In This Twilight

Current Grocery List Leads to Revelation

2009-04-18T16:25:00.003-05:00

I get really nostalgic for Hawaii sometimes. So much that I get teary eyes at times.
I think part of it is that I could buy Japanese food without any hassle whatsoever (other than the fact that the cost of groceries in Hawaii is exorbitantly high).

New Orleans, unfortunately, is pretty devoid of Asian food other than the endless sushi restaurants that dot St. Charles and Oak street. I'm not knocking the restaurants, some of them are really good, they even have real Japanese people cooking, but I need authentic Japanese *food* (not sushi) sometimes because... well... that's all I really know how to cook. I got used to it when living in Honolulu, and I got even more used to it each time I went to Japan.

I tried seeing if Don Quixote had online ordering but no! Damn I miss that store... Anyone from Hawaii knows exactly what I'm referring to. Cheap Korean electronics and awesome asian foodstuffs. All rolled up in the raping of the Spanish culture. Mmm.

So I've been reduced to ordering groceries online. I'm still looking for the perfect site that has everything I want.

Here's the list so far:
- dried seaweed
- Jasmine rice 3 lbs
- udon tsuyu
- gyoza sauce
- kewpie mayonnaise
- soba tsuyu
- salmon furikake
- golden curry mild
- maruman organic white miso
- pietro sauce

still looking for:
- gyoza
- tofu
- a decent rice cooker >: (
- okonomiyaki sauce
- ramen ingredients

I'm just tired of wanting to cry every time I go into a grocery store here. In some way, eating Japanese food is comforting to me, and if I have to be reduced to shopping online for my groceries, then so be it. It's not really any more expensive than buying them in the store.

Art Dump: 3D projects from my hawaii days

2009-01-10T12:33:00.007-06:00

Here are some projects I did while I was in Hawaii that have a more sculptural focus- something I don't particularly excel at, but here we are.

Woodshooop! That was a definite *experience* The assignment was to make a stool. I wanted a fun project sooo... Mario Mushroom!

Little did I know the painstaking process they'd put us through. We had to cut the board of wood up into specific sized strips (I think it was 1"x2"s) and then recombine them into whatever we needed. This made me take thrice as long to complete the project, since I had to spin it all on the lathe anyway. My boyfriend was supposed to assist me to make it go faster, but he was forced to leave the workshop because he was considered "a liability".

Materials: Poplar, reddish stain that turned out to be the wrong color, permanent marker

I'll admit that I'm not the best at ceramics. In fact, that one class almost made me want to stop majoring in art. Sitting at the wheel at 2 AM struggling to make the damn clay even center for 34,356th time isn't my cup of tea, and I stayed in a violent rage.

But! This hand built blueberry cake was pretty fun to make :D

I forgot which type of clay I used specifically. Probably some sort of earthenware.

On October 2, 2007 my grandma died suddenly and I interrupted my classes to fly back home for a week for the funeral. There was a lot of controversy surrounding her death and a lot of family spreading vicious rumors and pointing fingers. It was exhausting and more difficult for me to deal with than the deaths of my other two grandparents, probably because it was so unexpected.

So when I returned to school, I made this piece. I still maintain the fact that I am shite at ceramics, but this is my favorite project of that class.

Materials: Earthenware, tenmoku

Hold the Phones

2009-01-10T11:55:00.004-06:00

New favorite artist: Shirin Neshat

It's rare that I find a serious, professional artist that's also down to earth / keeps their inflated ego in check *cough*lookingatyouMeesa'Bahney*cough*
We have Shirin Neshat's Faezeh series of video installations in the Newcomb Gallery right now. I just walked in one day because I was blowing off time before painting class, and found I was the only one in there besides a couple of chatty security guards.

Usually I approach installations with a wary eye, since more often than not they come off as a lot of self-congratulating masturbatory fluff. This time was different however, since I was able to sit through a good deal of her videos before being forced to walk to class. I actually didn't want to leave. Her imagery and themes were unique, beautiful, and actually thought provoking.

She deals largely with the topics of Islam and Muslim women in Iran, especially after the revolution. Here's a cool interview with her here, for those who are interested.

The bottomline, I like her so much because she's intelligent and makes art that people can actually relate to and/or learn something from.

I was surprised to see that she is a part of the Gladstone Gallery, the same as Meesta' Bah-ney. She's a definite cut above that hack.

Gladstone Gallery: Shirin Neshat

Art Dump: First Digital Media Project

2009-01-10T01:21:00.006-06:00

The theme was "imaginary landscape" and we had to make it from a collage of images / photographs / scans. Finished Sep. 20, 2008
40+ hours of painstaking work
Click for a massive view. And this is the low-res version. >_>

I'll probably enter this into the undergraduate juried exhibition or some other contest.

"Drawing Restraint 9" Should've Had More Drawing and Fuckload More Restraint

2009-01-10T00:51:00.007-06:00

I just got done watching my proudly pirated copy of Drawing Restraint 9, and realized that I need my 140 minutes of my life back. Now. I laughed my way through half of it at Barney's often tacky attempts at being esoteric and hocking the "mystery" of Oriental culture to what he must believe is our narrow Western minds. Here are the notes I took, which started about halfway through the film when I noticed that if I didn't take severe action, I'd start muttering angrily to myself among the pink Hannah Montana posters of my little sister's room.

(Do my sentences ramble? Good, you'll get the idea of the agony I endured sitting through this overblown piece of dumbfuckery.)

Petroleum jelly sculpture?? Cremaster Part Seis!
Faux fur kimono, diadema scrunchies, teeth blackening, samurai-esque balding... who does he think he's fooling T_T
Kick out the jazz people with some white face... oh wait, no, I forgot we left our authenticity at the genkan
No Japanese person would wear those crazy ass geta, sorry
Oh! It's a wedding! *cue deep Shinto references most Americans would never get without wikipedia*
Interesting bits muddled by fake Japanese culture-ish esoteric wannabe bullshite
Oh and not just English counts as dialogue Meesta' Bah-ney HO HAR *death blow to his "deep" 2 word script*
Yes, I get all the culture references, No, I'm not impressed
No slamming the tea door shut Bjork? For shame!
Matt- tea ceremony. Ur doing it rong.
BUUT, cool sea creature utensils- totally impractical but hey it's an art film and one of the few things I like about this scene
You didn't say the magic words!
I bet seiza is kicing their asses
--HA! Crumbled under the pressure of seiza.
SNOGFEST
Hmm smells like tuna

However, a poster on IMDB put the experience quite eloquently:
Well, Mr. Barney (who is currently schtupping Bjork) has made a living out of the aforementioned style of "Hey, I can see my kidney!" head-up-your-own-rear pretentious filmmaking. This is the guy who gave us the CREMASTER CYCLE, a 3 + hour work of "artistic" filmmaking that, albeit pretty to look at, was the equivalent of your buddy giving you directions to his house by taking a dump in a punch bowl and pouring it on your newly-bought German Sheperd, spelling "Now you Know the Way, My Friend" on the dog's hindquarters with his fingers before stripping down to a chamber maid's uniform and skipping away into the sunset.

In the end, I think I despise the way he conducts his business more than the actual product since he works from an ivory tower mentality and charges $250,000 per DVD.

Maybe I'm just not cutthroat enough to make that kind of money off of my art. But at least I'll have my integrity... right?
*turns back to my instant ramen*

Double the fun.. with a stalker semi-rant warning

2008-09-11T22:11:00.018-05:00

I still don't have a whole heck of a lot of friends out here yet, and occasionally bouts of loneliness whack me on the head, but to hell with that whole "beggars can't be choosers" deal.

I can't seem to get rid of this weird Chinese girl that has decided to chase me down in the cafeteria each time she sees me so she can sit and interrupt me getting my food groove on. Granted I've only known her for 3 days, but she's earning the stalker status.

Now, I am probably one of the least racist people in the good ol' Red, White, and Blue, but I tend to have a strong distaste for people of that certain Asian persuasion. Blame it on a horribly botched-two-year-crazy-fest with a Chinese ex back in the day. Or the mobs of Chinese tourists that tried to trample my clearly injured foot for the sake of Hello Kitty keychains in Asakusa. And now the slightly lisp-y Chinese sophomore spitting corn in my face while "justifying" her blatant prejudices against Mexicans and Japanese.

I'll just say that I really did give her a fair chance. Actually, when she first asked if I would watch her food so the cafeteria staff didn't throw it away, I agreed. There was an entire table of Asians behind mine, so I assumed she was just getting more food and would sit with them. When she returned and asked if she could sit with me, I agreed then too.

But our conversation went something like this:

CCG (CrazyChineseGirl): *taking a feral bite off her corn cob* So I'm.. erm... Chinese you see.
S: Ohhh.. *flashbacks to traumatic ex, shiver inside* So what area are you from?
CCG: Near Mongolia.
S: In the north, right?
CCG: *apparently hard of hearing* Near Mongo-- OH! Yes! Do you, like, know about other countries and stuff?! Like China?!?!
S: Umm.. I guess? I know more about Japan than China though because--
CCG: OH MY GOD, you, like, totally know that Chinese people kinda hate them, right?
S: Yeah, well it goes both ways, but I can see why considering the political factors. You know, with China pitching a bitch fit everytime the Prime Minister visits Yasukuni, the Japanese imperial bloodlust in WW2, and all that jazz...
CCG: *scary stare* Uhh... the Japanese are traitors.
S: ??? What?
CCG: We believe that Japanese people are actually Chinese. Actually, we think any Asian people are originally Chinese. Did you know there was this huge boat made by this tribe, like, several hundred years ago that left China and NO ONE knows what happened to them!!! ... So we think it's the Japanese.
S: *laughing in her face hysterically*
CCG: ?
S: That's... *hah* .. um... *ha ha* a very interesting theory.
CCG: It's true. It's what we are taught in our textbooks... which are admittedly altered by the government. But it's still true!!

(At this point, I'm seriously starting to worry about this girl. She lived in China until she was 10 then her family moved to the US. I suppose a good bit of brainwashing occuring in those delicate formative years. I tried, to no avail, to explain the Japanese perspective on some issues she brought up, but she wasn't having any of that.)

CCG: I don't really like Latin Americans either... I mean! My mom always told me to never give a Latin American guy your address because *corn flies across the table* they'll follow you to your house, and then wait outside, and then KIDNAP YOU and force you to become a whore!!! ... Or rape you. Yeah. Rape you.
S: O_O *lowers my fork slowly*
CCG: So I'm really suspicious of them, you see. I stay away from them as much as possible. *innocent grin*But I'm not a racist, I swear.
S: Of course not...
CCG: Do you have a boyfriend?
S: Yep. He's Mexican.

Picture the ultimate foot-in-mouth-age I suddenly dumped on her. She had an increasingly horrified expression on her face as we continued to talk. I'm not sure if this was embarrassment at herself or if she considered me a dirty Jap-sympathizer who dates rapists. Either way, my patience was wearing thin, but she left to do homework before I could think of any good ways to scare her off.

None of this was helped by the fact she resembled my ex somewhat.

Well, I thought disaster was averted and my roommate's boyfriend assured me I'd never see her again.

UNTIL TODAY!

On my break before Painting, I decided to get some lunch so I didn't starve to death in that 3 hour class.
Suddenly I felt a sharp tug on my hair. What the fuck is this, kindergarten?! Who gets people's attention by pulling hair I spun around and found her smiling sheepishly at me.

One of Siani's ultimate pet peeves is DON'T MESS WITH MY HEAD. I despise people touching my head, patting it, leaning on it, pinching my cheeks, and other dumb-fuckery with the most important part of my body. The hair is included in this vicinity.

So I was pretty pissed off actually by the time I even entertained the notion of turning around. This was thinly veiled. I muttered "hi" before walking away and finding a table.
She followed.

She sat down with me. A small part of me thought about smashing my fruit plate over her head.
I really REALLY wanted to eat in peace.

This time she seemed to have learned not to bad mouth Mexicans in front of me, but rambled on instead about how Chinese people are misunderstood and they're just a product of their impoverished environment.

CCG: So they really can't help it, ya know. They grew up on a bowl of rice. The bad manners and everything are just a product of their environment. Like, fate or something.
S: My Mexican boyfriend just spent the weekend in a poor Mexican village in the countryside doing a survey of the people's lives. Many families of five are living off of $45 a month and have no food. Their native language isn't even Spanish, because they're indigenous peoples. Yet despite their desolate circumstances, they still tried to feed him though they had no food for themselves. They were polite and friendly, and forced him to eat before their own kids. And in general, people in Mexico are just like that- even though it's a third world country. Wonderful, warm people.
CCG: .... .... So yeah.... Chinese people can't help it. I really don't understand why so many people don't like the Chinese.
S: *sigh, time to pull out the big guns because subtlty doesn't work on her* Maybe it's just culture differences you know. I did date a Chinese person.
CCG: *eyes light up like Mexican firecrackers* REALLY?!
S: Yeah, I dated a Chinese woman for two years.
CCG: .....................................................................................................OH MY GOD.
S: I'm bisexual, you see.

I really expected her to get up and leave, or find some quick excuse to leave, since I know how low of a tolerance Chinese people tend to have for any sort of homosexuality. A low blow, yes, but seemingly effective.
...Not.

CCG: That's like... um... so... um..... WOW. I've never met anyone like you before! You're so interesting!!
S: *dies inside a little* Well, I have to be getting to my next class now. So... gottagobye.

I made a quick escape soon after and didn't look back.
She wants to transfer to a "better", more "prestigious" school, so I'm completely encouraging it. Oh, and she's also a nosy bitch who doesn't know the boundaries of personal questions.

I feel like I'm going to have to start going to the cafeteria in sunglasses and a cheap wig.