The Conversation
- Jeremy Lin: Our Generation’s Joe Louis (11)
- Blacklisted: B, “Jeremy Lin is the Joe Louis of our time. I remember reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X,...
- Mojo Rider: This is just awesome….I watched the game too and wasn’t sure if he was going to score 20...
- SWR: This is a no-lose situation: If Jeremy Lin continues to tear it up, then we’ve all got an underdog...
- “But he hit me back first!” (46)
- jstele: I’m not aware of black owned businesses for the most part contributing to the community. I know that...
- jstele: Right, just like you didn’t bother to look up the law before saying that you didn’t think that shopowner who...
- King: I will be kissing Asian women like Linda against the wall without a shirt”. Yuck!!!
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (247)
- bigWOWO: Not sure if you’re a “bot” or a real person, Andre, but I know lots of Chuas. Only...
- Andre M. Smith: Further on Chua as a Chinese surname . . . My wife, a gyn surgeon, hails from a family of...
- Seeking Asian Female (8)
- Raguel: Yes! I mean with me. How did I miss that part out? And why do I suddenly feel some anxiety?
But here is an... - King: “If I ever get a mail order bride I will get her addicted to sex first.” I assume you mean with you...
- bigWOWO: Linda, Haha! Maybe that dude is on to something with the foreign language nagging. But to be honest, maybe...
- Raguel: Yes! I mean with me. How did I miss that part out? And why do I suddenly feel some anxiety?
- The Other-Directed Personality (1)
- Siegfried: Mitt got Obama worried. He is shaking in his boots. It’s over for Obama because Mitt is going to...
- Holy Jesus, Jeremy (9)
- N: @TD Good pick up on that one.
- trolldetector: @Colin I love how whites keep trying to troll their divide tactics Asian blogs under different guises.
- Eurasian Sensation: @ Colin: I’m pretty sure Jeremy Lin and his supporters are not the same person.
- Jeremy Lin shines (21)
- trolldetector: GO JEREMY LIN
- 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...
- What Cultures Value (22)
- trolldetector: @Colin. Dont you belong on a Lord Of The Rings filmset? Thats where most white trolls dwell isnt it?
- colin: A bit late to this, but bigwowo, you grossly underestimate the anti-work and anti-intellectual ethic here in...
- bigWOWO: Yeah, I could go for that.
- About A Boy by Nick Hornby (6)
- bigWOWO: That’s a really good point, Raguel. Like it or not, TV executives control everything (including what...
- 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...
- 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
- 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...
- 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.
- “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...
- Jeremy Lin: Our Generation’s Joe Louis (11)
Category Archives: Writing
Gettin' Old
I’ve got bookish people on this site. Most of you read books, and most of you are capable of great things. Some of you have already accomplished great things.
Anyway, I realized long ago that I’m old for an Asian American blogger, but now it looks like I’m old for a novelist too: the NY Times just had an eye-opening article on the ages of great fiction writers when they wrote their great works, and how people should not view the New Yorker’s new issue on up-and-coming writers as an indication that these writers will create greater works in the future:
Posted in Asian American, Writing
6 Comments
The Big Shaggy
Excellent article by David Brooks here. It’s about how people tend to forego education in the humanities when the economy is down. Brooks, however, makes a compelling case for why the humanities are still important and relevant in the world today. He writes about how the humanities teach you to communicate, how they teach you the language of emotion, how they help you to understand analogies, and how they put you in touch with the “Big Shaggy,” that human inner beast that causes people to do crazy things. I’m not sure why Brooks named the beast after a character from Scooby Doo, but it works for me. It reminds me a bit of the Hairy Man from Iron John. If that’s where it comes from, I wonder if the imagery is or should be the same for women.
Posted in Asian American, Education, Knowledge, Strategy, Writing
Tagged David Brooks, humanities
4 Comments
Laura and Lisa release book about North Korea ordeal
We’ve been following the Laura Ling/Euna Lee story here since day one. We were here when they were first caught, when they were sentenced (hilarious conversation under this blog post!), and when they were freed (search “Euna” to see all eight of our blog posts). And as many of us predicted early in the game, one of them has co-authored a book about their ordeal: Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home.
Institutional Power and Censorship
The NY Times had an interesting article a few days ago: How Chinese Censorship Affects Writers in the West. It talks about how China’s influence is growing so large that writers, even those in the West, are censoring themselves out of fear of repercussions from Beijing. People are fearful not of physical violence but of getting on the wrong side of Beijing’s politics. Some writers, after offending China, have allegedly found it hard to get visas to the country, which, if one is a writer with interest in China, can make one’s life rather difficult.
This is how the censorship is developing:
Ed Lin Event Recap
Byron, author Ed Lin, actress Cindy Cheung
Thank you Thymos, AAJA-Portland, Friends of Portland Chinatown, and Murder By the Book for the awesome Ed Lin event yesterday. Special thanks to Amy Wang, Ruth Liao, Elizabeth Suh from AAJA; Joann Le, Fai Chong, and Ivy Lin from Friends of Portland Chinatown, and Barbara Tom from Murder By the Book. I had a blast. Not only did we get to learn writing from an awesome author, but we also had a chance to hear Ed speak from the heart on his thoughts about the publishing industry and Asian American issues. What is super cool about Ed’s career is that he started from an Asian American perspective, writing about Asian American issues and participating in the Asian American Writers Workshop.
Posted in Activism, Portland, Writing
Tagged AAJA-Portland, Cindy Cheung, Ed Lin, Friends of Portland Chinatown, thymos
2 Comments
Ed Lin Writer's Workshop on Monday, May 3rd–AAJA, Thymos, and Friends of Portland Chinatown
If you’re in Portland on May 3rd and you love writing, you will want to attend the Ed Lin Writer’s Workshop, presented by the Asian American Journalists Association–Portland and Thymos, co-sponsored by Friends of Portland Chinatown. It is a writing workshop, and Ed will be working to help attendees find their writing muse. It takes place at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association on May 3rd, 6pm, at 317 NW Davis in the heart of Portland Chinatown. It’s FREE, and there will be food. RSVP at portland.aaja@gmail.com. Much thanks to everyone who is putting this together.
Heartthrob Blogger
No, I’m not a heartthrob blogger. But the guy in the picture above, Han Han, is. According to the NY Times, Han Han is a Chinese novelist, race car driver, and blogger extraordinaire in China. He’s riling up the authorities with his blog posts that criticize aspects of Chinese society. According to the article, he has managed to escape government censorship by not directly naming people he criticizes or taking aim at the one party system. Also, he’s financially independent because of his book sales and racing success and therefore less susceptible to financial threats.
Where the Money Goes in Publishing
I’m literally years away from finding out what happens when you complete a novel and market it, but if you’re wondering exactly where the money goes when you buy a book at Barnes and Noble, click the image above or check out this informative article by Motoko Rich comparing print and E-books.
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.
