The Misanthropic Hippie

The Midnight Gimbap Ajumma

2010-02-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

Last week we went post-bar to U & Me Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. I'd been there before for daytime dim sum, but never at 3am. U & Me is a restaurant that has been dinged with numerous healthy violations over the years but still manages to stay in business. And business was good Saturday night-- the place was full of loud people warding off a Sunday morning hangover with fried noodles and ginger beef. A middle-aged Chinese lady was our server. At first I thought that this nice woman shouldn't be putting up with hungry louts when she could be sleeping. Then I thought of the money the restaurant was raking in and didn't feel bad. Drunk people order enthusiastically and tip well.

This lady put me in mind of another I encountered in Korea. English teachers sated their 3-am hunger at a place called Gimbap Chon-guk, a 24-hour "snack" restaurant near the foreigner bar in downtown Gwangju. You could get spicy kimchi soups and tuna gimbap and rice bowls here for cheap. I believe every after-hours foray I made into this place was attended by the presence of the famous Midnight Gimbap Ajumma. She was a short haired lady, around forty, heavy white face make-up, and a mean countenance. This ajumma took no shit from the drunken waygooks who interrupted her work shift. She'd verbal abuse the men in Korean; however, its possible that this abuse was her way of flirting. She was quite taken with our friend Mike, his blond hair and big blue eyes. She kept coming over to look at him and comment under her breath. After time she might accord to her regulars some grudging respect, especially to those who could speak some Korean.

Snowshoeing

2010-01-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went snowshoeing for the first time. We did an easy 4.5 km route, the Penstock Trail in Peter Lougheed Park, Kananaskis. The tall pines and the snow and the glimpses of mountain peak made the forest path a glittery fairy trail. And then we stepped from the trees into an open area and all went "Ah..." as the entire mountain came into view.

My idea of shoeshoeing from childhood was of giant wooden shoes atop atop deep untouched drifts of snow. The reality was compact aluminum-frame shoes on well-trodden trails. Walking in them was almost the same as walking in boots, so I didn't have to learn any new technique like I would for skiing.

Any new outdoor pursuit makes me apprehensive, as I am naturally wimpy (as I had to endure too many forced excursions in my junior high Outdoor Ed days). Now that I'm an adult now, and it's my choice, it's nice to finally enjoy working up a sweat. Actually I didn't find it very taxing; my quad muscles must be built up from trekking up Cemetery Hill every day to work.

It was a bright warm day, and the snow was all white and shiny. I guess I got my vitamin D.

Kijiji Addict

2009-12-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

I moved into my new apartment two weeks ago. Lacking furniture, I turned to Kijiji. I am now hooked.

Used to be I would turn on my computer and immediately check my email. Then Facebook came along, and I would constantly refresh to check for new messages and wall postings. Usually there wasn't much, some status updates, maybe something in my inbox. But on Kijiji, every minute there are new postings. I am rewarded every time I press F5! I can sit and peruse for--yes--hours. I addicted!

In the past week I've bought stuff from five sellers:

1. Folding wooden chair, some plates, half-full box of Kosher salt - $13

2. Small wooden Ikea table and two matching chairs - $20

3. Four wicker storage boxes and three pillows from India - $55

4. Dark wood bookcase with legs and built-in light - $40

5. Retro Technics audio receiver - $45

Most of the sellers lived downtown, so I could pick up the stuff and carry it home. My brother-in-law and boss helped me move the bookcase/table in their cars. And the receiver I bought from the trunk of a car at Shawnessy LRT station at 9pm. Sketchy!

I'm still looking for a double bed frame and a loveseat.

Plastic Containers

2009-11-19T14:57:00.001-08:00

Despite the recent trendiness of inconvenient truths and calls to ban the plastic bag, I still sometimes find my attempts at greenness thwarted.

I like the food at little cafeteria down the block from where I work. I kept my plastic containers from the last time I got take-out there, and brought them with me today. But when I presented them at the counter, the young woman working there was unaccommodating. First she tried to recycle them. Then when I insisted that I wanted to reuse them, she just gave them back to me (so that I could reuse them elsewhere?). Finally I explained that I wanted her to put my food in them, then and there. By that time she wasn't so friendly and I was feeling foolish.

I don't feel mad at her, as working customer service is a drag (at least I always found it to be) and I was making her job more complicated. Plus, as my sister pointed out, restaurants probably have a health code to follow that doesn't allow the reuse of disposable containers.

Everyone has jumped on the plastic bag bandwagon, but I wager that much more plastic and paper is tossed into the dump everyday because of food packaging from take-out and fast food restaurants than from Safeway bags. Styrofoam (again, according to my sister) isn't even recyclable in the city of Calgary. But try to show up with your own Tupperware and you'll get weird looks and little cooperation.

When I lived in Korea, I learned sufficient survival Korean to order food delivered to my apartment. A young man would ride up on his motorcycle, bring the food to my door and collect the money. When I was done eating, I'd put my reusable plastic plates and bowls out in the hallway. A while later, they'd be gone, picked up by the same delivery man. Now, I assume this was done to save money, not the environment, as two motorcycle trips were required, and the food always came in plastic bags. Even so, it demonstrates another possibility.

In Taiwan, according to my friend who taught there, most Taiwanese carry a set of personal collapsible chopsticks around with them in a little pouch. I think this is done because the cleanliness of restaurant chopsticks is always suspect (they're not wrapped in paper like they are here). Still, I've never met anyone who carries her own fork and knife in her handbag.

Is there a way we could make reusable plates, bowls and utensils work for take-out in Canada?

Emmylou Harris

2009-11-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

Last night I got a call at 6pm from my friend. "What are you doing tonight?" He had an extra ticket to the Emmylou Harris show at the Jack Singer. Row B! And free, 'cause he was writing a review. Hot dog!

I'll never get to see Gram Parsons play, but now I've seen Emmylou up close singing "Return of the Grievous Angel." I'll take it.

Fish Head

2009-11-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

My strange nephew wanted to be a fish for Halloween. My niece wanted to be Hannah Montana. I like to think my nephew takes after me and that my niece is exhibiting traits from the other side of the family.

I fashioned a catfish head out of paper mache, sparkly foam and pipe cleaners. I also passed on the "Fish Heads" song to another generation.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

2009-11-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

Just like Susan Sarandon, I lost my Rocky Horror virginity to a sweet transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania.

I'd never seen it before, but I knew enough to be prepared. I made up prop bags of rice, toast, water gun, newspaper and party hats. I left out the toilet paper because I'd rather keep it to use rather than throw it around a movie theatre. When we walked into the Plaza it was packed to the walls. There were men in corsets and lots of wigs. It was a loud crowd too, singing along to the Time Warp, and especally excited when Tim Curry made his first appearance descending from the elevator. Tim Curry, in the corset, and the make-up, and the big hair, and those lips...ah. Delicious.

Come time for the rain scene, we put the newspapers over our heads and squirted away with the water gun. My gun was superior since I procured it from my nephew instead of buying a cheapy one at the theatre. I could squirt much farther than my neighbours. Later on rolls of TP sailed through the air with long papery tails, some achieveing considerable loft. Rolls landed near us so we could take part in the throwing.

There was a group of "actors" who got up onto the stage in front of the screen and interacted with the movie. They would mirror what was going on on screen, or go up to the actor and do suggestive things. There's a shot near the end where the camera rotates around and around in a dizzy whirl. Four actors got up and "pushed" the screen around in a circle. It was effective.

My friend went home with rice in her pants and I am still discovering confetti stars in random places, lie my socks (which is really pokey). I am certainly ready to do the Time Warp again.

John Prine

2009-10-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

I saw John Prine at the Jack Singer last night!!! I was grinning and laughing and singing and aching in my heart so much that I got a headache.

I wrote a review for Beatroute, which they didn't publish. Beatroute is in my bad book.

Anyway, the show:

John Prine has been combining three chords and the truth since the early seventies, when he was hailed as "the next Dylan", but the man on the auditorium stage this rainy Monday night was no graceful elder statesman of country-rock. Looking like a Beatle in his black suit, and hoisting a big-bodied acoustic guitar, he skipped onstage to an explosion of applause, shouts and whistles. Backed up by his band on electric guitar and upright bass, Prine started immediately into "Spanish Pipe Dream"."We're feeling a bit frisky tonight!" he confessed, kicking out his leg and doing the twist whenever the music moved him. I've never experience such a boisterous, excited atmosphere in the Jack Singer.

Prine and his band delivered songs from his rich back catalogue, including favourites like "Please Don't Bury Me". Of note was a slow, introspective version of "Angel From Montgomery", with mandolin and a haunting electric guitar solo. Partway through the evening, Prine performed a set of solo acoustic songs, which put the focus on his direct, often humourous, and sometimes heart-breaking lyrics, as in the songs "Donald and Lydia" and "Sam Stone". Prine's band rejoined him for a fully electric rockabilly rave-up on "Bear Creek Blues". After almost two hours, the evening culminated with "Lake Marie", a nine-minute-long song of love and death, with spoken verses that always returned to the chorus, "Standing by peaceful waters, whoa wah oh wah oh!" You could say Prine took us to church.

Opening act Sarah Watson, formerly of Nickel Creek, joined John Prine for the encore. Her clear, plaintive voice blended well with Prine's rough croon on the songs "In Spite of Ourselves" and "Paradise".

Set list:

Spanish Pipe Dream
The Torch Singer
Picture Show
Six O'Clock News
Mystery Song!!!
Please Don't Bury Me
Whistle & Fish
The Glory of True Love
Crazy as a Loon
Angel From Montgomery
Souvenirs
The Frying Pan
Donald & Lydia
That's the Way the World Goes Round
Sam Stone
Bear Creek Blues
Saddle in the Rain
Hello in There
Lake Marie
ENCORE (with Sarah Watkins):
In Spite of Ourselves
The Late John Garfield Blues
Paradise

Dalai Lama

2009-10-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

I went to see the Dalai Lama when he came to the Saddledome in September. When we got there, there were huge line-ups outside for the bag check and security. To pass the time we discussed whether the Lama rode around town in a Lama-mobile, like the Pope. When we finally got to the check, they made me take out my empty Nalgene bottle, just so I'd be compelled to buy overpriced bottled water. I was tricky though, and put down the bottle in a place where I could snatch it back when the security people weren't looking.

I bought my tickets months ago, when they went on sale, for about $70 a piece. Do you think our seats were even remotely good? We were in the nosebleeds. It's a good thing the Dalai Lama is so brimming with positive chi that it reached even us.

The event was hosted by Sandra Oh and Mark Tewksbury. Sandra Oh was pleasant but stumbled over her words a few times. Then there was some aboriginal music, a presentation by elementary school students and singing and dancing by Tibetan youth. My nephew has a Tibetan school friend that lives in our neighbourhood. I like walking by his house because for a long time there was a big line of prayer flags strung across the back yard. I made a joke that he will be the next Lama but my sister thinks he lacks the necessary temperament. Anyway he was supposedly to have taken part in the singing, but we didn't see him there.

So the Dalai finally came out all wrapped in his robe and took a seat on the stage. He had an interpreter to help him out, but he was pretty good with the English. It was just broken enough to give it a charming touch of the esoteric and Eastern.

The Lama didn't impart any new, profound insights. He just reiterated the ancient principles of loving the people around you and pursuing peace.

He was very conversational. He made jokes. Before the Q & A time, he said, "I welcome all serious questions. But if you ask a silly question, I may become...irritated." One question was "How do you see yourself?" He answered, "Some people call me living Buddha or god king. I am just another human being."

The Dalai Lama did seem very human, and I think that is his special power. Despite the robes and the myth and cult of personality, he really seems like reasonable, down-to-earth, normal person. The only difference is he's figured it out, and he gives off that palpable energy of contentment. Few people posses that quality.

Film Fest

2009-10-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

The Calgary International Film Festival is over and I saw a total of thirteen films. I would have seen more but I got a cold and confined myself to the couch for the last few days of the Fest. My personal best for films-watched-in-a-day was four. I was powered by the matcha smoothie I had at lunch.

Thirteen films:

Accidents Happen: Gina Davis in an indie film set in seventies American suburbia. Everything that can go wrong to her family does, including a car crash, coma, divorce, and death (multiple). Still scrapes by as a comedy.

Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodovar's latest, a love square (?) involving Penny Cruz. A blind filmmaker thinks back on a love affair doomed by betrayal and jealousy.

The Clone Returns Home: It's the future and the Japanese have invented (but not perfected) human cloning technology. An astronaut dies in space; he is resurrected as a grown man, but with the mind of his childhood self. Haunted by memories of his twin brother, he runs away to the remote countryside. Beautiful and sad.

Daytime Drinking: A group of Korean men make drunken plans for a trip out of town. The next day, only one man shows up at the destination. His attempts to make the best of the situation result in boredom, drinking soju, eating noodles, getting conned, losing his pants, drinking soju, heartbreak, being really cold, fighting, and drinking soju. Reminiscent of some real weekends I spent in SoKo.

Karaoke: A film about a young Malaysian's return from the city to his home on a palm oil plantation. What's interesting is not the narrative but the way the camera is allowed to linger seemingly forever on its subject: a worker on a huge pile of palm leaves, man walking through a forest, the singers in a karaoke bar. Compelling despite the fact that not much happens.

Made in China: A young American has dreams of making it big as an inventor of novelty items (the snake in a can, pet rock, slinky, fake poo, ect.). He leaves his trailer park for Shanghai, where he hopes to have his idea manufactured. His naivete is fortunately matched by his tenacity, as he gets lost, get conned, gets on the wrong train, gets beaten up. And he loses his pants. The big reveal of his novelty idea comes near the end and makes all the trouble worth it.

Miao Miao: A Taiwanese teenage girl befriends a Japanese exchange student. Much mooning over unrequited crushes, as well as baking of cakes.

Nonko

Animated Shorts: Various animation techniques from different countires. The best was "The Little Puppet Boy" from Sweden. Crude claymation tells the epic three-part story of a young man and his visit from a lady friend (they watch a video and eat chips). It's brilliant.

Smash Cut: Intentionality campy horror flick about a movie director who makes unintentionally campy horror flicks (he "makes Ed Wood look like Orson Welles"). Lots of over-the-top deaths and cheesy dialogue.

Tetro: Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in forever. Gorgeous in black and white, it tells the complicated relationship of two brothers. Vincent Gallo as the tortured and moody older brother, just my type. Set in Argentina, including a trip to Patagonia.

White On Rice

Winnebago Man: I'd never seen it, but for years people have been sharing on video tape, and more recently posting on Youtube, outtakes from an eighties TV advertisement featuring a foulmouthed Winnebago salesman. One fan tracked down the man behind the myth and made a documentary about him.

Modern Dance

2009-09-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

My best friend in university did her degree in modern dance. We went to all sorts of shows together over those four years. I liked modern dance better than ballet or jazz because it got below the pretty, elegant surface of the art to explore darker themes. I saw the beautiful juxtaposed with the grotesque, elegance with awkwardness, peace with violence. The performances that moved me the most were the ones that disturbed me.

So when I saw that Marie Chouinard was coming through town I bought my ticket right away. I'd seen this company three times already over the past eight years. They're wicked.

The show was based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The dancers first entered the stage wearing gold nipple pasties and making low moans. Soon after there was a full-on orgy involving fur hats and strap-ons, set to driving horn music. The dancers, male and female, remained nearly nude throughout the show. I was in the front row, very close to the naked action. I can't say that I felt comfortable, especially when the dancers made eye contact with the audience.

To show Orpheus and Eurydice's journey out of the underworld, Eurydice started climbing over the audience seats, creating a loud spectacle as she did it. Dancers on the stage implored the audience, "Don't look back! You there in the red glasses, I see you looking!" I found my urge to look back and watch the show hampered by my equal desire to avoid getting singled out in a room of hundreds of people.

The choreography itself was very strong, dynamic and well-performed, which kept the performance from crossing the line into gratuitous titillation. Two of the dancers, Lucie Mongrain and Carol Prieur, I have seen in the company's past performances. Each possesses a compelling personality. I couldn't look away from them whenever they were on the stage.

Since I've given up my regular trips to the Korean bath house, I've missed being around naked people. This show will have to tide me over.

Japanese Films

2009-09-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

I am a Japanese Film Community Outreach Volunteer for the Calgary International Film Festival. That means I get to put up posters in sushi restaurants and watch DVD screeners before the films show in theatres. The second part is the one I prefer.

So far I've watched Nonko, White on Rice and The Clone Returns Home. Nonko brought back memories of my visit to Japan, the clean tranquility of its shrines and countryside. Nobuko lives with her parents at the Shinto shrine they manage in a small city. Despite the fact that she lives in paradise, she's reticent, rude, drinks to much and doesn't have any real friends. She's an ex-TV/B-movie/porn actress (the movie doesn't really specify), single and pushing forty. She is not fulfilling her societal role, as is made clear by her strained relationship with her sister, who does have the husband and the child. Both her past and potential futures come to visit Nobuko in the form of two men, one her ex-husband and "business manager", and the other a young man named Masaru who wants to set up a stall at the shrine for the upcoming June Purification Festival. Masaru is an itinerant, a social misfit who wants "to see the world", even though the film barely leaves the confines of the city. Despite his persistence, the local yakuza boss won't let Masaru set up his stall. There's a scene near the end, where Masaru loses it during the festival after being humiliated by the other stall operators. He ends up knocking over his boxes of baby chickens, and he and Nobuko stand surrounded by a sea of fluffy yellow chicks. Both with nothing left to lose, but ankle-deep in new life.

White on Rice's protagonist is also divorced, forty-ish and very socially awkward. Yet he is irrepressible in his search for a new love. Hijime ("Jimmy") lives with his sister and her family in the USA. Jimmy was a fish out of water even when he lived in Japan. When a co-worker suggests a date with a Japanese woman, he replies, "No Japanese! My own people won't have me." Jimmy falls for his brother-in-law's niece, and has eyes only for her, even when at a Halloween party he gets hit on by an attractive young Asian-American woman (in a banana costume, no less). The movie spends time exploring all the characters in Jimmy's family, including his young nephew Bob, a serious boy who lends money and gives dating advice to his uncle. Bob operates a lawn-mowing business and plays classical piano at a neighbour's house, unbeknownst to his parents. Jimmy's hapless ineptitude forces his sister and brother-in-law to deal with their own issues and flaws. The film finds its funniest moments in the ironies that arise when cultures mix. Jimmy takes his Korean date to a Japanese restaurant, where they are waited on by a white man in a hachimaki headband. This same character later on comes to the aid of the family during a crisis, as might the hero of a martial arts movie. It reminds me of my time in Korea, eating birthday cake with chopsticks and kimchi with a fork.

Zombie Walk

2009-09-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

I participated in my first Zombie Walk this weekend. It was in Medicine Hat, a small city built into the hills and coulees of southeastern Alberta. The downtown is filled with historic brick buildings. And there's a wicked Value Village.

Some people spent a lot of time and thought on their costumes, with latex flesh on their faces and homemade props and costumes. My friend and I, I think we made out well with the ten hurried minutes we spent at VV's. I was looking for one of those structured, off-the-shoulder satin prom dresses from the eighties that seem to crowd the formal dress section of most thrift stores. But, shockingly, there wasn't one to be found! Is it because the eighties are cool again? Anyways I found a nice brimmed hat with flowers and paired it with a long pink lacy number with puffed sleeves. I thought I looked elegant. My friend bought bicycle shorts and a leather vest.

Off to Safeway, where he attempted to buy cow's blood. It wasn't a go, so he bought a steak and tore off a chunk with a nice stringy vein, which he used to suspend the meat from between his teeth. This prompted a discussion of the raw beef restaurant down the street from my apartment in Korea. That place was so delicious.

Finally, and just in time, we made it to Tank Park, where a friendly zombie volunteer splattered me with cornstarch blood. She wiped it all over my chin and let it drip down my lacy decolletage. According to the Medicine Hat News, there were about 150 of us gathered. We took off down the sidewalk at noon. Considering that all were supposedly zombie enthusiasts, I was disappointed with the lack of leg-dragging, stumbling, lolling heads, outstretched arms and diabolic moans. Most people just walked like they were still of the living. I did my best to act repulsive.

Partway through the walk we met up with a biker show-and-shine. There must have been hundreds of motorcycles, because it took about twenty minutes for their parade to pass ours as we travelled in opposite directions. We were well-behaved zombies, obeying traffic signals, leaving civilians unmolested, occasionally pressing up against storefronts and stopped cars (only if the people inside seemed into it).

A few times I've had people ask me why we did the walk. To one woman, as we waited, bloodied, at the bus stop, I replied, "To raise zombie awareness!" Which wasn't meant as flippantly as it sounds. Because a Zombie Walk is a comment on the state of the world, a metaphor of society's herd-like, violent, consumerist tendencies. It's a chance to legally and publicly defy social conventions with like-mined people. But really...it's mostly just for kicks. It sure is fun to dress up.

Uuuuuuuuurrrrggghhhh.

Legalese

2009-09-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

I recently got my massage license from the City of Calgary. Reading through the thirteen-page bylaw document, I found some nuggets:

2. (o) "Massage" means the physical external manipulation of the soft tissue of the human body, in a scientific and systematic manner by another natural person for the purpose of therapy or relaxation.

2. (s) "Natural person" means an individual human being.

14. (5) (c) No licensee shall arrange for the distribution, publication or posting of any advertisement that describes or depicts any portion of the human body that would reasonably suggest to prospective clients that any service is available other than a massage.

14. (7) (e) No person shall perform a massage unless clothed in clean, washable, non-transparent clothing covering the area from neck to mid-thigh.

I also noticed that the title of the bylaw spells "license" with an s, but the word is spelt "licence" throughout the rest of the document. I can't help it, I used to be a copy editor.

Ponyo

2009-09-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

If I am a good aunt it might only be for the fact that I got my niece and nephew into Studio Ghibli films. It started two years ago when we watched "My Neighbour Totoro" together. The two little kids sat mesmerized by this foreign-language film (I read the subtitles to them). We've watched it a bunch of times since then, as well as "Spirited Away". (Tried "Kiki's Delivery Service" but my Thai pirated DVD wouldn't work.) Since I got back from Asia in the spring, I've been gearing the kids up for the latest one, "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea".

I've been excited about this movie for over a year, since its release in Japan. I have no excuse not to have seen it since I was in Korea and Japan last year. I guess I was preoccupied. I downloaded it when I got back to Canada, but we never got around to watching it because, unlike me, my niece and nephew have busy social lives. Anyways in August it was released in North American theatres. Disney got their hands on it and dubbed it into English. Hannah Montana's sister and the little brother of the Jonas brothers got the main speaking parts. Truly!

Ponyo, fortunately, was mostly immune to Disneyfication. It was obscenely cute and extraordinarily weird. Everything a Miyazaki film should be.

I should mention that Disney did manage to ruin things just a bit, at the very end. Miyazaki films have charming theme songs sung by what sounds like real Japanese children, not sexed-up tweenaged popstars. Over Ponyo's end credits, we heard a suitably sweet English version of the song. Which part way through turned into a ROCK RAP REMIX . That's when we left the theatre.

Fox Creek

2009-08-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

When I was thirteen I lived in a northern Alberta oil town called Fox Creek. The population is about 2000. The average person has no real reason to know the town even exists, so I get a little excited when it gets any kind of mention in the media.

The Edmonton Journal has a story today about a spree of break-ins happening in the town, about 35 in two weeks. To the rescue: the Fox Creek Citizens on Patrol Association! They drive around town in their cars, quads and pick-ups looking for no-good activities.

There' no doubting the commitment of these Fox Creekers. According to the Journal, "there have been so many eyes on the street that RCMP on Friday responded to several false alarms where a slow-moving citizen patrol group has called the RCMP about another slow-moving citizen patrol group perceived as acting suspiciously."

There was also concern, with the number of hunters and golfers in the town, that things could get ugly. Nine iron to the side of the head!

Corn Maze

2009-08-27T10:28:00.001-07:00

I was without sufficient distraction on Saturday afternoon so I phoned my friend to see what was up. "It's my cousin's birthday," she said. "Want to go to a corn maze?" So we jumped on a rented short bus (fully stocked with beer) and drove southeast of the city to the Calgary Corn Maze. The maze is apparently the size of ten football fields and shaped like a t-rex.

How do they do that? Do they have to hire professional engineers and a helicopter, because that seems really complex. Maybe they have a secret deal with the crop circle aliens.

The maze had two phases. The goal was to locate a bunch of numbered posts in the correct order. There were farm animal-related trivia questions to tell us what direction to take from each post, but it didn't seem to help because we only found a couple of the posts and not in order. Mostly we just wandered around drinking beer and making random decisions (there's some sort of analogy there, I think...). We eventually stumbled upon the exit. There were signs telling us not to eat the corn. I gave in at the end and tore off the leaves and tassels until I got too the tiny yellow ear at the centre. Fresh baby corn is like candy.

Lovable

2009-08-23T09:54:00.001-07:00

This came out last month but I just recently read about it.

A study done by researchers from the Universities of Waterloo and New Brunswick demonstrated that "trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are."

In the study, participants with both low and high self-esteem were asked to write down how they were feeling over the course of four minutes. One group was asked to think the thought "I am lovable" when prompted to at 15-second intervals. The results were that the "I am lovable" low self-esteemers felt worse after the four minutes than those who weren't instructed to think that thought.

I can't think of anything that would make me feel more pathetic than forcing myself to think "I am lovable". Talk about a Jennifer Aniston complex.

Thinking happy thoughts when I am anything but doesn't help me. I remember having a particularly bad day a couple of years ago: I had a headache and I was tired and had been feeling crappy for months. I had my head down on my desk, trying to get through the day. My co-worker offered the advice: "You just need to think positively!" I could have throttled her.

Hutterite hair

2009-08-16T22:29:00.001-07:00

I was looking at a photo essay of the Rocky View Hutterite Colony and it's got me breaking the tenth commandment. Hutterite girls have the best hair and I'm totally coveting it! (The women might have nice hair too but it's hidden under a scarf.) They have these beautiful, tight, elaborate braids, starting at the front centre of the hairline and moving down and back. The girls have their hair washed and braided one a week. This would suit me since hair-washing is a taxing activity that I do only when necessary (when I start to resemble Ethan Hawke in "Reality Bites".) But whenever I try to French-braid my hair it ends up looking all loose and messy. I don't suppose I would be tolerated on the colony.

DeSiCiTi

2009-08-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

My friend Jon Joffe directed a TV series pilot and it got screened at GlobalFest Friday night. The show was "DeSiCiTi", the story of four women and their dating exploits in NYC. Sounds familiar? The twist is, these women are desi. I had to ask Jon after the screening what that meant. Desi are the South Asian diaspora. Indo-Americans. So these women had some old-world traditions to deal with in carrying out their new-world sexploits.

The character stereotypes were all there: the ambitious, cynical lawyer (who gets passed over at work for a blonde woman); the naive good girl (who carefully puts her headscarf back on each evening when returning home to her parents); the somewhat older, sexually adventurous woman; and the girl next door (who wears a fake moustache on dates to weed out the men who don't look for deeper beauty).

My favourite part was when the older woman goes on a blind date with a Sikh man at the insistence of her parents. The man turns out to be very young, serious and intensely sexy in his black turban. They hit it off and end up going back to her place. When she starts to put the moves on, the man gets up to leave. "I want to get married," he explain. "To a woman with good morals!" The woman is taken aback but is quick-witted. "It was a test. To see if you had good morals. You passed!" They end up playing Scrabble all night.

DeSiCiTi's producers are shopping it around right now, trying to get it picked up for broadcast so that they can make it into a full-fledged TV series. I hope they do it soon. I want to see what happens next.

Wangta

2009-08-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

I thought that getting a cell phone would give me a social life. It hasn't worked out that way so far.

I grew up in this city, but I don't have any best buddies or a posse to tool around with. The best friend I had in university has moved to the States. I still have friends here, but they all either have their own main crew or they have a girlfriend/boyfriend that takes precedence.

True, I haven't been a proper resident of Calgary in six years and I've only been back for a few months, so I guess I should give myself a break. And try to stop being such a hermit.

So...I'm going to the Globalfest Filmfest by myself tonight! Maybe I'll bring along my imaginary friend.

Faces

2009-08-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

According to researchers at Glasgow University, Asians and Westerners "decode" facial expressions differently. Westerners pay equal attention to mouth and eyes, while Easterners focus on the eyes.

26 college students (British, Japanese and Chinese) looked at photographs of faces and identified the emotional expressions they observed. The East Asian volunteers were more likely to mistake expressions of fear and disgust for surprise and anger, respectively. These expressions are mostly differentiated by the muscles around the mouth.

In another study a few years back, a Japanese researcher showed some Photoshopped faces to Japanese and American volunteers. The Americans were more likely to get it wrong when a happy mouth was grafted onto a sad face.

When I studied Chinese last November I had to learn the adjectives "happy", "hungry", "busy" and "tired", then match them up with these pictures:

Tired I got, but I really didn't know what to do with the other three. My Taiwanese tutor maintained that 1 was hungry, 2 was happy and 4 was busy. I remain unconvinced.

Rafting

2009-08-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Went rafting on the Bow. First we rode the bus to my old stomping grounds in Bowness. We were discussing where to pick up beer and some teenagers on the bus told us where to get off and how to get to the liquor store. God bless 'em. Once we were there, my friend recognized one of the multimillion dollar riverfront houses. He'd done some concrete flooring in it a few times for work. So we took the liberty of blowing up our raft in the back yard.

On the river we sang John Prine songs. We were singing "Christmas in Prison" and my friend pointed out that the song is about a guy in jail whacking off to thoughts of his absent sweetheart. I then observed that another Prine song, "Donald & Lydia", is also about masturbation. I have my tickets to see John Prine play at the Jack Singer in October. It's gonna be a gooder!

We brought our life jackets but they stayed on the floor of the raft. Fortunately the river patrol has a very loud boat so we heard them coming before they got close. When we stopped at Edworthy park for a toilet break, we heard some drumming and shouting coming from behind the trees. Sounded like hippies. I investigated and they weren't hippies at all, but Africans. Back in the boat we discussed young hippies. It seems like young people these days (twentyish) are bright and optimistic and lack the cynicism and slackerdom of people my age (thirtyish). Or maybe that's just me. Anyways...I grew up in the shadow of Gen X, grunge, the painfully ironic postmodern age. But today's young people were babies when Kurt Cobain offed himself. They're the Obama generation. They want to learn everything and love everyone and save the world while they do it.

Here's to nouveau hippies, trespassing and flouting city bylaws.

Hippies

2009-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Friday night I asked my brother-in-law if I could borrow the car. "I'm going to a hippie drumming circle." He didn't say anything. I promised to park around the corner so no one would recognize his car. I got the keys.

I drove way over to Forest Lawn to the Circles of Rhythm Community Drum Circle. I was there on the invitation of my classmate from massage school. I got there late, and the room was filled. There was a handful of people my age and a couple of kids, but the demographic was predominantly baby boomer. Aging hippies. A smiley lady in yellow pants stood in the middle giving enthusiastic instruction.

A few people on the big drums started first, with everyone else joining in once the rhythm was established. The first time we did it the beat kept getting progressively faster and faster. Yellow Pants said this was the "sound of technology", the modern habit of doing things faster and faster. A positive feedback system. After that we were able to maintain a consistent tempo.

I started banging on my drum with my hands, but they got really sore. I switched to drum sticks. There was a guy who played a whistle and a woman on a didgeridoo. In the center were some giant drums. People went up to circle around and beat on them. One woman passed the drum sticks on to me so I was obliged to take my turn in the middle. It wasn't that bad.

I try to do meditation and qigong at home, alone, in my room. I'm usually uncomfortable in group religious or new-age activities. I feel like a a fraud amidst the true believers. And I get irritated by any group pressure to act the same as everyone else. So I was surprised at my level of comfort at the drum circle. Even at the end when we had to stand and hold hands, each person sending one positive word out into the city. My word was "aware".

So that was my evening with old hippies. What I want to know is, where are all the young hippies?

Needles

2009-08-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

I went to the student clinic for acupuncture today. I lay face down, stripped to the waist, while the student doctor placed needles up and down my back, near my knees and in the soles of my feet. She left them in for ten minutes, then came back and twisted each one. This twisting is more painful that the initial insertion. The sensation is that of an electrical shock and a feeling of spasm in the surrounding muscle. Certain acupoints cause faraway parts of the body to tingle. Some people can't stand needles, but as for me, I love the feeling.

It started a couple of winters ago. I was getting sick all the time, so my doctor suggested twice weekly vitamin C IV drips to try to get my immune system working properly. I'd lie on the bed and the Korean nurse would come along and insert a long needle into my arm. It wasn't a quick procedure; it took a few seconds for the needle to get in to the proper depth. Sometimes also the nurse had trouble finding the vein. At first it freaked me out, but the more I got it done, the less uncomfortable it felt. And then one day as the nurse approached, I realized I was looking forward to the prick of the needle and its slow insertion. It is strangely satisfying.

My friend gets electric acupuncture in Hanoi:

Egg Tarts

2009-08-05T21:20:00.000-07:00

Another rainy day in a week of blustery weather. In the last few days hail and wind have wrecked buildings and ravaged farmer's crops. The wind has blown down the mainstage at the Big Valley Jamboree and blown some building material from the eighteenth story of a construction site near the Calgary Tower. Two people have died. No flooding though, I think. We get that some years.

Calgary gets it hard and wet and windy, but the rain doesn't visit for long. It doesn't get a season of its own like it does in other countries. One rainy night when I lived in Korea, I went downtown to a bar where lots of expats hung out. There was a Filipino guy on the karaoke mic, singing loudly while putting back a beer. My friend at the bar told me that he'd received the news that day that his family's home in the Philippines had been destroyed by a typhoon. He was trying to get it out of his mind for a while.

I got stranded by a typhoon once. I was in Macau on the south coast of China. Like Hong Kong, Macau is its own "Special Administrative Region" and requires going through customs and immigration to get to and from the mainland. I was there for a few days en route to Hong Kong when the typhoon hit. The city shut down: the buses stopped, the shops and restaurants closed, planes were grounded, boats stayed in dock, even the China border closed. I was inconvenienced on two counts: I was supposed to leave for Hong Kong that day; and, I'd developed a Portuguese egg tart habit. The eggs tarts of Macau have the most delicate flaked crusts and the savouriest egg fillings. I've since had egg tarts in Hong Kong and in Canadian Chinatowns, but they've never lived up to the Macanese tarts. So here I was, unable to leave for Hong Kong, faced with shuttered bakeries. Fortunately, the casinos were open. Deep in the gilded bowels of the Casino Lisboa I found a bakery. I spent the day sitting in my tiny hostel with the other stuck travellers, watching the rain and eating egg tarts.

Opera

2009-08-04T21:57:00.001-07:00

I went with my mom to the Jack Singer today to see some free lunch hour opera put on by the Cantos Music Foundation. Three singers, a pianist and an organist squeezed out eleven songs in 50 minutes, which is about my limit for sitting and actually enjoying any kind of classical music. I saw Aida a few years back, and with its four acts it was a real marathon for me.

Speaking of opera, I got to see Beijing opera when I was in China three years ago. That also lasted a few hours, but it was interesting because it was so weird and alien sounding. As in it sounded like music space aliens would listen to. There was lots of shrieking and mewling and clanging cymbals. And a midget.

Fish Sauce

2009-08-03T11:48:00.001-07:00

We'd hooked up before in Vietnamese restaurants, but last week was the first time I took fish sauce home with me. And fish sauce stuck around the morning after!

The affair started when I went to Chinatown to have dim sum with my friend at Harbour City restaurant. Afterwards we stopped in the Chinese grocery. In the coconut milk aisle my eye was drawn to the Mama Sita brand Filipino spices. As a mama sita herself, my friend advised me on what meals to try out, and I bought the Adobo and Sinigang mixes. We made a dinner date for Tuesday.

Day of, I needed more ingredients. Safeway is boring so I went to Filipino Market on 37th st SW. The shelves were stocked with all kinds of sauces and spices and strange confections. I almost bought a bag of Egg Nog cookies, but instead was won over by the ingredient list on the Ube candies (condensed milk, purple yam, gelatinous mutant coconut, sugar and margarine).

In the sauce aisle I quickly found a neat little bottle of chili sauce, and looked for fish sauce in the same dimensions. I asked the lady working there for help, but there was only one size available: 750 ml. Now, I've eaten stinky tofu (smells like feet) on the streets of Taiwan, and liked it, but that's where it stayed--on the street. So I was wary of buying close to a liter of fish sauce, with its notes of ear wax and old shoes, and bringing it into my home. It was a commitment. But a cheap one ($3), so I took a chance.

Our relationship so far has been good. The Sinigang went over well with my friend. It's a distinctly sour and salty soup. My friend said her mother would be pleased to know I'd made it. Fish sauce and I got together later in the week for a red hot Thai curry. When we're not cooking something up together, fish sauce keeps to itself (I haven't caught any errant whiffs of it when walking through the kitchen). In its big bottle, fish sauce towers above all the other sauces in the cupboard: the hoisin, the Worchester, the Korean red pepper sauce, the soya. My friends like it, my mother does not approve. We haven't set any future dates, but I always know this tall, dark foreigner will be around whenever I have the urge.

Running

2009-08-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

One of the many things that marred my childhood school days was PE class. As the tallest, skinniest and most athletically inept student in the class, it was all trauma for me: basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, swimming (bathing suit?!), soccer.... But the one I always found the most brutal came up first thing at the beginning of the school year: cross-country running. My classmates would leave me behind right at the start, and so I'd drag myself along, alone in the woods or on the field, crampy, tired, humiliated, but forced to finish. It was drudgery. At least with volley ball I could stand uselessly by as the ball hit the floor in front of me. It required very little physical effort. In running I had to do the full, interminable course, no matter how long it took. So after my last mandatory PE class in grade 10 I swore off running for the rest of my existence.

But that was years ago, and now any physical activity I do is of my own volition. My parents have been running for a few years, and they are pushing seventy, so I decided to give it a try. Running is free, and I don't have to go to a special place to do it, and I can look around at different stuff.

Today was my third run, in over a month, which is somewhat less that the three time a week I set out for. My initial three runs have been very, very beginner-level: I run for one minute, then walk to two, for a total of fifteen minutes. By the end of which I am very happy to be finished. The first two times I did It I got a pain in my right foot that lasted for a few days. If my foot starts to hurt after today's run, I may have to quit. I am allowed to after all. I'm not in PE class.

Maybe I'll take up swimming.

Back to the Blogstone

2009-08-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

I'm back to blogging again. This site serves two purposes: A, to get myself writing and exercising the lazy, creative part of my brain; and B, to chronicle my attempts to integrate my cynical, pessimistic hermit tendencies with the inner idealist that wants to live in the moment, spread some lovin' and bust out dance moves in the middle of the street. Hopefully my posts a year from now will show some progress.

Good luck, me!