The Dandies Still Rule OK

An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

In contrast with other Asian countries, images of the human form emphasize the voluptuous, sensual curves of the body. Statues here have big butts (roll your mouse over the above image to view this guy's really hot ass).

The Dandy Warhol's new album is spinning in my disc drive. It's pretty slick. They've really gone all the way. Where exactly I don't know though I'm sure Courtney could get pretty verbal about it if asked. Anyway it's inspired me to go to the kitchen, fill a glass with ice and pour in an airline bottle of kahlua. When I flew here a flight attendant was having a hard time with her luggage at the metal detector. I helped her and in return she gave me a garbage sack full of little assorted bottles of alcohol. I'm still not through with them as I don't really drink at home, but it's definitely a moment for kahlua. The Dandy's album isn't as groovy as the last efforts. It's got that 80's new wave robot British thing going on. I don't know if there will be any Gap or Benneton ads forthcoming for them this time. And I haven't heard any movie soundtrack material yet. If you get the CD, put it in your computer to see the little intro movie they made. It's cute. And apparently you can access a secret web site of theirs only if you have the CD in your computer. Someone really went nuts in the marketing department. Probably (singer, guitarist, song writer, co-producer, musical fuhrer) Courtney.

Apologies for last week's lame column. Everyone goes through a slump, but I try not to let it interfere with my creativity. When I was in college a guy named Ali who was kind of a modern Sufi asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was bored. He fixed me with his best wild prophet look and commanded me to, "Perceive your boredom. Do not try to escape it or destroy it. Go into your boredom and learn what it is."

Amazing Posteriors and Other Incarnations of Sublime Curviness

Thai images of Buddha are quite different from those in Japan. The ones in Japan are the inscrutable type, bearing expressions of concealed mystery and sublime control. The Thai images are wild and a little rough, each one different and individual. They are sensual and human. The Japanese Buddha seems to have just stepped out of the Jacuzzi of Nirvana, whereas the Thai Buddha looks like a man who has left the world for a romp with the faeries and returned to teach us the newest dance craze.

My favorite image of the Buddha, the Walking Buddha. I really like the way his arm is all curvy and relaxed. Try walking like that....it's not easy. (Photo courtesy of Thailand Guidebook, a great website created by Thai students)

Thai art and sculpture is incredibly sensual and the human form is depicted with exaggerated curves. Men not uncommonly seem to have breasts, their chests are so full and feminine. And most markedly, sculptures in Thailand have one thing that is rare in other countries of Asia: a really great ass. There is a powerful consciousness here of the lower half of the body and traditional Thai dance involves a good bit of hip shaking. Traditional Japanese dance is just the opposite. The face is impassive and almost all movement is confined to delicate graceful gestures of the hands.

This goes for modern dance as well. A few years ago the new dance craze in Tokyo was called Para Para. It is a group dance with a complicated series of hand and arm movements that is different for each song. To do Para Para you have to rent a Para Para video and study up to 400 movement combinations and learn the series for each popular song. When you go to the club, there will be a line of expert Para Para girls lined up on a platform to demo and everyone dances with fixed expressions of concentration as they try to copy them. It's highly organized and not a little shocking to see. In the lights of the club their arms resemble waving insect feelers, giving the impression of an invasion from the planet of the beautiful ant people. While the arms are waving about in perfectly controlled abandon, their feet do nothing more than step side to side and bodies are held rigid. One walks in, finds a place among the crowd, focuses intense concentration and starts waving feelers.

In contrast, A walk across the dance floor of a Thai club is sure to spill half your drink. Men and women alike are totally captured by the rhythm and each body part is swaying to it's own instrument. The hips kick to the bass beat, shoulders to the snare and arms and heads follow the story that the melody is telling. Thai dance clubs rock. Aside from the fact that Thais are a fairly beautiful people, the sense of fun makes a dance club in Bangkok a serious blast. Silliness and style are both tolerated and pretty much anything goes. Though like other Asian countries there is no public kissing and while one person may dance in a sexy way, they'll rarely join up and do the lambada.

Well I'm down to the dregs of my kahlua. What's to be done about that? It's presently Saturday evening here, turning rapidly to Saturday night and all this talk of dancing has put me in mind of the fact that I haven't been for too long. At least a couple weeks, which is a crime against my religion. I'll have to remedy that. The Dandy's album is finished too. I'll have to play it again immediately and pay attention this time. Anyway, it didn't distract me from my writing and was pleasant to the ears. The cover features a banana with a zipper, a cute reference to the Velvet Underground album cover with the banana and the Rolling Stones cover with the jeans and a real zipper on the fly, both designed by Andy Warhol. Oh, those meddling kids.

Huge posters of the Queen were all over Bangkok during her birthday this month.

To Archives

Main Page

Jeffrey Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon 23 in every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a publishing career.