Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
Hey, that slogan is copyright (mine, eh?).
Have we stumbled across something more potent than red wine, chocolate or green tea? Could it be that we’ve invented something with bigger mojo than all that stuff taken together? Jeff the most excellent NK web designer-cum-giant anthropologist has bestowed his official approval upon my magic potion, but says he shoots it back together with his own shortcut to health, longevity and much lead in the pencil. Long and strong with yaa … Read more
Bob King’s pianos don’t believe in musical spaces. This rendition of “Night in Tunisia,” e.g., presents a solid wall of brilliant but super-dense improvisation. When Bob’s in this mode, he says, the piano starts playing him. He’s capable of playing the most delicate, subtlest jazz you could want; but his piano doesn’t always want him to play it this way. So Bob can appear to resist, asserting his basic autonomy by demolishing a piano with his bare … Read more
Last night I watched Fair Game with friends at RCA House. A thriller with real teeth, this film presents a barely fictionalized account of events related to how the Bush administration apparently lied on a massive, perhaps criminally reprehensible, scale regarding Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction program, seeking justification for America’s going to war with Iraq.
One of the most interesting things about Fair Game, for me, is how an entertainment based on actual events cycles back to … Read more
My dear, departed mother decided to spell my name with two ‘l’s because she didn’t want anybody pronouncing it “colon,” as in Colin Powell, not that this has done a lot of good. But here’s something that’ll have her spinning in her grave.
The WordPress program tells me what search terms are leading visitors to my website. This morning I found something kind of enigmatic. One visitor had used “how to do your own natural collin cleans,” and was led … Read more
“‘Next,’ Guru Bigoati announced, ‘I want you to practice mindfulness of something else altogether. Wait, not yet! Aw, damn.'”
The fishermen downstream were happy. The fish hadn’t been biting, and curried goat made a nice change.
That’s my caption (though it’s possible I’m channeling Gary Larsen). Hypothesis II: This wasn’t a class in mindfulness meditation; instead, these European ibex commonly graze moss, lichen, and salt on the Cingino dam in Italy.… Read more
Writers look for budget accommodation (Bangkok, 2027)
Here are some things that didn’t fit on the graph in my “Things fall apart redux” post.
The price of fish in Villa Supermarket is soaring, the Gulf of Thailand is getting fished out, China is behaving more aggressively as the superpower-in-waiting, I’ve lost my mother’s copy of Ben’s secret recipe for Montreal smoked meat and I now learn Ben’s deli closed two years ago. It’s as likely I’ll get to … Read more
Yesterday I was riding the BTS here in Bangkok, when I noticed a guy standing in the corner of the car. What first caught my attention was his face, which was bathed in an unholy glow. Short of sleep as I was, my first thought was, yow, this is some kind of divine messenger, maybe sent by my dear, departed mother to have another go at finally setting me straight.
Then I realized the light came from the iPad he … Read more
One more advantage of paper books. Once upon a time before e-book readers, on an upcountry excursion in Burma, I was smitten with acute diarrhea in a land without toilet paper. But I was equipped with a fat paperback on Chinese history and politics. Over the next few days an assortment of conveyances jounced me along back-country roads as I attempted to learn about China fast enough to stay ahead of immediate needs for paper. I never did get to … Read more