tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202880422024-03-14T07:29:33.138-10:00Tao 61Fire Pig in a Wood Horse Yearbaroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.comBlogger190125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-10146574169514197742013-12-22T11:05:00.000-10:002013-12-22T11:05:51.724-10:00Winter Solstice 2013Has it been an entire cycle from Summer Solstice to Winter since last I updated these pages? Pretty much. The downward snaky rollercoaster ride from June to now is coming in to the ride's stop. I disembark, sigh long and hard, "What was THAT?"<br />
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Travels from East Coast to China, holidays, birthdays, minor illness, a serious tooth abscess, way too much effort devoted to the time-suck that is Facebook (with things that may have been better said here), so many CJK videos (and a couple of western series even after Mad Men) that I have not even cared to comment on them, yin receiving too much stimulation over the past six months. Maybe I'm done here. Or maybe not.<br />
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Today, which may or may not be the actual Solstice, depending on who you consult (all my Asian contacts are saying it's the 22nd, even though the 21st is regarded as such in the West) I rest, gather for the yang inhale which will begin in earnest on the 25th. <br />
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And before I know it, it will be June again. Next stop on the ride--or start--Chinese New Year, January 31. Year of Horse. Over the next month, it's "bei ma," make ready the horse for the gallop of 2014.<br />
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<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-86229106145488411252013-06-25T12:57:00.000-10:002013-06-25T17:13:54.207-10:00The Dao of Don DraperWhile I don't watch much ordinary American TV, (and virtually never when it is actually being aired) I have been caught up with <em>Mad Men</em>, since the beginning (although frustrated because I like to watch things back-to-back, to their conclusion, like working through a long novel on a long weekend.) Korean dramas give you vastly more content in one sitting. Over the past six or eight months I have watched <em>The West Wing</em> and <em>Frasier</em>, the way I watch one of my beloved 24- or 63- or 81-episode Korean dramas. Watching a series back-to-back without commercial interruption on Netflix gets it out of your system. <br />
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<em>Mad Men</em> appeals to me because: 1) I grew up in that era, albeit as the not-so-unruly daughter of an honorable WWII father (not of the Korean war), who vaguely resembled Don Draper; 2) I have close friends who worked in a major New York ad agency in the late '60s and early '70s, one as a media buyer and another in creative; 3) I have media background myself, and actually covered stories of the period that were related to racial unrest and civil rights, Vietnam, counter-culture activities, and very ordinary mundane things like weddings and Kiwanis meetings; and 4) the costumes, sets and general ambiance are so palpably familiar. <br />
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I was a little disappointed as this sixth season has developed...until the last episode. And I had the insight about something I always vow not to do: consider "the Dao of Don Draper." Generally when something is presented as the "Dao of" I run the other way. But there are some lessons here.<br />
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What a strange and selfish character he is. Dapper Draper, impeccable and despicable. All story and no substance. All fiction and image. An invention of the self. A perfect ad man. A magician. A wizard. Until he begins to confront his own real story, long repressed. Will he be redeemed? Will he just continue that free-fall from the opening credits? One or the other. I hope for redemption, but a splat on the sidewalk somehow seems just as likely. Or suffering from lung cancer and cirrhosis, rejected and pitied by his family and colleagues, unable to get veterans' benefits for treatment in a VA hospital (where Dr. Gregory House is "interested" in his case). Who knows? Infinite possibilities.<br />
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But now I have to wait another season to find out. While having plenty of time to review the series, back-to-back, ironically sans commercials, to look at the clues. baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-9924625937107942222013-04-05T15:30:00.001-10:002013-04-05T19:35:51.564-10:00What's the Difference<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I 've been slogging through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_and_I_(TV_series)" target="_blank">The King and I</a>, a 63-episode Korean drama, taking time out here and there for a movie or two because this tale of eunuch culture in the 15th century Joseon Dynasty was a little slow and dull. Until this:</div>
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Apparently one of the eunuchs "regenerated his manhood", and a pregnancy among the court maids required that the culprit be found. I don't think "entertainer" was exactly the best translation for the person who did the patdowns. (This guy was innocent, incidentally, you can just tell.) And we think Washington politics is bizarre. <br />
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And it is. One of my breaks from this costume romp has been revisiting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing" target="_blank">The West Wing</a>, where curiously, episodes from ten years ago seem just like the current news. Coups and mad cow threats and North Korean posturing and scandals involving hookers and secrets. Nothing is new. I am told that there are people who actually believed that Martin Sheen was the president, which is no surprise because his character was such a composite: Reagan and Carter and Clinton and maybe the elder Bush and FDR all rolled up in one who resembles a Kennedy. With a staff of perpetual adolescents and one recovering alcoholic.<br />
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What strikes me though is the similarity (sans eunuchs) of the two power systems. Ministers in silk robes and Congressmen in Brooks Brothers suits; a Queen or First Lady calling the shots (especially in the West Wing) from behind the scenes; petitioning peasants and pissed off constituencies; wars and food crises and international imbalances of power. And now that I think of it, the press corps <strong>is</strong> something like the eunuch department--seduced by power, privy to secrets, holding the cards but never really playing the game. The eunuchs can look forward to being buried with their "three precious"; a journalist might get fame with a Pulitzer.<br />
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The distracting movies:<br />
<a href="http://jbspins.blogspot.com/2012/11/back-to-1942-war-and-famine-in-henan.html" target="_blank">Back to 1942</a>, a sad and moving look at the 1942 famine in Henan, exacerbated by Chiang Kai-shek and exposed by Theodore White. This is a little like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_of_War" target="_blank">Flowers of War</a> in gritty telling of China's misery during WWII.<br />
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<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2458314/" target="_blank">The Last Tycoon</a>, with Chow Yun-fat and Sammo Hung and a couple of younger guys I like a lot, including <a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Gao_Hu" target="_blank">Gao Hu</a>, who is equally interesting as an emperor or a loyal punk. A Shanghai gangster story, something of a cross between the Godfather and Casablanca, based on some true history of the early Republican era and the Japanese occupation of the late '30s, The Last Tycoon is memorable for Chow Yun-fat's usual fine posture and gun-fu, and a strange scene with Sammo Hung as a stroke victim, naked and playing with a rubber duckie in a Chinese bath. <br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_(film)" target="_blank">Secretariat</a>, from my Netflix queue, a Disney version of the great big-hearted red horse that won the Triple Crown in 1973. Actually, I remember that race, when Secretariat beat his serious contender by 31 lengths. The movie was a little like Titanic: you know how it's going to end, but this was more positive. I thought my Netflix selection was going to be the story about Seabiscuit...a race horse is a race horse...but I was confused. I went back to look at the history of horse racing and praise youtube for making it possible to watch this race again. A race horse is a race horse, but Secretariat was something else:<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretariat_(horse)" target="_blank">Secretariat</a> was lucky: no one messed with HIS genitals and he went on to sire something like 600 foals before he was put down at 19 because of a painful and incurable hoof condition. But like those eunuchs, Secretariat was buried as a whole horse (usually only the head, heart, and hooves of a winning race horse are buried, and the rest of the body is cremated).<br />
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Probably someone will protest something about horseracing; I always like to watch the horses run, and Secretariat and all those other famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughbred" target="_blank">thoroughbreds</a> like Seabiscuit and Man o' War ...and Stewball, a dancin' and a prancin', clearly liked to run. I wish I coulda bet on one of them!<br />
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<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-68771836280857815642013-01-26T15:07:00.000-10:002013-01-26T15:07:36.165-10:00And the first shall be last...Came across <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/moon-swoon-2013s-full-moons-got-peculiar-names-143423946.html" target="_blank">an item</a> that pointed out that tonight's full moon will be the first of 2013. Unless of course you follow the lunar calendar in which it is the last of 2012, Chinese New Year beginning Feb. 10 with the new moon. Yin and yang, moon and sun, east and west, oscillating. When really is the new year anyway? I like the idea that there can be two. I exploit it.<br />
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To welcome the Chinese New Year, <a href="http://www.about-sichuan-china.com/year-of-the-snake.html" target="_blank">Year of Water Snake</a> (sometimes called junior dragon), I have been practicing some calligraphy and painting to create some little new year's cards with snake motifs to send to all the people who sent me Christmas cards, but to whom I failed to reciprocate. Am I ahead or behind?<br />
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My Chinese painting class resumed this week, and my Manchu teacher, unlike the Korean nun, has encouraged calligraphy study, said I should do <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia)" target="_blank">caoshu</a>, not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_script" target="_blank">kaishu</a>. Caoshu is the flowing flourishy style--"running", although there is also a "walking" style, and a "lying down" style-- as opposed to kaishu, which is much more controlled. (Like the difference between Taoism and Confucianism; modern dance and classical ballet?) "You have a freehand style," he said, "in your painting and this." He pretty much gave me permission to do this, and to copy great caoshu masters like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huai_Su" target="_blank">Huai Su</a>, the Tang dynasty monk who wrote while drinking and couldn't even read his own calligraphy the next morning. (Haven't we all done this, drunk or not?) But it is very beautiful. My teacher is very sensitive to personality and how it comes out in the brush. "You don't have to know what it means, anyway," he said. "Hardly anyone can read caoshu."<br />
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So brush in hand, I channel snakes. The character is actually reminiscent of the snake, which as I was doing it I realized is just like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus" target="_blank">caduceus</a>, the medical symbol, and also the rising of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini" target="_blank">kundalini</a>. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snakes in my brush. There's a couple of horses there too, but snake, she, 蛇, is what I'm working on.</td></tr>
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<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-82532376548938998232013-01-06T11:41:00.000-10:002013-01-06T12:56:04.700-10:00Never-ending HolidaysIt's Jan. 6, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)" target="_blank">Epiphany</a>, in the Christian/Christmas liturgical cycle, the 12th and last day of Christmas. But for so many, I can tell Christmas is long gone, all done on Dec. 25. Why do we expend so much energy in the run-up to things, and not savor the actual time, as if it were just one minute or a day and not a period? We were supposed to have our Christmas trees out of the condo earlier this week --that seemed wrong to me, and I like my tree so much, the lights and color and symbols, it is hard for me even now to think of dismantling it. Especially in the Hawaii winter with gusty winds and a lot of rain. It makes things cheerful!<br />
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When I was in the grocery yesterday, (or was it last week?) the first thing I saw was the Valentine candy display. Does anyone buy such things now, a full month and half out? <br />
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Since Halloween (Labor Day really) my life has been a virtual whirl of holidays, markers in the year...Halloween, the scorpio moment that precedes the Wizard's birthday. Then there were elections (you'd think they were holidays, the way folks go on and on) and other federal observances leading up to Thanksgiving. We managed to spend some serious holiday time with family and friends on the Mainland. Then my birthday, then our wedding anniversary/winter solstice and Christmas. And now... Valentine's Day? It isn't even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year" target="_blank">Chinese New Year </a>yet!<br />
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On Christmas eve, in addition to my annual ritualistic baby boomer nostalgic viewing of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Polar_Express_(film)" target="_blank">Polar Express</a></i>, I also watched <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_Inn_(film)" target="_blank"><i>Holiday Inn</i>,</a> a DVD of the 1942 musical with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire with Irving Berlin music. It recalled to me the cycle of holidays of grade school in the '50s, construction paper craft projects making silhouettes of Washington and Lincoln, and Valentine hearts to decorate the box in which we deposited little cards for classmates, unaware of any erotic significance, and on and on through the year. But they never seemed to run together, those holidays, as they do now in consumer-based celebrations.<br />
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Holiday Inn was fun to watch, including Fred Astaire's famous <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBf8rGtD1nY" target="_blank">patriotic firecracker dance</a>, (compare to <a href="http://www.mtviggy.com/videos/psy-gangnam-style/" target="_blank">Gangnam Style</a>) and Bing and Marjorie Reynolds singing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yg5g_Xl-uU" target="_blank"><i>White Christmas</i></a> to a tree, using the bells on its boughs as part of the acompaniment. It was a quaint reverie, except for the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnzdFKz_X4Q" target="_blank">colossal embarrassment</a> (and bizarre counterpoint to <i>White Christmas</i>) of the Lincoln's Birthday celebration, with Bing Crosby in blackface, giving the shameful impression that Abe freed the slaves so they could find acting jobs in Hollywood movies as stereotypical mammys and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickaninny" target="_blank">pickaninnys</a>. Well, it was 1942 and Irving Berlin. We still had a long way to go. (Who would go to a sophisticated song and dance inn in the country to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday anyway?) Apparently broadcast versions of the film edit this number out; I suppose if Hollywood wanted to remake the movie, in a politically correct fashion, they might add Kwaanza to the holiday celebrations or replace the Lincoln scene with Martin Luther King Day. <br />
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And it would be cool to add some lion dancing and kung fu for a Chinese New Year scene. That's the next holiday I'm looking forward to! Fifteen days! Spring festival! The Chinese know how to stretch out a holiday.baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-53460852265892911542012-12-21T19:00:00.000-10:002012-12-21T19:01:30.231-10:00Overcoming the YinGosh, has it been so long, months have gone by since I felt like putting something here. Well, the solstice brings that to a point, can't neglect the yin, to which I attribute a couple of months of good sleeping weather and interesting travel, by planes and in my dreams.<br />
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Commuting home tonight, sans radio still, I was doing my occasional practice of numbers in French and Chinese by reciting, as quickly as I could, the digits on license plates. Which got me to observing vanity plates and the slogans people put on their cars. "Na Kane O Ke Kai" on the back of a pickup, which I think means "belonging to the man of the sea." I know very little of Hawaiian language, but after a while, it just seems natural.<br />
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A vanity plate confused me. F8HFUL. I think it is supposed to be "faithful" but I read it as "fateful." Who knows. (Although local people tend to say "th" as "t", as in Tanksgiving or one-two-tree, so it could go either way.)<br />
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Solstice observations: the fateful spider is gone from my lanai, the faithful kolea are busy in the yard, and I was pleased to note that, despite my neglect (or perhaps because of it) over these past two months, the Christmas cactuses have set blossoms and look like at least a few will be blooming on Christmas Day. Faith or fate seem to have nothing to do with that. Tao at work, the ziran of the Christmas cactus. <br />
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And at the rate I update this blog, the next time will be at the New Year...and I don't mean next week, but the lunar Year of Snake, in February. So many calendars. In any case, for the Gregorian New Year, I will hang up my 1957 scenic French ESSO calendar. Turns out 2013 works the same as 1957 (and 1963 and 1974 and many other years). So if the Mayan calendar prevented you from investing in a 2013 calendar, you can j<a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/repeating.html?year=2013" target="_blank">ust recycle an old one</a>. Look in your attic or go to eBay (where you will find among others, an incredible offering of old gas station Vargas and Betty Page pinup calendars...someone found those worth saving!) In fact, I also just found in my storage a gorgeous Sierra Club calendar from 1991, works too. A reminder of the beauty of the earth, which still exists for preservation. I won't be buying calendars this year! But not because the Mayan Calendar ended.baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-64129296199096891472012-10-28T13:56:00.002-10:002012-10-28T17:14:48.092-10:00Running Silent, Nothing HappensWhen you are out of touch with media, does anything really happen? If you don't hear/see the alert/storm/debate, did it really happen?<br />
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A few weeks ago my car radio was stolen again, so I am again in meditative driving mode. I miss the Teaching Company lectures, but I am regarding this as a sort of term break. And the radio wasn't my source of news anyway.</div>
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I'm not sure, apart from Yahoo headlines when I log on here, I have much of a source of news anyway. Some hurricane jokes blew completely over my head this week. "So how's that hurricane, Sandy?" (Sandy is a misspelling of my real name.) </div>
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"Oh she's calm now," I said after meeting a critical milestone on an difficult project. "Downgraded to a tropical depression."</div>
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It was several days before I realized the jokes weren't really about ME. There WAS a Hurricane Sandy (a Sandy Cane) building on the east coast. Well, so far away, and we have problems of our own. The <a href="feed://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/tag/kilauea/feed/" target="_blank">volcano</a> is <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49468040/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/kilauea-lava-lake-reaches-record-height/" target="_blank">spewing again</a> (causing itchy eyes and asthma-like breathing even several islands away) and a tsunami alert last night caused a lot of traffic accidents. (There was no wave to speak of, just a lot of panic and fighting at gas stations.) Alerts can be as bad as the real thing.</div>
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A friend on Maui who lives in the "inundation zone"called me during the alert period. She'd loaded up her car with all her meds, checkbooks, mobile devices, and was waiting it out on higher ground. Her boat captain SO was a mile out at sea riding it out. </div>
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It would have to be a HUGE tsunami, Biblical proportions as they say, to affect my living area. The only thing I consider a real threat is that punk <a href="http://kimjongunlookingatthings.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Kim Jong-un</a> and his toy army. Did you know the country has an <a href="http://www.korea-dpr.com/" target="_blank">official website</a>?</div>
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I'd been watching a movie, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2078768/" target="_blank">The Silent War</a></i>, with Tiny Tony Leung (Chiu Wai) in his second role as a blind man (that I know of). <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Stop staring at me," she said. "I'm not staring, I'm blind," he said.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb0LG2Jn5COH72IdeAEwDN-tVLBw-istKSBuCqwS_MArxcRYXhX0ahB_JwzC7FtfJm2esXbDP37DP3QvaH9w9QKZYbsQ1KzPxJu4NzhE6ll8Z848JsuTE-v4XUXmGKpjNhrBp/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb0LG2Jn5COH72IdeAEwDN-tVLBw-istKSBuCqwS_MArxcRYXhX0ahB_JwzC7FtfJm2esXbDP37DP3QvaH9w9QKZYbsQ1KzPxJu4NzhE6ll8Z848JsuTE-v4XUXmGKpjNhrBp/s200/Unknown.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blind Swordsman</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Not a swordsman this time (at right), but a blind piano tuner recruited as a spy by a People's Republic of China agency doing intelligence work against the Nationalists just post-1949. At least in <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109688/" target="_blank">Ashes of Time</a></i> you could see his eyes, which are two of his most endearing features. (And his hair wasn't cut like Kim Jong-un's.) In this one he was always wearing shades, or a blindfold, or cloudy contacts to simulate damaged corneas, or bandages after he gouged out his surgically corrected eyes. Seeing had conflicted with his hearing. There was some sort of ethical/moral thing going on, but without any Oedipal connotations, I think.</div>
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Anyway, in the middle of <i>The Silent War</i>, I chatted with my friend. Since I haven't turned on broadcast or cable television in months, I was at a loss to discuss the debates (I know who I'm voting for); the related satire of Stewart and Colbert; the analysis of MacNeil-Lehrer (although isn't one of them dead?). Fortunately since I have acquired a bad cold, which I attribute to vog, temperature inversion, and stress, I had an excuse to not really say anything. I can barely breathe let alone comment on politics. </div>
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So morning after the non-tsunami, I suppose I could poke around and find out what's happening on that East Coast, (or even in Alaska where the earthquake that generated the non-tsunami originated). Or I could ignore it. Someone is bound to tell me about it tomorrow. And it won't make a difference to me at all. Like none of it ever happened. Not listening.<br />
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baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-16149529539068835812012-09-22T10:39:00.000-10:002012-09-22T14:30:17.899-10:00Bargain BooksApart from a sizable and growing collection of mostly Asian DVDs, I don't buy a lot of stuff--unless you count books. I buy a lot of books.<br />
<br />
How delightful it was, as I was cruising my Amazon wish-list, and drooling for the 61st time over the pricey <i>T<a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415678155/" target="_blank">he Routledge Encyclopedia of Taoism</a> </i>edited by <a href="http://silenttao.com/2012/01/interview-with-fabrizio-pregadio/" target="_blank">Fabrizio Pregadio</a>, to discover that I could apply $67 worth of earned credits to this coveted purchase, 1,500 paperbacked pages originally priced at $99. What Taoist doesn't love a bargain? And a legitimate one, not pirated like the copy of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=20288042#editor/target=post;postID=1614952953906883581" target="_blank">Graham Horwood'</a>s <i>Tai Chi Chuan, the Code of Life</i>" I bought in Wudang a few years ago (and which still gives me a little pang of guilt when I pull it from my shelf). In my defense, I should note that I only determined it was pirated after I bought it. (But in China, I should have assumed as much.)<br />
<br />
Yes, guilt. I am from a generation that respects copyright (or at least attempts to; I have probably posted some photos of actors on this site that are protected, but I have made no profit from it). I have only ever once downloaded a piece of music that I could have paid for. (And I subsequently acquired a legitimate copy.) There was a little discussion of this topic on a Facebook Taoism forum just yesterday. Someone, very young I'm sure, probably a master downloader and torrent user, suggested that copyright was the source of all evil in the world. "Shouldn't ideas just be contributed to the universe without thought of expecting personal gain or recognition?" The best retort came from a Wudang priest who noted that ripping off his DVDs was depriving him and his family a modest livelihood.<br />
<br />
And so my grand encyclopedia, published just over a year ago (2011 for the paperback, 2008 for the way more costly hardback), has arrived, and I am obsessed. Taoism is of course a "practice," doing (or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei" target="_blank">actively not doing</a>) things. But why then is there a Taoist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daozang" target="_blank">canon</a> of hundreds and hundreds of scriptures and manuals of how not to "do" and practical advice, mostly esoteric and metaphorical, studied by Taoist monks and nuns and priests and lay people? (You have to have something to do when you're not doing something, I guess.)<br />
<br />
In contrast to the brief Tao Te Ching, which you can read (but probably not really understand) in less than an hour, the introductory overview in the <i>Encyclopedia</i> is 196 pages and could easily stand as a volume on its own. The index is 70 pages and there is also a sizable bibliography and other references . The entries themselves, written by an impressive group of contemporary scholars of Taoism, are extensive, though arranged alphabetically by the pinyin renderings and accompanied by helpful Chinese characters. It will require a little familiarity with Chinese to find specific things, but browsing is productive, and we are all used to doing that with the internet anyway. This is the most intriguing and useful thing I've got on my shelf since my <a href="http://oxforddictionaries.com/?region=us" target="_blank">Oxford Dictionaries</a> of the Christian Church, the Bible, World Religions, and Classical Mythology. And the OED.<br />
<br />
If you have a serious and scholarly interest in the vast tradition that is Taoism, I highly recommend this set. It's worth every legitimate penny.<br />
<br />
This post should have appeared on My Yang Side (where there are <a href="http://baronessoftao.blogspot.com/2012/09/equinoxed-up.html" target="_blank">some movie related comments today</a>), but as it is the autumnal equinox, I find it doesn't matter. It's six of one and half a dozen of another, a phrase I once quoted to a Chinese person, who just didn't get it. Go figure. baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-56383480026382210112012-08-03T17:25:00.000-10:002012-08-03T17:27:00.068-10:00Wudang WoesMy plans to return to Wudangshan this September completely fell apart today. Thus, although the verse primarily pertains to meditation, I am concentrating on the travel wisdom of Dao De Jing 47:<br />
<br />
<em>Without going out of your door,<br />You can
know the ways of the world.<br />Without peeping through your window,<br />You can
see the Way of Heaven.<br />The farther you go,<br />The less you know.<br /><br />Thus,
the Sage knows without travelling,<br />Sees without looking,<br />And achieves
without Ado.</em><br />
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">(tr. John C. Wu)</span></em><br />
<br />
Well that's wisdom, but for real consolation, last night, in some sort of prescient synchronicity, I had a pleasant surprise. A movie released just this summer that I thought I might see or buy in China during my trip was made available on YouTube. I have been eager to see Vincent Zhao in <em><a href="http://www.wudangsanfengpai.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=249:qgreat-wudangq-has-hot-shot-in-the-wudang-mountains&catid=48:press&Itemid=100">The Great Wudang</a></em> for over a year, when I first heard about it. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr6Gz9DP4i8ddfEgUmhgLT2RpuV3k5oCDe8QkC0y4mK2YVs0VIpmVGNSBM5SlaP0Ca4FgBj854OwM-THW6U-agdmN1zWGNkvtUb1mLAU2MJJy7y_E9X-8BsWg7M1jDn4zJO849/s1600/wudang+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr6Gz9DP4i8ddfEgUmhgLT2RpuV3k5oCDe8QkC0y4mK2YVs0VIpmVGNSBM5SlaP0Ca4FgBj854OwM-THW6U-agdmN1zWGNkvtUb1mLAU2MJJy7y_E9X-8BsWg7M1jDn4zJO849/s200/wudang+poster.jpg" width="142" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Wudang</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So without peeping out my window, just by peeping at my computer screen, I <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sz7WkzKkKs&list=FLDf0DMsr-VPrTpJSne4Gc8w&index=1&feature=plpp_video">visited Wudang</a> anyway, albeit homesickish the way ex-pat Hawaii people might be when they watch <em>5-0</em>. (And equally puzzled when the locations don't always make sense...how do you get from the North Shore to Diamond Head on foot in an hour?...How do you get from Golden Top to Purple Cloud in five minutes? It took me six hours to walk that route down the mountain once.)<br />
<br />
Turning away from Episode 66 (of 77) of <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_San">Yi San</a></em>, my current Korean escape, I watched my favorite MA star in a kind of typical wuxia story, set in post-Qing/early Republican times. In the first few minutes, there is a kick-ass fight in an airplane flying over Hubei on the way to a martial arts competition at Wudangshan. Everything about it--the time, the plot, the romance, the quest--has led me to call it "<em>Indiana Zhao and the Temple of Tao</em>." (Vincent seems to be channeling Harrison Ford a little bit: motorcycles, leather coats, scholarly spectacles, and a daughter. No fedora. Or maybe there was. Need to watch again. And where was Sean Connery?)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indiana Zhao</td></tr>
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I'd like to have seen this done as a 20-episode TV series (20 hours of Vincent) with more character and plot development, but it's fun anyway. Scenery is all familiar and authentic (except possibly the mountains in the competition arena: they looked CGI to me, more like Hua Shan). I have mixed feelings to see sacred spots used this way, but it's not the first time...Jackie Chan's <em>Kung Fu Kid</em> and the 2009 TV series, <em>Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre</em>, were both filmed there too. (Contrary to popular belief, <em>CTHD </em>was not.) <em>The Great Wudang</em> was fun if you like the wuxia action genre and Vincent Zhao. (I certainly do!) <br />
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It was nice to find it on You-tube just at this moment, and I'll probably watch it one more time before it disappears. Still, I'll buy it when my DVD vendor calls me and tells me she just got it in. Just for the locations, you know...and Vincent.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3X16TzwHHtA8A76yncA6IgEWgl7HhtEfbOJMDcvt7xmacVg1LUo7E8CVyYXMCJi8tUay4PcIbpV0QMRFE2I-UCuDQMOLKs-l8sW492LtJ270l-wtICMX0aIeoj6w6N6jiqSd/s1600/004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3X16TzwHHtA8A76yncA6IgEWgl7HhtEfbOJMDcvt7xmacVg1LUo7E8CVyYXMCJi8tUay4PcIbpV0QMRFE2I-UCuDQMOLKs-l8sW492LtJ270l-wtICMX0aIeoj6w6N6jiqSd/s320/004.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vincent, where are you?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-10729862350895648542012-07-16T13:02:00.000-10:002012-07-16T14:02:07.970-10:00CommonalitiesI've been watching a 77-episode Korean drama, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_San">Yi San</a>, from 2007, that is intriguing me in part because one of the characters is a "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damo_(Korea)">damo</a>," a commoner in the Imperial art department, a talented young woman who, with some support from her childhood friend, the Crown Prince, rises above painter's assistant to actually being an artist. In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon_Dynasty">a time</a> when women aren't permitted to do such things, it always helps to have an enlightened friend in a high place, even if the main theme of the drama is that virtually everyone in the corrupt Royal Court is trying to kill him. If I had started watching this in 2007, I'd be done now. I had Volume 1 on hand a couple years ago, but at the time didn't realize it was only the first of four. It's almost as long as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumong_(TV_series)">Jumong</a>. But a little slower. Not until episode 34, when the Crown Prince finally has a beard and comes to realize he actually loves the damo, and the King falls into easily manipulated senility, does the plot get really interesting. <br />
<br />
Facial hair seems to be a symbol of coming of age and maturity and in this case it certainly makes the Crown Prince look a lot more authoritative (and sexually attractive), even if he is only 25 years old. There is another <a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Han_Sang_Jin">character</a>, a loyal advisor to the Crown Prince, who has the most attractive eyebrows, like perfect <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaishu">kaishu</a> calligraphy strokes. I haven't been so fascinated by eyebrows, also a staple of Asian operatic costume, since the long multi-colored ones on the crazy old doctor in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Herbalist%27s_Manual">The Herbalist's Manual</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53ym3bhiUQS0P7V13lRIo4d6EmXZ5bNh8FxLZLs5uTYlSabCujj1v7yKMq2RvIoBn7pLjmAXXL_tm7GMZEqp7EHDvYlIuGQ8RoGRUsHvkq4wGLtd8LvFnmmP2bgoVboJw8aH7/s1600/yi+san+kid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53ym3bhiUQS0P7V13lRIo4d6EmXZ5bNh8FxLZLs5uTYlSabCujj1v7yKMq2RvIoBn7pLjmAXXL_tm7GMZEqp7EHDvYlIuGQ8RoGRUsHvkq4wGLtd8LvFnmmP2bgoVboJw8aH7/s320/yi+san+kid.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crown Prince in childhood </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvgZJlJYyCzhY6JtAswa3v81cdOFpPCYH7LOU9YnD6EPwFQH-vMeROhnETHLScnBUO0f5vpP-L03gmoHOec-Kv61vwZL2q_wb5VUfElMoWz3rvWXtcpwvPxfWz8BX_U0ZbsB6e/s1600/young+yi+san.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvgZJlJYyCzhY6JtAswa3v81cdOFpPCYH7LOU9YnD6EPwFQH-vMeROhnETHLScnBUO0f5vpP-L03gmoHOec-Kv61vwZL2q_wb5VUfElMoWz3rvWXtcpwvPxfWz8BX_U0ZbsB6e/s1600/young+yi+san.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Crown Prince recalling his childhood.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWm-eKK2OEMqRBsOHltK6EFzwEa-UZxKdHMPwi6VMG2gWciZLtMq3kjVQTceOmk8zHgzLSlXEuKGg_ZmaGQKpFHlU5u-yu6_1NGbg3IRCzmMdjUk_Q-M_KtdtNFpsLBD_1oDDH/s1600/yi+san.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWm-eKK2OEMqRBsOHltK6EFzwEa-UZxKdHMPwi6VMG2gWciZLtMq3kjVQTceOmk8zHgzLSlXEuKGg_ZmaGQKpFHlU5u-yu6_1NGbg3IRCzmMdjUk_Q-M_KtdtNFpsLBD_1oDDH/s1600/yi+san.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mature, bearded Crown Prince</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2_Wh6_HWVN54Iuf841Dp4jjNvu3uKaftoIyr4IKzGHojcTX2qphGp9pKuyxkTPtKkbD3l07gZt44edqEANYu5dj707KUSW4Hxj156dIY4o5GYmRYC14-fI8M-5xwsIhQ7tke/s1600/hong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2_Wh6_HWVN54Iuf841Dp4jjNvu3uKaftoIyr4IKzGHojcTX2qphGp9pKuyxkTPtKkbD3l07gZt44edqEANYu5dj707KUSW4Hxj156dIY4o5GYmRYC14-fI8M-5xwsIhQ7tke/s1600/hong.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trustworthy kaishu eyebrows</td></tr>
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The "damo" plot recalls <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painter_of_the_Wind">Painter of the Wind</a>, another K-D that had oriental painting as a sort of character, and is just perfect as I start brush painting lessons with yet another teacher who has kicked my enthusiasm up a notch: he practices qigong and has promised to help me with my Chinese.<br />
<br />
But back to my theme...77 episodes of commoners and the court is kind of the mirror opposite of "The King's Speech," the Oscar-winning two-hour movie I only just watched, about King George VI and his speech impediment. It's a great movie and in addition to illustrating the grace of good manners (the Queen mum apparently had 'em; who knew Helena Bonham Carter was so regal), it is about a commoner, an Australian no less, who supported the reluctant Bertie in his destiny to become the King after the Prince of Wales abdicates (and it was a good thing, we think). <br />
<br />
As the damo and the Joseon king forge an alliance (I think she becomes a concubine and produces an heir, sometime in the next 20 episodes), so too did the uncredentialed speech therapist become King George's friend and supporter. He apparently coached the King through every public speech he ever made, turning his stammering into an "asset," as Churchill said (at least in the movie) of his own tongue-tied condition.<br />
<br />
As an American, I am always bemused by the way some cultures cherish their royalty--Asian dynasties, the British empire, the Hawaiian monarchy. Sometimes I think the problems we have today in American politics are because we DON'T have a stable royal presence to look to. We want our president to be a royal leader, a strong symbol of our nation, but alas, the candidates are all just commoners. Usually rich, but common, still. All of our popular royal icons are sports, entertainment or business superstars, all of whom we like to point and laugh at when they prove to be, through failure, as common as the rest of us. It is with some nostalgia we look back on the illusions of the Kennedy "dynasty" era, the "Camelot" which couldn't last and will never come again. <br />
<br />
In both <em>Yi San</em> and <em>The King's Speech</em>, there is a theme of loyalty and royalty, friendship and respect across the palace border, two-way service, that actually secures a better future for the people. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI_7-RBT0wqjiDMj7mn_9g2wkJ_xcHA7hUxnBO-ZYEIiy3S86SvAIFmljAJ_yCCxdTx2x6q9a59LRsg6Tgpquyc9q7WqjiTlIT9srzaRzqEddLCUJwdReSSCsu_8mjPAVUJ1-0/s1600/July+16+2012+015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI_7-RBT0wqjiDMj7mn_9g2wkJ_xcHA7hUxnBO-ZYEIiy3S86SvAIFmljAJ_yCCxdTx2x6q9a59LRsg6Tgpquyc9q7WqjiTlIT9srzaRzqEddLCUJwdReSSCsu_8mjPAVUJ1-0/s320/July+16+2012+015.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Yellow Emperor is my damo. But he won't let me paint!</td></tr>
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<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-24073289817078030952012-06-09T12:05:00.000-10:002012-07-17T16:16:20.660-10:00Clamming DownHas it been more than two months since I have posted something to this blog? Yes. Not that I haven't been indulging in lots of Asian film and serials, but I have been under pressure with a professional project and have neglected chronicling the whimsical side of my life. So on another three-day weekend, during which we are celebrating a holiday the rest of the country doesn't, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_Day">King Kamehameha Day</a>, and having completed the intense deadlined project which had been giving me mild anxiety attacks (thank goodness for Taoist breathing exercises), I can finally clam down.<br />
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Intentional typo that, "clam down." In my <a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/The_Spirit_of_the_Sword">current wuxia series</a> one of the subtitled bits of dialogue admonished a raving character to "clam down." I have often been advised to "clam up," with its vaguely mafioso innuendo, but no one ever told me to "clam down." Although I often say I am "<a href="http://www.stickycomics.com/happy_clams/">happy as a clam</a>," a phrase which usually omits the meaningful part: "at high tide." A sort of Taoist clam. A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivalvia">bivalve</a> not at risk of being dug up and steamed and drenched in clarified butter. Maybe that's what clamming down might mean. Like hunkering down. Clam creeps down.<br />
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Still, I would like to have had this as a tool during my project to clam everyone up or down.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro0iQO0-gSz_8RWgxcHeRbzyMpAEDz_PN3or_Wnr-LH6rgY4klv3RzdTcDRVWY_7DMxdyBCBKQmOXv6WkpyNBuBPWQ9grAuXShDold74bi8QQ9xjQvKsKEOAtALJsGRS75UA1/s1600/taiwan-spirit-of-the-sword-2009-9-7-23-10-29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro0iQO0-gSz_8RWgxcHeRbzyMpAEDz_PN3or_Wnr-LH6rgY4klv3RzdTcDRVWY_7DMxdyBCBKQmOXv6WkpyNBuBPWQ9grAuXShDold74bi8QQ9xjQvKsKEOAtALJsGRS75UA1/s320/taiwan-spirit-of-the-sword-2009-9-7-23-10-29.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now <a href="http://newshopper.sulekha.com/taiwan-spirit-of-the-sword_photo_961998.htm">this</a> is a clam digger!</td></tr>
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It's very creepy that this sword allegedly is infused with a spiritual aura as a result of having been crafted with human bones in the mix. Personally, I would clam up about that.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeXbhR60_JA">Spirit of the Sword</a>, typical wuxia, but not the greatest (so far, I'm only at episode 18 of 40), has been kind of fun, featuring Nicholas Tse with a funky haircut, which distracts from his usual minimalist display of a maximum of two expressions in his acting. Nick is always very pretty to look at, but his emotional range appears somewhat limited. Here's a sample from the series:<br />
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Since April, I have also enjoyed several Korean dramas (including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_First_King%27s_Four_Gods">one</a> with the delectable<a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Bae_Yong_Jun"> Bae Yong Jun </a>that my Chinese DVD version's title, <i>Wang 4 Credited Gods,</i> should have alerted me that the subtitles might be truly bizarre: whenever the dialogue would have been "want to" it was rendered, Beijing-inflected, as "wanner"). There are also several movies that I watched, largely as escape mechanisms from the professional project, but I honestly can't easily recall what they were; since I was not particularly clam, I didn't even take time to jot down the titles. (Although it's beginning to<br />
come back to me--fodder for a subsequent post.) It's as if between t<a href="http://tao61.blogspot.com/2012/03/lucky-you-livesomeplace.html">he last holiday dedicated to Hawaiian royalty</a> and this one, I have been in some space/time warp, all clammed up or clammed down.<br />
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But now I am emerging from my shell.baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-45607002458612420062012-04-01T12:04:00.002-10:002012-04-02T12:50:42.645-10:00Spring CleaningNo time like the present...better late than never...I have finally been doing some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_cleaning">spring cleaning</a>. When the energy moves me, I move. Dunging out, mopping up, polishing things, dealing with the accumulations of the past year...in some closet cases, over the past 15 years. And who knew there would be a Wikipedia entry on "spring cleaning," where I learned that my timing is perfect:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">n </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Greece">Greece</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">, and other </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Eastern Orthodox Church">Orthodox</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> nations, it is traditional to clean the house thoroughly either right before or during the first week of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lent" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Great Lent">Great Lent</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">, which is referred to as </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Monday" style="background-image: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration: none;" title="Clean Monday">Clean Week</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">. This also often corresponds with the Julian New Year, or April 1.</span></span></blockquote>
In the same way my elderly Japanese orchid-fancier neighbor says, lamenting the latest dent on his Honda, "I'm not a very good driver," I always say to people who take their shoes off, local style, before entering my apartment, "Don't bother, I'm not a very good housekeeper." <br />
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I didn't learn much from my mother, really, about domestic order. She made me stop "dusting" after I broke the antique vase and she never much involved me in kitchen duty. She mostly taught me how convenient a dishwasher can be. And there were the negative lessons: to remove stains from a bathtub, do NOT soak it overnight with a strong solution of chlorine bleach. (It completely destroyed the stains, along with the fine porcelain finish of the tub.) What I did learn from my mother was summed up in a commentary she wrote on a essay by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a>:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><br />
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<i>"We do not know today whether we are busy or idle. In times where we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterward discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us." --</i>Ralph Waldo Emerson</blockquote>
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<i>"Awakening from a daydream, one may be filled with much guilt at the thought of such idleness when there is perhaps something more important to be done. But this sense of guilt may not be valid, for a man is not necessarily idle when he is absorbed in thought. The private workings of the mind often prove creative. In such seemingly idle moments, we have the rare chance to find ourselves, develop a sense of values; the truths which are not to be found in the laboratory or in the classroom may thus be discovered in such private explorations Such thoughtful periods store treasures for the years ahead.</i>" -- My Mother </blockquote>
My approach has always been random and delimited by a fairly high filth tolerance and a predilection to daydreaming. Basic hygienic maintenance --cat boxes and toilets-- I keep pretty much under control, but sometimes I do dishes the way people do laundry...by the load, and sorted. For some reason, I have always found it more satisfying to make something that's really dirty clean, than cleaning something that already falls far below the limit on my tolerance scale. There are so many more interesting things to do.<br />
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Like watching <i>S<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1831832/">tar Appeal</a>,</i> (in Chinese,<i> Xingxing xiangxi xi) </i>a movie I couldn't resist that turned up in my Netflix suggestions. I'd never watched a "Chinese gay-themed sci-fi movie." I never knew there was such a genre. I assume it was the "Chinese" tag and not the "gay sci-fi" that put it to me. But still, I'll watch anything once. And I'll only watch this one once, not that it was that bad. A blue movie, in the technical sense, erotic and blue-toned, like a Viagra vision (I'm told), but sensitive and arty enough to elevate it above porn, although I did learn something about yang-yang intercourse that I probably didn't need to know. Interesting, and if anything, so what? Maybe watching this would build all sorts of tolerance in the gay-bashing community (to say nothing of Chinese-bashers and Martian-bashers). They're just like us!<br />
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"Xiao Bo, a bisexual man who discovers a stranger by the roadside, naked and claiming to be from Mars...takes the Martian home to his live-in boyfriend and girlfriend, and together, they begin instructing him in the ways of earthlings. But when the mysterious stranger lapses into a coma, only the discovery of true love can bring him around." </blockquote>
The dialogue was pretty simple for my limited Mandarin ear, and I can remember at least one line clearly: "Wo ai ni, ET." Though not everyone loved ET. In the end, love triumphs, if a little weirdly. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmA3B-uevFcov99ihiUe9Pw3CXfYQ5zjVfyMMnEDblT7pQqEtUQYls4KIzJU5MToPpJ8NZfrRvkPCMREZd0HaLyboF0S6OhQSjXuFVXzpG9LuhuiA47brsVxOcX7dgzCS8OH7/s1600/515hrq0zevl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmA3B-uevFcov99ihiUe9Pw3CXfYQ5zjVfyMMnEDblT7pQqEtUQYls4KIzJU5MToPpJ8NZfrRvkPCMREZd0HaLyboF0S6OhQSjXuFVXzpG9LuhuiA47brsVxOcX7dgzCS8OH7/s320/515hrq0zevl.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hiroake Murakami as Jubei</td></tr>
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Moving to a different alien culture, I finished a set of samurai DVDs lent to me by my haiku-writing Chinese friend, <i><a href="http://theninjadojo89233.yuku.com/topic/426/LEGENDARY-SWORDFIGHTS-OF-YAGYU-JUBEI#.T3jPCO32wfM">Legendary Swordfights of Yagyu Jubei</a></i>. I told my friend I wasn't really into the bushido aesthetic (some very strange hairstyles, that reverse mohawk), but she assured me of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagy%C5%AB_J%C5%ABbei_Mitsuyoshi">Jubei</a> (Hiroake Murakami), "He's very handsome." But, I'll watch anyone once. And indeed she was right. He seems to have violated the hair regimen the way Sammo Hung did in <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaolin_Warriors">The Shaolin Warriors</a></i>. And he would be an excellent driver. (Although maybe not with only one eye.) So I learned some history about the Tokugawa shogunate, and was impressed with the sword style, slow and elegant really, a little like intense insects with curved razor sharp blades.<br />
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And maybe there is something to the whole Japanese style. Such sparse tidy homes. Nothing to clean up! Zen housekeeping. Something new to daydream about.<br />
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<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-86102426861928946392012-03-25T12:53:00.001-10:002012-03-25T13:07:20.660-10:00Lucky You Live...Someplace<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY1Vb4_hwmb4nkaAoNUcPopQ5xvcbzjJsI2a_QY9g07HuflqCOLjB5bdJmhGNUSodiAholnlz8sohcyKniDLAFJzgDtFnWiIsi9Rd5bY482lRSI09lwXKqFLlKssLheazHh_Qm/s1600/225px-JonahKuhioKalanianaole3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY1Vb4_hwmb4nkaAoNUcPopQ5xvcbzjJsI2a_QY9g07HuflqCOLjB5bdJmhGNUSodiAholnlz8sohcyKniDLAFJzgDtFnWiIsi9Rd5bY482lRSI09lwXKqFLlKssLheazHh_Qm/s200/225px-JonahKuhioKalanianaole3.jpg" width="133" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prince Kuhio</td></tr>
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There is a saying we have..."Lucky you live Hawaii" and I'm thinking of that on this three-day weekend, celebrating a holiday that the rest of the U.S. probably doesn't even know about: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_K%C5%ABhi%C5%8D_Day">Prince Kuhio Day</a>, marking the birth of the last heir to the monarchy, and the first territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress. It is in a way, the turning point of Hawaii's modern development and is probably marked with mixed emotion by the native population. Hawaii is the only state that has actual holidays dedicated to royalty.<br />
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So how have I celebrated? I watched <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1033575/">The Descendants</a></i>, the first Hollywood movie I have popped in the DVD player for a while. (As usual, lots of Korean drama and Chinese films had priority.) But <i>The Descendants </i>was on sale at Costco when I made my the regular 84-pounds-of-cat-litter run. I'd heard about it, but not really paid much attention. I live here, and I don't even watch <i>Hawaii 5-0</i> and never watched <i>Lost</i>. </div>
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<i>The Descendants,</i>at 115 minutes, has a plot (based on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descendants_(novel)">novel</a>) that Korean dramatists would stretch out over 20 compelling episodes, exploring character development and sub-plots with great emotional detail and exaggeration. You can read about the story in the links (a hospital family drama mixed up with issues about <a href="http://jerrygarrett.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/where-was-george-clooneys-kauai-ranch-the-descendants/">real estate and property development</a>). But what was compelling to me...apart from the comparisons to K-D (George Clooney can cry, with tears dripping off his chin, almost as well as Song Il-guk) was of course, <a href="http://jerrygarrett.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/oahu-kauai-filming-locations-for-alexander-paynes-the-descendants/">the setting</a> (and an extraordinary <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Descendants-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B005RJ6AIK">soundtrack</a> of Hawaiian music). It is a pretty accurate view of Hawaii, though I would point out if it isn't obvious, it was mostly set in very posh old-money neighborhoods and the usual beautiful beaches of Waikiki and Hanalei. We don't all live like that! I live in a 1200-sf, three bedroom/two bath (all small) 10th-floor 35-year-old condominium in a wooded area of central Oahu; it's pretty low class. (I will sell it to you for a <a href="http://www.alternative-hawaii.com/overpop.htm">cheap</a> $225,000. Needs work, fixer-upper, starter-home. Make me an offer.) I'm not sure, but the film placed Matt King's family in what I thought to be the house usually occupied by the president of the University of Hawaii. But apparently not; the traditional old mansions of Hawaii all have a certain similar style, airy and spacious, and like New England in the tropics.</div>
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Still, this Hawaii was completely familiar to me. In fact, when the cousins gather at one of the clan homes to finalize the big real estate deal, I was startled: I'd been in that house once, for a party hosted by some benefactors (not at all unlike the characters of the movie) of the non-profit I once worked for. </div>
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I guess people who live in New York and L.A. or other big cities are used to seeing their neighborhoods in films and maybe even become a bit blase about it. I wasn't blase though when I watched a Hong Kong art film with a gay theme called <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279351/">The Map of Sex and Love</a>, </i>a Netflix find in the Chinese category. It was 140 minutes of Hong Kong, some of which I'm not used to seeing in film: Lamma, Macau, and seedier parts of Mongkok and Central. A Chinese-American filmmaker, who looked disturbingly just like a guy I used to work with in Honolulu, returns to Hong Kong to do a documentary on the new Disneyland deal--not too far from the theme of <i>The Descendants</i>. He falls in love with a gay dancer/prostitute and both are friends with a girl who has suffered some sort of tragic breakdown in Belgrade, of all places. (She makes lanterns and soup out of pomelo rinds. I learn something new every day.) In the end, I think the characters might say "Lucky we live Hong Kong."</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn17NqJHE3ZVU45j6n4RvKWfqXkwjM4qYwGNUHZqcUMUnMuQ51bPE88S0sBIMdZj-wbRFSPRgdduGPrFEXKJi299Vmj3cHyoLFlggkbfRNzt3PKxUWhUC3x-AKVnQoLODXRNi5/s1600/41aea6f1ffca3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn17NqJHE3ZVU45j6n4RvKWfqXkwjM4qYwGNUHZqcUMUnMuQ51bPE88S0sBIMdZj-wbRFSPRgdduGPrFEXKJi299Vmj3cHyoLFlggkbfRNzt3PKxUWhUC3x-AKVnQoLODXRNi5/s200/41aea6f1ffca3.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Nan-Jin</td></tr>
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But maybe not Seoul. Possibly symptomatic of a serious addiction, I devoured the 17-episode K-D,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1452847689"> </a><i><a href="http://asianwiki.com/December_Fever">December Fever</a></i>, a sort of Cinderella tale of a woman in a loveless marriage residing in the in-laws' home, complete with horrible deceitful exploitative stepsisters and an utterly despicable MIL. She falls in love with a driving instructor. A younger man! How inappropriate! She's 30 and he's...27! (Have they never heard of Demi Moore?) She ultimately leaves her children and neurosurgeon husband of 10 years (oddly with his blessing and medical instructions on palliative care) to take care of the young man as he dies (while she is washing his feet and telling a joke) of a brain tumor for which he has rejected treatment. Seventeen episodes. </div>
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The message of the story is that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Frankie_Lee_and_Judas_Priest">one should never be where one does not belon</a>g; one should marry for love, not position; one should marry their true love because second chances don't come around. (Kind of like buying things at Costco: get it while you love it and it's there.) Of course, in typical K-D fashion, if people would just say what's on their mind at the time, a lot of misery (and episodes) could be avoided. It was a sad crazy love story, but I'm not sure I would have stuck with it without the driving instructor, played by Kim Nan-Jin. He could help me with parallel parking any day! </div>
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Lucky you live...anywhere!</div>baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-40516919749397381352012-03-16T15:31:00.003-10:002012-03-16T15:48:36.609-10:00Must Share This! Kapoop!Been a little neglectful of the Tao 61s lately; busy with other venues: LinkedIn and Facebook, where there is more dialogue and immediate gratification that one is talking to someone. I was a late adopter of these things, thought blogging was the ultimate, the best thing since Anthony Trollope's letterbox, or at least email. But along comes "social media," the FedEx and UPS of online messaging. Or is that Twitter? I haven't gone that route yet.<br />
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Also, been reading novels, something I haven't done for a while, and of course film and Chinese and Korean Drama. I need to update my list of K-D and Chinese series...it overflowed my movie list. I keep track of this mostly for myself, a weird timeline. Maybe I should track all these on Facebook.<br />
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Most interesting viewing lately was with the arrival of <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_in_a_Small_Town">Spring in a Small Town</a></em> in a Netflix envelope. Didn't I already watch this? (My timeline was useful.) But no, that was<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtime_in_a_Small_Town"> <em>Springtime in a Small Town</em></a>, a very faithful remake of the earlier 1948 movie. Like most originals, Spring was better than the Springtime remake. A black and white film that captured the weird cultural torpor of China in 1948, it was ignored in 1949 when the Communists came to power, which suggests that Communists have no taste. It had no overt socio-political overtones of either persuasion, so therefore was understood as a rightist statement. Unlike its glitzier and more sensational reincarnation of 2002, it is delicate and captures a China of nearly 65 years ago in a way that is not chic or romantic. Just real. It feels authentic. <br />
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On the sillier side, not that Korean drama is silly, one scene in the 20-episode <em><a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Iljimae">Iljimae</a></em>, a Robin Hood story that took a while to grab me, had me belly-laughing. The commoners are revolting against the aristocrats, who are harboring a Chinese diplomat who wantonly killed an innocent child in what was essentially a drunk driving race, albeit on horseback. The people want an apology and are gathered to demand this in sort of an Occupy movement in the early Qing (in a Small Town). To emphasize their frustration, they begin to collect horse manure to hurl at the palace guards. The aristocrats are fearful: they have been advised that while wet manure is just slimy and stinky, dry manure can be made to explode. (Even in the Joseon Dynasty, common fertilizer was regarded as a terrorist tool.) <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPI3l1ATh7lnUxPyk4VKl45coUQPiq2A__htrfyMZ0PZTgCLbM23sd192cDQZHzSe1O8FVLHjBruV1-B38odd6yTw9xFsn1T9ScKBR1zn4I0iIxnOC97DmJqVfyktInW0LHAd/s1600/March+14+2012+002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPI3l1ATh7lnUxPyk4VKl45coUQPiq2A__htrfyMZ0PZTgCLbM23sd192cDQZHzSe1O8FVLHjBruV1-B38odd6yTw9xFsn1T9ScKBR1zn4I0iIxnOC97DmJqVfyktInW0LHAd/s320/March+14+2012+002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Kapoop!!!???<br />
<br />
The other element of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iljimae">this drama</a>, very popular when it first aired in 2008, that charmed me was the character of a government assassin, basically a member of a death squad, who has deserted his post after being asked to wipe out a village, including a young girl. Unlike the Chinese DUI equestrian, he can't do it and ends up adopting the girl. They become a team of con artists, he disguised as a mendicant monk who, when reciting his mantra says, "Dear Messy Buddha." Perhaps there is a Korean joke lost in subtitle translation of the usual "Amituofo". (Among items he and his "daughter" sell are pornography and "gloves," condoms which appeal to the women whose husbands are buying the porn.) Dear Messy Buddha was a scene stealer and wholly redeemed character in the end, played by <a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Ahn_Kil_Kang">Anh Kil-Kang</a>, who has me looking for the next drama where he appears.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUCNEdt1afnou6VqAvH3uc-Ub-XFUc3ayyWRh987RGL5r7AfroDQXdsNxYnZohP6Q7KZjl2PK0xA1jpg99o2Rd4fgb09B4rREauPcFrkV-tnj3fwuC7NqX4p3mhcsbuqT2WQm/s1600/images-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUCNEdt1afnou6VqAvH3uc-Ub-XFUc3ayyWRh987RGL5r7AfroDQXdsNxYnZohP6Q7KZjl2PK0xA1jpg99o2Rd4fgb09B4rREauPcFrkV-tnj3fwuC7NqX4p3mhcsbuqT2WQm/s1600/images-3.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dear Messy Buddha and the Love of His Life</td></tr>
</tbody></table>baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-53152405555566956902012-01-22T19:51:00.001-10:002012-01-23T11:04:58.298-10:00Welcome Water DragonThe second new year festival of the year, a yin start-over, and I fail as usual to cleanse the house of evil spirits, barely taking out the trash, let alone scrubbing floors and getting rid of chipped china. (I may however eat <a href="http://archives.starbulletin.com/98/01/14/features/story1.html">jai</a> and <a href="http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Jan/23/il/hawaii801230363.html">gau</a> tomorrow.) Today I finish reading a highly entertaining and useful <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Joke-Stairs-Navigate-Breaking/dp/9881900204">book about China travel and language</a> and watch <i>Mao's Last Dancer</i> and <i>Kung Fu Panda 2</i>, stories that have a lot more in common than you might at first think..<br />
<br />
I'd read the <a href="http://www.licunxin.com/">biography</a> that <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071812/">Mao's Last Dancer</a></i> is based on when it came out, and forgot about it until a couple years ago when the film was showing locally in theaters with enthusiastic reviews. But I rarely go to theaters, so it wasn't until I saw the DVD in that evil purveyor of Chinese goods, Wal-Mart, at Christmas, that I picked it up. Good story about defection and courage and dedication to craft (although the fact that it was filmed in part in China with a Chinese cast and crew suggests that defection isn't what it used to be), and the film features a stunning dancer, Chi Cao, from China via Britain, in the lead role. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyLYCSE-VyEJgFEMhO2POyDSmPnaqW6nFJmAwZte3fcdIlcnvTiiB87tV9dO0INm-xgx2GALFeUyWyTrNaF88WLaUYfTb0RyNChXkURVnn9A5opSiR3Gbf_X5SKoG9qBJF7CAx/s1600/Mozartiana-Chi-Cao-photo-Bill-Cooper-3-682x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyLYCSE-VyEJgFEMhO2POyDSmPnaqW6nFJmAwZte3fcdIlcnvTiiB87tV9dO0INm-xgx2GALFeUyWyTrNaF88WLaUYfTb0RyNChXkURVnn9A5opSiR3Gbf_X5SKoG9qBJF7CAx/s320/Mozartiana-Chi-Cao-photo-Bill-Cooper-3-682x1024.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ballet, martial arts, whatever...levitation is levitation.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On to <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302011/">Kung Fu Panda 2</a></i>, in which a group of animated stuffed animals skilled in wu shu, voiced by greats like Gary Oldman (the evil character) and James Hong, the panda's adoptive goose father, manage to save China. With typical, classic wuxia themes of lost orphans, buddies, revenge, and lust for power (why <b>did</b> that White Peacock want to run China...I forget), it was cute and even brought me to tears (well, so did Mao's Last Dancer, maybe I'm just feeling soft these days). And it ends with Po the Panda's real panda dad discovering "My son is alive," thus guaranteeing <i>Kung Fu Panda 3</i>. But it lacked one element I watch kick flicks for: hot martial artists with sultry expressions and swords and kick ass kicking. No Vincent Zhao or Song-il Guk here. CGI pandas just don't do it for me. <br />
<br />
At least the ballet scenes in MLD were gorgeous and featured real men, and especially the one wherein Li Cuixin's peasant father sees <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2009/04/29/1225705/091884-li-cunxin-.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/prince-of-the-dance/story-e6frec83-1225705091906&h=513&w=350&sz=30&tbnid=alvm2qSvS6hihM:&tbnh=131&tbnw=89&prev=/search%3Fq%3DLi%2BCunxin%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=Li+Cunxin&usg=__-mwHu53rdqlqWQs3Bu7Xqo3QrIE=&sa=X&ei=9egcT-m4H6fkiALc66TQCA&ved=0CCgQ9QEwBg">his son</a> perform on stage for the first time, quite lasciviously, compared to Madame Mao's requirements, in <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302011/">Rite of Spring</a>.</i> How strange it must have been for a peasant fresh from Shandong who probably hadn't even seen Peking opera. Dad hasn't seen his son for some ten years and asks after the finale, "But why aren't you wearing any clothes?" He doesn't need to worry about that, really. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Cunxin">Li Cuixin</a> has since left the dance and become a stockbroker.<br />
<br />
But I did get a little satisfaction from <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1857913/">The Sorcerer and the White Snake</a></i>, yet another retelling, with CGI, of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_White_Snake">white snake legend</a>, which I have enjoyed on stage in Chinese and English and in Zhang Yimou's Disney-esque light show <i><a href="http://www.chinadiscover.net/china-tour/zhejiangguide/impression-west-lake.htm">fantasy in Hangzhou</a></i>. Not from Jet Li, though, but the singer/actor who plays the doomed love interest of the White Snake, Raymond Lam, familiar to me from a few Hong Kong TV series. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysqjEmz-zR8XMaxvgkMSojUDJ-CnP0Fapkf-dnNRuIMKuaQA5Z7l49PAYC9fIUHTBybvqliOjxObVtUbumkSEkNuY3pqVgBlOYIfMpYkq5mWokwuLEbO1Q32eW3EONT9lBUT0/s1600/936full-the-sorcerer-and-the-white-snake-screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysqjEmz-zR8XMaxvgkMSojUDJ-CnP0Fapkf-dnNRuIMKuaQA5Z7l49PAYC9fIUHTBybvqliOjxObVtUbumkSEkNuY3pqVgBlOYIfMpYkq5mWokwuLEbO1Q32eW3EONT9lBUT0/s320/936full-the-sorcerer-and-the-white-snake-screenshot.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OK, back of Ray's head, but Eva Huang is lovely as the love interest too.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Still nothing compares to Vincent Zhao (Chiu Man-cheuk) in <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106559/">Green Snake</a></i>, where he plays the evil monk causing trouble for everyone. He could cause trouble for me any time.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3SUxZAxUlhYCNqNFFgCaMVxaWNyWegl7DSrG1k30k6Xa_M_cjwDN_WlPD9SVdr2sfVw7-pxHnyUF1RqUoxTm03YlHvW4Itd7MIUGdSWWfk5SuyyXN55CnNAtHgJ9vUxBPo5G/s1600/GreenSnake%252B1993-2-b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3SUxZAxUlhYCNqNFFgCaMVxaWNyWegl7DSrG1k30k6Xa_M_cjwDN_WlPD9SVdr2sfVw7-pxHnyUF1RqUoxTm03YlHvW4Itd7MIUGdSWWfk5SuyyXN55CnNAtHgJ9vUxBPo5G/s320/GreenSnake%252B1993-2-b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Does he look evil to you?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="goog_2077169428"></span><span id="goog_2077169429"></span>baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-49055571038715171132011-12-31T21:34:00.000-10:002011-12-31T21:47:14.513-10:00New Year's EveWhile the illegal smoky noisy New Year's fireworks slowly begin, like a thunderstorm building off in the distance, scaring the catshit out of The Yellow Emperor, I watch a <a href="http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Mysterious-China-Holy-Mountain/70109931">Netflix-acquired</a> DVD, <i>Mysterious China: Holy Mountain</i>, a spiritual travelogue I stumbled across in my recent queue update, about Wudangshan and Taoism. It's like watching Hawaii 5-0. (I guess; I never do that, really.) But Wudang... Hey, I know that temple, I've been on that peak, up those stairs.That's the tea shop...the medicine shop! I've hugged that hermit, and he's hugged me. (I broke his chair and he gave me dates.) The video convinces me that the one Taoist art I really would like to acquire is Tai Chi sword. You see women doing that a lot. Why might that be?<br />
<br />
Peppered with a lot of elegant Wudang Taoist qigong and kungfu performances in exquisite settings, the video ends with an astonishing display of contortion by an attractive guy who looks just like Nicholas Tse doing things with his joints and feet that seem impossible and un-Taoist-ly unnatural, but suggesting that Chinese acrobatics started on Wudang Mountain. Forget that head-butting brick-breaking karate-style stuff the Shaolin guys do; can you put your right foot behind your left ear while balancing on your index fingers? <br />
<br />
But I shouldn't be so callous. I am inspired to return to Wudang. As the video concludes, "Once you have been exposed the magic of Wudang Mountain and immersed yourself in The Way, the spirit of Taoism will stay in your heart forever."<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="255" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QGwx_XPilIA" width="500"></iframe><br />
<br />
In the meantime, I return to episode 39 of 51 of Emperor of the Sea and fantasize about a little sword play with Song Il-guk as Yum Moon (at this point in the drama named Yum Jang...but still Yummy). Not a bad way to spend New Year's Eve.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dq739ozbQ1E/TwANTe_ma7I/AAAAAAAABbM/nMDU-X0Ar74/s1600/SongIlGookbl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dq739ozbQ1E/TwANTe_ma7I/AAAAAAAABbM/nMDU-X0Ar74/s320/SongIlGookbl.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yum Whoever</td></tr>
</tbody></table>baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-17045300268792588552011-12-26T16:39:00.001-10:002011-12-26T16:39:48.163-10:00The Yellow Emperor's Christmas<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o8fi0Th3gdg/TvkveQ3MJ6I/AAAAAAAABaQ/vIAqLjblIyg/s1600/Lao+Hu+Xmas.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o8fi0Th3gdg/TvkveQ3MJ6I/AAAAAAAABaQ/vIAqLjblIyg/s320/Lao+Hu+Xmas.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lao Hu's Tree</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-24624030627456988192011-12-24T16:49:00.000-10:002011-12-24T16:50:00.383-10:00Christmas Eve 2011I should be wrapping presents, but I've gotten lost in updating of my Netflix queue. Despite the furor over the DVD/streaming cost differentials and changes, it's still a pretty cool service. I never had Netflix until I got my iPad, which came preloaded with the App. I didn't find a lot to add to my queue among the new releases, but the Chinese region offerings are overwhelming, both DVD and streaming. <br />
<br />
I put a Wudangshan documentary in the queue, then I realized I'd gone over the edge when this screamed "Queue me, queue me!":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>Star Appeal</i></b>...Chinese filmmaker Cui Zien directs this gay-themed sci-fi drama about Xiao Bo, a bisexual man who discovers a stranger by the roadside, naked and claiming to be from Mars. In Mandarin.</blockquote>
<br />
It's only got a 1.7 member rating, about as low as I've seen, but really, how can I pass it up? I've never seen a Chinese gay-themed sci-fi movie. I think I have to move this one up to No. 1.baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-25592840410290627602011-12-20T07:33:00.001-10:002011-12-20T07:33:45.363-10:00Christmas Spirit?I think I'm beginning to get it!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidB0jn8YESO4ONxpOEce4gOd-He8hrzgSnLurRFGf2GybpOtrMY7xVs1jNRnh_FsNlhMOf91NUM0MkovlQwwM3GYgQPQiAqXhFD4Jp0RtoRFtEaPJenVVR1puJVSKp80YeCGa2/s1600/122011kim_uni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidB0jn8YESO4ONxpOEce4gOd-He8hrzgSnLurRFGf2GybpOtrMY7xVs1jNRnh_FsNlhMOf91NUM0MkovlQwwM3GYgQPQiAqXhFD4Jp0RtoRFtEaPJenVVR1puJVSKp80YeCGa2/s320/122011kim_uni.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Jong-il</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I always thought white was the color for funereal things in Asia, but I guess the North Koreans see it more like a wedding? Oh wait...it's that Communist Red.<br />
<br />
Looks like a sleeping Santa!baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-80026607166249642582011-12-11T08:54:00.001-10:002011-12-11T15:39:58.170-10:00Fried Fast Food on a Full MoonNot a good idea! I should know better -- I do know better -- but something about the holiday season makes judgement fly out the window like a lot of reindeer on a mission, driven by a rotund guy in a funny hat shouldering a big bag of Jack in the Box...and I don't mean the archaic toys. My digestion last night was eclipsed even more profoundly than the actual eclipse of the night before, of which I did manage to catch the waning portion at 4:30 a.m. It can't be that cold if I can stand naked on the lanai in the moonlight without shivering, although I didn't linger that long.<br />
<br />
Last night I should have left my warm bed to sit upright while contemplating the full moon, trying a <a href="http://www.symbolicliving.com/forum/showthread.php/358-Moon-Meditation">Moon Cream Meditation</a> that was demonstrated last spring in Wudang, but I was tormented restless with excess stomach acid and vivid dreams, if I really was asleep, of Dickensian England and medieval Korea. I'd just finished the 8th and final episode of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_House_%281985_TV_serial%29"><i>Bleak House</i></a>, Dickens's tale of an interminable lawsuit which pretty much consumes all the plaintiffs up to the point where the final will is discovered. Simultaneously discovered is that the lawyers have consumed the estate, so there's nothing left to distribute anyway. The adaptation does have a positive, if not completely happy, ending (and reminds me that there is one last element in my father's estate, latent over five years, which could possibly pay for a trip to China...Resolution for Year of Dragon: must call lawyer.) I don't think I could have endured actually reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_House"><i>Bleak House</i></a>; the screenplay with the marvelous late <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denholm_Elliott">Denholm Elliot</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Rigg">Diana Rigg</a>, was compelling and sufficient, though I could tell there was probably a lot left out in the 8-hour 1985 BBC rendering: quantity, if not quality. (Dickens was a paid-by-the-word writer...where do I get a gig like that?) <br />
<br />
I thought I might try another piece from the BBC collection, but <i>The Pickwick Papers</i> failed to grab me; I succumbed to revisiting a favorite Korean drama, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_the_Sea"><i>Emperor of the Sea</i></a>. I needed a Song Il-guk fix and though he doesn't appear until the fourth Korean hour of the 51-episode drama, when he does, it's worth it. Just as savvy as Johnny Depp's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sparrow">Capt. Jack Sparrow</a>, but more sinister, and less Keith Richards grubby, not BBC but KBS, the Pirate of the Yellow Sea may see me through the holidays, even though a new Korean Drama, a birthday present, <a href="http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Dong_Yi">waits to be opened up</a>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZY6WQ5tJqgsYHWl7F-IGzjtt20hB9DmJNEGBvcYRPid0wDH5UdiAkUBph02zfpxT0Muc5auaoZGPm4_F4ob9wNlslC3C-XWAynvH8fSbIcg7zomo4SuiNiOeIFAmEBKaoqe9/s1600/emperor_of_the_sea_yeum_jang.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZY6WQ5tJqgsYHWl7F-IGzjtt20hB9DmJNEGBvcYRPid0wDH5UdiAkUBph02zfpxT0Muc5auaoZGPm4_F4ob9wNlslC3C-XWAynvH8fSbIcg7zomo4SuiNiOeIFAmEBKaoqe9/s1600/emperor_of_the_sea_yeum_jang.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Song Il-guk as the delectable Yum Moon</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
How ironic to recall on this morning after serious lunar events and indigestion that SIG's character is named Yum Moon!baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-76918722698557944152011-12-05T12:12:00.001-10:002011-12-05T13:23:03.823-10:00They Say It's Your BirthdayAnd it came and went, with a little <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Nz9B1XFio">help from my friends</a>. Although that's probably the wrong song. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3HAJ4DjMhY">This is the right one</a>. This is the first birthday I have experienced where I have not prematurely rounded up my age to get used to it, to exploit it, in the coming year. No, this one was a little more hesitant, the year of rabbit can continue a little longer for me before the dragon arrives; then I will acknowledge reality. I celebrated less than I contemplated the aging process. Birthdays are milestones, but meaningless really, except in that they give an opportunity to review one's progress and destiny. Are we older AND wiser? If the Taoist is actually returning to childlike innocence, immortal fetuses and all that, I only hope I can achieve it while maintaining control of bladder and bowels.<br />
<br />
I spent my day in a fog, really, getting ready for acquisition of the Christmas tree -- my actual birthday present. As I predicted, this year we scored a perfectly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing">satisficing</a> one in less than three minutes at the lot at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ala_Moana_Center">Ala Moana Shopping Center</a>. These are not decisions that should require agonizing dithering. The next decision was equally easy: an party-of-two afternoon in both of our downtown Irish pubs, literally across the street from one another.<br />
<br />
The day after the day, I tested my new all-region DVD player which failed to play my gift from my friendly Chinatown DVD vendor, Andy Lau's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1337055/">Future X-Cops</a>, (what was she thinking?) which seems to coded be for a region beyond the Milky Way. Perhaps just as well: I was bleary-eyed after finally completing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dae_Jang_Geum">Jewel in the Palace</a>, a popular Korean drama about cooking and medicine, with some restrained romantic and political intrigue with an uncharacteristically happy ending. My own trusty laptop has suffered--I hope sustained--a logic board failure, so I was using the Wizard's older one to access Dramafever.com. His Mac drops signals and has some display issues, but I finally can say I have enjoyed this 54-episode classic of K-D. (That's 54 Korean hours, which are just about 60 minutes, more or less.) Since starting it some months ago, I see by my own reckoning, I have watched at least 40 other films and several Chinese series. Why can't I speak fluent Mandarin yet? But the DVD player did let me enjoy a strange double feature: <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075329/">The Magic Blade</a>, a 1976 Shaw Brothers classic, and Chen Kaige's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332639/">Together</a>. Still I can't get the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVIR-yOx3bA&feature=related">haunting theme</a> from Jewel in the Palace out of my mind. Here is the same theme, in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku0aBUOChbo&feature=related">the "sad" mode</a>. <br />
<br />
I don't know why anyone would waste time with reality TV or the sitcom trash available on your standard cable lineup, when you could enjoy this:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/auP9C2qpbiY" width="380"></iframe>
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Handsome and beautiful characters, engaging plots, scenery, costumes and soundtracks. And that's just the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_drama">historical stuff</a>!baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-28633512423879230232011-11-22T14:42:00.001-10:002011-11-22T19:07:05.995-10:00March on WashingtonDespite a very full schedule of conference presentations in Washington, I did manage to see some sights, some of which will never be seen again.<br />
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It was nearly a full moon my first evening in town.<br />
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Yeah, that little white speck in the middle right. It was crisp and cool, with the smell and color of autumn leaves, something I hadn't experienced for a long time. My cheeks were rosy and tingly. And dry. Still, a nice evening for a walkabout.<br />
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I strolled down to K Street, which was under occupation.<br />
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It all looked like any homeless campout in Hawaii, except for the creative take on the D.C. license plate (which actually reads "Taxation Without Representation." I didn't know that.) It all would have seemed utterly ordinary except for the police on watch.<br />
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I wanted to get close enough to photograph the really interesting thing, a police horse with a really huge head, patiently waiting in his van to be useful. My friend R noted, "You wouldn't want THAT charging at you." (Later, back at my hotel, I watched an episode of Frasier, in which he and Niles buy their Dad's beloved but pastured police mount as a birthday gift. It's sad. They're both too old to do much of anything.)<br />
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Just below K street was the Treasury Department:<br />
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And the White House:<br />
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Everything was very benign. It seemed like there should have been...news. <br />
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There could have been. But even the newspaper office was dark and quiet. There in the outdoor atrium, another monument to the obsolete: a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine">Merganthaler Linotype</a> that had been used to set most of the important <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_metal_typesetting">hot-lead</a> stories of the past. <br />
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I fingered the Linotype's "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETAOIN_SHRDLU">etaoin shrdlu</a>" keyboard, which summoned a security guard out of the inner lobby. "Oh sorry, sorry," I said, "but this is SO cool." "What is it?" she asked. I wound up giving a little lecture on the history of printing and journalism, there in the outer lobby of the Washington Post, inspiring her to be even more protective of the artifact. Oddly, when I emailed the photo of it back home to my husband, he told me he and our son had just an hour before been having a discussion about Linotypes. The synchronicities of this trip were beginning to weird me out.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not QWERTY, but ETAOIN SHRDLU</td></tr>
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In its bizarre and complicated mechanical presence, I was thinking of the Linotype and the real freedom and power it represented in its time before offset printing, desktop publishing, email, blogs and Twitter. I once composed headlines on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Typograph">Ludlow</a>, its little letterpress cousin; I still have raw lead blocks and type I set from those days; I use them as paperweights to hold my Chinese painting paper in place on the table.<br />
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The Linotype was still on my mind the next day when I stumbled into the <a href="http://laogai.org/">Laogai Museum</a>, a little monument to the lack of a free press and expression, a sort of Chinese Holocaust Memorial. (I've never been to that place, having grown up in a time all too aware of the Holocaust. I don't need to see all the photos and shoes and eyeglasses to remember the horror.) But the Laogai...I hope my Visa statement for a book I bought there doesn't hinder my visa application for my next China trip. I probably should have paid cash.)<br />
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It took me two Harps to sober up at my <a href="http://jameshobansdc.com/">new local on Dupont Circle</a> where I also enjoyed some French onion soup and shepherd's pie.<br />
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If you get bored in Washington, there's something wrong with you.baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-60979993363699376312011-11-16T20:18:00.001-10:002011-11-17T17:35:45.604-10:00Marching Out of AtlantaThree days of torture by Powerpoint in Atlanta was sufficient that I began to relate to <a href="http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/shermans-march-to-the-sea.htm">General Sherman.</a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggIYGykuqZGGtEVFtzldLaGCwTzYkQEiKBkK5ymv0hmyyI0IUvubIx6PvLFN8OlNadi1SLZUzomHTq8yLdYGaIZnHGw_2-UaLXRXWK24PrrUQCEVdbODkEVSRHHTRfJAzv0Xne/s1600/sherman-atlanta_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggIYGykuqZGGtEVFtzldLaGCwTzYkQEiKBkK5ymv0hmyyI0IUvubIx6PvLFN8OlNadi1SLZUzomHTq8yLdYGaIZnHGw_2-UaLXRXWK24PrrUQCEVdbODkEVSRHHTRfJAzv0Xne/s1600/sherman-atlanta_small.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/battle-of-atlanta.htm">Burn This City...Now!</a></td></tr>
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I don't know what he would have thought of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartsfield%E2%80%93Jackson_Atlanta_International_Airport">ATL'</a>s big ants, but they certainly convinced me to march out of my hotel early, to get to the airport to make sure I didn't miss a delayed flight.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-5dysbrbrZjR4OVeCHGU2rGkrhXLJRHY92Bw9XuBCz9O7Twy3qh9yOewrZIEX2TYCUo8gARU5QRMVSgDdcPxjA9eJDaCHMzX85SG0qZx6dYy8XmEcHiGGrdOhK22y3Sq0lnk_/s1600/antlanta.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-5dysbrbrZjR4OVeCHGU2rGkrhXLJRHY92Bw9XuBCz9O7Twy3qh9yOewrZIEX2TYCUo8gARU5QRMVSgDdcPxjA9eJDaCHMzX85SG0qZx6dYy8XmEcHiGGrdOhK22y3Sq0lnk_/s400/antlanta.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Sherman's Army Ants</span></span></span></td></tr>
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Alas, no Red Carpet Club in Delta's hub. But I did find a nice R&B & fried chicken bar, albeit a little ersatz, owned by Budweiser, decorated with fascinating memorabilia of the early days of R&B and soul music. Sort of Hard Rock Cafe, but small and black and in an airport concourse. No ants, just record albums and flyers of Dinah Washington and Etta James performances and photos of blind Delta blues men. I was enchanted by the photo of a disc jockey who seemed to be watching me as I fortified myself with some meaty wings and brew for my pending foodless flight to D.C. (indirectly via Chicago). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9X6OWIteZJjMa9QaOBWnfXiS058CT-WHfjBMJXcJoB9l4ncyzX8kXHaIyOy_iw0Uv0S2mLgBToLY55zsX3WW2ffRHVHCp_zRJ3sB7yivkJUUb20wcmOeMi18CSLBLWDfm1CP/s1600/photo-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9X6OWIteZJjMa9QaOBWnfXiS058CT-WHfjBMJXcJoB9l4ncyzX8kXHaIyOy_iw0Uv0S2mLgBToLY55zsX3WW2ffRHVHCp_zRJ3sB7yivkJUUb20wcmOeMi18CSLBLWDfm1CP/s320/photo-1.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Alley Pat</span></span></span></td></tr>
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I thought the DJ might have been the bartender in earlier days; the bartender told me if it was him he'd own the place, not work there, and he told me the DJ's name which I promptly forgot. It's <a href="http://www.darrylvance.com/alleypat/">Alley Pat</a>. I've learned a great deal of interesting stuff while tracking it down. Now pushing 90, he was one of the <a href="http://www.darrylvance.com/alleypat/bio.html">originals</a> for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WERD_(defunct)">WERD</a>, the first <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/blayton-sr-jesse-b-1879-1977">African-American-owned</a> and operated <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2859">radio station</a> in the country. <br />
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The bartender was friendly and talkative, and posed under Alley's picture for me.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy0AUbkev4eaizy28OSoSd-UVeM-ZY7wbHNrnljVXpRdPM0W7AeafEjc89Uyu0YKkBh-5EKZIGQSFB1pZijmAvJEcb5z8bjY-m53PasjlyE4ZxjKASUBJnxbNH04P9Gz2WoCX/s1600/not+alley+pat.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy0AUbkev4eaizy28OSoSd-UVeM-ZY7wbHNrnljVXpRdPM0W7AeafEjc89Uyu0YKkBh-5EKZIGQSFB1pZijmAvJEcb5z8bjY-m53PasjlyE4ZxjKASUBJnxbNH04P9Gz2WoCX/s320/not+alley+pat.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not Alley Pat</td></tr>
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I arrived in D.C. very late with some of the leftover Atlanta wings for a snack, and then went to the hotel bar for a nightcap. The bartender got me my G&T and then said, "Didn't you used to work at XYZ Corp. in Hawaii?" Why, yes...it was R, a great guy I worked with at XYZ more than 20 years ago. Not someone I think about frequently, but remember fondly. Curiously, I actually <b>had</b> been thinking of him just a few days before I left on this trip. "Wonder what ever happened to R, where did he go?" And there he was.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlx0gFJ-ieTa9v5on_lfOZIuIUo8QankZplYoKR4pUlhBLRCpHqAipuEpSAWluA2plEJ0zsMqDlq3fqYePDHGnDpRhA-iHJwPPTeuVgoymKtvZ9ptX1YraHf6tOf_XKUDH1lVy/s1600/R.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlx0gFJ-ieTa9v5on_lfOZIuIUo8QankZplYoKR4pUlhBLRCpHqAipuEpSAWluA2plEJ0zsMqDlq3fqYePDHGnDpRhA-iHJwPPTeuVgoymKtvZ9ptX1YraHf6tOf_XKUDH1lVy/s320/R.png" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My friend R</td></tr>
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My G&T was on the house, and after R's shift ended, we went to the hotel bar next door and did serious damage to a couple bottles of fine chardonnay. This answered my question, "What do bartenders do after they leave the bar?" They go out for drinks.<br />
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And at least I was out of Atlanta and in the company of a friend. </div>baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-83234289607814905572011-11-14T17:43:00.001-10:002011-11-14T19:16:09.270-10:00Hail Atlanta!**Recently home from an exhausting business (with some pleasure) trip to the Mainland. It started out very mapped, laid out, itineraries through no less than seven major cities between Honolulu and Atlanta, but despite effortless packing and wrapping up of last minute details, I still felt as if on a treadmill, a little too lockstep for fun. Still, it was a beautiful flight east, with no seat mates, not even row mates. Flying away from the sunset, I caught the last glint of the day's sunlight on the port wing. I should mention it was Halloween.<br />
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Then the trick or treating began. A departure delay due to "mechanical problems" put us in late at LAX, missing a connecting flight to Atlanta via Cleveland. (The flight attendants wondered why I wasn't on the Houston to Atlanta run. "You should do that," they said. From now on, I will book my flights through the cabin crew not based in Mumbai. ) A midnight to 5 a.m. hotel stay was arranged where I discovered hotels don't provide toothbrushes anymore. Fuzzy teeth were bad enough, but the view out the window of one of those big L.A. industry billboards was more disturbing. (We don't have signage like this in Hawaii.)<br />
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All night, I felt like I was being watched. Even from a prone position in bed. Talk about peeping toms!<br />
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If it had to be a film star, why couldn't it have been this one?<br />
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I could have closed the drapes, but I was relying on the sun to wake me to get back to the airport where they had neglected to rebook me on the next flight out. They had to <b>handwrite</b> a ticket! Eventually, about 24 hours after I left Honolulu, I arrived in Atlanta, all groggy and jet-lagged with bad breath and disoriented after a long walk from gate to baggage claim, past an e<a href="http://www.atlanta-airport.com/passenger/art%20program/frmPassengerInformation_ArtProgram_MainTerminal.aspx">ndless display</a> of somewhat disturbing sculptures by an artist from Zimbabwe. I waited patiently --what else can one do?--with a bunch of people at a carousel that kept recirculating the same bags and no one was claiming any of them. I had a nasty feeling my own bags had gone missing. I looked up at the ceiling and experienced a truly Kafka-esque moment.<br />
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I'd been rerouted to <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leI7sfmipuI">Antlanta</a></b>! As if the hideous Zimbabwe bronzes weren't enough, these guys --at least 24 inches long, antenna to tail--formed a strange welcoming committee. And I have <a href="http://kemmeyer.typepad.com/less_clutter_noise/2007/04/atlanta_ants.html">confirmation</a> that I was not hallucinating. Whose idea was this? Promoting Georgia red fire ants? Just what a person after 24 hours in the air with missed connections and lost luggage needs to see. Was it a promotion for a remake of <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/">Them</a></i>?<br />
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My wayward luggage was eventually delivered to my Atlanta hotel, which also makes me wonder about yet another of the art installations at this curious airport.</div>
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This "piece," cleverly named "Samsonite," appears to commemorate the loss of luggage by travelers from all 50 states. If I had had the presence of mind, I would have searched for the Hawaii license plate to photograph. It reminds me of those charm bracelets composed of tiny enamel maps of all the states in the union. (I have one.) But I just wanted to get away from those ants.</div>
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And this was just Day One. </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">**I also wish I had had the presence of mind to have written the first comment on </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leI7sfmipuI"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">this Youtube link</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. I take the liberty to quote it here:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Atlanta was a city, landlocked, hundreds of miles from the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean, Yet so desperate the city's desire for tourism that they moved offshore, becoming an island and an even bigger Delta hub. Until the city over-developed and it started to sink. Knowing their fate, the quality people ran away, Ted Turner, Hank Aaron, Jeff Foxworthy, the guy who invented Coca-Cola, the magician and the other so-called gods of our legends. Though gods they were, also Jane Fonda was there.</span></blockquote>
<br />baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20288042.post-33515112686636053182011-10-22T19:40:00.001-10:002011-10-22T19:47:16.157-10:00How to Paint Obstinate Smelly Hairy Beast of BurdenOne of my very early attempts at brush painting was this image, based on a black and white photograph from a very old book on China.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT5jjR3BzcQ5FluNcbMa9TtibfoJDPy1ifsb4HQB8FwhZVgxzSpnus5-Deq9W7pYLUP3M18jV1GafJfhWSxA3iVXWVoVxpK515MagWAAoBRHSzj1tvd1bzKBAx6vH-HQDpVOs2/s1600/CIMG4738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT5jjR3BzcQ5FluNcbMa9TtibfoJDPy1ifsb4HQB8FwhZVgxzSpnus5-Deq9W7pYLUP3M18jV1GafJfhWSxA3iVXWVoVxpK515MagWAAoBRHSzj1tvd1bzKBAx6vH-HQDpVOs2/s320/CIMG4738.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Rtpd7YvQI&feature=fvst">I'll Never Be Your Beast of Burden</a></td></tr>
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Except for one person who thought it was a turkey, (who probably never has seen either a real camel or a turkey) most people like the painting very much. And actually, I like it a lot too, the camel and the coolie have a strange relationship, something like Bette Midler and Mick Jagger (click the caption link). Although now I look at it and see it is still very western watercolor style, not the technique taught in my new manual, "How to Paint Lifelike Camel," in Chinese, acquired via eBay from Shandong. I was working from the manual today, and showed the Wizard some preliminary camel studies.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAiDBTMJv_gbppujaRVByLcM8xdgVFCuMwEgXZmPEZA3Vzv5m-ZEIyNu78wQ8PxO0iq61h0WSyWdbE87IUJ8oayzQkNzEJSgOX8FcZASxEcnlWpJ02kTzxjcAlgRvVBfnzPvNT/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAiDBTMJv_gbppujaRVByLcM8xdgVFCuMwEgXZmPEZA3Vzv5m-ZEIyNu78wQ8PxO0iq61h0WSyWdbE87IUJ8oayzQkNzEJSgOX8FcZASxEcnlWpJ02kTzxjcAlgRvVBfnzPvNT/s320/photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Singing Camels</td></tr>
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"They don't look like camels," he said. Then I showed him the manual. "They don't look like camels, either," he said. "But they don't look like turkeys." But I sorta think they do. <br />
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Camels and turkeys and ducks, also one of my favorite critters, actually have a lot in common. They are irascible and walk funny. Like some of my favorite people.baroness radonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com8