Red Room Writer Profile
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William Poy Lee's Blog
June 29, 2008
- A few weeks ago, I had RSVP'ed to attend the 25th anniversary party of Mustard's Grill, that culinary lodestar that placed Napa on the map not only as a wind destination but a gourmet valley. Greatest food, finest wine, music and from the invitation, what promised to be a never ending stream of Napa society, foodies from everywhere, celebs, and Cindy Pawson's own down-home set (I'm in this ...
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June 23, 2008
- For those of us who love Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Mort Sahl, Chris Rock, and all other comedian warriors who loved all words and tolerated no hypocrisy, please honor the passing of George Carlin who has gone off to that great, open, free stage in the sky.Take a few minutes and watch his famous and now classical performance of "The 7 Words..." on ...
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June 17, 2008
- I'm being Kindle-ized by Amazon.com., so my agent recently informed me. The good news is that my first book, The Eighth Promise, will be downloadable in about six weeks from their site into the Kindle book pod. The bad news is that the royalty per digital sale is much less than for a real book sale. I suppose the selection of The Eighth Promise confirms what I've suspected -- that after a ...
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May 24, 2008
- What a hoot -- journalist Linnea Due pits me, an empircal habitat gardner, in a smack-down against the contra but politic recommendations of a UC Berkeley entomologist, Professor Gordon Frankie, who is the lead researcher of the Urban Bee Project, a research garden facility literally a mile up the street from my humble habitat garden.In truth, we're not that far apart, as you'll find out when ...
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May 12, 2008
- Last weekend, I saw the world premiere of Amiri Baraka’s Jazz Opera, The Sisyphus Syndrome. I read his groundbreaking The Blues People in 1969, when he was still known as LeRoi Jones. It was my first year at UC Berkeley and I had enrolled in a Black Studies Course on music, taught by the jazz musician and composer Ortiz Walton. I had never read sentences infused with so much rhythm – jazz ...
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April 30, 2008
- A pleasing afternoon at the Annie Leibovitz Retroseptive yesterday, Tuesday: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005, at S.F.'s Palace of the Legion of Honor. 'Twas a beautiful day - warm yet breezy and with a clear, blue sky view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the squeaky clean towers of downtown, and in-between the hills and towers, snatches of the Bay. As I walked towards the museum, the azure blue of ...
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April 21, 2008
- One nicety of living so close to the UC Berkeley campus is the ease of dropping in on lectures, international performances, rarely screened movies at Pacific Film Archives, openings at the Berkeley Art Museum, and the occasional, delightful student presentation.Last Friday, I attended the Berkeley Dance Project 2008 student performance of Torelli by Twyla Tharp, MELT by Kim Epifano and two ...
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April 11, 2008
- Today, the winds are inexplicably blowing down from the Eastern Hills. The leaves are all streaming the wrong way, slightly creaking as if in protest. But spring is bursting out all over.Ahhh me, so many complex emotions and conflicting thoughts following this week's Olympic torch run in San Francisco. It's not over yet, emotionally, intellectually, and politically for me. As a Chinese ...
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April 9, 2008
- So no sooner than I return to SF than I discover a friend of mine, Helen Zia, writer and lifelong civil and human rights activist, decided to run the O torch for 2 blocks through San Francisco. She is concerned for her safety given what's been going on in London and Paris (where the second day was cancelled). Moreover, Helen has been receiving disturbing e-mails about her decision and was ...
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April 7, 2008
- The Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas is a swell place, i.e., swell as in swanky because it is an old Grand Dame hotel, but so well maintained, it doesn't feel in the slightest dowdy, and seems, well -- up-to-date in a classy retro way. Yes, there's the old cushioned lobby sofas and armchairs with tea service and classical piano music at 4 PM in the lobby and maybe it could use a good blue back ...
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March 30, 2008
- Attended panels on Editor-Agent Relationship, a psychologist who counsels authors on unrealistic/unrealistic expectations, and humor in thrillers. First one informative and especially on a publisher's marketing commitments -- it will change and the trick is to manage the communication so the author knows what's going on. True in may case, Rodale did a lot of what they said, didn't do some ...
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March 29, 2008
- Our moderator, Susan Donovan gave us a brief tour of the original UV campus, designed and built by Thomas Jefferson himself. The original dorms, still in use, flank a huge, lawn where students lay down to read while listening to iPods or play ball. Each room has a fireplace for warmth and indeed, piles of wood sit between doors. The interiors are quite small and a local woodmaker ...
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March 28, 2008
- Soaring over lower Virginia and preparing to land. A green, curving landscape, a few large homes here and there, winding rivers, some farms. A local manager of Chore-Time, a Warren Buffet company tells me how they've redesigned their chicken facilities so there is the ability to free-range. But oddly enough, it's so comfortable inside that the chickens don't want to leave. I joke you need ...
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March 19, 2008
- So we finish up a PR taping for "FYI," a local municipal cable station that keeps folks informed of Ann Arbor events. The cameraman is Japanese-born and subsequently naturalized. I must have mentioned the chapter, "The Butterflies of Death," where a Japanese Zero strafes and kills the children and then the adults in our ancestral village. Ironically, this being the ...
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January 19, 2008
- So I'm flying my 80 year old Mom, Poy Jen, to Ann Arbor, Michigan this coming Wednesday, January 23. It looks like it's going to be as cold as the play-offs tomorrow in Landry Field between the Packers and Giants.Because of her age, the sponsors graciously sprung for the larger seats of the front cabin (folks - there is no such thing as "First Class" on domestic travel and if you ...
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