How do brainteasers and word play appeal to you? Why not crosswords or Sudoku?
I love words—and love playing with them even more. To this end, I pick mainly word puzzles or puzzles that contain elements of pun or “mental twist.” These puzzles serve as excellent catalysts for lateral and creative thinking. After all, I’m a creativity practitioner—not just a puzzle solver. I’m not a fan of crosswords or Sudoku, as they belong generally to the “left-brained” or logic genre.
Where do you get ideas for puzzles?
Just about everywhere. I get my ideas by observing everyday things and occurrences, reading books, daydreaming, and by studying the dictionary! Words invariably come alive for me when I read them.
Does your brain ever get tired from creating puzzles?
No way! On the contrary, my adrenaline often gets pumped up when I’m thinking about creating new puzzles.
What’s the longest time you’ve spent solving a puzzle?
Up to a week, I guess. Like all normal human beings, most of the time, I just give up and look up the answers.
Since you’re good with words, can you talk your way out of any situation?
I’d certainly love to think so. But my wife would probably beg to differ, as she always has the last word whenever we are engaged in “intense fellowship.”
Are you always pushing puzzles onto your friends?
Not anymore. Especially now when I realize I seem to have many more of my wacky creations than I have friends. Now I only push my original riddles on to unsuspecting strangers over the Internet.
What do word puzzles say about you? Are you a puzzle waiting to be solved?
Wacky, weird, crazy, ingenious, or simply WOW! Inside me, there are at least a million wacky ideas trying to burst forth and each one looking for its own victims!
What do you say to those who think puzzles are just for nerds?
“Grow up!” or “Get a life!” Just as there are as many types of books and movies for as many types of people, nerds or not, there are “nerdy” puzzles for nerds and there are fun puzzles for anyone who knows how to have fun.
Why solve word puzzles online when you can just surf the net?
Why bother to surf the net if you can’t have fun solving word puzzles online?
The pay-off of a word puzzle doesn’t seem particularly great—isn’t solving an entire crossword more satisfying?
Size does matter. But ONLY when it really matters. Try indulging in a good spread of buffet when all you have is a mere five minutes.
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Christabel Chai is just crazy about cats. She hasn’t done a headcount recently, but there’s a lot of pussies lying around her house. She didn’t always plan to have so many living with her. It started about 10 years ago when she was feeding, sterilizing and vaccinating the strays in her area. The sterilizations were obtained free from the SPCA with vouchers and later with the help of the Cat Welfare Society, but the vaccinations were paid for out of her own pocket.
When stray cats were being culled during the SARS period about three years ago, for Chai, the next natural step was to take these cats home. “Otherwise, if they ended up being put down it would have been a waste of my time and effort sterilizing and vaccinating,” she says. “I know a lot of people who did the same thing.”
Chai’s home is set up to be cat proof. All the windows are with grilles so the cats can’t escape and are secure. She has cat cages, baskets, toys and food bowls stacked up all around the walls. And there’s a special caged section for the kittens she is raising until they can be rehoused elsewhere. All the cats are kept separate from the dogs who live outdoors in various sections of the yard.
Every one of the animals has a name and Chai knows them all. When asked how she can keep track of every feline, Chai answers: “I guess it’s like if I had more than 30 babies. I would just be able to remember.” But when asked which is her favorite, Chai is very diplomatic. “It’s quite difficult for me to pick a favorite with so many. It wouldn’t be fair.”
Kym (not his real name) is a gay man in his mid-30s. About three years ago, during a routine annual medical check, he was diagnosed as being HIV positive. After the test he was immediately told of his diagnosis. He says he felt as any normal person would about the results: He was devastated. “But as time goes by, I have slowly accepted and learned how to deal with it,” he comments. This type of resigned attitude seems to be how Kym faces every part of his life that has been impacted by HIV. Kym hasn’t told his family or friends about his HIV status and he has no plan to do so. He reasons that there’s no need to tell them since they can’t really help. Instead, he gets his support from the Action for AIDS (AFA) support group where he has found other HIV positive friends. He doesn’t tell his sexual partners about his status because he thinks there’s no need to given that he uses protection. In fact, for a person who has a life threatening disease, Kym seems quite unemotional about it and was surprised we were even interested in hearing about his condition.
After a trip to Africa, Alison Urbina was in a hotel room in Germany when she called the hotel doctor to tell him she suspected she had malaria. The doctor failed to give her a blood test, and simply sent her back to bed. The next thing she knew, she woke up from a two week coma in intensive care.
“My experience of being in a coma was that it was the deepest, most peaceful, wonderful sleep you could possibly have. I have no recollection of anything that happened to me during the coma. My mother says I cried when she talked to me about my personal life, but I have no recollection of that, or of any of the procedures that were carried out on me—including being packed in ice for two days. I can’t remember any dreams I had during the coma, but when I was waking up, as they started to take me off the drugs, there were lots of strange dreams. That’s what I have memories of, nothing before that. I was literally in the hotel and, next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital.
Maybe it’s different for different people, but had I died while in the coma, it would have been a very peaceful death. I’ve often wondered if it might be comforting for people facing a similar situation to know that, for me, it was a very peaceful state. I wasn’t distressed because I didn’t hear anything. It was just like 13 days of deep sleep.
When I woke up I was mentally very refreshed, but physically my muscles hadwasted, and so I was in a lot of pain and was unable to move, sit or walk for some weeks. I also had problems with my vision, as my brain could not make sense of what I was seeing. I am very lucky to have made a very good recovery.
When I woke up I could have been asleep for five minutes or five years, I didn’t think to ask. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious. I didn’t feel anything different from normal sleep.
After a few months it hit me that I’d lost two weeks of my life. I suddenly realized that I had had no control over what happened to me while I was unconscious. It was quite overwhelming to realize that you can go from being a career woman, in control of your life, to suddenly losing control over everything. I was absolutely at the mercy of nature and the skill of doctors.”
Moses A was a drug user for 15 years. With the assistance of The Helping Hand, a Christian drug rehabilitation center and aftercare house, he has been clean for the past four years. He now acts as a counselor on Christian care to others who are going through what he has been through.
“My mother tried many times to take me to halfway houses and she even paid money for me to detox but I only ever brought heartache and sorrow to her. I wanted to do good and quit but it was always so difficult to actually do it. Sometimes I wanted to commit suicide because I was so caught in the bondage of drugs. I tried everything, even walking on fire to sacrifice something so I could be free.
Heroin addicts experience physical pain when they don’t continue to use. Part of the withdrawal is feeling giddy, vomiting and aching bones. That’s why I couldn’t overcome it. Because of this, heroin addicts have to cheat, steal and lie. But I never stole outside my own house, only from my family.
Eventually my mother called the CNB [Central Narcotics Bureau] because she didn’t want to see her son kill himself. That’s tough love; she was helping me to save myself. The police came and arrested me for misuse of drugs. When they came it felt like the end of the world because I knew I was going to go behind bars for a long time.
I was in prison twice between 1994-1995 and 1996-1997. But being in prison didn’t help. While behind bars I would feel better and think I was going to be able to quit, but I would always fail. The moment I stepped out of prison I went straight back to drugs.
I have this new life only through the grace of God. Not only have I given up heroin, but also other vices such as smoking and alcohol. I am thankful to God that my mother doesn’t have to cry anymore.”
Bertrand Lee is a filmmaker who was run over by a truck in India in January last year. His entire lower body was crushed: His left leg had to be amputated, his pelvis and right leg were shattered and the complications from the severity of the injuries meant that he lost the strength in his other limbs and his neck. This resulted in a loss of speech and writing skills. Today, Lee’s speech is still slurred and the bone graft on his right leg has not been fully successful, leaving Lee to face the possibility that he may never walk again. He still has difficulty discussing the accident without breaking down, but says he wants to let the people who gave him support know how he is doing.
Lee’s memories of the accident are of the physical pain and the emotional suffering. “5 months and 26 days of staring at a blank ceiling wondering when I would ever get to leave the hospital bed,” he says. “For the first four months, I remembered nothing as I was on a lot of painkillers. Ironically, that was the time when I must have been fighting for my life. My doctors have told me that for a very long time, they did not know what else they could do to save my life. But it was only when the painkillers subsided, and I became more aware of what was going on, that my suffering really began. Not only was I wracked with physical pain, I had to deal with the trauma that I had lost control of all my limbs, and, initially, I had even lost my voice. I thought my life was over.
For the next month or two, I lay on the hospital bed not moving, not talking because I was in so much pain. I was unable to sleep at all. I refused to eat. I just lay awake and kept asking God to end my life and my suffering. By that time, I weighed just 40 kg.
Then one fine day, I realized that as much as I wanted to, I wasn’t going to die. I grew tired of all the sorrow. So I forced myself to eat. I forced myself to exercise. I exercised every single hour I was awake, so much that I managed to put on almost 20kg in only a month. A month later, I was finally well enough to be discharged.
I will have to endure physical pain for the rest of my life. To cope with that, I have to take a daily cocktail of drugs, the strongest being a painkiller called methadone. It is most famously used in Australia as a substitute drug to wean heroin abusers off heroin. That gives you an indication of the amount of pain I endure daily. When I can do everything that I want to do again, I will know I have fully recovered.
Besides the fact that I’m wheelchair-bound, I am very much still the same person. I am still ambitious, still a dreamer. Mentally, I don’t think I lost anything at all. Especially with regard to filmmaking: It was such a big part of my life, that I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I don’t think the accident has done anything to hamper my filmmaking capabilities. I did it then. I intend to do it again.”
Sharifah Maisharah Mohamed works for the Centre for Research on Islamic and Malay Affairs (RIMA). Part of RIMA’s role is to address misconceptions and untangle stereotypes, something which Mohamed is very adept at herself.
“It is rare that I make an association of my identity as a Muslim with the terrorist movements that have been going on. What’s on the top of our [the Muslim community] minds is normal practical thinking, just like everyone else,” she says. “We think about things like the cost of living and the budget. Violence and power, the two principles which are associated with any kind of terrorism, do not dominate the normal Singaporean Muslim’s daily consciousness. Hence I think I have a clear conscience: Being comfortable with who you are as a Muslim so that even in this surrounding hoo-ha about terrorism, I do not feel threatened or under siege.”
Mohamed still expresses disappointment at the stereotypes that she acknowledges do exist. “The visual display of the Muslim identity may appear discomforting to some and it doesn’t help when some commentaries make the convenient association between Islam and terrorism, just because of the terrorists’ display of religious fervor. Muslims are not out to make the world run on their terms because they seem proud to display their peculiarities. So the key problem we see on both sides is, really, reckless behavior.”
Mohamed is quick to stress that she doesn’t acknowledge any terrorists who call on Muslims to take up arms as spokespersons for the Singaporean Muslim community. “They have no credibility except possibly that they have stood up to the US, which is really too superficial a reason to appoint them our representatives,” she says quietly.
Sylvia Toh Paik Choo, a writer with The New Paper, has been going to the Cannes Film Festival for 15 years. Her hobby is to collect the autographs of celebrities and those associated with the film industry. She has hundreds of autographs from almost all the big stars: Michael Douglas, John Travolta, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Adrian Brody, Bruce Willis, Roman Polanski, Tom Cruise, the list goes on. Although it took her five years to figure out what was going on, now she has her routine for scoring the vital scrawl down pat.
Every morning there is a press screening at 8:30am, immediately after which there is a press conference. Those who want a good spot at the conference will go immediately to the press room after the screening to jockey for the best seats; Toh says when it’s a big star she wants to see she’ll even leave before the film is over to ensure she gets front row seats. As the press conference draws to an end the moderator will signal the final question and then the panel, often made up of actors, the director and the producer, will be swamped with journalists pushing and shoving to get close to the stars. People will shove anything at the panel from pieces of toilet paper to envelopes, in the hopes that the much coveted signature will be obtained.
At first Toh started getting the signatures for fun, but eventually she admits she became quite fanatical about it. “To me it’s a game. I will become quite singleminded about who I want to chase and then that’s it. I’ve never thought about what to do with them afterwards, although sometimes I joke that I’ll sell them on eBay when I retire. The value for me is in the score not in the dollars and cents,” she says.
Chee Siok Chin is a very passionate advocate of democracy and human rights. In her spare time, when she’s not working for the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia (ARDA), she’s actively engaged in trying to effect some change to the ways things happen around here. She was involved in the organization of the anti-death penalty forum that occurred before both Shanmugam s/o Murugesu’s and Nguyen Tuong Van’s hanging.
Chin strongly disagrees with the approach that economic stability is a worthwhile trade for some freedom of speech. “It doesn’t stop,” she says. “You can’t give up one thing and not expect to have to give up more later on. It makes it very difficult to hold the government accountable.”
The reason people aren’t more vocal here, according to Chin, is that they are dependent. “People have a sense of being beholden,” she goes on. “The government runs the housing, transport and businesses. It’s part of our culture to be apathetic so there is never any motivation to do anything. But just because we have bar top dancing and chewing gum now doesn’t mean we’re opening up and becoming more liberal.”
For those who think Chin is just making a lot of noise, she expresses some clear goals that she insists are valuable and important. “I want to create awareness among Singaporeans that they have rights that they should claim and exercise. Don’t let other people brainwash and control you. Own your own mind because if people don’t have a sense of ownership over their own country, then people will move away and we will lose valuable talent.” Chin sees a need for Singaporeans to “break free” and express themselves. “Activism is such a powerful and lively thing everywhere else except in Singapore. What we have to ask is whom am I a troublemaker for?”
David Lim led the first Singaporean Mount Everest summit attempt expedition in 1998. Lim never actually reached the top himself due to various factors, including injury, but he still maintains that he has done everything he wanted to do on Everest short of getting to the top.
“The experience of climbing Everest is all about being patient. On the marches to and from the bottom of really big mountains that are 8000m and higher, you spend a good half of the expedition sitting on your butt resting, waiting out long spells of bad weather. It’s definitely about managing anxiety and frustration. But once you are actually climbing Everest and the weather is reasonably good, the feeling is tremendous. The climb itself is not that exciting because it’s not technically difficult, in that it doesn’t require a high level of gymnastic ability of a mountaineer. The thrill is following in the footsteps of giants.
In fact, for mountaineers, climbing is about playing a game with self-imposed rules that are more important than getting to the top. It’s been crowded on Everest for quite a while so if you are looking for solitude and self-sufficiency, you won’t find it on Everest. You start to remove many of the most important mountaineering elements, like the spiritual pleasure, because people just want to conquer the summit of Everest above all else.
As a team leader, a lot of the experience involved negotiating, checking weather reports, keeping up team morale and working with other teams, a bit like organizing a military campaign, rather than just climbing. It’s my obligation to put other team members on the summit, even if I can’t make it myself. I did find my time on Everest immensely enriching and rewarding although it won’t give mountaineers the same experience that some other mountains will give.
It should be about the quality of the experience rather than the actual number of summits.”
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To save money for my dream of studying music abroad, I worked as a model. All that was involved was smiling and having photos taken.
I studied economics in California to take a break from music. It doesn’t require any inspiration, just theory. Turns out I’m not good at economics.
Dan, my younger brother, and I are absolutely different in attitude, favorite things, job preference and way of thinking. Dan loves acting, but I don’t. However, we have a good relationship and get along well in some conversations.
I’ve been veggie since I was 17 years old. When I learned about hiking at school, my teachers recommended [vegetarianism] to me so I would have more stamina and endurance for adventure. And it works! But I still eat seafood.
Yoga makes me feel good—light, as if I’m floating. However, I have stopped it for the moment because my foot was sprained. So I’m gaining some weight.
My lover Becky and I have gotten along well for three years, so I’m happy. She’s quite an independent girl and doesn’t request any attention from me. Sometimes she also helps me with my job.
Iceland is my favorite place, but I have never gone there. Many songs, melodies and rhythms from Iceland are quite weird, but they are so heavenly and dreamy. So I want to know why they are that way. From textbooks I know that Iceland has few people, an extreme environment and an enormous landscape as if it’s not from this world.
I love to read equipment manuals, especially for musical hardware. It’s fun and it’s good for me to completely understand the equipment I use.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is my favorite book. It’s about a smart architect who was always looked down on by his teacher because of his unique thinking. In the end he accomplishes [his goals] by being the black sheep.
I only pay attention to what I want to make first, then I’ll try to get listeners. On the other hand, music companies always try to please the listener first. Then again most of my songs are quite complicated, so few people like them anyway. I don’t care.
“Don’t worry and let it be” is my motto. I think I should be responsible for myself and accept my decisions even if they’re seriously bad.
Joining the American band Kenna was a great opportunity. I was bassist and keyboard player. We were the opening band for Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode on two US tours. And now we are producing our second album, so you can check it out the middle of this year.
Nowadays a lot of crap movies are produced. I don’t like seeing them so much. However, I love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And my favorite movie is Little Otik, a Swedish flick about a wooden boy who becomes a human.
In the next life, I want to be reincarnated as a cat. A cat is always lazy and does nothing, just sleeps and eats. I love cats.
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What are you working on right now?
I have two projects right now: the Magical Journey album and Tomato Music and Entertainment Company. For the album, I worked with Dodo, a Frenchman who came up with the idea of making an international album with famous artists and an oriental sound. Dodo wanted it to be emotional and spiritual, something like world music mixed with jazz. I’ve been into this project since I heard him describe it. I spent two years producing this album, traveling around the world—to places like Jamaica, US and India—to collect the music of each place and contact artists. Now everything on the music side is finished, we’re just tying up the business side.
What’s special about this album?
It’s world lounge music. And we recorded most of the instruments live. We’re lucky that we got many Grammy Award winners to sing for us, like Sharon Marley, daughter of the legendary Bob Marley; Jean Paul; and Lady Saw, the first female DJ to win a Grammy. There’s only one Thai singer, Marsha. The vice president of MTV Asia likes the album so much that he is recommending it for next year’s Grammy Awards. He also said that it should represent Asia on MTV around the world. It looks like we have a good chance at the Grammys since last year’s nominees in the world music category didn’t have very good ideas. Magical Journey is a breakthrough. It’s revolutionary.
How’s working with those famous artists?
It’s easy since they’re very professional. Once they understand what you want, they can implement it immediately.
When will it launch?
We hope to launch it overseas this September, so it’s in time for the Grammy Awards next year. Then the Thai release will come seven to eight months later.
What about your music company?
It’s a new small label. Our first album, released in February, is called Tomato Project #1. It showcases songs from our three bands that will each launch their own full albums soon. My band is one of them. We’re focusing on ease of enjoyment. And we record live.
Why do you bother to do it live when the computer is much easier?
This way it has emotions and feeling. It’s fresh and not bland. The audience might not notice whether we play it live or use a computer, but I believe they can feel it.
Do you feel stressed about the label’s first album?
Not much. We intend to produce quality work and money isn’t our first objective. We want the audience to listen to it and feel that it’s worth every baht they spend. And this is just an introduction to the bands and to our label. We have to wait and see whether it will work or not.
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Do you have any idea what these mud-brick domes are? They look as if they’re floating on a pond somewhere in Africa. They’re actually a lot closer to Bangkok than you’d think. Try Hua Hin. And they’re not rustic dwellings, they’re spa treatment pavilions for which The Earth Spa at the Evason Hideaways Hua Hin received a Gold Prize in the Hotel Category at the 2005 Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards (APIDA) in Hong Kong. The spa’s originality, aesthetics and environmental awareness harmonize local wisdom and modern spa concept. We got to meet two main designers from this project, Scott Whittaker and Chanaworn Longsomboon. Scott is a director of dwp cityspace and does not fit this column’s title since he’s been in the architectural design business for over ten years, but Chanaworn does—he’s a fresh graduate from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Architecture and this was his first project.
Could you describe the overall concept of the Earth Spa?
Scott: The Evason Group really appreciates the environment and sustainable development. They provide a luxury holiday experience, but they don’t want to provide a slick holiday experience. Most of their customers are middle-income workers from Germany and Scandinavia and they want to experience tropical Thailand in a quiet environment. Also, there are a lot of spas in Thailand that are fantastic, but they’re all contemporary Asian style. We saw that some tribespeople in the north of Thailand were building mud-brick walls around some of their rooms. We did some research and the place that builds with mud-brick the most is Africa. We studied African building formation and combined that with Thai traditional mud-brick building from the North.
Chanaworn: The idea for the dome shape came from the African silo that stores wheat and grain.
Scott: The water [underneath] naturally air-conditions the room; cool air comes through holes in the bottom and the shape of the dome sucks the hot air out of the top. A lot of Africans, Arabs, and Europeans once used that form of air conditioning but that tradition is lost now.
Are they made from real mud?
Chanaworn: Yes, it’s a combination of mud and rice. It’s strong because each brick is 18 centimeters thick with concrete in the core. The client introduced us to the mud-brick people so they are the ones who came up with the technology of the mud-brick; we just created the design concept.
But will they dissolve under heavy rain?
Chanaworn: Not much because of the dome shape. It reduces impact of the rain and lets it come through to the pond underneath. The surface does need to be rotated every two years, but just a little bit.
Were you surprised when you won the award in Hong Kong last year?
Scott: Yeah. All the other entries were modern spa designs; this might be the only one that stood out. I think a lot of hospitality architecture might look mostly the same. Good but the same. So people might be looking for something different.
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Listening to the soothing quiet sounds of Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience’s brand of acoustic folk pop, one wouldn’t be surprised to find the duo—Eirik Glambek Boe and Erlend Oye—to be equally Zen-like too. In an exclusive telephone interview, Glambek Boe sounds very much like the quiet Norwegian—he is still in bed, and his answers are short but sufficient. This is not to say that he is unfriendly. In fact, Boe was very courteous and accommodating, just like the duo’s music really, which sounds best when you’re chilling out in bed, or simply as background music. Boe talks to I-S about the group’s musical influences, collaborations and upcoming gig at the Esplanade during the Mosaic Music Festival.
You’re based in Norway, but Oye is in London. Tell us how do you guys work together?
Well, if we see each other too much, we would have probably killed each other. But seriously, it’s good that we work individually first … as I’m a very nightlife person and I like to work only when it’s dark. We can produce more variety when we have individual outputs, especially after two or three months that we don’t see each other, and we start jamming and touring when we do.
How would you describe your music?
Acoustic pop music—that’s the closest that I can describe it. Our music is based on a very intuitive approach, especially at the start of writing our songs. Following that, when we try to finish each tune, our working style becomes more structured and systematic.
You guys make relaxing acoustic pop songs, but what are you listening to at the moment?
I’m listening to lots of Brazilian records lately, as I’ve just celebrated my birthday in Rio. I’m especially fond of acts such as Del Costa and Joao Donaldo. They remind me of the ’70s, as they are acts that I used to listen to.
What inspires your music?
I actually like to go to the clubs and dance, and hence I’m inspired by some of the things I hear there. Yeah, we’re often inspired by dance genres such as techno and house. The first record that I ever bought was one of house music—when I was 12 years old in 1989. Since then, I’ve been listening to more recent acts such as Biosphere and Royksopp.
You’ve done a collaboration with talented vocalist Feist (Let It Die) in your last album, Riot on an Empty Street (2004). Will we be seeing more collaborations from you soon?
Nothing in the pipeline for now. How it happened with Feist is that we went to see her show in Berlin a couple of years back. She gave us a demo, which also happens to be one of my favorite records, so we decided to collaborate.
Do you guys prefer to perform live or work in the studios?
It’s usually more tense and personal in the studios, while live performances are more intense and spontaneous. I would choose performing live anytime.
What can we expect from your upcoming concert here?
I can’t tell you. Basically, we’ll just be doing our thing.
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Great food—preparing it and eating it—is Bourdain’s passion, and he has put that passion to good use in several of his projects. He has bowled over readers with his unapologetic, sharply funny memoir, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, about his experiences in the restaurant business. Now he is helming the new Discovery Travel & Living television series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, which chronicles his travels and food finds as he explores the cultures of such far-flung places as Iceland, Vietnam and Uzbekistan.
What is your favorite meal?
Roasted bone marrow with sea salt and toasted baguette at St. John restaurant in London. Or maybe a bowl of pho—or a single piece of very high quality o-toro tuna.
Is there anything that you’ve refused to try?
I won’t eat live monkey brain. I’m happy I haven’t been offered dog or cat. And I will NOT eat a rat.
What do you do to relax?
I try and spend a month a year on an island in the Caribbean. Writing, drinking beer, laying on the beach, reading and basically avoiding shoes.
What is the most exotic thing you’ve eaten?
Traveling as much as I do, the word “exotic” doesn’t hold much meaning anymore. What’s exotic to someone from Texas is everyday fare to a Thai. And I’m sure there are plenty of people in this world who would be dazzled—or horrified—by a Big Mac. That said, the strangest—or weirdest—thing lately has been raw seal brain.
What food/meal could you eat every day for the rest of your life?
I could eat good quality sushi every day for the rest of my life—if accompanied by beer or sake.
What is your favorite ingredient?
Butter, or maybe sea salt.
What made you decide to try your hand at writing?
I write because I can. I kind of fell into it after writing a short magazine piece which got a lot of attention. It’s turned out to be a nice living.
What is more difficult—working in a Manhattan restaurant, or writing?
Writing is easy. Cooking in a restaurant is hard, exhausting, physical work that uses up every part of you. No contest.
Who are your favorite authors?
Graham Green, Hunter S. Thompson, Nabokov, Orwell, George V Higgins, Joan Didion, Patricia Highsmith, Nick Tosches, Don De Lillo.
In all your travels, what was your favorite destination? Why?
Vietnam. Don’t know why. Because it’s beautiful, because it smells good. Because the food is great, the people—particularly the cooks—proud, the beaches terrific. Because of all the history between my country and Vietnam—the films and books I’ve read about it. Because I have great friends there. How can you describe why you fell in love? And I love Peru and Brazil. Great food, beautiful countries, and gorgeous women.
What is one place you are dying to visit?
Madagascar.
What are some things you’ve learned about yourself on your travels?
I’ll paraphrase my pal AA Gill: “The more I travel, the older I get, the less I know.”
What are some things you’ve learned about cooking/chefs/food on your travels?
That we’re all the same, and that in the heart of every great cook—from ANY country—lives a Chinese cook.
Is there something you look out for at every destination?
The best local “dive” bar in town—where cooks, restaurant employees, journalists, gangsters and rock and rollers are likely to behave badly.
If you weren’t a chef (or a writer), what would you want to be?
The bass player for James Brown.
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What made you decide you wanted to frame memories for a living?
I thought it would be a retirement job, but it turns out that I’m busier now than at my previous jobs. I feel good because I have customers who will have keepsakes of objects that would otherwise be put into drawers.
How long does it usually take to finish a project?
We’re constantly busy, but a project will take at least 2-3 weeks to complete. My problem is that I don’t know how to say no to people coming in at the last minute.
How did you come up with the idea of framing 3D objects?
I noticed that 3D framing was not very accessible. It was mostly at places like Planet Hollywood—regular people couldn’t just go out to the neighborhood framer to get their 3D objects framed.
Why would you bother to frame a 3D object when you can just display it on a shelf?
There are many things you can’t put on a shelf, sometimes for security reasons, or because you don’t want things getting dusty. Some things, like old badges, you want on aesthetic display while being able to preserve them.
What kinds of 3D objects frame the best?
Anything. Someone once said of me: “She can make road kill look good.” I definitely take that as a compliment, because I believe anything can look good with the proper presentation.
What are some of the weirdest things you’ve had to frame?
Once I had a mother who had collected all her son’s memorabilia—I was so impressed with her collection. It included all the son’s milk teeth, which I incorporated in the frame, and the mother presented it to her son for his 21st birthday. Another time we got a pair of men’s underwear.
Do you ever get nervous handling other people’s memories or delicate items?
No, not really. Once we got an innocent looking lighter, and it turned out to be a $20,000 auction item belonging to JFK.
Can you frame heavy items like vases or sculptures?
Yes. However heavy it is, we have a way to make it work.
What about flowers or wedding bouquets?
We’ve done a lot of dried flowers, but we normally don’t encourage customers to frame flowers. From a Chinese point of view, decaying flowers bring bad qi.
Have you ever had to refuse to frame something?
In terms of ideas, I try to be respectful. I’m not the stubborn, arty farty type, but sometimes I have refused if something is totally unacceptable to me in terms of colors and arrangement, especially if my reputation is at stake. Most customers will take my suggestions or understand my thinking. So far there has been only one customer who wouldn’t budge, so I let him go.
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Though his latest film—Mahalai Mue Rae (The Tin Mine)—was a favorite of critics, director and producer Jira Maligool is probably more famous for the surprise hit Fan Chan (2003), which grossed B137 million, or his 2002 big-screen debut, Mekhong Full Moon Party. A pioneer in local music videos, TV commercials and films, Jira is known for using Thai images and appealing to Thai sensibilities, unlike most of his contemporaries who prefer to adopt a western look and feel. Jira is now a film producer at GTH, where he is working with young directors to create quality Thai films.
When I was young, I was different from everyone else in that I liked to watch Thai movies. Most people at that time looked down on local films, but I saw almost all of them. My friends never wanted to go with me, so I watched them alone.
Although some of the films were crap, they were fun—and they had Thai spirit. They were created for and by Thai people, after all.
MTV didn’t exist when I started making music videos. I had no idea what they were. Someone just told me that music videos were images with music. My first music video, for Piboon “Paan” Kiatkiawkaew, didn’t show him performing, and I only learned after the fact that this is what you were supposed to show.
I really liked making music videos at the time, because there was nothing to compare them to. There was no good or bad, and I could do whatever I wanted.
I like being in situations where I don’t know what will happen. This is how I feel when I travel abroad and explore a country by myself. So I don’t like to go with tours. I prefer to be tricked by a taxi driver who drives me around town and makes me pay more than I should. That kind of experience helps me see things in different ways.
Making TV commercials is the most difficult of all the things I do. It is more difficult than making music videos and films, because we have only 30 seconds to tell a story, and because our lead character is a product—not a human being.
When I started working in 1988, most local commercials copied ideas from overseas. Everything was set up to look western. My first TV commercial had western images as well, but while I was editing it, I asked myself what I was doing. These images weren’t what we saw in our country, I thought. Since then, my commercials have had a local look and feel to them.
Mekhong Full Moon Party was created for Thais. I hope that viewers left theaters believing in what they do and doing what they believe in.
I got my inspiration to make Mekhong Full Moon Party from a feature in Silapa Watthanatham magazine. It featured a debate between two people about the naga fireballs. A university instructor believed the fireball was manmade, while a physician thought it was supernatural. It was an interesting argument. Thai people are usually negative about arguments, but the magazine let two people provide different perspectives.
I produced Fan Chan because it was a great script. I believed viewers would get the story easily. People in the Thai film industry used to believe that movies centered around transvestites, kids or animals would never be successful. They believed these kinds of movies were cursed. But GTH broke the spell. Iron Lady and Fan Chan were successful. We don’t have plans for an animal movie yet, though.
I have no plans to go international with my movies. I would love to do it, but I don’t think I could make it. The audience would be totally different. If a movie needed 10 criteria to become successful internationally, I think I could get only one right.
Though The Tin Mine didn’t make a lot of money, I was satisfied with it. And I was proud to know the author of the book it was based on, Archin Panjabhan. It was a great moment for me to meet him in person. I have liked Mahalai Muang Rae since I was young and never thought I would actually get to meet him.
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Where were you guys?
Clint: I was in Los Angeles, where Scott is now, while Dave is in Calgary. We had our own bands, but kind of stayed away from the scene for a while. Just not in the focus of the limelight because we needed that break. After six years, we decided to be back in the
spotlight.
Why did you choose Bangkok for the debut of your album?
Clint: Cause my dad lives here. He came here about two years ago to teach English. And he wanted Bob to come down with me and take a look at Thailand and be here a couple of days and sort of tour around. Bob came down first and kept messaging me to come down here to check it out. So I flew down here and basically never left. We’ve been here for about six months, and we decided we would make an album.
This album’s going to be sold all over the world?
Bob: First around Southeast Asia. We’ll focus on breaking into Thailand before breaking into other countries.
What’s the difference between Same Same and the Moffatts?
Clint: The Moffatts was a four-piece band—four different ideas and opinions. And now, it’s just the two of us; the sound is a bit different. I think we’re kind of in the middle of what the Moffatts started out as and what the Moffatts ended up as. It’s kind of a merging gap.
What kind of music is in this album?
Clint: We were kind of extreme and went from one end to the other and really tried to find the balance in-between. It’s influenced by different styles of music. And so when we write, we kind of draw from everything. But I’ll say it’s more of a pop album.
What about people who say you guys are so yesterday?
Clint: We’re not yesterday, we know that. Because we make the music that we like today, we know what we’re doing right now and where we are. I understand that they’re looking at something in their own point of view. But for us, we just put our records for today, for us.—Phongsathorn Koaysomboon
For the latest news on Same Same, visit www.samesamemusic.com.
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