Hear/Say

Recently, the luxury goods industry has reached out to those with irresistible urges t0 recklessly slide credit cards everywhere– as well as title the campaign as a public service announcement. Not only do they call it that; it’s reblogged as such by influential bloggers JAK & JIL as well as Bryanboy. The loophole to call consumers to arms as a public service? It’s supporting the retail industry that ranks as the second largest industry in New York City:

The goal of Fashion’s Night Out is to celebrate and support the fashion and retail industries with full-price shopping.

Not only does this sound like BS to me, this sounds like BS to me.

I was also mistaken: this is a global celebration. Aka: luxury goods holding companies and department store empires (see: Nordstrom) see fit to pull together in a giant “Gee public, you’re stupid” stunt to  ”celebrate fashion” as a good service. This is terrifying. While New York City is a focal point for this “global celebration” to occur, Bellevue’s own Nordstrom is taking part while inviting “prodigious tweeter Lily Jang” to join as special VIP guest. And there’s going to be tweet trivia, oh boy.

While the “PSA” for New York City does mention charities for the 9/11 memorial and a city-wide clothing drive, I don’t trust the “good” of supporting an industry– it’s not like the banks or financial service industries can pull a thing like this. And who says the rest of this “global celebration” will have any charity to represent, rather than “THE GOOD OF EMPLOYEES OF THE FASHION INDUSTRY?”

Why isn’t anyone doing something for newspapers, or a functional news system?

PHUNK.

Graceee

PS: On the “positive spin” of things, it’s ingenious. Bloggers would reblog the term, and because the organization of these powerful companies officially use it, it would naturally be assumed that it is, in spirit, for the good of… people. It’s the profit that leaves the bad taste in my mouth– especially because many others are suffering as well.

So I know I haven’t been firing out posts for the past few, but it’s because I’m actually enjoying my unemployment. Which reminds me, I should totally be filing for unemployment and reaping some monetary benefits.

Instead, I’m busting my butt gathering stuff for the garage sale this weekend, and soaking in the last few warm days of Seattle summer before the 60′s set in. I’ve been drawing outside, which is slightly unnecessary only because I don’t really draw what’s in front of me, but I enjoy the atmosphere of outside-happy-beach-ness while I’m drawing. I don’t do landscapes or “life portraits”– I’m terrible at that, and my skills restrict me to the rules of my limits. It’s more like a hobby, and I’m nowhere near pro. This may sound like modesty to those who have sincerely paid me compliments, but it’s because I have a friend named Mihai who draws like Jesus wills the life and beauty onto the canvas/page. There’s drawing, and then there’s a recreation of life– Mihai, being meticulous, sensitive, and incredibly talented–has this power.

Either way, I thought I’d post some stuff I’ve been working on. Most aren’t finalized, and need a bigger scanner to digitize and post onto my Imagekind gallery.

I have no idea where I got the idea for this, I merely followed the pen’s suggestions:

Again, these aren’t full scans… this one had to do with Foucault, and I remember being pretty angsty/pessimistic about the world when I drew this… coloring it was fun.

Some unfinished emo self portrait:

I had bought a set of pencils because I wanted to try something more than cartoony. My dad gave me a short tutorial, and I think this was my second attempt from a magazine or some blog picture… the lower right hand attempt was supposed to be a friend, but it came out wrong.

This one took forever, but it was my favorite to draw– the kitten that I had for a month, Sultan, and his solemn face. I drew this from a picture I had taken before I had to give him away…

I did this one today, and because I wouldn’t budge until it was done (due to conditions– i.e. lighting, whatever), my back is now seriously sunburnt. Doesn’t really look like me.

The big one I’m working on right now involves a fat lady, a hole in the earth, a llama, and fog. No joke.

Graceee

I never really thought that moving to Seattle would change much– I mean, I knew it would, but to think that my entire perspective on so many levels would engage with the exciting new place I have moved to… it wasn’t really in my mind. I was more thinking about how dumb it was going to be to make entirely new friends. In retrospect, of course it’s a strange freedom to “become a new person” or revert to who you actually are without the intense scrutinizing of people who think they can read your mind. It wasn’t so exciting for me; instead, I spent three weeks at the ESL table because that was where I could sit unnoticed. Where I could fit in; but not really, because most of the girls who sat there were Japanese anyway.

Angst aside, to think of the place I *used* to live– well, it’s mind-blowing to ponder an alternate future if I had stayed. The western suburbs of the “Greater Chicago Area”: where the farmland stretches on, the corn is ten cents, and the only thing greater than finally getting a car so you could actually do something outside of the house is… well, God. If you think of the ultimate boredom of “white/American” normality, Wheaton/Glen Ellyn is it.

And I didn’t live there all my life; before that, I lived in Springfield, Illinois. You’d think, being the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, and the capital of the great state of Illinois would be more than it is. It’s not. I remember the tiny apartment in my very early years… it’s like a dream… the ugly carpet, the bunk beds, the small backyard. The fact that I would always shut my eyes and wish my mom would turn left, towards the supermarket and the mall, so I wouldn’t die of boredom at home… and I faintly remember the phase I went through where I celebrated the word “bastard” and sang it all over town (my parents had no idea what it meant). I remember Rachael, my doll that closed her eyes when you lay her down, and how infuriating she used to be because she was so blonde, blue-eyed, and helpless. Whatever, she was my best friend.

I’m getting carried away, though: the one legacy in Springfield in which I revel in is Mr. Eggroll.

via flickr plasticfootball

Mr. Eggroll is the Chinese take-out restaurant my dad and my uncle opened– they designed the building (my uncle’s an architect), built the building themselves, and ran the place. I remember the yellow booths, and my dad teetering on the tallest ladder while he painted a giant mural of– well, the female Buddha.

They used to sell fried pineapples. Those were my fave. And the dessert was jello that looked like the Italian flag, with red, white, and green layers. The sign “Mr. Eggroll” that decorates the top tier of the building is mirrored. Funnily enough, I don’t remember eating anything other than the fried pineapples and the jello because my mom never worked. The building is still there, and the inhabitants consider it slightly historical because of it’s unusual and iconic design (I coincidentally ran into people who grew up there at a hostel in New York City who told me this). Now, my dad is in Taipei, Taiwan, and he has quite the noodle shop. We ate there all summer; there are tons of noodle dishes– lo mein, chow mein, noodle soup, different kinds of noodle soup, different kinds of noodles… and fried rice, congee, as well as other regular side dishes.

Even at a meager 22, Illinois feels like another lifetime. Having snow in November feels like another lifetime. White Christmases, and the flat land under the huge flat sky… I’ll probably visit soon. Tina’s starting her M.B.A at UC there. I wish I could have a reason to visit Springfield again, but that past will probably stay behind me.

Graceee

Why are tampon and pad commercials designed to eternally mortify and humiliate women? Why are they compared to saddles? Flood gates? Correlated with abilities to leap and bound carelessly in white spandex with legs spread like eagles’ wings?

And the hideous, terrifying, simpering ”Mother Nature” quirk, with that stupid red box? And recently– rapids?? Seriously?

This whole sneaky attitude about periods– which is something everyone is pretty much aware of– has caused a weird vibe around the rather natural occurence. Are people so archaic that the very word is borderline taboo? And it is: commercials mention “flow”, sarcastically dubbing it “Mother Nature’s gift”… why is it that these ads end up making women cringe?

Glad someone picked up on it.

Sup. Jetlag tooked me awayz, and how I’ve been! Moved into my bro’s room– I didn’t have enough closet space for my –ish. Been thrifting and such.

My comp. is dead for the next few weeks, so I haven’t hung out with the Interwebs.  And I feel a change coming on; even if I feel like I’ve regressed in order to progress. Certain friendships cherished and appreciated; others, tarnished with the whole give-take off balance.

Maybe I feel bored because I feel like my life hasn’t started yet. Which might be a good thing, because that means it’s coming soon…

Graceee

I’m very upset. I just lost 4 years of collected music, pictures, essays… college life. All my memories are gone. People say back-it-up duh, but that’s exactly what was happening when it died.

I get over it once in awhile, but my depression comes back in waves.

The small tragedy is a huge personal catastrophe, and I feel like my economy has just crashed.

It might be silly, but I’ve been listening to angry music online– it helps me cope, because I feel like a tantrum is in order, but I can’t break anything here. It’s too bad it ends up making me laugh– Papa Roach and Disturbed lyrics are so deliciously angry they make me smile.

Please pray for my hard drive.

Graceee

Desperation breeds creativity. And sometimes, it’s not enough:

Concrete furniture hiding marijuana:

Be the chair. Be the chair.

Floor of a car

This is actually really depressing. Astonishing. It’s frightening to imagine that single second when customs shines a light into your face, takes a picture, and sends you straight back to where you don’t want to be.

I say if you actually did make it, well done you, and that should be enough of an ordeal to let you stay… but then again, I’m not competing to with them to keep my family fed.

Graceee

4ward: If you don’t really give a damn about writing, or reading about the activity of writing, or life and The Bigger Picture in particular, I suggest you avoid reading this post. You might just want to check out Perez Hilton for the latest gossip, and I say this without condescension because alas! it is also my guilty pleasure. If you aren’t a P.H fan, I’m sure there are tons of YouTube videos you could catch up on.

A Personal Reaction to Kathleen Alcott’s Essay “From Shrinking Solid to Expanding Gas: A Writer’s Life” and my general angst

Writing has always been romantic for me; first grader afternoons during creative writing hour, my hands would be cramped and screaming because of how hard I pressed my words onto the page with a definite meaning. A little too methodical for a dreamy writer; I had a serious attitude from the brilliance of story-making or the particularities of my own handwriting– the period has to be heavy, a finale to the sentence. The worlds I could create were only anchored by my elementary scrawl; it was the only way to make it know to people how my favorite koala character precisely felt, lived, and breathed.

The best of my writing has always been at the height of keen emotional turmoil—the pressures of my feelings make the flow of ink on paper more fluid, natural, precise; and so my biggest fear has always been the lack of these pressures to write, to feel. My romance in writing then relies on actual thinking, feeling, and experience in life. For me, the fuel for a writer becomes their role as a transient poet of experiences—they are able to live through an intense depth of emotion, from the dizzying heights of happiness to the abyss of depression and heartbreak. They bring these fields of gravity to an audience whose throats catch on the enunciation of abandonment, courage, or guilt that they themselves did survive. The story of a good author becomes a reader’s nearly-lived reality as the author’s guilt becomes the readers confession, and the author’s sadness lies in the reader’s tears.

With Kathleen Alcott’s essay, this role of a writer as a transient poet of experiences proves itself in the concrete intensity of her relationship with her father and how it has affected the rest of her life:

“Like him and every writer I’ve ever met, I’m driven by the love of a story that, in growing older, I’ve realized I have to monitor and constantly evaluate. I’m aware I have a proclivity for bringing people into my life not for their kindness or essential integrity, but for details I find compelling and weave into chains that don’t always, well, make sense. I have a hard time saying no to situations that will prove indelibly memorable.”

My mind then creates a gap of nothingness between the “heaviness” of her being with that of my own. It parallels the gap of shame that abruptly swallows me up when I’m wallowing in self-pity. That I’m HIV-free, that I can be assured of my next meal, or that I possess a privileged educational experience at a four year university becomes my shame– it isn’t quite the productive fuel I’m looking for,  and I am once again at a loss for words (literally). I recently confessed to a close friend that “ i am desperately afraid I will become nothing, it’s so cliché”, and even with his trusted reassurances, I’m still desperately afraid that the safe life I have lead thus far is a sign of an unbearable lightness of being*.  Blatantly put, I am a mediocre success amongst my peers; there are those whose resume should be fairly knit with gold stars and gold-er praises of dedication, exemplary character, and genius.

What is more disturbing, perhaps—beyond my personal crisis to seek a way to live, or a mission to feel the keenest of emotions, take the most shocking of risks in order to write better, is the compulsion to give myself that mission. Isn’t life supposed to be lead for experience, rather than the myopic nature of improving one craft? Is life lead to improve a soul and how is this improvement measured? By wealth, value, salary? Or how many successful children we have birthed into this world? Why is it that I need to figuratively bleed tears or laugh my heart dead to feel alive, and to make my writing all the more believable? And why do I feel mediocre, and why does mediocre feel bad?

Alcott’s Pulitzer-nominated father, David Lee Alcott, held his last job as a cashier at a gas station, his mental being suspended in disbelief at the life he had led up until then:

“He wrote that he should have died many different ways many years before, and so even walking half a block in the sun, without falling down, without having to take a break, with the thoughts of his whole life behind him, felt so glorious it made him shiver and weep.”

It is not with the worry of wealthy trappings that I review these words in dread. I realize that I am afraid, that I am weak. I feel I am too weak to try these life-bending memories on for size, which is why I have the time to ponder and argue the compulsion at all. Will I spend the rest of my days quibbling with my reflection? I am too afraid for love, for heartbreak, for happiness; too weak to show vulnerability, too weak to shore up the distance between me and another. I am too weak to commit and weave my existence with an idea that I fear is too good for me, too cool, too smart. I can stand back and tell myself that I would be good at anything at all, but it will never happen until the follow-through.

As for the worries concerning the compulsions to feel the utmost limits of human emotional range, or the speed at which I should climb the corporate ladder to achieve socially acceptable success, “I have no [GIVEN] mission. No one has”** — and the lack of knowing what I want has only become a cancerous counterproductive plague because I’ve talked myself out of actually experiencing what I do or do not want.

Simply put, I must spend less energy thinking about living and more energy into living; and I won’t have to press the lead down so hard for the words to scratch themselves into being.

By Grace Yang

August 5, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan

*for those who have not read Milan Kundera’s book, a favorite quote of mine sums the idea up quite nicely: “But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?
The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighted down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment.” Pg. 5

** Another quote from Kundera’s Being. The word in brackets, however, is my own.

Alcott, Kathleen. “From Shrinking Solid to Expanding Gas: The Writer’s Life.” The Rumpus 19 July 2010. therumpus.net. Web. 5 Aug. 2010.

Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2009. Print.

I hesitate to see myself

In the world that appears before me

Where lunch breaks rule the social life

And suits are bought to adorn me

This is what I think I must do,

As I rewrite a resume—is it true?

Will my closet become a palette of grey?

Will 5 o’clock be the end of my day?

Would I be one to giggle and pose

For a man to come along and propose?

I think not, at first, for if it were so—

I would blindly let these questions go.

But “knowing thyself” is bullshit advice,

Change is change and it comes at a price.

Who knows what values stand up today,

If it were tomorrow, would I say

The same thing once again, for sure?

Who knows what histories could occur?

Have they who live in suburbs wished

A quiet life like that they own,

Where should and shant’s are clearly drawn,

Like the fences that separate green lawns,

Where busywork tends to the green green grass,

And spontaneity withers into the past?

Where responsibility and should’s trump their dreams,

Where weariness over petty things has dulled life’s gleam?

Will I be obsessed with money, come and go?

And values of stocks going to and fro?

Numbers on a screen, a wealth machine?

Is that what my life will come to mean?

And with those in thought, I dot my I’s

Adjust the margins, hold in my sighs,

Submit the few words that attempt to be who I am,

And secretly wish I don’t give a damn.

Graceee

It can easily be passed off as social ineptitude, but I find real strength in those who know how to be comfortable with being alone; the self-contented wallflowers at any casual blur of parties; those who understand the art of listening, who shrug passing trends off with a friendly smile and a nod (without the frantic gasp to participate); these are people who can truly think for themselves and listen to the voice within them without the static pressure of social norms and expectations screaming from the sidelines. I’d rather be the wallflower than the impatient hummingbird, always texting someone who is always elsewhere, and for whom their gaze is limited to whatever is beyond the pale, but never closer.

A lovely live-action revival of Tanya Davis’s poem “HOW TO BE ALONE” by Andrea Dorfman.

Graceee