The Mahavamsa-Chronicle--epic poem of Sri Lanka (Ceylon)

https://lakdiva.org.lk/mahavamsa/

Today is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday--please do not forget her--

The late Mr. Kuloy, founder of Orchid Press, strong supporter of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

https://www.abc-oriental-rug.com/orchid-press.html

My short story Beast, based on Thiha Bahu legend, now up on Himal Southasian--

https://www.himalmag.com/fiction-fest-beast/ The panel discussions were very good.

Samson slaying the lion (Poland),

Samson & Lion, Peter Paul Rubens, Lion Fountain + Lion at Ananda Temple Bagan. 6-19-2023

Excerpt from fan translation of Fresh Guo Guo--Journey of Flower.

From Epilogue. https://dorayakiz.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/bzhs-search/

t

hese stories don't become best sellers and get made into m $$ movies through poor writing.

KMK

6

-6-15-2023 , or

Cormac McCarthy--dead at 89--from New York Times

Writing Till the End

Mr. McCarthy sold his archives, 98 boxes of letters, drafts, notes and unpublished work, to Texas State University in 2008 for $2 million. A year later, the Olivetti typewriter on which he’d written each of his novels sold at auction for $254,500. He immediately began working on a new Olivetti, the same model, purchased for less than $20. NYT

I've read 2 of his books, I think Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian.

Very "photographic" like shadows and reflections and slow action.

One included making gunpowder.

That's all I remember.

The Road is absolutely too bleak to read, though for a couple of years I read apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels.

Nevil Shute, On the Beach and JD Ballard Drowned World, the best and quite a lot of Stephen Baxter, also a novel about watery end--very believable, as is Evolution and the one about mammoths--Behemoth.

The difference between The Road and these is that there is still enough left for some story.

Ashfall series is also good. YA.

Tool of War also good--

Also The Passage books--by Justin Cronin, but 1st one the best--about kind of super vampires.

Kyi May

6-13-2023

Himal FictionFest--1st post--Saher Hasnain--Containing Lightning--

https://www.himalmag.com/fiction-fest-containing-lightning/

I'm like that.

Achingly funny.

I'm sure this writer can do stand-up comedy and will be a best-selling author soon.

I laughed so much tears came out of my eyes and I could feel my cancer scar moving.

Kyi May

6-12-2023

Ted Kaczyinski and FBI profiler who ID-ed him Ted Kaczyinski and FBI profiler who ID-ed him Sun, Jun 11 at 12:03 AM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

I went to Fitgerald's book reading

he mentioned K's brother noting that Ted often said a popular phrase reversed.

I wonder if the brother David got the 1 m reward.

Wiki I just checked said TK committed suicide in prison.

TK as unformed personality abused by psychologists.

I didn't buy the Fitzgerald book.

km 6-10-2023

sighted--of interest--Poetics + Art, Anselm Kiefer --Paul Celan --fr Gagosian Gallery

Reading and Talk

Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein

On Global Post-Holocaust Poetics inside Anselm Kiefer’s “Exodus”

Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 6:30pm

Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles

Join Gagosian and Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center for an evening with poets Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein inside Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition Exodus at Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles. Two of the most consequential figures in radical poetics over the past half century, Rothenberg and Bernstein will explore some of the themes that occupy Kiefer—Jewish mysticism, the poetry of Paul Celan, and the formulation of a global poetics in response to the Holocaust—in a conversation and readings of their poetry.

Gagaosian Gallery Anselm Kiefer

Save the date--Himal Fiction Fest--schedule + Illustration for my short story Beast--based on Thiha Bahu legend https://www.himalmag.com/fiction-fest-next-generation-of-southasian-storytellers-june-2023/

My Reading on Zoom is June 19, 2023,

6-19-2023

7 to 8.30 PM IST (Indian Standard Time)

You can find out time equivalencies online.

See you there--our panel will include Kathmandu-based artist Manjil Rijal.

I am very excited about this as I am also an artist, but I don't do illustrations.

Manjil's illustration is exciting for me as although I wrote the story from the lion's point of view, from the illustration you can only see it from behind the Princess and all you can see are the Princess' shoulders in a silvery dress,

which I am sure now is ikat woven in the floating villages in Inle Lake, Shan States, Burma.

In reality, Inle Lake is silting up and drying up.

It is clogged with water hyacinth. My story is not set in Inle Lake--

Big thank you to Himal editor M. A. and copy editor S. who selected The Six of Us, and edited us and to Manjil.

I wrote Beast over approximately 10 years and no one, no one has noted a "fold" in the middle like a folded longyi (sarong).

This is the 2nd time I have been featured in an international/S. Asian/S.E. Asian small group.

The 1st was with House of World Culture in 2008 in Berlin, in person, as "a writer who dares to confront."

I always love these panels because we are curated in, so when we meet it is like meeting like-thinkers. No queasy junta double-agents. In Berlin we went on day cruises on River Spree, and sight-seeing and I went to Potsdam and wrote a story on that too--like the movie on the Spy Bridge.

The Panelists this time are all literary agents and publishers other than the featured writers.

This was designed, I understand, to showcase all of us and connect us.

Big, big Thank You to everyone involved.

Kyi May

6

-5-2023

Chinthe from Shwezigon for needlepoint • Chinthe carved in ivory Sarah Becker collectn NIU. • Burmese style Chinthe Wat near Tha Pae gate Chmai 2

A E Houseman--This was one of my father's favorite poems--

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44411/a-shropshire-lad-2-loveliest-of-trees-the-cherry-now

More photos--U Kaung

Journal of Burma Research Society--obituary of my father U Kaung by U Myo Min, Prof. of English, Rangoon University.

https://www.scribd.com/document/530378957/U-Kaung-JRBS-Obituary

cheers

km

6-2-2023

Paper on Burma Currency Board of which my father U Kaung was chairman--1948-1950.

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2017/04/Burma-Currency-Board.pdf http://banknotesofburma.blogspot.com/2012/02/chapter-iv-post-burma-independece-1948.html

I know Min Sun Min, met him in early days

1997--2004

with Free Burma Coalition.

MSM used to demonstrate solo in front of NY Burmese embassy.

Thanks Min Sun Min--for images

"U Kaung notes"

Glad you are doing well and are a graphic designer.

Kyi May Kaung

6-2-2023

I found my father Sithu U Kaung's 1929 MA thesis from London Univ+ Burma banknotes blog

https://www.scribd.com/document/530378580/U-Kaung-1963-Survey-of-History-of-Education-in-Burma-pt1#

Thanks to Thaw Kaung family for uploading to Scrib D.

Sithu=title he was awarded in 1950s

U=Uncle or Mr--(honorific)

He signed the banknotes bc at that time Burmese bank notes were printed at Delarue in UK and he was Chairman of the Burma Currency Board.

Kyi May Kaung

6-2-2023

Actually, I represent his unfinished work (oeuvre)

Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

oeu·vre noun

noun: oeuvre; plural noun: oeuvres

the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively.

"the complete oeuvre of Mozart"

a work of art, music, or literature.

"an early oeuvre"

I got to study Political Science, to paint a lot, to read a lot, to write novels, short stories, essays, poems,

and to live life while his was cut short at age 52.

I remember all the poems he read to me, The Red Shoes, to calm me down when I was 8 and had a fight with cousin Mongoose.

the walks to see Prof. Luce, the art books we looked at together--the walk on the Bund when he went off to chat with monk U Thithtila,

the poetry of Dylan Thomas, of TS Eliot,

t

he Gupta period Buddha head we sculpted and cast with the help of U San Win. --

I wrote in the Dedication to my book-length poem--Shee Monkey goes West,

"I hope Dear Father,

You are proud of me."

You are all welcome to copy and paste this on yr social media

Kyi May Kaung

The Middle Daughter

6-2-2023