lightelation

Letter to My Love

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:22:20 GMT

Dear Los Angeles,

I never got a chance to let you know how I really felt. There has never been an experience more gut-wrenching than being ripped from your STD filled loins. Except for maybe all those asshole drivers in Beverly Hills, you taught me how to love. Thank you for your seedy bars, snappy bus drivers, and intermediate stages of gentrification. I will never forget your secret trails, your pulsating warehouses, your desperately broiling summers, your constant carnavale.
But now it is time to say farewell. Goodbye.
Adieu.

Love always and forever,
Kira
[not in LA from August 1st]

Walk Downtown; Cousin Married

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:43:49 GMT

1. From 2:30-evening on Thursday with David.
We went to Ace Gallery on the Miracle Mile and saw a Lauren Bon show: a giant room full of heavenly light and of corn and flies (that crawl up your leg), 6 rooms with single light bulbs and the sound of the artist whispering out children's worst fears, hundreds of jars of honey, a coffin-sized chunk of land from her garden, a lamb carcass with a connecting fountain that has been dripping honey circularly for months (among many many other creepy pieces). We took the stairs from the 2nd to the roof (12th floor) and had a 360 view of Los Angeles from the north/center.
Then we went vintage clothing shopping on the Mile (American Rag, etc.). After, we drove down the back alleys that parallel Melrose, looking for a shop that no longer exists while looking at all the murals on the backside of every single building.
We ate dirty Mex in Echo Park, sitting on a turned over shopping cart in the parking lot.

2. The walk.
After eating dinner, and after it had gotten dark, we walked from Echo Park to Chinatown, passing by a guy hocking a stereo. In this stretch, my sandal broke as I jumped off a wall so I had to walk a few blocks with one shoe and buy a new pair at CVS. We had Singapore Slingers at Hop Louie's (only ones there, chatted with bartender). We then walked down Main to Little Tokyo. Then through downtown and through the

glowing 2nd street tunnel, past sleeping homeless men. Screaming/singing while walking past some compound. Up past the Echo Park Pool, past the Echo Park Park, back to Sunset. Then two beers at Short Stop (where the male bartender walked in on me in the toilet, saw my snatch and barked "this is the men's") and we were back home by 2:30AM.
My feet are blistered and satisfied. I love you Los Angeles.

3. My cousin got married.
I didn't even know he was out to my family! Well he certainly is now. Here he is in the Sacramento Bee (he's on the bottom -- the Asian one).
I love you California.

Rich Bitch

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:00:30 GMT

Ah man, now that I've seen pictures like these, I feel really disappointed by my own aristocratic ambitions:

I used the same outfit in my friend's new genres project.. I was playing the "rich bitch" role. It's here, but it doesn't really make any sense and I'm in part 2 of like a 10 minute thing.
Rough summary of plot: Girl works at frozen yogurt shop. Girl tries to fix yogurt machine. Girl gets arms hacked off in machine. Paycheck shoved in girl's mouth as she stumpily wanders streets of Westwood, getting her money stolen from her and her persons sold into slavery. Awkward editing and dream sequences ensue.

In other news, I fucking graduated already and am still writing my last paper. GODDAMNITIHATETHIS.

Also, :

Birthday Present

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:11:31 GMT

So for my birthday and for graduation, my dad gave me a $200 Amazon gift certificate and help in Japan. That's like a shopping spree on Melrose for people without obsessive book fetishes.
Oh my god oh my god. So here's what I got:

"10 More Actual, Official LSAT Preptests"
Law School Admission Council; Paperback; $30.00

"The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on
Essays, Resumes, Interviews, and More"
Anna Ivey; Paperback; $10.46

"The Official LSAT SuperPrep"
Law School Admission Council; Paperback; $12.94

****
"Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu"
David Swartz; Paperback; $18.62

"The Theory of the Leisure Class (Dover Thrift Editions)"
Thorstein Veblen; Paperback; $3.50

"Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce"
Richard E. Caves; Paperback; $21.60

"Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction"
Catherine Belsey; Paperback; $8.98

****
"Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment and Sexuality
(Contemporary Japanese Society)"
Vera Mackie; Paperback; $20.94

"Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism"
Aoki Yayoi; Paperback; $6.89

"Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American
Gangster in Japan"
Robert Whiting; Paperback; $4.61

****
"Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in
Parallel Text"
Giles Murray; Paperback; $13.57

****
"TEKKONKINKREET: Black & White"
Taiyo Matsumoto; Paperback; $19.77

"Amphigorey"
Edward Gorey; Hardcover; $19.76

"Amphigorey Again"
Edward Gorey; Hardcover; $6.38

When filling out my reason for wanting to take a class (slots were limited), I wrote, "I think this class would be essential to my education at UCLA (it was a theory and method class, and it was essential). Also, I want to know everything."

No matter what happens -- law school, grad school, no school --
that last statement will forever remain true.

Ether

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:28:21 GMT

Love is not something that exists between two people.
It is an all-surrounding ether, invisible and blinding, in which occasionally two or more discrete bodies open their eyes and see each other -- floating,
surrounded by mists of isolation.

***

It was very strange today. I finished the book Kokoro, which is thematically very similar to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. At the end of the book, the narrator reads Sensei's suicide letter, in which he cites the suicide note of his friend from decades before: "But what affected me most was his last sentence, which had perhaps been written as an afterthought: 'Why did I wait so long to die?'" This line still echoes.

How can I begin... Well let me start off by saying that I have a professor who is like a dream of me in the future, how I want to be, or how I don't want to end up. She is austere and carves ideas out of the air with little scalpels of words. To me, she is everything I want and fear. I have been compared to her, though the comparison isn't fair, because next to her I am still just a baby rolling around in some primordial muck.

This morning she delivered the last part of the most incredible lecture I have ever listened to, at a time when I want there to be an end to art institutions and public support of art. At a time when I am completely directionless. As she was describing the artist's "fragile truce" (with the reader, the buyer, everyone), she said that perhaps this "fragile truce," these relationships, are really love, and she started to cry. In that dark room, I had been holding back tears already for the last half hour and it was like I was watching myself cry. She finished the lecture, the lights came on, and she and I were the only ones in the room with tears. This teacher who never shows emotions and never talks about her personal life was probably really embarrassed, but as I walked out the door, she saw that I also had been crying.
I have no idea what she was thinking.

Shiina Ringo + Bunraku

Fri, 30 May 2008 04:20:45 GMT

By the by, next album's in July

American Splendor

Thu, 22 May 2008 01:37:15 GMT

p. 65-66

Bucknell Professor: "Well, Mike, let me tell you a little bit of where I'm coming from here. You sat in class all semester, just sitting there and smirking from my point of view. And then when I challenge you, you attack me in front of my whole class."

* * *
...earlier:

The next class we had a discussion about obligation. The issue was what obligation two people had to each other, one being a copyright holder and the other being a potential publisher. It was agreed that the publisher had to print the work as written, etc. etc. Then he asked what obligation the copyright holder had. No one had anything to say, as usual, in the class, so he called on me.

Michael Malice: "You have no obligation to other people. What if someone wants to publish your diary, for example? You don't need to return their calls, you don't even need to be polite to them. It's your work and your property."
Prof: "That's one perspective. But if there were obligations, what would they be?"
MM: "There aren't any. No one can be declared to have duties for no reason."

This went on for five minutes and no voices were raised. This is hard to believe in light of what happened next, but fortunately I had a classroom of witnesses.
* * *

MM: "What did I say that humiliated you or that you perceived as an attack?"
Prof: "It wasn't what you said, but how you said it. Your tone, 'Professor Gilbert doesn't know what he's talking about.' Maybe I was reading you wrong."

He looked at me for an exit. It would have been very easy for me to claim this was a big misunderstanding and everything would be swept under the rug. He might as well have looked at a statue. I don't believe in mercy, and certainly not for my enemies.

At this point he grew somewhat smarter, like he realized he wasn't talking to some little jerk, but to an equal. He was wrong, of course, since he was my inferior. But at least he was moving in the right direction. He recognized that it might be frustrating for me, who thought so much about ethics in a societal context, to be among absolute beginners.

Prof: "This is my one chance, the only opportunity to get these business majors to think that there is something bigger than themselves.

This was his all important career, and my presence in his class was threatening to take it away from him. There was a bit of groveling in his voice.

__________________
I think that American Splendor: Ego & Hubris, the Michael Malice Story will become my favorite book of all time. It is apart of an autobiographical graphic novel series by Harvey Pekar (though this one is biographical).

Matthew Barney's Latest and Greatest

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:47:37 GMT

The above picture is basically one of the only ones I have left from the Matthew Barney filming, after I accidentally DELETED EVERYTHING. I finally have new camera batteries, so I was so overjoyed that I could take pictures again. It's been months. (Isn't that weird how we don't realize how dependent we've become?)

Well anyway, about the MB thing.. so I got to help make his latest film from Friday-Sunday this weekend! I've been a fan of his for so long, so it was crazy hearing him say my name and such. I had never really been apart of making a film, so it was really great to see all that goes on. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say, but I'll tell you that I got to help make butt dildos, grease a bunch of mechanics up, cue the cymbalists, and be a go-to-girl. It was really awesome meeting everyone in his studio, because they're all ridiculously nice. Man I was so fucking tired though.. I worked it the 100-102 degree weather for 8-9 hours Friday, 8 hours Saturday, 9 hours Sunday and partied Friday and Saturday night, sleeping little. But I'm really proud that I got to be apart of it all! Look forward to it, some crazy, lush shots are gonna be innit.

*I guess it can't hurt to catalog life's insundries. But I'm really going to try to make a website this summer !.!.! I can't live on livejournal forever!

Chinese Legacy

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:03:07 GMT

My relatives are partly responsible for
the current stereotypes of Chinese people in America.

Psssst... My name is...
（曾 tsang/dong - ancestors）
林 (woods)
秀 (So/xiù/hide - excellence, beauty, charm, graceful)
英 (Ung/yīng/ei - bravery, strength, wit)

Akira's Thank You

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:20:31 GMT

Nothing makes me happier than things like this:

(Sorry for all the videos lately, this will be the last for a while)

Subject: Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Kira and F--

i got your pretty mail.thank you very much!
i had not gotten like this mail recently.
im really really happy now.

i have never read "the alice in the wonder land" in original story,i will try to read it. is it good story??
and i like especially your drawing of that griffin.is he in the story??

im looking forward to seeing you again in Japan(?) or USA(?)
call me when you move to japan.
do you remember my number??
um,um,um.
ok,my number is ...-----------.
please write down it carefully,ok??

anyway, i dont know that object f-- drew...
but i am a liar too,so, of course i know it what it is.
yes,that drawings are...
i will tell you, when i see you guys next time.
haha

i appreciate your efforts.
PeaceV

-Akira

Zentai

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:57:43 GMT

There's something you should know about...

Being Chinese whilst Studying Japan

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:22:46 GMT

Okay, so the best way to stop an embarrassing moment from continually replaying in your head is to tell others, no? This will be boring Fei, so you don't have to read it, but you're mentioned in point #2.

So I went to a conference where I heard this guy talk about Japanese media. I had never heard of him or his circle of elites before the conference, but I was totally blown away by his talk (and I am still in awe of his work). I decided to stop being such a pussy and go and ask him questions and all that. He writes for the Japan Times and Nylon and Theme and has released several albums. I went into this knowing full well that I am a nobody and my ideas are only half-baked.

I had never read his blog, which basically fully articulates the thesis that was his argument for the lecture, but I, like a fool, thought I could wing it in conversation with him. Naturally, I said innumerable retarded things, but the one thing that really gets me now is this two second bit that had nothing to do with his talk. I asked him where he was stationed in Japan and found out he lived in my best friends' neighborhood. So, he asked me if I was Japanese. Now presumably he asked was because I made him wonder if I was a Japanese national or had lived in the area before too, but for some reason I interpreted it as "what are you?" -- that notorious question that hyper-racially-conscious Americans frequently pose. So I answered "Chinese," like a chump. He looked confused, I didn't seem to be a Chinese national. So to jam the foot further in my mouth, I added, "and white." No! Not nationality! I had to answer with race! I had to assume he was a big racist, his mind rife with caricatures of Chinafolk! When I saw the dumbfounded look in his eye, I realized the context of his question and said, "Oh, if you're wondering why I'm interested in Japan, I'm a product of the anime generation." To which he replied, "Oh." Of course he's a decade older, so he probably assumed I watched children's shows like Sailormoon and was just another otaku clogging up East Asian Studies (he actually talked about that on his blog).

I would like to defend myself to a hypothetical reaudience with Mr. Marx.

1. Usually when Japanese people, or anyone who's curious about my interest in Japan, asks me what I am, I answer "Chinese." I look Japanese, so I feel like a lot of the time, they are wondering if I'm second-generation or something like that, but because of the enormous amount of racial stereotypes projected onto the Chinese by Japanese, I like to proudly claim the fact that I am a member of that lesser race, but one that has managed to become competently versed in Japanese culture (to the point where I can vaguely assimilate).
2. I realize that part of the reason I feel I can proudly claim I am Chinese is because I'm mixed race. When I was in Japan, a Japanese girl asked me if I was Japanese and I told her I was Chinese and French. My friend, who is completely Chinese, told me, "you know it's best to just say you're American. Don't even tell them you're Chinese." Fei had racist slurs shot her way by a drunken salaryman and got into a fight with a hostess at a bar just for being Chinese, so my friend's sentiment was understandable, but I told her that I didn't want to hide who I was, and I would prefer to give Japanese people a true idea of what racially Chinese people are like (some Japanese people think they don't know any Chinese or Koreans, but they probably do know some that have gone to great lengths to hide their racial heritage by changing their name and etc.). This is problematic of course still, because I wasn't born in China or anything and I can't even speak Chinese. BUT I don't have to feel like I will drop in the listeners racial hierarchy by announcing my heritage, because I am part white. The media in Japan just can't get enough of [white+Asian] people, so I know I will fall into a different sort of category in people's minds. (I don't think I need to mention that Americans can hardly tolerate asian-americans unless they palatably dip into the caucasian gene pool -- Kristin Kreuk plays Chun Li in the new Street Fighter movie)
3. For the reason above, lately I've just been telling people I'm Chinese, unsure if I should try to claim my whiteness. I don't look white and I didn't even know I was part white until I was in the 4th grade, so what the hell justification did I have when I used to say I was "Chinese and French" fur chrissakes? I know when I say it, I've considered the reasoning above and the fact that I feel it explains away any lack of knowledge in regards to my Chinese background. I don't speak Chinese? Oh, well it has nothing to do with the fact that my parents don't speak the same dialect or that I'm 3rd/4th generation Chinese, I'M WHITE, so I never even had a chance! Basically I use race to justify a lack of cultural knowledge.
4. These days, with the trendiness of Japan, people look down on all of these non-Japanese people that are interested suddenly in Japanese culture and study it obsessively. Some of the idea behind that is that the kids just in college now, who watched anime and such when they were younger, have a shallow idea of Japan, and swallow all the academic dogma without any critical engagement. I don't want to distance myself from other non-Japanese that study Japanese culture.
5. I've already talked about this in an earlier entry, but I feel no need to hide the fact that nerdy anime were pivotal in my life. For this reason, I believe that they must have been pivotal in the lives of others and that they will be of continual importance to the culture that my generation produces. So, I don't think I should be ashamed to be in the position of exposure and familiarity. And wherever I slipped into my interest into the giant behemoth that is Japanese studies, I think it really shouldn't matter after I've gotten to the point where I can read Dower and Keene and have an opinion of my own.

Can I please get a break for being a kid? I think I'm allowed foot-in-mouth all across the charts until I'm not so green, okay?

Fighting Evil

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:31:03 GMT

I'm going to finish the last 100 episodes of Sailormoon, the anime.
Whether or not people look down on it, I am no longer ashamed to admit that cheesy shit like anime, Chinese kung fu movies, comic books, and science fiction have formed who I am as a person. The campier the better.

[this entry will self-destruct]

Finals Redux

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:42:21 GMT

I'm so good at procrastinating. I meta-procrastinate.

(Moan)

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:46:05 GMT

I'M SORRY

haha I love how gross the face distortions are though

Thanks, Mr.Hipster Record Store Clerk.

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:41:20 GMT

Stolen thrice over (fangbat)

From the SF Bay Area Craigslist:

Thanks, Mr.Hipster Record Store Clerk.
Date: 2008-02-26, 5:25PM PST

Dear Hipster Record Store Clerk,

Thank you for judging me on the CD I bought yesterday. Our passive-aggressive altercation made me realize how conformist I am for buying an old Rage Against The Machine album. Your condescension was just the intellectual wake-up call I needed.

I discovered a new me yesterday, and my eyes were opened in a new way. Thanks to you, I realize now that the key to enlightenment is reading Pitchfork, watching High Fidelity, listening to Velvet Underground, having a tattoo of a star on the inside of my wrist, growing an ironic mustache, living in the Mission, and wearing a too-small sweater, multi-colored 70’s ski-vest, chunky plastic-frame glasses, a high school sports T-shirt, air-tight black jeans, and Nixon-era Chuck Taylors.

I had it all wrong, man. You showed me that a skilled job and a comfortable living is just a lie. I need to go to art school, have my parents pay my rent, join a Joy Division-influenced band, and wait for a record deal, like you. I’m totally missing out in life.

So thanks again for mocking me. I mean, at first I thought you were just a pathetic, frustrated musician trying to feel better about yourself. But now I see you’re an uncompromising visionary.

No one will ever understand you. You’re so different.

Signed,

Everyone Not Like You

Also:
Malaysian Hipsters

Vacuum Atashi

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:41:21 GMT

I am a vacuum. I suck in all the dirt and dust of cultural detritus.

Sitcoms

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:03:00 GMT

In sitcoms, the jokes are usually made funny by the other actors not laughing. It's so unnatural and surreal when you think about the "shock" reactions they always have to have instead. Sorry this is trite.

p.s. my camera batteries are both totally dead, so I haven't been able to take pictures in a while. It's not like I see much of anything now that I'm practically a hikikomori.

TASK: INSTRUMENT

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:09:57 GMT

How did I trick such awesome people into being friends with me? Seriously last night was fucking amazing. My ears still feel throbby from the clattering sound that ensued the task of "EVERYONE FIND SOMETHING AND MAKE IT AN INSTRUMENT." How long were we rhythmically crushing and pounding? I won't even try to estimate.

And then from last week in the desert...

GHOSSSSt RYDE THE WHIP

"Animals masks: SO HOT RIGHT NOW"

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:44:24 GMT

Acerbic Self

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:33:50 GMT

I feel like I get close to several groups of people, each group mirroring an aspect of my personality I need to indulge in (kira the tomboy, kira the older sister type, kira the fun one, kira the brutally honest one), but then after a while a certain tension arises (when they realize the bounds of how awful I can be). When that happens, I just dump the friends that I was once close to but now rub into in the most vexatious of vexing ways. It's like I get to a point where I can truly be "myself" (or at least one dimension of myself), and I just can't stand the horrific reflection.

I know that my personality's changed in the past. I mean the "me" that dumped my best friends in middle school, that changed groups year-to-year in high school and in college, has been quite different in each round. But if this is the end goal, if I've already reached that point when one becomes fixed in their ways.. I mean, I just can't allow this to be the case. I really hate who I am. This can't be me. It just can't be. I must change.

Seance

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:19:08 GMT

Hawaiian Law

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:04:47 GMT

One time, I was walking on the second floor of the law library and noticed the Hawaiian law books were out of order. I think my nerd gland activates when an obscure section of the library is in disarray. I get all excited imagining someone there poring over eruditic details in Hawaiian Law or Water and the Law in Hawaii, sitting crumpled on the floor. Perhaps they are interested in learning all there is to know on surf law, I says to myself. I tidied the shelf and thought no more of it. Until the next day the same two fucking books were out of place. And then the next day, and the next. For months, the same two books. By happenstance, some time later, I was passing by the sofas nearby while shelving and saw some guy sleeping with one book on his lap and another covering his face,

Kabe

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:25:22 GMT

I'm really sensitive lately. I don't know why. It just feels like there is a cyclone of disaster brewing in my heart and I am without any will to stop it. Most of the time, I just feel awful or guilty about something. I mean I knew how bad it had gotten around my birthday last year, but lately it's like the cloud just floated on back, gradually after my heart was crushed, just shitting rain all over me. It's not really a matter of getting over it or not getting over it, it's about me going back to the same sour corner I was facing before it all began.

Crystal Castles Seizure

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:32:39 GMT

I want to have seizures to Crystal Castles
You Tube Live
You Tube Hologram

Crystal Castles enters your brain as fast as crack and is just as addictive. Why am I so obsessed? How can I be so obsessed? I just want to writhe on the floor with a strobe light, Crystal Castles, and other people's sweat.