I was looking on a friend of mine’s Livejournal, and on her friends page there was someone asking for a recommendation for a “reliable” tattoo artist, whatever that might be. Anyway, accompanying the request was what, unfortunately, I think was one of the person’s other tattoos. It said
佳忠女牛
which as far as I can tell means beautiful, devoted heifer.
I always get excited when the views on my Flickr photostream go up by another thousand.
My article, originally titled “Naked pictures of you with Edison Chen released to the media Saturday,” was Shangzilla’s most popular article for February.
If you’re not familiar with this scandal, a not-so-bright Hong Kong star took over 1,000 dirty pictures of himself with various girlfriends, kept them on his hard drive, and then took his computer to some random, rinky-dink place to get it fixed. Naturally, everyone who worked there downloaded the pictures (and videos!), and released them to the media. There are so many different women involved, is seems like Edison photographed EVERBODY, hence my article.
You can read it here: www.shangzilla.com
Summary of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN which, along with a desrciption of the Oscars as “bullshit,” accidentally went over the air during the Oscar broadcast on WKBW, one of the major stations in Buffalo, my hometown.
Found through The Defamer. Here’s a link to a Buffalo New story about the incident.
Man: Everything you see belongs to the Lord. He is willing to save your soul. [Cell phone rings, and he answers] Hi, honey… I’m in the Bronx, preaching… I told you last night, remember? I said, ‘God is telling me to preach in the Bronx.’ Yes, I did tell you! [Hisses] You never fucking listen!
–6 train
(From overheardinnewyork.com)
It’s always stressful for me to finalize the viewing schedule for my film class. I’m always worried about the length of the semester, what students will accept, whether I’m showing too many depressing films, whether I’m leaving out too much important stuff, etc. Of course, I can’t do too much in one semester, because we can only watch one film a week. I THINK here is my film list, in order:
Several shorts, including Lumiere (even though they are not American), and Porter ones, and then a few Chaplin and Keaton shorts, THE KID, THE SHEIK, KING KONG, A DAY AT THE RACES, CITIZEN KANE, a film noir (I hope I can get my hands on a good copy of OUT OF THE PAST), REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, DR. STRANGELOVE, THE GRADUATE, APOCALYPSE NOW, TAXI DRIVER, MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION (jumping forward in time for a palate cleanser, and so I can do a lecture on minorities in film), WALL STREET, MOONSTRUCK, FARGO, MURDERBALL.
I’m definitely neglecting Westerns, war movies and sports films, not to mention showing very few romances. But this is all I can do in one semester. I’ve actually thought of revising the class, and just teaching it as “major American directors,” but that would take a lot of planning that I don’t have time for anymore. If I were to do that I would have had to have started getting ready a couple months ago.
Chick: I’d worship Jesus if he had a rakish and amusing hat.
High school classroom
Englewood, Colorado
(From www.overheardeverywhere.com)
Congrats to Editor B and XY, who just brought their first child into the world!
My university has an exchange program with a small American college. Every year they send some people there, I guess, and every year they send some people here to teach. For whatever reason, my marital status seems to be of great interest to these people. The first year I was here, I’d invited the three teachers out to a Democrats Abroad event, and one of the girls suddenly asked me, “How come you’re not married, and have you ever been in a long-term relationship?” I was really taken aback, especially because I got the impression it was something they had been talking about amongst themselves, and she had been tapped to ask about it. It was even more cheeky because of the nasty tone and the fact that they were out with me, at my invitation. I went out for a massage with one of the present teachers last week, and sure enough, out of the blue she asked me, “Why aren’t you married? Don’t you want to have children?” I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and answer nicely, rather than give the real answer, which is that it is none of her business.
From time to time I’ve thought I should just make up a fake husband, who died in some horrible tragic way. That way I’ll have a simple answer, and the person would think twice about asking someone that sort of question again.
So, let’s take a poll. How should my fake husband have died? (I originally thought of a lightning strike, a la THE PIANO, but that just didn’t feel right to me.) Here are the choices:
1) Attacked by a polar bear
2) Stabbed during a literary disagreement
3) Crushed in a stampede
4) Fell down a crevasse
5) Hurled to the ground from an exploding zeppelin
6) Tragic velodrome accident
7) Shrank
Please choose one and put your selection in the comments section. Thanks!
Don’t quite have the necessary characters to write it properly, but I think it’d be pronounced “v’tornik.” I picked this up today for a measley three kuai. That’s the American Splendor anthology in the background. I was surprised to come across it in a bookstore here a few weeks ago and picked it up.
Yoko, fascinated with the description of Hooters, suggested we go there for brunch. She was a little disappointed, saying she thought it would be “more spectacular.” At the end of the meal, we saw the girls doing a dance for a table of male customers, and since we had also paid a 10% service charge, we said we wanted the same thing. We had to tell them it was Yoko’s birthday, and they came over and sang YMCA, a song I think was chosen because it forces the girls to raise their arms a lot.
I usually ask for a lot of books for my birthday. This year, my mom suggested that since shipping is so expensive, I just buy the ones I want here, up to $100 US, pay with a credit card, and then she’d pay the bill. OK! What a great idea!
I took three bookstore trips, and here is everything I got. I actually stopped before $100, as not to be too cheeky.
1. The Kalahari Typing School for Men, by Alexander McCall Smith
2. The American Splendor Anthology, by Harvey Pekar
3. Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary, by Monica Nolan
4. Shame in the Blood, by Tetsuo Miura
5. The Discomfort Zone, by Johnathan Franzen
6. The Well of Lonliness, by Radclyffe Hall
7. Talk Talk, by T.C. Boyle
8. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
9. Possible Side Effects, by Augusten Burroughs
I’m pretty excited. These should keep me occupied for a long time. If I like them, I can keep them, and if I don’t like them, I can take them to Bookcrossers.
I guess it’s noticeable that there are two lesbian books included. It’s not that I’m a lesbian or anything. I was reading this thing on slash fiction (maybe it was by Dan Savage?), and it said that a lot of gay slash fiction is written by heterosexual girls who are still embarrassed by the idea of sex with men. Writing this kind of story is a way for them to come to terms with the idea of sex, but in a safe way, because they story they are writing could not involve them as participants. I think it’s the same thing for me. Heterosexual love stuff is too embarrassing for me, but gay love stuff is not embarrassing because it wouldn’t involve me at all. Maybe I should have moved on from that by now. I guess that’s sort of pubescent.
To toot my own horn, I have to say when I was younger I was a pretty great floor/street hockey player, and wish I could have done more with the sport. I couldn’t skate, though, which prevented me from playing regular hockey. There weren’t many hockey-related opportunities for girls either.
But I just read about this: Japanese co-ed gumboot hockey! No, it’s not slang for something dirty! It’s a competitive sport!
Off in the mail soon.
I might cancel my trip to Changsha. I just don’t feel up to going. Everything seems overwhelming to me. I know that sometimes a trip is just the thing to bring someone out of a funk, but I don’t know if I could deal with it right now. I think I will go to the travel agency tomorrow to get my money back for my plane ticket.
Don’t forget to buy plenty of candy corn!
The neighbors are fighting again! I don’t know if it’s the upstairs ones or the ones to the side.
It’s Chinese New Year. Wouldn’t fighting be bad luck?
I just opened my bedroom window for like one minute to look at the fireworks, and when I closed my window, I found this weird little red tube on my bed. It was a firecracker casing!
Kitty Maomao is in hiding somewhere, probably behind the TV. I hope she hasn’t gotten scared and pooped anywhere.
I’m sitting here watching the CCTV New Year Gala. I’m still not feeling good. I ended up getting up at 6:30 this evening. I’d set my alarm for 11:00 a.m., but I just felt exhausted and didn’t get up.
I stayed in after I got up because I’m sort of overwhelmed by all the fireworks people are shooting off. They’re too noisy and I get kind of scared of them.
I was thinking that I’ve often got kind of depressed this time of the year, and that’s why I never went to the Chinese New Year celebrations in New York City. It was always raining and I felt sort of hopeless and didn’t want to go.
Hopefully I will feel better soon.
