Gatsby anticipation is in the house. We’ve got a ticket for this evening’s 7 pm screening and great are the expectations. Meanwhile, the spin-off industry rumbles on and no (precious) stone is left unturned as it seeks to cash in on the film of the book. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a customer of Tiffany, the [...]
Pure Mo
“We Asians like being Asians, Siamese being Siamese, Malays being Malays, Viets being Viets. But a warning. Scratch us, there’s a snarling xenophobe behind the smile.” So speaks Snooky, the hero/heroine of Pure, the latest novel by Timothy Mo. By the way, Snooky is a well-endowed Bangkok lady boy who joins a group of bloodthirsty [...]
So near, and yet so far
Last night, Borussia Dortmund thrashed Bayern Munich 5-2 in the German cup final in Berlin. Next Saturday night in Munich, the Champions League trophy will be up for grabs and, hoping for a less humiliating result, the thrashee of Berlin will host Chelsea FC in their home stadium, the Allianz Arena. Meanwhile, the “Grail” is [...]
Le Swing Cajun avec Hadley Castille
That colossus of Cajun fiddle playing, Hadley Castille of Opelousas, Louisiana, wrote Le Swing Cajun and he performs it in Lafayette in style with his grand-daughter Sarah Jayde Williams and the members of the band L’Angelus.
Send to KindleThose huge French Whales: Kerviel, Tourre and Bruno Iksil
According to Société Générale, one of its traders, Jérôme Kerviel, engaged in unauthorized transactions in 2007 totaling as much as €49.9 billion, a figure higher than the bank’s total market capitalization. On 5 October 2010, a French court sentenced Kerviel to five years of prison, with two years suspended, full restitution of the $6.7 billion [...]
The living tradition
In our time of virtual reality, always-on connectivity and Google Glasses, folk music functions as a kind of acoustic way-back machine. But it’s not a stick-in-the-mud tradition. In Britain, The Unthanks prove that Northumberland folk is elastic enough to merge the mainstream with 200-year-old songs and create something that sounds ultra-modern. Mumford & Sons and [...]
Gonzo and Franz and Don
The online bookseller Good Books donates all its retails profits to Oxfam projects. Here, the late Hunter S. Thompson meets Franz Kafka in a proposed Good Books ad that’s all about change. The creatives are based in New Zealand and they call their agency String Theory. Don Draper would have been pleased with this clip, which is a kind of post-modern extension of The Wheel.
Send to KindleGeorge Orwell: “Politics and the English Language”
If Rainy Day has a manifesto, it is the great essay “Politics and the English Language“, which George Orwell wrote in 1946. The English language and politics are at the heart of this blog and while we cannot hope to match Orwell in any way, he is our guide, mentor and patron saint. To celebrate [...]
Happy Birthday! 10 this year
The Rainy Day blog is 10 years old this year. What began on 1 May 2002 was inspired by the outrage that followed the 9/11 terror attacks on the US, much of which found expression in blogging. The format was still young back then and becoming a blogger was, if not quite subversive, adventurous and [...]
Vietnamese traffic is all about fast moves, tenacity and surrenders
“Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way — insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forwards, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity and surrenders.”
Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham
Send to KindleWhen Churchill flirted with Basic English
In the early 1920s, a rather eccentric Cambridge academic named C.K. Ogden came up with the idea of “Basic English“, which reduced the language to 850 words. One can imagine Winston Churchill, then in his mid-forties, having been shocked by such an idea, but circumstances change cases and, astonishingly, the great orator and author of [...]
At the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum
A trip to the big city of Hanoi is a memorable occasion and a group photo in front of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum belongs to the essential rituals of the excursion. Visitors should note that legs must be covered, silence must be observed, hands must not be in pockets, nor arms crossed. Photography is [...]
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