Submarine garrets for starving writers

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

Exploding apathetics and the mob rools, OK!

I wouldn’t normally bother commenting on this sort of thing, besides which I gather lots of other people have already expressed horror for a variety of reasons. (Though plenty of others applauded it, and that’s what alarms me.)

I believe exploding people can be funny; and, given the popular taste for gory entertainment, it’s hard to take offense merely on that score. What I do find disquieting is the blithe assumption, at least implicitly, that we’re all on the … Read more