see with camera

How many tourists see only through their camera? Millions. 

According to Orphan, They feel the experience of 8th century Angkor artistic splendor only with their cameras, these cold impersonal little tools. Their entire experience is defined by their camera. Obscura.

It's not about knowing, understanding the Khmer people, culture, food, art, music, and language. It's about feeling with a camera. They are in a big fat hurry.

They've learned through hard fast lessons to trust the machine. It is their weapon against mediocrity and boredom and shallow emptiness. They don't comprehend the intricacies of the machine. They believe it can and will save them. The machine controls them. They gratefully accept this reality.

They press optical machines tight against their faces, piercing retinas, flickering lids. Point and shoot. They lower the device and stare with hard lost eyes at the virtual image of their faded memory. They judge it. Evaluate. DELETE!

Shoot again. Point. Shoot. Delete. Repeat. A snapshot. Snap a shot. Preserve this moment forever. Quick! They must go. They must move to the next great big thing. They are in a hurry. Death is close.

The tuk-tuk driver is impatient. He wants more money for his time. He waited when they slept, while they screwed. He waited as they stuffed eggs, watermelon and soft bread into tired bored faces. They ate like animals. They point and shoot. They delete.

Hurry! They have no time to see their obscurity. This loss, this sense of amnesia envelops them. It accompanies them through radioactive meltdowns. It is a dark cloud of forgetting. They remember to forget. They are on a Homeric quest of infinite proportions and infinite magnitude. 

Their memory card is full. They attach electrodes to a cerebral cortex and press the DownLoad switch. Memories of Apsara dancers, elephants, monkeys, celestial deities flicker on a screen behind their eyes.

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion smiles.

fascinating

You are an object of endless fascination and speculation, said Orphan.

A stranger among strangers alive and well singing a blues song about disorientation, the unfolding process, dynamic. You are a ghost. People here see them before now later. 1.7 million to be exact.

Fear and superstition.

They pray to dead soul spirits because they are afraid of the dead. And it's theoretically possible to say local people have an EI or Emotional Intelligence of -7. This simple truth or unpleasant fact is revealed through behavior, attitudes and verbal communication. It’s a lack of maturity.

Zero personal individual incentive, initiative and growth.

It has nothing to do with culture, families, chance, fate, destiny, education or life social skills. I witnessed the same reality teaching in China, said Orphan, a survivor of Gulag #101.

Should living and learning come before teaching, wondered Orphan. Everyone is a student on peace street where life’s lessons are small and magnificent, said Elf.

There are book smarts and street smarts, said Orphan.

Children are a tool, said a wealthy Chinese man in Laos. He had 2.

more channels!

“More channels!” someone screamed. “We need more channels!”

Media buys people.

There was a preponderance of rumors. Hard evidence at G Zero was charred beyond recognition. It’d need DNA analysis and carbon-14 dating.

Social worker locusts swarmed out extolling virtues of well being, hope, trust, and bravery in the face of adversity, ethics, free choice and impending sales at outlet stores. People seeking outlets and outlet stores found solace in their ignorance of how the world worked on molecular, political, religious, economic, philosophical and cultural levels.

Long festering animosity and cultural bias danced circles. An invisible Orobus constricted their heart. Their myth was part idealism and realism standing on it’s head. Socially, culturally, geographically and emotionally deprived children listened, shaking their heads, learning a hard life lesson. One that escaped their parents.

Kids knew when adults were bullshitting them.

Scholars with erudite studious means to an end started speaking Arabic, reciting Sufi poetry and 1,001 stories about the rise and fall of civilizations. Stories written well before their meager time with hieroglyphics and cave paintings. Caves were full of survivors. Candles sales were brisk. 

“A tisket a tasket we need a casket,” sang multi-lingual children.

Historians, political scientists, talk show experts, taxi drivers, fortune tellers, beauticians, and morticians took calls on hotlines. The number of callers increased exponentially. Suicide search and rescue teams were put on alert. Citizens packed hospital emergency rooms. Medical schools increased graduation classes to meet needs.

Demand outstripped supply when it came down to fear and consumption.

Wow, that’s some heavy sociological shit. Media buys people.

laosattitude

how does it work in laos, said elf.

a frenchman told me this, said orphan. he's lived here 6 years. he has a young son and daughter. he had, past tense, a marriage with a local woman. they met. they married. he invested time and money to develop a guesthouse. they had 5 properties. they had problems. her extended family smelled a huge profit. she threw him out. she wants all the land. 

i saw her one day when she brought their daughter to school. fat and unhappy. both.

so how does it work in laos, asked elf. you didn't answer the big question from a small person.

men make the rules, said orphan. women take care of the home. it's all unspoken subtleties. they do their thing. women worship in the temples. they do their meditation. men sit around getting drunk, discussing new night girls, ethics, morality and behavior.

what happened to the french man and the kids, asked elf.

he plotted a way to get them out of the country. let her keep the land and buildings, he said.

many people here never leave their village. why. everything i have is here. a village maintains the other world.

silent style

elements of silence said farewell

a series of eyes investigated decompression 

while swallowing fresh yogurt with peach slices

near afternoon's languishing empty promises

intent on discovering

explanations have to end somewhere

in her village she threaded new beginnings

her loom waited for the pressure, the tightness

between notes