Fringer | คนชายขอบ

Just wanted to jot down some notes from the first three days of my vacation which comprised 1) attending cousin’s graduation ceremonies at Harvard, 2) reminiscing my college days by wandering around Harvard Square and visiting overlooked collections at the Museum of Fine Arts, and 3) visiting the new “Newseum” museum in Washington D.C. Apologies to regular readers of this blog for not writing in English - I did not bring my notebook computer and so have no access to a Thai keyboard.

When I get back to Bangkok on June 19, I will try to do a more thorough write-up of these places, although the memories of Harvard will probably be more fitting as the epilogue of my upcoming (”it’ll-be-done-whenever-it’s-done”) book on educational experience in the U.S.

Signing off from sunny & colorful Arles in France, which is making me understand why Van Gogh was so excited about this place he made 300 paintings and drawings in a period of less than 2 years. I am trying to do some “Impressionistic writing” in Thai that hopefully will result in a book at some point

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The first link right after each item number goes to a corresponding Flickr set.

1) Harvard commencement ceremony: many more people than I think attended my graduation 12 years ago; even the narrow fringes around Widener Library were full of quickly filled chairs. This isn’t surprising considering that J.K. Rowling (of Harry Potter fame) was the speaker this year. Her excellent speech was worth the wait and more than made up for Drew Faust’s boring monologue (which should have been condensed into “please give us more money” so we wouldn’t have to fidget around in our chairs for 40+ minutes).

A huge crowd formed on the steps of Widener Library before 9 am.

2) Reminiscing about college days and going to overlooked collections in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: ah, the memories! Some of my favorite places in Harvard Square (most notably Wordsmith, a really great indie bookstore) are gone; many of them have been replaced by Starbucks. But I’m glad to see that many favorites are still standing:

Border Cafe: in my opinion, this Mexican/Cajun restaurant is the best restaurant in Harvard Square. When I was student, it was so popular they would take down names and handed out beepers, which would beep when our table was ready. I used to go wait in the nearby Coop for fear of straying too far from the beeper radius.


Million Year Picnic: the best comic bookstore in town. I used to go to this place every week, and almost every time I’d come out with a handful of great indie comics. Tony, the owner of this store, is awesome and seems to know every English-language comic ever published

Chess tables in front of Au Bon Pain: long before Au Bon Pain embarked on their global journey, I used to hang out here almost every day with a cup of hot cocoa (didn’t start coffee until after college). Beating the resident chess master still gets you $2 - the same rate as a decade ago. I never beat the guys here but I came close to it once (when I suspected the chess master was slightly drunk).

Rare face of Prince Hemiunu, builder of the Great Pyramids at Giza, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA). When I was a college student, I was too enamored with Roman and Renaissance art that I never paid much attention to other sections of the MFA. Which was pretty stupid, as the MFA houses one of the best collections of Egyptian art in the U.S., as well as really nice collections of medieval, Japanese, and African art, including a nice replica of Japanese Buddhist shrine and medieval Christian shrine which I finally got to see years later.

3) Newseum: a new private museum in Washington, D.C. It’s a private museum about news founded by some of the world’s largest media corporations.

The nice Newseum building. In general I’d say the experience is worth the $20 ticket price.

The 9/11 exhibit at the Newseum features the actual remains of cable atop the World Trade Center and a moving story of the only professional photographer who lost his life covering the day’s events. A minitheatre here shows a moving 10-minute short film about 9/11, told from the reporters’ perspectives and has a lot of raw unedited TV footage.

Giant representation of “Worldwide Press Freedom Index” as recorded by Freedom House. Not surprisingly, Thailand is rated yellow or “partly free.”

Newseum has a nice collection of Pulitzer prize photographs, complete with descriptions and annotations.

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