The Conversation
- Seeking Asian Female (2)
- Raguel: Fuck me halfway through that trailer my testicles nearly crawled back into my body. What a fricking...
- trolldetector: All you need is love.
- About A Boy by Nick Hornby (5)
- Raguel: I could be wrong but the distribution windows for media and especially film seems very hierarchical. If you...
- bigWOWO: Illegal streaming? I had no idea anyone did that! Well, I really should check out some movies one of these...
- Eurasian Sensation: Actually the trailer’s voiceover makes it seem wayyy more cheesy than it is. I don’t...
- Superbowl Recipe and Xenophobic Superbowl Ad (22)
- Raguel: Time to get your concealed carry licences, folks!
- Eurasian Sensation: Jeff Yang has a good article about this ad: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn....
- Raguel: I haven’t even gotten to why the ad really is so offensive to us, ROFL
- Jeremy Lin shines (20)
- N: @danny You should youtube his college games. The two against Boston college and the one against UConn. Lol, he can...
- Lingyai: @Ben Efsaneyim Why would it be surprising a non Asian crowd cheering for Lin? Most of the NBA fans going to...
- bigWOWO: Danny and Mojo, Holy crap! That’s amazing! I didn’t know he could dunk either! I think...
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (1)
- Lingyai: Lin’s style on the court: http://oi39.tinypic.com/f1xnvd .jpg Lin call Stanford coach a liar and says...
- “But he hit me back first!” (32)
- trolldetector: CHINESE PRIDE MUTHAFUKAZ
- bigWOWO: I didn’t post that video to mock Koreans (again, why do you seem to think everything is against...
- jstele: Stay classy, Byron. This whole argument isn’t even about race, but your ego and inability to admit that...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (9)
- Raguel: ^ Nice one Byron! I’m reading through the NYT picks, they’re good!
- bigWOWO: The Times had an Op-Ed by the President of the RIAA, and I commented. My comment was picked as a...
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- The Perversity of Human Biodiversity, a.k.a. “Scientific” Racism (402)
- bigWOWO: Here’s an interesting suggestion coming out of MIT: Connectome by Sebastian Seung...
- Battle Hymn of the Kitten Daughter (36)
- Raguel: You know Andre, you and me, I think we and a lot of other folks may have gone through some pretty harrowing...
- Andre M. Smith: Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew....
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- What Cultures Value (19)
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- Tommy: I think I’m coming here more for Moro’s comments than BigWoWO’s posts.
- Moroboshi: I didn’t say that. All I said was guys who believe in HBD are the same guys who probably also follow...
- Chr..: Moro, I don’t want to argue with you anymore! You seem to think that AMs are just as popular as other...
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Paper Pushers by the Stunt People (4)
- Andre M. Smith: I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter...
- Raguel: Smiley tests 8 )
8(
- Seeking Asian Female (2)
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Nick Diaz Beats the "Whitemare"
Zaromskis (l) and Diaz (r)
Did anyone see Strikeforce last night? It seems they keep changing the distribution. It was on CBS, and now it’s on Showtime. Maybe the title fights go on cable?
Anyway, Nick Diaz had a fight against the Dream champion Marius Zaromskis, who calls himself the “Whitemare.” The winner would become the new Strikeforce Champion. If Zaromskis won, he would be the first man ever to hold championships from both a Japanese and an American MMA organization.
A Bachelor Tries to Understand Love
I saw this article about an American guy who falls in love with a woman from Saipan (haha…no comments, please ), tries to make the relationship work, and when it doesn’t, writes a book about Americans and how love either fails or succeeds. The book is called, “Us: Americans Talk About Love,” and it’s a collection of first person accounts by real people who either loved or couldn’t find love. According to the article:
J.D. Salinger, RIP
J.D. Salinger
J.D. Salinger, Rest in Peace. I loved his writing style in Catcher in the Rye, and his short stories were amazing for their boldness, imagination, and (believe it or not) symmetry.
One last thing about Mr. Salinger. Everyone writes for an audience. Authors often say they write for themselves, but who really writes only for himself? Very few. Even on this blog, I write mostly for you all. With my novel, I write for my eventual readers. I am the first reader, of course, but I don’t write with the idea that I will be the only one. I think that later in life, Salinger actually became someone who wrote only for himself.
James Patterson, Inc.
James Patterson
There’s a great article in the NY Times Magazine this week about James Patterson, the country’s biggest selling author. I had seen his name in the bookstores, but holy cannoli, I had no idea how big Patterson was. I think I have a new literary hero, even though I’ve yet to read one of his books.
There are many different ways to catalog Patterson’s staggering success. Here are just a few: Since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson. He is listed in the latest edition of “Guinness World Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1.
Children of Invention
bigWOWO Rating: Asian American Bronze
Let me first begin by saying that I’m not a frequent consumer of artsy-style indie films. So take my words below with a grain of salt.
I received several e-mails announcing Children of Invention, but I usually ignore movie announcements since I live in po’ dunk Oregon and usually can’t see them anyway. In this case, however, TMM let the world know that you could “rent” this movie on YouTube. That’s right, for the low price of $3.99 and a YouTube account, you can see this movie over the web. A rental gets you 48 hours of unlimited viewing. It’s a really great way to get your movie out while still getting paid. I’m glad that Tze Chun decided to go this route.
bigWOWO's Rating System
Since I’m starting to review Asian American works, I created a system to simplify it. See it here. My policy is to evaluate works based on their merit AND how they push our culture’s dialogue.
So examples of Asian American Gold would be:
Nami Mun’s Miles from Nowhere
Lac Su’s I Love Yous are for White People
Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
All three of these meet guidelines for enjoyability, artistic quality, and the ability to create positive, progressive dialogue. What I love most about Gold works is that they will enable future writers/artists to build on what these authors have created.
Green Metropolis
Green Metropolis is a highly informative book. It takes a serious approach to environmentalism–both in terms of reducing greenhouse gases and curbing our use of fossil fuels. The author David Owen believes that contrary to popular opinion, cities like Portland, Boulder, and Seattle are not environmentally responsible since their per capita annual expenditure of greenhouse gases is high. Owen’s contrarian philosophy is that cities should not seek to emulate Portland, but instead should emulate New York City–where people live in apartments, sidewalks are wide enough to support foot traffic, and most people get to work by a combination of walking and mass transit. Because so many people in New York use the subway system, and because humans live in close proximity to one another in buildings that organize people in small spaces, New York’s per capita expenditure of greenhouse gases is the lowest of any city in America.
Review of Lac Su’s I Love Yous are for White People
bigWOWO rating: Asian American Gold
In order to prevent people from buying goodwill, the new law states that bloggers have to disclose whether they received a free product when writing a review. In the case of I Love Yous are for White People, I didn’t get a free book, but Lac Su bought me a beer while we were down in LA for the Banana Conference. And no, I drank that beer right there; I’m not writing this review drunk. In any case, I want to give an unbiased critical review, so I’m going to tell you both what I liked and what I struggled with. I’ll write it in two parts. If you don’t want to read the entire review, then I’ll tell you right now that I recommend this book. Highly. I think you should buy this book. But you’ll have to check out the two parts below to find out why.
Posted in Asian American, books, Reviews
Tagged I Love Yous are for White People, Lac Su, Vietnamese
4 Comments
Chinese instruction growing in public schools
Caught this article in the Times. It looks like while most language instruction is fading under the economic stress of this recession, Chinese instruction in the public schools is on the rise, and it has gone beyond the coastal states of the U.S. and into central states like Colorado, Ohio, and Georgia. The Chinese government is helping by subsidizing the salaries of some of these teachers. It’s about time the Chinese government offered us a bailout!
Self Defense?
Thanks Mojo–another violent incident coming straight out of Philly. This incident is a bit gray in terms of what happened and what the consequences should be.
If you look at the video above, there was a shooting on a busy street. Some facts are not in dispute: Gerald Ung, a third year law student, fired six gunshots at Edward DiDonato, a former captain of the Villanova University lacrosse team, hitting him in the hand, abdomen, shoulders, and chest. Immediately after the shooting, Ung used his cell phone to call the police and waited until they arrived. He’s being charged with attempted homicide and aggravated assault. The gun was licensed. DiDonato is a nephew of a prominent Philly politician.
