« June 2006 | Main | August 2006 »
Mon | July 31, 2006
très vite
I ordered some music on amazon.fr late Thursday night, and it came today. Kind of makes up for the excruciatingly uneventful week-end. (Kind of.) Les CD de M sont recommandations de Charles.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 11:45 PM
Sun | July 30, 2006
les films manques
I am thinking of all the films I missed this summer. Namely, X-men and Pirates of the Caribbean. I guess it doesn't matter. It will be a pathetic summer, though, if I don't manage to see one movie. I might make it to the Hoboken outdoor screening of March of the Penguins, next Wednesday. That would be good, because it would also be pathetic if it were also a summer without an alfresco film.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 12:21 AM
Sat | July 29, 2006
l'étoile (la vedette)
The Star comes to my house. I don't know why. And I read it, quickly and guiltily, scanning the often unforgiving pictures and skimming the articles about the love, marriage, kids, and plastic surgery of American celebrities. I kind of like Paris Hilton. She's the only one whose stories aren't about love. She has the friendship with Nicole Richie storyline going. Then there's fashion layouts and "picture" articles like "Hollywood's 11 Biggest Playboys" and the occasional information about an actual television show or movie.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 09:32 AM
Fri | July 28, 2006
ce soir
I can't sleep because it's too hot upstairs. (Je ne peux pas coucher parce que il fait trop chaud.) I should not tell people about my blog because then I can't write about them. People who don't email back make me sad.
journal | Posted by Lily at 11:58 PM
Thu | July 27, 2006
l'eau de new york
At the Opium reading in Tompkins Square Park, there were maybe fifty-some people and forty-some foldup chairs. The host, John Kukoda, whom I thought might be Asian, turned out to be a white guy who said he was pleased that there were people there. Sometimes I don't really believe something until it happens either. Shya did a poor imitation of Tao and I thought of Julia Roberts saying 'You can't be Jell-o.' And now I am thinking plagarism. Can you plagarize a personality?
As a tie-breaker to the four player death match they had a sack race and Todd competed against his girlfriend whose last name is Koch but it's pronounced 'coke'. Todd pulled ahead of her at the end to win. I thought it said something about him and their relationship. At the end he will take the spoils. If I were a guy racing against my gf I would probably have let her win. All it really says is that I'm a loser. One day I will write all but the last ten pages of a novel and someone will write the last ten pages and claim credit for the while thing and I will let them.
Somewhere between one of the judges being from the New Yorker and Todd coming over to say hello only to leave in the same beat I had the feeling that I have often, that I am very close to things, that I am there, and yet not there, yet miles away from them. They might as well be somewhere else entirely because I am not going to talk to them anyway. I get the same dissatisfaction from watching television. All these people you can watch but you can't talk to.
As New York loads up with more and more great people, it just gets further and further from me. I was glad that we at least said hello. I think the intense alienation I feel probably has something to do with why I have never written for the magazine.
Afterwards Ari and I didn't go to the bar where they were hanging out, I didn't even try to remember the name or ask about it. Not that I knew how. I would have if I could have. We got bubble teas at Saints Alp and toast and yams.
On the northwest corner of 32nd and 6th a cab ran through a puddle and splashed me with dirty street water. I saw it coming, too, but did nothing. I thought about moving to the side, but that would have required shoving Ari aside, or whoever was next to me. I am sure they would have understood. But at the same time, I thought just maybe the taxi won't drive through that puddle. He had space to move over. He didn't. And so I was soaked, and it smelled like beer. That is what I settled on, as I sat on the train home.
| Posted by Lily at 08:55 PM
Tue | July 18, 2006
le monde échappé
Je voudrais apprendre le Français parce que je suis fatiguée de l’Anglais. Je suis fatiguée d’entendre les mêmes mots chaque jour.
Vraiment, d’abord ma première pensée était d’apprendre l’Allemand. Mais quand je suis allée à la librairie, ils n’avaient pas de livres allemands. Alors j’ai acheté un livre français. En fait, il y avait un livre allemand mais il n’était pas bon. Le livre français était meilleur et donc je l’ai acheté. J’ai complété le cahier de travail moi-même.
Ça avait lieu en 2004. J’ai complété le cahier et alors, en noviembre, je suis allé à Paris pendant une semaine. En 2005, je n’ai pas eu de cahier, mais j’ai écouté des DVD en version française. J’ai lu les sous-titres français aussi.
Et j’ai écouté la musique française. Maintenant, nous sommes en 2006, et j’étudie serieusement encore. Je cherche un nouveau cahier de travail. Je pense que j’ai besoin de travailler mon expression écrite et mon expression orale.
journal | Posted by Lily at 04:12 PM
Sun | July 16, 2006
what didn't happen
I didn't get up early enough to catch the 10:36, I didn't listen to the voice (my mother's) that said why would you wear a skirt what's the occasion, I said to myself clothes are for wearing, I will never have an occasion and besides I don't have anything else to wear because I don't fit into any of my shorts and it'll be ninety degrees out today. I didn't wear the cute but unwalkable brown shoes, I wore the blue flip flops that didn't match, and didn't have time to get threaded but went anyway, and it didn't take long since there weren't any people waiting. I didn't get to the NYPL on time but it didn't matter because it wasn't open and no one showed up and I went to Cafe Zaiya and didn't think of anything I could do to make things better.
Alle went to the pre-med exploration week and didn't know if she wanted to be a doctor anymore because she didn't think she was as dedicated as they said she needed to be, and I didn't want to discourage her but I didn't want to lie either, because I never lie, ever, so I told her why I hadn't wanted to either, even though it wasn't the right thing to say, especially with her mother there, and when we hit the books she didn't seem interested and I didn't know how to make it interesting.
I didn't know whether Charles meant to meet on the corner or inside, but since no one seemed to be waiting on the corner I went inside, but didn't know what he looked like and sat at the table next to him, and when I called and the phone rang right across from me it was a cute moment and he smiled, but I didn't because ...I don't know why I didn't. I didn't know my pronunciation was good but he said it was very close and he was surprised and I could tell he wasn't lying, and for the first time in the day I kind of felt happy.
At 8:30 on the train my phone rang and I didn't get to it in time but it rang again and I picked it up- Sorry I didn't call earlier he said (because he had said he would call in the morning) I woke up at twelve and then I had a class to teach, which didn't make sense but I didn't say anything, it's not like I would have been able to pick up the phone earlier anyway, and I asked him why he didn't email me back and he said he didn't do email and he didn't want to meet on a weekend because he had family plans (every weekend?) and I didn't want to meet on a weekday but I said I would even though I didn't know if I really wanted to and when I hung up I thought about JS and how we never met up either and didn't want the same thing to happen again but thought that it might, and I don't know why everything, even things that are supposed to be just fun, has to be so difficult and why can't things just be easy, and last Sunday I was IM'ing with Bens and I said my life is like a soccer game because nothing happens, and when I got home tonight I didn't feel like writing and I hadn't written anything in a while but I knew it wouldn't do any good to worry, it would only do good to forget, and it wasn't such a bad day as far as days go but I have the week ahead and I can count the things that are okay on one hand and the things that aren't, are innumerable so I try not to count, though I kind of can't help it.
journal | Posted by Lily at 09:21 PM
Thu | July 13, 2006
omg he emailed me back
So the other day when I wrote about John Lloyd Young, I also emailed him. Then I regretted it because it was stupid. But he emailed back! What a pick me up. It said,
Thank you! It's been quite a year. I'm still exhausted...JLY
He signs his name with his initials- a bit preppy. Uses ellipses... and puts two spaces after his periods, which is actually defunct style.
I am sure he sends this to everyone, but still, I will get all that I can out of it.
He replied from a different address, so it must be a forwarding address. He uses hotmail. His msn username is patterned after his other address. The timestamp, 23:22:44 -0400, indicates he is possibly up at around 11:30 at night.
At the end of the message is a link to his website. Which is where I originally got his email addess. And I got his home address, from the, um, alumni directory, and his domain name registration from a whois site.
I'm pretty resourceful... it's a good thing I'm not, like, evil.
nonsense | Posted by Lily at 11:53 PM
Wed | July 12, 2006
things i'd like to clean
MY GLASSES. They are plastic frames, purple and blue. There are all these skin cells trapped between the lens and the frame. To get the lens out, the temperature of the plastic has to be raised slightly and evenly, in one of those beds of warm glass beads. It's pretty cool. The plastic expands, releasing the lens. I wonder whether I could get them cleaned anywhere, just as a favor, if I walked in and asked them if they would do it. Or if I would have to go back where I got them, years ago, on Fifth Avenue and 26th, by the Flatiron building, when I was working for A&G.
MY LAPTOP. Also has bits of skin cells trapped in all its little crevices. I have recently been using one of those air blasters to clean it... the first time I did that I got so many flakes out of it. Now I only get some. I know there's more though, and I would like a compact, powerful vacuum for the keyboard, like in the movie Gattaca.
nonsense | Posted by Lily at 11:56 PM
Tue | July 11, 2006
My Little Ponies on Ebay
I finally got a My Little Pony. It took awhile because Ebay, like everything else, is way too complicated. I "lost" the first several "bids" I made for other ponies, due to "sniping," or also just not having enough yuppie cash to throw at the auction (on ebay you can win anything by brute force if you have enough money). So I got a pony from 1984, Posey, whom I vaguely remember. At first I just wanted to get Firefly or Windy, one of the ponies I had when I was a kid... but soon I realized this was a chance to get a new pony I had never had before. So I got one of the Earth ponies, as opposed to Firefly who was a pegasus, and Windy who was a unicorn. Posey is pastel yellow with white hair, and tulips on her rump.
What else... I now have all this knowledge about My Little Ponies that I don't really need because I'm not going to become a My Little Pony collector. Not just about My Little Ponies but who sells them, like this woman in Utah named Maxene, who goes by the username dot100dogs. She curls their hair and gives them a spiral on the mane that's a bit of a Hasidic look. Other sellers are omeezponeez and babydoll84_uk, and I'm sure I would start to recognize more sellers if I kept doing this.
There's something addictive about it, I mean I've killed a lot of time looking at these auctions, and I'm going to have to ease myself away from it. I'm kind of glad that I don't have more cash in my paypal account. Well, I have twenty dollars left. So I could get one more, or even two, if I buy shoddy, poorly advertised ones. Mostly I think I should appreciate my cute little Posey. What's weird is I recognize the smell of the plastic. It's faint but I definitely remember it.
Tonight I bid on Tic Tac Toe from '87, a bold yellow sparkle-eyed pony, and lost for like sixteen dollars. The pink sparkle-eyed pony was going for something like sixty bucks. I think there are a total of four or six sparkle-eyed ponies. Previously I bid on Butterscotch, an Earth pony from my time ('82-83), and Applejack, whom I remember. Applejack is a light orange Earth pony with freckles, one of only two ponies that had frekles on its face. The other was Bowtie, a blue pony with pink hair. Then there were these ponies that had tinsel mixed in with their hair. There was one called Princess Amber that I bid on.
nonsense | Posted by Lily at 11:38 PM
Sat | July 08, 2006
The Last Day
I'm on the train ride home, away from the West Village where the sidewalks are smeared with dog shit and flies spring up off the ground at your feet. The train is moving in the direction of the setting sun. It's too bright and so I close my eyes... and see a luminous reddish orange. It changes to watermelon and then to an orange yellow. I start to think it's peach. Real peach, not Crayola peach, not that dull beigey color. Peach to yellow-orange to red watermelon and back, one color morphs into another. Dark objects pass but I don't open my eyes to see what they may be. I hold them closed so that I can follow this image that has neither depth, nor flatness.
Is it even an image? It's smears of light seen through my eyelids. Vision isn't dependent on open eyes. In fact it can be induced mechanically by closing one's eyes and pushing on the side. This creates a spot or a ring of light.
I'm at home and sitting at my computer on a Saturday night. Being at home on Saturday is no fun but being awake at night is good. Everything else is dark and there is just the black desk lamp and the screen. Joshua is online. Neither of us has anything to do and yet we're not going to do anything together. Such is the unfortunate nature of so many relationships with IM buddies and ex-boyfriends.
He IM's me.
NomadNick (7:32:58 PM): hey uIt's a step up from
NomadNick (9:34:37 PM): hiwhich was a step up from no IM's at all.
We chat. I consider taking him out of the "selfish unfair jerk" category, of which he is the only member. I decide to keep him there. A little while longer, just to be safe, I think.
I'm glad about the "hey u." But not glad about most everything else. When I go to bed I realize that for a few nights I haven't imagined him next to me. The feeling of our touching skin, that I had held in my mind, that had stayed like an after image, was gone. That lingering pulse of light had drifted across the blackness and faded into perished memory.
memoir | Posted by Lily at 01:53 AM
Fri | July 07, 2006
I like my version better
My review of The Motel was finally "published" today... with added cliches ("looms large"?!) that don't even make sense/ aren't even true.
Part of me wants to tell them, but I realize it would be overkill at this point and besides I'm tired of defending every word. I already did some of that-- she emailed me with four changes, all of which I disagreed with, and told her so. I doubted whether I should have insisted on my version, but now I realize that if I hadn't, the article would have come out even worse.
All I have learned from this foray is that as tiring as writing something can be on my own, it's even worse in conjunction with an "editor."
Here is the review I turned in over a week ago (my first review was too short, at 300 words, which is a whole nother story):
The Motel (2005, 72 minutes, color)The Motel is the coming-of-age story of Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau), a thirteen-year old boy who grows up in the less-than-ideal environment of his family's motel. His mother Ahma Chin (Jade Wu) discourages his development as a writer and puts him to work at the family business, where he regularly encounters prostitutes and other ne'er do wells. Ernest spends his spare time hanging out with his friend Christine (Samantha Futerman, Memoirs of a Geisha), who works nearby at her family's restaurant. When Sam Kim (Sung Kang, Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift) checks into the motel and appoints himself mentor, Ernest begins to confront everything from a mysterious box of fried chicken to the girl of his dreams.
The first shot of the film is quite telling-- Ernest sits on top of a dumpster, chomping on an egg roll. The dumpster, a generally ignored spot in the real world, is a "place" in the film-- it's in the parking lot of the restaurant where Christine works, and he gets to see her when she takes the trash out. Behind the dumpster, they keep a stockpile of porn (which they read with comical, innocent fascination). The dumpster symbolizes all the junk in Ernest's life, and is just one of many telling details in the film.
Viewers like resilient characters, and so it's great to see how well Ernest takes all of the shit that's thrown at him. It goes in and comes out in a more beautiful form. Ernest eats junk food, but his chubbiness, during his close-ups, seems lush and ripe. When he finally makes a move on Christine, his pick up line sounds like it's from a porno magazine. But when he says it, it's not dirty, it's just hilarious.
Sam Kim is another resilient character, who comes to the motel to escape his broken marriage, and yet almost instantaneously gives himself over to spicing up Ernest's life, whether Ernest likes it or not. Sung Kang is perfectly cast as this sexy older-brother figure who has problems of his own. He also gets some of the most quotable lines. "You didn't tell me she was Asian," he says to Ernest when he finds out about Christine. "They're trying to get away from all that. You just remind them of it." It's dubious whether Sam always says the right thing, but there's no doubt that he tries.
Samantha Futerman is great as Christine, the girl who's just a friend. She's a luminous presence and yet still seems like a kid. All the children in the film seem natural, including Alexis Chang as Ernest’s tattle-tale sister Katie.
One key event occurs before the action of the film begins. Ernest writes a story and enters it in a contest without telling his mother. Early in the film he wins honorable mention for this story, and his mother harshly chastises him about it. He continues to dream about the awards dinner, however, and the story, called “The Motel,” is a thread that runs throughout the film and ties it together at the end. The poignancy of the film’s title comes as much from this occasionally glimpsed story as it does from the setting where these characters live.
"The Motel" won the Humanitas Prize, Best Narrative Feature from the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and Best Dramatic Feature from The San Diego Asian Film Festival.
The Motel plays in New York June 28- July 11 at the Film Forum. Go see this rare Asian-American film!
It's not perfect-- for example I repeat words like "telling" and then "resilient," which some people don't like-- but their revisions trip up the flow, and numerous other things that I don't even want to sit here and list.
Écriture | Posted by Lily at 01:28 PM
Thu | July 06, 2006
Comic book about Go
Good explanation of basic Go. This is about as much as I know about the game.
Jeux | Posted by Lily at 05:47 PM
Wed | July 05, 2006
The First Five Things
In writing there is the "first five things" rule, which is that when describing something, the first five things you think of are cliche and should be discarded.
I saw my old friend Chrissa this weekend. We did about five things. On Saturday, we walked around downtown Summit, visited Curtis at the record shop, and sat in the park across from the Y. On Monday Chrissa and I had lunch at the sushi place with all the polaroids in front, and then later we all had dinner at Curtis's house.
It was all good but we could have done better. Especially since when we talked on the phone Friday night, she asked, "Is there anything you need to do? I could just go with you to run errands." It's so rare for me to have someone to hang out with in NJ, let alone someone willing to do anything. Yet I couldn't think of anything. Or actually I thought of batting cages, X-men, and bowling... but none of those ideas stuck. Now I am thinking I would have liked to go to Ikea. I bet she would have done that, even though she doesn't like shopping.
journal | Posted by Lily at 12:41 PM
Mon | July 03, 2006
A Night at Kenka
Last night I dreamt that I went to a cafe and ordered green jello. The jello was liquid. I tried to explain to the Asian person behind the counter how to make it.
The green jello was reminiscent of that "dessert" that Quyen brought to modern Greek class, years ago, that tasted like nothing and felt like rubbery plastic.
The cafe in my dream was on the north side of the street, like the place where I had dinner last night.
I had dinner at a Japanese place on St. Marks, the one with the wide pit in front where people are always hanging out. It gets an underground feel from being a few slippery steps below street level (unfortunately, a lawsuit waiting to happen). Inside there are low ceilings, and low stools with four-inch backs that are the perfect size for someone who's about five feet two. The lighting is bright and the noise level is high. A megaphone in the corner of the ceiling blares out music from the time of gramophones.
At 9 pm last night it was packed, and Ari and I sat next to an outdoor smoking booth. We looked through the glass at several Japanese hipsters packed into a ten by eight foot area. Some of them squatted. Most Americans see squatting as primitive, but it has none of that connotation in Asia.
The squatting more than anything made it feel like someplace else entirely. It was also the noise, the mostly Asian clientele... the whole spirit of the place. It reminded me of when I was a kid going to yam tsa (aka dim sum) in Chinatown... which had different decor and clientele (families, not hipsters), but which was likewise loud. Dining out meant a loud, crowded place when I was a kid.
I had sashimi and curry soba noodles... I don't remember seeing any vegetables on the menu, except edamame. The noodles were yummy; the sashimi was good too. At the end they give you a tiny paper cup with about two ounces of pink sugar in it. You take it to the front of the restaurant, where there's a cotton candy machine, and you make a little puff of cotton candy on a chopstick.
The place is across from Dojo on St. Marks and it's called Kenka. It's an izakaya, which is a Japanese style bar/restaurant. Kenka is apparently one of a few izakayas that have sprung up on St. Marks in recent years.