This enormous light installation cost thirty-nine million baht (some $1.1m at current rates), which is a source of some controversy. But I didn’t pay for it and had a good time at this public whatever near Khaosan. And we ran into some additional family, so a good night.
The young man in the barbershop spoke a little English and when I tried to mime what I wanted (which was for him to use the trimmer without a guard to bring it down close and the same length all around), he asked, ‘skinhead?’ While not something with positive connotations for me, clearly he understood. In the end, for one hundred baht (less than three dollars at the current rates), I got a haircut and my beard trimmed (though a little more shaped than I like; I prefer a level of natural roughness to it). The young barber used a straight razor, which is a wonderfully decadent experience. At once frightening, elegant, and liberating. He was very polite and we communicated a little. This part of the Ramintra neighborhood is not known for ‘farang’ – foreign – visitors or residents, so I’m guessing that I was his first white customer.
Starbucks is an incredibly cool and aspirational brand in Thailand. In some ways, this double decker Starbucks is an emblem of their love for the brand. On the other hand, they original idea of Starbucks, where you sit and work and drink coffee – a place that mimicked the social aspect of seventeenth century coffeehouse (and the coffeehouses of my late adolescence and early twenties) – is not common. While coffee places are so prevalent as to make Seattle seem positively coffee starved, Starbucks is one of the few with significant sitting areas. It’s an in and out culture, rather like what Starbucks is currently in America.
I’m still in Thailand, but as a reminder of what I’m missing, here’s a picture of my commute home from work.
My sister took me here for New Year’s Day… some light for the soul.
In no particular order and merely to get in on the game, here is a list of my top ten reads from 2015 (not the the top ten published in 2015, because I’m still catching up on the nineteenth century [I think I already made that joke earlier]).
Machi Tawara’s Salad Anniversary was just so darn enjoyable to read that it’s got to be on this list.
The Golden Lotus… it took me a while to finish it, but in addition to being an enjoyable read (somehow, the seemingly repetitive venalities of Ximen Qing never got old), I also felt that I learned a lot by immersing myself in the pages of a book about a very, very different milieu than my own. Even little stuff, like figuring out what they were actually drinking when it mentioned ‘wine’ (most likely a malted beverage, similar to sake) and, yes, reading about medieval Chinese sex toys.
Shen Congwen’s Border Town did not stay with me long, but good Lord, was it heartbreaking. I suspect that my mind is trying not to remember it, because it was so darn sad.
Jenny Zhang’s Dear Jenny, We Are All Find was not only a good read, but I felt downright prescient when, while reading it, she became minorly famous for her response to… let’s call it ‘Poetry-gate.’
You know there’s going to be some fantasy on this list, right? Nothing new, but I re-read the gentle, melancholy Riddle- Master of Hed this year, for the first time in decades.
While re-reading Proust, it was in the third book, Guermantes Way, that my efforts bore fruit and I was understanding him in a way that I had not before.
I finished Powell’s magisterial-comic epic, Dance to the Music of Time. Unfortunately, the volumes I read in 2014 were the best, but Books Do Furnish a Room was very good and I finished it in January of 2015, so it counts.
The Red Lily… a sexy, nineteenth century bit of a novel about artists, aristocrats, love affairs and what not… what’s not to like?
Seeing Antogonick performed on the stage in Chicago singlehandedly got me back into Anne Carson, who I had fallen out of love with. I picked up an inexpensive copy and read it after seeing the play and, yeah, it’s still damn good.
Epinician Odes and Dithyrambs of Bacchylides was a freaking wonderful find! Who knew occasional poetry could be so awesome!
Before celebrating New Year’s Eve (and khun pau’s birthday), we visited a wat to be blessed by a monk. Also, though I didn’t get any pictures, there were in the process of constructing a statue of the Buddha.
I was pretty excited to see that Moore’s City of Wonders – the third book in his Seven Forges series – had come out. I even paid full price for the ebook, which I almost never do.
So I am disappointed to acknowledge that I was… disappointed. It was just lacking in something. Direction perhaps. Or purpose. Or discipline.
But it did add its first female main character. There have been important female characters, several, in fact, but here he added what seems to be a truly major perspective character who is also a woman (and set up to be a bigger influence in the next volume). So score one for a bit o’ feminism.
the coffee philosopher 