Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Wild Speculation
a fiction reading and chapbook release
with Neelanjana Banerjee's workshop


Date: Sunday, May 17, 2006

Time: 7-9PM

Location: Space180, 180 Capp St, San Francisco

Cost: $5

Join Kearny Street Workshop for a reading of new works of fiction and the release of a new chapbook from KSW Press, Wild Speculation. Featured readers for the program are Lisa Wong Macabasco, Ravi Chandra, Corrie Bowe, Jimmy Cho, Viet-Ly Nguyen, Nina Fallenbaum, and Susanna Kwan.

Edited by Neelanjana Banerjee and KSW, with cover design and layout by Thien Pham and illustration by Susanna Kwan, the chapbook is the second in KSW Press' new chapbook series.

Reception to follow reading.

which person from asian american history would you most want to date?


Alex: I'd say "George Takei ... I've always wanted to be his Uhuru"
Alex: "and that voice!"

the last third is usually backwash
stephen colbert at the white house correspondents' dinner

yes, this happened today. gimme a break, it's friday.

crys: fave JADE one liner - "i'm a soldja sista, betta reckanize."

--

dear person in oakland who is googling marg0t and reading my blog - you are a stalker!!! eat it.

my awesome writing teacher posted this on hyphen's blog about the whole How Opal Mehta Got Kissed... fiasco:

Go ahead, call me a snob. I’ll accept this label. But I am more interested in reading and supporting new Asian American authors who are pushing past the model minority stereotypes and writing about class struggle, passion and politics in a way that doesn’t have to include discussions of brand-names and, in this case, super-elitist academic institutions. I think my critique of Viswanathan goes beyond her chick-lit genre, because this critique applies to authors like Jumpha Lahiri as well, and is more about my frustration with the lack of fiction out there about the working class South Asian community. Can we only write about first generation immigration experiences, living in the suburbs or the homeland? I don’t mean to favor subject-matter over writing quality but I think if South Asian writers continue to write about the same subjects and place their stories in the same settings, we are just limiting ourselves.

while no one can call me a great fan of ishle or any type of objective critic of jhumpa lahiri (sob!), i agree with her questioning of these categories of fiction that all asian am. writers have to fall into in order to get published. if i see one more food-related asian am. woman narrative, i may eat placenta. anyways, scroll down and see how the wolves reacted to the post. jesus.

---
in other news - m-dub is back!! but sake bombing makes my head hurt in the morning. ouch.

i used to think this was my favorite all-time photo of minnie.

but this definitely takes the...cake.



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the almost may playlist
"gatekeeper," feist (link)
"crazy," gnarls barkley
"the police and the private," metric
"this is hardcore," pulp
"love's lost guarantee," rogue wave
"lightness," "what sarah said," "someday you will be loved," pretty much anything by death cab
"i want to be buried in your backyard," nightmare of you
"love," keyshia cole

awesome version of "crazy" from TOTP (link from goldfid):

still got it!

ali w.'s birthday party @ 111 minna - drink count:
-gin and tonic
-jaeger bomb (jager bombed into red bull)
-lemon drop martini
-shot of patron (!!!)
-kamikaze shot
-vanilla stoli and ginger ale

then, nizario's and the cross fade.

in other news, steve threw up after our $100/person dinner on friday. yes, he threw up the foie gras.

thembi's aids diary: a really touching audio diary from a girl in south africa living with aids. almost made me cry on the shuttle ride this morning...

APOCALYPSE IS NEAR

me: are you at home?
steve: No I have a sidekick now

next, you'll want wet tee shirt swimming, too.

jesus mc-crimpy

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and by popular demand - papabasco!


dad watering his garden


the PI is the texting capital of the world - my dad can totally text in tagalog on his cell now.


minnie said: "look at his little hat!"

photo time


with our tricycle


around 6 am in pakil


rice fields and haze




the town where papabasco is from


everyone in the town has our last name, as seen here on this jeepney


CARIBOU!!


we climbed up this huge mountain at 6 am. it was as steep as the hill of my house in sf THE ENTIRE WAY. my knees were killing me.




my cute little cousin, gwenn


river "resort"


in uncle nito's (short for juanito) tricycle




just trying to fit in there


it's called turumba, and they parade a virgin mary statue around the town square


it's quite hectic.


my filipino daughter, rachel, with pancake in one hand and chocolate eggs in another


for those who have seen my baby photos in my room - isn't this me??


we made rachel pee on herself because we gave her four glasses of tang in about 20 minutes. i said to laurie, "umm, are you sure it's ok to give her this much?" and she said "yeah, why not?" rachel doesn't speak english, so laurie didn't understand what she was saying, and she ran onto the porch and peed on herself.


plaza in pakil


palm blessing on palm sunday




with gramabasco


in HK

Four jobs I've had
1. Coat check girl for private parties
2. Admin asst. at an environmental nonprofit
3. Summer day camp counselor
4. Nordstrom, Point of View dept.

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Four Weddings and a Funeral
2. Manhattan
3. Annie Hall
4. High Fidelity

Four places I've lived
1. Manhattan
2. DC
3. Berkeley
4. Birmingham UK

Four TV shows I watch
1. The Office (UK)
2. Blow Out
3. America's Next Top Model
4. Flava of Love

Four places I've vacationed
1. Prague
2. Hong Kong
3. Paris
4. Barcelona

Four foods I love
1. brussel sprouts
2. tj's palak paneer
3. soup dumplings
4. sausage

Four sites I visit daily
1. goldenfiddle.com
2. wwtdd.com
3. weather.com
4. style.com

Four places I'd rather be
1. havana
2. berlin
3. moscow
4. reykjavik

Four random items in my bag
1. marlboro ultra lights, hk edition
2. three types of lip balm
3. foundation
4. i heart NY lighter

Four things most people don't know about me
1. I hate answering my cell phone
2. I read the new york times in print every day
3. I think being supported entirely by my partner would not be that bad
4. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a model

Four people I tag
1. itzjustjai
2. grooverobber
3. wildthangyang
4. allypoo

hilarious

Biff: she's turning all "Waiting to Exhale" and shit

emily won sf cherry blossom queen!

email from alex:

Does anyone want to have a celebration for April 20th, 2006?

Emily, will you be our ganja blossom queen?

minnie: ps love how jesus had crimped hair at palm sunday

damn, i thought i kicked the jetlag in one day, but here i am at 5:30 am, and i have been awake since 4 am. i am drinking water and contemplating eating toast.

today ali hu had a bbq, and i was probably the only one there who had not realized it was her birthday bbq until today. i always forget what sf native style is, but so many people were wearing north face jackets, hooded sweatshirts, knit caps, and timberland boots that i asked ali, "did you guys all just get back from snowboarding or something?"

i took the surrogate mister, sexy alexi (according to his dixie cup, courtesy of ali - a high school joke), who said "since when are there djs at backyard bbqs?" oh yeah, there were djs in the garage. and we were sitting right next to the speakers which were way too loud for just 20 people, so of course alex was chatting with his booming voice, and each time there was a break in the music, whatever alex was saying would echo through the entire garage. hilarious. i giggled over my fruit and salad (can't eat anything larger than that yet, still on my asia diet).

ok i made toast. with mascarpone cheese. try it. delicious.

i've got some pics from the PI and som thoughts from hk, to come tomorrow.

le tigre covers the pointer sisters' "i'm so excited"

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the new republic takes on my only reason to wake up on thursday mornings, the thursday styles:

But it's one thing for a bunch of glorified ad vehicles--or even the rampantly capitalist Wall Street Journal--to be hawking designer duffel bags and skin cream priced higher than Jack Abramoff's legal team. After all, these publications unabashedly promote--and generally cater to readers who share--a Trump-esque mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude toward wealth and consumption. It's quite another matter, however, for the venerable Times to lend its imprimatur to a genre so awkwardly at odds with its own high-minded liberal sensibility and intellectual pretensions. This, after all, is the same paper that, last year, ran an eleven-part series on class in America, in which it described economic mobility as "the promise that lies at the heart of the American dream" and exhaustively pondered its apparent decline. Social consciousness for The Wall Street Journal may mean crushing the welfare state, but, for the Times, it means earnest editorials packed with noblesse oblige. (Classic snippet from last Thanksgiving: "There is no shame in the poverty Americans suffer today. The shame adheres to those who do nothing to change it.") Wretched consumer excess may be the American way, but is it really the paper of record's business to lend it respectability?

i don't entirely agree with this seeming calling out of thustyles, but i do agree that i am probably one of those ambivalent bobos who feels "a twinge of shame about their aggressive acquisitiveness."

"Thursday Styles," by contrast, is seeking new converts, reassuring its more skeptical readers that there's really nothing wrong with showing off their good fortune. This is delicate work considering that even many ultra-affluent Times readers belong to the ambivalently wealthy ranks of the "Bourgeois Bohemians" profiled so piquantly in now-Timesman David Brooks's 2000 classic, Bobos in Paradise. A new breed of elites deeply conflicted about their material success, Bobos are morally appalled by any gaudy display that could make them look like "the vulgar Yuppies they despise." Writes Brooks: "Maybe off in Vegas there are still some rich peasants trying to conspicuously consume, buying big limousines, powerboats, and sports franchises and piling up possessions to demonstrate their net worth. But the Bobo renounces accumulation and embraces cultivation. He must show, in the way he spends his money, that he is conscientious and not crass." Unlike the typical in-your-face luxury porn, "Thursday Styles" grasps the conflicted code of the Bobo.

and i see myself here, too:

Similarly, complaining about the drive out to a mall well north of the city, she once quipped, "On my deathbed, I would like to be able to say I read Pushkin in the original Russian, not that I spent 12,458 hours in the pursuit of shopping." It's fine to spend absurd amounts of time and money acquiring absurd stuff, Kuczynski is assuring us, so long as you recognize the absurdity. Because the real vulgarity isn't greed, but rather a lack of self-awareness.

i actually enjoy reading the critical shopper, and i feel like she understands the conflicted nature of conspicuous consumption that more and more people are now able to participate in. i like her self-conscious asides at the shock of price tags and the reality checks. i too would like to say on my deathbed that i read pushkin in original russian (or anything in original russian), but i'm not going to be ashamed about being gold-collar either.

insomnia
while my body is still on hong kong time, there are lots of things rattling around the attic at 2 am. i liked what rj wrote recently:

i've been in california for about 8 months now. i haven't really danced since i left michigan. sometimes i worry whether or not i am still capable of doing everything i used to do, all those things i was known for. the thing with personas is that they aren't fictional representations, false identities that one might play on television, then shed like dead skin when the cameras stopped rolling. they're more like different sides of the same die, numbers that turn up when the conditions are just right; they are the shards of our ideal selves, made real and public if only for a moment. when they are gone, it is as if a portion of our soul has disappeared beneath the currents of time, leaving us with the bittersweet taste of nostalgia on our tongues. not even the wine of california's napa valley can mask its flavor.

potent images from new york, dc, london, berkeley ebbing and flowing in my dramamine addled head. it all seemed so long ago, a totally different world. i have been blessed and cursed with a bad memory that i have worked hard to achieve over the years with drugs and more alcohol than i would like to admit and a little bit of will. i stumbled in five inch heels three weeks ago in an empty dive bar with a pool table in the back off polk street. i got drenched in rain on bush near the stockton tunnel and had fernet and soggy cigarettes at a dark round table. i shivered in shorts in a windswept smoking area in front of circolo and passed along parliaments and gossip.

but how does that compare to hennessy goldschlager 151 tequila captain kamikaze shots on the ground floor of dream, dancing and smoking next to minnie and margot, buying lin a liquid cocaine and not teling him what it was, watching alice puke behind a couch at a club on H street, seeing that couple go upstairs into rj's room, telling the twins i really don't want to do another shot, not being sure if you are sweating alcohol or sweat, getting jaime some water, hey your friend is cute, hitting a foil pipe that margot made, buying from my SGM hairdresser, was my skirt this short when i left the house?, doesn't clarence look exactly like arthur?, i think he likes you, the power of suggestion, let's call him while he's on his date, she's not even that cute!, not the beer bong again, not those annoying guys again, oh my god let's do a shot. but isn't margot in the shower? she doesn't mind doing shots by herself. what is she doing in the shower at 11 pm while there is a party downstairs?

or later, stumbling through chinatown in head to toe crushing marc jacobs, thinking only of soup dumplings, and how many excrutiating steps it will take to get there, having a few drinks in the lower east side and zipping home across the bridge in a taxi in ten minutes, eating my first deviled egg and hearing minnie drunkenly scream at a bitchy looking asian girl for saying shit about wellesley, hearing a white guy do a perfect karaoke of shaggy's "angel", feeling like alice in wonderland at the dove bar, laughing in rite aid with minnie and bot about a random guy saying that caramel candy was not so good, seeing bear heads in the snow in philly.

dear lord, it's 3 am.