[hypergraphia]

finally!

photo blog of Charm City:

starting off with a gorgeous pic of my apartment. yes, this is where i live and i love it. small and cosy, super dusty but with three big bay windows and high ceilings. and my own bathroom (MY OWN BATHROOM I LOVE IT), albeit no kitchen. i love looking at the tree outside my window, it’s slowly turning brown now that fall’s here. i have a basil plant that is dying on me (i can’t nurture anything for the life of me, hence i do not have a pet) and a ‘rose of jericho’ - a desert plant that ‘opens up’ when watered, though no flowers bloom. oh, that book is the ‘collected writings of robert smithson’. note, ‘collected’, not ’selected’. as much respect i have for his artwork and thoughts, that guy must have been stoned for most of his very short life.

just to emphasize how baltimore can be pretty too, here’s the view from my window. that domed thing in the distance is a church. i am living in the ‘mount vernon cultural district’: theaters, concert halls, galleries, museums, indie cinema, bike co-op (filled with too-hipster-bike-hipsters), anarchist cafe, thrift stores. how’s that for accumulating cultural capital? beats cliche greenwich, eh?

perfect time for farmer’s market! so many queer-looking tomatoes. where i am going to get my fresh produce when winter rolls around?

first awesome speaker in the line of awesome speakers at MICA (that’s where i’m studying by the way): ANGELA DAVIS! AMY GOODMAN! DEMOCRACY NOW! by the way, amy goodman blew. my. mind. so powerful. so eloquent. so inspiring. everyone needs to hear her speak at least once in a lifetime

(then we had Annie Sprinkle. oh and guess who’s coming next? DJ SPOOKY aahhhh! so nice to be a student again)

what we do at art school: throw parties in our studios! nothing beats getting drunk on a dancefloor next to bansaws and tablesaws. here’s the balloon room

art student solution to stolen bike seat: build your own! and what’s even better, leave the pencil marks on the plywood for all to see! this is potentially a cool performance piece. how much do i love perpetuating the art student stereotype? sooo much.

lantini party! helping out with nana projects right now, and as a fundraiser for the annual great halloween lantern parade, we hold adult-oriented lantern building workshops + martinis! lantinis! i’m planning to learn how to stilt walk at the parade school -

quintessential american disclaimer, right there on my “small” styrofoam cup of watered-down nestea (to wash down my $1 hot dog at the Sam’s Club in-store fastfood stand. ugh). strip mall after strip mall. reminds me of time in canada, i haven’t been to a strip mall since i moved back to hong kong, not even in philly. and now im cruising the highway with my mates in a pickup truck, jumping from costco to home depot practically every other day! YES AMERICA

speaking of philly, i was there a couple weekends ago and loved it. it was wet, it was cold, it was fantastic. here’s a melancholy pic of a long stretch of highway from the bus

…

cause in my head there’s a greyhound station/
where I send my thoughts to far off destinations/
so they may have a chance of finding a place/
where they’re far more suited than here/

-Death Cab for Cutie, Soul Meets Body

GOD facebook is lame.

to send an invitation to everyone, there is no “send to all” button. SO LAME. just spent the past 10 minutes clicking on people’s names.

FACEBOOK IS SO LAME.

just little snapshots of life:

my two friends from catholic school got me this cute windchime made of shells. it cheers me up when im stuck in my research assistant cage with no windows in the basement.

on my way to tutor my kiddie, in repulse bay. a rare gorgeous sunset.

during our little tutorial session of french + arts and crafts (yes, an unlikely combination). as a treat, i brought him coloured dot stickers… i think he has the makings of the next yayoi kusama.

during a crit at scm. i’m very glad that my job allows me to sit in classes… i miss college…

inside a work that was part of William Lim’s “Illegal Structure” exhibit at Tang Contemporary. the show was okay, i like pieces that incorporate bits of architecture. however, considering that the subtitle of the show is “a site-specific architectural installation exhibition”, it lacked the incorporation of the existing gallery space into the pieces themselves. why call it site-specific then?? the good thing is that the pieces made really interesting photos…

saw my first HKIFF film of the year - Gotz Spielmann’s Revanche. veeery Austrian film, and very enjoyable, in a macabre, dark manner. but funny too. great plot, great cinematography, and a great mix of sexy and seedy at the same time. see it if you can, i know the screening i went to was sold out.

oh great.

seems like wordpress has some sort of weird bug that deletes my “categories”. really very annoying, as it’s not the first time that this happened. i didn’t even do anything, no updates, no code tweaking, and my categories have suddenly disappeared.

i wonder if it’s even worth going through the trouble to fix it all…

–
ps: happy new year. grrr.

saw three movies in the past two weeks, and a lecture. wanted to see more lectures, but then got lazy.

lecture first. went to hear lawrence lessig speak about creative commons at hku.

my overall thoughts: his lectures, as i’ve been told, are blockbusters. yes, indeed they are. lots of youtube viddys, lots of music and flashing lights and animations. he’s an extremely witty guy, and i was entertained while learning stuff. lots of american pop culture references. unfortunately, the pop-text he used on his slick powerpoint presentation was a little too much - practically every word he said had an accompanying pop-up, when i felt like they should only be used for emphasis.

his points are well taken. after having discussing them with my friends, the conclusion is that he’s libertarian, and somewhat conservative (afterall, he’s still a lawyer), and the points he makes are points that are rational and that make sense. perhaps he is so clever simply because everyone else in the business/law world have absolutely no sense. not quite a revolutionary, more like a moderate activist trying to find the best solution in the context of this day and age.

it would be nice to find a revolutionary to look up to.

the lecture was good, but what i found most interesting was the Q&A session (which i unfortunately had to leave early from as i had to catch a movie - see below). it’s good to hear professionals speak about their work, it’s even better to hear non-professionals or about-to-be-professionals voice their opinions, to ask questions and be curious. it was good to hear what hong kong academics had to say. i wanted to ask something, but couldn’t think of anything clever as usual.

anyway.

first movie watched was Parking 停车 (2008). thought it was a really good movie. can’t say it’s my favourite, but i enjoyed it immensely, especially the cinematography and the soundtrack. the one part i found slightly annoying was the fact that the main character really didn’t seem very determined to stop the craziness that he had gotten himself into - i nearly lost my patience. but, everything else made up for it. also found the tough-guy traids dudes really amusing.

second movie: takeshi miike’s Crows - Episode 0. Miike’s crazy, that’s why i’m a fan, and this movie just about has everything he’s best at. mindless violence, but in a humourous manner, tough guy characters (this time, it’s the yakuza), and a rockin’ OST. nothing i didn’t like in the movie, but i must admit, i got a little braindead from all the face punching and fake blood smeared all over near the end.

last but not least: kirstblueten-hanami (cherry blossoms). the entire movie is more or less about a man who loses his wife. it was… to put it lightly, it was profoundly intense for me to watch this movie, to be engrossed in this man’s hurt, when my emotional state was already so deep in it. i cried during the whole film. halfway through, i was asked if i knew what this film was about before getting a ticket, and i said yes. i knew exactly what it was about, and i knew exactly what to expect. i wanted to see the movie… perhaps in a perverse sort of way, i wanted to hurt, to feel the hurt, to feel the rawness of such intensity and sadness, to get overwhelmed, to drown. i wanted to see it from someone else’s point of view, perhaps the director’s, or the actor’s. i wanted to see how others in the audience would react, how i would react not so much to life, but art imitating life.

my conclusion - the movie may seem quirky, and sometimes ridiculous even, but in the end, it’s real. it knows what it’s like, to lose a wife, someone you truly love. each and every scene touched a chord, spoke of truth. i couldn’t stop crying.

have been going around hong kong a lot lately, sometimes to run errands, sometimes for research, sometimes just to hang around.

one thing i missed profoundly when in america was riding the tram. now, whenever i have some time and am on hk island, i ride the tram, even if it takes a significantly longer amount of time. i just like the sounds it makes - the scraping on the rails, the dingding sounds… and i like sitting at the very front, watching the city from above.

just like how i like riding trams, i also like riding the star ferry, from one end of the harbour to the other. it wasn’t a clear day this day, but the mistiness adds to the quality of the sunset… not gorgeous, but still beautiful.

this looks like something from an alien space station. actually, there’s a big neon blue ‘philips’ sign, and another big red sign right above the bus station… another characteristic of hk.

going around to various coffee shops. press corner is definitely one of my favourites to sit around in, to work or to chill, packed with democrats and journalists - but i wouldn’t recommend eating there.

to eat, i’d go to Life cafe, but then again, it’s organic, and vegetarian, and when served in hk that’s more or less synonymous with ridiculously expensive. me and my pal monkey really enjoyed the food (the atmosphere, or should i say, the ‘vibes’ of the place made my very skeptical self extremely uncomfortable though. i am not okay with constant preachings of “be the change you wants to see in the world”).

i don’t really know what my favourite flowers are, but these ones i really love. they aren’t extravagantly gorgeous, but they’re charming and simple, and their smell is breathtaking. minibus and taxi drivers every now and then like to have a few of them in their vehicles. i have no idea what they’re called in english, a chinese translation would be “ginger flower”?

in the buddhist monastery where my mom’s ashes are to be kept. there are a few elders who learn and practice buddhism there, i think that’s their living quarters.

have been going all over hong kong and eating with my dad lately. true that chinese people love to eat - with my dad, this trait is taken to the extreme. spending time and communicating with my dad is more or less synonymous with eating - not extravagantly, not even costly. just inexpensive, good, local chinese food. my dad knows his stuff. though the food is good, i’m tired of eating out, and would give anything for a big pot of my mom’s homemade soup.

a heavy dose of communism to you.

went around wanchai (he’s arriving tonight! had to get his apartment in shape…), and then over to sau kei wan. that’s one district i’d like to explore… very old and neighbourly area.

there was some big national day celebration out on the main street in skw.

later, comrade.

i have to say. having used the same old phone for the past six years or so, i am really liking my new SE G900. it’s spiffy, with an interactive touchpad, but still with buttons that i can push and that light up to my delight (i can’t deal with phones that have no buttons and only one big screen - i am mentally incapable of not having buttons to push; besides, they are so counter-intuitive).

one great thing about this phone is that it is so user-friendly; it’s a great blend of touchpad and buttons, all based on human intuition. of course, i was uberexcited when i realised that the camera phone has the same 5.0 megapixel capacity as my canon ixus dcam.

i have finally tried it out. here are the results:

typhooning on our porch

day view from hung hom

night view from hung hom

typhoon no.9 view

i had a great opportunity to test out the yellows and the reds with this bowl  of noodles my dad made me

one day i had to catch the first train on the subway to get to work. this was at 6:04am. at any other time of the day, tsim sha tsui station is packed full of people

the view from sassoon rd, pokfulam. this is outside the department of chinese medicine research center in hku

so i am really quite satisfied with my new toy. another thing i really like about it is that it’s black and slick, with a torch! i’ve always wanted a torch for my phone…

there is definitely a certain aesthetic to pictures taken with phone cameras though. perhaps the slightly blurry quality, the slightly drained out colours, or the shallow depth of field. the only way i can think of to describe it is that it has a ‘haruki murakami tendency’.