Three Heads, Six Arms

I was glad to have a chance to check out the Civic Center installation, Three Heads, Six Arms, today. Too bad that this work by Zhang Huan won't be a permanent part of our cityscape. This blog has a nice account of it being installed.

Artist's Date Thursday

Any of you who have read any of the Julia Cameron books will know the importance of having a weekly "artist's date" by oneself. Tonight the editorial we went to the Shanghai exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. It was as disjointed as some of the reviews claimed but had some wonderful pieces all the same. My favorite was a traditional scroll painting that featured a pair of 1930s mob bosses.

Twelve Stars Rising from the East

My cold has prevented me from posting much the past few days, and Bow has been too busy nursing me to take over the blog. I am slowly rising from the dead.

Nothing helps raise my spirits more than this, my favorite renditions of one of my favorite holiday songs. It isn't the holidays without '80 synth pop repurposed on traditional Asian instruments by lovely, talented young women.

Today I've Been Watching the Films of...

All Wet

Aren't these $550 Speedo LZR swimsuits for the Olympics defeating the whole purpose for watching men's swimming? Okay, they're sort of cute in a lounge around house the morning after way, but they really take my enthusiasm out of watching men's swimming. They're the worst idea since the NBA decided that bloomers would replace shorts for basketball uniforms or, as I prefer to call them, costumes. I may have to join the Olympic boycott protests. Free Tibet! Free the swimmer boys tits! Bring back Mark Spitz! Half naked Jewish boys with gold chains figured heavily in my adolescence and still appeal to me tremendously. Whatever happens, we'll always have Munich. Ah...

JTTV - Season 2, Episode 15 - Cinco de Meow

Bunter and Junk Thief herald the Fifth of May with a musical extravaganza that simultaneously celebrates and debunks the consequences of globalization. If you prefer to see it full screen, click the YouTube link for that version.

Oakland, Chinese Family Values and Le Cochon Danseur

Friendatella (whom I know well enough to call just F'tella) and I went to see a wonderfully obscure film tonight in Oakland's Lake Merritt District called The Curse of Quon Gwon, believed to be the oldest extant Asian American film, committed to celluloid in 1916. Clocking in at just around 35 minutes, it was a tale of a couple dealing with issues of in-laws, contemporary vs. traditional values, and cultural identity. There was also a moment or two of odd footwear and head dresses.

It was coupled with a 90 minute documentary called Hollywood Chinese that was also heavily promoted at the Asian American Film Festival last month where I saw the great documentaries on Anna May Wong and the Long/Leung family but have not gotten around to writing about. For better or worse, having a life has made me a bit delinquent on reporting and critiquing on this blog.

The best part of the evening may have been that I may be turning F'tella into a silent film buff after he went reluctantly to a Louise Brooks flick at last summer's Silent Film Festival. Speaking of which, I am glad to post this clip from one of my favorite discoveries from that festival last year in a retrospective called Saved From the Flames that featured many short Melies films and other early silent obscurities. Dancing, stripping pigs are always a great joy, as the clip below attests.

10,000 Years and Imperial Yellow

I've spent several nights this week making my way through the four disc Criterion issue of The Last Emperor, and it's worth every second and every dollar ($55+ retail, $41 if you'd pre-ordered as I did). It not only holds up but actually exceeds my expectations. It is not unlike the Forbidden City itself, opulent and overwhelming in scope but filled with glorious ornate doors that take us into serene little gardens and tiny jeweled golden cubicles.

I wondered if it would still feel as mannered and stilted as it sometimes did when I first saw it two decades ago. It often does, but that is also appropriate for Pu Yi's surreal, stilted world. It's not as odd of a vibe as, say, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, but both have a score and acting by Ryuichi Sakamoto which is always a good thing.

John Lone is as appealing to me as he was in 1987, and it's a crime that he was not afforded more roles in films of equal quality. Many people praise Joan Chen, who is superb in her evolution from a teen bride to a drug addled, spitting shell of herself at the end. However, I am still drawn more by Maggie Han's portrayal of Eastern Jewel that borders or camp but is my favorite bisexual double crossing female pilot of all time. ("I'm a spy, and I don't care who knows!)

In the commentary, Bertolucci addresses Pu Yi's not so ambiguous sexuality that is at least hinted at in scenes such as the sheet play with the eunuchs. Ultimately it is not so much a David Lean epic as it is an Ozu domestic theatrical drama, finding grace in the path towards nothingness. The sense of dread and isolation that runs throughout still resonate with me on a deeply personal level, especially the sense of privilege and adoration being a form of prison.

The film came out at a pivotal time in my life, when I was just beginning my career in international work, when I purchased my first house, when I was beginning what would be the most long-term romantic relationship of my life which was intertwined with Asia. Perhaps it's fitting that the film is being re-issued 20 years since it swept the Oscars (a hollow ceremony that usually honors sewage such as Titanic and Forest Gump), at the Centennial of Pu Yi's ascendancy to the thrown and in the Year of the Rat, the point in the zodiac when he was removed and became a figure head.

In the meantime, I will keep praying that one day there will be an objective, non-racist portrayal of the much maligned Dowager Empress Cixi, one of the most fascinating women to rise to power in modern history.

Peking Dick

One cold February morning in 1972, I went to the “formal living room” of my parents house, turned on the television set of our provincial Mediterranean home entertainment center and saw what I considered to be the most momentous images in my life to date. Seeing the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination and funeral, the 1968 assassinations and Chicago democratic convention, the summer of love – none of them touched me the way what I saw on the screen. There were Pat and Dick Nixon, reaching out to a small girl in China, two worlds never meant to meet actually meeting yet still so very much apart.

Nixon was touching ground in a world he had bashed for the past two decades. This was far more bold and bizarre than the moon landing. And all that went through my head was, “What is that little girl thinking.” Over the next week, I would write a four act opera called Girl Citizen.

It was never performed except in my home with family and friends. And, a decade and a half later when I went to see John Adams Nixon in China, I was given pause mid-way through when I said to myself, wait, I’ve been here before. Oh, right, I wrote almost the same opera, but with different outcomes. Girl Citizen was the little girl in the photo who stood up against the imperialistic Nixons and ultimately re-educated Pat who threw out her make-up, Givenchy and J&B to don drab olive Maoist jackets and work on a farm in Yunan Province. Meanwhile Dick and Henry forged a deal with Mao to build a huge department store in what was then still called Peking. Though mine was based more on Macy’s, I guess the outcome with Wal-Mart China sort of fulfilled the prophecy, but perhaps Pat might have met a happier end had she pursued the farming in Yunan.

Ah, yes, Girl Citizen. And now Wal-Mart can make the claim, made in China, sold in China.