Life Thappening
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life HAPPENING 2 | TUESDAY, JUNEt 10, 2014 | Bangkok Post TODAY THINK BOX Adam Kohut We’ve been emoti-conned e’d had a vicious fight, angry and tear-streaked and brutal and personal. About halfway through all of this, oceans and mountain ranges, through She threw a vase; I upended a table. Snarling, she ripped a phone book I realised that we are slowly devolving, war zones and time zones. We are more in half; I karate-chopped through a plate glass window. She bit me, back towards the Neanderthal days, closely linked than ever before. We are ‘The Jolly Month Of June’: A French hard, on the elbow, causing blood to well up in carmine, tooth-shaped when Og would fascinate Grug and Oob inextricable. We are, in essence, one. music and poetry recital featuring beads. So I yanked her ponytail. and Muk and the others with pictorial But we’ve never been further apart. performances by Bernard Lorin, Sophie WI’ll tell you, it was a good ol’ rough and tumble brawl, ending only when she stormed out, tales of the hunt, which, as history will We hide, safe and sound, behind Tanapura and Elvira Galiullina. At the the door crashing behind her in a hinge-quaking slam. Hours later, a message appeared on tell you, were often painted inside caves pixel grins and eight-bit grimaces. Oh Neilson Hays Library, Surawong Road, my phone, by way of a sheepish, grey-striped cat. It squinted and waved a green pennant. using juice from squished berries. sure, we express ourselves, show happi- starting at 7pm. Tickets cost 600 baht “I want a divorce,” it said, the letters cartoony and puffy and jaunty, like multicoloured Rock walls, of course, have thus given ness, excitement, sadness, disappoint- (300 baht for students). bubblegum bubbles. way to digital ones. And millennia from ment, anger, grief — but usually from Call 02-233-1731 or 02-932-9208. now, after the robots have taken over, behind a computer’s screen, awash they will sift through the binary-coded in the Vicodin comfort of its polter- Tips To Help Strengthen Your Relation- “We are inextricable. We are, in essence, one. compu-rubble of what was our once- geist glow. ship With Your Child: A talk conducted great civilisation, scanning and cata- Why risk exposure to the Gin- in English by Dr Thomas Dellario. At But we’ve never been further apart.” loguing our pictures and status updates, su-sharp blades of genuine emotion, of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of tirelessly organising, in chronological home-grown socialisation? They’ll cut Thailand, Phloenchit Road, from 6.30pm order, the reliquary wall posts of old, right through us, you’re damn right they to 8.30pm. The admission fee is 600 baht piecing us, individually and collectively, will, through all the meat and bone and (free for IPN members). I responded with a leering, amorphous, cyclopean blob, with buckteeth. It had this look back together. viscera and nerve endings, right down Call 081-826-2399. in its eye like, “Right back at’cha, doll face”. Then they’ll turn to one another and to the heart, which, as everyone knows, She then sent a digital thumbs-up, which I winked at. they’ll say, “Well, would you look at that, is quite sensitive for a hollow organ. ‘Muay Thai Live — The Legend Lives’: I’ll have to Line-sticker my lawyer soon, because I suppose I need his help. I’m torn EG-95 — they were just like us!” It’s just plain awkward, you see, Featuring “hyperreal” muay Thai fights, between the disgruntled bunny with a wilting broken heart hovering above its head and “Af-fir-ma-tive,” EG-95 will respond. speaking voice-to-voice — or worse, breathtaking stunts and sweeping drama, the red-faced fury of Stella Supernova, who, as far as I can tell, is a spacewoman who does And we are. We are just like them. face-to-face. It initiates discourse that at Asiatique The Riverfront, Charoen lots of science experiments, at least when she is not flying her way-cool rocket ship or We are both cavemen and robots, our puts into play vocal inflections and Krung Road, at 8pm. Tickets cost 1,200, playing goofy games with her pet alien, which suspiciously resembles a regular octopus. eyes glazed and unfocused, bleary and facial expressions and gestures and 1,500 and 2,200 baht. If he doesn’t respond, I will (in this order) Facebook message, WhatsApp, WeChat, Ins- blank, as we type and click and drag physical and non-physical cues. And Visit www.muaythailive.net or call tagram, Tweet at, regular text message and email him. I hope I hear back soon. We really and drop and Ctrl-X and Ctrl-Y until that, sports fans, can get tricky, espe- 02-108-5999. need to shovel a bit of coal into this divorce’s engine, him and I, really get her chugging the Farmville cows come home, using cially considering there’s not an app to along to Splitsville. pictures and sounds and icons as crude track it all. Nai-in Roadshow 2014 — Let’s Go Any- While I waited, I pulled up a website and read a bunch of knee-slapping memes, stand-ins for critical thoughts and feel- Our lives are getting easier, no ques- where: Organised by the bookstore chain. which are stock images — a cranky cat, a doleful bear, Patrick Stewart, etc. — we use to ings and opinions. I guess they don’t call tion about that. But our souls? Well Features creative workshops on creative communicate without really communicating at all, via self-reflexive, pop cultural phra- it Android for nothing. now. Our souls are dimming, becom- topics plus a book sale (discounts of 50 seology, which essentially leave us squawking into the void, simultaneously, like a flock We Line and WhatsApp and Face- ing blanched and discoloured, shrivel- to 70%), at Future Park, Phahon Yothin of brain-damaged parrots. book and WeChat, splurting out emojis ling into antiquity, where they will rest Road. Until June 15. And don’t you worry, either, because I made sure to share the ones I liked best on and emoticons (which are the same, but beside cargo shorts and Halle Berry. Call 02-958-0011. various social media platforms, hashtagging scatterbrained, half-cocked — often oddly also kind of different — the mestizos and It’s sadface; it’s really, really sadface. specific — words and phrases (#anyonenamedtoddwhohasacleftpalatewillappreciatethis) mulattoes of meta-communication) Taste of Japan @ Prom Fair: which, if you ask me, are very complementary and by no means bring to mind a babbling and stickers with slapdash abandon. Adam Kohut is a sub-editor for the Featuring Japanese arts and crafts, food, mental patient from a 21st century version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. We communicate, in real time, across Life section of the Bangkok Post. live martial arts, dance and fashion dis- plays, at Promenada Resort Mall, Chiang Mai. Until June 15. Visit www.promenadachiangmai.com or call 053-107-888. Thai and World Travel IX Fair: Featuring discounts of up to 60% on tour and accommodation packages for des- tinations in both Thailand and abroad. At Future Park shopping centre, Phahon Yothin Road. Until June 16. Call 02-958-0011. Forget Me Not: An exhibition that explores why so many Thai people over- look the importance of national treasures. At Museum Siam, Sanam Chai Road. Until June 29. Visit www.museumsiam.org or call 02-225-2777 ext 123. A photo by Nana Chen. One of the pictures on display in ‘Hiraeth’. Beyond Silk exhibition: Featuring life- style and innovative products made from silk. At Museum Siam, Sanam Chai Road. Mansions as microcosm of society Until June 29. Call 02-225-2777 ext 416. Celebrated photographer Nana Chen will An estimated 4,000 people live there, In looking at the photos, one conjures showcase a collection of photographs including migrant workers and refugees the sights and sensations that form our Wild Range: An exhibition by wildlife portraying Hong Kong’s infamous from Africa and Asia and local and main- own images of home. Inspired by the art- photographer Baramee Temboonkiat Chungking Mansions, which is said to be land citizens. Businesses include clothing ist’s journeys, “Hiraeth” allows Chungking Demons alive at showcasing the wildlife and underwater among the cheapest accommodation in shops, restaurants, guesthouses and cur- Mansions to breathe with the quiet profun- creatures of Thailand. At Promenada this city. rency exchange dealers. In 2008, a tourist dities of disparate lives. Resort Mall, Chiang Mai. Until June 30. “Hiraeth” is the Bangkok debut solo allegedly disappeared inside the building Chen is currently based in Saigon after Thammasat University Call 053-107-888. exhibition by the female Taiwanese pho- and was never seen again. a nomadic childhood in Latin America, tographer who has been published in the Chen’s photographs capture fragments North America and Asia. Her photographic To celebrate its 80th anniversary, finger, which can kill anyone at Art For Ocean: An exhibition of sculp- Observer Magazine, Marie Claire, D-La of stillness and beauty within this seeth- projects have included polo players in New Thammasat University will present whom it is pointed. Shiva grants his ture, paintings, photographs and other Repubblica and many others. ing edifice. Delhi, Vietnam’s female billionaires and a khon mask dance portraying the wish. However, Nontok misuses the artworks on sharks and other forms of Chen explores the building as a micro- Her works are a gentle inquiry into how the global rise of Chinese tourism.