caught Opera Siam's Thai ghost opera Mae Naak, composed by Somtow Sucharitkul. While I may not always rate Somtow as a political commentator, I thought his opera was really rather good. So who, or what, is Mae Nak? I'll rip this little snippet from Wikipedia: According to tradition, the events happened during the reign of King Mongkut. …
Sep 20, 2011
Mar 23, 2008
Guest post from the Doc
After mentioning that I had acquired a copy of a book by Dr Iain Corness, I felt a little bad that I haven’t actually had time to read it. So I did the next best thing and contacted the author to ask him to write a little something here. Here is a guest post from the Doc. —– It was …
Mar 19, 2008
Two books about Thailand
In every foreign-language book store in Thailand there is a section devoted to books written by foreigners about their new home. I sometimes pick one up and read through a few pages, only to be greeted with re-hashings of some bloke’s sexual exploits or else anecdotes that would be better in the form of a blog than in a book. …
Mar 10, 2008
The Thunderbolt Kid
I‘d never read anything by Bill Bryson before and so I decided to buy The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. The book is a memoir and takes the reader through what it was like living in post-WW2 America. It’s a fascinating and also an incredibly witty account. Here’s an excerpt from page 64: “Can we come?” they’d say. …
Mar 20, 2007
Burning Man 2007, let's go!
They come, they get naked, they run around the dessert for eight days just for the hell of it, and then they burn a 40 foot effigy of a man. No, it’s not a David Lynch movie. And no, they aren’t insane. This is Burning Man, the annual art festival that most people can neither explain what it is nor …
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