through the looking glass

I’m finally moving my blog and galleries to a dedicated, unified address. ! In future TTLG can be found at http://gifiltafish.net

Seems I must email blogsome (whom I still adore and highly recomment, even given the somewhat ridiculous migration hassles) as digging into mySQL appears the only way to migrate. Blogsome for some reason doesn’t allow ecto access to more than 20 posts, and as it’s an older version of wp I can’t simply export. Hmm. Aah, well, so it goes. Wish me luck, and update your bookmarks ;-)

people talk to me on the street. this used to happen in china all the time, old women taking me by the arm and dragging me around to meet their relatives was not an unusual way for me to spend an afternoon. but this, this is new york city. growing up here you had the thousand yard stare. no eye contact. period. ‘s just the way it was. now, people make eye contact. they’ve even been known to smile at each other.

sitting on the stairs of a brownstone after having seen the apartment I wanted, talking with my realtor and having a smoke. a girl passes us, but then stops and launches into this dramatic telling of her morning : how she went to register at new school, came back out and couldn’t find her car. thinking it’s been towed she heads for the impound lot, only to discover it’s not there. she comes back to the area, freaking out that her car is probably stolen, and as the cabbie’s taking her back to new school she realizes she’d been looking for her car on the wrong block.

I’m giggling like a kid. this makes me want the apartment even more. my realtor apologises, saying this sort of thing doesn’t usually happen in this neighborhood. too bad, I say.

right, so I’m on the phone with a friend of mine from new york last night. here was me thinking I was leaving the whole self serving survival of the fittest behind by leaving china. girl, confused

new york city, last week. an 85 year old woman walking down the street. some guy tried to mug her; I say tried because the woman fought him off. with her walker. and though there was a crowd on the street, not one person stepped forward to help her.

budapest is suddenly looking a lot more appealing. hell, even china is, at least I expect it here, and in an odd way rather understand it.

well, after all my big talk, I can hardly believe I’m doing it, but come september I’m headed stateside.

I’m roughly one semester away from a degree in philosophy (yeah, name that movie) and I just need to get it done. we made a valient effort to find a chinese partner for our hostel in ningxia but in the end came up empty. and so I decided this was life’s little way of telling me it’s time to put one more duck into the row.

will I come back? yea, likely. who knows, carwyn might pull a moment of brilliance out his arse and find us a partner next year. and I want another year of teaching here. I don’t know why, two drained me in ways I never thought possible. but there’s something life-bringing about a truly disheartening experience. I’ve also still got the madagascar itch, and budapest calls as well.

today I’m just amused that I’m probably one of the few people on the planet who sighs unpleasantly when discussing moving to new york city.

but all is not over yet, I’ve got one last summer to travel. I’m attempting to figure out must see places while I’m still on this side of the planet. tibet, I think. and I feel I ought to see the east coast, even if it isn’t entirely chinese in many ways. but mostly I’m posting on the off chance anyone who happens to pass might have a suggestion or two. I’m all ears.

ran into a westerner on the street the other day and ended up in conversation. he wanted adult beverages, and while heading out we bumped into a veritable plethora of non native mugs. naturally, we took them dancing. the nuclear physicist, outdanced every one of us.

the go to guy just fixed my door by rubbing it with a pencil.

he’d dropped off some water and when he went to close the door it reopened on him. it does that. only not so much anymore. after realizing I ought to really know the word for pencil (I brought him, in succession, a key, a screwdriver, and a knife) he found one on his own, rubbed it on the door frame and the latch, and voila, perfect door function.

I have issues with china. things like this are what keep me sane.

weird whiffs wafting.

pat returned a book the other day, we took turns sniffing it. I thought fertilizer, she thought pesticide. it was a copy of war and peace, in case you’re curious.

the other day my bathroom reeked of prawns. prawns!

the smell currently penetrating my abode remains entirely unidentifiable.

surprised the hell out of a slew of people when we held up a big sheet for the poet’s wife to change behind. surprised em again when I dropped onto my back or climbed random objects or generally ran around like a monkey.

the afternoon, well, had a few things to work around. namely, the amateur.

she walked in front of I don’t know how many shots. to take her own. with a sony powershoot. with center framed people. far away. and to top it off she kept calling the couple away from the places where there was actually, you know, light, to places where their faces were completely shaded against a bleach-white sky. I seriously almost threw her off the mountain.

my attempts to get the poet’s wife into the front seat of taxis (instead of the back behind two open windows) failed miserably. fortunately the hairspray (and god knows what else) held. so even though no one could talk the poet out of his jeans (and into proper pants, sheesh) I managed to get one or two pretty decent shots. long story boring, felt damned good to be back.

the photos on imageevent aren’t necessarily the wedding best, but they’re my personal favorites of the day

turns amusing when lots of people get involved.

wait, rewind, you’ve no idea what I’m talking about.

the poet and his wife are soon to be married. well, technically they were legally married, oh, two years ago, but apparently until the actual nuptials are held it doesn’t count. right, moving on. a couple days ago, after extensive exploration of my camera and lenses, the poet expressed his wish for me to take their wedding photos. unlike the states, this does not happen the day of. it’s happening tomorow.

so today’s plan was simple. fuxi temple square (lots of pillars, dramatic, ooh), nanguo si (which I’d never actually been to but it’s a mountaintop, that’s got to be a good thing). check the locations, check the light, make a plan, keep going if everything’s ugly. the poet and I executed the above this morning. went for nuroumien. checked out his new pad (tertiary location, gorgeous spanking new flat). waited for his wife. who arrived, gave a 20 second look at the photos, and we were out the door to meet her friend who’s an amateur (had to try three different spellings to get that thank you) photographer.

first stop, top of the north hill. lovely view over the polluted city. wonky light (though I still haven’t figured out why, wasn’t the day). but nice for fuzzy bluegreen background outdoor stuff. then off to see if we could sneak into my friends old house (we couldn’t. it’s an unfinished museum.) then through art alley to the city god’s temple (where the keeper once gave me a gift-to-the-god pear, for luck, which I planted in a pot on my balcony). then down some really bizarre alleys that I thought would lead to some brilliant undiscovered courtyard house but in fact held a camera shop, where the amateur (only twice that time) wanted to get me a new lens cap (mine went missing a while ago. whoops.) and the guy behind the counter, after trying to sell me film, reassured the couple that if I shot in raw I would, as stated, be able to blow up the prints nicely for them. oh, and he set to raw without my noticing, so the rest of the day isn’t processed yet as I can’t seem to find my copy of c1.

wedding dress shop, aka scouting for costumes, is mostly a memory I’d rather like to forget (those places creep me out), however a uniquely flattering bit came when, deciding she approved of my fairly careless work thus far, amateur (first time!) decided she wanted me shooting her and kept dragging me away from the poet’s wife, who was of course why I was there. aah well. got a lovely neck shot that the poet proclaimed ‘classic’, though I’m still not sure in which sense.

oh, and did I mention that I bloody love my 85mm at 1.8? mmmmmmmmmmm.

took a walk downtown in the spring sun to run a few errands. singing along to oldies while meandering side streets. good.

78 kuai for 4 gilette mach3 turbo blades and didn’t even care.

last stop, supermarket. the music? madonna, la isla bonita. followed by….we will we will rock you

next, a cabbie who didn’t ask a single one of the usual questions (though we did get into an interesting conversation about why he asked where we were from instead of where I was from, as I was the only passenger) but did catch me up on the local foreigner gossip. I swear, cabbies know everything.

and capped the evening off with frozen chicken nuggets and ranch dressing and a visit from the illustrious poet, who has asked me to take wedding photos for his upcoming nuptials. we discussed locations, and I showed him the first collage I’ve been able to complete since moving to china. and, he knows where to buy proper canvas.

good day.

and apparently it’s not over yet….
(chuckles erupt sporadically from behind laptop screen)

while wandering the web I came across : Here We Go, sponsored by the china daily……”use accurate english to welcome the olympics”

I’m not sure whether this sign’s supposed to be filed under correct or incorrect, but it proclaims, all caps : ‘GET OFF THE BICYCLE’

another reader pointed out this brilliant one from the Office of English Speaking for Beijing Residents, in reference to the Summer Palace : “The fact is that three quarters of the Park are water surface. The introduction says, however, “three quarters are under water””

(actually, I really hope they don’t take the ‘fuck goods’ signs out of all the grocery stores. sniggering while buying raisins from that aisle is half the fun of the supermarket)

this one’s potentially overly correct….
” Another sign that makes me really sick is “Racist Park”…….For the tourists from English speaking countries seeing this sign, it would immediately occur to their minds that racial were legal in China, racists could celebrate in the park. Actually, this is the Park of Chinese Ethnical Minorities.”

but my favorite, the one that has me adding this to a post before even fully exploring the site…

“Please help us build more rubbish shelters.”

yes, this is the beauty of the english language. grammatically correct? yup. contextually? Wheeeeeeee. gotta keep that rubbish out of the rain. might damage it dontcha know. maybe this ties in to the new 8 prides and shames of good socialist people, the one saying not to waste anything.

but the truly brilliant bit is, the guy who posted the above did so to point out the ‘incorrectness’ of the following sign at the great wall

“If you would like to join us, rubbish will never be homeless.”

which I think is just plain gorgeous on so many levels (not the least of which is, also on the same sign, ‘Parking Lot –>’ )

yup, definitely a very good day.