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Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
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3:13 pm - Hotel info from FWD's sister:
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"The hotel behind the Saddle & Cycle is called Chicago Lodge Motel at 920 W. Foster Ave. 773.334.5600. They have rooms available on June 1st and June 2nd. For a triple room (3 full beds) it is $110 a night, King Room $90 a night and Double room $85 a night.
It may be a better option than being out by the airport so you may want to tell your friends. Also let them know this is a ZERO star establishment, and it is a motel in the truest split-level (pay for the remote control) sense. Atleast they'll be in the city."
If you do exercise that option, you might want to make sure to request the quiet section of the hotel. There's also a "rowdy" section.
Also, as of today all the unclaimed rooms from the medical conference went back on the market.
- FWD (in disguise)
current mood: Liz
current music: This American Life on Liz's iPod.
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, April 13th, 2007
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2:24 pm - Evidently I'm also not myself today.
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Hooray! I totally didn't realized what account was signed in when I started typing.
Well ... as long as I'm here:
Wooooo!! Lookit me! I'm updating my livejournal for the first time in two years! Look how awesome my avatar is!
And I post pictures of myself!
I have fancy hair, and Liz is a super awesome goddess of wonderful who is better than anyone who has ever existed anywhere in the world! I'm going to roll around like a fat puppy and give baths to cats!
Everything is fine. Nothing is broken.
(This is real).
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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2:21 pm - Today I can't dress myself
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I thought my black work pumps were in my desk, but they weren't. So now I'm wearing heavy, black, cable-knit tights with little green open-toed shoes. Also I'm a pasty mess because I left all my makeup at the gym yesterday.
I think I need to restart today.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, July 18th, 2005
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1:48 pm - Cultural exchange (ahem) -- continued
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So I take my leave of Rockland, Zhan promises me he'll call me in a couple of days when he gets the long-awaited Glamorous Pharmacy disc in, and I promise him when I come back down for it I'll bring my iPod and play the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack for him.
I wander around Houhai for a while longer hopping from coffee shop to bar to coffee shop; at Rive Gauche I offer my opinion that the walls are too white and the proprietress is like, "Totally! I'm totally having the windows redone in color." Okay. I stop in at Nuage, a fancyish foreign-managed restaurant, but can't get in w/o a reservation, so I waste time nursing a Manhattan and chatting with the bartender, who gratifies me by complimenting my Chinese repeatedly (honestly, that's all I get the chance to talk about). Buy a couple of cheap propaganda posters and off up to the club.
9:30 -- Club 13 is hidden away on the northwest side, nestled between BL(C)U and Qinghua University, right near where I live. Running late, I grab a Big Red Fruit (popsicle) and scarf it down before heading in. Of course the show doesn't wind up starting for another half an hour, as everybody waits for one of the openers, Meat Tree, who never show up. I chat first with a German teacher (that is, a Chinese teacher of the German language) and then with a girl who introduces herself as Domino and who will later, when she gives me her phone number in one of the previously described exchanges, have added a "Puff" to the beginning, "because I like the sound of it."
10:00 -- The remaining opening act, High Quality Soybean, goes on. Not a bad light metal set, rough-edged, but in a pleasant way, although the small size of the stage makes the lead singer's final histrionics seem forced, and I can't help but chuckle briefly as he bangs his head on the surface of the
kick drum.
More constant chatting with Domino. "You talk like a writer," she says with a creepy split-faced grin. Fine, cram it down my throat, why don't you. I'm not beyond a bit of flattery at this point in the evening.
10:30 -- The headliners (too grandiose a term for this venue), Happy Avenue, finally take the stage. Happy Avenue is, incidentally, the last of the bands which I mentioned Zhan reccommending to me in my previous post, the one whose claim to (underground) fame is that the lead singer is a Qinghua University graduate and a published author with three books to her credit. By my standards, it's a pretty extraordinary act. The instrumentalists mesh well; the drumming is more than just steady, and both guitarists trade off laying down tight, quick leads that keep up the momentum. Wu Hongfei herself, though, takes the experience to the next level of surrealism. Miniscule even by local standards, decked out in a white sailor one-piece, watching her is like watching Lisa Loeb front for Van Halen, but it works. Fascinated by the contrast, I stare intently for most of the set. "You should go talk to her," Domino advises, "she's supposed to be looking for a boyfriend."
11:30 -- Show's over; Domino and I trade phone numbers in the usual fashion. Wu Hongfei (fans call her A Fei, from the title of one of her books) has come out to the front to meet up with her friends and sign a few autographs. She'll be in NYC soon, according to Domino, so I figure what the hell, I'll go find out where she's playing and tell the New York guys to go watch. "Yeah, go talk to her," Domino suggests again, maybe a bit petulantly; "she'll definitely talk to a handsome guy like you." Um.
So I do precisely that. However, Miss A Fei is in fact not going to NYC for a gig; the band wasn't able to come along. She'll just stay with some friends in New York State at she doesn't know where, and she's a little bummed about it because she doesn't know where to go, and can I tell her some places to see music and stuff to do in the city? And do I want to go have tea with her and her friends right now? Let's see: I've got a cold, I've been up for 20 hours because I couldn't sleep, and I haven't eaten proper food since half past noon, who am I kidding, sure I'll go.
We head out and find one of the few tea places that's still open, and over sickly sweet apple tea that nobody can manage to choke down, Wu Hongfei introduces me to her beanpole neighbor and her fortune-teller roommate, who are her "two beautiful wives", although not in the potentially implied sense, and I'm told how "cute" it is that I study oracle bones (the fortune-telling girl and I have a chat about that, wherein I struggle not to say anything that would offend a person who actually makes a living off of such), and I must be a bad guy because I have tattoos, etc., etc. I promise to try to hook her up with friends in NYC who can maybe help her find some shows (ahem!); she's cutting an album in a friend's studio over the next two days, but we'll to try to meet before Wednesday when she leaves for America.
So attention NYC area guys: If you're up to do me a favor, let me know and I'll give Wu Hongfei your contact info. Let me take the liberty of suggesting that you guys try to meet up with her if you can, because this girl's pretty close to the real thing as far as the Beijing underground hipster scene is concerned.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, July 17th, 2005
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1:42 pm - Cultural exchange (ahem)
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Last week I spent a few minutes hanging out with some Nigerian guys. They were pretty surprised that I knew who Chinua Achebe was and positively baffled to hear that I'd been assigned to read one of his books in school. We had a pleasant chat about what I was doing here and whether I knew any Chinese, and then they wanted to talk about girls, and one of them came back at me with the predictable (stop me if you've heard this one), "What you need to do, you get a Chinese girl, f*** her reeeal good, and she'll teach you Chinese. That's what I did." Thanks for the tip, buddy. Good thing I'm not trying to learn Igbo.
Anyway, I'm not as tempting a potential target as the African guys, maybe because I don't represent as much of a novelty, appearance-wise? I have, however, found myself the target of a number of the "hey, you wanna speak some English?" exchanges that left me wondering -- the sales agent at my gym, the advertising exec on the subway, the two pharmacy students at Lush (the perfect place for it), all of which ended with "here's my cell number, call me sometime and let's practice English and Chinese, or, you know, whatever." I mean, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that all of these were innocent, amiable gestures...right? Yet another of these last night segued into an interesting story, so here's the day's schedule.
12:00 -- Wake up; getting over a cold. Planned to have "breakfast" with F---, but she's down with the stomach flu. Promise to bring her back some juice.
12:15 -- "Breakfast" of noodles and coffee at a local coffee shop.
12:30 -- Hit the supermarket across the street for juice, which was tough to find in the swirling mass of "juice drinks"; finally pick up orange and apple. On the way to pay, run into a guy I know only as Kai Wen, a French guy from my class at Beijing Language (and not Culture!) University. Although I know for a fact that he speaks good English, because 1) he's French, and 2) he lived in San Francisco for a year, Kai Wen adamantly refuses to speak anything but Chinese with me, so that's what we make small talk in. Kai Wen, no joke, is buying a corkscrew. Go Frenchies!
1:00 -- Back to the hotel, juice to F--- who can hardly move, make her promise actually to get up and drink it, upstairs for to do research for my shopping excursion.
2:00 -- Armed with my newly compiled list of shops, I head out into the throng. Pick up a couple of CDs (local bands) and DVDs (Sin City and The Machinist) at a nearby shop. "Seems like you like hard rock music," the desk attendant notes.
"Yeah, I guess. Can you recommend anything?"
"Sure, I mostly like pretty hard stuff." Okay. "You know, like New Metal."
"New Metal?"
"Like, rap metal or hip-hop metal." Argh. Off downtown to Houhai.
3:00 -- Wander around Houhai for a while reading the nameplates on fancy restored traditional-style houses, confirming my suspicion that many of them are foreigners' homes. Finally hunt down the praiseworthy Rockland, a tiny used/new CD store on a back street.
Rockland is superior. The guy who runs it -- surnamed Zhan, 26 -- went to design school and worked in advertising for a few years until just 5 or 6 months ago, when he decided he couldn't deal, quit, and opened his tiny record store in the little Houhai joint where he lives. Now he runs the place from 10 to 10 and does freelance computer (but not specifically Web) design work on the side when it's slow. Reviews in a local expat publication suggested that Zhan was quite helpful and friendly to foreign customers despite having limited English. I can add from personal experience that if you can communicate a bit in Chinese, he's immensely solicitous, knowledgeable about the local and national music scenes, and generally awesome. After asking his advice on local bands and showing him the few Western CD's I've picked out, I spend a few hours here with him listening to albums he whips out with descriptions like, "This guy is the forefront of Chinese New Folk (not very folky)", or "These guys from Chengdu are pretty underground, but they're like the Chinese Pink Floyd," or "The frontman for this band is a transsexual, and their music is inspired by old comic dialogues," or "The girl that fronts this band graduated from Qinghua University, and the guy that did the booklet art is a friend of mine, so it rocks", etc.
Okay, I forgot how to do a LiveJournal cut, so I'll post the rest later.
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(13 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, July 15th, 2005
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2:03 am - Rhymin Simon
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OK, this is a lame follow-up, but i made a discovery while looking for the original of the aforementioned song. If you know what's good for you, get on the iTunes store, look up "Rhymin Simon", and revel in such classics as "Bitches Ton Töpfer", "Bitches Aus Deutschland", "All Ihr Bitches", "Wie Bitches", and my personal favorite, "Zwei Dumme Hamburg Bitches".
I'm pretty sure this is a joke I'm not in on.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 27th, 2005
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6:35 pm
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| Sunday, April 17th, 2005
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7:49 pm
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Your Linguistic Profile:
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65% General American English |
20% Yankee |
5% Dixie |
5% Midwestern |
5% Upper Midwestern |
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 6th, 2005
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7:53 pm - I'm easy to understand.
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Appparently I'm causing some confusion with my crazy life thing! This is the deal:
Over the summer, I'll be in China:
- working on my modern Chinese
- doing tutorials in oracle bone script
- studying with an acquaintance of mine at the Academy of Social Sciences
- taking part in an archaeological conference organized by Beijing University and the Shaanxi Archaeological Institute in which we visit a variety of digs
As of next fall, I'm transfering to Columbia to finish my doctorate. There I'll push my time period back into the late Shang and the Western Zhou, extending all the way down through the late Warring States but pretty much stopping there before the Han. I'll be doing less textual history (although not none) and more archaeology and paleography.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 19th, 2005
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7:16 pm
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Because Erin did it. I own and all of you must have me to survive.
Oxygen
You scored 30 Mass, 52 Electronegativity, 32 Metal, and 60 Radioactivity! |
You terrify me. Demanding and agressive, yet completely mobile. You
often get what you want from people, and it's not really your concern
if they wanted to keep it for themselves. When people get pissed off
about this they turn and realize that you are nowhere to be found. Go
for a Silicon, an Iron, or one of the middle transition metals if
you're looking for a mate... Carbons are okay too, but only if they
give you most of their attention. The odd thing is that, while you are
about as destructive as they come, everyone wants you for themselves...
too bad almost none can have you. You, and the quest for you, keeps
society from lapsing into a quiet and happy humdrum. |  |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: | You scored higher than 27% on Mass | | You scored higher than 95% on Electroneg | | You scored higher than 12% on Metal | | You scored higher than 90% on Radioactivity |
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
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11:19 pm - Apple or Gotham or whatever that big smelly East Coast city is...
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it's now progressed to a 100% likelihood that I'll be living in the area for the next 5 to 6 years. I'm jumping ship as of the end of this year for either Columbia (if I decide I want to be a paleographer/archaeologist) or Princeton (if I decide I'd rather be a textual historian). I'm kind of leaning toward the former, but the money's much better at the latter. Anyway, even if I pick Princeton, it's only like an hour away by train, and I'll be training in at least once a week for a seminar. PH33r M3 3@5t c0@5t n00bz!!!
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, February 19th, 2004
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9:41 pm - Schedule etc.
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I keep promising myself I'll post more on LiveJournal, and then I get busy with class stuff and forget. No more! I'll just put up my schedule so that I'm theoretically thinking about classes and posting:
Advanced Classical Chinese: Historical Narratives
East Asia in the Early Buddhist Age (History 393)
Tiantai Buddhism
Sinology Proseminar (research methods)
Japanese 2
Mycenean Greek (aka Minoan Linear B)
This has turned out to be too many courses; next term I'll limit it to 4 or 5, which won't be hard, because the spring offerings suck it. On the plus side, they're all pretty good.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, March 20th, 2003
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9:28 am - Targets of Opportunity
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I'm having guilt pangs right now because when I read news reports on the cruise missile strikes last night against what the military is calling "targets of opportunity", my first reaction was, "Dude...An elite cadre of Iraqi leaders tried to move through the US military's threat range without making Tumble checks. Unfortunately for US forces, however, their aggregate Dex bonus was insufficient to allow them to eliminate Saddam Hussein, despite their well-honed Combat Reflexes."
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, December 29th, 2002
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10:18 pm - Something caught me off guard today
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So I was walking home from the grocery today, and as I rounded the corner near our building, I heard a shout, and I saw two women and a man standing together on the sidewalk, staring up the street and grinning like Cheshire Cats. As I headed up the street, I discovered the object of their mirth: a girl, maybe my age, maybe a bit younger, was walking up the street ahead of me, casting catty looks back at her rowdy friends every so often. I gained ground on her quickly, and before I knew it she had fallen in beside me and was pacing me up the street, glancing back and forth between me and that bunch on the corner.
( Read more... )
current mood:  moody
current music: Ana Barbera, "Todo Contigo"
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3:36 am - They're looking at me
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Liz is getting extremely into dolls, which is okay to an extent, but it's starting to trip me out a little bit. It's not so much that I'm worried about the amount of time she spends thinking and talking about them. She always has something to obsess over; when it's not some new thing like this it reverts to the default, which is of course gaming. (Yes, I recognize that I have obsessive aspects to my personality as well.) The difficulty is that she's interested in making _custom_ dolls.
Conceptually, making dolls of our RPG characters is pretty cool, or at least better than having a hundred thousand Barbies staring at me from every corner of the house. The problems with the whole custom doll thing are that 1) they're _completely_ without any distinguishing features when she gets them, and 2) the heads are sold separately from the bodies. So every couple of days for the last few weeks, I've picked up a package from downstairs and opened it in the elevator only to find a plastic bag full of hairless, mouthless, eyeless heads staring up at me with their flat not_eye_surface things. I find myself imagining that there were eyes there once, but that they succumbed to the onslaught of the surrounding skin as it exacted revenge for a lifetime of suffocation under layers of eyeshadow and poorly applied mascara, like the talking anus from Naked Lunch replacing its owner's mouth. And if it's not the heads, it's a headless, lifeless, super-articulated body waiting to have no-eye-heads snapped onto the exposed nub of its spine.
On the up side, Liz has convinced me to try making miniature armor for the dolls in an effort to help me acclimatize to these constant flows of body parts, which, it seems, are to form a permanent portion of our new urban lifestyle. I'm looking forward to destroying my eyesight staring at hundreds and hundreds of tiny links for hours on end; it'll be just like I'm in school learning characters again. I'll post pictures if I finish anything.
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(10 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, December 28th, 2002
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3:53 am - LiveJournal spell-checker
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I'm sure you've all experienced this by now, but I'd just like to say that I asked the LiveJournal page to spell-check my last post, and it didn't recognize the name "LiveJournal", suggesting instead that I use "Live Journal" or "Live-Journal", despite the fact that the entire top and left sides of the page are plastered with it. Therefore, all must die.
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3:26 am - Now I have one of these things as well
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and therefore I'm in the club. Bow before my inclusion!! No, really, it seems like these things are becoming the preferred mode of communication amongst a certain alumni set, and since I qualify for that on all counts now, I made Liz sign me up.
Grad school applications are lady-of-the-evening sex professionals. I demand to be admitted solely on the basis of my capacity to annoy the admissions office. Maybe I can get in by finding the deans of admission and waving two fingers of each hand about their faces while droning "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you...", younger sibling style, until they give way.
Now we live in downtown Chicago. I thought I'd be really excited to be in the thick of things, even if it was a lower-class thick which played second banana to the sophisticated, cultured thick in whose midst so many of you now-Manhattanites are, but to be honest, I'm a little freaked out by the fact that there's not a 100x100 yard area without a person in it for twenty-five miles or so around where I am. The city seems like someplace you go to see museums and visit consulates and stuff, not like someplace where you actually live. I guess the long years in Hanover had me institutionalized; I feel like everyone is staring at me and thinking about how poorly I fit the demographic. Tomorrow I'll go out and buy an after-Christmas-discounted ribbed black sweater and a Caribou Coffee mug by way of camouflage. Hopefully that'll hold me until the goatee grows in.
I want all of you LiveJournal crowd to do whatever the thing is you do that makes it so that I get messages from you. Go!
current mood:  restless
current music: Rustavi Choir
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