Friday Feb 15 2008
Having been at the Times for eight months now, I’ve finally experienced first-hand one of the few occupational hazards of an office worker.
I spent the better part of Friday in bed, nursing a lower back that’s not only seized with shooting pains but also complete rigid. This ordeal began on Monday morning, when I woke up from an awkward position that must have pinched a nerve in my lower left back. The occasional sting lingered through Thursday, when I covered my back in Salonpas patches after getting a Valentine’s Day lunch with Rich.
Friday morning—I awoke to a back condition that had intensified from occasional stings to constant, radiating pain. After calling in sick I frantically found a doctor in Chinatown—an old, Chinese, and very unattractive version of Doctor House from the hit television series.
I’d like to blame my occupation for this injury, but unfortunately it’s clear that the fault lies with myself. Being so neglectful of simple office stretches and exercises put me at risk for the carpel tunnel syndrome of my entire body.
There's more...
Saturday Jan 26 2008
Spoiler alert. Don’t read this if you’d like to see the film first.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen anything like Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.
It’s the kind of film my dad would have put on and enjoyed one weekend afternoon, while I watched only half-heartedly.
Having seen it on the big screen, I’m enamored with the film’s characters, the numerous blunt but effective symbols, and the lethal simplicity of the story’s tensions and conflicts.
One of its foremost charms is the excellent soundtrack. Scored by Johnny Greenwood, it highlighted all the subtle nuances of the film that the visuals alone could not have, as all great movie soundtracks do. It swings between blaring cacophony and barely audible sighs, gently tugging the viewer along. Every note and chord couldn’t have been choreographed more appropriately.
With oil as one of the most vital interests in this country, it’s hard not to look for the parallels between oil and blood. It’s there and, as always, it’s extremely gratifying to find.
There's more...
Tuesday Jan 1 2008
I first met Tankut Can in sixth grade, when I had started attending Collins Elementary. Since then we’ve gotten close and drifted apart repeatedly. Tank was the star pitcher of our high school’s baseball team, and is now an avid handball player. He just completed his physics major at UC Berkeley. Though we’re flung far apart, I was still able to get his permission to post this essay he had written during sophomore year of high school. Of all of my friends’ writing, this is one of my most favorite.
When the World just doesn’t feel comfortable…
Existence begins with a little itty-bitty dot. A One-dimensional universe explodes and gives us multi-dimensions. This universe that has spawned our human race, that has let us evolve into such a dubiously superior species, has also forgotten some things. It has forgotten to give us each lots of money. The universe, in all its power and might, forgot to give us each cable television and a really nice car. While it was at it, it should have assigned every person a card that specifies who their true love is, so we could have been pimply and in love. And most important of these trivialities—one thing the universe forgot in its random evolutionary scheme, that goes deeper than materialistic wet dreams, is to give us a way to shatter mountains without shattering ourselves.
There's more...
Wednesday Nov 21 2007
Everyone, please meet Fred.
He’s the star of a short drawing series that I did last weekend called One Hundred Views of Fred.
The title of this series references Katsushika Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji. Completed in 1832, Hokusai’s colorful and meticulous woodcuts immortalized a national symbol in an array of scenes and contexts. His images have since been borrowed and re-appropriated time and again all over the world.
One Hundred Views of Fred is not so meticulous. It is a hasty manifestation of my long-standing interest in multiple perceptions of people and how they are described by our own experiences and through storytelling.
There's more...
Tuesday Oct 9 2007
Until a year ago, reading the news turned me off. Having to comb through a long-winded news article, or even study a news photograph, had either exhausted or bored me intensely. Working at the Times had improved that marginally, but digesting the news was still limited to work.
Since embarking on the research for The Shirt Project, however, the news has become a resource I can’t get enough of.
There's more...
