It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see, but not for me
I sit and watch as tears go by

My riches can't buy everything
I want to hear the children sing
All I ever hear is the sound of rain falling on the ground
I sit and watch as tears go by

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Doin' things I used to do, they think they are new
I sit and watch as tears go by
Mm mm mm...

I simply can't get enough of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. It's just amazing. This guy won the first fiction prize ever for a comic book and if you read one of his graphic novels, it's easy to see why. The world he has created for these characters is so absorbing, you can't help but be transported by it.

For those unfamiliar,the Sandman series was a comic book that DC ran from 1987-1998 i think. I was into comics a little bit when i was a kid, but pretty much grew out of it once I got into high school. However I had a girlfriend after college that introduced me to the world of "adult" comics--basically stories that don't necessarily focus on superheroes and that kind of stuff, but rather tell dramatic, and at times fantastical, stories, illustrated (in this case beautifully) in comic form.



The story itself revolves around Dream, or the Sandman, who rules the realm of unconscious dreaming we all visit when we go to sleep. But he never tells the story like, "ok so one day Dream woke up and went to the store and bla bla bla..." Instead he takes all these crazy little anecdotes and historical characters and situations, and plays them out with some small interaction in the Dreamworld that then changes irrevocably the plot line of the story. And it's brilliant. He often visits ancient Greece, or plays with figures from th French Revolution or American history. He's quite creative with in and it's well done.

Gaiman is kind of moving in the direction of Hollywood now, I think, and more power to him. After penning a bunch of novels, one of which, "American Gods" won the Hugo award and the Bram Stoker award and stuff, he wrote a kids film produced by the Jim Henson Company called "Mirror Mask." I didn't really dig it, but the bottom line is this guy is a wunderkind of literary talent. His classic comics are still awe-inpiring, though, and it is this Sandman series that he will be remembered for, no doubt.

Interestingly, here's a drawing of him where he looks like he's wai-ing.

Last night I went to the ballet for the first time in recent memory. I have to say, though I had my initial reservations, it was really good! The production was Spartacus performed by the Belarusian National Theater, who is in Bangkok for a couple weeks during the International Festival of Dance and Music.

I have to admit, it was hard not to laugh initially—the majority of the play is made up of guys running around on stage in gladiator tops and nothing downtown other than a pair of skin colored briefs. Some of their dance moves, too, were pretty ridiculous, but I guess that’s just the nature of the show. Other than a couple fits of laughter, for the majority of the show I sat in silent reverence and looked like this:

Opera, dance, ballet, the symphony…Oddly enough, I think I’m seeing more fine arts here than I was in New York. And in no small part because it’s complimentary.