No wonder he chose to write fiction

The current (March/April 2005) issue of Poets and Writers magazine includes an article about a young fiction writer from Thailand named Rattawut Lapcharoensap. The article says of Lapcharoensap, who recently published a collection of short stories called Sightseeing:

When he lived in Chicago, his parents frequently took in political dissidents and foreign refugees. One day, an old, scraggly man, a diswasher at a local restaurant, showed up and took over the family's couch. Lapcharoensap asked his mother who the man was and what kind of work he did. "He's a poet," his mother replied.

iTunes is currently playing: The Book I Read from the album Live at the Sun Palace (Tokyo) by Talking Heads.