marathons

好吧，其实是被Chris说动了，下周末去24小时恐怖电影马拉松。 如果隔壁的
Jeni's冰激凌店24小时营业就好了，神经会需要salty caramel的安抚。
这回我不会像上次科幻24小时马拉松时硬着头皮到处找人陪我去了，反正也
找不到，这事儿不适合广大的人民群众。带好枕头，穿好宽松的背带裤（如果
不是因为要很多兜儿藏吃的，我宁愿穿睡裤），有B同学中间给我送两次饭，
就差不多了。

其实心还没从纽约电影节两天的“先锋视野”长跑回来，还在惯性地跑着。

我拿着恐怖电影马拉松的宣传单给Jennifer看，她说，yeah, it's
your kinda thing.

crawl

There are many sleeping drafts lying in the post archive of my blog. You'd be surprised how more frequently this blog would have been updated if all the drafts were actually finished. This blog is a symptom of my life. It's fractured, unfinished, unsatisfying, without a style of its own, without any consistency, and going nowhere. It's filled with failed attempts. I repeatedly tell myself that it's good that I am still reaching out to my dreams, but no real progress has been made so far. I am disappointed, frustrated and confused. Concentration is at large. Direction is at large.

I work for a boss who spends hours chitchatting. She likes coming to my desk to check on my work and hurry me on my work after chitchatting. She likes to make me feel bad if I am behind the schedule she sets for me. I feel fortunate for having a job. So have I been told to feel so, all the time. This job takes the bulk of my awake time. I'll be doing this job for many many more days, yet I don't know if this will be worth anything.

I stay in a country where I have no freedom, legally and financially. Freedom has always been the most important to me. In lack of freedom, I am quiet and dead. In most people's opinion, I am doing well. I have a job and I have successfully obtained a working visa. There were cheerful moments for such accomplishments, but they didn't last very long.

I watched the first episode of Ken Burns' new documentary on national parks yesterday. John Muir was a significant figure in the history of national parks, especially the Yosemite. When he was 52, he was home with his wife and daughters, away from the nature he loved. He was tied to the everyday chores, and he was dying. His wife sent him back to the wilderness because she knew that's where his life belongs.

Some people need periodical success to motivate their lives, like making a million dollars or getting a promotion. I need to be with the people I appreciate, doing the things I love.

Cai Kangyong said, sometimes in life we need to crawl to progress, if crawling is the only way to progress, then crawl we shall.
Jennifer said to me, you patience will pay off some day.

I started watching films seriously when I was in highschool; I started studying French when I was in college; the study of both came to their climax at OSU graduate school. After school, I no longer have an environment to continue a systematic and intensive study, but I refuse to let them die. This past saturday, I was told that my dream might never come true. I cried, not because I was mad at the person who said this to me, but because I realized, what he said might be true. For the first time in years my dream was shaken.

I had been here before, but I had believed in myself firmly and waited patiently and optimistically. My spirit was so young and blind at the time that I didn't even have an alternative plan. Today I have too much to lose. I can only crawl, but I'll try to keep myself blind, so that I can still crawl, as if I am crawling towards a goal.

a chocolate house, in this economy

Recently I discovered David Lebovitz's blog. David is an American food critic currently living in Paris. I discovered his blog from an airplane magazine article in which he talks about how doing a cooking show is much more difficult than what people would normally imagine. I am no foodie. Food, especially western cuisine, is completely foreign to me. David Lebovitz's writing is informative and witty. He makes everything sound so easy and his pictures make everything look so delicious. I know even though the recipes are just right up there, the caramelized white chocolate ice cream I make will probably taste very different. Yet I am still always heavily tempted.

I find myself reading David lebovitz's blog a lot more often and enthusiastically than some of my favorite film blogs. His blog has practically become a second shelter for this hopeless dreamer(me)'s dreams. Film used to be the one and the only. Unlike those film blogs, David's writing on food, restaurants and everything food related doesn't remind me of any unfulfilled academic ambition of mine, so it is an even warmer shelter. And unlike films, food is usually a lot more delightful. It is too often that a good film contains more reality and emotion than my nerve can handle after a day's work. I know I need to work on my nerve, otherwise I will be losing my chance of becoming a qualified cinephile. However, it is just so much easier to turn to those lovely pictures of chocolates, apricots, fresh sea food...aren't they just as bright as sunshine?

Another reason I like David Lebovitz's blog is that it doesn't show much of what has been defined as "this economy". In this economy, David Lebovitz is still looking for the darkest chocolate, the creamist scoop of ice cream, and the perfect antique café au lait bowls. It is such a comfort to read his blog while for my job as a money-begging chick, all I type everyday is "deficit budget", "reduced funding", etc.

David Lebovitz is not living in a vacancy of reality. On his facebook page, he links all kinds of webpages including many journal articles that tell sad stories of good restaurants closing due to this economy. Maybe it comes down to a matter of selective memory, maybe he doesn't want this economy to ruin the mood of his blog too.

As long as David Lebovitz is not talking about "this economy", I have a place to dream and dream only.

sad, indeed

I posted a YouTube link of BLU's MUTO on my account on Douban. 3 friends told me they couldn't open it because YouTube is possibly banned in China, too.

How can this still be surprising to me, after they banned Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, and hundreds of critics' blog?

So I wrote another entry informing my friends of the link on Vimeo and the download link on BLU's website. This is the English translation of my entry:

The link of MUTO on YouTube cannot be opened in China. I wonder if Vimeo can be opened.
If not, please try BLU's website blublu.org. MUTO is free for download. Monetary donation is not required but appreciated. However donation is in Euro, because BLU is a Europe-based artist. Harvard University sent him an invitation to draw a wall in Harvard, BLU refused.

After I posted my entry, I was told that my entry is being censored. For the sake of my life, I cannot figure out why. I wonder if it is something I said or I drew the "lucky straw" in a random censorship policy? Douban showed me a list of possible reasons an entry could be censored or deleted for. It is a list of all kinds of policy that you cannot criticize. Criticizing a policy is against the policy. It is self-protective.

This might be the most pathetic and insecure way to establish an authority. Of course it is not Douban's fault. It is the policy environment that Douban has to survive. Douban is just a website after all. It can be easily censored or deleted, just like my entry, due to its violation of some bigger policy.

Eva could survive in China because she works with commercial/mainstream cinema. Danjie could develop a career in China because she deals with mainstream visual arts. Not me, not now. The whole idea of avant-garde is against unity, against censorship, against constraints, against power, against any form of control. It is supposed to be limitless. I love China, but I know I cannot go back.

BLU, genius

on youtube: MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU
on vimeo: MUTO

宋冬

I studied painting over weekends with Song Dong for a year. Now he is the hero in the New York Times Art Section headline story. Unbelieveable.

The show at MoMA is what the Times calls The Collective Ingredients of a Beijing Life, which is a heavy dose of accelerator to my homesickness. The show will continue through September 21. I hope we have time on our east-coast trip so that I can take my parents to see the show. I am sure my mom still has a pretty clear recollection of how he hated my dumpling painting, how he loved my paper-collage chair, and his long hair. If we can't make it in late July, I must go on my labor day trip to New York.

宋冬, another reason to go to New York.

Missing

When Chen Qizhen sings in her Meaning of Traveling:

You've tasted the night of Paris
You've stepped on the snow of Beijing

I always miss Beijing, very much.