Gopi’s *Book of Answers* has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. Great stuff! Here’s my early review.… Read more
Where do we go from here? COVID-19 in Bangkok
A a speculative chronology of developments over the coming months as we try to maintain our social distancing. Suggested revisions or additions are welcome.
Lexical entropy: Will meaning prevail? (Hopefully)
Only a year ago the forces of tradition prevailed (click on image):
Now the AP Stylebook has reversed its position. And in the streets there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth as right-thinking editors everywhere protest the onslaught of lexical entropy to the point, some fear, we’ll be left to describe human experience with nothing but “whatever” and “huh!”
In breaking news, Shakespeare has been disinterred by a team of archaeologists and mediums in search of … Read more
Occupational hazards: Add to the collection
I’ve suggested some typical hazards that writers face, aside from the traditional death from starvation, and more lurk here in my files. But the following wheeze is easier than writing one of these up just now.
I’m supplying links to those that have gone before, and invite ideas from you—“you” being that mythical creature, the real, live visitor to Collin’s blogsite—for other occupational hazards that afflict writers. Contributions from writers, writers-to-be, readers and the general public welcome.
*Bangkok Noir*, French edition
A French edition of Bangkok Noir is due out from Editions GOPE in May or June 2012.
12 nouvelles de John Burdett, Christopher G. Moore, Colin Cotterill, Stephen Leather, Pico Iyer, Timothy Hallinan, Dean Barrett, Eric Stone, Tew Bunnag, Alex Kerr, Vasit Dejkunjorn, Collin Piprell.
Par-delà le sourire thaï et le wai plein de grâce, s’étend un paysage ravagé par les conflits, les rancunes, la colère, la vengeance, les disparitions et la violence. Un monde où perte de la face,
… Read more Some good things to do with an Internet addiction
“The Joy of Quiet,” a story by Pico Iyer in the NY Times (29 Dec. 2011) resonates with something I proposed a week ago at a Christmas party.
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I’d been talking about plans to go away for a few weeks to finish a novel in draft. As usual, when such an idea is broached, people were quick to say things such as, “Hey, I know a great place on the coast down south” or “My uncle has … Read more
Premature evacuations offend spirits of the place
Here on my eight-floor balcony, watching the sun retire across the river to the west, I can almost hear the waters advancing from Saphan Kwai. Or is that merely the kerfuffle of conflicting rumor? For weeks, here in Phya Thai District, we’ve awaited the floods from the north as they advance with glacial alacrity. One of the many rumors, inconsistently promulgated by government officials, was that we might well be spared altogether.
Ultimately, though, it seems the hi-so spirits of … Read more
Inverse relations and natural law (The Gospel According to Ellie)
Bangkok cinemas, some of them, have taken to offering movies in “4D.” Now the moving images are complemented with smells—certain colorful old cinemas, sadly gone now, were way ahead of them on that front. And you might get rumblings in your seat, though these are often now more in sync with events on the screen that the tremblors from street traffic outside used to be. Other effects include fog and drizzle and stuff they originally built cinemas to shield you … Read more
Cymbalalalazophobia: Things to worry about when the sky isn’t falling
So just the other morning I suffered something like a flash of cymbalalalazophobia, which is hardly surprising, Sara claims, given my lifestyle.
My recent “Hope in dark times” post elicited the following Facebook query: Is there an official fear of hi-hat cymbals phobia?
If there weren’t, it stuck me that I had a friend who might be uniquely qualified to coin such an expression. Dr. Anthony Alcock is not only a fine classical scholar, linguist, Egyptologist, jazz & blues … Read more
Home-grown back therapies rool!
Caption: Our adventurer, with his new office chair, just after summiting the roof of his apartment building five times in a row without oxygen.
Breaking news on the old-crockish falling-apart front: I’ve just cured a rogue back, gone bad in the prime o’ me loif and all, by giving my office chair to the guard downstairs in favor of sitting on an exercise ball at my desktop computer, alternating this with standing at my filing cabinet with a laptop on … Read more
Writerly occupational hazards: Ersatz creativity (boozing)
Inebriation is a false Muse. As seductive as they may be, chemical substitutes for true creative intoxication don’t work.
Maybe there are exceptions that prove this rule. Malcolm Lowry, e.g., did much field research for his brilliant novel Under the Volcano, which included a main protagonist who was drinking himself to death. (Lowry, unfortunately, perhaps in his quest for verisimilitude, was himself to go all the way at an early age.) Emulating his own hard-boiled detective protagonists, writer … Read more