A dash of M.S.G. (Macho Sino Girl)
November 24, 2009
- Yesterday, Mother and I finally caught sight of the artist (what else could you call him?) in action, a raw-boned man with a paunch wearing a baseball cap, dragging a shovel behind him on the deserted beach. (It was as rare and wonderful a sighting as a hummingbird weaving its sock nest.) For years, we have seen half a dozen sculptures made from raised driftwood, draped ...
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September 13, 2009
- Violet Hsu and Wei-Tai Kwok are a beautiful, artistic and brilliant Chinese-American couple. I met Violet in Beijing on a rainy Fourth of July at the American Embassy in 1987. She fell in love with American-born,Wei-Tai, in Shanghai. They returned to California, married, had two sweet kids. Vi and Weit-Tai speak perfect American English and are fluent in Mandarin. When they come ...
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August 16, 2009
- My father's second cousin had come to the city, and he saw a group of men standing around the vendor of bolts of blue and white cotton cloth. "This is of excellent quality and I'm lettin' them go cheap," cried the vendor to the cousin. He unloaded the bolt from his cart, throwing them down noislily on his reed matt to underscore his point. A handful of men fought to buy the ...
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August 9, 2009
- I'm coming to the end of my Manchurian trilogy (the last of the three books to be published next year in graphic novel format), which I've worked on for twenty years. It is my obsession no longer, nor do I owe the unrequited ghosts of my ancestors the labor of my heart and pen.I was obsessed this week in defining what truly obsesses me today. I would say I am obsessed with keeping life in ...
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July 12, 2009
- I am finally peaceful enough to write after a health scare that sucked away all oxygen for nearly a year. The last three weeks turned nightmarish, because my eyes were to be implanted with medicine at St. Mary's on Wednesday. A foreign object was going to be plugged in near my retina. After seeing a fourth specialist, it was determined that the original diagnosis was wrong. I know I've ...
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May 18, 2009
- Jess Brown. The few things I knew about this man I frequently met at activist Mary Green's parties: he was handsome, gentle and soft spoken; he had served on the board of the Monterey Museum of Art; he and his wife, Laura, had purchased one of my favorite paintings, that of Chinese acrobats. But I did not know one very important thing about Jess Brown: he is among three men whose imagination ...
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April 26, 2009
- Dear Belle,How would you like to have a Big Sur adventure with me? I have been invited by Erin Gafill to videotape a little bit of Nepenthe's 60th Anniversary celebration on Friday. I would use it for a segment of Life in the Arts. All of the Big Sur artists and characters will come out of the woods for this one. I am looking for someone to help me with this assignment. Are you ...
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April 19, 2009
- You'll be hearing me cry, "I'm finished," multiple times before I am really done.Two weeks ago, I completed the body of my graphic novel, "Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale. Then I took five days off to play, feeling guilty after only the second day of goofing off.final page on the easel Tonight, I finished going over the yellow stickies containing notes from my editor, Alane ...
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April 14, 2009
- Sometimes, you feel a creative relationship is legendary while you are part of it. And if it won't be legend, why not pretend it is while you live it? It makes life all that more intriguing and dazzling. What's feels legendary about my connection to Steve and Nancy Hauk? Well, I'd have to search with a lantern the entire coast of California to find representatives who not only know art ...
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April 4, 2009
- This is a blog entry I write to myself to mark a celebration.I am drawing my very last page of "Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale," a memoir in graphic (comics) format. I've buried my great grandfather, I've taken the ashes of my grandparents to holy Wutain Mountain, I've made my father cry in remembering. It's taken me 13 years to reach this point. It has been a long struggle with ...
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