london calling.

found out today that i will be spending the national holiday period in london for work. i fly out on monday and return on saturday. so - while i have no official time off, working in london is not nearly the same as being holed up in china when all your other friends are off playing around in bangkok and thailand and wherever else it is people like to go.

mostly i'm excited about three things -
a. clear, unpolluted skies
b. merek cooper
c. ladyhawk at the borderline, oct 1!

out of all the bands in the world, i think ladyhawk are one of my favorites to see live. the last time i was out of china was in june to toronto, and it was a happy coincidence that my trip coincided with NXNE, which meant i got to run into random friends from all over canada. they were playing there, and now they're playing all over europe. go and see them, if you can. and go and listen! yessssssssss.

i always wanted to be a tenenbaum

very happy about going to the daedelus show tonight at shelter.
also, this!

today feels like summercamp at the office, alot of people have already left for the october holiday and everything is quiet. i'm sitting here waiting for the london office to wake up, headphones on, watching the royal tenenbaums with commentary by wes anderson.

i'm going to be stuck in shanghai during the holiday, on standby from the office. maybe i'll buy a tent and re-create the scene with the tent in the living room. you be richie, i'll be margot. ok?

let bartlet be bartlet.

GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

as a somewhat embarrassed but devoted fan of the west wing, i was really pleased to read maureen dowd's recent op-ed column in the nyt. aaron sorkin conjures a meeting of obama and bartlet here. go on, you know you want to. martin sheen for president?

mokum dreams.

woke up this morning feeling absolutely drained and terrible, and decided to work from home instead of the bustling, chaotic office. spent the day checking/responding to emails, taking client calls, drinking english breakfast twinnings tea and dreaming about the next city to explore.

shanghai is an amazing place to live, a fantastical city with lush, tree lined streets and impossibly named expat apartment compounds like 'the luxury' and 'chevalier place'. after over two years in china though, i'm wondering how much longer i'll be able to stay here, in this glorified silver plate bubble where everything is easy and nothing means anything. i've got another year in me, i think. another year of this.

(photos from shanatinglipton.com and futureblog).

the weakerthans

maybe i'm regressing too much into my teenaged self tonight, but the weakerthans still hold a very near and dear place in my heart.

i'm really late on this, but i've finally listened to their latest record. oh, john k. samson, has it really been over ten years?

mp3 download: the weakerthans - night windows.

office supplies in love.

today is one of those lazy sundays. i feel like i haven't been spending very much time with my cat, she is understandably upset and even angrier with me now that i have tied little bell around her neck. she likes to skulk around the apartment though, and when i am walking from the bathroom to to the bedroom in the middle of the night, she lies in wait and tries to attack my feet so that i am forced to dance and jump under the covers, like little kids do when they're running from monsters that hide under the bed.

a friend sent me the photo of office supplies in love. i like the idea of inanimate objects with real feelings and stories. is that too cheesy for right now? i have a few more hours of blissful quiet left until the work week begins again and everything explodes.

ps. how is it that i'd never seen 'the darjeeling limited' until this week? it's different from other wes anderson movies, more real, more connected, so incredibly lush and beautiful. let's make an agreement...

friday afternoon fun.

on this relatively stress-less (who are we kidding?) friday afternoon at the w+k shanghai offices, here is what we got up to. maybe someone from the outside world will see this and come and rescue us?

my friend julie & i are planning on doing something like this every friday. suggestions, please.

descent into madness.

i didn't end up going out to the antidote party, instead i was in the office and on the phone and pulling my hairs out until the wee hours of the morning. we've got a week long national holiday coming up here in china, and i think everyone around here is starting to lose it in anticipation of a few much needed days off. i, however, will not be having a holiday, i will be in the office. like i was during mid-autumn festival, like i am nearly every weekend. oh, the woes of account services.

the photo above is of the desk next to mine, my traffic person comes by daily and passive aggressively does things to my work area. last week it was a 4 foot tall tower made up of office supplies, books, tissue papers. this week it is post it notes and sticking whatever money he can find around my desk up to my shelf with scotch tape.

ps. i've just been reading the w+k london blog, and i see that they have also been experimenting with post it art. keep tuned for an upcoming post it note project we have going on here in shanghai, it's going to be amazing.


(from welcome to optimism).

antidote 3 year anniversary party!

i'm still at the office, but hoping to head over to this in a bit. blech.

the dead end of western civilization

The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning. Ten years ago, a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend-follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class. link to full story...

my friend sean posted about this on facebook today. the first rule of hipsterdom is to never talk about hipsterdom? let's talk about how "hipsterdom" should never be used in a sentence ever. again. also, who says "shoot me" when asking for a lighter? gross.

animals that i love.

mostly, i use my mobile phone camera to take pictures of animals.

a) reginald, my ex-dog who now lives with ex-boyfriend, has not been seen in a few weeks, did not get visitation rights.
b) meow tse-fun, my cat (originally from beijing).
c) best trained dog i have ever seen on the street, dog held pose for about 5 minutes while owner shouted at it.
d) box of free kittens on wulumuqi lu.

chicken tikka masala.

for breakfast, lunch & dinner.