I love my dog Scarlett-- she's a living, breathing teddy bear. If Nara were to paint us, we'd look like this:
I told you I was/am obsessed.
Nara
If you are Asian, single, and of marriageable age, at some point your parents will try to 'help'. Whether or not you actually want this so-called 'help', is actually irrelevant. So, thus, I share this letter that my mom received from my aunt who has a friend with two eligible sons. In Texas. Which I have never visited and is a mere piddly 1541.66 miles from where I am. (thanks, Mapquest)
[The fact that the pictures are so old makes me think that the sons have no idea (and probably want no part of) this matchmaking scheme.] Names changed to protect the innocent.
********
Aunt of Mary,
The boys rarely have their picture taken. Kindly return the pictures after viewing since these are the only pictures taken in the last 4 years. I will return the girl's picture too.
Brian's personal data:
Birthday- 8/11/74
Height- 5'8 or 5'9
Weight- 140 lbs
Very fair complexion
Both boys took private piano & violin lessons until they finished college. Started music lessons when they were 7 years old.
Undergraduate degrees: electrical engineer, biology.
Post graduate degrees: medicine, ph.D.
Brian is currently a 3rd year dermatology resident in Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
Solo picture taken during college.
Brad's picture taken during his brother's medical graduation 4 years ago.
Please furnish some info on the girl. Thanks.
-Mom of boys
********
I love his art-- it's been one of my recent obsessions. I just got some of his books, and they're great- poignant, cute, sassy.
Who knew he's also a poet, in addition to painter?
Here's some text from his book of drawings titled "Nobody knows":
************
From the expanding wachtower
of my frontal lobe,
My thoughts race beyond the dream
mountains to the wide-open wilderness
Where a wafer moon gently melts
In the midst of the milk-white fog
a dog spins around and around
Boarding a plane on the pier of
my heart,
A transfusion line flies off,
Sightseeing its way towards that dog
If the gathered past becomes
the present,
Then perhaps the fragment of
the imploding now that is the dog,
is me, is you, as well
************
Cathy Horyn, the fashion critic of the New York Times, wrote about the Raf Simmons collection for Jil Sander on 2/22/06 by starting out like this:
" Tom Ford, in his salad days at Gucci, once said his female ideal was someone who looked like she 'would pour hot wax over her lover before straddling him.' It was a memorable line, and its forced note of aggression -- the woman on top -- tingled with a suspicion that he, like many designers, was interested only in selling an image; he didn't actually know anything about women.
The cold contemporary truth is that women don't need the respect or love of men. They lead lives of exceptional dignity and exceptional aloneness, a quality you see in the work of artists like Katy Grannan, Rineke Dijkstra and Eija-Liisa Ahtila, whose subjects, by virtue of being stripped down and free of props, seem to us not merely real but more perfectly alive."
Is that really 'the cold contemporary truth'? Is exceptional dignity excluded from love- that head-over-heels-madness-rush-of-blood-to-the-head/heart/nether-regions? It strikes me as rather sad, and yet... understandable. Things that are elegant (such as I perceive 'exceptional dignity') are simple and graceful, in a clear and effective way. It's wonderful when love is like that, but oftentimes its not. (God knows i've done some very silly and horribly undignified things in the name of love.) Obviously, the Sander aesthetic is very different than Gucci's. But I love them both, so I guess I'm somewhere between 'hot wax' and 'exceptional aloneness'. And I think most people are, which would make us all quite perfectly alive.
Now my curiosity has been piqued and I see museums and galleries in my near future.
Time for some comedy! My last imrov show is tonight. Then I'm going to ride off into the sunset... or possibly a karaoke bar.
Tonight, Thurs, 9:30 pm
Magnet Theater
29th St and 8th Ave (bet. 7th and 8th, but closer to 8th)
$5- show lasts about an hour.
On Wednesday, It happened again, for the fourth time in my life. I was a witness to random LEWD conduct. *sigh* I can't even say, "I was flashed", because that would mean the show only lasted a second, the blink of an eye, or maybe a wink- like college humor. Something more easily forgettable.
I sat on the train, not too late at night, but in the conductor's car. Was playing with my nifty new Razr phone, when I looked up and saw that the man sitting across from me had something hanging out of his pants. The color of this 'thing' kind of matched his grey pants. I stared in disbelief. He stared back at me, occasionally glancing around the train. I looked around the car at the other 5 people on the train, but no one else noticed, because he had concealed the side views with his jacket and the train door.
Since I had my phone in hand, I held it up, and snapped a picture. The guy seemed not to notice.
I wasn't going to just sit there and enjoy the view, yet I didn't feel like talking/yelling to him in such a small, enclosed space, so I got up and sat next to the very nice conductor. Who hates perverts on his trains. He asked me if I had a minute to file a complaint, and called the cops.
Meanwhile, the guy had quietly exited at the next stop once he saw me change seats.
The cops came quickly. Polite to me, officiously uniformed, with the most reassuring statures... and all trains stopped. A suspect was found and held. We rode over and as soon as I identified him, the man was cuffed, and I was kept from his sight. (Or was it he from mine?) For the next hour or two, he'd always be within 20 ft. of me, but I'd never see him again. We were driven over to the police station in separate cars. He got fingerprinted. Detectives interogated. My phone got confiscated. (Digital images can be so easily altered, don't you know? Anyway, don't worry, I got my phone back the next day.)
Now I had to figure out if I was going to press charges, how far this would go... how angry/annoyed/threatened/violated/bored/tired/sickened did I feel? How much of my time am I supposed to give a perv, when all I want to do is: 1) put it behind me, BUT... 2) not have him do it again, AND 3) somehow help make riding the train peaceful for all???
I was told that bank robbers don't exactly become bank robbers overnight... and neither do rapists. That it was too soon to know if this guy had a record. And also that these pervs like to target young Asian girls. Because.... maybe we seem less outspoken? Less assertive? Not legal in the country, or aware of our rights?
Well, listen up- that's not me. I'll see you in court.
P.S. I'm not the only person with a voice and a camera-phone. (Which has a handy zoom-in feature, I might add.) Check out this blog:
My last for the near-forseeable future will be Thurs, Feb. 16th.
9:30 pm. $5 Magnet Theater.
254 W 29th St. (and 8th Ave)
I'll be making stuff up on purpose. And not just to get away from stangers at bars. (Not that it happens that much...)