Latest Opium Traces article, interview with Laurent Jeanneau

Check out my latest article Opium Traces article on PopMatters, an interview with Laurent Jeanneau about his field recordings in upland Southeast Asia, the disappearing  ethnic groups of Zomia, and his latest album release of field music from Laos on the Akuphone Label.

Link here. And thanks Laurent for the awesome picture!

Took a break from PopMatters to spend a year working on my biography of Alfred Raquez, which is nearly done. Keep tuned for more updates about that!

 

New Opium Traces Interview with Indonesian Author Eliza Vitri Handayani

Check out the latest Opium Traces article at PopMatters.com, my interview with Indonesian novelist Eliza Vitri Handayani…this is the first in a series of interviews with up-and-coming authors in Southeast Asia.

https://www.popmatters.com/eliza-vitri-handayani-author-interview-2531243069.html

 

 

Apocalypse, American Style New Opium Traces article

My latest Opium Traces article on PopMatters offers a meditation on Francis Ford Coppola’s inconic film Apocalypse Now…

This is the second in a two-part series on depictions of the American War in Vietnam.

Check it out here … then thank me later!

New Opium Traces…Quiet American

My latest Opium Traces article is now online over at PopMatters…it’s the first of a two-part look at pop representations of the American War in Vietnam.

First up, Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American and the two film adaptations…

Dig it here: http://www.popmatters.com/column/how-the-quiet-american-continues-to-colonize-vietnam/

Saint Jack in Playboy 1978

Not long ago I wrote about the excellent film Saint Jack, shot on location in Singapore in the late 1970s, for my Opium Traces column at PopMatters.com. You can read that here.

One of the sources for my work is Ben Slater’s 2006 book on the film (link in the article), and one of Slater’s sources is an article about the film in the December 1978 issue of Playboy magazine. The article features some racy pictures (pretty but tame by today’s standards, but NSFW even still) as well as a long interview with the director Peter Bogdanovich…because, you know, people read Playboy for the interviews…

Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ve bought the issue and scanned the article and posted it here…click to enlarge and enjoy!

 

 

Flowers of Shanghai – New Opium Traces column at PopMatters

Hey hey hey just in time to be timely, my latest Opium Traces column has been posted on PopMatters…a meditation on Han Bang Qing’s 1890s novel The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai and Hou Hsiao Hsien’s 1998 film adpation Flowers of Shanghai.

Check out the full article here: http://www.popmatters.com/column/life-in-the-interzone-in-old-shanghai/

New Opium Traces article Living Dangerously

Here’s my latest Opium Traces article, a meditation on the book and film The Year of Living Dangerously, set in Indonesia on the eve of the 1965 coup.

Check it out along with all the other great material on popmatters and support independent media by sharing with your like-minded friends.

http://www.popmatters.com/column/still-living-dangerously-after-all-these-years/

 

new Opium Traces feature

My latest Opium Traces feature column is now available at popmatters.com. It’s a take-down of the latest John Burdett novel The Bangkok Asset  which misses the mark so widely that it may signal the end of the once incrediable Jitpleecheep detective series.

Check it out here: http://www.popmatters.com/column/robot-zombies-of-angkor-wat-john-burdett-bankkok-asset/

New Opium Traces article on popmatters…Saint Jack!

After a hiatus to work on the upcoming NIAS Press release of Alfred Raquez’s In the Land of Pagodas, I’m once again writing the Opium Traces feature column for popmatters.com.

The return…a meditation on Saint Jack, the book and film that captured Singapore in the swinging 1960s…

Check it out now!

http://www.popmatters.com/column/the-absolution-of-saint-jack-in-a-world-lacking-irony/

Expat Indonesia History issue

I’ve always enjoyed the freebie rags that appear weekly or bi-weekly in most of the cities where I’ve lived. In LA and Sandy Eggo we had weekly “Readers;” NYC had the New York Press and it’s pompous auntie, the Village Voice. Singapore had a a few weeklies that came and went. I contributed to at least one of these.

Here in Jakarta we have Expat Indonesia. It used to be Expat Jakarta and Expat Bali, but a year or two back they folded into one periodical. The current issue features articles by not one but TWO of my fellow Monsoon Books authors.

Here is the cover story by Tim Hannigan: http://indonesiaexpat.biz/travel/history-culture/the-dawn-of-indonesian-islam/

And here is my interview with Tim from popmatters: http://www.popmatters.com/column/its-in-the-blood-a-conversation-with-history-writer-tim-hannigan/

And Rosie Milne puts in an appearance here: http://indonesiaexpat.biz/travel/history-culture/life-back-then/

Rosie and I presented together at the Singapore Books Festival last year…blog post here. Also check out the interview with me on Rosie’s blog (which people actually apparently read)…here.

And finally, since we dig jazz and art music and world music, there is this amazing column by Terry Collins on how all these genres intersected in an avant garde singer nearly 100 years ago: http://indonesiaexpat.biz/travel/history-culture/influence-javanese-music-on-jazz/

So click those links and support independent writers and publishers…’cause honey, we don’t do this for the money…