sentencelessness

Wednesday

gabi campanario [illustration]

in my recent dawdling - this lull - i've been hanging up on illustrators. here are a few consecutive posts on illustrators and their work without many words.

first up is gabi campanario. i particularly like her blend of journal/comic/technical drawing. i'm struck by the way it feels like she's doodled them. appropriate then, that she has stuff up on doodlers anonymous (which is a treasure trove of this stuff).

Monday

blueberry molasses cake [food]

you know how to tell if someone loves you? like deep down in their bones, fingernail indentations in palms, quaking in their boots kinda love? baked goods. homemade ones. dead giveaway.

i had a sneaking suspicion as moseyed into the kitchen this morning that this was the case. turns out miss m had gone to the trouble of assembling the parts to concoct the old-fashioned blueberry cake i been drooling over at 101 cookbooks for a couple weeks now. i have to get going. there's going to be a candle later and i haven't thought about my wish. (thanks, lady.)

here's the recipe:

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
5 tablespoons milk (divided)
1/2 cup unsulphered molasses
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, barely melted

1 1/2 cups blueberries, frozen (I freeze fresh berries)
1 teaspoon flour

Preheat to 350F. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan (or equivalent).

In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a small bowl whisk together the cider vinegar with 3 tablespoons of the milk. In another bowl whisk the molasses with the remaining 2 tablespoons of milk. Whisk the cider vinegar mixture into the molasses mixture, then whisk in the eggs.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir until just barely combined. Stir in the butter. Toss the blueberries with 1 teaspoon of flour and fold them into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about thirty minutes or until a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.

Thursday

what is stephen harper reading? [books]

...I know you’re very busy, Mr. Harper. We’re all busy. Meditating monks in their cells are busy. That’s adult life, filled to the ceiling with things that need doing. (It seems only children and the elderly aren’t plagued by lack of time—and notice how they enjoy their books, how their lives fill their eyes.) But every person has a space next to where they sleep, whether a patch of pavement or a fine bedside table. In that space, at night, a book can glow. And in those moments of docile wakefulness, when we begin to let go of the day, then is the perfect time to pick up a book and be someone else, somewhere else, for a few minutes, a few pages, before we fall asleep. And there are other possibilities, too. Sherwood Anderson, the American writer best known for his collection of stories Winesburg, Ohio, wrote his first stories while commuting by train to work. Stephen King apparently never goes to his beloved baseball games without a book that he reads during breaks. So it’s a question of choice...

- - -
“The Prime Minister did not speak during our brief tribute, certainly not. I don’t think he even looked up. The snarling business of Question Period having just ended, he was shuffling papers. I tried to bring him close to me with my eyes.Who is this man? What makes him tick? No doubt he is busy. No doubt he is deluded by that busyness. No doubt being Prime Minister fills his entire consideration and froths his sense of busied importance to the very brim. And no doubt he sounds and governs like one who cares little for the arts.But he must have moments of stillness. And so this is what I propose to do: not to educate—that would be arrogant, less than that—to make suggestions to his stillness.
For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on a Monday, a book that has been known to expand stillness. That book will be inscribed and will be accompanied by a letter I will have written. I will faithfully report on every new book, every inscription, every letter, and any response I might get from the Prime Minister, on this website.”

Yann Martel

Sunday

the book show [books // illustration]

here's another short notice bit, also put on by the school of visual arts, conveniently enough. since i won't be making the 7500 mile trip to see the exhibit, i've made up my own story about that deer in tighty whities - christopher darling’s 111th street is a story about a day in the life of a deer living in new york city - but that's beside the point. 111th street and nineteen other such works of pictorial genius are on display at the sva gallery [209 e. 23rd st.] through 14 october as part of 'the book show', an exhibit of mfa students in the school of visual art's illustration and visual essay departments.

quoc pham fixed shoe [bikes // fashion]

quoc pham makes dashing throwback cycle shoes and has a romantic ad to boot [pun intended!].

(via and via)

Friday

naked lunch [books]

this is short notice for the new york contingency. this very weekend - as in, already begun - totally free of charge and open to the public, the school of visual arts, columbia and nyu are hosting three days of talks, readings, and screenings to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the writing of william burroughs' seminal wig out novel, naked lunch. highlights include a reading by michael mcclure, a panel discussion entitled 'firsthand encounters with william s. burroughs & naked lunch', and the first east coast screening of words of advice: william burroughs on the road.

Tuesday

diow [bangkok]

griping the rain and photographing lavender clouds isn't a sufficient idea of bangkok as i've seen it to this point. i happen to be reading borges - who i doubt ever visited bangkok - and he says (of something entirely different and, in fact, wholly made up):

there is a nightingale and a night; there is a secret duel on the terrace. (though almost entirely imperceptible, there are occasional curious contradictions, and there are sordid details.) the characters of the first act reappear in the second - under different names.

wacky aphorism for bangkok? yes. amorphous, amok with vice and indulgence, labyrinthine, impatient, insomniac, these savages tout sweetened-condensed milk laced nescafe as real coffee! fumes assail nostrils every third step. gleaming, ancient temples appear from nowhere. you meet people, unbelievable people. proof: last saturday we'd no sooner plopped down in a dime a dozen storefront chosen solely because it advertised cheap beer, when bjorn ferm, 1968 modern pentathlon olympic gold medalist, began to regale us with stories of his famous-to-him acquaintances and sing the praises of unicorn - the best all-female rock band in thailand.

what i'm coming the long way around the bend to is the reminder that the people you meet in a place are often more important than the things you do or see in that place. i would be remiss if i were to yap any further without mentioning kosin jeenpradit - diow to you and me. a bang-up pen and ink artist, m and i met diow when we bought one of his drawings and asked him about the city. later he took us to a fabled hovel for pad thai and we three were all grins. since, he's helped us figure out a few bus routes and neighborhoods, but most importantly, he's taken us into some shadows that we'd have otherwise overlooked. as genuinely anachronistic as demure bell-bottom buddhist long-hairs come, diow undertook one of the great fool pilgrimages of our generation a few months ago when he forsook his office job to pursue things he deems real and worthy of his passions. so, this boy's gone and got it in his rose-colored glasses to up and learn guitar-making. in tennessee. he leaves tomorrow.

as a send-off, we all went out for that same pad thai, wandered a most ramshackle night market and then diow led us through a literal patchwork of corrugated scrap and pressed board to a tiny private dock directly across the chao phraya river from wat arun (temple of the dawn). yet another of the innumerable faces of bangkok revealed itself as tugs yanked trains of barges against the current in the otherwise silent night. diow wasted no words in telling us how he'd found the place ten years ago when, in a fit of insomnia over a girl, he'd gone wandering. women.

good luck, diow.

DOWNLOAD: carl perkins - tennessee [mp3]

robert bergman [photography]

robert bergman is a career photographer. at 65 he's about to open his first two well deserved shows. i've been slogging around trying to scare up more pictures, but if you're in d.c. or new york and that one doesn't spook you enough, don't go(, dick). click the photo to see a slideshow.

robert bergman: portraits, 1986-1995

national gallery of art, washington d.c.

oct. 11 to jan. 10

robert bergman: portraits, 1986-1995

moma p.s.1, new york

oct. 25 to jan. 14

Thursday

typhoon ketsana // heartbreak city [photography]

click the pictures for pictures, click the words for words.

Tuesday

tv on the radio [video]

did you know that tv on the radio had such a sense of humor? because i didn't.

sleeper train to malaysia [photography]

on the subway i realized i'd forgotten my toothbrush. by the time i was gaping at the ochre stained glass panels in cavernous hua lumphang station, i'd forgotten what i'd forgotten.
reading on the train, murakami said, "...metaphors eliminate what separates you and me." can we believe that?
later, a monk shared my compartment. he had a cell phone, smoked, and farted discreetly but not silently; 3 surprises. thais consider it disrespectful to drink in front of monks, which was really ok with me because i needed to get up and walk around anyways.
first thought on being woken by rough and tumble coupling at the border crossing: it is strange when a thing - even a thing as typecast as a sleeper car - turns out to be just exactly as you imagined it would be.
every stop for the last 3 hours was interchangeable: a dozen or so mossy colonial buildings, a pile of impatient scooters waiting at the nearest crossing, a few cacti, red clay.

DOWNLOAD: train to chicago (live) - mike doughty [mp3]

michael jordan, 1983 [photography]

click for a great set of candid photos of michael jordan as a college student in 1983.

(via)

red dust [books]

from the new york times, 09.28.09:

BEIJING — Domesticated pigeons of this city, take note: Until Oct. 1, you are prohibited by government edict from flying over the center of China’s capital.

Do not take it personally, however. The government is preparing to observe the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China with a parade that will make 76 trombones look like a child’s plastic kazoo. And nothing — not unauthorized window-peeping, nor marchers’ mental health, nor even the chance that pigeons might muck up displays of aerial might — is being left to chance.

China’s government at times resembles an exasperated parent trying to rein in a pack of rebellious children. Its edicts are persistently flouted by censor-dodging Internet users, wayward local officials and rioting Uighurs.

But when it comes to the impending National Day celebration in Beijing, the government appears fully in control. When swarms of soldiers, throngs of tanks and flocks of floats roll past Tiananmen Square on Thursday, 10,000 police officers and security guards will monitor Beijing street corners and checkpoints for evidence of potential party-spoilers. As many as 800,000 volunteers have also been enlisted to help maintain security.

Knife sales have been banned in at least some stores. Beijing’s international airport will be closed Thursday for three hours. Along the parade route, the authorities have forbidden parade-watchers from opening windows or standing on balconies.

Three journalists from the Japanese Kyodo news agency said that when they stood on a hotel balcony to cover a Sept. 18 parade rehearsal, the authorities stormed into the room and assaulted them. (continue reading)

ma jian, from the guardian, 06.02.09:

Two thousand years ago, contemplating the relentless flow of time, Confucius gazed down at a river and sighed, "What passes is just like this, never ceasing day or night ..." In China, time can feel both frozen and unstoppable at the same time. The Tiananmen massacre that 20 years ago ravaged Beijing, killed thousands of unarmed citizens, and altered the lives of millions, seems now to be locked in the 20th century, forgotten or ignored, as China continues to hurtle blindly towards its future. (continue reading)

this makes me wonder about change. and fear. and control. reading ma jian's red dust: a path through china this past week i couldn't help feeling vicariously stifled by the impositions of the chinese government upon its citizens in the 1980s (in addition to what we hear about today). ma writes in such a way that i felt as if my own inherent-feeling freedoms were being manacled, and yet i exalted with the freedom and transience that ma created for himself as he wandered through cities, villages and wilderness, alternating between such diametrics as honored guest, fugitive and foreigner in his homeland. red dust is blue highways with lunatic stubbornness. having cast off not only his job and home, but also refusing to turn back when he is utterly without money, food, or contacts, ma becomes a modern nomad. despite often lamenting that he must keep going because he (his life) doesn't have a destination, ma attains freedom by thinking and choosing for himself - acts that single him out as a threat to the perceived harmony of new communism. by simply wandering across his home country, ma was revolting against the strongholds of tradition, conservativism, and leadership-imposed fear. it's unfortunate, though not surprising, that ma's books are banned in china today.

from red dust:

i leave the asphalt road and turn left down a dusty track that takes me through rolling sand dunes. a few hours later, the sun starts to sink and i realize that i might not make it to anxi before dark. i see a water tower near the horizon, and a ragged line of roofs. trucks move like boats across the heat haze behind. as the sun sinks lower, everything glows with a golden light. i drop my bag and lie down on my back in the sand. no wonder horses roll to the ground when they are tired. i feel better with my hooves in the air. i kick off my shoes and let my steaming toes suck the wind. then i open my bottle, drink some water and splash some onto my face. my mind turns yellow. i hear a ringing in my ears - perhaps it is the noise of the sunlight, or the desert wind blowing through the telegraph wire. the water i swallowed charges through my veins. eighty percent of my body is water. my cells float in a sea. i am floating, too, but my ocean is larger than theirs. i have the sky. i have freedom.
i jump to my feet, check my compass and continue west, chanting a verse from leaves of grass.

allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,
to undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
to merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
again to merge them in the start of superior journeys...

allons, ma jian, allons.
(photo)

BLAST [literature]

// vorticism.

Sunday

london fgss [bikes]

the other day i got an email from londonfgss.com, about 2 accidents in london involving cyclists. in short, the email was to inform riders that 1) the accidents had occurred, and 2) that the site was organizing some action groups to make a respectful and responsible showing (ghost bikes, etc.) by involved cyclists who care about bicycle safety. since i live in bangkok, it would be easy to write this off as being far off and not my concern. but what got me about this email was the reminder of how great it is that this cycling community is actually involved and responsible. as an online hub, of course the messageboards are full of banter and cajoling and one-up-manship, but the activity of so many members and the willingness to lend a helping hand - whether offering a first time rider mechanical tips or extending a public show of solidarity in support of the families and friends of victims of accidents - are inviting. but the fact that these people get off the internet and organize rides and races and really look out for one another is what makes this a great community of cyclists. anyways, this is a shout to the great people over at londonfgss.com. they're doing it right and any city would be lucky to have such a knowledgeable, tight-knit community.

(photo)

no impact man [film]

a couple of years ago i ran across the beginnings of author colin beavan's then-new project/blog 'no impact man.' as i followed the blog and learned about the mostly insane concept - an attempt by one family of 3 to exist for one year in new york city without making a carbon footprint - i became more and more intrigued. over time, my following of the blog flagged, and now the release of beavan's documentary has snuck up on me. jeremy saw the thing and said his feelings about it match pretty closely with the review from the av club below.

Being a conscientious consumer in the modern world means being made acutely aware, time and again, of your own hypocrisy. You can use paper instead of plastic, dutifully maintain your recycling bin, buy organic and locally produced foods when possible, replace all the bulbs in your house with energy-efficient fluorescents, and still leave a massive carbon footprint from food packaging, new clothes, diapers, electricity, paper, transportation, and the hundreds of pounds of trash every person generates annually. The value of No Impact Man, a compelling and suitably exasperating documentary about one family’s attempt to not harm the environment for a year, is that it forces viewers to reflect on their own casual consumption and waste. The experiment is inevitably compromised—and as a self-promotional venture, it just spreads more waste—but that only makes the film more engaging and provocative.

Like a literary Morgan Spurlock, author Colin Beavan devised his “No Impact Man” persona as a high-concept hook for a blog and a book about his family’s attempt at spartan living in the middle of New York City. (full article)

link: the book
link: "the year without toilet paper" (nytimes, 2007)

Saturday

siggi eggertson [illustration]

400 pieces layered together. a little hard to watch, but at the same time it's fun.

link: from before

Wednesday

lumpini monitor [monsters // bangkok]

it was a sunday in bangkok like any other sunday bangkok. and then. when we were walking in the park. a monster came out of one of the ponds (see borrowed photo above, i was without camera). we were, like, totally enthralled. and then. it ate a snake. a red snake. and the snake was biting the monitor's face but he totally didn't even care. it's true.

turns out the old lumpini monitor is harmless to humans and the name in thai used to be a word that is (still) a shocking insult but the current name means "silver and gold". the one we saw was probably 7 feet long, nose to tail. they really look like dinosaurs. i'm failing at this post.

LINK: learn more

Friday

9/11

click it. thanks to eric for the link. and for being my brother.

2666 [books]

you can't believe the rain we're having. lightning like the sun shorting out and our soi (lane) a shin-deep canal of guttural [sic] backwash for days. what better reason for two people to stay in and share the three volume edition of roberto bolano's 2666? excerpt and links below.

It was raining in the quadrangle, and the quadrangular sky looked like the grimace of a robot or a god made in our own likeness. The oblique drops of rain slid down the blades of grass in the park, but it would have made no difference if they had slid up. Then the oblique (drops) turned round (drops), swallowed up by the earth underpinning the grass, and the grass and the earth seemed to talk, no, not talk, argue, their incomprehensible words like crystallized spiderwebs or the briefest crystallized vomitings, a barely audible rustling, as if instead of drinking tea that afternoon, Norton had drunk a steaming cup of peyote.

But the truth is that she had only had tea to drink and she felt overwhelmed, as if a voice were repeating a terrible prayer in her ear, the words of which blurred as she walked away from the college, and the rain wetted her gray skirt and bony knees and pretty ankles and little else, because before Liz Norton went running through the park, she hadn’t forgotten to pick up her umbrella.

nytimes review of 2666 // first chapter
nytimes review of the latest bolano novel to be translated // +pics

Tuesday

waltz with bashir [film // animation]

maybe you've seen this because it came out last year. half way around the world it's hard to keep up. if you need persuading, it was nominated for best foreign film. click here if the streaming video above doesn't work. i need to learn more about beirut.

Monday

dumpling week 2009 [food // taiwan]

in an effort to commemorate and, in some sense, memorialize my time in taiwan coming to an end, i decided to stage dumpling week 2009 both as a sendoff to myself and as a gastronomic homage to my favorite taiwanese food: the dumpling. the festivities (meals, to the layperson) took place between the end of july and the first few days of august 2009 in various cities and locations in taiwan, and included dumplings of varied fillings and preparations. despite that i was negligent in photographing most of my meals, i have to consider this years dumpling week a resounding success, and i look forward to future fests. full report after the jump.

saturday, july 25
as a kickoff to the week, i ate a meal of boiled pork and cabbage dumplings (shway jiao), dredged sweet potato leaves, and spicy cucumber salad with mauriah at a restaurant with pictures of the beatles on the walls. this move could be considered risky, since this is my favorite dumpling shop and i've chosen to eat here first. i'm thinking high-risk, high-reward. as usual, the dumplings were perfectly cooked and delectable; bonus points for sweet potato leaves (hua yeh tsai), also a favorite.

sunday, july 26
off day due to previously arranged thai dinner with friends.

monday, july 27
boiled pork dumplings and dry tofu at 88. 88 is an excellent cold-weather eatery for spicy soups and can be counted on for consistently good dumplings, but i think their dumplings would be better with a thinner noodle.

tuesday, july 28
pork and chive dumplings in spicy beef broth (neo-roh tang jiao) and spicy cucumber salad at hope noodle, a small local chain. dumplings in soup is a top 5 rainy day comfort food. ignoring that fact, i stepped into a location of hope noodle that i've never been to before on a sweltering july evening. with a sweat-pocked brow, i slurped this classic and it was well worth it. great remedy for evening grumpiness between tutoring appointments.

wednesday, july 29
hump day double-up! my first dumplings of the day were boiled vegetarian dumplings at a family-owned vegetarian shop, name unknown, with mauriah. these guys were joined on the table by various steamed vegetables and some fried noodles. i actually love these dumplings for their inconsistencies. sometimes they blast you with fresh ginger, but today they were earthy. bonus points for being pocketbook friendly.

second dumpling pitstop: previously unknown shop, with mauriah. i ate one bamboo steamer tray of steamed pork soup dumplings (xiao long bao) and drank water, mauriah had a taiwan beer. this style of dumpling - with a bit of soup inside the noodle - is traditionally eaten with fresh ginger soaked in rice wine vinegar, and the shop-owner's spread was spot-on. these slightly oily, hardier dumplings were a surprise treat on a long late night walk.

thursday, july 30
boiled pork dumplings and tofu at a nondescript place near my former night job. always good, but rarely cooked perfectly, these were true to form; nostalgia helped buoy this unremarkable meal.

friday, july 31
denied! a favorite spot which makes very rare pan-fried pork dumplings would not sell them to me to go. *note: said dumplings would have joined us for a burner between the uni/7-11 lions and the la new bears in which the reigning champion lions held off a late bears rally for a 6-4 win.

saturday, august 1
pork soup dumplings at my favorite breakfast shop. i rarely eat breakfast, but this was my farewell meal, eaten on the hsinchu train platform with spicy soy sauce. a-mazing. i almost had to choke out the cleaning lady when she tried to "clean up" my unfinished dumplings.

sunday, august 2
in hualien, having just spent a great day at taroko gorge, we made a short pilgrimage to a dumpling shop we noticed the night before with a ridiculously long line. after some mumbo-jumbo from this impatient guy behind us, a former co-worker randomly came out of the crowd. after catching up, i was able to order a few steamed, especially bready pork dumplings [bao-dz']. believe the hype. these bao-dz' (pictured above) were so delicious that after eating i spilled my lemonade in rejoice. mauriah and some old taiwanese guy laughed about it at length. i wasn't even mad.

thus closed dumpling week. it was epic. i think i gained weight. i haven't eaten that much meat in one stretch since i was a regular for tailgating at miller park. i hope for more chances of this unnecessarily idiotic nature in the future.