07 March 2013

Destroy All Everything

Listening to: Soko, "I'll Kill Her." From AMR via Et Musique Pour Toi, the most charming track about annihilating your ex's new object of affection. "If I find her, I swear, I swear… / I'll kill her, I'll kill her / She stole my future, she broke my dream."

Completely missed City Bakery's annual hot chocolate festival, which ran during Februrary and featured mysterious flavors such as Sunken Treasure, Love Potion, and Ode to the Polar Bear. Regardless, I must scurry over there to get one of their giant marshmallows.

Things recently seen: Martha Graham's "Phaedra Unbound" and "Achilles in Heels" at the Joyce Theater. "Art of Scent" exhibit at Musem of Arts and Design, Museum of Chinese in America's "Marvels and Monsters," and then last night we hit up Punderdome 3000.

We got to the event late so we were relegated to the back, but it was still quite the experience. The wall art for the Littlefield Theater featured a springbok antelope as David Bowie and a white tiger homage to (possibly) Kenny Loggins. Some of the competitor's names were fantastic. Pun and Teller. Punda Express. Big Pun. The Black Punther. Punky Brewster. I think I'd like to have been "Josie and the Pundercats" or simply "The Pundercats" but those must have been used already. In-between each round, members from the audience recite classic TV theme songs, which was kind of awesome. "It's a rare condition, this day and age, to read any good news on the newspaper page..."
And let's talk about "Art of Scent," which was basically sticking your head into a giant butt in the wall. I mean, to put it in a classy way. On the real, the exhibit is beautifully designed and you go around the room smelling classics like Chanel No.5, Drakkar Noir, L'Eau d'Issey (my old college standby), and Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana. After a short time though, you'll get woozy because all that perfume and cologne will send your head spinning. There was also a guy there inexplicably carrying a flute around and occasionally blowing a few notes into it. I should have asked him if I could give it a go. We could have battled.
The night after we saw Martha Graham, we met my friend's new boyfriend, who turned out to be an ex-ballerino. You can't imagine how excited I was. I wanted to get his professional opinion about the quality of dancing in White Nights and Center Stage, but I held back. Having no opinion on Martha just a few short hours ago, after talking to him, I was ready to dismiss Graham's work as "too obsessed with mythology." Yes, yes, right on! What can I say, I'm easily influenced.
Awhile ago, I sent in a pitch for the sequel to Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, but that was summarily rejected. That sequel released late last year, Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology (Secret Identities). I have to pick up a copy and see what kind of stories beat mine out. I mean, besides all of them. My dream of writing a comic book will have to live on for another day. I won't give up because I'm tenacious like Lex Luthor, but unfortunately, far dumber.

Alongside "Marvels and Monsters" exhibit, MOCA also had "Alt.Comics: Asian American Artists Reinvent the Comic Book," featuring the works of Gene Luen Yang, Lark Pien, and GB Tran, Jason Shiga, and a few others. I'd tell you to go check it out but the whole thing is over, sorry. For me, it was most interesting to look at the artists' old works, before they were published. All the childhood drawings, the chapbooks, the sketches, it was quite interesting and makes me hope that one day someone will want to collect my archives. Any volunteers? Mom?
While we're here: Occasionally I drop in to post stuff on Chinatown Do, a Tumblr that covers anything Chinese related that the contributors see during their Internet rounds. I've never met any of the other blog people -- aside from Joy (Swash Design), who invited me -- but it's interesting to see what catches their individual attentions. Mine tend to be articles and stuff about factories, so I'm glad the others do lots of images and videos. I'd already been trained to stop at anything online mentioning "Chinese," so Chinatown Do has been a nice outlet to repost stuff.

Angry Asian Man has been going at it for twelve years, and last week he featured my friend's sister, Ursula Liang, as his Angry Reader of the Week. Ursula is making a documentary about 9-Man, a streetball game played in New York's Chinatown. They hit their Kickstarter goal last year and I'm looking forward to watching the finished product.

And if there haven't been enough links for you, two blogs I've been into lately: Writing Like an Asian and Eating Asia. Explore at your leisure.