END OF 2012 GRATITUDE

I tenderly express my deep gratitude to Ngoc, Peter, Michael, Frank, Yen, Wang Toon, Joan, Allen, Lou, Fred, Toni, Peggy, Lee Ang, Rose, Barbara, Bill, Patrick, Bruce, Martin, Cesaria Evora, Khanh Ly, Trinh Cong Son, Daw-Ming, Judy, Kris, Ling-Hui, Jin-Ting, Huang, Chi-Kwan, and all the lovely men, women, artists, and students of Taiwan.

WHY CREATE ART?

The point of creating Art, good or bad, is to communicate your existence, your alternative perception of reality, and to offer hope in a hopeless world....Selfishly, in a positive way, this also feeds your spirit and opens your heart to yourself....If you are lucky or fate is right, the process of creating will pass on love, and receive love, if you are open to it....Creating Art is the exact opposite of killing bodies, dreams, souls, potential, wonder, and passion. This is why artists are feared and murdered by those who are addicted to controlling society and being obeyed. Creators must be ignored and starved by those who have given up Life and accepted early death....Worthy ethical human animals do not torture weaker beings, or themselves, by withholding their creations. They contribute painful beauty with every ideal, vision, and touch in their being, until they disappear into cosmic dust.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Taipei, Taiwan, 2012

A FATHER'S JOURNEY

New York Times:  December 22, 2012 

by Frank Bruni

FOR a long while, my father’s way of coping was to walk quietly from the room. He doesn’t remember this. I do. I can still see it, still feel the pinch in my chest when the word “gay” came up — perhaps in reference to some event in the news, or perhaps in reference to me — and he’d wordlessly take his leave of whatever conversation my mother and my siblings and I were having. He’d drift away, not in disgust but in discomfort, not in a huff but in a whisper. I saw a lot of his back.

XMAS BIRDS

Art by Liu Wan-Wei

CHILDREN'S BOOK

The Boy

Who Had

Nothing

and

Was Very,

Very Happy

!!!M!!!E!!!R!!!R!!!Y!!!

STATISTICS

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!
Statistics lie. 
Statistics are used to support anyone's viewpoint.
Statistics are great gossip.
Statistics are not true.
Here are the latest "official" U.S. Government Statistics.....

ARTIST: YUREE KENSAKU

PROPERTY RIGHTS

Property rights only exist until someone wants to make money from your property – then it is seized – in the U.S. by law, in China outside the law.

HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER

The most popular money-grabbing movie Hollywood could make is to show China as leading the world in business, culture, philosophy, social services, tourism, diplomacy, and concern for it's citizens. America would be portrayed as violent, selfish, condescending, Colonialist, deteriorating, and self-delusional. Chinese would be the heroes, Americans the villains....There's a pitch that guarantees a billion dollar box-office.... distributed worldwide by 21st Century Panda.

APOCALYPSE

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and I just had a serious discussion on Skype about my plan to quickly put large balloons under Manhattan, so it will finally float above water during tomorrow's Apocalypse.  Staten Island ferries will be used to bring people to safety from the other Boroughs, with women, children, gays, and Queens getting priority.  The Bronx will be put on planes to Southern Puerto Rico, along with the Yankees.  Wall Street tycoons will, of course, take fairies back from Manhattan to Staten Island (and Brooklyn), to sacrifice themselves for the good of the planet.

MERRY MAYAN DAY!

The Dark Knight on a White Horse

ART BY RON NORMAN

CHINESE VS. AMERICAN DIPLOMACY

The reason China will ultimately defeat America in practical diplomacy, if not in every skirmish, is that our officials truly believe that our relationship is "maturing," when, if fact, it is and will always remain the same: America is too young and self-centered to realize when it is being manipulated by an ancient wise power that uses extremely precise methods with absolute clarity, whose only goal is to keep itself in power. (Darwin, not the Bible.)....If this means bettering the lives of Chinese citizens, they will do so. If it means destroying the lives of Chinese citizens, they will do so. To the Chinese in power, the fate of a single human being is as unimportant as walking on a thousand ants.

PHOTO BY CHI PENG

(AMONG) ESSENTIAL NEW FLMS TO SEE

AMOUR….(France) Director: Michael Haneke. Act: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert. Genre: Romance/Drama. 80-year old lovers.

THE ANGEL’S SHARE….Dir: Ken loach.

ARGO….(USA) Dir: Ben Affleck. Act: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin,

Victor Garber. Genres: Modern history/war drama/thriller. Location: Iran.

BEASTS OF THE SOUNTHERN WILD….Dir: Benh Zeitlin (1^st feature). Act: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly. Fantasy/Drama. 6-year-old girl tries to save her father; Nature rebels.

GUNS: HOT ENTERTAINMENT REALITY FRANCHISE RETURNS

When I was young, idealistic, undiplomatic, and certain of right and wrong, I was outspoken. I said exactly what I believed, openly, in newspapers and magazines, on bulletin boards and telephone poles. I signed opinions, often including my address, and even, recklessly, my photo....

USEFUL FILM WEBSITES

http://www.indiewire.com

For independent filmmakers. Articles, reviews, interviews, links, discussion, and daily news.

http://www.snagfilms.com

Watch newest fiction, shorts, and documentaries films & trailers free online.

AMERICA: 1936, 201?

HISTORY VS. TRUTH

History and truth are in the hands of the person in temporary power, subject to be changed at any moment by some writer who wants to win an award, secure tenure, sell books or a script. History and truth are relative.

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS AT TNNUA

Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA) once had some of the best documentary filmmakers (students), from 1998-2006. The Department has been destroyed by the worst of Taiwan educational politics, power addiction, professor's ego, misguided academia, and fear of creativity. This is a major loss to Taiwan, truth-seeking, serious filmmaking, and to international audiences, who will forever miss the vital opportunity of experiencing powerful documentaries that matter.

Among the superb and good documentarians from TNNUA, 1998-2006:

MY CHINA

New York Times Book Review, by Jonathan Mirsky

TOMBSTONE

The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962

by Yang Jisheng  (translated by Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian), 629 pp., Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $35.

In the summer of 1962, China’s president, Liu Shaoqi, warned Mao Zedong that “history will record the role you and I played in the starvation of so many people, and the cannibalism will also be memorialized!” Liu had visited Hunan, his home province as well as Mao’s, where almost a million people died of hunger. Some of the survivors had eaten dead bodies or had killed and eaten their comrades. In “Tombstone,” an eye-­opening study of the worst famine in history, Yang Jisheng concludes that 36 million Chinese starved to death in the years between 1958 and 1962, while 40 million others failed to be born, which means that “China’s total population loss during the Great Famine then comes to 76 million.”

CHOICES

DIFFERENCES

Everyone dislikes someone. Everyone living in a community dislikes something in the community: the age-condition-size of a home, noise from a barking dog-old A/C-music-TV-arguing-Mahjong, kids, visitors, too old-too big-too expensive cars/trucks/motorcycles/motor scooters, where and how vehicles are parked, trees or no trees, gardens or no gardens, ornaments, flags, decorations, degrees of neatness, unfriendly or too friendly neighbors, gossip-politics-religion-culture. Landlords-management companies-lawyers…..The list of personal likes and dislikes in a community, a country, and the world is infinite.

DRAWINGS (not doodles)

PASSIONATE LOVE: A SHORT LIFE

In fairy tales, love and marriage lasts happily ever after. Science, however, tells us that love has a limited life.

Western researchers tracked 2000 couples who stayed married over 15 years: newlyweds enjoy a big happiness boost that lasts just two years. Then the special joy wears off and they are back where they began, in terms of happiness. 

The good news is, if loving couples stay together past that two-year slump - for another couple of decades - they may recover the excitement, discovering each other and their early bliss, once again. 

When love is new, we are in “passionate love” -- intense longing, desire, attraction. This love changes into “companion love” -- deep affection and connection. Or love disappears forever. 

INEQUALITY

Beauty - Height - Weight - Muscles - Hair

Body shape - Breast size - Penis size

Voice quality - Speech - Accent - Tone

Friendship - Dating - Love - Sex - Satisfaction

Marriage - Children - Grandchildren - Caretakers

Family - Grandparents - Parents - Siblings

Childhood - Parental support - Psychological problems

Employment - Boss - Work - Job security - Career

Education - School quality - Intellect - Study - Learning

Spirit - Heart - Growth - Change - Contributions - Legacy

TOURISM

Every country in the world seems desperate to improve their Tourism Industry.  Tourists = Money.

What are “Tourists”?

Tourists are people who usually have (a lot) more money than the people they come to see.  They usually know little about the countries they go to, and don’t really want to know.  They prefer surfaces to knowledge, photos to communication, quick pleasure to intimacy.

COMMENTS

You may post comments now. . .
I finally learned how to enable it.
Please be kind with any criticism.

LULLABY

     "Lullaby" (1997)-Frank Moore

VIRTUAL REALITY TV

[ WARNING:  This essay is written in over-the-top American English.... If you do not like this "style," please don't give up reading the rest of the Blog, which is written in more reader-friendly English to communicate clearly! ]

The mega-blockbusters, “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” and “America’s Got Talent” are the Titanics of TV, except they have happy American success-story endings and never sink, unlike America.

“The Voice” invented revolutionary hideously-designed spinning chairs and a beyond-silly singing wrestling ring. It also recognizes excellence, and, unlike some shows, has a beating non-plastic heart.  Of course, unlike Japanese and Mexican boy bands, Idol-with-Chairs contestants don’t have to be tortured into sleeping with Blake or Adam to further their careers. And there are plenty of non-black straight guys who like exaggerated Hispanic rears. “Voice” has a lot to offer everyone, even vicariously.

VALUES

     For Sale: $65-million.

     Phoenix, Arizona.

BEING PRESENT

INTIMACY FATALLY ATTACKED 

The strong, but fading responses against interrupting personal real contact with technological virtual contact is comforting, although it is a losing battle.  The war has already been won, and those who support intimacy are already dinosaur zombies. 

In defiance of the robotization of culture and communication, some rebels still are able to summon the positive energy and courage to resist massive social and planned-obsolescence pressures to spend, update, and boast.