Solidtaire Studio

conspiracy, ideology, and legend

the current discussion on "censorship" on flickr is a bit of a retarded, 1970s discussion.  i'm finding it hard to believe that so many die-hard flickrites are thinking of flickr as this malicious corporate machine ready to crush its members for no good reasons at all.  why are we so addicted to conspiracy theories?

true, they could be out there to get you.  but that's one of the many possibilities.   why didn't people even have the courage to give flickr the benefit of doubt?

arendt said in once that the best are motivated by legends; the second best, ideologies; and the worst, conspiracies.  enough said.

the world

it's a brilliant film, outstanding even among the usually outstanding crowd of chinese indies.

it's one of the films that probably will remain small for years to come, but will continuously be discovered by film buffs and aspiring directors, a film that will serve as a frame of reference, a standard - like tokyo story, band of outsiders.

it's a story about alienation, of some characters who are vital, beautiful, strong, but also disoriented, small, and brittle. the world they live in is completely exotic to everyone - to the chinese, to the foreigners, to the old, and to the young. on the surface, they cope it with amazing wit, grace, courage, and honesty - it's impossible not to smile at the many delightful details, i.e. tao doing backbents on the lap of her boyfriend to relieve her backache, among many other innocent yet incredibly seductive scenes - but it all begs the question "what for." the scene of the young man setting himself aflame in the troupe's dressing room should be shamelessly plagiarized over and over again - all the beauty around you, it's just fuel for hell, it's just a trap.

jia is a masterful, inventive filmmaker who just can't be over-rated. the audio and visual kinetics of the film was amazing, with layers of sounds lending poignancy and contradiction to the story, and one classic frame after another. certain scenes feel like contemporary chinese art in action, i.e. the one of tourists posing in front of the leaning tower with nightmarish grins, or the bride pouring a bottle of liquor backwards into the groom's mouth. and where else can you hear a line like "let's drink a toast to all the chinese beauties in history, and marilyn monroe, and madonna?"

it's a slow film but every minute adds depth and texture. approach it on a calm night when you have some attention span. i've heard people complaining "but there isn't a plot." there is, you just need to pay attention, the cues are planted all over. this isn't one of these shitty films that beat you up with a plot and characterization. acting is superb, too. basically you'll forget that they are actually acting. they just are. the treat though is that this is a story about dancers, so their bodies and faces always speak volumes.

this isn't a film done for the western audience, or the chinese audience. jia isn't there to entertain you, you need to approach him. i wondered about the state of chinese indie films after watching it. these young filmmakers really have to get out of the way to make films, with politics and financing and all that. you must be really dying to say something if you're making films in china. you can't be thinking about money or fame (that's if you're not these dried-up old masters cashing on their fame doing absolute trash). that's what makes chinese indies so absolutely knock-outs. this phase won't last forever, and we just have to be thankful that these insanely fresh, inventive, vital, important films are being made.

how many times must we go through this before we can come clean

stubbie dearest
Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

expression is a form of therapy, that i know. i do wonder how many sessions must we go through before we can be free of our self-obsession and nostalgia? how much we must go through before we be truly be in the present, be connected to here and now?

i thought of this as i recognized hues of badly developed photos from my childhood in china. these muddy reds and greens touch me, but me alone.

breakneck weather

two days after my friend cracked a big wound on her head on ice over the pavement, i caught the sight of a square patch of orange light in the sky.  just the window of a building looking tall at night.  but i must keep my eyes on the ground, for the black-looking ice.

faux time

elizabeth street
Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

looking from outside in, new york is all shiny skyscrapers and latest fashion; looking from inside out, new york is all narrow streets and ancient wallpaper. the past and the future mix here as much authentically as they do artificially. history isn't nurtured then handed down, but discovered and abandoned and rediscovered. into these beautiful yet violent voids that i think of as faux time, we project our desire and love for the city.

man, woman, history

first off apparently i've been channeling my energy elsewhere ever since i moved to nyc.  good thing i think, private thoughts are important, but they're personal indulgence at the end of the day.  it's good, i think, to be pre-occupied with more constructive endeavours.

during the last couple of months when i had absolute no time to myself at all, sometimes not even on the weekends, i was going over some of my old books in fragments as a way of reclaiming some personal space - walter benjamin's illumination, wim wenders' once - just before bed every night. 

i started re-reading haruki murakami's wind-up bird chronicle, which i read more than five years ago and had always intended to re-read at some point.  it's probably one of my favourite stories of all time, with intricacies that were too much for my brain to take in at once.  so the second reading is still full of surprises.

for example, i completely forgot how essential kumiko, the wife, was part of the plot.  much of her  involvement was narrated through toru, the husband, so she felt rather distant and part of the background, passive, static.  i was surprised by how much i wasn't engaged with her character the first time.  as if i only wanted to know her as part of her husband's tale. 

was it only me who can only keep a relationship with two elements of the book at a time?  the man being one of course, the history being another.  are other people as obsessively monogamous in their relationships with fictional characters?

the little soldiers

gotan at webster hall
Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

they appeared on stage as the prettiest soldiers ready to fight the war against fate and misfortune. with such dashing uniform, even if they didn't win, they wouldn't lose their dignity.

tiny tears make up the ocean, tiny tears make up the sea

he sold me a bracelet that he made from the remains of shipwrecks.  tiny leaflets of copper, once home to sea creatures, corrupted into the prettiest shades of green and pink.   they felt so light and so alive and i was entertaining myself with thoughts of their escape.  but he'd already chained them together, and weighted them down with a piece of belgium crystal, rather enormous, the size of a ma jon tile as we like to say.

he said, hold it up, and listen to the sound it makes.  i did.  he asked me if it reminds me of the sound of wind chimes.  i said yes.  by then, he'd closed the sale on me.

ancient books

the brief sight of a lost friend was left behind, but a song rose in the background, just a fragment of it, and it soon slipped away.  but why this feels so memorable, like an excerpt from some ancient books?  like the involuntary participation of some uncivilized rituals?

at night

late at night, after tourists have gone home, soho again regains its solumn beauty, bestowing both order and grace upon the space with its tightly knitted and neatly constructed brownstones. the streets are clearer, except perhaps some lovers who prefer to linger on.

and the access to the basement would fling open, people would pop out of them, and light would leak out of the underground.  strong and silent men produce garbage from beneath, and unload supplies for tomorrow.  these jarring doors, they always scare me a little.  they feel like swamps.  these men, in their brute power and loneliness, feel like crocodiles. 

i think, right now, soho feels like a crocodile colony. 

the air is rancid.  does crocodile breath smell like this? 

and the wall of soho's brownstones, they'd feel a little curved at night, as if they were going to bend out of shape under the influence of some spell. 

not far, a woman plays hula hoops to amuse herself.  other people look on with gazes that are either mesmerized or indifferent, or both. 

i think of her as a little mermaid on an island of crocodiles.

keys

a palestinian writer of children's books, who had studied in beirut in her youth and is currently living in amman, describes beirut as a charismatic city whose pull emanates from its soul. 

after the bombing started, when she finally connected with her friend, nabeeha mheidly, an editor at a publishing house, she learned that nabeeha's entire family is safe, yet her apartment and her office have been blown up by the missiles.

nabeeha said, now, the only memories i have of the apartment are my keys. 

the writer's family left lifta in 1948 and never returned.  their house, and everything inside,  had been taken by the incoming jewish settlers.  the writer's 80-year-old mother still has the key to their house,  and vivid memories the objects that filled up the inside:  tablecloth with lace, photo albums, music records, and so on. 

many palestinians still have the keys to their old houses, they hold on to them as evidence of a lost past.  they have keys to houses that no longer exist. 

time of the wolf

deep into the night in new york, or on the weekend, the subway picks up a catastrophic quality, and the stations, the day after.  of course i know that the tracks are dirty, dilapidated, rusty, i just don't see it during the day when trains are running so often and the mice traumatized by the sonic bombs that we drop on them all day.   during off hours, i see it all.  i have nothing better to do.  i count the abandoned plastic poland spring water bottles, the water puddles, and the little mice running across the track like squirrels crossing the street in the suburbs.  people would wait with slight resignation and resentment, as if they don't really want to be here, among the crowd that i'm in.  or that they know where they're supposed to be but are not sure about it.  and the train would approach, with a hesitation suggestive of danger, and the doors would slowly open, or would decide that they want to be stuck right in the middle.  a smelly homeless person would be stretched out on the bench,  and half of the lights in the car would be off.  the doors close, the train takes off with a squeak.  suddenly the lights would all flip on for no reason, and the homeless person would groan, he must have just lost a good dream.   and the train would suddenly turn violent, speeding up uncontrollably.  the passengers would startle for one second and calm down the next, as if they've been primed for it.  i can't help feeling like being in a disaster film set in the immediate future, michael haneke's time of the wolf for example.  i wonder why all disaster films happen around trains. 

discombobulated

  new 
  Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

in chinese there is a very poetic and poignant translation of "new yorker"  - nu yue ke - which means "guests of new york."  in that sense, i am slowly getting into the state of being a new yorker.

so far, in my orbit, new york is everything i expected it to be, only more.  that's the true frightening part of living in new york, that your fantasies, your dreams are actually concrete realities.

i still can't believe that i actually live in this conglomeration of dreams and desires and dramas.  every now and then i can't shed a fear, as if the beautiful people i run into in restaurants and bars will dissolve into monsters and freaks, like they do in a nightmare.  i want to touch them, i want to feel their heartbeats, the warmth on their hands. 

it's getting late.  i'm preparing a document for work and i'm running into a writer's block.  i think i'm going downstairs to smoke a cigarette, a sampoerna to be precise, a souvenir from my previous life.  i want to slowly inhale the smoke and the street into my system.  yes, i'm going to lit it with some matches that i picked up from a restaurant a block away from here, a souvenir from a previous life of new york.

the floating world

  green-t house menu 
  Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

i know of ukyo-e as "fu-shi hui," or paintings of the floating world.  the floating world, it's a term that made intuitive sense to me, but i only knew through books and paintings.  i was a child of the communist era, i only knew of a china made of earth and fire, not one of water and air.  but it is here now.  behind doors.  served up discreetly like forbidden fruits.  layered with anxiety and denial.  already listless and bored.  facing it, i recall words and images from ancient books.

brand china vs. brand japan

  the reinvention of the opium den 
  Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

slowly getting a peek into the psyche of the expats in china. part of them hates this place, the corruption, the pollution, the efficiency of a communist government that borders on a freak show.  but part of them is addicted to this place, the opportunities, the servants, the food, the strip bars, the prostitutes. 

in my head i start to compare the expats in japan vs. the expats in china.  one crowd is more innocent, a tad aloof, more intellectual.  the other more complex, deep into the pleasure and the pains of this world, more material.  maybe, maybe. 

i look at them and i see not the china of the future but the china of the past.  their jadedness provokes a resignation in me - china is so big, so vast, so complex, how can anyone believe that it's going to change?  i'm sure that that's a frustration that i share with these expats who are attracted to brand china.

say go back to china to me

leaving for china tomorrow for two weeks.  everyone around me goes, oh, i'm so jealous.  in all honesty i can't see why, i can't conjure up this image of china as a glamorous hot spot.  i mean, it's just china right?  say go back to china to me.

stories

  transition 
  Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

i was fresh out of grad school, moving to toronto for a small job that i thought was going to tie me over before i found the real thing.  it was mindless, but back then i thought that such was life.  i was drifting without knowing.  i was new to a brand new city, the only two streets that i know were the two subway lines, the air was always too cold and too thin, and even when i was firmly on the ground, i suffered vertigo.  i had too clear an idea of what i wanted to do yet too vague about getting there, and days evolved around me like a long sleep that i couldn't shake off. 

that's when i met him, my sweet friend.  i walked into the meeting room, we greeted each other, and before we knew we were laughing.  i had few friends of my own age at that time, people around me loved me as if they were my aunts or uncles, so friendship from someone older was natural.  i utterly enjoyed it, the attention of a lovely work contact, someone that i could connect with, without any hint of romance.  soon i left the job, after the contract was up.  i never bothered with keeping in touch with people, out of career pessimism.  but he called.  we continued our friendship.  i was looking for a real job,  i'd get frustrated, of course, and he'd say, every morning, look into the mirror and tell yourself that you're beautiful and you're bright.  that trick, i still do it occasionally.  and every time i'd think of him.

there was a period when he was telling me stories.  i can't recall how long it lasted.  maybe a few weeks, or a few months.  it started with ireland.  we were in a car one day, and an irish song was playing on the radio.  he said, i was sixteen, i was at the airport, ready to come to america.  i was happy, i was looking forward to it, my mum and sister were seeing me off.  then that song played.  and i just lost it, i just lost it. 

there were many stories that he told me.  most of them from the time before he came to canada, when he was just a young immigrant, going through all kinds of adventures, romantic, foolish, both.  he'd been a teacher for the longest time, so he's eloquent.  double that with all the irish charm in the world, a rich voice, layered, paced.  i used to laugh so hard at his stories. 

by the time i got my first real job, i'd pretty much learned about all his stories. 

then something unspeakable happened.  a family tragedy.   i saw him a couple of times after that.  looking at him, i knew that no words would bring him out of it.  i thought, and that's something that i knew ever since i became an immigrant myself,  we are all so alone in this world, and it doesn't matter how kind or eager people around us are. 

i tried to keep in touch, but it became impossible.  i'd reach the same voicemail, over and over again.

a few years later i tried to write down his stories.  i missed him, and that's the only way i could remember him.  i was still inhibited by that chinese sense of reticence, so his stories reluctantly manifested themselves into chinese text.  i changed names, circumstances.  i mixed them up with other people's stories.    i was too constrained by all kinds of customs to write down his stories as they were.  deep down, maybe i was frightened.    if writing about someone isn't a form of deep affection, what is. 

over the years i hated most of what i wrote, which i tossed out when i moved from one address to another, from one city to another.  it's like they were literally crumbling into dust.  there were probably 50 pages of them, then only 15, then it dwindled down to five.

i saw them again a few days ago.

they were in my files with bank statements, citizenship papers, old correspondence.  sitting on the floor, going through them, i realized that i'd screwed up everything.

the stories i wrote were based on his.  yet i no longer saw him in them.  i saw my own youthful insecurities.

the worst part was that i'd lost track of the original stories, names, places.  i thought that his rich voice had etched these details into my memories.  what was the name of his first american girlfriend?  where did they go to buy their smoke?  is there a union station in boston?  did he come from east london? and how old was he when he left london, sixteen or eighteen?  looking at my own words, i can no longer recall any of it. 

all i can recall was his voice.

and i don't even know where he is anymore.  these stories are permanently lost to me.  and i'd loved them.

you don't experience this feeling often, that acute sense of loss that evaporates in a matter of hours.   looking at the ruins that used to be his life, i had my dosage of heartbreak of the day.

transition

  transition 
  Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

going through the process, dealing with sleazy people, meeting with interesting people.  the new, unfamiliar place that i'll call home.  the old place that i still adore, whether out of familiarity or resonance. inside me hell breaks loose, all memories assault me.  outside me i shed skin, hair, wearing weariness and indifference in front of friends.  i walk around confusing one name with another, feeling puzzled by the process of forgetting and and being forgotten.  this is such a dangerous and fertile zone that i'm in.  i struggle to find new names for my new feelings.  the truth is that i probably have nothing new to say, but if i don't speak  i'd be paranoid that i'm wasting all this significance away, this unknown significance...inside me, i pray to be brave.

pittsburghers

  and friends are dripping in slowly 
  Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

neil was saying that jamie, after spending 5 days in cleveland, where she grew up, felt so much more appreciative of pittsburgh.  he said, pittsburgh is just a little more liberal.  i mentally started laughing because i've heard people describing raleigh, north carolina, as the "liberal pittsburgh."  yes pittsburgh is more liberal than cleveland for sure, the border between the two cities is where the blue states end and red states start, but that doesn't guarantee pittsburgh's status as a liberal city, people here sneeze at the sound of berkeley, and quite a few friends of mine here are republican. 

i reflected, then i said, pittsburgh is actually rather conservative, but  it's the most uninhibited north american city i'd ever lived in?  it's that Flash Dance mentality - girls are not afraid of getting on the counter top and dance and take their tops off, but if guys ever yell "show us your tits" they're not afraid of giving them a deadly kick on the chin, either.  my co-workers have no qualm about talking about her cousin who was murdered at the age of 17, and his girlfriend who tattooed his name on her shoulder.  she'd say, i know that she loved him, but she's being stupid.  and the whole steelers nation thing.  they're just not ashamed of what they are what have you, they have no taboo, they laugh at pretty much everything.  that's just outrageously delicious for a continent that's largely puritan.

neil said, have you noticed how pittsburghers pay for their beers?  they put a $20 on the table, and a beer here costs $2, and the bar tender puts the change on the counter.  pittsburghers don't put the money back.  they leave it fanned out there for the next drinks.  until it's all gone.  when they go to bars in another city, that's what gives them away as pittsburghers.

nyc, iii

Originally uploaded by memoriesofthewind.

the trip to nyc must have been significant, judging from the visual output from it. strange really, because in some ways nyc is a disgusting city, it's grimy and noisy and stinky, and everyone moves around with this quasi cinematic air which could also be taken for dreamwalking. but there is a sense of gravity there that pulls me in, that induces strange thoughts in me.

caving

temporary de-linking my blog from flickr for some practical matters.  i wonder what's driving my sense of privacy, the sense of shame or the sense of modesty.

nyc, ii

accidentally found myself at the dean and deluca inside borders, on columbus circle. a place that's generic america.

i sipped a bland mocha latte. i had a copy of norwegian wood in my hands. that book, every now and then the last few paragraphes of it would haunt me, not because that they're particularly brilliant, but just because.

the copy i have at home is in chinese. i was always curious about how these words would translate into english.

there, i turned to the end of the book and copied the two paragraphes as i sipped my mocha. the mocha was gone, i stood up and left the book behind on the sofa.

words stolen. crime committed.

nyc, i

the beautiful receptionist at the gallery gave me a good look, long and deep.  i wasn't sure whether she's sizing me up, or displaying herself to me. 

cafes and hotels, iii

that afternoon, summer was turning into fall,  dark clouds wouldn't dispel.  earlier, i was in a little boutique called red, chatting with the milano owner called marco, buying a diesel sweatshirt with the word "valiente" on the back.  he said, this is inspired by south american peasantry.  i laughed, it was a kindred split second, our fascination with south america.  but of course he chose to live here, and had witnessed the poverty in some remote corners in argentina that's unimaginable in buenos aires, and i chose not to, and i  hadn't even thought of a plan to venture out of the city. 

argentina didn't inspire me, there's this self-consciousness that destroyed every trace of high mystery.  yet, it resonated with me, deeply.  it is such a hard, yet beautiful country. 

later, i was in a little cafe sipping tea, waiting for the evening, availing myself to random thoughts.  through the window, i looked at the  people on the street,  at their heavy glances, the dusky colours of of their outfits. i thought of marco's words, that this place was italy twenty years ago.   dogs played in all their glorious doggy ways, not knowing a problem in the world.  all of a sudden tears came out of no where, poured out of me like sweat.  i didn't panic, or felt ashamed.  nobody knew who i was.  if i didn't find inspiration, i found reasons to be brave again.  nothing made sense, they just came together in me, silently.

a nick drake song was playing.  i knew it so well, i could almost tell you which album was that from, which track was it.  i just couldn't name it.   

a young man was selling some flimsy-looking weekly.  he was leaving a copy on everyone's table then coming back to collect money from whoever deciding to keep it.   a trick of dignified begging used worldwide, but i saw more of it here, more frequently.  i flipped through mine, and decided that it's an interesting souvenir.  had no change on me, so i went through the trouble of breaking a big note with my non-existent spanish, and paid him.  he smiled and thanked me, went on his business, and i returned to my self-absorption.  then i found him standing at my table again.  i was startled, because it was a good hour or so later.  he was well-groomed, cleanly dressed.  he looked a little less european than your average argentinean with italian or spanish roots, with prominent cheekbones, widely set eyes, a broad mouth, and very dark skin.  could he have more native blood?  could he be one of the new poors of argentina?  or was i being that  polisci sophomore?   i thought of that young beggar boy in "nine queens", who also has a beautiful smile.  the two faces started to blend.  he kept smiling, it was so beautiful yet there's something servile in it, which pained me and bored me.  in my sweet, gentle oriental mannerism, i said in a very neutral english, i'm so sorry, but i don't speak spanish.  that was the truth, but that wasn't what i was communicating.  he must have understood, because he uttered something again, smiled again, and left again.  i knew that i wasn't going to forget his smile.  my heart was filled with pity for him, which was probably uncalled for, and a slight shame.  the little we gave, it was accepted with too much gratitude, and that weighted me down.  that afternoon, summer was turning into fall, and dark clouds wouldn't dispel.  nick drake's voice came from 20, or maybe 30 years ago. 

the cat woman

apparently she does exist, but everyone maintains her anonymity to protect her.  she's in her mid-thirties, well-educated, well-off, with a real job.  i don't know whether she's single or not, or her race.  she has dedicated an entire house of hers to stray cats.  the first floor hosts the feral ones who had never lived with humans, were never toilet trained.  the second floor, abandoned pets, with good manners and nice habits.  the third floor is for the terminally ill, the handicapped, the weak.  she has a cleaning lady coming in three times a day to keep the house inhabitable, and she has a network of vets and groomers who volunteer their time to spay the cats, clean them up, treat their illnesses, and put the really sick ones to sleep. 

apparently this is illegal.  apparently  that she lives under this constant fear that  she's going to be caught and punished one day.