came for the poetry, stayed for the conversations, i was the only one who had poems to spit at the open mic, i guess everyone else just showed up for the beer. nice spot too: a rooftop over a street that smells like dried fish. finally read some new poems, felt hellaaaa good. haven’t emptied myself out in public since… i can’t remember. been meeting some filmmakers, graphic designers, musicians, basically, good looking cats who want to collaborate. i gotta get off my ass.

“hi, um, let’s hang out. bring your drum set.”

hi

do you ever feel like you are trapped in a cube inside a cubicle inside a building within a block of a billion boxes, with no sunshine, no cicadas, no mango trees, no sea shells scrambling on the sea shore, and the only sound you hear is the beeeeep beeeep of a photo-copier, and the thump, thump, thump, baseline of your own heart?

uh-huh.

I think maybe we are both winds, one of us slides through a wooden flute, the other is dancing between buildings, gliding against underwear hung outside apartment windows. The sea is singing, and we can name every fish in the sea – that’s Charlie Parker, there’s Ibrahim Ferrer, the chubby one is James Brown. You think the ocean is a dot, and we are just looking at from the wrong dimension, like maybe all this blue is just one note lost in a longer song that neither of us remembers the words to, but just knows. I kind of think the sea is more like a straight line, you know, like a guitar string... six seas, six strings. And if you sit on a beach at night, and dip your fingers into the tide, you can make this world sing.

But there are seven seas, you say, the first time I met you you had your eyes closed... and you still aren’t seeing things!

(photo from suitman)

suitman's good peoples.



(photo from wooster)

giant space invader. totally kickass too.



(photo from wooster)

by dan witz. awesome. totally awesome.

no nuts





sometimes, i wear a helmet at work. we also play YMCA off our little stereo, and dance on a steel beam as a crane swirls us around.

the space i was in in the last two pictures is pretty psychotic - a gigantic room made out of a bamboo matrix, all to create a work space 12 meters up in the air so that workers can paint the ceiling.

"construction inspires me to play. it's like asking a very serious young lady to dance and whilst we are dancing she becomes very lighthearted." - h. henselmann.

post work wonders:

- in architecture, i think the opposite is also true. a home on stilts, a home underwater, either way, we’ll be ok, we’ll be ok.

- crumpled paper is fantastic, with its jagged edges and cruel wrinkles, it’s like holding an asteroid… a meteor shower, in between your fingertips.

- the smell of streets after a rain, a crowd of assorted colognes and perfumes, and a cart of slow coal-cooked potatoes… great way to exit the office.

- when i feel creatively broke and can no longer sketch, i slip into our office’s material room, a giant closet with overcrowded shelves of granite, limestone, fake marble, woods, carpets, glass. i spend a few minutes picking up random samples and smelling them, running my fingers along its grooves. it’s my balance in the office, that and cigarette shit-talking breaks in the stairwell.

- the corporate office culture is surprisingly a lot like studio, only a lot faster, and no more buildings made out of pantyhose. clarity is important, and always going back to your original design intent when you’re stuck, otherwise you just end up drawing everything and getting nowhere.

look out





(more pictures from around wanchai.)

the history of hong kong is carved at night clubs, between 4/4 counts and breakbeats. “my humps,” the dj always spins, along with “don’t cha,” “yeah,” and “get low.” the grind is the new handshake, and we sneak outside to get some fresh air. we sit on a street curb and exchange cigarettes, names, life stories. “we’re from korea, she’s from beijing.” “me, california.” “me too. irvine.” “he’s from newcastle.” “we grew up here, in hong kong.” who’s who are told in three or four languages, and things are translated, again, and again. we’re all drunk, and will mispronounce and forget each other’s names, won't see each other again after tonight. a beijing aspiring filmmaker, first weekend in town, is talking to an exchange student from cal, last weekend in town, and me, i’m thrashing with an engineering student in an alleyway, eyes closed, rocking out to a Swedish electro song.

at 3, we rush into another club, juke past the bouncer, the bouncer manages to grab me by the neck and throws me out. the bouncer then feels guilty and lets me back in.

the bar plays mc punjabi, and we’ll dance, hold, and laugh with each other til it’s time for breakfast (pork fried noodles and fish ball ramen.) a hong konger tries to tell a joke in english, and while none of us understands him, we laugh anyway. someone teaches me how to say “i’ll never forget you” in cantonese, i reply “daehan minguk manse!” a girl in marketing asks an exchange student on a bus what he’s looking for in his travels, and he says that the globe is just a big circle, and he’s on his way home.

i go outside to answer the cell phone, “what are you up to” “dancing in lan kwai fong!” “oh, good music?” “nah...”

here before










(around causeway bay and wanchai, hong kong)

a kiggass christopher doyle interview, herre’s a snippet:

If Martin Scorsese can make a piece of shit called The Aviator and then go on to remake a Hong Kong film, don't you think he's lost the plot? Think it through. “I need my Oscar, I need my fucking Oscar!” Are you crazy? There’s not a single person in the Oscar voting department who's under 65 years old. They don't even know how to get online. They have no idea what the real world is about. They have no visual experience anymore. They have preoccupations. So why the fuck would a great filmmaker need to suck the dick of the Academy with a piece of shit called The Aviator? And now he has to remake our film? I mean this is bullshit. This is total bullshit. I love Marty, I think he's a great person. And the other one is Tarantino. Oh yeah, let's appropriate everything.

oh, i just saw part of wong kar wai's fallen angels tonight... whatta fuckin nice movie.