Story | From Notion to Sequel: Part II

Things that I thought of doing and I did:
- holding your hand
- asking you out for a coffee (slash date)
- cooking yummy food
- going to galleries with you, just us two, discussing about art and everything but blocks
- mailing you a postcard
- sharing a hot apple pie with you

But:
- if we didn't we would likely to be stuck in the dark creepy concrete forest still
- you were committed at the time
- because I wanted to procrastinate, and to end the trip
- I had to disappear from the city for a not-so-short period of time
- it was captured by the postal monster
- nothing would happen because we both have our own light houses to return to at that time

And:
- palms grew cold and finger-nails were too long
- we grew closer as friends now, writing each other emails that are long enough to get published into a book or two
- you truly enjoyed it, wanting more; yet I've sunken deeper into the pasta sauce with all those layers of pasta and mozzarella cheese
- everything became so ambiguous
- the baby is forever gone
- residues from 2008 would stay around for a while until the cloud has the energy and courage to walk down the metal stairs


02/24/09

Story | From Notion to Sequel: Part I

Things I thought of doing:
- hugging you from the back
- having wonderful photos of us two
- traveling to your home town and hopefully get to know you better (just like the plot of Soundless Wind Chime)
- frying pancakes for you for breakfast one weekend morning
- chopping up the world into pieces
- telling you I'm attracted to you

However:
- to avoid awkwardness afterward
- I just can't do it without a valid excuse
- the cost is expensive and I'm scared
- you were too busy to stay over for the night
- everything is precious, and I'm not a good chinese chef
- our current relationship status is great

So:
- I said Hi and walked away
- many pictures of you at different angles and positions was snapped when you were busy with your work
- a specific capital's name is too often googled through the web browser
- I went out, bought fresh eggs and milk, made 4 big round pieces of pancake and ate them all with real butter and golden syrup
- noodles are scattered everywhere
- an already-not-so-dry sponge sucked it all up and ran away


02/24/09

Story | Date

It's hard to imagine me and you, riding together on a bicycle. You bike like a drop of deep purple indian ink spreading itself over a pure sheet of rice paper, sipping through each individual fiber molecule. I, however, do not like the step-on-paddle-and-move-your-legs action at all. Although I take many photos of lonely bicycles. Just like my addiction to ceilings and roofs. The blankets that shelter us all.

Perhaps a crowded public bus, or a street car running on suggested tracks will do us good? How about the tram that strolls at slow vintage speed? For sure there's lots of neon signs and uniform-like building facades we can look it.

We will just be friends. For ever. For good. For the mental health of all.


02/24/09

Story | Consumption

I consumed myself. Started somewhere, yet gradually decaying to nothing. Work is the same every day. No hours logged. It has been 2 months already. I should serious consider stealing an envelope from the receptionist's cabinet and use it to mail in my forms. Yellow shower curtains with clear filleted rectangular hooks and white metal rod helped for a period. Yet the feeling was temporal. Warhol bananas and Manroes lost their magic. Colour faded and things died. Some weirdo must have shot them. Once wonderful candle scent was absorbed by the long lasting moldiness of the tiny kitchen. I believe there's a invisible monster living there. Burning candles is no use. The toilet was clogged too. Damn. Chocolate made me love for a while, but they give you love along with weight gain. Not a good idea for 6 months. Can someone actually live like a wired puppet, or movable corpse? All day is spent on wondering and processing. Hmmm. Possibly a machine, with a touch of human consciousness.

I really want to decorate my house for you, you, and you. In multiple fruity rooms. I know I should not have a bunch of you, but I cannot help myself. I'm afraid of being alone. Being abandoned by you is scary. I knew this before I was born. So I have multiples of you through out the travel. It is that simple. Of course, over time a new you would come and drop by the axis and causing the creation of graphs in various forms or even parabolas. Cartesian planes are nice to draw on. Geometry is hard, despite the fact that they give you rigidity. In high school I don't self consume - math does it for me. Or chemistry. No, actually physics. Those crazy kinetics and statics and particles bouncing around. Whatever. They eat up everything anyway, other than those super smart geeks.

How many things have once, or repeatedly, gulp me? Hmmm.


02/23/09

Story | No one belongs here

No one belongs here. Or maybe a bunch do. Way too many that it flooded. The shower drain is now stuck.

I'm sure once I was somewhat important in your house, yet now I questioned myself if that was purely an accident. Maybe you have images of me long before, but they were all creations of yours. Initially I was hosting you in a little, minor room. Nothing inside really. Right at this moment, you are like the kitchen. People need the kitchen to cook food to eat, you know? But they can din out too. There are lots of restaurants that don't taste that bad close by here. I did have big ambitious renovation plans for the master bedroom. Yet the person that was meant to stay there was solely living in my processing machine. Just like Cinderella, except I don't get a pumpkin-turned carriage nor puffy pretty dresses. Actually maybe at one moment she knew I have prosperous ideas on working out our bedroom, but she chose to stay at her own home, or someone else's for the time being. Now she's moving out, I'm not certain whether I should invite her over and together we will paint the walls, get Ikea furniture and cushions and everything we need. Maybe a kitten or two? No. That was just a joke. I don't like cats.

No. I can't do that. You are, or are you, still in the tiny dark room? You gave me lots of excitement and danger and made me feel like riding a roller coaster thousands of times. Although after the days at the amusement park I felt sick most of the time. But I kind of like it. I miss the rewarding feeling. I hate the endless worrying though. Are you gone? Do you have someone else in your home? Are you running to the other direction? Do you want to escape to the country side? But life won't be convenient there, just to warn you. Actually it's more that I want convenience, not you. You said you want a diamond that lasts forever. I want.... I do not know. I'm still young to think about all of this, okay? Stop asking me.

It's alright. I still have my renovation plans to drown in. You heard that she's leaving her old place, right? It is possible that she will love the interior design of my house. She studies art and architecture after all. I'm sure no matter how much she said she hates her studies, there would be still a tiny bit of memory which transforms to love, discretely crawling towards the elegant elevations drawn by me envisioning our future boom. Maybe I'll design the lights too. Locating them precisely where they will glow like the southern star and provide warmth like a hearth. Making people feel like they are in paradise. Or at least boost their dopamine so they feel good. Hopefully oxytocin comes in after that too, which makes the story conclude with the living merrily ever after ending. Just like my tulips.

Right.
In. Your. Dreams. (Or mine at least.)


02/23/09

In between...?

I've been trying to be a vegetarian on most days, but I can't resist the particular yummy meat items like Cantonese-style barbecue pork, Ikea meatballs, pork and veggie dumplings, pork katsu don etc. Because of that, I can only keep the same title/belief as the majority of people, as "non-vegetarian" or "meat eaters" (Am I just making up terms?). Or I can mention that I'm on the veggie diet.

However guess what I discovered today - there's actually terms called semi-vegetarianism and flexitarianism. According to wikipedia, semi-vegetarianism is "the practice of excluding some meat (particularly red meat) from the diet while still consuming limited amounts of poultry, fish, and/or seafood." As for flexitarianism, it is "a semi-vegetarian diet focusing on vegetarian food with occasional meat consumption."

I know labels are no good (similar to the labels regarding the complex topic of sexual identity, orientation, expression, expectation, and this list can go on forever; there're also stereotyping attached to labels too - but we'll explore that in another post). None of the less I'm happy to call myself as a "semi-vegetarian!"

Don't judge me by how I look

While standing on crowded buses every morning to get to work and every evening to get home, I often think about how other bus passengers perceive me. What would they think of me (if they care to look)? What words would they use to describe me: tall, not-attractive, small eyes, lezzie-looking-but-not-T(butch)-nor-P(femme)-so-possibly-H(versatile)?

I know the above happen because I personally do watch people on how they act and react. I would guess if people are rich/poor (or they just dress that way), if they have some sort of fashion senses (of course according to my standards, hah), or what they are like. But this restricts solely by how they dress themselves.

However after some time of just watching people, now I've bumped the seemed-simple observation to another level - are people really like what they dress like?

Translation Project

Similar to the last last post, I don't know what to blog about, so I'll show art!

In fact, this is one of the initial things that got me interested in the idea of translation, all the interpretation differences and changes that's evident in our lives. At first I was just captured by a painting an unknown artist did at the Shanghai MoCA - I snapped a photo of it to add into my image library. However I started to use that photograph for digital illustrations, for printmaking, and for painting. I want to experiment how I would translate a piece of art into many other pieces of art via my personal way of translation.


Translation I - I, 2008 Shanghai, Photograph
A partial snapshot of the original painting by an unknown artist.


Translation I - II, 2008 Toronto, Digital Illustration
Converting the photograph of the original painting into black and white using photoshop.


Translation II - I, 2008 Cambridge, Aluminum Plate
Imprinting patterns and marks onto aluminum plate from the b/w image using drypoint. (Sorry for the bad image, I took it at night with a crappy cell phone camera.)


Translation II - II (Print I), 2008 Cambridge, Print on Paper
Transfering image from dry point plate onto paper by printmaking.


Translation II - II (Print VI, i think), 2008 Cambridge, Print on Paper
More prints on paper with the drypoint plate, except this time the aluminum plate was enhanced with more marks and patterns.


Translation III, 2008 Cambridge, Digital Illustration
Converting the photograph of the first print to negative colours using some software on my cellphone.


Translation IV, 2008-2009 Toronto, Acrylic on Canvas
A big step forward - translating the b/w rigid patterned images (I used the b/w photograph and the first printmaking print as references mainly) into a multi coloured soft dreamy painting. Interesting. There're spots that needs improvement, but for now I'll leave it as is. And yes, the painting is turned 180 degrees relative to the above ones. I like it this way more.

I'm wondering how far I can bring this creative project of translation to...

Long time no see!

So I haven't touch this since I left Shanghai 6 months ago. Now I'm back here again, I will give this another try (I know I know, I'm super lazy. I admitted it. Hence 3 posts within 2 months and then everything just goes on pause for half a year when I'm back to Canada.) Actually no, it's May who motivated me to get back on blogging. She started hers recently, and I want someone to notice that I'm alive too. Check out her blog space here: Circular Territory

Maybe I'll keep up my blog by blogging others' blog or websites. Bye for now!