Brasso invective, Elgar reprise

You just can't keep a good man down.

The bane of my blogging life, Mr Anonymous, is back, with another nasty remark on the meaning of life as he reckons it should be lived. His latest comment was left in response to yesterday's post about how a young man should respond when his parents won't accept he is gay.

Well, okay, I didn't cover that ground exactly - I talked about symphony orchestras instead. But the blog post which motivated it, by Malaysian blogger Robbie, who is having problems with his Dad, does look at this sensitive matter (link harvested - it died).

I thought Robbie's post about his Dad's anti-gay stance was sympathetic and reasonable, even if I didn't agree with all of it. 

Here is Mr Anon's devastating response:

'It is our parents' responsibility to know us and accept us. If you can't be honest with your own family about who you are, it probably means you have a number of identity issues.'

His scathing remark about identity issues is probably aimed at me, rather than poor Robbie.

Back in another life, when I lived with a woman, we used to visit junk and curio shops, which in the olde worlde English-style city where we lived (Christchurch, New Zealand, since you ask), could be found around almost every corner.

Once I bought a bracelet in copper or gold brass for her, with someone else's name on it. In times past, a man had bought it for his girl, and dedicated it to her. She had an old name like Flo or Betty; the owner of the shop reckoned the piece was about 50 years old.

When we took it home, we polished it with Brasso, to brighten it up.

When I read Mr Anon's acidic comments, I am reminded of that can of Brasso. His comments are so caustic, they could clean metal.

If I could put his spittle in a can, I would market him as Gay Brasso. If I had a gay chandelier, you could clean it for me, love.

Because we enjoy a bit of drama, I have decided to remove the moderating bar on reader comments, at least for a while, to see what he comes up with next. So, fire away, Mr Anon.

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Elgar and a young Yehudi Menuhin

In yesterday's piece about symphony orchestras, I mentioned English composer Elgar. Hours after I wrote it, by strange coincidence, I came upon another reference to Elgar, in a short story called Elgar and the Watch My Father Gave Me.

The author is a Singapore-born Australian citizen, Kim Cheng Boey, who teaches creative writing at Newcastle University.

Kim Cheng Boey says that at 16, his Dad bought him a watch - and a vinyl recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto.

Here he is, describing a visit with his Dad to a Singapore market, on the day his oft-absent Pa bought him those gifts:

'At the next stall, a long-haired man with tattoos creeping out of his singlet served up brimming glasses of sugar cane juice with great gusto, grinding the cane and milking the crush for the last drop. The late afternoon light was aligned with the river's flow, a distilled light without glare. I think that was the last happy day I had with my father.'

A week later, gambler Dad, forever in financial trouble, turned up at the house to ask for the watch back, so he could pawn it. Thankfully, his son was much closer to his Elgar recording than he was the watch, for he was never to see it again:

'The watch my father gave me and then took back, ticks only in my memory, where my father also lives. Elgar's timeless piece goes on, retracing, measuring, anticipating our steps, resonant of lost years and vanishing places. Menuhin [who played on the recording] seems to be deferring to the last note; but there is no going back, the music says. I am in a new country, a lifetime away from my lost country, my lost father.'

I suppose Boey grew up with the English language all his life; otherwise, it would be unfair. Many native speakers of English can't write this well. They are unable to use their own language as expressively as Boey does; nor do they have his mastery of story-telling technique.

I found Kim Cheng Boey's story about his Dad, Elgar and the timepiece in a literary journal, Asia Literary Review. The journal describes itself tersely on the back cover as 'new fiction/reportage/travel/memoir'.

Asia Literary Review is sold in the US, UK, Australia, and many places in Asia, including Thailand, where it goes for B395.

PS: Thank you to the friend who sent me two copies. I have a list of shops in Bangkok where you can buy it, for those interested.

PS 2: The story includes a picture of composer Edward Elgar and violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin, then 16, outside Abbey Rd studios (see above).

'Menuhin is cooperating with the camera, while Elgar's pose betrays an air of unease...perhaps he is impatient to go the races,' Boey writes.

Gays on the perch, concert memories

We are sending off clothes to be washed and ironed today. I send mine every week. Maiyuu sends his every month.

Yesterday he sorted through an enormous pile of unwashed clothes, which he keeps in his bedroom.

We can send only 80 pieces at a time, so he chose those he most wants to wash (I suppose), and left the rest.

They now sit in two large rubbish bags, waiting for the girls from the clothes washing service to collect.

'I still have plenty more left over in my bedroom,' said Maiyuu, referring to his pile of unwashed clothing.

I don't think I have ever seen that space empty. Maybe he enjoys the company of his unwashed clothes.

I sent off a modest basket of work clothes, amounting to less than 10 pieces. These days, I make sure I check the pockets first, as I am forgetful.

Today I found B20 in one shirt, and B60 in another. In a third shirt, I found the ID card I need to get in the door at work, which I left there two nights before (last night, a friend let me in).

That's good. That card is still clean, and doesn't need another wash just yet.
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Two gay guys were sitting outside my condo building yesterday as I went for a swim. They were still there when I got back.

'Do you know Mr So-and-so?' one guy asked as I went in the door.

He gave me the floor number.

No I didn't, but I knew which farang he meant.

'I call him but he does not answer.'

Well, maybe he does not want to see you, dear!

'Can I visit into your room to call him on your phone?'

No, you can't.

'Two Thai friends are cooking up a storm in there,' I said, and left.

This was one of two gay encounters I had yesterday with the public.

Such is the state of my memory, I can't remember what happened in the other, but give me time, and it will come back.
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Elgar

Do you like symphony concerts? My Mum does, and thanks to her, I was exposed to them from a young age.

In Sydney, the city where I grew up, home to a world-renowned opera house with majestic sails, the symphony orchestra performed annual seasons of well-known classical pieces, in concerts aimed at the young.

My Mum would book season tickets, for me and herself.

The oldest child, I was in my early teens. The others were still too young to appreciate it when I had my turn, though she was to take my brother and sisters in due course, once I became too 'grown up' to be seen out with my Mum.

On concert days - from memory, the first Tuesday in every month - Mum would drive from home to see me at school in late afternoon, a 45min trip.

After I finished my homework, we'd catch an old deisel-powered train into town - one of the few times I went into the sparkling inner-city, except for Christmas - to visit the local opera house where the concerts were held.

We'd take a meal together in a restaurant overlooking the harbour, then find our seats in the concert hall. I don't know what we talked about; I wish I could remember.

I wore my school uniform. Mum used to get dressed up.

Often during the concert, Mum would fall asleep, though she still enjoyed it. I liked watching the players on stage. How come they did not get nervous? Everyone knew exactly what to do...how was that?

The orchestra played popular pieces like Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. Many families took their offspring to the concerts, some much younger than me. I used to enjoy inspecting the printed programme - it looked smart, like the occasion itself.

The concert ended about 10.30pm. I suppose we finally got home at the exciting hour of midnight.

Today as I write this, I am listening to a classical radio station broadcast over the net from Sydney. It is still going after all these years - as is my Mum, bless her.

Well, that was predictable

Small brown ants have invaded my keyboard. I must have been eating food over it. Bits and pieces have fallen into the cracks between the keys, and now the ants are having a feast.

A friend says I should just leave them, as they are cleaning the keyboard for me. But it is disconcerting to hit the keys and find ants running in all directions.

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After prompting, Anonymous (I assume it is the same one, though it could be one of his spawn) - has given me an example of the kind of post I should be writing.

‘Silom Farang just posted a VERY INTERESTING tale about some of the dishonest practices unsuspecting Thai tourists are falling prey to.. so far it has elicited 12 COMMENTS.. not one of which he had to beg for.’

I am delighted to get this response, as I was thinking about this airport corruption saga just the other day.

The story about duty free staff/tourist police entrapping foreign tourists has been well covered at webboards such as thaivisa.com and 2Bangkok.com, not to mention the letters page of the local papers. Overseas newspapers have run it, as have Thai political/news blogs.

Broaden your reading horizons, pal – not all Thai news starts and ends with gay blogs!

Anonymous wants me to cover the same topic that he can read about everywhere else – and in the process, to become yet another farang bleater whingeing about this, that and the other.

No, thanks. If you want to read Farang Tales Inc, then you know where to find them.

The idea of writing a blog should be to offer something different, which readers can’t find elsewhere; or as the blog author, to at least offer my own perspective on Thai life, which no one else is likely to share.

I don’t care about what Anonymous would like to read on this blog, because

(1): He can read it elsewhere.
(2): I don’t want to sound like everyone else.

For the time being, I have switched on the comments moderation feature, so I can weed out Anon’s nastier remarks before they are published here. I am tired of his negativism, so shall now delete him on sight, unless he says something useful.

Gorodish's puzzle

Gorodish, from Diva

The puzzle takes shape

Who can recall New Age guru Serge Gorodish in Jean-Jacques Beineix's arty French film, Diva,  from the early 1980s? It was one of my favourites when I was young, has enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years, and now has a cult following.

Above, he is creating a big blue jigsaw wave, accompanied by his ever-present 

cigarettes. 

In the opening moments of the film, his Vietnamese-French lover Alba tells  young postman Jules, Gorodish's co-lead in the movie, that her boyfriend has entered a phase in his life when he wants to "stop the waves". True enough; he's stopped them, freezing them as an image by way of a jigsaw. 

In this cult thriller, two recordings propel the plot along. At a deeper level, it is supposedly a tale about the interplay of intransigence and permanence, though I am more attracted to the way characters of different ages are portrayed in the film. Some critics believe both male co-leads are feminine; more of that unusual argument below. 

The story is adapted from the novel of the same name by Zen master, writer and poet Daniel Odier. In the story, young opera fan Jules makes a bootleg recording of Cynthia Hawkins, an American soprano who has never allowed her singing to be recorded. Later, as his romantic obsession with her blooms, he steals her gown.

Hawkins, played by real-life diva Wilhelmenia Fernandez

He also comes into possession of a recording incriminating a senior policeman, Jean Saporta, in a trafficking and prostitution ring.

Saporta sends his henchmen  (the "West Indian" and the "Priest", aka L' Antillais and Le Curé) after Jules, who is also pursued by a couple of Taiwanese hoods who want his valuable recording of Hawkins' voice. 

Beleaguered Jules turns to his new friends, Gorodish and Alba, to help get him out of trouble. 

Gorodish does all the thinking on behalf of the kids, as they seem too young and distracted to solve their own problems.

Saporta's hoods: the West Indian, and the Priest

Fast forward for a moment to the racy climax, when Saporta's two henchmen kidnap the young couple and take them to Jules' apartment. 

Here, the witless Saporta meets his come-uppance. Gorodish pulls off this feat, as one of the film critics below notes, without ever laying a hand on him. 

He has previously blackmailed Saporta over the tape linking him to the trafficking and prostitution ring. 

He lured him to an abandoned factory where he hands over cash in exchange for the tape. In this scene, the Taiwanese hoods pursuing the Cynthia Hawkins tape interrupt them and mistakenly seize the prostitution tape. 

They drive off in Gorodish's ancient Citroën Traction Avant, to which Saporta has attached a car bomb. Saporta detonates it, thinking he has killed Gorodish. 

In one of the film's many surprises, the unflustered Gorodish, who seems to have seen all this coming,  drives away in a duplicate version of  his Traction Avant which he has stashed away.

In the climactic scene at Jules' apartment, the two foes meet again, when Gorodish douses the lights and tricks Saporta into stepping into an elevator shaft, sending him to his death.

Previously, after Jules is chased through the Paris Metro and shot, Gorodish saves the young man when he knocks out Le Curé, the bald hood, with self-defence spray, once again without ever having to exert himself physically.

On the romance front, meanwhile, a repentant Jules has returned the gown to Hawkins, and the two embark on a one-night courtship. 

Young Jules treats her with a detached reverence (he holds an umbrella high over her head on their early morning walk through Paris, as if she is some kind of untouchable beauty).

It looks like idol worship rather than the makings of a genuine love affair. I thought their scenes together were sad, as she didn't seem that interested in being courted by someone so young and witless.

When I was young, I fancied I saw myself in Jules - naive, innocent, and a hopeless romantic inclined to think too highly of people.

As I have grown older, I have identified more with the mysterious figure of Serge Gorodish, who is able to call on cunning, hidden resources such as his duplicate Citroën Traction Avant cars and an isolated lighthouse to outfox his foes. 

He deploys both to elude Saporta's henchmen with whom he must deal as a result of his relationship with Alba, who has a habit of bringing problems home to his giant and almost empty industrial loft.

Gorodish, Alba and Jules flee to the safe house

Gorodish sets the tone of their relationship early when he shows Jules how to butter a baguette.

Gorodish at work in the kitchen

'Some people get high on airplane glue, washing powder, complicated things. Me, my satori is this ...zen in the art of buttering bread. There's no more knife, there's no more bread, there's no more butter...there's only a movement which is repeated...a movement...space...emptiness!'  

Gorodish is the experienced elder figure to Jules' naive innocence. Yet who would know that, in critical commentary of the film at least, neither is seen as particularly manly?

Some feminist criticism of the film argues director Jean-Jacques Beineix thwarts viewer expectations by portraying the male leads, Jules and Gorodish, as having feminine characteristics. First, from 'Jean-Jacques Beineix' by Phil Powrie:

He cites Ernece B Kelly's "Diva: High- tech sexual politics", who notes that Gorodish overcomes Saporta's hoods without ever laying a hand on them, displaying feminine-style wiles rather than blokish brute force.

Regardless, they are both man enough for me. For more about the film, see here and here. 

Update: As time passes, I am losing heroes from my youth.  Director Beineix, who could never match the success of Diva again, died on Jan 13, 2022 in Paris. In more sad news, diva Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, who turned to teaching in her later years, died in Kentucky on Feb 2, 2024.

Your blog comments

Thank you for the response to yesterday’s post inviting more reader comments.

Readers have weighed in with ideas about where this blog has gone wrong lately, and what it’s doing right.

I have responded to almost everyone, in the comments section of the post. Let me put up a few highlights here, positive and negative. They comprise the name of the poster, a quote from what he/she said, and my response:

Anon 2:

--'As to what to write about, I believe that the majority of readers are interested in the daily life of Bangkok. For those of us who live in Farangland nearly EVERYTHING you see and do daily is different and unique to us. When I am in Thailand I feel like I am on a different planet. If you write using a little descriptive style, I believe virtually anything about life in Bkk holds interest.'

You make good points. I have to remind myself that life here is very different from what I could expect should I still be in the West. Sometimes I take it for granted, especially when I spend the day cooped up at home.

As you say, even humble excursions to the doctor can be interesting, if they are written up with a little style - highlighting those little details which point to the differences between life as we would expect it in the West, and what we get here.

Kriz:

'All I can say is that maybe you should get out of the house more often and explore your surroundings and take us along with you.'

I agree. I should.

I still believe that a story about a visit to the doctor (say), well told, is better than yet another humdrum post taking you on a tour of some part of Bangkok.

I am more interested in people, and what makes them tick, than I am in places, and I suspect most readers are the same.

Inbkk:

'I live in Thailand myself, and I like to read about other farang experiences. I see some new interesting blogs sprouting and some others losing steam...I am sorry to say yours is not in the first group...’

I am sure you do. Let me guess: Another cynical tale about Thai bureaucracy at the airport? The hopelessness of Thais in the classroom, as seen by a foreign teacher?

Why do so many foreigners living here just want to hear about other foreigners and their experiences of living in this place?

I would rather hear about Thais, thanks very much - I don't know about you, but that's why I'm here.

Many foreigners who live here are on a tourist visa, endlessly extended. Do they have much commitment to the place? They never know from one 90-day extension to the next how much longer they can stay.

Even those foreigners who work and live here legally are but migrant labourers. We are cut off from Thai life. Most of us get to meet few people of any note.

But if I was to write about those foreigners who stand out here, and have made a success of their lives, would you be interested in their stories, or would you try to take them down a peg (as so many other foreigners do) for having the effrontery to fit in?

Foreigners who 'fit in', or who lived here a while and are happy with their lives, might have less to say. Maybe I have been here too long to contribute anything much more interesting to a blog. Time will tell.

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Please keep the comments coming. Reader reaction shapes what this blog is.

A few readers reckon the blog has become more boring since I moved to my new place. I get out less, and meet fewer Thais.

I looked up my blog tracker to see if readership has declined in the four months since we left. Google Analytics tells me it is steady. It still pulls an average of 900-1000 unique visits a day.

Thank you for your support.