You Cannot Convince Me That Any of This Is Real

It is 8:45 in San Diego, and I check out of here at noon, then kill 5 hours before going to the airport and starting my 8,000 mile journey home. I arrive at 5:40 Thursday morning. It has been nice to breathe clean air and to eat American food, but I need to go 'home,' because this place has become irredeemably weird to me and I can't imagine living here any more.

But I will say that San Diego is the first part of Caifornia I have ever been to that I might miss of the whole rotten state fell into the Pacific, as I have so long hoped it will.

Also, for research reasons I have bought a DVD of Kung Fu Panda , and when I am done with the horrid thing I will give it to Vickie, whom I miss. I bought Forbidden Kingdom too, for the comnmentary tracks that will no doubt drive me insane, but I refuse to expose her to such tripe.

My mentor from graduate school said something very interesting when I was talking with him a; he said "As long as I have known you, you have always made decisions that isolate you..."

I have felt rather alone lately, since, of course, I am, but at least I am not lonely. I saw lots of people from Howard, and even a former prof at URI, so this conference was not so bad. At best, it shows me I have friends, and people who are happy to see me (and who all, or almost all, very graciously avoided asking about my ex-wife, our classmate).

Ah well, I ought to go back to my room. I have bought a lot of books, and so I will stay in my rom as long as possible, reading and drinking tap water while I still can.

I wrote that this morning. My jet lag came and went, like some fickle ex who despises you yet still craves a certain thing you do with mint candy and gym socks.

No, I don't know what that means, so don't ask.

While I have slept occasionally, I have also not slept, and carpet bombed my poor brain with enough caffeine to kill a ferret. I have an incredible headache, the likes of which I have not experienced since my marriage exploded. A high white noise is chronic, and a short venture into sunlight this morning letme know what vampires must feel like. It is only 1pm here and my flight leaves at 7:30 and I canot entertain the idea of spending the interm in the San Diego airport, much less LAX. So I am here in the Holiday Inn lobby, perpetually reminding myself that everything I see and hear is real, and not some cheap hallucination.

I probably do look like shit, Peachey.

And I got my fluids, thank you, but sadly no one else's.

It may indeed be gross, but it still makes an excellent point quickly and implies the prurient reality without using overtly graphic language.

I have no fear of fatigue,and can fend it off remarkably well. You give up hallucinogens, but the memories remain, and so this diorientation is like a flashback, and I sadly have a background in such things and can cope remarkably well. Besides, I have lots of time to sleep...

To anyone who reads this: Thank you for being here, and there. On that unkown day in the future when I endup on CNN (probbl fordestroying that horrid statue on Stone Mountain overlooking Atlanta; motherf#$% the original Confederacy of Dunces), some of you will turn to your fellows and say "Jesus, I knew that fruitcake..."

When I get back, I will regale you with a tale of indignation and outrage at being questioned by some corpulent Homeland defender at LAX who treated me like a common criminal instead of a (now) law-abiding Doctor of Communications with a spotless record (no convictions). Who are these f$*% ing people and who the f#%$ do tey think they are???

I may need to return to the US in May, and I will need the ACLU to meet me at the gates. The Reign of the Dumb will be over by then, but I fear thatthe wave of change weill not yet have ebbed outwards far enough.

The nature of my employment overseas, the exact place overseas, the reason(s) I return to the US ,and my destination within it are Constitutionally None of Your F#$%ing Businss, you donut-scarfing jackass...

Besides, I forgot your mother's address. Please call her and tell her I brought the Life Savers; my phone has no signal on this side of the world.

See you in hell, cop.

15 年多前 0 赞s 7 评论s 0 shares

Marie Jost

Like I said, it is amazing how little sleep it takes to be functional. Lucid, well maybe not, but functional is definitely possible on scatters shot sleep. Pull out one of those academic snooze ball books you just bought and you'll be in dreamland in 5-7 min flat, guaranteed. I pity you if you're having to read film studies monographs (or articles or anything coming out of that corner of academe). I've been slogging my way through yet more books on Asian cinema, this time with a queer spin, and my God they are awful. Most of what I'm reading boils down to plot synopses (and those aren't always accurate, either--some bozo was doing a hatchet job on the plot of On Trial (the Leslie Cheung, Danny Chan chestnut) and I just kept shaking my head and saying, "Man, you keep conflating the plot from Nomad and On Trial and have ended up with a mishmash that isn't in either film. Keep your plots straight before you make some statement about queerness in On Trial when the masturbation scene you refer to is in Nomad!) I keep wanting to sit these bozos down (PhDs and profs all) and grill them on their lack of methodological rigor (what methodology, dear, do you think you are employing, I want to ask most of them--it is a total mystery to me even when I slog through your footnotes that seem to have nothing to do with the paragraph that they are attached to). You are safe from my wrath--you're name has never appeared in the drivel that I've been forcing myself to read in hopes of gaining a broader and more thoughtful understanding of Asian cinema. You'd think, since I'm doing a little informal (i.e., non-academic) research on some aspects of Leslie Cheung that queer theory might come in handy (a gay actor putting on gender-bending stage shows and playing gay characters in a number of films), but you'd be wrong. I bailed out of academia just in time if what I'm reading coming out of film studies and art history is any evidence of the state of liberal studies these days. How do you stand it? Wow, I guess it was my turn to rant. :-)

15 年多 ago

尹子维

Never saw the connection between fatigue and hallucinogens till you mentioned it! And Amen to the end of the Reign of the Dumb!

15 年多 ago

Patrick Chow

Kung Fu Panda is a modern day classic!

15 年多 ago

Marie Jost

Finally, a book that looks at Chinese queer cinema that is worth reading! To wit, Song Hwee Lim, Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas, University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, seems to have some real chops. I've just finished reading the introduction, which is an honest-to-god historiographical analysis of the concepts of "Chinese cinema(s)" and "queer, homosexual, etc.". There is methodological rigor here and the author positions his work within the context of these two defining concepts and reflects on the strengths and definite weaknesses of what has gone before in the scholarship. The author is the product of the University of Taiwan and Cambridge University. If only everything I was reading was this good! I hope the body of the book is as good as this introduction. I have high expectations because Farewell, My Concubine and Happy Together are each given a chapter and analyzed in depth. Finally something that might shed some real light on these films and help me understand them in a more profound way, which can then give me some real tools for my own (decidedly non-academic) examination of said films .

15 年多 ago

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语言: English,Cantonese
位置（城市，国家）以英文标示: Hong Kong
性别: Male
加入的时间: April 1, 2008