Otherwise, he's quite stupid.

Funny, I was just reading on Seth Godin's blog how the most successful, i.e. widely read blogs on the net are authored by multiple people rather than just a single person. And recently, all the new (and really interesting) Feminist/Philosophy tinged blogs I've been finding through blogrolls all have more than one contributor.

Black, literally.

I was on the NY Times website, skimming through an article on the attacks that went on in India, when a side headline (sideline?) caught my eye. 'Walmart employee trampled to death on Black Friday'. What? It happened fairly close by, (Valley Stream) in Nassau county. Right next door.

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

Diana and I decided to venture out for the first time this Friday. We went to Target and walked from the entrance to the junior's department, then turned around and walked right back out because there were just too many freaky people. Including one woman who held up a sweater and gushed in a loud annoying voice "Oh my god that is SO me!". Goodbye Target.
Then we went to the Michael's next door, which wasn't as bad and bought 2 skeins of yarn. Black and Purple. And some circular knitting needles.

I wasn't going to write about the Walmart incident, but then I read this and suddenly felt I needed to.

Amateur love

Every professional performer always does the same thing at exactly the same moment in every show they do. What I like are things that are different every time. That's why I like amateurs.
- Andy Warhol

A video I saw on a great 'new' blog I 'found' today. Called Feminist philosophers.


Andy Warhol "Eat" (1964)

Shadow Puppet Show!

This is what Diansy occupied herself with while I was at work.


,
My favorite part, and there are several, is the 'deer! D-d-d-d-deer!' part.

This is turning out to be a cookin' weekend

Cooking together is a pleasant bonding experience.
We went food shopping at Trader Joe's where I saw a cute worker named (haha) Sean Dooly (Doolee?). Isn't that a perfectly darling name? But I digress. We made these mini wraps that were really good.


We used mixed organic salad greens from Costco, Chicken strips from a Chick-fil-A sandwich, Axelrod sour cream, organic mushroom slices, mozzarella cheese, and artichoke antipasto.


There are a few more photos, but you don't have to look at them unless you want to.



Here is I, prepping the mini-wraps. Diana says this is a very real looking photo of me.



These are some failed cookies we made last night. We don't know how to use cookie cutters, so now to eat them, you've got to pry them little by little off the baking sheet. Still good, still good.


Last, here is Diana with what could very well be the largest potato chip known to human-kind!


Whew! Look at the size of those ... ridges.


Soon to come, a shadow puppet show.

Knit Picking

I'm tryin'...I'm tryin'.
I am not going to let this easy (yet not at all) skill conquer me.



It was going fine with the basic knit stitch. Then Diana attempted to show me the purl stitch (which is the knit stitch backwards) and I got thoroughly disgruntled.
I now have that line from Hide and Seek (Imogen Heap) going on repeat in my head.
What the hell is going on...

Meanwhile, good vid. She's got an voice like a accordian.

For the Birds...

Positively hilarious cartoon! Rather fitting for the holiday as I'm sure similar bickering goes on when the relatives git together and you have that one oddball show up...



Enjoy! Try not to laugh so hard that you puke!

My Thanksgiving meal(s)

EDIT

Diana made this. (Baked Ziti)


It's pretty much lasagna in ziti form. She just used sour cream instead of Ricotta cheese, and Mmmm was it creamy! We also made sugar cookies with what I like to call 'ghetto frosting' (Hope that's not offensive to anyone who is actually from the ghetto and may be reading this - slim chance I know). The frosting basically consisted of the malt balls in the below photo, melted and spread. Makes for some very chunky and odd looking frosting! But still quite good! Especially the tiny crispy malty center.






Diana is a bagging fiend. She bagged everything. Including the tuna fish and chocolate cake. Yum!

Journal and finger puppets

Tread softly on the words you used to write.

3 Merry Bands

Emmy the great???
Imagine my surprise:
I was scrolling through a long list of recommended bands/musicians on this blog thinking to myself, nope, nope, no, never heard of em, don't plan on checking them out, when this one popped out to me! This is exciting because, hello? it's my blog name! Especially since Augustus means 'the great'. Don't believe me? Check it. And Emy, just in case you were wondering, means hardworking (and these are/were both supposed to be boys' names).

Au Revoir Simone also sounds interesting. (Namely due to Story of the Eye.) And maybe also Camera Obscura. I'm just going by names here. Names are very important! First impressions almost! As for all the other 76 + bands on her list with unexceptional (to me) names, I'm sure you have tons of other adoring fans already. You don't need another one and most certainly not me! I am the worst music fan to have because um... I don't get out much and therefore won't be able to spread your music to others. Thus being an hindrance in your plans for world domination.

Now I am off to check out these 3. Out of them, I do hope Emmy the Great turns out to be something I can actually really like! How great would that be?

EDIT:
Listened to all three, and what a pleasant surprise, they all have female lead singers. (And actually, they sound alarmingly similar to each other!) Fans of Belle & Sebastian will definitely like 'em. My fav. so far is Au Revoir Simone.

Reminder:
For complete music list, go 'ere!

Positive regression

While waiting for Diana and her duffle of food to arrive, I made myself a late breakfast of Shu Mai from Trader Joe's Trader Ming's.
I used their included sauce packet along with several shakes of a lamb's tail yellow curry sauce. It came out quite good!
The cooking process was like a 12-year-old girl's climax; quick and easy. It took all of 10 minutes.

Just look at that glaze!




And then there were two...


I ate these with my hands alone, no utensils or anything. It was fun. I haven't done that in a while. One of these days, I'll try eating rice or spagetti using only my fingers.

"In India, eating is perceived as being a sensual activity. The idea is that one should be able to enjoy the process of eating with as many of the senses as possible – taste, smell, sight, and touch. Ask any Indian, and
[s]he will say that Indian food tastes best when eaten with the fingers."

I concur!

Pick-a-ninny, not I!

(Title is a link)


Diana posted this lovely picture she drew onto my facebook.
It reminded me of the controversial Little Black Sambo stories that were written back in the day (1899). Surprised me to find that Sambo is actually supposed to be Indian.



I think she's racist. Let's gather up colorful pebbles and hapless snails and throw them at her.

"The publishing company that owns the children story “Curious George” is thinking about suing Marietta bar owner Mike Norman for selling t-shirts showing a picture of the lovable monkey “Curious George” peeling a banana with the words Obama “08″ underneath.
Some are protesting the t-shirt saying it is racist, that it’s depicting a prominent African-American as being a monkey..."

One day in class, the topic was children's books and the teacher bought up Curious George. As the original story goes, the man in the yellow hat traveled to Africa where he found this monkey. Once they are both back in the States, George promptly gets into all kinds of mischief while the man in the yellow hat tries to get him to 'behave'.

Not sure where I was going with this. I am not drawing any conclusions!

Parents are "out of town"...

I will now proceed to have drunken orgies every weekend.


Actually, the first thing I did upon getting home from the airport was to start cleaning the kitchen. Well almost the first thing. The very first thing I did was to call Diana and celebrate the fact that I made it home in one piece. Albeit with some very tense shoulder and back muscles, but in one piece! Which is good because before leaving this morning I had a vivid premonition of dying in a fiery car crash on the highway. Either that or my parents' plane going down in flames.

Which could still happen.

Ugh. I have become afflicted with morbid paranoia.
Seriously though, I am excited about this month-long stretch of pure independence. It'll be great. Diana's coming back tomorrow for Thanksgiving break and she is bringing an ever-accumulating list of foods from school. Yay for meal plans! As of now, I can expect to see:

(click below if you want to drool over the foods I will be getting)

-naked pizza (The toppings of goat cheese and chicken slid off)
-2 chicken sandwiches
-4 packets of malt balls
-1 cheeseburger
-Teriyaki Lo Mein
-1 Quiznos sandwich

And she just left a little while ago to get more food. Oh boy oh girl!

Notification:

Emy Augustus may be going on a temporary siesta as she was struck by some awful news from that damned company with its deceptively guileless and mild mannered spokesman, er I mean...gecko.

Never has she been so unpleasantly reminded of the old adage that alas, life is not fair.



A company that blatantly lies to avoid spending money.

New artiste to check out

CATIA CHIEN



Reminds me of the illustration style of Roald Dahl books.
This one brings to mind the two malevolent aunts in James and The Giant Peach; Spiker and Sponge. Ha!

Convoluted

Cleaning my room, I came across this
annoying tangle of thread.



With no hope of being untangled.

Dear Fyodor

I like you a lot for this description of Varvara:

Varvara Ardalionovna was a girl of twenty-three, a middle height, rather thin. Her face, though not very beautiful, possessed the secret of charm without beauty and was extraordinarily attractive. She was very like her mother and was dressed in almost the same way, showing absolutely no desire to be smart. Her grey eyes might have been at times very merry and caressing, if they had not as a rule looked grave and thoughtful; too much so, especially of late. Her face too showed firmness and decision; in fact it suggested an even more vigorous and enterprising determination than her mother's. Varvara Ardalionovna was rather hot-tempered, and her brother was sometimes positively afraid of her temper.

Taken from:

Nature shots

These are some vegetables my parents planted in the yard back when it was still warm.
I'm not sure what type of vegetable the yellow flowers are growing on.





I do know that this is some sort of lettuce.
Doesn't it look lusciously smooth? Makes me want to chomp into it like a rabbit.

Les Misérables

I call this my 'Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow' shirt.
When I was living in California (9th-10th grade), I had a friend who was obsessed with Les miz. She bought the soundtrack and recorded it onto a cassette tape for me. I know, old school!

In A Little Fall of Rain, Éponine is in love with Marius, who is in love with Cosette. It's a tragic mini-story as Éponine shields Marius from a soldier's bullet and dies. She sings this sweet song before dying, and stays brave and loving to the end.

Yoga and Incense

(Taken at the Rubin Art Museum )

Last night I went with a friend to a Buddhist temple for a free yoga session. We walked into a cozy ground-floor room with short shelves and colorful posters of Thailand and a serene faced god (or goddess?) on the wall. After getting a colorful mat to sit on, I busied myself with looking about the room to absorb as much detail as I could.

I noticed the class was split into 4 females and 3 males (not including the teacher). There was a young couple - a woman with long hair and playful manner, and next to her, a sensitive looking young man whose right arm was covered, shoulder to wrist, with tattoos. A petite older woman sat near them, with black hair coiffed in the typical mid-age style, dark lipstick and eyes, who frequently laughed and joked. Another woman in her late 20s-early 30s soon showed up, with short boyish haircut and twinkly eyes, and lastly there was an older Indian man with dry feet (which were disconcertingly close to my face when we did the reclining exercises).

The leader of our small group was a monk who said he had been trained in this lifestyle since he was twelve (He looked to be in his early 40s). Despite the soothing background music of chanting male voices and warm dimmed lighting, I found myself feeling awkward doing some of the motions. They seemed to have sexual undertones, and I wasn't used to moving my body in those ways so close to strangers. There was a huge emphasis on relaxing mind and body and consciously releasing built up tension from the outside world. At the end, he actually did three loud authentic Om's!

There was something childlike about the movements. Like taking on the mindset that everything about your body is new and interesting, and trying to become attuned to every little sensation it goes through. In one exercise, he had us first breathe in through one nostril, then out through the other. There was one weird part where he wanted us to laugh and smile. I didn't like the emphasis on this outward, superficial sign of 'happiness'. He spoke to each of the participants and asked them to laugh. I thought this incredibly awkward and refused to when he came to me. Later though, I found out the reasoning behind it.

After class, when my friend and I stayed after to talk with him a bit, I was surprised to find that he believes suffering should be avoided, along with anger. He also emphasized the need to be detached since nothing will last forever. Okay, I understand not being attached to objects, but what about people and relationships?

Talking with him made me realize that ironically, even though I'm Asian and this is an Asian religion, much of my thinking is influenced by Christianity. I found myself using Bible verses to illustrate my point of view. I brought up that the Bible supports 'righteous anger' which I understood to mean that anger can sometimes have positive consequences by prompting a person to action and standing up for one's beliefs. He said that where there is love there can be no anger, which I then countered with, 'what if someone hurts the one you love; wouldn't it be right and natural to feel angry out of your love for that person?' He also said that sadness isn't a needed emotion which prompted me to bring up the verse in Proverbs "sorrow has a refining quality" to support my belief that sadness is an important emotion.
This morning I remembered a book I read in high school, The Crucible, which had the theme that suffering and sorrow purifies one's character just as a crucible purifies impurities in metal/gold. But then again, the setting was in Puritan society.

I might be misunderstanding a lot but the basic gist I came away with was that this is a passive religion. Basically we need to feel calm all the time; no anger, no turbulent emotions, and unattached to anything. (Is that really passive though? It does take a lot of effort to be that way!) It would be interesting to discuss this more as I know it is more complicated than that, but he is taking a trip to India/Thailand/other places and won't be back till March. Oh well, I guess I'll just mull things over in my head in the meantime.

If (photo) sharing is caring then I care too much

First, I want to show you this adorable fat squirrel I saw the other day from the window of the Psychology building. It was a chilly day, and I think it just wanted a warm spot of sun to rest and enjoy its cracker(?). The picture quality's not that great because I had to sneakily take its photo through the window. Didn't want to risk scaring it away! It was very alert despite it's relaxed posture.



and again, see the cracker?


Apparently the theme of today's photo sharing is animals because the next few are of my chickens. I let them out today at around 2:30, and they were so thirsty! First they were pecking at the frozen ice water in some nearby containers. Then, they discovered the pool aka The Great Watering Hole, and funny photo opportunities ensued.


(If you click to enlarge, you can see a bead of water dangling from the middle chicken's beak!)





And Lastly, here is a photo of our temporary (2 day) rental car.

Noteworthy Nietzsche (still need to look up spelling of his name!)

"What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?"

Conclusion: love is selfless.

Follow up

Read the two articles linked in this post about the feminist artwork of Hye Rim Lee. They were both so good (The Powder Room, Cybernetics and Sex).

As the post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha has argued, the colonial power requires that the colonial subject makes his or herself into a recognisable other, as “a subject of difference that is almost the same but not quite”.

Almost the same, but not quite.

Reminds me of the movie Tie a Yellow Ribbon, directed by Joy Dietrich. An especially memorable scene/line was when the main character, a young Korean woman adopted (as a child) into a white family in a white neighborhood, said she always felt like a "deformity" in her environment.

Part of the synopsis-
As Jenny searches for a voice and photographic style that she can call her own, she finds that she must face her unresolved feelings toward her brother and family, and ultimately reconcile her identity as an Asian American.

Making her feature debut, writer-director Joy Dietrich, also a Korean adoptee, introduces audiences to the world of Asian American young women and delicately addresses the abnormally high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American girls, creating a work of great compassion and poetic beauty.


(picture leads to official movie site)

Pun intended

Along the same lines as Baraccoli Obama... I present to you:

Baroque Obama


I want to find more Barack pun pictures! I'll start a collection.

What type of blogger are you?

Is this for real?!
(via The Little Professor)

First:


Then:




The site 'analyzed' my blog in less than a minute. Which makes me wonder about the accuracy since computers do not have brains. Yet, it sounds true enough (although I'm not *that* active), and the analysis of the Little Professor's blog seemed fairly accurate also. So... ???
Eh, it's probably just like horoscopes in the papers; general enough to be believable. I'm not putting too much stock into it!

Well, what do you think? Good description of me or no?

Humorous Start

Octavius

I was just browsing through old picture files on my computer, and came across this awesome one of my sister. Usually, Diana is a self described sloppy tard, but every so often she comes out looking halfway decent. Words that come to mind - dewy, pearlescent, slick.

I guess I'm just missing her. It's bearable to do the dishes and cook by myself whilst listening to Eisley, but so much more pleasant when someone is there helping and doing wacked out dance moves to Of Montreal. Plus, the parentals are going through another week-long (if not longer) fight and I don't like having to deal with it myself. But I am dealing.

Artist in Candyland

click




Hye Rim Lee

Korean born artist Hye Rim Lee is interested in “art that expands our understanding of ... the culturally loaded significance of software reflecting the Animamix cultures of Japan and Korea.” Her work challenges the conventions of the traditionally male-dominated worlds of game structure and 3D animation, specifically when it comes to virtualised images of women. Candyland is a suite of digital stills presented in circular, candy-colored frames, featuring the artist’s highly stylised, curvaceous warrior-vixen TOKI who draws on the Japanese tradition of manga, Korean animamix and Western ideals of sexuality and beauty.

Note to self, read later:
Cybernetics and Sex, by Barry King
From the Powder Room, by Charlotte Huddleston

New banner link

Click on the sidebar to see where it takes you. (surprise surprise) That may be changed in the future.

It took me so long to get it to the right size.
Blegh. Doubts assail me. Is it too swirly? Too many words?

Holy...Marie?!

I've been doing some speedy internet surfing this morning since I had to get up at 5:50 to drive my dad to the train station. I like being awake early; more relaxing free time. Free time to find out about this woman who makes the most elaborate costumes, and gives them away!

Note, exhibit A: Marie Therese, daughter of Marie Antoinette



Damn, the details, the colors, the locale! Flipping amazing.
It does my heart good to know that there are people who put so much time, energy, and fanciful thought into something that provides no monetary reward.

I found this through the linkage train of,
Emily Martin ---> Small magazine ---> the above blogger.
Whew. The internet is a magical thing.

Edit

Haha! So I followed the advice of the shrewd Cruella-blogist and got rid of 'gender - female' from my profile, and look what happened!

First:


(click for larger image)

Yahoo's gone feminist!

Maybe.
In a span of 3(?) days, these were the featured stories:



Speaking of feminism, this post from Cruella blog was very insightful. I always knew Facebook advertisers aim to target as specific of an audience as possible. Why didn't it occur to me that a good amount of the ads on my page would be due to basic info listed under my profile; namely, gender? And to think I can rid myself of those pesky weight loss images just by going genderless on faceboook! The people who really matter anyway already know I'm a female - so it's completely unnecessary.

"The Facebook advertising system is supposed to allow advertisers to target the customers most likely to be interested in their product. But I don't seem to be getting any adverts that are hitting me because I'm a university graduate, because my favourite film is Secrets and Lies or because I'm a member of the group "I have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin". You would think Republican adverts for foreign policy researchers would be over-loading my system. No instead the only measure I am being profiled on is "has vagina" (tick) therefore "must hate own body and want to be size zero" (uh-uh)."

The allure of names

This is so exciting! I just saw on Angry Chicken that there's a website which translates your name into Elvish! I immediately clicked on the link because if you couldn't tell from my choice of Blogger identity, I like to play around with names. It's like having various roles and personas in a play. Names convey certain moods and character traits, and you would probably feel very differently towards a girl named Autumn Brown (real person, click on her!) as opposed to someone named Neon Gavoy (anagram of my name).

So without further ado, here is my Elvish name translation:


What's yours?

RedRedRED

Facebook magically color-coordinated my friends!



Keith made this in photo class.
The healthy choice: