Resolutions may be banal, but they are heart-warming even to the most jaded of us. Inspired by Jamie, here are my resolutions:
a) let go more often
b) love the people you want to love
c) give 100%, take 100%
d) keep applying for grants no matter how scary, tiring and intimidating
e) don't stop working out
f) save more money
A year older, older in flesh, younger in spirit hopefully.
My maternal grandfather "Potis" (the drinker) was born in Meligalas, Greece in 1910. His father was a kind man who worked as a customs official and his mother was a fierce, yet loving homemaker. They lived a comfortable life in the country. Potis was a blond blue-eyed child with a beautiful smile. He was obsessed with having his picture taken at every opportunity.
The years following World War I and II found Potis mourning for the death of his baby sister Penelope. This mourning lasted his entire life and brought tears to his eyes every time her memory came to mind. Potis grew up to be a large man who spent a lot of his parents' money on luxuries that were unheard of during times of hardship. He also became a lawyer and was fluent in German, French, Latin, Ancient Greek and Esperanto. He drank wine like a fish thus earning his nickname "the drinker". He played competitive chess at popular Athenian hangouts.
When he found himself ready for marriage, he set his eyes on a young girl from the neighboring village of Zevgolatio. Kalliope "Kali" Alexopoulos weighed her options carefully, but could not resist his kindness for too long. She had lost one of her brothers to the execution squad and her hopes of becoming a teacher would never materialize. Potis worshipped the ground that she walked on and turned all of their finances over to her, including the business handlings of his small office. It was quite possibly the smartest thing he ever did.
Kali and Potis had three pregnancies and two daughters: Penelope "Popi" and Konstantia "Dina" Avra. They moved to Athens during post World War II conditions of extreme poverty and hunger. Dina (my mother) contracted typhus and narrowly escaped death. After civil war, life became a little more settled. Potis never made a lot of money as he refused to charge women anything while practicing family law and handed off his money to various charities. He bribed people in the court system with sesame candy that was hidden in most of his pockets. Kali had a tight fist and managed to save a small fortune. They sent both their girls to college. Popi had an arranged marriage in Canada and then moved to the U.S. Dina worked at Olympic Airways and relocated to the U.S. She eloped in 1976 after my grandfather refused to accept my father's marriage offer. My father and grandfather never met each other again.
Prior to yesterday, Potis had never been hospitalized, but once after he broke his leg in the 60's. The doctors told him then that he should lose weight and as soon as he could walk, he took on hiking and never really stopped walking unless he was sleeping. He carried his 'fat' pictures around all the time so he can show people how much weight he had lost. He maintained several trails in the mountains where he would disappear for days at a time. He liked collecting things left behind by people camping in the woods -- things that did not belong anywhere. He hated wild dogs and hunters. Amongst his strangest finds in the woods was a pair of baby magpies that had fallen off their nest. He obliged my grandmother to feed them until they would grow up and then released them back into the wild. He also collected baseball hats, acorns, pine cones and various pieces of wood that turned into a large collection of ornamented walking sticks.
Potis practiced family law until the age of 85. Much to his dismay, both his daughters became divorced and Kali turned to religion in search of truth and salvation. He spent the remaining of his life exploring the woods, until the last 4 years of his life which were mostly spent listening to the radio and pacing on the balcony facing the Parthenon. His legendary temper and stubbornness which tormented his wife and daughters were surpassed by his affection and tenderness towards his grandchildren. He spoiled us rotten at every opportunity, slipped us money when nobody was watching, measured our height every week, wore any clothes we bought him that made him look like a fool, ate any food we prepared for him even if it was rotten, danced and sang for us on demand and defended our misbehavior without exception.
His memory was sharp till the end and he recounted endless stories of his youth to us continually. I tried to record our last encounter, but I don't regret keeping it just in my head. He was upset that my generation was left to deal with global warming. In the last few years that I visited him, he would mostly shake my hand and tell me that I was the pillar of his universe and that he supports me in all my endeavors without judgement. He stood by his phone on holidays waiting for us to call him. He would pick up the phone and scream out "you are the best and finest!" This Christmas, I showed him my treks to various places on my laptop and was impressed by his immediate expectation of zooming in and out features. Years ago he paid to have himself composited wearing my cousin's airforce uniform in front of a hillside, next to a herd of sheep. He had never used any technology other than his analog FM radio and 1950's television set, which he stopped using ten years ago.
Potis died this morning quickly and peacefully after being rushed to the hospital with kidney pain and breathing difficulty. In the last two years he had been anemic and his bone marrow was shutting down. I looked at his blood tests and told him that he had an anemia common to people who have been very athletic in their lives -- mostly young people. He was very happy to hear that he wore himself out finally because all his friends had already died. My grandmother, aunt and mother were 10 feet away from him when he passed. He wore a smile on his face until the very end and didn't protest a single thing for once in his life.
We miss you grandpa.
Kelly, Dimitri, George and Marientina
Neptune and Dimanche welcomed Fluorine to the family this morning. Fluorine is the ninth element in chemistry. The most suitable bird to become #9 is a blue-capped Cordon Bleu finch. After courting with several species at local bird markets we found our Fluorine. She looks like this.
Somewhere between contemplating whether I truly need another pair of shoes while people in Pakistan are still waiting for their after-quake rescue, the Sudafed (I have a cold) has kicked in and is keeping me up all night. Thankfully, the post from Brad around 1.30am is making me feel not so nuts for being up late again, and it reminds me once again about that wonderful race to graduation. No, no, (readers who don't know me): I am not graduating but we have a new batch of cookies in the oven ...er I mean MFA students. Or should I say MFA candidates? That is btw the correct title for you 3rd year students.
I sat through the first official MFA thesis planning session and even though heavily sedated and buried deep into research on network attached storage, I was excited... Somewhere between the grandiose thinking, the thoughts about projection, promotion, experience design and random left-field jokes, I felt the jitter by proxy. I am so looking forward to this!
I often wonder the following because as I get older, I gotta evaluate to survive. When I was younger I used to say that I shall only regret things I didn't do but of course that is bullshit. After all, I regret ever hurting anybody, I regret a few boyfriends here and there and I regret taking that Sudafed pill.
I am sure many of you are wondering about the same things so I will pass on to you what I have discovered and you can take it or leave it. That is the beauty of the blog after all: it is elective reading.
a. Did I do the right thing by getting an MFA
Absolutely, positively yes. It wasn't just a fetish although I was in love with EVL since I was 15 years old. I remember doing applications for it, and I went to my advisor Dan Sandin with the arrogance of any 20 year-old who already had a kick-ass job, and I asked him "what do you have to offer to me and why should I do this in the first place?". I think he was stumped. But he was a good sport so he told me that the MFA wasn't about getting a job: it was about doing something you really want and it was a good time to grow.
You see the problem with my job at the time was that it was all-consuming and I was an artist, and I didn't have any time to do what I wanted. So in a way, going into an MFA program was like me buying time for myself to study and grow. I had to buy my own time to study - I wasn't buying Dan's time or anybody elses, that's for damn sure.
In doing my MFA I had the opportunity to teach all over town for four years, I did research, I did IT, I did writing, I did art and I did an MFA show. And in between, I still did my consulting work to pay some more bills. In IT, one would call all this 'bleeding-edge' load-balancing...And did I mention that I made some incredible new friends? Since I went to a state-school funded with my tax dollars, I have to say that it had a great return-on-investment.
Greg Dawe (a really cool person) told me once that the MFA was the most versatile degree you could ever get. My long-time friend Donald Nielsen told me to make sure whatever degree I got wouldn't wedge me into some category and to keep throwing more into the melting pot. I guess all that had an impact on a young mind back then. And thanks to my father, I have skills that will always find me a job no matter what else happens so I never worried about being able to make money. My family made and lost so much that not much scares me, except for major illness of course.
So yes. The MFA was worth it. I highly recommend it if you have an open mind and if you are willing to get your hands dirty.
b. Am I in the right place?
Say what you want but it only matters if I feel right in my place. University pay is very crappy unless you have seniority and the benefits are worth it only if you have a family. In fact, I made more as a self-employed person, could save much more if I wanted through a self-employment retirement account and get a whole lot more tax-deductions. And if it weren't for the fact that I always try to choose what is interesting instead of what is profitable, I would have a very high paying job at a company or would have opted to become a more purebred academic and published more and exhibited more and pursued a tenure-track job somewhere.
I kinda tried all of it and I wasn't happy. The industry jobs - been there done that and I much more preferred to consult for small businesses or not-for-profit organizations...Teaching? Well, I do miss teaching but full-time faculty jobs are not for me yet. I am such a control freak that I would rather do the monkey work staff has to do than have someone else do it for me...Teaching art and tech at smaller schools was the most enjoyable thing I ever did. But I did burn out quick because I was full-time grad and teaching 2-3 classes off-campus. What can I say? I am an overachiever.
So why take the job here? Of course I was grateful to be a contestant but I had to think long and hard about it. But I think that if you kids keep graduating and making me proud for any contribution I made to you success, then I am happy. And if things get more streamlined, I can work on some of my projects and that will make me more happy. And sure, a few more bucks would really help. I got student loans too. And a shoe addiction apparently...
So make me proud kids because that is 1/3 of my motivation to be here. The other 2/3's are for Fisher to figure out (it is a joke - relax).
Since my MFA show two plus years ago, I have managed to get into all kinds of stuff besides this job which includes loads of monkey work. Outside of this job I do some small things, some big things and all things that I choose and that interest me. And now, I can finally do things that make a difference in some people's lives. And that is a big thing for me. It is enormous and I have that opportunity because I have an MFA and my field of view is wide open.
Growing up in a socialist-capitalist- birthplace-of-democracy-kind-of-place (take a wild guess), I was taught that every vote counts and every gesture has a meaning. It was always about how the one or the few made a difference for the many. And I am not talking about grandiose gestures or taking over the world, but small gestures. That is the quintessential definition of social work (and did I mention that USC is a four-star charity?)
I used to think 'but is it art?'. But now I think who cares? If it makes a difference, it is what I do. And sometimes, it is art that I make.
(And if you are wondering how on earth this blog post makes a difference in your life: if I can vent, share and go to sleep and be cheery tomorrow, it will benefit many of you...)
c. Do I really want a PhD?
So this is a big issue these days. Lots of MFA's are getting PhD's for all kinds of different reasons. Some feel inadequate, some want to switch disciplines, some feel they have the energy and focus and there are all kinds of other reasons. Those who think they can get more money just for the PhD - they are crazy. If you suck with an MS, MA or MFA, you will probably suck with a PhD too...And yes I know that many people slip through the system, but many also self-select so it evens out in the end...
In my first few months in CA, I applied for a PhD in Education. It was a long shot since the application was very last minute, it was crappily done, my tests sucked since I hadn't taken a standardized test in ten years and to top it all off, two of my recommendation letters came in late so I was immediately disqualified. Bummer yes. But as they say, one door closes and another one opens. I can only be mad and depressed for stuff like that for only a few hours, at most a week (I did mope).
These days, I feel strongly that the MFA is a terminal degree. But it is only if you put the effort into it. If we all did that, and if we defended it and the quality of our work showed it, it would truly be a terminal degree. A PhD is a totally different beast and I am not sure I have the attention span and desire to put all my eggs into one basket for the time it takes to do it. Talk to me again about that in a few years...It is like me trying to buy a PDA: what I really want isn't in the market yet.
So there.
The Sudafed is starting to wear off and I gotta pee so this is it for now. Another over-the-counter-medicine induced rant. Who needs recreational drugs if I can write all this with a lousy 30mg of pseudoephedrine?
Wow. I have just experienced culture shock in making a tech support call to Greece for internet banking. I was transferring money between accounts for the first time, which requires entering a number to confirm. This number, called a TAN number is a strange concept. When doing internet banking with the National Bank of Greece, one receives a crazy user name they can't change, some numeric password and a dot-matrix printout of hundreds of numbers in a random series in two columns: TAN numbers & Check Numbers. And no instructions.
So I chose my account from a drop down list. And then I chose another account I wanted the money moved to. I entered an amount. And I had to enter an explanation. And I hit "send". All in Greek mind you...And then an input box appeared out of nowhere asking for a TAN number. I used one and was promptly told this number has been used before. I tried another and was told it was not right. I tried another and was told this list was inactive. Hmmm....
I called customer service. At seven cents a minute with my international plan it was a bargain. After a polite automated answering system, a woman picked up the phone. I told her what was going on and she proceeded to scold me for trying to enter TAN numbers multiple times. She knew exactly what numbers I typed. I mistyped one set and that locked up the list which means that a new list has to be regenerated and mailed to the bank. Which means that my mother has to pick up that list with a power of attorney paper. All that so I can transfer the grand amount of $300 into another account.
"Why did you not follow directions?" she asked. "Why did you mistype the TAN numbers?" she asked. "Why did you enter a Check number in one of the attempts?" I put my tail behind my legs and explained to her that I was overseas, that I have never done this before and that I didn't receive any instuctions and just got a faxed sheet from my mother.
"You should have called us immediately if you didn't know what to do".
I proceeded to tell her that she should be more open to people's unusual circumstances. "Sure, no problem" she said. "We'll send you another list. Tell your mother to pick it up.
"Goodbye".
This is why I live in the United States. Land of internet banking for dummies. I have been internet banking since 1997. Never have I been scolded. I have been calling tech support for various things since 1995. Never have I been scolded.
Customer Service does not translate well overseas. Even the cold banking site of Chase now feels like a warm fuzzy place that makes me not feel bad about myself.
Do humans need HCI training for computers or do they need HHI training for treating other humans?
Despite a freaky start and a very depressing first half, the movie has a happy ending and an excellent performance by Adrien Brody but there are a lot of gaps in the plot. On the other hand, the plot is so far fetched, closing those gaps would seem unthinkable... I dug the 70's style special effects too but I was annoyed by all the female characters in the movie and creeped out by all the male characters.
I need to stop watching movies past my bedtime. No wonder I can't sleep all night. I need to start renting some snoozy movies. Any suggestions folks? I am addicted to my flat panel and dvd player.
(notes from my diary)
1. The main disadvantage to this beautiful island (Santorini) is that it is too close to my mother.
2. It has never been easier to turn off all cell phones and pretend that nothing else but what is here exists.
3. It is possible that after ten or so days of vacation, I have reached my max intake of stupid behaviour by my fellow countrymen.
4. Being a tourist in your own country is far easier than being one somewhere else.
5. Mrs Maria, out hotel hostess may not be alive next year: all that identifies her as female has been removed yet she remains a beautiful, regal island woman with thick black hair and juicy lips.
6. Parents create reasons to be in contact or in control with their children long after the need for care has subsided.
7. Marcus can drink a spectacular amount of beer and still be functional, albeit a bit obnoxious: sometimes he just has too much to say.
8. Silence is golden: one should never feel obliged to make conversation if they have nothing to say.
9. I have no interest in being around people not willing to change and evolve over a peried of ten years.
10. Greece makes me feel like Godzilla without strength: I am bigger than everyone yet have no power to change things.
11. Greece has few homeless people but may strays animals who behave as such. On the other hand, many stray people behave like animals.
12. There is nothing better than Greek yogurt.
13. There is nothing worse than Greek cabbies.
As I opened my first flickr account (in addition to my Yahoo, Shutterfly and a few more...) and read all the fuss about unlimited image storage etc, I was confronted with the possibility of all my images going out there for the world to see and I am not sure I convinced myself I am up for it. But why, you say?
Marcus and I have two birds: Dimanche, a mutant society finch and Neptune, a white zebra finch. We also have two cats, Damien and Lilith, both short hair tuxedo cats. I have a myriad pictures of the cats but none of the birds.
Native cultures believe that being photographed weakens the soul so Marcus and I made an unspoken pact to never photograph the birds since Nan got sick and died two years ago. Dimanche was Nan's companion and Nan was born to Dos and Yon (Tres flew away). Nan's sibling (Askum) and parents starved for her to live after Marcus left them for awhile to tend to a crisis. Nan survived but was always sick. He drew pictures of her and Dimanche and emailed them to me when I still lived in Chicago. Perhaps even drawing Nan was too much for her little soul to take. We came home after a trip to the desert and found her lifeless body at the bottom of the cage. Losing animals is very hard.
Dimanche is still well and after some solitude we partnered him with Neptune. They make a great couple. They will never be photographed and we hope that they can be waking us up in the morning with their chirping for years to come. I tell people that if they want to see the birds, they have to really come see them. Photographs of the birds not allowed please.
Damien and Lilith after all have at least nine lives...
Kurt, Mike, Todd, Stephanie, Will, Tripp: congratulations and may the best of luck (and the force) be with you!
I would like to thank each and every one of the students who helped out with the show, even if you showed up for five minutes. After much hard work, the show was a great success. It was greater to see you all at commencement, so few of you and yet so memorable will you be. Many, endless thank you's to Perry for working his ass off to get the show together and to Michael N. who guided the students to the finish line.
Some of you will stay around and some of you will go, but I wish for all of you to succeed and for the class of 2006, 2007 and so forth to keep raising the bar. May it never be set lower than the past -- if nothing else so that we don't bonk our heads... ;)
P.S. Please post your show pix!
One of my favorite authors in Greece (Nikos Dimou) posts a variety of fragments as he feels like it on his site in Greek and English. Melancoly seems to be the theme of the week, as he posts a greek translation of a Paul Celan poem. It is a dark poem yet somehow feels sweet on the soul.
An English translation lies below:
http://www.celan-projekt.de/todesfuge-englisch.html
About Nikos Dimou: If Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal have a Greek analog, it is Nikos Dimou. One of his generation's most fertile minds, a legendary advertising man and a prolific writer, Dimou is best known as the author of The Misfortune of Being Greek-the book that earned him the label of an "anti-Hellene."
It is midnight again and as it usually happens, while most people around this time turn into a pumpkin, I come up with something important to say, write or do. Or so I think anyway...:)
The lab was so empty today. I almost felt like a student working after hours again. And then I had to send out that bitchy email about you leaving the doors open. I don't want to suspend your privileges really. But I might have to do it. What is fair will come to me soon.
I remember my long hours at the lab. Especially before the show. The day was really special but it took me months to remember what happened again. The last five weeks especially...I took over an entire room to setup my show. Stayed there all night. Slept on the couch only to be woken up by techs coming in to fire up the Access Grid. And then there was Geoffrey.
At times like these, everyone needs a hero. And Geoffrey was my hero. Driving in the middle of the night to Home Depot...driving to the grocery store, laughing, crashing, brainstorming. I remember funny moments like calibrating cameras while listening to Nina Simone at max volume at odd times. And then there he was singing the lyrics to Oklahoma. Anyone who knows Geoff would find that crazy. And then there were the rumors about us sleeping together because nobody can imagine that you can have a friend like Geoff. And he will kill me if he reads this.
Testing, testing, testing. Hundreds of lines of code here and there. Strenuous committee meetings where nobody was happy. And then came the last week. And three days before the show Kang came up with the most stable yet version of tracking. And two days before the show came dance rehearsals. And then came an army of volunteers. We were on the tightest schedule ever.
Volunteers make EVL special. Students line up to help the graduating MFA's because they seem to enjoy watching the turmoil and the madness at work. I volunteered for others, even if it just meant dressing up to be the prettiest goddamn hostess ever. It was important. And when my day came and thirty people appeared to want to help, I was much honored.
The night before the show was a miracle. I was in a frenzy, tuning and tuning and tuning and cleaning and setting up for the show. Marcus passed out on the couch. Geoff passed out on a countertop and I ran from one room to the next trying to find out why on earth the network was so noisy and Performer was so flaky. The network queen was being punished by the network. Soon morning came and Alan and the other support people set everything to a local network so to not rely on the school network performance for tracking. I was too fried to even do that myself.
After that, I *think* that we went home and slept for two hours. I took a shower, put on my turquoise linen dress and ran off to prep for the reception. A few hours later it started: the food, the people, the dance company, the fuss. It was relentless. Geoff and I kept a distance as if we had so overdosed on being around each other. But it all worked. It was a miracle. We were slammed with people and the dancers got nervous. I remember grabbing and hugging Robynne in the anechoic chamber/dressing room and telling her it will all be ok. I remember my godmother wondering why I was barefoot the whole time.
I don't remember how the day ended. So many people that I didn't know came. And then the people I knew were pleased. And the people I loved came in for at least one of the two days. My dad was proud. My uncle was so impressed that he paid for the catering. I don't think that my mother even called but it didn't matter anymore. The last performance was for the group of my closest friends. I remember so little of so much. Even when you think it is over it isn't.
Then came the documentation and the paper and the video and the revisions from the committee. I drove for two hours getting continually lost while crying to get to Drew's house to sign off on the papers at the last minute. And within days, I was moving out of state after eight years of a fully accessorized home. And I was bitter for all my previous relationships, all the stuff I had, and about the fact that neither ex came for the show. Little things like that.
I can't quite describe the experience even two years later but for me it was magical. And the people around me helped me get through it one way or another. And I was the last one to perform on my floors...
Two years later, I am still living with my debt incurred on my last 1.5 years of my 4 year MFA stint. I could have just stuck to my business and I would have been golden right now. Making money on my own has never been a problem for me. But I remembered the teenager who picked up a TIME magazine with Dan Sandin and Tom DeFanti on the cover vowing to study VR at EVL, the teenager who worked all her summers at her dad's hotel gift shop, the teenager who painted in the middle of the night much to her mother's dismay, the teenager who left home at seventeen, the teenager who partied hard and worked harder...that was me. So I had to do the damn MFA if it killed me.
Sure I picked up a few bruises on the way but so what? What I am trying to say is, make it special. If your first time getting laid sucked, this is your time to make up for it. It can really be that good.
What are you waiting for? I will be standing by all of you kicking your ass and holding your hand.
...when you find chocolate wedged in the corner of your laptop trackpad and you wonder if it was dark or milk.
Parked at the Yahoo! lounge in Seoul. Spent way too much money on transportation and impulse. Christmas will come early this year...
Nauseous from too much transport. Japan pretty even amidst concrete, much like Greece. Learned some Japanese. Couldn't survive here too long unless paid exceptionally well (fat chance).
Shot 100+ gorgeous pix of Kyoto and Nagoya. Oh yeah - conference went well but I can't even remember any of it. Met lots of folks. Me so tired now from bowing.
Marientina is definitely a gaijin in Japan but she did her best to fit in with some effort. Nevertheless it is time for me to come back to my queen size bed and tall ceilings in my humble 480sq foot home that will feel like a genuine palace.
Mississippi Goddamn by Nina Simone
Pirate Jenny (Nina's version) by Brecht/Weil
When the ship comes in by Bob Dylan
If you don't own these songs, ask me for a listening session. As Laurie Anderson said today, people believe in stories. Sometimes you try to write your own but somebody has already written it.
My beloved John Hoi Yee Lau passed away this Thursday, October 28th at 7.30pm. He had been hospitalized for exactly five weeks. He was first diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer in 1999 and was in remission for two years up to last year. He died of complications from treatment of his metastasis to the bones and lymphs. He fought very hard till the end. He beat his hospital admission prognosis by four more weeks.
I met John during my second quarter of freshman year in 1996. We became close friends, we were even neighbors for a while and he most often acted like an older brother and father to me. He was receiving treatment in Los Angeles for the past few months so I was very fortunate to have spent a lot of time with him.
Five weeks ago he entered the hospital with pneumonia and a blood infection and started a rollercoaster ride in intensive care. I was the first person he called from the hospital and that I will never forget. He was on a ventillator by the second day and soon after on a tracheiotomy so he couldn't talk to us but he made sure we knew he could listen. He never slipped into a coma and two weeks ago I was able to have a nodding conversation with him. Through yes and no questions and with his eyes closed he explained his pain and that he was no longer strong. I also got him to admit that I was his second platonic wife and for that I will always smile. Somehow his testimony conflicted with his big plan to give me away at my wedding alongside my father.
John was a talented architect, an honest man and a thoughtful friend. He was not afraid to use strong or soft words when it mattered. He was private, protective of his loved ones and never complained about anything unless it was necessary.
His wife Maureen was with him. She has been by his side since she flew down here. He waited patiently for her as he started slipping away. Maureen dropped their nine year-old son Ghikhan with me at my house and John slipped away with her by his side, listening to music on his favorite iPod. He didn't move and couldn't talk but tears rolled down his eyes endlessly as he slipped far away from us. I arrived forty-five minutes later to say goodbye. Marcus brought the boy over to say goodbye also. It was very moving and very precious to watch.
I have never been more touched in my life by the love three people had for each other. John was a wonderful father and a best friend to Maureen. They had been together for almost twenty years. I am thankful for his love to me and although heartbroken, I am happy that he is no longer suffering.
My dear John, I miss you every day.
***1/4/06
It has been over a year. Sometimes it is better to remember a birthday than a death. It seems like only yesterday that we met in French class. Who will keep company to me and Candide now?
Hmm...Tooth got dry socket. Pain bad. Very bad. Was good this morning but the pain killer is wearing off.
I watched "The Human Stain". Puzzling. Interesting. Many holes in the plot...
I am interviewing Nick Brandt for a project in between being sedated this week. I will post the interview when done with it. Most people don't know this but I do a lot of writing for a living. Mostly tech writing but there is the occasional creative project that I really enjoy doing...like an interview. Brandt does photography that is out of this world. I suppose it is from this world, but mostly of a world many of us have never seen up close and personal.
After weeks of monkeying around, my blog finally works. Alas! Now I can post my own rants...
My wisdom tooth extraction resulted in lots of movie rentals (besides pain, blood and feeling icky). Monday, as soon as the anaesthesia wore off, I saw "Eat Drink Man Woman" (1994). Two thumbs up. Chinese movies make me feel homesick for strange reasons. I relate to Chinese culture more so than any other culture. I understand the food, the rituals, the family dynamics, the urban and rural realities, the obligations...It all feels familiar.
I have made a point of straying from my culture since I left in 1995. Upon return, I experience Greece like a foreign country. Upon return to the United States, I also feel like I am visiting a foreign country. Yet both feel extremely familiar. I feel objective and subjective at the same time. When I am puzzled, I go back to Julia Kristeva and "Nations without Nationalism". Sometimes not belonging feels perfectly normal.
And speaking of not belonging, I also rented "Lost in Translation". I am going to Japan in November and I feel stressed...My Japanese is very poor and my manners can be rude. Will they throw me out of the country? Should I show my teeth when I giggle? One thing is certain: my credit card will suffer. I am a sucker for raw fish and silk...
"Seeing Other People" didn't do it for me at all. I am too relationship-jaded and have no patience for this type of movie. I was hoping for some skin when I rented the movie but it wasn't worth it...
I will let you know about "The Human Stain"...