LOCAL STORIES:
Unexpectedly, we ended up seeing 3 movies about Laos—
- The Rocket: This little beaut of a film won the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years ago, and for good reason. The basic story is simple—a Laotian boy tries to prove he isn’t bad luck by winning a rocket-building contest—but it elegantly weaves in Laotian folklore, tribal animist rites, and panoramic shots of the countryside/jungle. Highly recommended.
- Chang: A drama of the wilderness: A hotel in Luang Prabang was showing this silent film each evening, and we were unexpectedly delighted by it. It’s pioneer man-vs-nature feel definitely feels dated (watching them celebrate shooting now-endangered species is pretty awful), but it is incredible footage that must have been insanely difficult to gather and manually splice together. Apparently the filmmakers spent about 2 years in the Laotian jungle filming it. Oh, and fun fact: it was nominated at the very first Academy Awards!
- Banana Pancakes and the Children of Sticky Rice: A Dutch documentary of how tourism to a Laotian village has changed things. I found it beautifully filmed but also pretty slow/boring and not all that insightful. That said, Werner loved it.
I also read one book on Laos:
- The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father by Kao Kalai Yang: A Laotian-American author writes this loving tribute to her father, a Hmong tribesman who had to flee Laos because the Hmong were being punished for siding with the Americans in the “Secret War.” He then spent 8 years in a Thai refugee camp, before getting refugee status in the US, where he had to brave Minnesotan winters, backbreaking factory work, and the racist ignorance of midwestern America. The book was interesting (and, as a child of immigrants, more than a little guilt-inducing) but not I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it.
GLOBAL STORIES
- How China got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port” (NYTimes): This is an incredible and important story about China’s new “Belt and Road” initiative, its forays into “international development,” and the underlying drivers of its newfound “global goodwill.” Key quote: “[It] amounts to a debt trap for vulnerable countries around the world, fueling corruption and autocratic behavior in struggling democracies.” The bright side? Maybe China’s strategies to prop up corrupt officials will also be its downfall - e.g., potentially failed deal in Pakistan, disrupted plans in Malaysia, etc.
- “El Chapo and the Secret History of the Heroin Crisis” (Esquire, from 2016): A duallt entertaining, sobering, and educational account linking: the American opioid crisis, our legalization/decriminalization of marijuana, the capture(s) of Mexican drug lord El Chapo, drug economics 101, and the Mexican political economy. Oh yes, it’s quite the ride. (Craziest stat: 12% of the Mexican economy is funded by drug cartel money.) Related read: “How Heroin Came for Middle Class Moms,” from Marie Claire. (Over 70% of heroin addicts in America were originally addicted to pharmaceutical pills. I wonder if the next generation of kids will grow up with a totally different conception of the archetypal heroin user.)
- Inside the Poisoning of a Russian Double-Agent (GQ): The ramifications of this invisible poison are terrifying. Imagine being in that town and not knowing where traces might still be.
- The Stoner Arms Dealers (Rolling Stone / Longform): Introduce War on Terror. Add well-intentioned (if impractical) rules around procurement. Mix with political rhetoric around “equipping Afghanis to fight.” Sprinkle cheap Soviet arms. Bake with high school dropouts with too much swagger. Here’s a messy result, one as American as apple pie. This story is absolutely incredible, and I’d bet money that it’ll become a Hollywood movie.
...AND THE RANDOM ENTERTAINING STUFF
- “How an ex-cop rigged McDonald’s Monopoly game and stole millions” (The Daily Beast):This incredible story reminds me of behavioral scientist Dan Ariely’s work showing that those who lie/cheat are the ones who have the most opportunity to do so. And also that one lie easily begets another; dishonesty is a gateway drug.
- Schlitterbahn’s Tragic Slide (Texas Monthly): Oh, the ups and downs of this story are kind of heartbreaking, and for some reason feel quintessentially American.
- “Sleep Science” (National Geographic): A good, multimedia overview of the state of sleep science. I found particularly alarming the specific numbers around how much longer (on average) devices keep us awake, even my beloved Kindle Paperwhite!
PODCASTS
- Gimlet’s Startup mini-series on “church planting” (founding new churches) is really excellent. The last episode is so beautifully vulnerable, it slays me.
- The This American Life episode 654: “The Feather Heist” sounds boring but is actually amazing; it unravels a strange and dark underworld, hints at a broken court system, takes a visit into the anonymous depravity of online forums, and finally leaves you wondering a bit at the nature of being human.