绿茶拿铁 Green Tea Latte

OMG, Lok really became a "renown scholar on internet in China!" I am heavily suspicious if the person in photo was him though...

昨天跟运输公司定了托运的箱子。本着轻装减重的方针，打着富余也只要了四只大箱子，三只小箱子，预计最后装箱结果还要少于此。在美国住了八年，搬了六次家（虽然只涉及两个州），总是提醒自己不要积攒东西。但到最后还是存下了不少书和衣服。想想快一个decade的生活只装了这几只箱子，有一点感伤，更有些轻松。还是赤条条来去无牵挂的好！所有物最终都会成为束缚。

最放心不下的还是猫猫，她成天憨憨地跟在我屁股后面一副迷惑不解傻忒兮兮的样子，让我实在不忍心把她留给其他人，甚至有些希望智利签证这次拿不到，这样可以先带她回北京（当然不能让他听到）。。。不过还是希望有好心人先帮我照料她，等一有机会就把她带回去。【taca，你听到了吗？呵呵】不写了，我是不能在博客上抒情的，自己把自己先恶心死了。

“流浪北京”是很早以前看的纪录片，看的时候很激动，因为片中的人物“很傻很冲动”。在豆瓣上看到了一篇采访张慈的文章，又一次被提醒青春很美又很无情。

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I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand—I use those words interchangeably—another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.

 

Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody’s else’s aesthetics. I think you’re born an artist or not. I couldn’t have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.

                                                                                 -Robert Rauschenberg

引自纽约时报的报道：

Two men, one a practiced French stuntman known for climbing tall buildings, the other a New Yorker who said he wanted to raise awareness of the dangers of malaria, scaled the 52-story New York Times Building in Times Square on Thursday just hours apart. Each was arrested when he stepped safely onto the roof.

The first, Alain Robert, the Frenchman, went up the north face of the year-old skyscraper in the morning, unfurling a bright green banner near the top. The words on the banner were illegible from the sidewalk, but from office windows inside the tower the message could be clearly read: “Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week.”

The other, identified by the police as Renaldo Clarke, 32, of Brooklyn, climbed the Eighth Avenue side starting about 6 p.m.

A spokeswoman for The Times, Catherine J. Mathis, said that after the first climber was arrested, two additional building security guards were assigned to patrol the area outside, on 40th and 41st Streets.

Both climbers grabbed onto one of the building’s most distinctive features, the ladderlike horizontal rods that form an exterior curtain surrounding the floor-to-ceiling windows. And then, in turn, they were off on a hand-over-hand trip up the face of a New York skyscraper, with no ropes or harnesses, a trip that left the cellphone-camera-snapping crowds that swirled below thinking of Spider-Man, or maybe King Kong.

。。。

昨日收到如下一封信

Dear Fellow Activist:

Today is World Environment Day.

Right now, Alain Robert, known as the French Spiderman, is risking his life in New York City climbing high into the skyline to raise awareness of the desperate need for real stewardship from world leaders on global warming ahead of next month's G8 meeting.

He says "The Solution Is Simple":

1 – Stop Cutting Down Trees. Plant More Trees.
2 – Make Everything Energy Efficient.
3 – Only Make Clean Energy.

The cost of action is a simple matter of math. The cost of acting NOW is far smaller than the cost of acting TOO LATE. But the time for action is running out, fast.

World leaders know this, but are still not acting fast or bravely enough. Last year in Bali, they failed to agree to ANY emissions reduction targets, but rather to two more years of more talk.
TALK is no longer cheap; but we can't afford any more of it instead of ACTION.

But there is hope in the changing of the guard among world leaders. America's next President could help lead the way.
There's reason for hope. We urgently need a global agreement for at least a 50 percent cut in emissions.

World leaders meet again next month at the G8 conference in Japan. YOU can help make sure they get the message. Go to http://www.thesolutionissimple.org and join your voice with ours.
Together we WILL be heard.

Together, millions of us can help make history on the most urgent and important issue of our lifetime. It's that simple.

Stay informed, stay inspired, stay active!

As always in solidarity,

Your friends at AnitaRoddick.com and IAmAnActivist.org

Chinese media reported the story of foreign volunteers helping kids in the diaster zone recover from PTSD through games, which showed that foreigners are not all "devils." (See photos--NOT taken by me) But of course, the New York Times' cover story was titled "Parents' Grief Turns to Rage at Chinese Officials," with a photo of an official kneeling down to beg parents of earthquake victims to stop their protest.

News are always selective in the sense that one paper cannot cover everything happening around the globe. But what standards of selection should be applied? I'm puzzled. "Newsworthy" is as vague as the "healthy and positive" propoganda standard (which is not valid anymore if only one surfs sohu or sina nowadays). Is the "most emailed" story the most newsworthy in the economic sense? Who said "good news is not news?" The improvement of the mainland-Taiwan relationship and the appreciation of Japanese rescue effort were headline news, despite the fact that some of them first appeared in online forums. So who is the executive chef to determine what to cook for the audience today? Should newspapers/press bear certain "social responsibility?" If "incitement" can be a crime, what about "imbalanced negative connotation?" Of course that's teasing. But it is also a reality that no newspaper can expect the audience to uphold their "independent judgment" and diverse resources. Shouldn't a few leading newspapers such as the New York Times be held to a higher standard then? Simply because they are often quoted as the authority?

Also on the cover of NYTimes, was the story of a female "holy warrior for Al Qaeda" who was portrated in the photo with an overall black gown covering all her body except for the eyes.

Not in the news: Tibetans residing in NJ and NYC held a ceremony to pray for earthquake victims on Union Square on Sunday.

贾樟柯的新品《二十四城记》将在5月17日在戛纳电影节首映。

　　这是一部群像式史诗

　　1995年，贾樟柯以“北京电影学院青年实验电影小组”名义，完成了处女作《小山回家》， 至今已形成了其独特的电影美学。《二十四城记》更大胆尝试了一种全新叙事结构，极具艺术实验色彩。影片以纪录片方式进入，就像贾樟柯钟爱的《史记》的刺客 列传，几笔白描就介绍了人物出场。随着影片展开，三代“厂花”演绎的人生命运与5段老厂工人的讲述穿插交织，虚构与真实完美融合。

　　贾樟柯说，从去年开始，用了1年多时间采访了100多位老工人，整理出了几十万字的采访笔记，收集他们的记忆。老工人分散的记忆最后集中到片中3个女性身上，上世纪50年代的吕丽萍、70年代的陈冲和现代的赵涛。三个人物的经历具有高度概括性。“这样的结构可以说既传统又具有实验色彩。采用典型环境、典型人物的经典叙事模式，但又大胆融入5个工人的回忆，103分钟的电影浓缩了一个时代。”

　　贾樟柯表示，拍摄之初设计的人物关系为：吕丽萍是赵涛的奶奶。随着拍摄进程深入，他果断地进行了修改，让每个人物独立出来，追求一种群像式的史诗感。

　　请女诗人做编剧

　　翟永明弥补我的缺陷

　　《二十四城记》是贾樟柯第一次邀请他人联合编剧，成都著名女诗人翟永明成了他最好的互补。贾樟柯说：“这部电影需要女性视角，又在成都拍摄。我特别感谢翟姐帮我完成了电影的本土化和女性化。从人物到空间，我都需要她来帮我完成从想象到具像，来弥补我的缺陷。”

　　翟永明是贾樟柯很早就很喜欢的一位诗人、一位老朋友。当年《东》在贾樟柯老家首映，翟永明就专程去捧场。贾樟柯透露：“我俩的工作方式很特别，不是先写，而是交谈。不谈剧情，而谈彼此的生活感受，在这种放松的心态下完成创作，最后下笔完成剧本感觉是种享受。”

　　据悉，台湾著名音乐人林强不仅担任配乐，更创作了主题曲《未来往哪里》，呼应影片的时代变迁的主题。

【更多故事】

Dujiangyan Parents' Search for Child

We found Fu Guanyu and her husband Wang Wei as they clung frantically to the long arm of a Hitachi excavator as it rumbled through the city of Dujiangyan.They were crying and seemed to be trying to pull the heavy machine, as if they could make it move faster toward their home. Their six-story apartment building had collapsed in the earthquake. Their toddler son, Wang Zhilu, was buried under the debris along with his grandparents. Mrs Fu broke down as she told me she still had hope their son would be found alive.

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The 2008 Olympic Games aren´t just a gathering of athletes, it´s also a showcase of the most innovative buildings and technologies like GreenPIX, the Zero Energy Media Wall by Simone Giostra & Partners and ARUP, pictured above.

This curtain wall covers the front of the Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympic Games. It features the worlds largest color LED display, powered by a photovoltaic system integrated into the glass curtain wall.

This Media Wall will showcase a selection of specially commissioned video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US, starting in May. Pictures, construction progress, diagrams and videos after the break.

Source: Arch Daily (click for more photos and videos) 

 

The court decision was delivered just now: all three cops were found NOT GUILTY on all charges.

 

这星期去上画廊管理的课（照taca的话说是nyu“成教部”），第一堂课得出的印象是：钱都让dealer们和secondary market那些炒作的挣走了，名气和self gratification都是艺术家的，就剩下curators啥也没捞到。于是乎，有些闷。。。这年头艺术馆类的机构型场所持续低迷，传统非营利的模式似乎再难长久，真不知道所谓“展览”的形式是否也会日益衰败，渐渐变为“嘉年华”的表演性质，最终沦为fair的附属品。也有些杞人忧天，艺术品从宗教圣品，逐步演变为上流社会奢侈品，再最终变为大众消费品。这不仅仅在其日益与商业成功媾和双赢的趋势中可以窥见端倪，也是人类社会越来越消费个人化、终端化的发展的具体显现。我其实不是艺术至上论者，不过当把它作为一件商业品经营的时候，其思索、策略必然会与艺术判断有冲突，会与合作的艺术家有分歧，curator夹在中间其实颇为尴尬。还是事不关己高高挂起的做个评论家比较容易，不过那不是我的性格。

也看了两篇京不特翻译的Kierkegaard，觉得他学丹麦语翻译哲学挺令人钦佩的，只是他的中文功底实在不咋地，翻译出来的东西如鲠在那个啥，看着极不舒服，可见翻译实在是难上加难的一件大功夫。

见到了taca小朋友，以及他的朋友大宝小朋友。还是那么积极向上，我很欣慰。虽然大宝对周杰伦很不耻，可我从侧面看着他，怎么觉得他好似个文艺版的“周杰伦？”

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接着第三茬看Stalker，又毅然决然义无反顾一丝不苟地睡着了，我绝望了。不知道taca和lake听到了会怎样的伤心，也罢。

我实在当腻了知心大姐、贴心小妹了，那些与感情骗子纠缠不休又不缠不罢休的姑娘姨婆们就别再跟我倾诉了，我实在没同情心奉送了。我再翻陈出新创意无限的递给您开导、安慰、警策，盖不住您给自己都早编好一套辩护词就等着我一开口好以守代攻以退为进的和我过招啊。我又不能一言不发，嗤的一声冷笑憋回您的话去。我可怎么办好呢？真着急了吧，是皇帝不急太监急。不急吧，是冷血无良非诤友。唉呀，您就饶了我吧。

也没那么严重，就是烦的。觉得时间被工作切割成无数不等份，思想也任人宰割。我的大脑被每秒钟滚动的世界新闻腌成了朝鲜泡菜。就想一头撞在白石灰涂的墙上。青春期的无因愤怒仿佛就在昨天，可是你已经老了吧，再也恨不起来吧？只想抱一抱、爱一爱了吧？

又在发神经了。

该地址的房地产广告会是大致如此：约800平方尺，底层，无窗，无暖气，洗手池下无下水道（需用水桶舀），不间断的交通噪音，一层污渍随处可见。这就是位于切尔西一隅的蜂蜜空间画廊。它从越来越高档的切尔西区的最后一撞未使用（未发展且未拆除）的旧厂房滋生出来。画廊无需付房租。门外没有标识。在11大道21街和22街之间的门脸看着有些像是墙上的一处断裂。画廊会大致遵守切尔西作息时间，周二至周六开门。不过，大多数时候不会有人接待。

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Via Alejandro

Bridge Art Fair Premiers in New York
Featuring 60 International exhibitors

Known for spectacular shows of emerging contemporary art in Chicago, London, and Miami, Bridge Art Fair proudly premiers its New York edition March 27–30, at the Waterfront, 222 12th Avenue, in the northern section of Manhattan's Chelsea gallery district. Concurrent with New York's celebrated Armory Show, Bridge New York will host more than 60 international exhibitors from such diverse locales as Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the United States. "We're very excited to premier Bridge in New York, "says founder Michael Workman, "It's the undisputed center of the art world, a city enthusiastic about the independent approach to art we have a built-in passion for."

Special Focus: Asia

Bridge New York marks the expansion of Bridge as an international focus showcase, premiering with a spotlight on Asian art. Invited galleries are participating from Taipei, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, and elsewhere across the Pacific Rim. Building on New York's annual Asian Contemporary Art Week, Bridge New York's Focus: Asia offers art collectors never-before-seen contemporary work from the East. 

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周末与坦克老师和老八结伴去上州Cold Spring的华人画家胡任乂（被鸡毛说成了胡人XX）的家里开春节聚会，去的人不少，【此处删去26字】。倒是开车的一路和坦克、老八聊天，不但八卦听到了一箩筐，【此处删去45字】而且得到了很多很好的建议，至少胜读了三、四年的书。譬如說，烧汤要等水开了才能放肉进锅。（至高无上的人生哲理）

真是金玉良言啊！我心里开心的不得了。晚上做梦梦到与坦克老师打赌吃桃子，五局三胜，我连赢三场，喜不自禁。也不知有什么讲头。

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Pretty amazing story (IMDb gave it 8.7 stars out of 10), although the characters in the movie seemed very concious of the camera (raising question whether it was directed performance or spontaneous action). More intriguing when watching it during this election year.

Watch it at China Digital Times or Youtube.

唉。。。

“请投我一票”，记录武汉某小学2年级3班的班长民主选举，是一部颇有新意的纪录片，IMDb的数据库在10颗星的等级里给了它8.7颗星。虽然影片中的人物似乎对镜头的存在过于适应，令人有些生疑其中是否有表演成分，但它总体的故事新鲜度和情节性仍令其甚是引人入胜，除了去年得了SilverDoc纪录片电影节的最佳纪录片奖，而且还入围了今年奥斯卡奖的最佳纪录片的15个候选人的shortlist。该影片可以在网上观看。导演：陈在军。

华氏零下15度，NND，冻死俺了！

 Photo by Eighthday

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