10tonfunk

Actually, what I suspect happened is that an editor walked into a meeting at the beginning of September and said, “Alrighty: the dudes of the week, improbably enough, are Jimmy Carter, Sly Stallone, and Kim Jong-il. One of you lucky suckers is going to get to write a cover story that somehow links the three together.”

Zhang Yue (张悦) got the job, and did an admirable job of uniting this terrible trinity in an article entitled: “Kim Jong-il, Carter, Stallone: Old Men Who Haven’t Yet Responded to Their Curtain Call” (金正日，卡特，史泰龙：老男人未到谢幕时). Opening with a commentary on Hollywood (“Be careful, we’re being haunted by old guys”), the intro gives several examples of the staying power, so to speak, of old men in Hollywood, Cantopop, and global politics.

In addition to the aforementioned “old warhorses that cherish further exploits” (老骥伏枥), the author points out that Deng Xiaoping was already way past retirement age (mid-70s) when he launched reform and opening. When Deng became the first Chinese leader to visit the US in 1979, Prez Jimmy Carter ...read more

That Statue of Liberty is comprised of 18,000 soldiers standing in formation!

Been keeping busy in NYC — the city so nice they had to name it twice. Here’s a brief roundup of for the latter half of March:

On March 14th, went with family friends to  Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) for a program of pieces choreographed and performed by students in their ISVP program international program. The highlights were some really nice partnering choreography, and the extended use of the Da Rockwilder instrumental.

March 15th was the Mandarin Meetup at Great Sizhuan restaurant. Overall win-win: two hours of Mandarin convo, good food, new friends.

The screening of Vincent Who? was the first trip of several to the ...read more

Being a real culture vulture, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all I’ve been up to. I can’t tell you how many times I wake up, shove the pile of critical theory books off my ultra-high thread-count sheets, and struggle to recall what kind of mind expanding event I attended or appeared at the night before. Bouncing around between Beijing, Hengdian, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and New York hasn’t made it any easier. Now that I have a permanent residence again — New York City — I’ve decided to do a roundup of the highlights of the last few months.

- Debating the merits of the Human Flesh Search Engine on BON TV in Beijing.

- Soon after that show was recorded, I spent 2.5 months in Hengdian (the Hollywood of China) as the teacher/assistant/bodyguard/etc. to Vincent Zhao (赵文卓). This is him in action. Here’s an interview on Chinese TV from the first day of shooting, I ...read more