Notice, from now on I will speak and write in Burmese as little as possible-

I will mostly post puctures. below RAT russian asset trump

First attack 2021 after m a h coup--with water cannon then.

NW and kneeling asst.

Women killed taking supplies to market, UNHCR map of IDP Internally Displaced Persons 2023

My Ph.D. commencement invitation 1994

Conductor Ricardo Muti gave the Commencement speech.

He joked that usually his back is to the audience.

It was very hot, in Franklin Field.

kmk

7-13-2023

Apple who jumped to her death--rather than be arrested and tortured-Rest in Protest--

I found photo of original edition of Win Tin's What's That? A Human Hell that he gave me, but I don't know where the book is--

His handwriting on title page reads

To Sayamagyi "Great (female) Teacher, Daw Kyi May Kaung

signed Win Tin."

His photo is superimposed on an image of Insein Jail.

I'm working from a printout from an online copy.

Kyi May

There is no shortage of food, at least here, but people are starving-photos+ text -K.MKaung

Books written by others, books written by me.

Found Abstracts--Kyi May Kaung

Poetry prize from 1994--Academy of American Poets

<

New paperbacks--

https://lithub.com/26-books-out-in-paperback-this-july/

Beautiful documentary filmed in Bhutan--

https://www.himalmag.com/arun-bhattarai-the-next-guardian/

HImal Fiction Fest-panel II--Kyi May Kaung-The Beast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB1bW9NEzIM

Vulture restaurants in Nepal

https://www.himalmag.com/nepal-endangered-vulture-population-conservation/

NYT--last moments of Titan passengers and crew--warning--graphic-disturbing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/us/titan-submersible-passengers.html

Drowned by greed and their own money.

Rush kept going in spite of repeated problems and warnings.

The best would be to shut down this sort of thing and set up strict monetary and scientific/engineering controls.

It may be "their money, their risk" but what about the surviving family members?

I could not read more than a few pages.

kmk

7-2-2023

The Prayer--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt_OkgSOrkU

https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/junta-commando-unit-linked-to-several-killings-of-pdf-members-in-sagaing/

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

Link not working again--Google it yourself. Image --Cherokee Trail of Tears, USA.

Brooklyn Duo--This Cello loves Piano and she loves him--Pachelbel Canon in D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptk_1Dc2iPY Listen to good music, read good books, eat good foor live a good life. Kyi May Kaung 5-28-2023

Marecelito Pomoy sings The Prayer--both roles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x462Hia_7hU

Kyiv hit with barrage of over 40 Russian missiles

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/world/europe/russia-drone-attack-kyiv.html

Cyclone Mocha Strikes Myanmar https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151343/cyclone-mocha-strikes-myanmar

UN says 800,000 affected

junta says 145.

fr Irrawaddy k

4 days ago--NASA report Mocha

Cyclone Mocha Strikes Myanmar

Cyclone Mocha Strikes Myanmar

May 14, 2023

PNG

As Cyclone Mocha approached Myanmar on May 14, 2023, winds roared as fast as 175 miles (280 kilometers) per hour, enough to make it a category 5 storm. Although the storm weakened slightly during the final hours of its approach, Mocha still brought dangerous winds, downpours, and storm surge when it made landfall just north of Sittwe, Myanmar.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of the cyclone at 07:15 Universal Time (1:45 p.m. local time) on May 14, 2023, as the storm neared landfall.

The storm underwent a period of rapid intensification on May 14 as it encountered warm water in the Bay of Bengal and little vertical wind shear—factors that can strengthen tropical cyclones. At their peak, Mocha’s powerful winds tied with Cyclone Fani for being the strongest on record in the North Indian Ocean basin, according to Jeff Masters with Yale Climate Connections. To estimate storm intensity, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center uses the Dvorak technique, which is based on an analysis of cloud patterns in visible and infrared imagery from geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites.

Early reports suggest the storm caused widespread damage in Sittwe, the state capital of Rakhine, with local news sources reporting flooded streets, downed trees and power lines, and roofs torn from homes. The evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from vulnerable areas in both Bangladesh and Myanmar in advance of the storm may have helped limit casualties, according to some news reports. The worst of the storm surge also missed low-lying refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar that many observers feared were vulnerable.

However, aid groups also report that telecommunication interruptions have made it difficult to assess the full impact of the storm. “Early reports suggest the damage is extensive and needs among already vulnerable communities, particularly displaced people, will be high,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted in an update on May 14.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.

My mini-review of Joseph Persico's book--published by Christian Science Monitor 2009

https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Readers-picks/2009/0817/nuremberg-infamy-on-trial

Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial What are you reading?

By Kyi May Kaung, Washington, D.C.

August 17, 2009

I am reading Joseph E. Persico's Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial while thinking about Burma, my country of origin. Persico's book is an amazing piece of research, scholarship, and dramatic presentation. The defendants are shown as human – depraved and misguided humans, but nevertheless, humans. Surely a strange bedside table book, but then life is strange and these things happened not too long ago. *

Reposting on request

posting on request.

About the author:

K.M.Kaung started writing fiction as a teenager in Burma. She comes from a family of story tellers in Myingyan in Upper Burma. Her paternal grandmother May May Gyi, saw the last king of Burma - Thibaw, taken away on a steamboat on the Irrawaddy River by the British in 1886. Kyi May Kaung's father U Kaung was named after the King's first envoy to the West, Kinwun Mingyi U Kaung. Her father was a well known educationist and the first chairman of the Burma Historical Commission. As a child Kyi May was privileged to have noted scholars and artists come to visit the house. Dr. Kaung holds a doctorate in Political Economy from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been previously published in anthologies and literary journals, and she has read widely in universities and bookstores in N. America and Southeast Asia. From 1997-2001 she had a poetry and political commentary program on air, broadcast to Burma/Myanmar. Edward Albee praised her two act play, Shaman, and she has won Pew, Fulbright and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants. This is her first CreateSpace publication. Upcoming are a full length novel Wolf, and a novella, The Rider of Crocodiles. You may find her on her blog http://kyimaykaung.blogspot.com on Facebook www.facebook.com/kyi.m.kaung and at Kyi Kaung@kyikaung on Twitter. Her web site is www.kmkaung.com She divides her time between N. America, travel in Asia and on cyberspace. Links to my recent publications of novellas and short stories. 1. Originally published in Wild River Review on line, The Lovers is the story of a ballet dancer from Chile, who has to leave her native land for political reasons, and emigrate to Philadelphia, in America. Burmese-born author Kyi May Kaung lived many years in West Philadelphia while pursuing her doctorate in Political Science. The Lovers has vivid local color while traversing the uneasy life of political asylees. The Lovers, print edition https://www.createspace.com/4767856?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026 The Lovers, Kindle edition http://www.amazon.com/The-Lovers-Novellas-K-M-Kaung-Kaung-ebook/dp/B00JX8NZRU 2. Black Rice is a Burmese man with very dark skin, almost purple, and almond eyes. What happens when he is captured in an ambush in Burma's delta in 1947, as ethnic strife rages, a year before Burma's Independence from Great Britain? Find out here as K.M. Kaung takes you on a heart stopping journey through life. An intensely flavored pill of a story in 48 pages. A view through oddly made eyes. "You've got to be taught, to hate and fear, you've got to be taught, from year to year. . . ." Song lyrics, Rogers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, the Broadway musical. Black Rice, print edition https://www.createspace.com/4232789?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026 Black Rice, Kindle Edition http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rice-Novella-K-Kaung/dp/0615797520 3. The Rider of Crocodiles Dr. Kaung was traveling in Thailand when a colleague told her his great great grandfather was not killed in Ayuthia in 1767 when the Burmese invaded, as he knew how to ride crocodiles. https://www.createspace.com/4738699?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026 print edition http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZ6W8I6 Kindle edition -- 4. Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird My two stories, Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird are also available on Create Space, print edition. Published by Words Sounds and Images-- A seven year old girl is sent off across the border to earn a living and send money home to Burma. A computer expert finds-- https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=K+Kaung+dancing+like+a+peacock&sitesearch_type=STORE My short story collection- Dancing like a Peacock & Koel Bird, also includes Little Transparent Fetus Buddha. Print (soft cover) + Kindle editions http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Peacock-Bird-Border-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JWZSL3C 5. FGM—Kindle edition FGM: A Story about the Mutilation of Women. Dr. Aset, a trained gynecologist with several post graduate American degrees, lets herself be drawn into an inappropriate relationship. My novella FGM is now available on Kindle--http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJ3FUOE there is also a print edition on the CreateSpace/Amazon store. https://www.createspace.com/4738586 6. Dealing with death and old age in the USA as immigrants-- No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories, Kindle Edition http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JW2ZD40 No Crib for a Bed, print edition https://www.createspace.com/4768879?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026 at December 29, 2014