Don Shewey of the Village Voice says,
"Gray zigzags through his far-flung adventures with the speed and agility of an Indy
500 driver on the San Diego Freeway." Vicki
Juditz (featured in our Wags section as monologist and mother of Molly)
says, "In his finest monologue, Swimming to Cambodia, Spalding Gray tells how he landed a role in The Killing Fields
and became deeply affected by the story of Dith Pran, a Cambodian photographer who risked
his life to help New York Times journalist Sidney Schanberg tell the American
people about their country's secret bombing of Cambodia. With razor-sharp wit and
chilling irony, Gray juxtaposes the surreal actor's "life on location" with the
scenes of mass murder staged for the camera. Through it all, Gray searches for the
Perfect Moment."From
the first chapter of Swimming to Cambodia,
So it was our first day off in a long time and there were
about 130 of us out by the pool trying to get a little rest and relaxation, and the Thai
waiters were running and jumping over hedges to bring us "Kloster! More
Kloster!" Everyone was ordering Kloster beer. No one was ordering the Singal
because someone had said that Singal, which is exported to the United States, has
formaldehyde in it. The waiters were running and jumping over hedges because they
couldn’t get to us fast enough. They were running and jumping and smiling – not
a silly smile but a profound smile, a deep smile. There was nothing idiotic about it
because the Thais have a word, sanug, which, loosely translated, means
"fun." And they never do anything that isn’t sanug – if it
isn’t sanug they won't touch it.
Some say that the Thais are the nicest people that money can buy,
because they like to have fun. They know how to have fun and, perhaps due to their very
permissive strain of Buddhism, they don’t have to suffer for it after they have it.
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