Bangkok Noir

Bangkok is a city of many colours. Even its taxis are multi-coloured. But you won’t find any black cabs here.
Black seems to have been removed, overtaken by lights. Maybe because there’s already too much of it around. In the slums and the backwaters, in the alleys under the strips of urban concrete and highway flyovers. But I wouldn’t really call that a colour, that’s more like darkness, an absence of light. That’s also what happens with many stories of this city. They border on the dark side of reality and of magic that is inextricable here. Sometimes they are destroyed by a smile, by a philosophy of life cursed by the blessing of the smile, of mai pen rai and sanuk, the idea that nothing matters and everything can be turned into a game.
But black can sometimes be a colour, when it becomes a means of expression. That’s what has happened with the Bangkok Noir cultural movement headed by Chris Coles, who is attempting to turn Bangkok’s underground lifestyle into art.
one_night_in_bangkok_painting
One night in Bangkok, by Chris Coles

Black, or Noir, is also the style of the stories collected by Christopher G. Moore in Bangkok Noir.
BangkokNoirThe introduction to this book is found in the stories section. You could read it while listening to the Bangkok band Banglumpoo Blues. In the end, black, like the blues, is a state of mind.


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