HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT
~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
holding on tight -- vol ii
i have started a new blog--it is a lot more pretentious than this one, a lot more materialistic, probably be a lot more gossipy, and polished. i want it to be the books equivalent of boingboing.net (love that site). i also want to have a blog that my mother can read (hi mom!), without being shocked at the archives. i will keep this one, because i love photographingfairies, and i will update here from time to time.
Friday, February 27, 2009
death and new york city
today i interviewed a dancer who lived in new york's east village during the AIDS crisis of the '80s. he was rehearsing with the cornell dancers at the same time at the schwartz arts center--his eyes glued to the stage while he spoke with me. when the rehearsal music peaked, his voice would too; when it got quiet, suddenly aware of his surroundings, his voice would dip into a whisper. byron is an artist that has three eyes--one on his surroundings, one on his social responsibilities, one on art. we spoke in the dark, i scribbled in the dark, and he talked about taking his friends who had died out of his rolodex. he was tired, and he really wanted to get back to his dancing. i didn't ask many questions--but i asked enough. he was talking about cunningham, minimalism--the "scenes" in new york city's dance circle of the 80's. i tried cunningham last summer--cos it had been so long since i danced, it was the hardest thing in the world, your body only slowly gets into it after many studio sessions. cunningham is now an old man in a wheelchair, and it's hard to put together such a shaker with who he was. it's hard to imagine scenes growing old, scene's changing. i think that new york city must have been bursting with life and dirt, how our parents' jia hong generation was bursting with life, and how our lives seem so sanitized in comparison.
tomorrow am going to review his concert for the sun. i brought a stack of yellow notebooks yesterday for the next few weeks. i realise context matters for every review, if not you end up being an arts-for-arts-sake sort of critic. i hope i get to be the sun's regular dance critic--this will be my 2nd dance review in 2 weeks. the other article i am working on is about how the national institute of health's new law on open access is changing the face of research in cornell. really psyched about that article. :)
on another note, i might be starting a new blog. there's too much crap in the archives of this one. also cos i might be wanting to seriously consider freelancing--in the future. not anytime close to now cos i still dont have enough stuff for show--might want to do a proper freelancer-type blog, not the blogspot or wordpress kind of thing. oh well. will see how that pans out.
tomorrow am going to review his concert for the sun. i brought a stack of yellow notebooks yesterday for the next few weeks. i realise context matters for every review, if not you end up being an arts-for-arts-sake sort of critic. i hope i get to be the sun's regular dance critic--this will be my 2nd dance review in 2 weeks. the other article i am working on is about how the national institute of health's new law on open access is changing the face of research in cornell. really psyched about that article. :)
on another note, i might be starting a new blog. there's too much crap in the archives of this one. also cos i might be wanting to seriously consider freelancing--in the future. not anytime close to now cos i still dont have enough stuff for show--might want to do a proper freelancer-type blog, not the blogspot or wordpress kind of thing. oh well. will see how that pans out.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
ever get afraid of sounding stupid, boring, uninformed? i get like that sometimes. afraid of not knowing enough. sometimes i am stunned into silence at the eloquence of others. i wonder why my memory isn't as photogenic, or why i am unable to package things as well. sometimes i have a head full of thoughts i can't articulate, other times my mind is empty--that is the most horrifying. justin thinks i am the most interesting person on this planet. i am fortunate that he thinks so. but sometimes i wish i was more interesting. that i had lived longer, knew more, was a little more articulate (i am most articulate when i am by myself in a room of my own).
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
sleep activism
so my SAD story got me nowhere, in the process i stumbled upon another story, it's about sleep advocacy and activism.
i forgot that i actually loved journalism--if i'm in a situation where i feel like an equal footing with the editors.
i forgot that i actually loved journalism--if i'm in a situation where i feel like an equal footing with the editors.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
things im excited about
- writing my first sun news article about SAD sufferers in cornell
- interviewing next week in the city--science editorial writing!
- attending and writing my first review this weekend on a hiphop poetry slam--yes, back to the newsroom, without the old pressure of having to be perfect!
- learning about libel law!
- updike article (arghh)
swamped with a lot of writing, but it's great, i feel as though i'm alive again. tired like i was tired a long time ago, it was a kind of tiredness that made me sad, but i glowed in that sadness, i pushed on and usually created things quite beautiful.
- interviewing next week in the city--science editorial writing!
- attending and writing my first review this weekend on a hiphop poetry slam--yes, back to the newsroom, without the old pressure of having to be perfect!
- learning about libel law!
- updike article (arghh)
swamped with a lot of writing, but it's great, i feel as though i'm alive again. tired like i was tired a long time ago, it was a kind of tiredness that made me sad, but i glowed in that sadness, i pushed on and usually created things quite beautiful.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
thinking about flight
ive been weepy and discontented, and very nauseous, the past two weeks. i don't really know what it is, my body is acting up, i'm really hormonal, i swing between being vitriolic and happy, and my breasts have been very sore. i don't know what it is. perhaps it is the cold--it dipped to -10 deg c yesterday, and when i walked out, my face was frozen. unfortunately, i am also running low on money, and have been cooking to try to save money, and some of my food can get really unpalatable when i am not in the mood to cook. tonight i am going to fernando's house, he is cooking a big peruvian meal for his friends, in celebration of passing his q's. fernando makes the best butter beans and beans-and-rice, i should buy a bottle of wine, for the gesture. i have a lot of reading, i am also trying to read the extremely slow, depressing Widows of Eastwick, which i am writing for as an elegy to john updike, for the book review. justin agreed to get me an iphone for my birthday--i've been really hard on him lately, really moodswingy, really moody.
-
so i went for a run, and the nausea went away. i had a beautiful evening with fernando, and his crazy latin american friends. he had spent 4 hours just cooking--buttered lima beans with cream, pork and potato stew, lamb stew, feta cheese farfelle salad. a lot of wine, i brought a riesling in the end, but it would have been more appropriate if i'd brought a red. there were a bunch of new yorkers there, but i felt bad because it was very obviously a latin american party, a lot of cheek-pecking, the comfort of holding other strangers. i was the youngest, the only undergraduate. but i always feel at home with fernando's latin-amer friends though. there's no need to take on the role of anybody. there were jokes about people with "european colonial hangovers," and salsa line-dancing in korea, "like geriatric work outs," i said, things about afro-reggae, reggaeton, "you have salsa written on your face," irania, who is from boliva told me. spent most of the evening talking to a really handsome puerto rican ex-law and now a complit graduate student called ricardo, and we talked about the curse of living on an island. it probably got too personal too soon, and the sudden way we were talking inspired a lot of electricity. but electricity is one of those things that don't inspire wistfulness anymore, because i am simply happy in my life. i didn't join them for salsa dancing in the end, came home. but that conversation made me wonder how much growing up on an island shaped me. an island is a strange place to be, he said, it's too small, it's near the coast, it's always invariably with a history of colonialism, and can never be comfortable in itself. he said, "i left my law school, because i was, afraid that they would make me get a good job, marry a nice girl, and most importantly, " (he said this as a charming remark, meant to be cheeky), become catholic." for me, the island was the only reality, it nursed me and told me, it was the world, but when the world was not the world it had shown me, that was the moment i felt my life had been a lie, and that was when all my fantasies of flight began.
-
so i went for a run, and the nausea went away. i had a beautiful evening with fernando, and his crazy latin american friends. he had spent 4 hours just cooking--buttered lima beans with cream, pork and potato stew, lamb stew, feta cheese farfelle salad. a lot of wine, i brought a riesling in the end, but it would have been more appropriate if i'd brought a red. there were a bunch of new yorkers there, but i felt bad because it was very obviously a latin american party, a lot of cheek-pecking, the comfort of holding other strangers. i was the youngest, the only undergraduate. but i always feel at home with fernando's latin-amer friends though. there's no need to take on the role of anybody. there were jokes about people with "european colonial hangovers," and salsa line-dancing in korea, "like geriatric work outs," i said, things about afro-reggae, reggaeton, "you have salsa written on your face," irania, who is from boliva told me. spent most of the evening talking to a really handsome puerto rican ex-law and now a complit graduate student called ricardo, and we talked about the curse of living on an island. it probably got too personal too soon, and the sudden way we were talking inspired a lot of electricity. but electricity is one of those things that don't inspire wistfulness anymore, because i am simply happy in my life. i didn't join them for salsa dancing in the end, came home. but that conversation made me wonder how much growing up on an island shaped me. an island is a strange place to be, he said, it's too small, it's near the coast, it's always invariably with a history of colonialism, and can never be comfortable in itself. he said, "i left my law school, because i was, afraid that they would make me get a good job, marry a nice girl, and most importantly, " (he said this as a charming remark, meant to be cheeky), become catholic." for me, the island was the only reality, it nursed me and told me, it was the world, but when the world was not the world it had shown me, that was the moment i felt my life had been a lie, and that was when all my fantasies of flight began.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
wishlist
wishlist:
- iphone 3G (starts at $199)
- typewriter ($75-100) -- really not a bad investment, but this would really be for bragging rights more than practical purposes.
- kindle 2.0 ($359)
now i will just drool till i save enough $$
- iphone 3G (starts at $199)
- typewriter ($75-100) -- really not a bad investment, but this would really be for bragging rights more than practical purposes.
- kindle 2.0 ($359)
now i will just drool till i save enough $$
[publishing] Publishers Weekly . Dystel & Goderich . New York Center for Independent Publishing . Association of American University Presses . Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators
[people] clarisse . nurul . aunty zarina (ummi's bakery) . jeremy . pak . cyril . softblow . karen & kenny (booksactually) . eric . joel .
[other loves] digitaljournalist . ballet dictionary . poetshouse . urbanwordnyc
[me] dawn, singapore, new york city, ithaca.
[yesterday]
holding on tight -- vol ii
death and new york city
ever get afraid of sounding stupid, boring, uninfo...
sleep activism
things im excited about
thinking about flight
wishlist
accents and attractions
i got an on-campus job--production assistant at th...
stories
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