by William Snyder Ban Kan Throm, Thailand April 23, 2026 Beyond the checkpoint, I’d settled into a seat along the wall where floor-to-ceiling windows stretched past the coffee shop before I noticed … before the weight of actually being there settled on my chest. Sunrise dancing off the tarmac. A faint smell of duty-free perfume. … [Read more…]
January 18, 2025 In Isaan, especially near the Thai–Cambodian border, the spiritual world is not treated as distant or symbolic. It sits close. It moves through people, places, and memory. Consulting a medium here is no stranger than visiting a monk, asking advice from an elder, or sitting with someone who has simply lived long … [Read more…]
Filed December 21, 2025 Walking Papa Home: Five Days of Ritual, Love, and the Unbroken Thread Between Worlds Most people only witness a funeral from the outside. They show up clean, sit in a plastic chair, listen to a few rehearsed words, and then step back into the sunlight as if death were something that … [Read more…]
Filed December 14, 2025 Forest Temple – Part Two Just eight kilometers from our village lies one of the most energy-dense, mysterious forest temples in all of Thailand: Wat Tham Sarapong. Tucked near the Cambodian border, this site was once home to people from diverse backgrounds who came together to form the original settlement of … [Read more…]
Filed December 10, 2025 Brother of the Deep Forest: The Day Everything Tilted There are encounters in life that feel less like accidents and more like pages torn from a book you didn’t know you were already in. Yesterday was one of those days. It began as a simple pull, a gentle intuition from … [Read more…]
Filed December 8, 2025 Lan Ta Sok: Buddha’s Footprint. Throughout the Buddhist cultural sphere — stretching from India all the way to the far edges of Southeast and East Asia — the presence of the Buddha lingers. Not as a historical etching into the soil, necessarily, but as atmosphere, as inheritance, as a quiet current … [Read more…]
Filed December 5, 2025 Wat Pa Jao Veh: A Buddhist Temple You Won’t Find On Any Map. NARRATED. Wat Pah Jow Way is one of a handful of hidden forest temples scattered across the Isaan provinces. This one sits deep in remote Sisaket, barely ten kilometers from the Cambodian border. You reach it by following … [Read more…]
Filed December 3, 2025 Bun Kathin Festival – A Glimpse from the Village (Northeast Thailand) The Bun Kathin festival is a major annual merit-making event celebrated by Theravada Buddhists across Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. It marks the end of the rainy season retreat (Vassa), bringing entire villages together in spiritual offering and community joy. … [Read more…]
Filed December 1, 2025 AFRAID TO FLY Afraid to Fly — More of a Flight Log Than a Field Note. (Click image or here to watch video) Not exactly a Dispatch From The Margins. I get it. We’re going off script here for just a minute. This dispatch comes from Willie. I’ve had it in … [Read more…]
Filed November 29, 2025 Why This Project Exists …and why it just might matter to someone like you. The following is a true account. It all started with, and still revolves around, a book.A mostly true tale about a guy named Willie. Willie Lyonsan was born and raised in a no-stoplight farming town in Mid-Michigan. … [Read more…]
Click the play button below and listen Your browser does not support the audio element. The Mob Called About The Cowboys Filed: November 24, 2025 Radio Dispatch 6 NEW RADIO DISPATCH LIVE FROM THE MARGINS Click the image or here to listen. This is Live From the Margins — a story-driven radio episode built primarily … [Read more…]
Filed: November 24, 2025 NEW VIDEO DISPATCH: LIVE FROM THE MARGINS Click the image or here to watch the film. Breathtaking.=================================Today we’re going to venture out to something a little less “one-of-a-kind” but equally awe-inspiring. Jigokudani Yaen Kōen, Nagano Prefecture. Japan. The Snow Monkeys! Five hours by bullet train from my base in Kyoto. And … [Read more…]
Listen to this latest dispatch below Your browser does not support the audio element. Fire in the Hole: A Sijo and Kentucky Filed: November 23, 2025 Radio Dispatch 5 NEW RADIO DISPATCH LIVE FROM THE MARGINS Click the image or here to listen. You’re not going to want to miss this one. Oscar Slamp checks … [Read more…]
Filed: November 22, 2025 Dispatch 6 THE RICE HARVEST: PART ONE It’s rice harvest season again. Tag along on another beautifully quiet morning in the village…the kind where the air still feels cool, and the hum of daily life starts slow. As the kids head off to school, the farmers are already out in the … [Read more…]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpv6onwsMNg&vq=hd1080 Filed: November 15, 2025 Tag along and enjoy a slow morning in rural Thailand — soft light spilling over the rice fields, cows moving in quiet procession toward the horizon. From there we visit the two original matriarchs of the village: women who’ve seen nearly a century of harvests and festivals. One, the village … [Read more…]
Filed: August 10, 2025 Oscar Slamp: The UK Gets It Seems word’s out across the pond — and it didn’t come from a press release, a polite email blast, or some PR intern who calls me “Oskar” in subject lines.It came the old way: somebody read the thing, loved it, and couldn’t shut up about … [Read more…]
Filed: July 24, 2025 Bread, Circuses, and the Cupertino Dummy Factory: Can I Have That With a Side of Scroll Drool, Please? A Manifesto from the Margins on Sovereignty, Screens, and Breaking the Feed. By Oscar Slamp Let’s talk about the scroll. That hypnotic, bottomless pit of thumb-jiggling slot machine nonsense we call “content.” Aza Raskin … [Read more…]
Filed: July 18, 2025, About Louie Willie’s Dog, Louie. An excerpt from MOSTLY TRUE TALE: ROOFIED IN TOKYO. Scene 5, The Maria Incident. Willie rescued him from a shelter in mid Michigan and both their lives changed forever. …Not your Westminister variety Boston Bull, Lou was thicker-set and blocky. His forty pounds pressed the outer … [Read more…]
Filed: July 12, 2025, Lexi lit the spark Excerpt: Scene 3 The Starlite – Vacancy. It looked like it hadn’t seen a renovation since Elvis faked his death. A horseshoe of tired little rooms wrapped around a parking lot the color of scorched toast. A single bulb flickered above the office door. Willie parked under … [Read more…]
Filed: July 8, 2025, The Reveal Thanks to my wife, and the deep ancestral roots she carries into this part of the world, I’ve experienced things most people only brush against in dreams. Soul-level things. Things that defy language, because language was never designed to hold that kind of truth. There’s an occurrence in the … [Read more…]
Filed: July 2, 2025, somewhere near the Cambodia border. You ever get so empty the wind blows straight through you, like you’re not even real? That’s how I found Willie. Or maybe that’s how he found me. Depends on which one of us you believe. It was a few weeks after the fallout—after the rescue, … [Read more…]