afternoon at the norton simon

Dan and I talked about Impressionist art last night, and how one can more fully appreciate works of art in that style when one sees it up close, in real life, because then you can see all the brush strokes, the use of color for shadows and light - essentially all the movements the artist made, the soul he/she poured into that painting, sketch or rendering. So this afternoon, in between showers of rain, we went to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena to immerse ourselves in art! Any work by Van Gogh steals my breath away, but today I was most drawn to "Chestnut Gatherers" by Georges Lacombe. The colors! The flat style! (Sorry the photos don't really do it justice.) Upon setting eyes on this I wanted to wrap myself in this painting and completely immerse myself in it, to never come out. I was just in the right mood, of course. A fiery-headed woman in a yellow raincoat caught my eye, and her close proximity to some paintings completely enhanced the viewing experience for me. Dan and I went downstairs to the Asian exhibit and, passing it all by, found another exhibit dedicated to portraits, where they featured a wall of sketches/painting/studies by Picasso. Definitely a hidden gem. When I was younger, I sometimes took museums for granted, since my mom took me to so many so often. But revisiting these exhibitions with an older, more appreciative eye luckily helps invoke that awe and wonder I feared I would have felt only as a kid.

adventures in j-town

There's a funny little store in the Little Tokyo Plaza that I never remember the name of, full of curios - tools, kitchenware, bath time fun, useful things and fun things like toys, dvds, and figurines, and I can't resist going inside whenever I pass by. There are always new things coming in, along with the staples of bath scrubbies, pencil cases, and tea sets. Today it looked like there was a huge influx of Totoro and Domo-kun characters, all cute and fuzzy, nicely detailed and not too overpriced. I mean, Totoro and Domo-kun are always there, but this time around, in VAST quantities. After looking for gloves and a certain set of tools Y and I saw these adorable bath sponges! Here I only show a water droplet and an iridescent happy blob, but there was a banana, a panda, a fish, you name it! These would make me never want to get out of the tub, they are so cute. I felt like a kid again, which was very nice.

sushi with my sister

I was in low spirits at the end of today, probably due to hunger and definitely because I was cooped up in a tiny office with probably thousands of volumes of materials that needed to be categorized... it was draining! I picked up my sister to come home today but before we headed back we went to get sushi for dinner! I got a spider roll & spicy tuna roll, and a bowl of miso soup. Yum! With green tea to wash it all down and perk up my senses I was back to normal at the end of the meal, and ready to stroll around J-town with my sister!

happy birthday J.R.

February 26, 1932 - September 12, 2003

today's find of the day

Clint, you are so handsome, even now as an (almost) octogenarian! I wish I could have kept this little gem, but I think the person who had it at the office is going to sell it or keep it. I hope he keeps it (or lets me have it, hahaha).

yuzu tea

It's good to end dreary days like this with a cup of yuja-cha (which is what Koreans call yuzu tea), which is basically bits of the chopped up yuzu (a roundish yellow citrus fruit that originates somewhere in Asia...) mixed with honey and/or sugar, then plopped into hot water. It is delicious. The yuzu is sweeter than a lemon, though subtler, and highly fragrant. My mom and I are hooked on this stuff to the point that I get a new jar every week. Which sounds bad, but I like to think of it as fulfilling a weekly simple pleasure. I need to get a jar of it tomorrow, since this week's is pretty much cleared out. Anyway, to bed...

silly poopies

This is a section of money plant/jade plant/Crassula ovata (I looked it up) that my dogs brought in from the yard last night. We have several bushes of these plants and my mom thinks the poopies like to grab bits of the stems because they break off easily and might be easy to chew, or something like that. They just like to cause mischief! Anyway, this is sort of a recent occurrence and it's funny and baffling, but I hope they're having fun.

fruit monsters

Wanting a little break today from AutoCAD I opened up a package of freeze-dried fruit my boyfriend gave to me in a sweet care package of 'goodies for work.' In a bag of dried bananas and strawberries, I looked inside and saw faces! I made some monster friends, then ATE them. CHOMP! My boss looked over and laughed at me; I'm lucky that he knows me well, otherwise he would have thought I was being a slacker of all sorts of crazy. oh wait...

dumpling time!

On Saturday my mom and I made dumplings! The insides are: ground beef, tofu, green onions (from our garden!), an egg or two, red flaked pepper and I... actually don't remember if there's more because after chopping up the green onions and setting up the skins I chased after one of my dogs, who snatched a dish towel right out of my hands. You'd think after years of making these I would remember the ingredients, but I got most of them. We boil then fry these guys, I don't know if that's redundant, but if you've got some boiled ones and then want them crispy, throw them in the pan, man it's easy. They're the best when hot off the stove, dunked in soy sauce with a splash of something spicy. I'm hungry!

creepy

I hate going to the bathroom when I'm at work, because it is soooo creepy. It's about 6' wide and maybe 10' deep. Claustrophobia-inducing. Scary because it is long and narrow, with old fixtures intact, a sickly yellow and black color scheme, a high ceiling, and no windows. The entire building is creepy except for the office I work in, which is clean, open and exceptionally well-lit. Apparently the building was built in 1929 which explains the dated feel of it - don't get me wrong I love old buildings, but being in certain parts of this one makes brings to mind vivid & eerie scenes from The Shining and Barton Fink. What is it about turn-of-the century buildings that make them so creepy? The history, the shoddy lighting, and the smell of the years. I secretly like being slightly creeped out by my surroundings though, it makes my day more interesting.

what I like right now

1. My anorak. I wore it all weekend. It provides cover, has lots of pockets, metal buttons (not shown), it's long and I can layer a lot underneath.
2. New (old) sunglasses that only set me back $4; my sister & I were dying of heat and brightness last Sunday so we both got some shades for relief. It worked! These ones are funny because they're off-white with raised gold stripes, with deep pinkish-red gradient tinted lenses. But they fit perfectly and I love them.
3. Sorting through my jewelry (and having the motivation to clean in general). Everything is silver or stainless steel but I'm open to bronze and gold-tone metals too. As long as it's awesome/unusual/clinks for real.

Domicile Conjugal (Bed and Board) 1970

The fourth film by Francois Truffaut featuring the character Antoine Doinel. I don't want to say anything other than Truffaut = perfection. Wow.

District 9 (2009)

Continuing with the theme of playing catch-up with all the movies I missed or neglected to see in 2009, I finally watched District 9 last night.

The events of the film, shown in mock-documentary style, then switching into 'real-time' as the film progresses, take place in Johannesburg, South Africa in the early 1980's - where an enormous alien spacecraft has arrived, idled and remains floating in the air over the city. After three months, a team is sent to break into the ship and over a million arthropod-like extraterrestrials are found, sick, languishing and leaderless. The aliens, the later referred to as "prawns" are brought down and set up in military-enforced quarters which then becomes the slums known as District 9. As tensions between the aliens and humans escalate over the next 20 years, measures to relocate the aliens outside of Johannesburg in 'District 10' are made, under the management of Multinational United (MNU) a defense technology company hired by the South African government.

MNU sends Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley, who apparently never acted until this role), a bumbling, mild-mannered cubicle rat-turned field operative, to handle the serving of eviction notices to the aliens in District 9, as well as confiscated any illegal weapons/materials in the process. The entire time, Wikus shows he is knowledgeable about the alien race, but cares little in regards to their rights or well-being. During an altercation with one alien refusing to cooperate with MNU, Wikus searches his shack and, finding a metal canister, accidentally sprays himself with a black liquid found within. After the alien throws Wikus, breaking his arm, it is dispatched, but Wikus' health rapidly begins to deteriorate, as he begins vomiting and secreting a black fluid from his nostrils. After collapsing and awakening in the emergency room, it is discovered that his broken arm has mutated into the appendages of an alien. MNU seizes Wikus and tests his operability of the alien weapons, which can only be handled by those with alien DNA. As the lab prepares Wikus for vivisection, he panics and escapes to the safest place he can think of - back to the slums in District 9.

That's only the first half of the film, which takes a long time to set up, and since this is getting rather long-winded, I'll just jot down the rest of my thoughts. The premise of the story is great - the arrival of an alien race on Earth, the ensuing xenophobia and misunderstanding, etc. sets up the tone of the film, but I found the story to be a little lacking of character development. Wikus goes from only caring about finding a way up to the mother ship to return to his whole human self, to sacrificing his chance to go up for one of the aliens he has allied with/befriended when it was in trouble, in about the span of a minute. The desperation of his plight influences most of his actions then all of a sudden a burst of humanity shines through a little too late into the film to make me appreciate it. The MNU operatives are very two-dimensional, as they're only shown as trained soldiers-turned killers who 'can't believe they get paid to do their job.' More nuance in all of the characters would have been nice, so in general I felt more for the main alien characters whose first intention throughout the story was to go back to the mother ship, back to their planet, to get help and save their people. Still, the film stuck with me enough so that in the case District 10 is released, I'll definitely be going to see that to find out what happens next/happened before.

ring, ring

A few of the rings that I wear the most - all from flea markets except for the rose ring in the second photo which I picked up at a night market in Cambodia over the summer. The dinosaur one was a little loose on all my fingers, but that's okay because I got it to give to a dino-obsessed friend of mine and it fit her perfectly! I put these photos on my wordpress blog but I wanted to share them here, too. I try not to get too attached to them because I tend to lose these little suckers, even after taking such good care not to - then right when I'm feeling all confident and complacent about not having lost any, one will disappear! Such is life though, no? But in the end it's just 'stuff' and it's not as big a deal as losing a connection with, say, a person. And so on.

blood orange tea

I just had a cuppa this blood orange tea at this cute café/art gallery and apparently hookah bar(?) called Zephyr that I hadn't known of until now, and it was just under my nose in Pasadena. I went with my old friend from high school Lyle whom I'd kind of lost touch with for the past year or two and so we caught up over a cup of tea in a sweet little room out of sight and earshot by other patrons. I think this might be one of my new favorite fruity teas - it has enough of that tang to be citrusy but it has a subtle sweetness that isn't gag-inducing. mmm!