Khlong Saen Saep, under Witthayu Road. image by author.
Snaking through Bangkok’s concrete tonnage are khlong, natural canals that feed into the Chao Phraya river. Many have been filled in to build roads, but there are still plenty within the city boundaries. They’re crucial for understanding Bangkok’s massive and sometimes inequitable 20th century spatial transformations.
Phoenix neighbors of Indians right fielder Shin-Soo Choo hold a banner as he bats. The first “O” in “Choo” is a symbol from the Korean flag, the second is the Cleveland mascot.
No sentiment describes spring training better than optimism; everyone imagines their team could be competitive, or at least not depressing to follow.
Today is the debut of Bangkok is Ringing, a monthly podcast I’m producing for the online magazine Triple Canopy. Check it!
Image by Seth Denizen
Everything Changing Real Soon
After March 28th of this year, Weird Vibrations migrates to Bangkok, Thailand. This trip is what the blog was created for, and what all the content so far has led up to. I’ll be there for one year, writing in this space as often as possible. Whether you came to WV through another sound site, or by accident, or because you know me, I hope you’ll keep checking in.
I can promise, at least, the following in return: erudite anthropological analysis, high-fidelity stereo sound recordings and concerned photographic documentation, political insight, what I’m pretty sure are actual dragons, danger-zone maps, nicknames like “Pizza” and “Dream,” sweat, rain, noise, the nexus of Buddhism and Bohemianism, and a brand of earnestness that can only be described as avant-garde.
Here is the deal:
Max Neuhaus: Times Square, Time Piece Beacon
Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly, and Barbara Schröder, editors
Dia Art Foundation, 2009
140 pps., $35 ($21.75 on Abe Books)
Via the Sound Studies listserv, Billtron and I have started a collaborative bibliography for work in Sound Studies. Come check out the catalog, and add any books, articles, websites, sound recordings, or videos that you feel should be included.
Here are the instructions for signing up:
Step 1) Register at CiteULike.org, and sign up for the Sound Studies group.
Step 2) Install the bookmarklet – a little button that gets added to your browser, allowing you to add citations instantly.
Step 3) Find books and articles via Amazon, JSTOR, Project Muse, etc., and click the “post to CiteULike” button.
Step 4) In the window that pops up, add the tag “soundstudies” along with any other descriptive tags you feel like including. Make sure the box for “sound studies bibliography” is checked. Click “Post article.”
Step 5) Serve and enjoy.
Journalist/critic Virginia Heffernan wrote a thoughtful summary essay in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine about the 2010 Academy Award nominees for best sound-design.
This weekend, 644 competitors vied to become the 2010 crossword-solving champion. (I came in 338th, way ahead of Ken Burns.) As solvers finished each puzzle, they filed out to the lobby to discuss triumph and tragedy.
Gossip: I have an artwork premiering at next month’s Ncounters conference at the University of Alberta.
The piece is titled “This is Sound,” and it is an 11-minute lecture/journey about the effects of sound on the human body. It was produced, loosely, in the style of NOVA.
Sound in Bangkok
