Music Video of the Day: She & Him, "Don't Look Back"

Ok. So our lord and master has come to survey his dominion. And normally I would be freaking out about this. (Go home, Hu Jintao. You smell...like unfettered economic success.) But it turns out here in America we know how to clone Zooey Deschanel. So, eat it, China.

remakes that aren't remakes

yeah ok, so i've seen the poster of "karate kid" starring son of will smith jaden and jackie chan. i just assumed that jackie chan was cast as a japanese man. chinese, japanese--not going to quibble here about details. also, jaden smith was a cute little kid.

then someone told me to read the imdb plot summary of this movie:

12-year-old Dre Parker could've been the most popular kid in Detroit, but his mother's latest career move has landed him in China. Dre immediately falls for his classmate Mei Ying - and the feeling is mutual - but cultural differences make such a friendship impossible. Even worse, Dre's feelings make an enemy of the class bully, Cheng. In the land of kung fu, Dre knows only a little karate, and Cheng puts "the karate kid" on the floor with ease. With no friends in a strange land, Dre has nowhere to turn but maintenance man Mr. Han, who is secretly a master of kung fu. As Han teaches Dre that kung fu is not about punches and parries, but maturity and calm, Dre realizes that facing down the bullies will be the fight of his life.

this isn't the work of some dork imdb user - it's the official plot summary from columbia pictures. china? kung fu? are we going to pretend this makes any sense?

also, the al-tipper separation counts as a death of sorts, no?

ox populi

so i was at a party over the weekend and i met this dude who, upon being introduced to me said, "hey, happy new year!"

considering it was january 24, what do you think he meant?

(a) "happy chinese new year!" since january 26 is chinese new year and obvs i'm chinese?
(b) "happy lunar new year!" since he knew koreans also celebrate lunar new year and he can tell koreans and chinese apart?
(c) "happy new year!" since that's what he says to everyone during the month of january regardless of race?

Gobble Gobble, Motherfucker

Some posts ago, I claimed that things were looking up for me on the job-front. Unfortunately, that assessment turned out to be a bit premature, but life trudges on, and here we are on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, and the tumult in my professional life, while not resolved, I can happily say has been compartmentalized. I spent a month -- I realize now -- totally preoccupied with my misfortune. Somehow, I didn't manage to devour books, or go to the gym obsessively, or tear through Season 1 of Mad Men, or make moves on that novel I keep talking about. I brooded, I worried. I think the middle of October to the middle of November 2008 will go down as the Lost Weekend of my life, but now I'm fixated on being productive, on re-entering society. This blog is my cotillian, and you, reader, you are my dashing white-tied son of plantation aristocracy. As I am a society type now, I have started calling up people and seeing if they want to do lunch, catch a movie, go to a concert. If you have time to chat on the phone, let me know. I recently got a blue tooth machine and now the world is my oyster.

Yesterday, on 'Pockets' orders, I went to the grocery store to do the necessary, and had to face down one of the few things I did not miss in my self-imposed exile: the insufferable Northern Californian stereotype. How this place challenges my liberalism. I showed up at Berkeley Bowl, mission command center for East Bay smugness, and encountered the inevitable long lines and packed aisles. That I was expecting. What I was not were the two men -- and this shows how I am still an easterner in a strange land of organic produce and fixed-gear bicycles-- two perfectly sculpted and bare-domed men, arguing over whether or not to purchase a bag of sugar:

Man 1: Jeffrey, Where is that sugar from?
Man 2: Michael, I don't know. It doesn't say.
Man 1: If it's from Paraguay, we can buy it. But if it's from China...
Man 2: Well, it's probably from somewhere we don't want it to be, but we need sugar.
Man 1: I will not eat sugar from China! I will not eat agrochemicals.
Man 2: Well, I'm buying this. I am not hunting for Paraguayan sugar tonight...Also, they are out of brown sugar, so we've already got enough problems.
Woman: Well, you can just mix the regular sugar with molasses. You know, that's all brown sugar is...
Man 1: But I want naturally brown sugar!

When the Chinese make a gulag our of our western outposts, and feed us nothing buy processed foods and lead-coated toys, I'll wash down my despair with the knowledge that Michael will be getting the reeducation he deserves.

Happy Thanksgiving.

mo'lympics

i enjoy the olympics in a very unironic way. yeah, i'm pretty sure everyone is drugged up and the chinese have infants on their women's gymnastics team or whatever, but still.

anyway, i do feel conflicted every 4 years. where do my loyalties lie? (un?)fortunately, the canadian olympic team seems unable to win a medal in a single event, so i guess i'm going to go with korea. i am sure we will sit comfortably in third until all the track and field events begin. what happened to canada? we used to win a medal or two in the summer olympics. [update: korea is now behind germany in the medal count. boo...]

i find it somewhat amusing that all of my not very patriotic friends get seriously peeved when i don't cheer for the USA. there also was this ridiculous new york times article expressing incredulity over the fact that the chinese are (gasp!) uninterested in michael phelps. yeah, guess what? not everyone cares about america. deal with it.

btw, did anyone happen to read this david brooks op-ed? is he accusing americans of "whining" over katrina? why did he wait until the final sentence to state his thesis?