harper says

We attended a beach wedding last Thursday for a friend of the family who’s name is also Kirsten.  Her parents, like mine, were teachers in the Congo in the 80’s.  How opportune it was that we just happened to be in Thailand for the occasion! 

The ceremony took place in the afternoon in a grove of palm trees next to the beach.  It had been raining all afternoon…then stopped…then started raining again as soon as everyone thought it was safe to start the ceremony!  We all huddled under umbrellas as they exchanged vows.

We broke for a few hours of relaxing while the beach tables, chairs and large pots of orchids and palm fronds were set out for the evening reception.  Luckily by then all the rain had stopped and the dusk temperature was perfect.  We all toasted with Kir Royales and ate chicken satay with peanut sauce and other tasty Thai dishes.  The whole scene was lit with tiki torches and the green glow of squidding boats anchored close to shore.

After the meal we all began lighting special paper lanterns used in Thai celebrations (particularly Loy Kratong which takes place in November) and let them float up into the atmosphere over the ocean.  We lit so many, they eventually looked like a constellation of stars sitting high in the sky.  It was a really cool wedding.

1) Extreme optimism in load-bearing machinery

2) Limitless incarnations of snack food - unidentifiable yet so tasty!

3) A prevalent Thai phrase, “Mai Pen Lai”, translated roughly as “Ehh, everything’s cool” or “It’s alright” or “Life goes on”, distilled in this free-form staircase landing at a monestary in rural Thailand.

As an American without health insurance, I’ve experienced first hand how difficult it is to take care of one’s health with a system like ours.  Like most of us, I will only go to the hospital if there is something really, really wrong that I can’t avoid visiting the hospital for (a.k.a - taking the serious financial hit).  Of course…this is the crux of the problem!  If all Americans were able to go in for yearly physicals with bloodwork and the whole 9 yards, would as many people be forced to visit the emergency room with problems they had no way of knowing they could prevent?

In the past, I’ve had some experiences with the American healthcare system that have seriously soured me to setting foot in U.S. hospitals at all.  

Then there’s Bamrungrad International hospital in Bangkok.  Newsweek magazine recently named it the best hospital in the world and more and more middle class Americans are making the long journey to Bamrungrad for surgery of all kinds. Its so much cheaper to have involved surgery here that the airfair and a week or more of recooperation on some Thai beach is still cheaper than to have the surgery alone done in the states.

Jason and I just had full physicals at Bamrungrad, and I must say its very civilized.  We didn’t wait more than 20 minutes to see specialists, and at the end of the bloodwork, EKG, ultrasound and chest x-ray, we got all the results bound in a nice book.  And I could afford it, which is saying a lot.   Jason also had a couple of wisdom teeth pulled…and it cost him a fraction of the U.S. price.

So one of the pictures below is a hotel lobby in Bangkok.  The other is a picture of a waiting room at Bamrungrad.  Can you guess which one is which?

Last Monday evening we took off from the United States and flew to the other side of the globe!  We stopped briefly in Alaska (to refuel, I guess) before resuming the gruelingly long flight to Thailand.  We stopped early in the morning in Taipei, Taiwan to change planes…and I was amused to discover that a few of the boarding gates were decked out in a Hello Kitty motif!

We arrived in Thailand’s newly minted airport at around 11:30 AM on Wednesday.  We wisked through immigration and picked up our bags on the carousel and went to meet my father and stepmother at the arrivals hall. About 10 minutes into the drive by minivan to their neighborhood, the van suddenly lost momentum and began making a very strange noise.  Then the driver nervously imparted that there were no longer any breaks, and finally the minivan wheezed to an abrupt stop in the middle of four lanes of crazy Bangkok highway traffic!  A van hit us from behind, though not very hard…and then there we were, marooned like a traffic island with two lanes of cars squeezing past on either side of us.

After a call to the tow company, we hailed a passing cab which pulled in front of the steaming minivan to let us in, and we were again on our way. 

That afternoon I had a 2 hour massage which cost all of $9 US, and we were very very very tired trying to stay up until at least 8:30 PM so as to avoid jet lag.

Fresh off the press, LILIPOH’s latest issue features a few of my illustrations.  This one, my ‘sacred house’ illustration accompanies a nice article about the harmony of one’s living space.  

Actually, yes…as tyrannical as it sounds.  This legislation is the so called ‘Orphaned Works Bill’ and it allows large companies ease of passage to use your work (photo, illustration, painting, sculpture, poetry, journailsm etc.) for financial gain without your permission!  

No longer would you be able to claim copyright to your work after it has found to be ‘orphaned’ by a third party and used to their aims.  All they have to do is claim that they did a ‘reasonable search’ to find the owner, which can be faked sooo easily.  Small companies and individual artists would be forced to patrol the wide world of media to protect their work, and would be required to register EVERY piece of work they have ever created in for-profit online registries, which do not even exist yet.  Even if your work is snatched and used by an opportunist, this legislation makes it very difficult for the rightful copyright owner to recover payment or control of the work again.  In essence, the deterrent for potential thieves is low enough that they would most certainly take the risk.

Why would a government which is meant to be ‘by the people and for the people’ support a bill which has been heartily backed by such huge companies as Google, who stand to make obscene amounts of money if this bill passes?  Isn’t the government’s sole purpose to prevent abuses of power like this, which would directly affect the livelihoods of a sizeable sector of America’s working citizens?  The creative marketplace would very quickly be transformed, and the companies/organizations who would otherwise pay an honest, hardworking creative professional to do work, could instead say ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free (just by feigning a little ignorance?)’ 

Hear Brad Holland’s very informative and scary radio interview about the orphaned works bill here.

Read more about this wolf in sheep’s clothing at www.illustratorspartnership.org 

And while you’re at it, go sign the A Million People Against The Orphaned Works Bill petition. (You need not be a working creative, or live within the United States to show your support against this bill!)

And if you’re as fired up about this gross misuse of government as I am, you can email your state’s congressman/senator here. (All you do is enter your zip code, pick form letters or make your own and your email will be sent to all your area’s representatives.)

note:

•This bill has been ‘fast tracked’, which can only mean that they know how shady it all really is.

I couldn’t think of one…but I know its in there!

…or

“After 5,000 years, Adam is no longer tempted by the apple.”

: )

After much blood sweat & tears, the layout/design project I took on last year is finally printed.  This was my first major design endeavor!  Lilipoh’s special issue on cancer is 56 pages of design, photo and illustration - and it was a real challenge to make all the content fit within the restraints.  I have a bunch of newfound respect for layout designers everywhere!

Known as the North American Teen Amoeba, these shrill specimens seem to have forgotten that their brains are capable of so much more!

Over memorial day weekend I made a trek up the east coast to join an old friend in Newport, Rhode Island where she has a beach house.

We drank margaritas, lounged on the beach and had lobster at dusk by candlelight.  In short, I was spoiled rotten!

before…..

….and after.