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On Asian Pop Stars

mnimx — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:20:47 +0000

I’ve advanced my theory to several (so, two) people. A lot of stuff about how the innocence combined with sluttiness is the work of kpop industries looking for the right formula that’ll hook the most kids. How the intricately constructed personas of these superstars (and their combinations, their doctored appearances) is an elaborate ploy to give these kids some fantasy to latch on to. I guess the next question is, to what end? For what purpose? Or if that’s not a productive purpose – what would be the evolution of such an industry? How can it go anywhere, how might it open up to independent labels?

I’m Asian and I can’t even tell these pop stars apart. That is a bad thing, but I guess that is the essence of Asian pop. Very similar, very manufactured fantasies for the masses. Looking for a fix.

Broken-hearted girls are prettier

mnimx — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:35:39 +0000

When I go into metaphor mode, I like to interpret everything I hear as a metaphor, or skew it into that shape.

Holding on to a blue scooter, a girl says to her mother, I don’t want to wear my helmet.
Her mother says, do you know why you need to wear your helmet?
Yeah, but I’m not scootering!
Yes you are scootering.
No, I don’t want to scooter! I’m too hot!

And I go, little girl, aren’t we all, in a sense, too hot to scooter? But we must. In life, we must scooter.

* * *

Someone once said to me, broken-hearted girls are prettier.

How important do you think looks are?

“Crucial.”

Then, simple. We break our hearts as many times as we are able.

* * *

From a book I am barely reading: The universe conspires to give us what we want.

This is fiction. Partly accurate, wholly not.

The universe conspires.

Emerging Adulthood

mnimx — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:54:38 +0000

The more profound question behind the scholarly intrigue is the one that really captivates parents: whether the prolongation of this unsettled time of life is a good thing or a bad thing. With life spans stretching into the ninth decade, is it better for young people to experiment in their 20s before making choices they’ll have to live with for more than half a century? Or is adulthood now so malleable, with marriage and employment options constantly being reassessed, that young people would be better off just getting started on something, or else they’ll never catch up, consigned to remain always a few steps behind the early bloomers? Is emerging adulthood a rich and varied period for self-discovery, as Arnett says it is? Or is it just another term for self-indulgence?

[...]

Keniston’s description of “youth” presages Arnett’s description of “emerging adulthood” a generation later. In the late ’60s, Keniston wrote that there was “a growing minority of post-adolescents [who] have not settled the questions whose answers once defined adulthood: questions of relationship to the existing society, questions of vocation, questions of social role and lifestyle.” Whereas once, such aimlessness was seen only in the “unusually creative or unusually disturbed,” he wrote, it was becoming more common and more ordinary in the baby boomers of 1970. Among the salient characteristics of “youth,” Keniston wrote, were “pervasive ambivalence toward self and society,” “the feeling of absolute freedom, of living in a world of pure possibilities” and “the enormous value placed upon change, transformation and movement” — all characteristics that Arnett now ascribes to “emerging adults.”

NYT: What Is It About 20-Somethings?

My mind distills a very pure emotion, reading this.

Fear.

We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.

The whole idea of milestones, of course, is something of an anachronism; it implies a lockstep march toward adulthood that is rare these days. Kids don’t shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace. Some never achieve all five milestones, including those who are single or childless by choice, or unable to marry even if they wanted to because they’re gay. Others reach the milestones completely out of order, advancing professionally before committing to a monogamous relationship, having children young and marrying later, leaving school to go to work and returning to school long after becoming financially secure.

Even if some traditional milestones are never reached, one thing is clear: Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why? That’s the subject of lively debate among policy makers and academics. To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to.

JEFFREY JENSEN ARNETT, a psychology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., is leading the movement to view the 20s as a distinct life stage, which he calls “emerging adulthood.” He says what is happening now is analogous to what happened a century ago, when social and economic changes helped create adolescence — a stage we take for granted but one that had to be recognized by psychologists, accepted by society and accommodated by institutions that served the young.

A tumble

mnimx — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:51:45 +0000

Dear Y,

I took a tumble today. The irony of it: it was my last ride! The rain was misting down and the ground must have been slippery. I was on a steep downhill, and it was an old road bike. The path curved away down to the left. On that bit my wheel went from under me and I just slammed down, still going fast.

It was scary as fuck. Afterwards I realized I didn’t have a helmet. Amazingly, I don’t seem to have broken anything, but no doubt I’ll be colorful for a few weeks. I landed on my left side, so the pain is in my hip and shoulder. There’s a scratch on my left elbow. Can you believe? I’m practically unscathed. My imagination is starting to run away: the pain must be a quiet beast, waiting in the dark, and when I’m not paying attention it’ll rear up and make me scream.

Now that I’m all right, I keep thinking about it. I was getting cocky, I suppose. I’m on an island, Jesus!… five miles long and three miles wide. How could anything happen to me?

Y! I have some stars to thank, now.

I could have lost my face.

Dear X

mnimx — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:44:28 +0000

I’m on a small island, 5 miles by 3 miles. I’m by myself, living in a caravan, on a croft. When you look at a caravan, you realize a fundamental thing: it’s a caravan. There’s no running water or electricity. It’s a tiny, one-room deal, and a tall person couldn’t stand up straight (fortunately, that’s not a problem for me). When I first got here I kind of went into shock. I’ve never been so isolated; I totally underestimated the internet/cell phones and how much they surrounded me with this bubble of connectedness all the time. But I got over it, and now I’m okay. I mean, there are people here, but they live here and we don’t really talk. The Isle of Eigg is really a place to go with friends. I wish I had a dog – it’d make me feel so much better. Instead of walking alone on the beach, I can walk with a dog. There are a lot of chickens that hang around my little stoop. I get my water from an outside sink. There’s a compost toilet. Showering costs $4, so I haven’t showered. I snuck into a neighboring cabin to send this to you, no joke.

The island is really beautiful, though. Everywhere I go is beautiful. I have a little red bicycle that gets me around the island. There’s a bay that I swim in, in the morning. You can see right across to the neighboring isle, which is a nature preserve for the most part. It’s a breathtaking swim (literally; the water is very cold). The sand shimmers in the afternoon. Today I took a two hour hike to one of the peaks, and I could see everything. The bay, the ocean, the neighboring island, the cliffs, the pasture, the rolling hills blanketed in these fern-like bushes. Absolutely beautiful shades of green. Also, from the top I could see all the way down to the beach, and some of the sound floated up to reach me. Laughing kids, and that sort of thing. and I could see them (like ants) splashing around, and of course they had a dog running around with them. I do wish you were here. I’m sure this is the kind of place you’d like. It’s not tropical – so it’s not hot and humid. The temperature is lovely; it’s a non-tropical, Hebridean paradise.

Fuck you, Massachusetts

mnimx — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:13:41 +0000

Maybe the worst day of the summer. Maybe the trigger for me forever hating Boston, and Massachusetts. Entitled people and one-way streets – currently on my jetblacklist. Rotaries are almost on there.

I can’t describe. I believe I experienced the blinding essence of the word “harrowing” today, and a nervous breakdown would be nice. Just to get it out of my system.

In sum:

the “vacation”: shambles.
my mother: miserable and pouting.
driving in boston: harrowing.
“massholes”: factual.
all my sensibilities: offended.
my sanity: gossamer.
desire to be home: prodigious.

Inception

mnimx — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:32:39 +0000

Got back from watching Inception.

Here’s my mother’s review: “No. It’s too crazy! This is why your generation is so crazy.”

Now I’m interested in directors. Christopher Nolan is a legend – he did Dark Knight, Prestige, and this? You have to be everything – smart, artistic, subtle, keen.

Here’s what I mean: He understands how to direct crises. Traumatic events, epiphanies, whatever. He knows that it’s not about the crucial moment, it’s not about the fact of. It’s the moment right before it, and right after it that matter. They make the movie.

In Prestige, it’s the moment after Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) finds out Alfred Borden’s (Christian Bale) secret. In the classic, Disney way of doing it, the villain is crushed, and he dies or loses his kingdom or in some way or other is kicked out of glory. All it means is that the villain loses. But not in this case. In this case, you see every single glass-paned box, and you realize what it means now. Now, everything has changed. Now, Angier looks back and realizes. And you, the viewer, feel immediately how much he has lost – it’s so much more than the competition. It is human, and terrible, loss. We are not super-villains, but we all fear death, and we can imagine the sentiment: “I have done something terrible beyond all description.” I’ve forgotten a lot of the movie, but I haven’t forgotten that scene.

And here in Inception, this is the scene I can’t forget: Mal commits suicide.

Only it’s not about the actual suicide. It’s the entire scene done spotlessly. DiCaprio’s face – he, watching her fall like he can’t take his eyes off her (there are a lot of ways to do it… sit paralyzed, look away… but what he did was totally in character, completely Cobb), and his “Jesus Christ” – I could watch that piece of acting over and over. Kudos to DiCaprio there, did I mention I think he’s great? And then the moment right before the fall. The shoe falls off her foot, and the camera watches it fall. The stakes, everything this suicide means, are all in that motion – they are all in that motion.

And we have to acknowledge that he assembles the greatest casts. They are always perfect.

So there, I’ve gushed. I don’t think the film is flawless, which I have to recognize (grudgingly) when my friends and I talk about it afterwards. But I think most of the mistakes are just the equivalent of typos in my mind. The development of the “limbo” idea is too weak considering its importance, and I am not a great fan of the ending. But I just thought the movie was strong, brilliant, challenging and new. I completely admire the independence he has – complete artistic control, as far as I know, from the writing all the way to the filming. A monolith. Amazing.

The perfect day

mnimx — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:06:07 +0000

Ended a little late, but:

Work.
A perfect lunch sandwich. (I discovered the kids menu at ABP! Actually I discovered that it was good. Chicken saaaaandwich, the perfect size, $4.xx for the whole meal.)
More work. I do speech writing. I like speech writing. Not for my boss, but in general.
Leave work for a 50 minute bike ride to Metrorock.
Get lost. It takes 90 minutes.
Bouldering with Becky. SO MANY ROUTES!
Bike back. It takes maybe 30 minutes.
Stop and buy 2 pounds of strawberries (Two boxes for four dollars! Cha-ching!)
At home: some more sandwich loving. (Did you think leftover Panera could be so good? Ohhhh yeah. And half a pound of strawberries. And baked lays. And ice cream. How did I manage to have the perfect combination of food, living the way I live?)
Finish the speech, send it at midnight.
Curl up in bed with Steve Carell. (In other words, I watch “40-year-old-virgin”. GOTCHA! No, I know. Anyway I want to watch everything he has ever been in after that New Yorker profile.)

Water tastes delicious. My stomach is happy and full. (Like a god damn hamster.) I’m browned and scruffy-haired like a little rice paddy boy. I’m not even going to bother doing thesis or GRE stuff. I’m just going to watch this, and fall asleep around 3.

Contentment is IN THE HAUS.

(Woop woop. Sigh.)

One step past malaise.

mnimx — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:52:21 +0000

Summer is tiring again, summer is anxious again. Suddenly everything is a little more morbid, a little life-threatening. I need to go out and do something active, I think. Have a human encounter.

My Job

mnimx — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:44:32 +0000

Things I’m learning on the job:

Adobe Illustrator.

Adobe Flash.

Basic animation.

Prezi, motherfuckers. All day, every day.

What’s wrong with the state of education. (It being a tradeoff between serving more people and serving each person less well… is an understatement. And not even accurate, really.)

“The inner workings of a nonprofit organization.”

Personalities in a nonprofit organization, and how to deal with them.

Working from home is not so bad.

Working from home really sucks.

When you live by yourself, you eat poorly. There’s no reason to bake a pizza.

Never get intimidated. 90% of the time, it’s 100% arrogance.