... While I Play Unfitting Music

Bangkok, Thailand

I was awoken this morning by a call from my wife. She was at the airport this morning saying the first leg of her and the kids first flight on this journey had been delayed 4 hours. Now the butterfly effect has begun: they're laying over in Japan for 19 hours. By the time all is said-and-done, we'll be at least a day late getting to see my sister-in-law, Karen, in Cambodia -- she's arriving there this evening. So, that's an auspicious start for anyone who likes auguries.

Soundtrack Dissonance. Now to go back in time, to before the the flight delay, before the students' departure, to before even the students' arrival, to when I first arrived in Thailand from Malaysia in the first week of the Tip to Tundra tour. I was struck by what the wiki tvtropes.org* would call Scene Dissonance: the peace of the waves, the languid vines hanging from karst outcroppings, shopkeepers keeping their shops and no sign anywhere of an uptick in interest in the news, or concerns about having lost hard-won democratic freedoms. When I went back to my hotel room, I began making the soundtrack for this video blog, mashing up Life During Wartime with What a Wonderful World (the latter of which appears to be a common exemplar of the Soundtrack Dissonance subcategory of Scene Dissonance). I learned I may even have been cleaving to the youtube meme, "... While I Play Unfitting Music".

I've blogged previously about the coup and will not belabor the issue further herein. There is a schedule for new elections in 15 months. Of course democracy is more than elections. I haven't said too much about the beautiful islands in Thailand's south. I will simply point out that visiting them for the merest 24 hours allowed by my schedule was a kind of cruelty. I'd always avoided them before -- I'm not a particularly beach kind of guy. But I must say, I could get over my aversion for a few more days enjoying those turquoise waters.

* If you don't know tvtropes.org, I commend you to it without reservations, as they have undertaken the librarian's role of categorizing and filing the essential essence of story-making.