Love and Illusion 

The Hindi word for illusion is maya. The English word for illusion is love. I have proof.
An Indian friend of mine in London was completely ga-ga over a girl in his office. He sent her enormous Valentine cards which he signed, “Your Baby Bhagwan”. He sent her flowers and chocolates - which would arrive at the office in huge wicker baskets with frills and bows - and on one occasion, a live puppy.
He was dying of love while she was dying of embarrassment. But he persisted and she relented, and he stretch-limoed her to a series of Punjabi hotspots all over town. One night, they were spotted smooching in the Boob-Ooze Club in Soho, and a week later she moved into his flat, which was full of idols, incense, and questionable herbs.
A year later, he discovered she was having an affair with Prendergast from the purchasing department. My Indian friend was hearbroken, soul-beaten, deflated, morose, and then couldn’t decide how he felt. But finally he settled on revenge. He nailed a poster of his cheating girlfrind’s face on trees all around his neighbourhood bearing the caption: “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOG?”
She subsequently went around her forest of humiliation ripping them down, and then decided to ring the immigration department.
The last I heard of him, he was back in Delhi and his parents had him engaged to a Gujurati girl, aged eight.
Love, maya, all is illusion.
It is said that bookshops have romantic potential. So I got a job in one. the work was fun, the wages were hilarious. I was told that the customer is always right. So I asked the manager, “If we can’t smack the children, can we at least belt the parents?” No, I certainly could not. Oh.
So I used to lie in wait by the romantic airport novels for single ladies. They all eyed me suspiciously, and one complained to the manager that a pervert was lurking near the Mills and Boon stand. Absolute maya, madam. It’s an illusion, it wasn’t me.
But I soon discovered that the only love to be found in a bookshop was not under the covers, but between them. According to one major bookseller, humanity has varied reasons to frequent these establishments.
A survey revealed that: 20% are waiting for someone, 3% are hiding from someone, 20% are waiting for it to stop raining, 5% are lost, 10% are thinking about stealing a book, 10% are looking in awe at the artwork on the covers, another 15% are looking in awe at the prices on the covers, 10% are looking for girls, and 1% are looking at the people who are looking for girls - which leaves the princely total of 7% who might actually get around to buying a book.
An intellectually undernourished actor from Hollywood once said something quite perceptive: “Chasing women is fine and fun, but it’s when you actually catch one that the problems start.”
His fear was not of commitment, but of entrapment. He may be on to something there, but then he’s divorced and dead - which proves that even mortality is maya.
On Valentine’s Day last year, I was with a bunch of friends at a restaurant on Silom. The air was heavy with mashed, karaoked ballads that should only be let out with a license very quietly on Valentine’s Day, but which are played incessantly all night long and all year round in this city. Everyone in the room had a mobile phone which they shouted into periodically - probably at each other. The beautiful girl from next door, who has a body that pops thermometers, was sitting next to her new boyfriend from Noo Yawk.
“You’ll like this guy,” she said. “He’s a b*****d’s b*****d.”
To me he was just another ego in a wig. They were soon entwined and valentined at the table, and I was sitting on the other side of her - ignored and desperate. He swaggered to the microphone and from the jungle of my lungs I blurted out to her, “Can I marry your hair?”
She gave me that, did-you-just-say-something-look, as the words hung in the lucent air . . .
The Noo Yawker was still murdering “My Way” when I started drinking the ashtray.
Some enchanted evening. Thank God all is maya.

By Roger Beaumont
  Available at Bookazine

A walk in the countryside ... led to violent death for Diana Davidson

Classical Classic

With thanks to John McVey.
The recital last evening in the chamber music room of the Erawan Hotel by U.S. Pianist Myron Kropp, the first appearance of Mr. Kropp in Bangkok, can only be described by this reviewer and those who witnessed Mr. Kropp's performance as one of the most interesting experiences in a very long time.
A hush fell over the room as Mr. Kropp appeared from the right of the stage, attired in black formal evening-wear with a small white poppy in his lapel. With sparse, sandy hair, a sallow complexion and a deceptively frail looking frame, the man who has re-popularized Johann Sebastian Bach approached the Baldwin Concert Grand, bowed to the audience and placed himself upon the stool.
It might be appropriate to insert at this juncture that many pianists, including Mr. Kropp, prefer a bench, maintaining that on a screw-type stool, they sometimes find themselves turning sideways during a particularly expressive strain. There was a slight delay, in fact, as Mr Kropp left the stage briefly, apparently in search of a bench, but returned when informed that there was none.
As I have mentioned on several other occasions, the Baldwin Concert Grand, while basically a fine instrument, needs constant attention, particularly in a climate such as Bangkok. This is even more true when the instrument is as old as the one provided in the chamber music room of the Erawan Hotel. In this humidity, the felts which separate the white keys from the black tend to swell, causing an occasional key to stick, which apparently was the case last evening with the D in the second octave.
During the "raging storm" section of the D-Minor Toccata and Fugue, Mr. Kropp must be complimented for putting up with the awkward D. However, by the time the "storm" was past and he had gotten into the Prelude and Fugue in D Major, in which the second octave D plays a major role, Mr. Kropp's patience was wearing thin.
Some who attended the performance later questioned whether the awkward key justified some of the language which was heard coming from the stage during softer passages of the fugue. However, one member of the audience, who had sent his children out of the room by the midway point of the fugue, had a valid point when he commented over the music and extemporaneous remarks of Mr. Kropp that the workman who had greased the stool might have done better to use some of the grease on the second octave D. Indeed, Mr.. Kropp's stool had more than enough grease and during one passage in which the music and lyrics were both particularly violent, Mr. Kropp was turned completely around. Whereas before his remarks had been aimed largely at the piano and were therefore somewhat muted, to his surprise and that of those in the chamber music room he found himself addressing himself directly to the audience.
But such things do happen, and the person who began to laugh deserves to be severely reprimanded for this undignified behavior. Unfortunately, laughter is contagious, and by the time it had subsided and the audience had regained its composure Mr. Kropp appeared somewhat shaken. Nevertheless, he swiveled himself back into position facing the piano and, leaving the D Major Fugue unfinished, commenced on the Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor.
Why the concert grand piano's G key in the third octave chose that particular time to begin sticking I hesitate to guess. However, it is certainly safe to say that Mr. Kropp himself did nothing to help matters when he began using his feet to kick the lower portion of the piano instead of operating the pedals as is generally done.
Possibly it was this jarring or the un-Bach-like hammering to which the sticking keyboard was being subjected. Something caused the right front leg of the piano to buckle slightly inward, leaving the entire instrument listing at approximately a 35-degree angle from that which is normal. A gasp went up from the audience, for if the piano had actually fallen several of Mr. Kropp's toes if not both his feet, would surely have been broken.
It was with a sigh of relief therefore, that the audience saw Mr. Kropp slowly rise from his stool and leave the stage. A few men in the back of the room began clapping and when Mr. Kropp reappeared a moment later it seemed he was responding to the ovation. Apparently, however, he had left to get a red-handled fire ax which was hung back stage in case of fire, for that was what was in his hand.
My first reaction at seeing Mr. Kropp begin to chop at the left leg of the grand piano was that he was attempting to make it tilt at the same angle as the right leg and thereby correct the list. However, when the weakened legs finally collapsed altogether with a great crash and Mr. Kropp continued to chop, it became obvious to all that he had no intention of going on with the concert.
The ushers, who had heard the snapping of piano wires and splintering of sounding board from the dining room, came rushing in and, with the help of the hotel manager, two Indian watchmen and a passing police corporal, finally succeeded in disarming Mr. Kropp and dragging him off the stage.
Note: This article has to be one of the all-time champs for the widest and most frequent dissemination. It was written by Kenneth Langbell and first appeared in the English-language version of the Bangkok Post under the title "Wild Night at The Erawan" on 27 May 1967, and it has been printed and re-printed in newspapers all over the world for more than thirty years now. The article often appears as "A Humid Recital Stirs Bangkok," attributed to Los Angeles Times music critic Martin Bernheimer (who apparently popularized it in his column), and sportswriter Joe Gilmartin of The Phoenix Gazette has turned it into a holiday tradition by running it every Christmas time since the early 1970s.
Alas, this piece is simply a bit of humorous fiction, one of Kenneth Langbell's weekly satirical humor columns intended as a send-up of pompous reviews. The Bangkok Post has received numerous questions, comments, and complaints about the article over the years, including "a plaintive query from the makers of the unfortunate piano, concerning all the negative publicity stemming from the original Post."

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