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• travel

  Sunday, Nov 2, 2008 11:43AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  
  
  
  

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• What does it feel like to be alive

  Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008 9:51PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  "What does it feel like to be alive? 
  Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly backup, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on you at full speed. Can you breathe here? Here where the force is the greatest and only the strength of your neck holds the river out of your face. Yes, you can breathe even here. You could learn to live like this. And you can, if you concentrate, even look out at the peaceful far bank where you try to raise your arms. What a racket in your ears, what a scattershot pummeling! 
  It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit." 
  — Annie Dillard (An American Childhood)

  
  

  An American Childhood is one of my favorite memoirs, partly because Dilliard picks the most outrageous but at the same time thoroughly mundane parts of growing up in America and wraps them into an alleghory about life.  Because we all knew as kids  the thrill and edge of throwing ourselves under a pounding waterfall,  but had never thought that it could be compared to life. But when you do, you understand how throwing yourself into life is not that different than the daredevil stunts you pull competing with nature.
  
  

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• New Stuff + New Outlooks + New TV Show+ ?

  Tuesday, Sep 2, 2008 1:55AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  That picture doesn't have much to do with anything.  I took it in Beijing a week and a half ago.  Just a little girl innocently riding a skateboard eating an ice cream cone in front of a Chanel store.  But then again, that's Beijing.

  I started hosting a daily TV show on the ICS channel in shanghai. Well, actually, I fortunately shoot 5 episodes every monday morning, and then get off to my day job, which is probably good considering the jokes they scrīpt for me on the show, which are so dull you can't tell if they are actually jokes are not, which is generally not a good sign.  If they added in the corny laugh-track, it might make it easier, but as it is I just shoot it in a blue-screen studio at SMG with a camera-man who tends to fall asleep on the couch in between shots.  Well, maybe only once today, but still.

  So, not telling anyone when it starts running yet, but the good news is that I look a lot like a monkey on screen, especially in the first few episodes where I had a tendency to make gestures hand gestures way out in front of my body, which on the screen, makes my hands look 5 times the size of my face.  As I said, I look like a monkey, which at least makes the show a bit more entertaining to watch.

  Well, more on that later.  But, my point was that this was something I meant to write about this about a month ago, but I never did.

  I'm kind of closet artist- musician, amateur performer, photographer, athlete.  But also kind of perfectionist unfortunately, which for the most part means I never share much to anyone other than good friends unless its close to perfect, which is rarely if ever.<p> The side effect of this is that I tend to look at outcomes probably way more than is healthy-- and forget to revel, joke about, document, and remember the journey that it took to get there.  Fearful sometimes because I've had a few friends whose lives have been cut tragically short in their youth, and although there's always memories, just kind of wish they were better documented. 

  I went to Beijing by myself when I was a teenager about 10 years ago--spent a year there.  And can't remember seeing anybody riding a skateboard around.  There were hardly any smooth streets then, let alone outdoor malls with Chanel stores.  But things change, and every now and then, I feel like its good to freeze the moment-- just hold it up to the light and examine it, and then record it before moving on.

  
  

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• shanghai nightscapes

  Sunday, Aug 10, 2008 7:58PM / Standard Entry / Members only

    I found the perfect procrastination activity-- on the roof of my apartment.
  
  

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• Master Chef Fred Kan

  Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008 10:53PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  Fred Kan, aka Shanghai's master chef, whipped up a little Canto-Italian Fusion at his house a couple weeks ago.  We're inclined to call the style "Kanfusion".  Apparently, that's the name of a new restaurant to be opening its doors quietly soon in Shanghai-- known only to a select group of highly-secretive epicures. apparently, though of course I don't know.  and you didn't read this here.
  
  

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