just ordered a kindle. I can still cancel in the next few hours I think... I'm having that "I just bought something really expensive I've wanted for a long time and I'm not sure if I regret it yet" feeling. On the one hand, I think it would be great not to have to worry about what reading material to bring on to BART. On the other hand, the two periodicals I actually do read on BART are not yet available for Kindle (Harpers and NYRB). Then again, NYT and The Nation are available. Nation is more political and less snarky, and I've often enjoyed it but didn't want yet another paper publication in my house. I'm also looking forward to getting free ebooks from Project Gutenberg. Poetry in my pocket!

It's getting a little bit colder, which of course means it's time for me to start humming and singing Christmas carols at the drop of a hat. Why do I love carols so? I really have no idea.

Make the yuletide gay!

Tags: christian, christmas, holidays

Try reading this aloud really slowly. I choked up in the third stanza.

Theme for English B
by Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you--
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me--who?>
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records--Bessie, bop, or Back.

I guess being colored doesn't make me not  like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white--
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
I guess you learn from me--
although you're older--and white--
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

Tags: poem

What is with the blatant redbaiting and racism going on in Fox News that pressured Van Jones to resign? WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Tags: politics, race

Beautifully drawn and well written comic about a bike store. Not *too* bike-geek-y.
http://www.yehudamoon.com

Tags: comics

There's an isolating point of view
that love's a game of making do
with anything that gets you through
someone else's defense.

Through manipulation and romances,
impressive paychecks, strong advances,
through anything but taking chances,
at least that my sense.

My alternative's benign neglect:
disingenuous and circumspect,
I disengage, dismiss, deflect
to avoid feeling defeated.

I'm sure that it's within the range
of our capacity for change
to expand our metaphoric range
and rule out being cheated.

We'll evolve,
let's resolve
that all of us get lucky together.
Yes, I said yes
the soul's redress:
that all of us get lucky together.

Tags: poem

What would life be like if you:

1) Knew there would be adequate and pleasant food, safety and shelter for you, your friends, and your family, no matter what you did or didn't do?
2) Knew you, your friends and your family would have appropriate, reliable health care, no matter what work you did or didn't do?
3) Knew that you would never experience violence or the threat of violence against you from institutions or the state, no matter who you were or became, or what you did or didn't do?
4) Had never been told that you had to do something, couldn't do something or were worth inherently more/less than other people because of some trait that you couldn't or did not want to change?

Tags: america, conflicted, ethics, idealism, musing, politics, work

So far so good. I've been sleeping earlier, overeating less, cleaning the house more, and reading a lot more. It's incredible what shutting off the noise machines for half a day every day can do.

The thing I miss the most is the radio and my morning commute podcasts.

At first it was difficult to clean the dishes without NPR on in the background. I was afraid that I'd get bored just standing in silence over the sink, or that I'd be grossed out if I truly had to pay attention to what I was doing (and what else is there to do when you're doing the washing up other than be bored or really examine the half-rotting-half-dried food particles on your dinnerware?).

But then I remembered that old Buddhist cliche about when you clean the dishes, clean the dishes. So I did it, and I paid attention, and yes, it was a bit gross, but it was also a little bit like meditation, and no, I did not become enlightened, but that itching itchy feeling that I needed my mind scratched by chatty NPR personalities did subside a little.

In the mornings I no longer block out the world by plugging my ears with podcasts. Instead, for the duration of my 10 to 15 minute walk I notice my neighborhood, the weather, the children being dropped off at kindergarten, the children gathering outside their middle school, joggers old and middle-aged. I also noticed that I was more alert to my internal world - this really was the biggest change. Without that intimate conversation from my ipod that feels like it's happening right inside my head, I actually noticed what was going on in my mind.

Then on the BART, almost the opposite experience, reading a book. It's so different reading a book, from listening to a podcast. With a podcast your eyes are still unoccupied, so your attention is divided. With a book, you dive in and you're just in that world and in that world, and you don't really come back out until the train starts to empty and you realize you're in the city.

At night, without television, my body is more able to assert itself and declare that it's time for sleep. Television's addictive "just one more episode" demand gone, I can feel the weight in my neck, the strong urge to lie down, the drive to not do any activity (I think this is the lure of TV - it seems to be a non-activity, and something easy to do when your body is trying to tell you to just stop doing stuff and go to bed).

Inspired by the Russian River trip, I've decided to try to give up electronic/electric media between the hours of 9pm and 9am for the next two weeks. I tried this once before and I liked it, even though I didn't stick with it. So from today until the 4th of August, no television, computer, radio, music between those hours.

Wish me luck!

If this goes well I may also go back to being vegan.

Summer is a time of getting round to doing those things that you never got round to doing. Like eating better, taking a vacation, joining a CSA and of course, reading (and re-reading) those books that you've always meant to read. Here's my summer reading list:

White Noise by Don Delillo
fuwang lent me this book years ago, and I've been meaning to finish it ever since. I keep starting and starting over again. This time I think it will take. I'm in just the right kind of mental place for a snarky postmodern apocalyptic romp.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
I've always thought that I should read something by Octavia Butler, one of the more celebrated authors whose speculative fiction that deals with issues of queerness and race. I've started on Parable of the Sower and am liking it so far.

The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
I read this during a phase in high school where I was reading almost anything I could get my hands on that was about or set in San Francisco. I was also going through a Samuel Beckett phase. I think I was caught in a place where I was delighting in the brutal fact that there was nothing other than this absurd life, but also sublimating my internalized need for a heaven (thanks largely to Christian primary and secondary school education) into a mythic San Francisco where gay beat poets made free love all day and all night in bay windows with views of the golden gate bridge. This book was one of my favorites from that period of my life, and I want to re-read it now to see how I react to it having now lived in the bay area for almost 10 years.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare
I haven't read this since high school, and I want to revisit it. It was the first Shakespeare play that I read without taking a class on it, and I loved taking my own time and developing ideas about the play that I could keep to myself instead of having to trot them out for the approval of an instructor or my peers.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
One of the if not the biggest (in size) book in our house as a child. I was impressed that my mother read the whole thing, and even more impressed that somebody with a clearly Asian name could write such a huge novel and have it be a bestseller. I think it's time for me to read it. Also I think I might be ready for a South Asian/diaspora writers phase, and this and The Golden Gate might be just the thing to jumpstart that.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
I've loved everything else she has written, and also, South Asian writers phase.

Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
I'm almost done with this and just need to finish it. Some non-fiction also to round out my list.

Secret Identities edited by Jeff Yang, Jerry Ma, Keith Chow, and Parry Shen
I've been meaning to pick up a copy of this for a while. I like comics and I'm interested in the minds of straight Asian American men (I think these editors are all straight. Someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Tags: book, list, lists, summer