Filed under: posts | Tags: America, Barack Obama, eloquence, ethics, everyday, race, sights & sounds, society, speech
Take 38 minutes out of your day, sit down in front of your computer, and listen.
Are you kidding me? His oratory is ridiculous – if he backs 20 percent of his dream with result, we’re gonna be fine. If he starts playing with the upper quartile, oh my, what a future this will be.
Enjoy, and ’tis all.
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Filed under: posts | Tags: Abagail Adams, art & lit, freedom, HBO, idealism, John Adams, politics, realism, school, self, society, Thomas Jefferson
Ok, so Jefferson was a schizophrenic about slavery. He seemed to be a product tried and true of Virginia, but his logical subconscious suffered for it. But, let’s not debate the morals of Jefferson, this piece is about “John Adams”
First, here’s some free advertising courtesy of HBO and youtube:
This seven-part miniseries from HBO is nothing short of fascinating and maybe even needed. The acting comes from a top-notch cast headed by Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail. Tom Wilkinson does a great job at portraying an eccentric Franklin.
More after the hop.
Filed under: posts | Tags: cars, crime, dialogue, Evo, punks, school, self, society, vandalism
If you guys don’t know me that well, then you do not know the relationship I have with my car. The evo to me, is like what a dog is like to its owner. It’s reliable, proud and is always there for me when I need it. There’s nothing like boosting away the world’s problems. So when I tell you today some punk(s) keyed my passenger side door, it is akin to a parent just realizing someone had blinded their child with a pitchfork. Sure, life goes on, but does it really?!
For those in the car detailing know, there are two scratches from the key. One is just barely through to the color while the second, more bitterness-filled one goes right on into the primer. This means that either my car will look like it has tissue scars or my local body shop is getting a phone call. Nonetheless I will see what magic I can conjure up with paint touch-up pen before spending the repair bucks.
In my mind, I keep making up how this all went down:
(2) kids probably because one isn’t usually brave enough and has no one to show off to.
Kid 1: Hey [Bob, Joe, Francis, Kareem, Tayshawn, Soo-Kim, Cheng Jian, Kimberly, Collete*, Mary, Hasheem, Andre, Jose, Ivan, Peter], check it out! It’s a mother****** Evo!
Kid 2: Yeah [long list of possible names], probably some rich **** drives it around.
Kid 1: Yeah, f*** those guys. You know what?
Kid 2: Wha?
Kid 1: Watch this!
Kid 2: Oh, hell, you’re crazy man!
Kid 1: Haha, you know it!
*Evo violation*
*Silent Evo weeping*
Kid 1: F***, let’s get the f*** outta here!
Kid 2: **** *** ***** *** ** **** *** (I don’t know if you can string foul language this long consecutively, but I want to imagine you can)
*Runs away*
*This name is too awesome to be associated with this nonsense
Now, before the real mourning process can begin, I must take another final.
‘Tis all.
When I first read the title of this jdrama, 1 Litre of Tears, I was turned off by it. It just sounded so stereotypical. “Another one of those get sick and die but fall in love in the process” kind of films, I thought. Honestly, I think this drama would receive more attention with another name.
First of all, the show is based off the real life account of Ikeuchi Aya, who contracts a rare disease called spinocerebellar ataxia. She wrote in a diary about her life until she simply could not write anymore. It was a bestselling novel and they adapted it into the film.
What is really moving to me about this drama is that it does not come off as forced. The love aspect may be a bit artificial, but the treatment of disability as a social concern and its affects on family and friends is very real and poignant. The dilemmas and sadnesses her family incur as a result of her illness are real issues which many families with disabled members face. The show really forces the viewer to think hard about how the disabled are essentially ostracized by society.
The drama is shot nicely with quality acting. (The father seems kind of exaggeratedly sad at times, though). Of all the dramas I have seen, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese, this one is definitely the most moving simply because it is the most real. It is not just about people falling in love in the face of adverse circumstances. I think it really does challenge our notions of courage, family, and what it means to live.
So, this is highly recommended!
Here are a few linkages if you’re interested:
Site with links to streaming episodes, though the quality is bad
Oh, and the main actress Erika Sawajiri, is brilliantly cute. Enjoy, in the saddest sense of that word.
‘Tis all.
Filed under: posts | Tags: Evo, happiness, Pushing Daisies, self, Shoe Drop 2007, sights & sounds, society, TOMS shoes
“We wake up every morning with a list a mile long and maybe we spend our lives making those wishes come true. Just because we want them doesn’t mean we need them to be happy.” (S01E06 Pushing Daisies)
This has come to be a very mundane quote. It has been put more eloquently, with more high-brow vocabulary and from more notable mouths than Lee Pace. But its importance and potency stands, perhaps even more so in this colloquial, banal adaptation.
Sometimes, we all need to refocus and collect ourselves. This is a viable and important question to ask, honestly and often. Are we just checking off the wishes on our list, or truly looking for sustainable happiness? In an effort to be more optimistic, I will just skip the bashing of the endless commodity driven lives I see everyday at Cal and focus on where I’m at.
Things I want to be happy:
- Tanabe Touring Medallion Exhaust for the Evo
- Do-Luck style front carbon fiber lip for Evo
- APS BOV, Works Drop-In Filter and reflash
- Timbuk2 Medium Laptop Messenger Bag
- Nintendo DS!
- Subscription to Top Gear Magazine (!!)
Things I need to be happy:
- Giving and sharing happiness
The first list isn’t sin. It just needs perspective. It is so easily to fall on this path of jumping from one purchase to another as a means of happiness. I know I do it. However, like meeting friends at drunken college bashes, it is very brittle. Such happiness is insubstantial and wears away quickly. I find that they are much better as seasonings to a much stronger, core sense of happiness derived from the second list.
Like the happiness derives from family rather than from the presents during the giving Holidays, this weighty happiness is so valuable in life. For me, the thing that has made me so very happy during the last few days is this blog: http://tomsshoedrop.blogspot.com/
I worked with TOMS in the summer and to know that my work is paying off in the form of bringing happiness to children in Africa is extremely uplifting. It reminds me that I have the luxury of having my basic needs taken care of so I can write this otherwise unimportant blog about the need for more substantial happiness.
As for fulfilling that latter list (of one item), it does come in many forms I believe. One of those ways is through cause-driven work with clubs and companies. However, since only one of my clubs has an immediate human element, it is hard for me to find that happiness solely through my work. I find myself struggling some days to find this foundation in my life.
Even so, I am not afraid. I know it’ll come eventually. In the end, it will have to be a person, someone I can share happiness with and simply give a part of myself to. I am not in too much of a rush though, there is much to be done in all the other fronts of life as well.
Maybe I’m being too naive with my perception of human relationships. However, I really do believe in happiness being found in relationships rather than in a certain income level. They are sustainable, substantial and evolving whereas a number is simply a launch pad to another bigger number.
So I celebrate the little triumphs in life and in happiness. I smile knowing that a child in Africa has shoes on his little feet because I helped sell those shoes. I smile knowing it is the first act of kindness he has experienced in his life – the first expression of shared happiness. I hope this changes things, even if for a while.
The end of that episode of Pushing Daisies asks: “What do you need to be happy?”
In the dreamland that is television the answer from the guy protagonist to the girl protagonist is “you.” I bet in the mire of happiness that is life, the answer is not far off.
‘Tis all.
Filed under: posts | Tags: china, Communism, Communist Revolution, food, life, love, Mao, parents, self, society
[poster via Stefan Landsberger]
This weekend was an interesting one. Along with finally finding a trustworthy and knowledgeable mechanic for my car, I visited one of our family friends who happened to own a Japanese restaurant in Antioch. I am a sashimi fiend and when my Dad asked me to go over and take some pictures of the finished architecture and design project, I was quick to ditch my economics homework and head on over.
It think I will withhold his name and just call him Mr. L. I knew he was a talker, I’ve heard him go on and on about his son (Berkeley physics grad) and his hopes and dreams for him. I am not here to discuss his parenting – which I do find a bit unsettling in its mercilessness.
This particular time I went over we sat down and he started talking about something that he never really discussed with me before. He told me about how love was viewed under the Communist regime. In his youth, during the revolutions of the 70s, there was no time for petty things like love. There was only China to love. And oh did the youth love China.
My generation’s parents, those born in China during the mid-to-late 50s all have experienced a certain prescribed form of love. Love, as universal and human as it may seem, was something controllable by the government. They simply had to encumber the youth with so much nationalism and so many duties associated with such nationalism that they thought love to be a waste of time – hours and hours that could be used towards revolution.
So love was simple, quick and utilitarian. Oh, she’s a hard worker, not terribly ugly and gets along with my family. Done. Run down to the marriage office, get a license (which in that time was a fairly new thing) and then you’re done. There was no concept of dating or choices. When the opportunity arose, you just simply tied the knot then got back to pushing Mao’s goals forward.
To say that Mr. L. was a revolutionary is an understatement. He was a party leader. A man who cried real, angry tears during Mao’s fear-induced purges. The Tienanmen square incident still bubbling in his veins. He was a passionate comrade of the old guard. He believed fiercely in the social values that Mao tauted but became disillusioned after those promises fell short. Needless to say, he put his love of China over love over any woman.
Now, he tells me this is the single greatest regret of his entire life.
Yes, this show deserves a full page ad on the front of inkless – not that it really does anything for them. Pushing Daisies is brilliant. I know I say that about a lot of things, but this show really is something inarguably original. It’s a romantic drama-comedy which breaks free from all the usual drudgery that kills romantic comedies.
It has an Amelie-eque quirkiness about it. This is a great thing. It means that the background are vibrant, the music is uppity and sweeping, and the characters are genuinely different and interest. For instance, the main male protagonist is a pie maker. That in itself is a nice change from the lawyers, doctors and crime scene investigators flooding the airwaves. But really, a show about a pie maker would be very short lived after the tartness wears off.
The real genius of this show is the structure of how the plot works. First off, let me explain that the main character, Ned, has a superpower. This is not surprising considering Bryan Fuller, the producer, worked on Heroes. Ned can bring the dead back to life. However, his power comes with two stipulations. First of all, if his reanimated subject stays alive for one minute, another living person will die in his/her place. Secondly, if Ned comes into contact with the reanimated subject for the second time, then he/she will die again – permanently.
Without giving too much away, let me just say that these stipulations serve up an original romantic drama. It becomes love unfocused the visceral, physical side. TV romances not relying on sex, who knew! Ironically, this absence of physicality makes it an even more valued issue. It really is quite the interesting situation.
We’ve seen this in other great works of the same kind. Of note is really Lost in Translation which harnessed that tension between people almost to an art. The Before Sunrise/Sunset films, mostly dialogue, did the same. Films that are able to tell life and love as it is on a more mature level seem to resonate with viewers looking for alternatives to the clothes-tearing, bra-unclipping, tongue-slobbering stuff we usually see. Not that sex should not be a part of life or a part of America mainstream television, but it is glorified and cheapened on the screen.
If you don’t want it for the interplay between the two characters, watch it for the quirky setting and excellent story-telling. It is a crime-romance-comedy in essence. There’s a little something for everyone, I promise. Now, when have I ever steered you wrong?
Let me leave you with a trailer and a teaser:
‘Tis all.
Today I spoke to one of you. Not my parents, but another father of an Asian American kid growing up. I understand that as a parent, you are concerned for your child’s education and future. I also understand that the American system is faulty at points and does not provide a clear path to success.
Even so, the path that you have placed your daughters in – one of endless rote memorization and asceticism is not the right one. I guess in the end, I really have no right to tell you how to parent your child, but if we are to take this as an objective evaluation of what works, I say you are wrong.
The Gumball3000 has always been over the top. It’s a 3000-mile rally around the world held each year for the rich and speedy to get their jollies. The rally features enough horsepower to probably power the developing world. Their international journey has usually kept close to Western shores with a jump here to two to an “exotic” land like Morocco.
The rally itself is a no-holds-barred run to different checkpoints where massive parties ensue. This cycle continues until the end. There’s a pretty penny to be paid. £24000, or about $48,000 for a nice little countryside drive. There have been insanity in the past with multiple crashes and one fatality that ended a Gumball run short.
That fatality was of a civilian driver and it really put a dark shadow over Gumball. For me, it called for the end of it as the drivers of the Gumball car tried to flee. Just disgusting.
From that point on, Gumball3000 had always treaded a fine line between what is sound and the celebration of the “free spirit of driving.”
2008 Gumball? They’ve crossed that line – big time.
1. Chinese class is harder than my political theory classes. However, I feel a real personal gain when I learn a new way to say “hypocritical” in my native tongue.
2. There are some really boring but completely stress-less jobs out there. For instance, my BART ticket was demagnetized, all $16.60 of it. I went down to the Berkeley station to get an exchange and I was directed by the station official to a small little booth where a small Asian man sat.
He had a nice little insulated lunch box in the background. I wondered someone who loved him packed that each day. He also had the obligatory tea bottle with Jasmine tea. On his left ring finger he wore a golden ring with a jade insert. It’s very unstylish, but it fit with his look. Married, from Southern part of Asia I would assume where gold and jade still are in fashion.
He spoke tersely, gruffly and directly.
“40 Cents,” he said in a muffled, accented voice.
I hand him the change and get my nicely exchanged 17 dollar ticket and a cardboard ticket sleeve. I like it – it gives my wallet some structure.
This guy just sits in this 7 feet by 7 feet square locked room in a neglected corner of Berkeley BART on select days and exchanges damaged tickets. He’s very diligent. I wonder what he thinks about. Is he just checking out the college girls that walk by? Does he think about his family or his country? Who knows?
So I think, there are plenty of people with such mindless jobs. They are all needed elements of our economy and they all do what they do to support people they love (or themselves). The American Dream?
How does someone make that person feel more apart of this society? Eh, that’s for another day.
3. One cute girl can really make my day better. So I’m getting myself a drink at a Boba place and the girl who takes my order is one of those people are just massively outgoing and excited. I’ve talked to her before in one of my classes and her personality once again overwhelms me. Bubbly is the best way to describe it.
It is not even like I was gonna hit on her or anything. It was just a random conversation after a tiring day filled with economics and Chinese tests. Gotta make more friends with bubbly personalities.
4. I saw a homeless person give a guitar-toting street performer 2 dollars and a handful of change. Hobbes is wrong, people are generally good.
5. I’m very confident when I have a task to do. I need purpose to be effectively confident.
Well, that’s what I learned today. Sweet huh?
‘Tis all.
