Image from edgeoforever.wordpress.com

I wore a pressed shirt in order to better engage not only protesters and passersby but also with bankers as they left work and took stock of the chanting crowd. I wanted t get as many voices as possible, from the staunchest defenders of OWS and related movements to its arch-opponents. Not because all of these perspectives are equally valid, but because we get a richer picture of how OWS has affected the psyche and political landscape of our world when we consider the dissent and ambivalence OWS encountered as well as its networks of support. Hearing the voices of bankers and defense contractors who can barely contain their rage at OWS should, in fact, tell us a great deal about how much the movement has achieved. Meanwhile, we also hear certain slippages–privileged people who can’t hide their sympathy.

The audio piece that resulted intersperses voices as well as perspectives. Hear it here:

Protest as Religion

Or here:

http://canopycanopycanopy.com/15/call_and_response

This last episode takes us through some of the distinct sonic spaces of the 2010-2011 Red Shirt protests. The diversity of these spaces tells us something important about the movement, namely that it’s heterogeneous. The language of protest movements is often compressed by the media until it fits a single index of complaint – unequal rights, no jobs, censorship – and the Red Shirt movement was no exception. But protests are rarely that simple. People have all kinds of motivations for turning to dissent, and protesters often disagree with each other. Such (very normal) internal difference (see: Wall Street, Occupy) is taken by some as a signal that movements are disorganized, or at the extreme even pointless.

We might have to work a little harder to find patterns, but there are always patterns. History, anyway, will sort things out one way or another. But we can understand a lot in our own time. In the case of the Red Shirt protests, they raged with noise always, and that noise (music, speeches, conversation, etc.) was rich in meaning. The question is, what did we hear?

Or listen to it right here:

This episode discusses the state of the radio in Bangkok, with a focus on the recent history of Luk Thung stations. Briefly, Luk Thung is a genre with a strange double status, being both very popular and yet classed as old-fashioned. You hear this music all the time and everywhere – on the street, in cabs, in restaurants. Luk Thung is a big-time marker of displaced rural identity, which naturally alienates urbanites who hear its sounds as low-brow. And yet, today, the hundreds of thousands of migrants from the provinces who live and work in Bangkok are urbanites themselves. The tension in this transformation toward a new urban laboring class is never more obvious than when listening to people listen to the radio.

I spent a day interviewing Bangkokians, including street vendors who had their radios switched on while they worked, as well as teenagers in the mall whose lives seem to revolve around what they download onto MP3 players/cell phones. On another day I visited Jenphop Jopgrabuanwan, a former Luk Thung singer who now runs a community radio station (also available online)/CD shop, and generously answers questions about the history of the genre for anyone interested.

For those who know Luk Thung well, I apologize for any explanatory reductions in talking about Luk Thung and Mor Lam. There’s plenty more to say about the huge differences between these styles, but for the sake of clarity they are collapsed a bit in the episode.

Huge thanks to P.D. and J.J. especially, as well as Peter G., James M. and all others who provided input and suggestions.

In the evening, when the tide ebbs in the gulf, the canal gets low and the water under the house dries up. The dogs and the crabs run around in the mud. The cats eat the crabs.

In the morning, dew gushes down the spout and drips hard on the planks, pooling under the house. The tide comes in and the canal fills up. The wood rots and gets eaten by termites. The owner replaces the wood.

Or listen to it right here:

A slideshow to accompany the piece:

Bangkok is a hot, humid, smelly, flashy, loud city. As with many metropolitan areas, this is a big part of its appeal. Lots of people are doing lots of (very different) things in a small space. The bustle is fun.

But eventually, the stress of the crowd compels people of means to differentiate their experiences from those who have less. They want to shop and work in spaces parallel to those that have been overrun, where sensation has become for them overwhelming. So new channels are carved. The city becomes sedimented, with layers corresponding to something like class. Money, or lack of it, enforces access to these layers, but so do composure and habit. (This theme was also explored in the 1983 documentary, Trading Places). The third episode of Bangkok is Ringing explores what different layers of transportation in Thailand’s capital sound like.

Division is now very much at issue in Thailand. This episode is part of a broader effort to understand division – what it feels like, why it’s happening.

The recording doesn’t sound like much on computer speakers, but with stereo separation (such as on headphones) the lateral motion of the volley is strongly pronounced. And the ball makes a cool noise when it rolls.

Players engage in all manner of flips and bicycle kicks, attacking the net to spike like volleyball players except with their bodies sideways or upside down to give the feet better position. This, of course, makes hitting the ball squarely a matter of greater coordination.

Takraw is a rarity in Thailand for being a very vocal game. Teammates shout to each other to coordinate their kicks, and opponents taunt each other good-naturedly. This particular match was played on a court next to several other courts – some for takraw, others for basketball, still others for regular volleyball. The basketball players, who pass selflessly in a way one doesn’t often see in pick-up games, are practically silent by comparison.

The takraw group wore squeaky, flat-bottomed canvas sneakers – school uniform standard. Two adults played against three students. I have no idea who won.

Last week, PD and I went to a carnival near Din Daeng. The main attraction was an outdoor Lam Sing performance starring จีรพันธ์ แว่นระเว่ and วัชราภรณ์สมสุข, which was just getting good when a heavy rainfall ended the night prematurely. Here is a snippet of the show, complete with a dramatic build-up and some positive mid-song adjustments to the mix:

Also noteworthy were the barkers outside of the concert. One in particular struck our ears. He worked a booth where customers threw rattan balls at whiteboards emblazoned with pictures of Mickey. The prize for hitting Mickey three times in a row was a stuffed animal. (Not bottles of cheap whiskey, as at several of the other booths.)

The text of her shirt reads: “Sunday feel the holiday atmosphere please. Here is heaven on earth.”

This year, the rains have been slow to come. Yields are in doubt amid talk of a sustained drought that may not only affect the rice – of which Thailand is the world’s leading exporter – but basic water reserves as well. The government is making price guarantees etc.

Since there aren’t many farms left in Bangkok, the issue can feel a little distant in daily life, even though the drought is a problem here, too. Downpours definitely happen, but most of them are very brief. An hour at 3:00 in the morning one night, another twenty minutes the next afternoon. The temperature briefly drops, which is nice, but the storms are so heavy that they can also leave side streets severely flooded for a little while while drainage systems creak beneath the load. These aren’t monsoon rains, but they are angry.

On Thursday, WV took cover in a Skytrain station during a heavy mini-storm. A freight train passed east to west.

The (long-delayed; sorry) second episode of “Bangkok is Ringing,” a podcast series about the politics of sound in Bangkok, is now up here at the excellent Triple Canopy. Future episodes will air ~monthly.

Enjoy!

This recording was made walking counterclockwise around the grounds of Wat Phrathat Hariphunchai, a Thai Buddhist temple built in the late 9th century. The temple is in the city of Lamphun, not too far from Chiang Mai. Its highlights are a giant golden umbrella and a purported relic of the Buddha’s hair. (One strand.)

From the beginning of the piece, a man speaks into a microphone. He repeats a short script with an insistent cadence that becomes musical after a while.

Around 1:10, I reach some candles burning at the rear of the chedi, placed in a trough and lit by worshippers. The candles must have been made out of some kind of fat; they sizzled loudly for a long time.