union and contract

marriage advice, as it is, went like this. first email:

you definitely should tie the nup-knot, but that's purely for selfish reasons. another excuse to head over for your wedding and or bachelor party! from an unselfish perspective, and without meeting the lil gal, can you really do better? and then depending on your answer, i'll stress, are you sure you can do better? i guess if you have someone that you get along with, it'll be hard to beat that.

follow up email:

shoot over some pics of your girl, i'll let you know if she's worth it. haha, obviously kidding. have you spoken about marriage with her? of course, that type of conversation inevitably leads to trouble, as in she wants marriage - and what girl hasn't been daydreaming about that day since, I don't know, 13 years of age - and you respond, "uh...," that kinda kicks the relationship into a different gear, the impending end kind.

still, if you two have been at it for awhile, in a sense, ain't marriage a formality? the past x time frame, weighing it as if you were already married, whatcha think? not bad?

ultimately, you're lucky. you still have so many years if needed. most gals' bloom have been set to fade by the time they hit 18 years old.

that's one way to put it.

anywayz. following the most joyful events/news, like ever, ever, ever, that being the 27th championship by the new york yankees, i gave thoughts to cave and purchase the jay-z alicia keys combo empire state of mind. jeter likes it, which would be good to go for me. casual listening, the tune ain't awful.

but then, i thought it'd be prudent, clickity click, to google the lyrics, and you know what? i fucking hate jay-z, and misogyny, and by extension why the hell would alicia keys back that rap.1 most of negativity fell on the later verses which preached the good girls gone bad cautionary tale, which is fine and all, except. except it's juxtapose with the earlier parts that glorifies stash pot, selling rock, and all that hood/thug/nigga-for-life lifestyle. other words, everything that fosters the situation where women-folk are marginalized and objectified and commodified and made into or thought of nothing but hoes and 'itches. jay-z is such a pedestrian at best, but more often boring, rapper; the storytelling is not much and the worldview is limited and callow.

different rappers offer:

So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up.2

or:

I love it when you call me Big Poppa
Throw your hands in the air, if youse a true playa
I love it when you call me Big Poppa
To the honies getting money playin niggaz like dummies uh
I love it when you call me Big Poppa
You got a gun up in your waist please don't shoot up the place (why)
Cause I see some ladies tonight who should be havin my baby, bay-bee.

some unfairness, pretty much any rapper today pitted against pac or biggie, respectively, will fail.3 but either one reaches for the brass ring, or is horse poop. and i guess i get it, jay-z ain't trying to elevate the rap game, he's just there to get paid. in which case, stfu jay-z.

and alicia keys, i love her and all, - well, i love that she looks slamming, i've no opinion on her music - how can she sing jay-z styled bright lights as an inspiration? seriously. pretty repulsive, really.

All I need in this life of sin, is me and my girlfriend,
Down to ride to the bloody end, just me and my girlfriend.4

'noth'r thing, black eyed peas. they (and individually for their side/glam projects) have about the stupidest lyrics, like, ever; the kind that just plumb insults even the half-attentive listener. that they've been exploding ever more into the pop scene - cough, directtv, halfway is mad stupid, cough -5 whether it's ok or not to be a luddite, i'm thankful i am, to degrees, one.

before leaving for northern capital (or beijing), c (for cousin) googled, you know, entertainment options for her holiday. supposedly n.c. is drawing considerable attention for its underground, "experimental"/experimental music scene, no wave and other soundscapes. best of all, she said to me, she'll get to catch a few shows from hot or important acts, as some concerts coincide with her visit. she whipped opened her brother's computer notebook and youtubed a lil something by carsick cars, the one she likes most/more or perhaps the one she thinks i'd be most/more tuned in with, and then a lil video feature on chicks in n.c.'s rock scene, basically an interview of two cutie drummers: shi lu, aka atom, of hedgehog and li qing of carsick cars. i don't pay attention that way, since we were having dinner together, and asked her to email me the links. which she did.

she would shortly ask if i checked the links. "uh, not really?"

later, she hauled back from the vacation a bonanza of n.c. rock/cd trove for me. maybe i'm too preoccupied with my own musical interest, or i wasn't ready to be receptive to new/fringe music but days later, she explored whether i listened to any of the cds, "do you like carsick cars, snapline and pk-14?"

having not played any of the cds left in a stack on a corner of my table, "uh, (some made up poor and incredibly bad excuse)."

"but anyway," she said that, "we're in luck, they are touring the east coast. and shows in new york too. we can go see them." them equating to, from the flyer emailed to me, carsick cars, pk-14, and xiao he.

"uh, i guess," i committed. not really, cause i totally flaked on the free, more experimental session by xiao he and carsick cars' mastermind shou wang in a noho area basement, that she later would quiz why i didn't attend and describe as amazing. i can't really dispute, free shows have a built in advantage of being, well, free.

no matter, a couple of days after, the bands were going to put on a real(er), more conventional rock and roll show in a williamsburg stage. and she was going, and i went. by the entrance way, c knowingly pointed to a cute-ish, four-eyed chinese girl outside, "that's li qing of carsick cars."

"goodie." inside what turned out to be a rather small, but small in the way i like because of the intimacy, club slash dive bar slash, for those who may differentiate, hipster hangout, xiao he was most of his way done with his opening act set. m (for movie girl i had earlier met) was there. serial. m, i soon learned, knew most of the n.c. rockers quite well, and she was there - stationed close to the stage, filming or following along with an earnestness more than, or different from, simply enjoying the bands - as much for business as for fun. a little later that night, when the three n.c. acts finished, she would shake loose her documentarian obligations, and boogie down.

anyway, 2nd up were the supposed veterans of the n.c. scene, pk-14. when they had technical difficulties with a newly purchased amp, i heckled, "was it made in china?" irreverent snark is kinda my thing. an earflap beanie topped girl turned, chuckling, to find me to approve my verbal volley. before i knew it, she totally swiped the joke in hollering the same thing to the stage, but in chinese. biter.

this applies to next to follow carsick cars as much as pk-14, they were ok. by far not as experimental-soaked as i expect, a little too cool or perhaps rehash of their influence to impress me too much. joy division already did pk-14's seething intensity. and i yelled into c's ear halfway into a carsick cars song the summation "yo la tengo," which, while i really, really like hoboken yo la tengo, uh, their haze sound is so mid 1990's. otherwise, it's like they didn't allow their guitars to, as it were, go to 11. not that i necessarily like spine tapping loudness, though generally i do at live shows, but i prefer things slightly more raw or messy. midway into pk-14 sets, xiao he bulldozed through me and the crowd, probably to stagger outside to, i assumed, excavate a portion of the too much alcohol downed.

Was this amazing girl flirting? How come he couldn't tell?6

then, the resident brooklyn bands took the mic and the stage light glare, were slightly louder, and more raw and messy; in particular, these were powers were incrementally funner. soft circle and these were powers were, ultimately, more of the same okay. the fact that it was a cheap admission price, i'd upgraded it all to pretty fun. and then, was m looking at me meaningful? i mean, at me, as in when i turn to look over the crowd, she was clearly looking at me. to come clean, i have no recollection of ever being on the receiving end of that sustained gaze. i likely had been, back in the daze, but then caught up in other preoccupations, i paid no mind. but now, probably due to a slumped confidence, aka desperation, now, i notice her ... noticing.

with some personal history being behind the cornea side of things, first, there is the part where it is just being the thirsty receptacle of not just the light waves bouncing of, from my past experience, the girl,7 but the additional waves seemingly emanating from her. then, reviving a faulty greek notion, the belief that my optic nerve could and would salvo back messages of intent, desire, and more, embedded in so many particles than necessary. no light task, with the particles having to go against the wave, so to speak.

it was not, what the happy hours prowlers are said to excel at, "checking out," as that would be too loose and brief. nor could it be described via the blunt implications of "staring." rather, eyes voluntarily transfixed. finding instead of seeking, as if time would stall for nascent curiosity, speculation, lust, and comprehension. and there! like puneal and seneh ablaze, warning signs to shield my too long held eyes, except i could and would not. it was clear then it was a kind of wish. the distance shortened, narrowing to hushed contraction, or never was. and contact, imminent, even inevitable. or so i felt it to be from the last time i was so struck.

from the lookee side of things, unable to speak on behalf of the girls i looked at, from the experience that evening, one moment i was bounding in place, the first instance, to the bright drum beats of a soft circle's song and, m again, her looking again at me, a these were powers pop concoction. next moment, off guard and confused for being not only the possible object of attention, but perhaps affection. unsure whether or how much to be flattered. the initial unease fast giving way to even more unchartered territories, ie now what? but somewhere the sense that keeping or regaining m's serious and steady look was of utmost importance. or as - perhaps even very - likely, i sequenced events a little off, and the whole business of m's look was the old "what the fuck is he looking at" look. though that look, i kinda feel i'd recognize, easily.

"we should get together," m left things a couple of days later. at a sorta bon voyage dinner for a friend, she was there, more and more beautiful in my mind, already a stunner in real real life. after dinner, i walked m and the nigh homebound friend to a local wine bar in my downtown neighborhood. my botched response, "yeah, we should," before the last round of rushed hugs and farewells, and i started the slightly wistful walk home. was this amazing girl flirting? how come i couldn't tell?

She sat down, took a look at him. The Eastern eyes, the tension of whose lower lids had found a perfect balance between heat and appraisal, certainly were promissory of heartbreak.8

by now, i have played and still regularly play one of the souvenir carsick cars cd, you can listen, you can talk, their newest. not bad. and have clicked thru to the youtube videos. and so forth. uh, ... well, about that. i do not know anything about drums, for that matter guitars, rap, wave-particle duality, or really anything else either. like, zilcho. the strongest and chief memory i have about drums and drumming was from my bloody valentine. colm o'ciosoig's contributions were so there, so assertive and vital to mbv's sound and songs, especially against the band's rep for guitar fuzz and feedback. about the same time most likely, dave grohl with nirvana. shortly thereafter, janet weiss with sleater kinney. later, arlen thompson. most recently and in a big, throught shifting way, wondrously off-kilter kim schifino. one more time! generalizing a bit, i like my drums, you guessed it: 11. exactly, one louder. one more time! something more to the fore, and that stands out in the song and of the drummer's personality. one more time!

in n.c. is a place called heaven's peace doorway (or tiananmen), which infamously and tragically was the setting back in 1989 of what is now inadequately known as the june 4th incident. if you were glued to the tv at the time, or got some of the reporting afterwards, it really was some awful and heart wrenching shit that went, and in many cases still going, down. serial. but, you know what, why does the u.s. media give special coverage to remote china every june 4th, when their own government were the gunmen behind:

orangeburg massacre,
jackson state killings,
kent state shootings,
lattimer massacre,
bay view massacre,
memorial day massacre (of 1937), and
bonus army (of 1932).9

not to mention the government's longstanding complicity and or omission that gave company thugs/gunmen and bigots free rein to murder: greensboro massacre, thibodaux massacre. not to mention the native americans genocide, which is perversely celebrated by national holidays: thanksgiving day and columbus day. not to mention a whole fucking lot of things. not to mitigate or deflect the base stupidity and evil of the red-heads' decision at h.p.d., but i can't shake the suspicion that ongoing u.s. media attention is driven by a different, ulterior agenda.10 you know, if extreme sentiments are being solicited by the media turds, namely that china was/is uniquely barbarous and the u.s.a. is an immaculate virgin to cast judgment, i'd take the other polar tack, namely how things went down at h.p.d. is, and was, typical worldwide, and the lower class's struggle for reform is, as was, perpetual and universal. what is reported is significant for what is not being reported. they got money for war, but can't insure the poor.

this has been simmering since june, when the coverage, conversations and outrage for that h.p.d. incident boiled anew. though, depending on whether one is a calender half done or half to go type of person, either still means considerable steam loss here now.

and in the daylight we can hitchhike to maine
i hope that someday i'll see without these frames
and in the daylight i don't pick up my phone
cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

when, or possibly if, i attest to being a new yorker it is from the angle of city pride. but before the end of the year or, what the optimist might describe as, soon, the state senators will be privileged in doing the amazingly right thing, following the lead of the assembly-folks, by passage of S04401 to allow gay marriage, and restoring civil rights and equality. mad props to black and blind gov dave paterson for having the audacity and moral fortitude that pres barak did not muster in putting the executives branch weight behind same-sex legislation. i hope one doesn't have to be black and blind to understand what human/civil rights and basic dignities are and mean.11 for whatever reason, i'm keeping faith for good news out of the normally dysfunctional senate, well, because i can't believe, despite ample contrary evidence, that reasonable people can be long unreasonable and flat out vile. that is saying i believe in long shot miracles, isn't it? but i'm all set to be the beaming proudest and happiest new yorker, like, ever. new yorker as in a citizen of new york state. as for roughly 53% of the 60% registered voters of pine tree state maine, go fuck yourselves.

plus: world. series. champion. new. york. yankees. !.

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1. fuck, down on kayne, down on jay-z, down on the black eyed peas, down, so far, on nobel prize winner barak, does it seem like the only black folks i do like are dead black folks, tupac, biggie, malcolm, & martin? ... awkward. mmm... i really like spike. and tyler perry. and, well, badass carsten charles. 27, baby.
2. course, things ain't never that simple. a lot of tupac's rap trek the same misogynistic and gangsta terrains. tupac was also too entrenched, by association and or choice, in that thuglife scene. and the sexual assault conviction, even accepting tupac's version of events, is bad, bad business. for jay-z's real life, what can be said other than he's a soldout shill, which is awful but mostly innocuous. which still, i love tupac. there's his music. but also, 1) he served his sentence; 2) (maybe it's just an excuse, but) he was a young dude; and 3) he was still sorting his way and place in the world, still learning and growing. this might being a poor way of reconciling things, blinded a bit, but tupac was getting there, you know, black jesus, lennon, marvin, getting there to be transformative, something greater. except, well except tupac couldn't get out of his own or bullets way.

3. keep ya head up and big poppa, respectively.

4. me and my girlfriend, yeah, thanks jay-z for fucking up tupac's classic track.
5. so many dumbass commercials during the baseball postseason broadcast.
6. against the day, tom pynchon
7. that would, of course, be my crush-for-life girl, t.

8. see fn6
9. this had the added benefit of federal tanks rolling in to handle things.
10. yeah, there is a scale differences between china's crackdown and certain of the massacres/killings/shootings perpetrated in the united states (some but not all), but come on, there's so many chinese people, per total pop, it's really not that ... yikes, better not finish this. probably worth mentioning, and under reported, is that mass protest are frequent events across china, as are the associated unrest, riots, and severe government responses.

11. oh snap.

... four letters. Only L O V E.

What a klutz I am. I should have added, by way of a footnote, about the tyranny of viewing arts, letters, drama, culture, politics, progress, etc., primarily, even strictly, through a Western perspective. At the same time, I really do not know nothing, I mean nothing, about the theater traditions in Asia or Africa, or America. I mean, I know dey got their pageantries, like kabuki, puppets, mask shows, songs, dance, backflips, but. But I'm saying, well, those ain't narrative drama/tragedy/etc. They's opera, pantomime, musicals, dance, whatever, something else what ever else.

I guess from those cultures that have an extended rich written traditions + poetry + literature + whatever else - that'd be mainly Asians and Arabic - why no parallel track to what the Greeks were doing, and the rest of the Western culture/Europeans would strive to develop. Something that was realistic/naturalistic. Or, strictly secular. Instead the Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Japs, Koreans, etc., stuck with exaggerated spectacles.

Was it democracy? Burgeoning humanism? A beneficial byproduct of competing/conflicting nation states sharing a more or less linguistic source? Or the riches gained through trade and exploitation nullified the stifling oppression of the religious state?1 Or just the way the beach ball bounces?

By the way, I know nothing about the cacophonous cross national/cultural achievements or ambitions, I should state outright, if it was not obvious enough. And I'm not talking about influence, because Western/European culture have been influence big time, always have. I'd imagine the renaissance got its big injection from what the Arabs preserved and spread to Western thought, or Bartelby's aggressively passive "I'd prefer not to" seems some kind of Buddhist mantra, Picasso got his African masks, modern art got its re-conceived perspective via Asian art, Hitler filched his party logo from the East, Pound's Chinese/Japanese induced imagism, Pollock's Mexican muralists, the Beats and Beatles and their Swamis, it goes on, and on and on.2 But what I am getting at is the reverse. How these other national/ethnic got transformed, influenced, and so forth by the West, or perhaps how non Western societies tackled the issue of modernity. Did linear perspective blow up the Japanese art scene? Did Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliere, Ibsen, Brecht, etc., transform and expand Korea's theater?

I know in other mediums Western influence was well incorporated and reciprocated. The most glorious, for example, movies and movie tradition sprang up in Japan, Sengal, India, etc. And literature. In both cases, the Western modernist traditions were absorbed then redirected in a way that still retained cultural vitality/identity. Yet, for the life of me, I don't know one play originating from Korea, China, Lebanon, etc. not just historically, but also in today's time frame.3 However, it'd take an especially powerful naivety to be blind that it is a small n' easy step to go from screenplays and teleplays to the stage. So if I were to discuss Thorton Wilder, and the innovations and development of the dramatic tragic theater, and I totally skipped any consideration on what was going on in Korea, Iran, etc., while I kinda can't really blame myself, I kinda don't mind being hard on me self, and say I fucked up.

Or flatly, I feel horrible, a sickening type of horrible in perpetuating the cultural imperialism that I find rotten and repugnant. I should have qualify my hackneyed theater discourse by stating that it was framed around a predominantly Western/English language perspective, and or also acknowledge the high probability that similar developments were going on in other cultures. Heck, those various cultures likely even done in faster and mo' better. And other apologies.

Not that I need any positive reinforcement or kind words; or, I do need them. Someone wrote: "I love [that'd be me here]. I'll never tell him to his face but i am very fond of that lad." Thank you.

The uhd'r thing I shud a' ad'd was that I'm so fucking well read and deep and know who Andrew Marvell is and my shit is so fucking brilliant, and works on so many multi-planes. Or not. But I lapsed in not footnoting "criminal coyness," which jokingly references: "Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime."4 See, deep, brilliant, and fucking well read. Or not.

A couple more things regarding this. Way back in the daze, I pretty much, over long distance, old-fashion copper wires, relayed to my cousin a line by line reading of Marvell's poem for her English/writing class essay. I feel dirty about that, aiding and abetting her transgression, but I guess, whatevs.

Another thing, I still feel, perhaps with some guilt, that Prufrock is amazing.5 I remember, back in the daze, on a coffee break from the trading desk, my then co-worker pal read to me and Sixth Avenue Prufrock the whole way through . That recital had a large part in my "getting" Eliot and his remarkably accessible fun and lyricalness.

Third and last, only that I have not explicitly expressed, J (for just a perfect someone) is perfect. Recently, a friend L (for lass) somehow got the impression that I wrote poems, and asked to read 'em. So, well, I e-sent one poem to L. An older poem, back, again, from the daze, when I still, like, actually wrote poems. L said it was aight, and ask for more. I obliged, sending to her my last proper poem. That poem had a part that was a mediation on J.6 I guess since I don't often re-visit my back-then writings, preferring to just leave them as is and move on, I hadn't re-consider that piece much aside from setting an implicit threshold that future poems should exceed.7 But re-reading it before gmailing to L, god, it brought back all these beautiful memories of beautiful J. In all honesty, whatever I/reason/god(dess)(e/s)/books/pop tunes hadn't already transformed in me from, it's hard to describe, but from something extremely and deeply guarded, elusive, and shrouded to a more blatant openness, she blew the covers off, and finished the job. I don't think of myself much as a confessional type poet, or really writing much about/for a particular person, because I guess, that is not the type of writing I'm interested in. But that poem, or that part of the poem, when I had to think of someone to model a "you", that was all and only J.

Fuck, this is drowning in opacity. The point is that she compelled me to love and to love her. Which I do, then, and now.

I should say that it is a bit of a shame that aside from an everlasting affection and admiration, I didn't try, or try harder, to fan the flames of that relationship beyond the platonic flicker. I don't think I could or would ever be good enough for her. Is that really low self esteem?8 It's odd in the sense that J swelled and stretched and ballooned the outer limits of my romantic/spiritual soul, but in that I cannot be by her side, it is just fucking heartbreak. And, not that I ever stop thinking of her, but in re-reading the poem, it was like she was in front of me just again, and I was re-finding all the words and images for how I felt about her. Which in a way, since she could only produce the most profound and truest loving feelings from/in me, that was terrific, but well, then again, J ain't in front of me, and I'm not with her, that's much less than terrific. "look elsewhere for answers; answers are selfish and whitewash. / only questions seduce, and incite; you: why, how, and what exactly?"

And a retraction, I take back whatever endorsement of Mike Bloomberg. Bill Thompson is just not so awful of a mayoral candidate to say Bloomberg is clear cut better. I'm still irked by Thompson's mindless response to accusations that he took campaign cash money from investment managers doing business with the city. But, if I had to really think about it - and I guess I won't have to think about it until I am behind the black curtain at the polling station - flaunting term limits is not right.

Thompson doesn't seem to be the most eloquent public speaker, but more important than that, he lines up with my view on most issues and he looks like he can handle the local petty politics. And what has Bloomberg done in eight years that really needs four more?

I suppose City Comptroller and Public Advocate are foregone conclusions. Though regarding John Liu: do we really need shoe throwing in City Hall?9

Hmm... any good movies out? Funnily, I almost hardly ever watch a movie more than once in the movie theaters, partly because movies, as NY prices go, are hella pricey. Second, I can rarely justify going for a second viewing when there are so much that I haven't even seen for the first time. Yet, I love 35 Shots of Rum and it was freaking marvelous watching it again. Second time: Mati Diop still ravishing; Gregoire Colin still riveting; Alex Descas still badasses; and Claire Denis is still Claire Denis da bomb. I actually would be tempted to see 35 Shots a-again. That is how much I love Mati Diop, and that stunning wedding dress she wore, and that absolute blisteringly masterful bar room sequence. And Gregoire Colin. And superlatives etc.

Also, City of Sadness. Hou Hsiao Hsien's early masterpiece is great and all but I was planning to skip it this past weekend. However a good pal/movie buddy said he was going, so what the hay, it's in Brooklyn and I love grey old Brooklyn too. And Tony Leung is young and earnest, and Tony Leung, above all. I guess City of Sadness is a complicated movie - or I can understand if some folks find it that way, telling a complicated piece of Taiwanese/Chinese history/terror, without watering it down, but rather enhancing its complexity with an austere, elliptical style - but I found it follow along-able and still damn good.

Lastly, if your idea of fun is some handjob action between father and son, you can count your lucky sicko stars because Taiwanese - speaking of movies, cross-culture, and modernity - virtuoso Tsai Ming-Liang is getting a sort of mini retro treatment at Asia Society.10 Some omissions in the selection of movies, but whatevs. Tsai deserves more exposure.11 Lots of boredom there, but I get a cinematic hard-on from boredom. Which reminds me, I had a really fun flick conversation with this chick at a LES bar recently, we were comparing White Material with 35 Shots, and Resnais, and Jia Zhangke, Antonioni, Haneke, and so forth.12 Haha, we agreed that boring, static, nothing happening, extended sequences are brilliant awesomeness.13 I should have asked what she thought of Tsai.

---------------------------

1. Need it be said that I don't know anything about anything, just taking wild stabs here. I wonder if it's worth reading Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present. A friend of mine was reading it - or carrying it - and if the book's take isn't too myopic, which is kinda my point there, it might be interesting. But then again, since it's a shit load of pages, I need something stronger than "might" to motivate me to start it. Plus, I always think of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society when I think of history.
2 Uh, Google?
3 I blame Google or Wikipedia!

4 see Fn 2?

5 see Fn 4.
6 I titled that poem 3 components. Hmm... is it bad that I don't include the poem itself?
7 I should have stated: future, if any, poems.
8 I don't mean it quite like that, but J is just too/so beautiful, perfect and lovely. In a way, it's intimidating. In another way, I feel that there would be time or occasions despite my diligent efforts to make her happy that I wouldn't succeed. And in that she should ever be unhappy, due to me, for even a moment, I could not or would not be able to bear it. Of course, what kinda sick, miserable bastard am I that would want a relationship where I could bear to make my partner unhappy. Jeez, that's what I'm saying, ain't it? Otherwise, I'm happy that she likely is happy now with whomever she's happy with.
9 Like this example. Is that bad stereotyping?
10 More info. I should withdraw that handjob comment because Tsai Ming Liang isn't mainly/solely/at all about that. Or that shouldn't be a reason not to go watch his movies.
11 This is funny. How Wikipedia describes Tsai's The River: "a 1997 Taiwanese New Wave Film by Tsai Ming-liang. The plot focuses around the character Xiao-kang, a young man in his early 20s, who begins to suffer inexplicably from severe neck pain." Without giving it away: So. Not. Close. To. Describing. The. Movie. At. All.
12 She asked which directors/movies I like and, like, I completely blanked! Doh, as a outdated, 4 fingered, thin haired, bulbous cartoon homeboy might say. I am loathe to do this, because I love Claire Denis, and sitting at Alice Tully I was captivated with it, but White Material came up short to whatever bar I think Denis has set. Still amazing stuff, but. Well, all that "but" implies.
13 I had planned on more. On Herman/Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, which was really, not in a good way, boring as hell, but, I guess in a good way, pretty interesting. Then more stuff about the media, and how it relates to, oh I don't know, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. Hmm... the main gist of it could be: what the fuck is going on there, why are American soldiers still there, do you know that flesh and blood human beings - woman, children, regular folks - are getting slaughtered there, and the fucking mainstream media is such complicit and ugly dogs. Also, considering that most media folks can read, and presumably have read Manufacturing Consent, how the hell do they live with themselves. And you know who is gay, Glenn Greenwald. I kinda suspected it because sometimes from the TV, he looked just a smidge too clean cut and thin. And sometimes on the radio, boy, is he overbearing. You know, in that gay way. It kinda all falls in place now. Only kidding. But he is, apparently. And with a partner already. Good for him. But, like I said, more planned but have to cut this short and sweet, because I really feel bad if anyone, actually I'm assuming no one, you know, reads this blog, but if he/she/they did, and voted or supported Bloomberg because of me - in which case, youse an idiot.