Posted by: chyma on: July 6, 2009
I don’t know what, but wordpress somehow takes forever to process text. When it comes to editing, it becomes almost dangerous.
That has been the major reason that I have posted veeeeery infrequently. This is really discouraging.
Posted by: chyma on: July 6, 2009
As someone who has got this rule, not to brew coffee at home so that I would not consume it no more than one cup, which I occasionally break, the news of today’s entry title made me think. Having a couple of cups of coffee a day keeps you from developping Alzheimer’s disease? How trustworthy is it?
I wonder if I should risk myself—I originally kept coffee away form my place for I developped a disease for having too much coffee—for the unreliable possibility of lessening Alzheimer’s potential? I heard that it is quite a condition to live with it. However.
Posted by: chyma on: June 24, 2009
Recently I managed to read Adrien Tomine’s Shortcomings taking advantage of its release in the paperback edition. Due to my reluctance to read graphic novels in the general term, I had to admit that I had just put it off to set my hand on it until this time, though I had already found a several major elements to be drawn to the title. Tomine is apparently an AA author,—Asian American, not Alcohol Anonymous, according to the glossary here—4th generation Japanese American. In this graphic novel Shortcomings, he tackled for the first time the exact issue of AA’s political predicament, and the almost institutionalized problems they face in regards of the imposed subordination when in mating outside of their race, regardless of their sex. What’s more, this is the very first work of a major graphic novel to portray and examine the issues that are very common in AA communities but never publicly got problematized outside of the AA domain, let alone in the main stream discourse. Only this explains how little any issue gets attention unless it touches upon the white peple’s rihts. This AA politics has always been hushed up and even rediculed, for having another kind of maids and coolies never ticks the white society off, and who would want to let go of the previledge when it is already taken advantage of the white people’s rights? I mean, seriously.
So I found the story Shortcomings very fulfilling for its ambition to get down to somewhat daunting subject matter as this; an AA couple’s—both Japanese American—trials and errors in mating inside and outside of their own race in West Coast and in NY. In a way, this subject matter, Asian American’s coming in handy in the White centralized psyche but never getting to establish level relationships with the White partners, is becoming more urgent and crucial topic not only to examine AA’s challenged pursuit of what they deserve to have but also to disclose the imbalanced sexual politics perpetuated anybody who is not ‘officially white’ in the US context; AAs are conditionally accepted only if they serve the narcissism of the white peers. If you refuse to play the role, they would be back to be invisible.
Depicting all of this as he was employing the very realism, Tomine elevated this otherwise averted theme by the main stream media, which is always based on the white perspective, into the very relishing read by his very tasteful style. His artwork, though occasionally cracked me up for its deadpan and close to home humor, on the way to the very end actually surprised me for the utmost sophistication and the enduring silence that reached the universal recognition; solitude of being.
It was not an coincidence that I read another awesome graphic novel done by the hands of two amazing female AA artists; Skim by Mariko and Jillien Tamaki.
When it was initially released last year, though, I could not go on after a few pages of reading simply because the very stylized use of the traditional Noh mask like image that represented the protagonist Skim unsettled me. Although it was the exact adversary effect that got me to pick a copy up as soon as it was put out, I withdrew quickly for the same reason; this made me feel uncomfortable as if I was objectified and reduced into the very lazy vocabulary of what Asia had been stereotyped to the Western psyche. I guess it was unbearable to see the enough reduced image that had been used against AAs to re-emerge again in the context that I had to validate and embrace to be the Asian female face employed by AA political conscious female artists. Before I got any clue to understand their strategy to do so, I felt too mortified to go on and never picked it up until this time.
Thanks to Tomine’s Shortcomings, I mustered my courage up and re-opened the copy. OK, this time, I easily went passed the point of the initial problem that I had and reached the level of understanding. Apparently, the noh mask image was the risk ever taken to represent AA in the Western context, especially to represent the life of an AA teenager Skim in 90’s, and let’s not forget that this book was Canadian made; the Tamakis are Canadian hapa cousins. They, especially Jillian’s Art astutely reinvented this Noh image into a weapon to front and confront the notion of facelessness AA, or AC—Asian Canadian, their case—have to perpetuallly combat with. Her elaborate and brave strokes in each and every image in this book was so gutsy and original that I felt in the end liberated by the audacity of the two artists.
Posted by: chyma on: May 28, 2009
I am not the kind who romanticizes Jamaica or reggae. I even can’t help feeling some aversion against those who do.
So how could I explain the fact that I cried over the movie Rockers that I saw again after a long time the other night? For I literally cried so loudly, it alarmed my boyfriend, who had apparently had no hang up about glorifying the time and the place—70’s Jamaica—and loves it there eternally.
I knew what came over to me, though.
I must admit that I was the one who had my hair dread and wore an overall denim on my skin as a teenager because of the adoration that I had about the music, the culture and everything about Jamaica. I actually was blown away by the attires and the energy of those who show off in the movie of the club scene where was nothing more than a dimly lit parking lot with a crowd dancing on the music. The movie reminded me of how scarece any part time job employment opportunity became due to the hair do and the fasion that I got into then as a midteenager. But still it was worth for it because that was probably the first time when I learned what fasion would mean politically and what kind of conflict and struggle it would create. To top it all off, I wanted to represent the dignity they —Jamaican—incorporated.
The movie Rockers was more or less a sequal of the Harder They Come, just more commercially conscious, which was very natural given the time—70’s, when the Reggae was in its prime and before it was taken over by the capitalization of Bob Marley.
Now one of the reason that I didn’t feel like calling myself a reggae rocker was because it became at some point associated with the very capitalized Bob Marley and commercialized state of Jamaica, none of which I don’t want to be caught affiliated with.
The interesting discovery in the revist this time was how powerful and complete the theme song was, so much so that all the rest was offered just there to add details. Therefore, ultimately, the movie never seemed to surpass the power and the thoroughness the theme song had. And guess what. It seemed completely fine. Because that was the very essence of the movie; the celebration of Jamaican life, which could equate reggae, their music, thier life.
The detailed descriptions of how people lived explaine the poverty people lived then in Jamaica. After three decades in regards of poverty, it does not seem any different. But I really have to examine the utterly marvelously dignified life.
I hardly knew that this movie was rediscovered circa 2000 and it inspired an MTV program and a clothing line was made to promote it. Even though it sounded already the over commercialized reggae as I raised above, I can’t entirely knock it for I understand where it came from; I went crazy as a kid when I fist saw those who are DRESSED UP in the craziest clothes ever come up with such as knit vests on top of training suits etc. and all was uniformly dignified and magnificently handsome.
Posted by: chyma on: May 1, 2009
I still can’t get over the fact that Englander’s publicist is Sloane Crosley. Scroll the below down focusing on the event section. At the very bottom, you’ll find the secret code to ask for meth cake and (wonderful) Englander at once.
Posted by: chyma on: February 18, 2009
Body Politics refers to how something outside of our control, namely our physical being– the color of our skin, the shape of our body, our genetic make-up—can impact the quality of our daily existence. That is the body piece. The politics piece of it really links to what happens when external forces impose, pre-suppose, or characterize who we are. If there is synergy between our body image and the external political forces that impact us, chances are, there is little internal conflict. If, on the other hand, there is some dissonance between what we feel and what we experience, life can present challenges and complexities that are important to grapple with. The Body Politics narratives speak to both ends of this spectrum.
Since I had heard someone mention ‘body politics’ as in a negative connotation, I was meaning to study what it was about. The quote above was from UMassAlmerst Women of Color leadership web site. As it turned out, this was different from something that I was vaguely prepared to take a side for or against. This was just a recognition of the reality that we are in the society. If you are non-white, this is something you can’t avoid even for a day. But I did not see anything further than the statement as above. I would just go, ‘So?’ I am not sure about the conflict part because it would not disappear so easily just because you elevate your awareness. But anyway, the concept that is brought up is somehting so premised that it basically is not saying anything beyond the basic recognition. So I just have to say, ‘SO?’
Posted by: chyma on: February 16, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4600589-99930,00.html
http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/ali.html
Although it was six years ago, on top of it, even the movie based on this novel came out two years ago, Brick Lane did cause trouble in Muslim communities in England and everywhere else. As a novel, it was only one of those that rushed out after September 11 by female authors of the kind. One of the reason that the novel, and the movie later on, were opted out with the strong aversion was, as I was analyzing, Ali herself was not really the insider of the community; most of what was written was based on her research on the community with her own outsider’s point of view, which would not get to justify its exploitative nature when it was pointed out. This would not have raised an argument that much had it not for the time and the subject. Consequently, the real people from the real community Ali deicted took offense of her representation of gender and political struggle as unfolded in the novel. Although Ali is half Desi herself, her sense of belonging was not one of those as the people who objected her take on their ethnic and religious identities; they saw her as an invader and someone who exploited them as she was masking with her Muslim name. I guess she just wrote it as one of novels she would theoretically get to write, and it hit the spot: Brick Lane became the literally success for it responded to the mainstream’s curiosity to peek in the Muslim wold in England, especially seen and narrated by a female point of view. That does not mean Ali had meant to represent the community of Bangladeshi, or Muslim women etc. unlike people thoughtlessly expected her to. The Bangladeshi /Muslim community was one subject she tried out to write on, and no more intention than that. Her next book was not anything even remotely related to it. I personally believe this is more crucial point to take care of than an author’s initial success based rather on the situational judgement beyond what he/she has written, in other words, the literary tokenism. This might be the very predicament that any minority author is destined to face, and struggle to get away with provided that the literature industry today no longer employs the view and the attitude that 19th centry literature held to evaluate one’s work. I remember how the movie version of Brick Lane stirred the negative sentiments even more recently among the Muslim communities. I am coming to understand why when I read those guardian archives that I have retrieved above.
Posted by: chyma on: January 29, 2009
Courtney Love has begun getting exposed to media for finally getting off crack and having her second solo album Nobody’s Daughter ready to be released. As far as I read around and piecing things together, she finally got back in the shape due to her new discovery of SGI practice. I reckon this to be what US crack scene is epitomised: I know a lot of people who finally got off, got clean and sober for a year or more because of it. The funny thing about it was that it finally reached her. Let’s just hope she is sober enough or not too damaged by the long term use to know what she is at.
In the current issue of Heeb, on which she is the cover, she touches upon so many interesting things, if all too fleeting, such as if women can’t play music as guys do, it is because they are conditioned socially not be able to endure and focus time alone practicing and/or living in an unglamour life too long. Or too many distractions are there and they are wired, rather socially than biologically, just unlike people want to think.
I also find her practical and deliberate choice of stop taking antidepressant meds so interesting in the creative process of the album so that she would get ANGRY perpetually. So guess what they do when she is on them.
Coincidentally this reminds me of Evelyn Lau, who made a remark of the same nature: she chose not to take those no matter how she got depressed because she was fundamentally afraid that she would not get to write, particularly poems, if she were on meds that ultimately are to soften her views of the world. Ditto.
Posted by: chyma on: January 21, 2009
After I put the previous entry out in a rush, I went to bed last night. This morning just before I had woken up, I had a dream where was Tao Lin in a white shirt reading a draft while a bunch of cockroaches were crawling around in my room. Though I knew they were all roaches, I tried so hard to tell myself that they were water-bugs as if the idea would be solace.
Aside from the dream state, I found it novel that Mr. Lin spends eight hours in the public PC space as opposed to in a personal one, provided he seems to have created such an Internet persona. Or would it make even more sense, for the eight hours he spends in front of a computer, wherever it is? I know he would read this, so let me say hi. It would be appreciated if he could answer the question; why do you work in the public space?
1) to stay up when it feels like going back to bed, too drowsy or too depressed, or both
2) simply because not owning a PC of my own
In any case, I found it refreshing to make it a rule to go work in a public sphere with non personal PC.
Posted by: chyma on: January 21, 2009
http://nymag.com/news/features/all-new/53358/
Now I know how come all books that I have checked out from New York Public Library have to be returned so soon: a bunch of others have put them on hold and they can’t wait to see what they are like. These books were long abandoned when I checked out, and it was not too long ago. So the article above is the answser.
