One Too Many for the Gipper
Posted on theTyee.ca on June 7, 2004 It’s not whether George W. Bush measures up to Ronald Reagan. It’s that too many Americans think Reagan’s legacy is worth celebrating. By Daniel Gawthrop [Editor’s note: Steve Burgess’s article comparing George W. Bush unfavourably to Ronald Reagan, on the occasion of Reagan’s death, drew a number of responses.] Steve Burgess is a darned good humourist, and consistently so. Which is why I was a little disappointed by ...
In The Thrall of the Passionate Buddha
Posted on theTyee.ca on April 19, 2004 He spooks official China; he enraptures Goldie Hawn. How to explain the impact of the Tibetan spiritual leader? By Daniel Gawthrop Every time Tenzin Gyatso—better known as His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama—lands in a Western country, two kinds of stories abound. The first is political: will the country’s presiding leader grant an audience with His Holiness, thus incurring the wrath of the Chinese government (which on one ...
Miracle Whip and Cuban Salsa
Posted on dooneyscafe.com on February 11, 2004 Daniel Gawthrop explains why he can’t bring himself to shell out $11.50 to see Hollywood’s latest hockey metaphor for jingoistic porn. Last week was a busy one for the spin doctors of our national sport. First the CBC, playing the Janet Jackson/Nipplegate card, decided to muzzle “Hockey Night” loudmouth Don Cherry because of outrage over his francophobic comments on “Coach’s Corner”. (A seven-second tape delay and a federal ...
Hockey night in Chiang Mai
Published in the Vancouver Sun on Saturday, March 15, 2003 By Daniel Gawthrop BANGKOK—On the surface, it has all the elements of a classic Thai scam. A Canadian drifter claiming to be related to a famous hockey personality shows up in Bangkok and sweet-talks his way into a coaching gig with the new Thai national ice hockey team. He’s supposed to report to training camp in Chiang Mai, the mountainous northern city where the team ...
The Lady’s Not for Burning
WAITING FOR THE LADY
■ CHRISTOPHER G MOORE
Heaven Lake Press Available at leading bookstores Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop Published in The Nation (Bangkok) on Sunday, March 23, 2003 THIS BURMESE ROAD NOVEL, Chris Moore’s sixteenth work of fiction, follows the adventures of Sloan Walcott, a Bangkok-based photographer and art collector who’s still married to the Japanese woman he met in the early Seventies. Now it’s the spring of 2002. Walcott is turning 53 but ...
■ CHRISTOPHER G MOORE
Heaven Lake Press Available at leading bookstores Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop Published in The Nation (Bangkok) on Sunday, March 23, 2003 THIS BURMESE ROAD NOVEL, Chris Moore’s sixteenth work of fiction, follows the adventures of Sloan Walcott, a Bangkok-based photographer and art collector who’s still married to the Japanese woman he met in the early Seventies. Now it’s the spring of 2002. Walcott is turning 53 but ...
Searching for Diana
Posted on Dooneyscafe.com on September 17, 2002 Daniel Gawthrop has second thoughts about music, marketing and his own concert reviewing ability after the Bangkok appearance of an old schoolmate-turned-First Lady of Popular Jazz. Not long ago, I published a lousy article in the newspaper I work for in Bangkok. That’s quite an admission to make. Like most writers, I invest a lot of ego and presumptions-of-authority-and-relevance into my work. So allow me to qualify that ...
Islam’s ‘Band of Brothers’
Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan
By. Robert D Kaplan Vintage Departures Available at Asia Books, Bt595 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop Published in The Nation (Bangkok) in 2002 Before his capture and execution by the doomed Taliban regime last October 26, veteran guerrilla fighter Abdul Haq was one of the brightest lights of the Afghan resistance. The 43-year-old Pashtun commander, a hero of the anti-Soviet war, was widely respected for his ...
By. Robert D Kaplan Vintage Departures Available at Asia Books, Bt595 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop Published in The Nation (Bangkok) in 2002 Before his capture and execution by the doomed Taliban regime last October 26, veteran guerrilla fighter Abdul Haq was one of the brightest lights of the Afghan resistance. The 43-year-old Pashtun commander, a hero of the anti-Soviet war, was widely respected for his ...
Welcome to the Machine
Concert review by Daniel Gawthrop Published in The Nation (Bangkok) on April 13, 2002 An evening with Roger Waters “In the Flesh” was a trip down memory lane on Wednesday night. But that’s exactly how the audience at Impact Arena wanted it. Waters, the 58-year-old, salt-and-pepper-haired co-founder of Pink Floyd, played a nearly flawless three-hour concert that was dominated by great moments from the Pink Floyd catalogue. Backed by an 11-piece band including well-travelled session ...
The Curse of Leni Riefenstahl
When you’re Adolf Hitler’s most celebrated propagandist, redemption can prove elusive—even at age 100. By Daniel Gawthrop Posted on Dooneyscafe.com under “Probes” on February 6, 2002 To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.
–filmmaker Akiro Kurosawa, receiving the lifetime achievement award at the 1990 Oscars. I’m more attracted by an aesthetic subject than by an ugly one. I can’t be creative with a negative subject.
–filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, defending her legacy as ...
–filmmaker Akiro Kurosawa, receiving the lifetime achievement award at the 1990 Oscars. I’m more attracted by an aesthetic subject than by an ugly one. I can’t be creative with a negative subject.
–filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, defending her legacy as ...
Stateless and Forgotten
Last week, Thai and Burmese Officials agreed at bilateral meetings to repatriate illegal Burmese migrants. The plan has some 100,000 ethnic Shan people here wondering how they might be affected. Published in The Nation (Bangkok) on Monday, January 14, 2002 Story and photos by Daniel Gawthrop One afternoon last May, at a temporary shelter for displaced persons in the Fang district of Chiang Mai province, I stood by and watched helplessly as 48 ethnic Shan ...
