does anyone know why all the livejournal links in my entries no longer work? i think they turned into javascript, but i have no idea how.

I like books. I like memes. These are two book memes I've seen popping around - the first one is for the BBC's Top 100 reads or something like that. The second is a reaction to the list and is mostly or exclusively on people of color and in different countries other than the UK and US. The instructions are the same for both: BOLD the titles you've read; ITALICIZE those you intend to read; and UNDERLINE those you loved. (As an aside, I generally comment on most stuff I've read.)

happy birthday sweetoutrage!

i usually forget these things, too. hope you're having a great day!

Be a .NET developer for Cheezburger!

They even offer health benefits!

How much do they make off those ads and shirts?!

One of the best things about Los Angeles is the Arclight. It's movie-going for adults. There's assigned seating, so if you show up five minutes before the show starts, you're not scrambling to find a seat for you or dealing with people who throw jackets on a whole row saving them for people who never come. There are no advertisements. There are, at most, three or four movie trailers, and every time before a movie starts, one of the ushers asks people in a nice voice to turn off their cell phones. They also have popcorn with real butter. Since we've started going here, we haven't watched movies anywhere else but on our TV.

Anyway, they also offer over 21 screenings where you can order alcohol to go with your movie, and being a member has a few perks, including seeing some special screenings, such as Gonzo, a documentary about the life and works of Hunter S. Thompson. (There was a short Q&A with the producer afterwards.) His life is mostly told through the people who knew him reading his works. It works, because his writing is very, very good.

One of the most interesting things I learned in this movie was that Thompson taught himself to write by copying out The Great Gatsby over and over again. Now that's dedication to craft.

The documentary mostly focuses on Thompson's early career, where he did his strongest writing and went through the craziness of the sixties and seventies. It's fun to see footage of Thompson interspersed with Depp's interpretation of him in the movie Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and fascinating to see how very little was exaggerated about Thompson's persona, and how he eventually became a prisoner of that persona and his fame. Listening to him complain about the American elections is like deja vu - the exact same sentences could be used to describe the system today, and it's depressing to realize how relevant his writing still is.

At the same time, he was also an insufferable, infantile, humorless bastard who let his ego and his selfishness get the best of him. It seems that he hit his peak with his work in the seventies, and never recovered that same level of greatness - the drugs and booze and failed marriage may have all had something to do with it. Or maybe it was just him.

The documentary is great at capturing his personality, helped along by plenty of original footage of him on the campaign trail, talking to the press in wigs, and making funny statements to TV show hosts. He was all about the "freaks", and that's definitely something we could use more of.

One of the things I hated about watching this movie was watching him type. I wanted his typewriter, but I wanted to yell at him to learn to type. He would slowly dab at the typewriter with one finger, and it drove me mad! I wonder how the hell he managed to bang out sixty page tomes for his assignments at that slow speed.

Anyway, this documentary's enjoying limited release in 25 theaters across the country July 4th weekend. I recommend it if you're a fan of Hunter S. Thompson, or if you really like hearing good writing being read aloud by Johnny Depp.

China's first leisure tour groups to U.S. welcomed in Los Angeles.

I wonder if this means my cousin in Guangzhou actually has a chance at visiting us soon.

I am really excited because I picked up The Big Aiiieeeee! at the Brand Bookshop today. I almost got Snow by Orhan Pamuk, but I stopped in my tracks once I saw this anthology of Chinese and Japanese American literature.

I have a tortured relationship with Asian American literature, because most of it pisses me off too much. Yet it's an itch I can't stop scratching, to the point where I took a couple of Asian Am lit classes in college. Boy were those fun! Anyway, they always went back to the Frank Chin/Maxine Hong Kingston split, where Chin basically accuses Kingston and those like her (or at least as successful as her) of selling out, of being traitors to their own people. (For the record, as writers, I like Kingston, am mostly indifferent to Chin.) So this anthology is pretty legendary, but I've never seen it anywhere, until today.

I have barely started, but the intro is full of gold:

We begin another year angry! Another decade, and another Chinese American ventriloquizing the same old white Christian fantasy of little Chinese victims of "the original sin of being born to a brutish, sadomasochistic culture of cruelty and victimization" fleeing to America in search of freedom from everything Chinese and seeking white acceptance, and of being victimized by stupid white racists and then being reborn in acculturation and honorary whiteness.


It is an article of whilte liberal American faith today that Chinese men, at their best, are effeminate closet queens like Charlie Chan, and at their worst, are homosexual menaces like Fu Manchu. No wonder David Henry Hwang's derivative M. Butterfly won the Tony for best new play of 1988. The good Chinese man, at his best, is the fulfillment of white male homosexual fantasy, literally kissing white ass. Now Hwang and the stereotype are inextricably one.

More to come! 

ETA: This may take longer than expected. I tried to get through "Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and of the Fake", and while certain parts were compelling, most of it feels like a relentless history lesson with no point and the other part feels like a diatribe against writers who are more successful than him. For all Chin's claims that David Henry Hwang, Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan are irresponsible writers who've been sucked in by white liberal Christian stereotyping, it's kind of hard for me to swallow that he thinks that all Chinese people live and are educated a certain way, and that he's the authority on authenticity.

I checked the publication dates, and looks like the copy I have was a reprint published in 1991. That makes me wonder two things: in all of the twenty or so years that had passed since the original publication, they couldn't find more than one woman who's "of the real"? (Well, maybe a few names are ambiguous so I'll have to double-check that.) And after twenty or so years, shouldn't Asian America encompass more than Chinese and Japanese Americans?

Mark: I like what you have on today.
Kim: Really? I wasn't sure this combination would work.
Mark: Actually, I like it because it reminds me of something I saw on Star Trek.

I was looking forward to seeing Ab-normal Beauty, because it's an indie-ish Cantonese film directed by Oxide Pang, who's been kind of famous lately for films like The Eye. There will be spoilers for this review because I can't believe how dumb this movie is, yet the movie is so highly acclaimed. Don't rent this thing.

I thought Ab-normal Beauty was going to be a thriller and kind of scary. There was also a big fuss made because the two female main characters are lesbians played by real-life sisters Race and Rosanne Wong. In real-life they are also the musical duo 2R, which seems to be famous for "not being the squeaky-clean Twins" (though the Twins, in addition to being tone-deaf, are not so squeaky-clean anymore due to the Edison Chen scandal).

Instead, Ab-normal Beauty is a beautifully-shot movie revolving around cliche after offensive cliche. Race plays Jiney, a "great-by-standards-of-the-movie" photographer who one day becomes obsessed with taking pictures of death. Such obsession is deemed bad luck by Rosanne, who plays Jas, and she becomes increasingly concerned, as Jiney's obsession spirals out of control. (So Jiney is discovering she's kind of a goth. So what?) It turns out that Jiney's obsession is all about the trauma of a rape by her cousin that happened to her as a child, and her mom didn't believe her, and, also, that's why she's a LESBIAN NOW and WON'T EVER LIKE BOYS.

There are several flashbacks to that one incident of trauma, and eventually she gets her courage to tell her mom what really happened, which is a technique that I could have sworn happened several times in SailorMoon. You think the movie is over, but no.

Then she gets stalked and kidnapped by some guy in S&M fetish gear who in the context of the movie was there for all of five seconds, so when the reveal happens, you're wondering who the hell he is. Of course, Jas has died by the hands of the fetish guy because she's a LESBIAN with no trauma.

Oh, and the whole sisters-who-play-lovers thing was so overplayed. I couldn't tell for most of the movie that they were supposed to be dating, because they were affectionate with each other in the way that girls in Hong Kong and China are generally affectionate with each other - holding hands, hugging, etc. (When I was in China, this kind of weirded me out, but by now I've gotten used to it.) They didn't even kiss in the movie at all, and the only indication of anything other than sisterly affection is when Jas gets jealous of Jiney for hanging out with a guy who has a crush on her.

Anyway, most reviews of the movie I've seen indicate that they like the first 2/3 of the movie, where Jiney confronts her demons, and get confused and offended by the last part, which they feel is kind of exploitative. Whereas I think the last part is the only part where anything interesting happens. This should have been a full-on ghost story or a full-on stalker/kidnapper story. As a result, neither story is actually compelling.

So in doing stuff for my wedding, I keep coming across this newly made up and vomit-inducing word: "nearly-wed".

It's called "engaged", people.

I made Mark a profile on Facebook, and started adding his friends. Now he is adding people I've never heard of, and every time I ask him who someone is, he's all, "Oh, it's so-and-so from the kernel community".

I am really sad that Tastespotting, one of my favorite food websites/blog aggregators is gone due to legal issues. I've been trying to dig up dirt on what exactly happened, but no one else knows, either. If it's due to some copyright thing, well, wouldn't any of their sister sites - NOTCOT (graphic design) and NotCouture (fashion) be vulnerable, too?

My Myspace account got deleted without warning for "violation of terms of service", and "can not be restored". I hadn't even logged in for months! I filled out their little customer satisfaction survey and gave them a negative on everything.

I have one more dentist appointment to go. Damn cavities. All of my previous dentists were terrible and only exacerbated my bad teeth. People, do your research on dentists!

30 Days is back! I totally missed the first episode, which was Morgan Spurlock working in the coal mines. The last episode I watched, was Ray Crockett (retired NFL cornerback) living 30 days in a wheelchair and learning about spinal cord injuries. This one was a very good episode, and you could see Crockett learning, taking inspiration, and being genuinely thoughtful and caring about the people he met and talked to. Next week it's a hunter living with some animal rights activists, which should be fun.

We have figs now! Peaches are starting to come in and should be ready in a few days, our tomatoes are starting to ripen, and we have a ton of mint.

A sad tale to relate - there were a bird nesting with her chicks in our backyard. Her chicks were really loud and chirpy, and every time we heard them, we saw the mama bird fly out to get some food - worms, berries, etc. However, cats love our yard, too. The last time we saw them alive we saw some of them circling the mama bird's nesting area. We couldn't get at the nest either - it was hidden in one of our trees. The next day we saw one of the chicks on our backyard floor.

Do Chinese people get sick of eating Chinese food? Also, what do they eat for breakfast?

The Wikipedia list of typical regional breakfasts is pretty interesting.

For some reason, the Inspector Gadget theme song is stuck in my head.

This 8Asisans post about how American kids hate eating vegetables because it's not cooked properly had me agreeing completely. Or maybe cooked stupidly is the better term. One of the things I hate most about ordering entrees in American restaurant is the fact that the vegetables will always have come from a frozen bag, be a salad, or just boiled to a tasteless mush. Unless we're in a really fancy restaurant, and even then it's usually a salad.

One of the things about living with Mark that I've had to get used to is the fact that he and his family eat a lot of salad. I prefer my vegetables cooked to a certain point - it's just the way I grew up, and the way vegetables taste best to me. I've gotten over it, but it's still not as satisfying as a vegetable stir-fry or some jai (Buddha's delight).

Hmmm... I have not attempted to make jai yet...

When people come over to our house and start pulling stuff off my bookshelves to read. It's awesome! (Also, everyone who comes by comments on The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, none of it positive. I still haven't read it yet. So far, I've gotten, "Ugh, unreadable", and "Guy's such a whiner".)

I have some books to give away, and if you want anything, please let me know in the comments. I'm willing to mail within the continental U.S. (Links to books may contain spoilers.)

Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke (science fiction)
Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 - Using Dreamweaver 4
The Complete Computer Popularity Program, by Todd Strasser (young adult, published 1984, complete with cheesy cover).
Squeeze, by Ellen Streiber, based on The X Files (science fiction, I assume)
Airframe, by Michael Crichton (thriller, I think)
2002 Thomas Guide, Los Angeles & Ventura Counties
2002 Thomas Guide, Metropolitan Bay Area (comes with CD-ROM)
Class of '89 (Senior), by Linda A. Cooney (young adult, published 1988)
The Girl of His Dreams, by Harry Mazer (young adult, published 1987)
Sugar & Spice, #13: Blind Date, by Janet Quin-Harkin (young adult, published 1988)
The Star Spangled Contract, by Jim Garrison (thriller)
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, by Edith Hamilton (non-fiction - not a textbook, published 1969)
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism, Third Edition (published 1976) - I have no idea why we have this.
Farewell to Fat, by Richard Simmons (cookbook, still shrinkwrapped)
Wild Seed, by Octavia E. Butler (science fiction)
Mind of My Mind, by Octavia E. Butler (science fiction)

Enjoy!

TCM to Present RACE AND HOLLYWOOD: ASIAN IMAGES IN FILM for the month of June.

So far I've set the TiVo to record: Shanghai Express, Charlie Chan at the Circus, and Charlie Chan in Honolulu.

The last week is weak, though. Rush Hour 2? Joy Luck Club? Mr. Baseball? Isn't that a movie about Tom Selleck?

This was going to be a comment to manrobotmonster, but it got too long:

Gas is actually way more expensive than that. Arco is the "cheap" gas station around here, so the prices are not that reflective of what everyone else is buying. Regular gas at places like Chevron and Shell start at $4.45 now and it seems like we'll hit the $5.00 mark pretty soon. I've actually heard that L.A. traffic got thinner because of the gas prices, and that bus-riding has gone up, which if you consider L.A.'s car culture, is pretty crazy.

As for transportation options:

• Bike - I'd be afraid of this. That picture is not doctored in any way. (Also I don't know how. Yes, I should probably learn.)
• Scooter - There's too many S.U.V.s around here still.
  
• My car is a Honda Civic coupe that gets pretty good mileage - almost comparable to many hybrid cars, actually. I hardly drive it, so it's got low miles and is in pretty good condition.
• Public transit - L.A.'s public transportation system is a total joke. Santa Monica has an excellent public transportation program - the buses are big, clean and they run on time. The last time I rode the Metro was in college, and every time I did - it took at least one hour to get anywhere useful, it often broke down, and they were often depressingly quiet. In the Bay Area, at least, people will chat each other up and talk to the bus driver. Here, it's like they're all riding to their funerals. 
• Mark works from home - no commute! So I'd have to find somebody else to carpool with. Maybe a telecommuting option can work for me, too...

At the local Arco station, where I just filled up my car with regular yesterday at $4.13 a gallon, shot up to $4.25 today. I think the only solution to this is getting a job within a mile of my house so I don't have to commute. This is insane.

All the free t-shirts that Mark has received over the years is taking over space that could be used for my clothes.

At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World, a short film by David Cronenberg in which he stars as the last Jew about to commit suicide while two Fox-ish commentators watch and talk about it like it's a sports event. It's a very interesting short, and there's some commentary from the director himself, who says he normally doesn't identify as Jewish.

Via GreenCine, the other Netflix.

We finished Transgeneration, and I wish there were more! Definitely get it if you can find it. There's supposed to be a reunion episode, but I couldn't find it.