fresh

a pink stapler, and a photograph of korean farmers in snoop dogg hats, my desk is a messy kitchen, yellow tracing paper amok, inked up with dirty plans and elevations of potential apartments and restaurants. i have a shelf dedicated to thicky architecture books and magazines (colorful, crazy stuff), and another for the drawings that i do (black and white, corporate.) i am afraid of tuesdays, it’s the day we meet with our clients, and the day we discover another impossible wish they’d like to see done. i want an open kitchen! a grill room! a wine cellar! three elevators! a grand staircase made out of glass!

i guess my job is a lot like tetris, level 10.

i’m twenty-three now, and this architecture me wonders where the old me went. i feel like i need to catch up with life, so i go out and play less, dedicate more time to the office to prove myself, make-up for the insecurities i have about knowing so little in the face of so much. the theatre, the poetry, and the theory i was so fond of in america can’t keep me afloat here!

i’m winding my muscles, stretching my skin, all this that i love will stitch together soon, it will.

is a picture i have scotch-taped on my cubicle wall at work. it's from this book.

hey guys, recommend me some pictures, i'll print them out on my company's color printer and post them up.

HAROLDANDMAUDE



i love this movie.

it's, like, this picture, but better.

atchoo



my nose feels as swollen as freshly baked red bean bun, and my upper lip as red as a slice of char-siu.

when i sneeze, it’s like waging naval warfare, captain jack sparrow’s pirate ship and lord nelson entire napoleon hunting fleet are capsized with my "aaaaaaaaaaatchooooo!!!" my mucus a maelstrom, my snot a sea monster. sailors speak scary stories about me to their kids. don’t forget to wear your scuba-gear when you see me.

sick!

“to me, the venue where i perform is extremely important to me. and how i perform is definitely influenced by where i am placed. it’s definitely different for me to perform in, say, Shinjuku in Tokyo or near Mount Fuji in the forest. it’s a completely different context. what i believe is that there’s already music where i go, so it’s more like performing with that environment. what feels best for me is when my own music, my own vibration, becomes at harmony with the environment that i’m in. it’s not necessarily that way all the time – i have to perform where i have to perform. but when it’s most right for me is when my feeling and my vibration is connected to the environment that i’m placed in.”

– eye yamataka, of the boredoms

marmalade tram



went to a beach bbq with friends from work tonight, and then i rode the tram home, which feels a little like you’re tumbling through the stomach of someone stumbling home from a hookah bar on haight street.

eating might be the best form of transportation, tiny cities on the tip of your tongue that suddenly grow and build all around you at the spark of a certain taste or smell.

21 things i loved from the bay area, but damn, i'm bugging out, i'm leaving out on so much!

cinnamon brioche, lavender honey, marmalade, croissants – la note
teriyaki steak sandwiches – burger depot
sangria, jerk chicken, calamari – cha cha cha’s
cinnamon hookah – kan zaman
philo with spinach and feta, hummus – la med
fried chicken and mangoes – thai temple
bulgogi sandwich – expresso expressions
chocolate cookie with white chocolate chunks - café strada
carne asada torta, plus horchata – taquiera cancun
tri-tip sandwiches - brazil café
bockwurst, no ketchup – top dog, southside
anything at - cheeseboard pizza
chicken tiki masala – naan and curry
the samples at the cheese table – farmer’s market
tenshidon chicken – yokohama station
kalbi, and karaoke (singing is a meal) – koryo
caterpillar roll – alameda sushi house
crepes with cranberry sauce – crepes-a-go-go
carnitas taco – taco truck in oakland
cheese puffs – gregoire
ramen– my apartment

more later!

ask this city to dance



sometimes architecture is a seduction, and my job is like doing the tango, the breakdance, and the viennese waltz all at the same time, astor piazzolla, kool moe dee, and johann strauss blasting at full volume all around you, and you’re not wearing any pants.

(i think i like it.)

work is crazy! i spend so much time at the office i’m beginning to wonder if my boss will start charging me for rent. my projects are all over the place… large scale residential and commercial buildings in china, a small-scale restaurant in hong kong… and it’s so easy to get stuck in all of it, start thinking too much in 1:200 scale you start to forget the 1:1, the city climbing higher and higher just outside the window.

i hear that the meter and the gram are supposed to rebel against the imperial feet and pounds, and that these measurements are tiny acts of defiance, so i guess all these numbers i measure my life with are supposed to bite and bruise me. i'm just trying to complain. but this week has been long, and i gotta catch up with sleep.

(so i can out dancing, real dancing, this weekend!)

spider forest



this movie… was, i don’t know, a pop-up book that pulls you in, a fairy tale for grown-ups, amelie with a double murder. gentle and scary? is that too contradictory?

my gut is using my heart as a punching bag, and i’d be able to sleep this monday night except for the rumble of yellow school buses through a city, buildings and bricks, all toppled as if it was kissing the soaked ground; a woman, unconscious, in a dress of water; a grandmother underwater in the attic she grew up in; a youngest son shot by soldiers on a bridge in new orleans; families floating like oil on water; the blocks children grew up, the street lamps that told them when to go home, the kitchens they learned how to cook in, all gone, gone, gone…

fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck

kid oakland on race and racism
o-dub’s thought on new orleans and america
the two americas
mike davis on the poor, the black, and the left behind
salon on unheeded lessons from chicago

and

kiwi on the alternative red cross

oh, JEREMY, haPpY BiRThDay!!!!










man my brother: the hoppest hops, the kickest kicks, he's got, he's got!

(i am biting bay area love!)