Announcement
- two quotes I found in the office of Yvette Biro:
"We are tight-rope walkers for good."
"A great film is a mixture of scandal and miracle."
My blog
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this is a good site
Saturday, Jun 28, 2008 3:47AM / Standard Entry / Members only
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a quickie
Friday, Jun 27, 2008 3:51AM / Standard Entry / Members only
I was just thinking about another concert that was really different and meaningful for me. It was the Sundays, down by the Jersey shore. I think it was actually at a place in Red Bank. But it wasn't the Stone Pony - it was some moderate-sized auditorium.
Bigger than a school auditorium and smaller than something like the Hammerstein Ballroom in NY. But what I remember about it was the space felt like a public school auditorium, somehow. What was it? Was it during the daytime? Wooden seats with arms? Somehow I remember seeing Harriet Wheeler in natural light. Which was perfect for her. That was the only concert I ever saw down by the Jersey shore. The Sundays remind me, almost more than any other music, of all the confusing feelings of being a girl and a teenager.
This song, especially. I LOVE THIS SONG!!! It reminds me of so many things. Being young. Being free, for real.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezrrcMGUnic
Also, last night, I went to see Hamlet with Butter and Ivy at Central Park and it was amazing. Shakespeare is the kind of thing that really does "hit the spot" more and more intuitively as you get older. The dramatic issues - extreme emotions dealing with serious politics between adults - are things that we can all relate to without blinking or having to analyze the language. And famous phrases like "More matter with less art" make sense just as ideas - not as something you were forced to study. The fact that these words ring true, and were written so perfectly, to last throughout eternity, to serve so many people, is satisfying on multiple levels.
The sexual puns get funnier and more intuitive too.
Like the "country matters" joke.
HAMLET114I mean, my head upon your lap?115Ay, my lord.116Do you think I meant country matters?117I think nothing, my lord.118That's a fair thought to lie between119maids' legs.
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congolese, anyone?
Tuesday, Jun 24, 2008 9:04AM / Standard Entry / Members only
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my car's not stolen
Saturday, Jun 21, 2008 7:20PM / Standard Entry / Members only
I never thought this would happen to me, but I went to the Lower East Side the other night to hang with some film cohorts and I did that thing where you think your car's been stolen but it's just on the next block. I make these firm decisions based on my imagination - no it was on THIS side of the Kebab House, not on that side, and stuck to it to the point where I called the police and the tow pound ("Tow Pound" always sounds like a cake to me - oh, if only it were a cake) about 15 times over two days, arrived at the spot to call 911 as I was told by the precinct and found myself assertively telling them the situation as I looked down the street and saw... my car.Shit.
On another note, Ivy Lam and I went to see Vienna Teng and her band perform in the LES a few nights ago and the music was really incredible. Made me teary. VT has this super witty, under-the-radar sort of repartee going on with her bandmates in between sets which makes the show extra fun and puts you in touch with where the music is coming from. What sticks out in my mind was when they talked to a fan in the audience who often gives them pie. On 3/14, he also gave them pie and reminded them it was Pie Day. Get it? Pie Day? Hahahaha. Hahahaha. Also funny when her bandmate threatened to make Vienna "transpose" on the spot, and in turn, she punished him with a melodica. (Oh yeah? Take that, kinda thing.) Good times. Ivy took some cool pictures, hopefully she'll put them up.BTW, I don't think I'm as 'about academics' as some people assume I am - the two people I have been closest to and trusted most in my life so far never graduated from high school, and they're both brilliant - but I have to say that I was surprised not too long ago when I realized a college-educated friend of mine didn't know that chickens were Birds and not Mammals. Here's to Chicken the Mammal. That's pretty - uh - edgy.
On a tangent, I want to blog about my best friend from high school, April. I haven't talked to April in a while. She was doing well with her design line when I suddenly found out she got an echocardiology degree. That was so her. To want to figure out what's wrong with people's hearts... tough job if you ask me.Here's a pic of April I took in a rice paddy hat. No, I don't usually go around taking pictures of my white friends in rice paddy hats. I have no idea WhyTF we did this.
Was thinking about concerts because lately people have been blogging about them. I have April to thank for getting us close enough to see up Robert Smith's nose during the Wish tour. Now that I think about it, she really delivered (esp. with music). It was also April's parents who took me to see colleges when I was applying, so I have a lot to thank them for. Some people don't realize how much they have, so they don't do a lot with it, and some people do a lot with what they have, because they don't have as much (: I don't play no victim, but we all have our circumstances... and all in all, I do think God is pretty fair.
The best concert I ever saw was the Sugarcubes - at Roseland? in 1991, I think. This was such an incredibly beautiful song... just glittered and oozed like egg yolk all over you.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU3JrXt_cPk
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long time no blog (hao jiu bu blog)
Monday, Jun 16, 2008 6:51PM / Standard Entry / Members only
Hey, this is the longest I haven't blogged for. That probably means I'm being more productive. Shocking, yes.I just finished a new profile for Theme on Jinoh Park, which won't be out until September. I'll try to remind. Jinoh is great! Also, the most recent cover of Theme is probably my favorite so far:
Eun-ah Lee came back from Cannes and gave me the update and the lowdown! Cutest thing was her assessment: "You have to carry your dress in a bag." Cuz' she wants to be comfortably dressed usually but then she still has to get dolled up sometimes. Eun-ah is a serious cinematographer (woman warrior!!!) but when she puts on a dress, she sho' is a la-dy!
Also finished a closer-to-final draft of the Beijing film. Some of our peoples are in China now, like Carol Liu, (not on AnD - yet?) who is doing a documentary in Ningxia in the meantime. Some just returned to NYC and are meeting with more people here.
(random pix of I googled of Ningxia b/c I was curious - Carol's a lucky girl!)
Finished tweaking sound for Moon Lady. We'll be screening at the NY Asian American Int'l Film Fest July 12, which is a Sat night, at 9pm. I'll remind when it gets closer.
Chang Xiu attempts to eat the camera.
Also working on music demos in hopes that I can still complete what I was beginning 5 years ago, before film school... Jonathan Tse has been helping me a lot by keeping tabs on me through gmail chat. Hmm. Jonathan has the kind of energy that would make a great manager. (Are you A-blood type by any chance, Jontse? Heh heh heh, just teasing :) Thank you soooo much for supporting - as they say, "only the supporter deserves to criticize." It's a wise thing to remember, cuz' it really does make sense when you think about it.)
Been reading again. Now, that's what I've been missing. I read a new writer called Rivka Galchen in the New Yorker not too long ago, and I really loved her style. Basically the short story was very New York - in terms of dialogue sitting in cafes - even Woody Allen-ish in terms of the cultural/literary references, except that she also talks a lot about scientific phenomena because she got a medical degree before getting her MFA in creative writing. So she's the mastah! And her first book just came out with Farrar Straus (my old boss... sniff!!!) this past month. Thanks to Barbara Yien (the poet)'s forwarding an article, I found out they're calling her the next Thomas Pynchon.
So I decided to give Pynchon another go. And lo and behold, The Crying of Lot 49 spoke to me more. I didn't realize it was set in LA. Zany, witty and full of references to not only a world of different cultures (from Hungarian cooks to Gestapo-imitating, LSD-investigating psychiatrists) but also to financial phenomena. The kind of financial stuff I don't understand. I mean, he describes regions of Southern California in terms of what unique kinds of investments can be made in them. Perhaps more importantly, he deals with a character who has to struggle with whether or not he believes in his job as a DJ enough to go on with it - and how he found more soul in his original job as a used car salesman(thus the title).
I admit I enjoy Rivka Galchen more b/c she speaks from the woman's perspective, is wonderfully clever, but overall, is still more about being pleasant than about being clever (something which Amy Heckerling advised us to be, in her strong Bronx accent, as the key speaker of our graduation at Madison Square Garden a few weeks ago. A fact which smart people and artists often neglect when they are still young!!!) And of course, she writes about New Yawk. I may be Bridge&Tunnel but I served my sentence at the Palladium and Limelight as a teenager. And I do remember the days of real mohawks at Bleecker Bob's....Still gonna be busy for a while. I missed Pamelyn last week (sniff) but I'm looking forward to meeting Ivy in the city soon.
