Red Shirts, Yellow Shirts . . . personally I’d give my support to the party that goes with No Shirts. Today (1/13) is the day the anti-Taksin protestors vowed to shutdown Bangkok and from reports of those with feet on the ground in the Big Mango, they made good on their promise. For those of us anxiously waiting to hear how Thailand is surviving its latest scrape with the local version of democracy, a picture can be worth a thousand words. Not to mention photos tend to tell the story much more accurately than news reports, which are often either biased or uninformed. With that in mind, I thought it’d be a good day for a Talking Pictures post.

Rather than logging into the Bangkok Post’s site this morning I clicked over to Stickman’s site instead. The Stick promised he’d be out and about in Bangkok for the shutdown and would post pix of what he found. Those are posted to a special page on his site and include the fruits of both his daytime stroll through the masses at the protest sites most Thailand visitors are familiar with and an early evening jaunt around the Asoke intersection area. His photo essay shows the yin/yang effect the protestors are having on Bangkok’s streets; masses of whistle-blowing supporters blocking the streets and surrounding neighborhoods, streets that normally teem with traffic now empty and deserted.

Stick – wisely – has kept his own politics out of his photographic reporting while at the same time keeping his eye on what really matters. At least on what maters to most farang touri: inconveniences caused by Thailand’s political process, and how busy – or not – the ‘entertainment’ areas are.

Meanwhile over at Coconuts Bangkok, they’ve posted several photo essays of the events that too provide a good photographic report of what’s happening. I’m not linking to any specific one of those – though I will point out the essay on the Ratchaprasong intersection closure notes it “was branded as the cool place to spot celebrities, according to organizers.” I am, however, linking to a story that would lend some credibility to the claim the unrest is a case of the Haves versus the Have-Nots. Because if you’re a Have you know the only way to show your support is to take to the streets with a 100,000 baht gold whistle (which being a good Have I’m sure you’d hire someone else to blow for you).

I’d hoped ChristianPFC woulda added to the body of work too, thinking his reportage would be photos of cute Thai guys at the protest sites. But then I remembered what constitutes ‘cute’ in Christian’s mind so I’m just as glad he didn’t. Besides, no one has yet come up with an app for your phone’s camera that reports the skin temperature of the person your lens is focused on.

And speaking of skin, because life goes on despite what may be happening on the streets of Bangkok, Brazil’s Ian Matos has just stolen some of Tom Daley’s thunder by coming out himself. Though unlike Tom, Ian actually used the G word in his announcement. The 24-year-old, 2013 3-meter board champion who was born in the U.S. and moved to Brazil to pursue his career in diving, said Tom’s not-quite coming out video inspired him to do the same. Which should make the Rio Olympics lots of fun for Tom. Or maybe that’s lots of fun for Dustin Lance Black.

I know, that bit of news has nothing to do with the shutdown in Bangkok, but the title of today’s post is Talking Pictures and I consider pix of almost naked Brazilian athletes quite eloquent. Or at least they’re making my bottle of lube sing.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming: Talking Pictures was gonna be today’s post anyway, even before I remembered Bangkok was supposed to become a political war zone. And as interested as I am in finding out what’s happening there, posting a few photos that require no caption to tell their story is always a good way to start off the week. So I will.

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