Now I’m sure many questions are running through your head, some of which may include (1) What is this display? and (2) What enticed you to come within picture-taking distance of this display? Yes, well, I ask myself these questions too. If you can answer the first question, which I’m sure some of you talented souls can, kudos to you. I certainly cannot. In fact, such a towering display of gamer glory rather intimidates me, especially seeing how as I was (1) below ground / in a basement of some sorts (?) and (2) surrounded on 3 sides by shelves containing this sort of miscellany.

Here’s how I arrived at this picture: I had taken the 1 Bus down Mass Ave, gotten off at Pleasant Street in Central Square and was en route to film a flamenco dancer for a documentary short I am working on. As is usually the case with my poor timing, I am either too early or too late, and in this particular instance, I was too early. So in addition to ambling at the slowest pace possible while still appearing to be a functionally mobile/able human being, I decided that if I saw anything on the way (down Pleasant Street) that caught my eye, a short detour would be acceptable. Now as I began walking down Pleasant Street, I discovered that this kind of detour would probably be unlikely seeing as how there really is nothing on Pleasant Street except for small houses – and it was a dark rainy Saturday evening. But before the hustle and bustle of Mass Ave completely dissipated into pseudo-suburbia, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a store that had a sign in its window reading “BOOKS & GAMES.” This was around the corner from a 7-11 convenience store and it looked pretty normal from the outside. I didn’t really pay much attention to anything else except for the “BOOKS & GAMES” sign because I had automatically zoned in on one thing I was hoping to find in the store: Scrabble. A couple weeks ago, my suitemates and I had played Speed Scrabble in our Resident Tutors’ suite over a dinner of Home-baked Corn Flake Corn/Egg/Cheese Casserole and had decided that we were going to get our own Scrabble set for Sunday afternoons or other times when we wanted to procrastinate. Seeing the word “GAMES” in the storefront, I thought that this might be the perfect place to go because if you really think about it, where else (practically) would you go to find a Scrabble set?

I set foot inside the store enthusiastically, determined to leave with a Scrabble set and the triumph of knowing my suitemates would be pleased with my having obtained the set. Once inside, however, I knew immediately from the (1) emptiness of the place, (2) militant figurines lining the walls (3) duos and trios of twelve-year old boys that perhaps I was in for something more than just a Scrabble set. I scanned the room quickly and realized that everything I was seeing – mainly figurines and boxes wrapped in cellophane – was darker-hued than I imagined a game store would be. I saw a lot of ambers, camo greens, blacks, browns – colors I associate with Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones, and mud monsters. There were no reds and yellows and pastel greens – you know, like Monopoly sets and Candyland and Chutes and Ladders type colors.

But I didn’t lose hope. I saw that at the end of this front room there were stairs to the left, so I went down. Mind you, I realized at this point I was the only female within the entire store after several boyish-looking men gave me odd looks – looks that screamed “Your presence in this store is weirding me out.”

So that brings me to the above display. Didn’t pause long enough to engage in my senses in what was actually available for purchase, but I did briefly take note of my surroundings:

In the adjacent room, which reminded me more of a cavern than a room, was a congregation of middle-aged men, mostly a little tubby, some wearing glasses, most wearing t-shirts, sitting around a shoddy wooden table thoroughly engrossed in whatever each was holding, which I presume was a hand of cards. I’m pretty sure they were playing Dungeon & Dragons, or Magic Cards or something, not that I am familiar with either, but in such a setting – I’ll be honest – I made quite a few assumptions which either speaks to my ignorance, my tendency to stereotype, or my complete and utter unfamiliarity with a particular kind of male. There were a few twelve-year old boys hanging around there too, peering over the shoulders of the older men, and it was an odd conglomerate of sorts. Thinking back to this scene and trying to conjure up the mental image of it in my head, one of the most striking elements of the room as I picture it is the composition of the walls: cold grey stones, lined with mortar – acting as a backdrop against rickety metal chairs and a few faded amber/rose-colored sofas. But at this point I begin to question my visual memory, which I am sure is so heavily constructed, in part by my incapacity to secure a mental image so strange and foreign, so colored, probably by my stereotypes and assumptions as to what exactly that social environment should look like, and so exaggerated, by my own desires to showcase just what an anomaly of a place I had stepped into.

Is this truly an anomaly? You tell me. I have no experience with these kinds of places!!!!!!! I really do not enjoy playing games, except for: Jeopardy (does this count? when I am screaming answers at the television set?), Scrabble, Botticelli, Crossword Puzzles – anything trivia/word-related; no violence or anime characters involved.

Conclusion: Our suite is still lacking a Scrabble set. If you have one you would like to donate, please contact me at your earliest convenience.

October partiezzzzz.

I’m just about the opposite of a party animal… I guess the opposite of that would be a wallflower. Or a homebody. Or a hermit crab that shrivels into his shell at will. I think I’m the last – a hermit crab. It’s about right I think, since I usually scuttle about slowly, drink a lot of water, and don’t make a lot of noises really. Life’s pretty peaceful as a hermit crab.

This here was HIPTOBER fest, which is derived from OKTOBERFEST, and I guess it’s a bit like Oktoberfest if you replace the dirndls with flannel shirts. Instead of dressing up as coy pigtailed Germans with beer overflowing out of their too-tight corsets, attendees of Hiptoberfest are mandated to dress up as them bike-ridin’, moustache-toutin’, tattoo-bearin’, scarf-wearin’ hipsters, ironically of course. Replace the kaasspotzn, schweinsbraten, haxn, wurstl, brezn, hendl, and sauerkraut with wayfarers, denim vests, cigarettes, your grandma’s sweater, and nose rings, and you gotcha-self a HIPSTHAAAAA.

Oh LOVE

Somehow, the light is so perfectly cast on the wall that it looks like there is smoke coming out Zach’s pipe. There’s not.

Tried to up the inner hipster with this tattoo I drew on in 20 seconds using washable markers and a black sharpie.

THEN THERE WAS HALLOWEEN: self-explanatory:

LUMBERJACK LANGE & HIS TREEVA

GAGAGA! (but Hanna is BETTER) I would soooooo photoshop in googly eyes and a sphynx cat if I were not lazy… would totally be the BAD ROMANCE VIDEO

MEN OF THE BIBLE… L: THE FLOOD, R: THE WHALE

WWBDD?!!?!?!? WHAT WOULD BOB DYLAN DO?!!?

NICK THE FLAMING UNICORN (HORN)

DA(NNY) RABBIT

If the dress fooled you, this one here really was the fiercest wolf EVER  (KEEP YOUR SOLOZ = GREEN IS THE NEW CRIMSON)

I’m assuming his name is Ben…

MATTHEW = ?!??!?? , NOAH = ADLER?????, ADLER = JO BROS?????

CUTIE MOUEN IN HER NATURAL STATE (i.e. NERD)

PARTY IN THE U.S.A.!!!!!!

NODDIN’ MY HEAD LIKE YEAH
MOVIN’ MY HIPS LIKE YEAH

PARTY IN THE U.S.A.!!!!!!

Let me tell you about last Saturday night. After a dreadful trudge through heavy rain and half an hour on the subway, I finally made it onto the loathsome shuttle bus that runs between the Lorimer Street and Montrose Ave stop on the L line. Riding the shuttle bus was one of my most vivid memories from the summer: it provoked in me an irrational but disturbing anxiety, a tendency towards claustrophobia, and a ferociousness that was useful only in pushing and shoving my way off the bus. But the drudgeries of the shuttle bus could by no means amount to suffering, and perhaps that was the worst of it – that because it became more of an occasional annoyance, it had the power to frustrate an otherwise “so-so” day, tip the balance from “blah” to “sucky.” In this way, perhaps the frustration was meta-cyclical: I hated that such a banal occurrence could peeve me so much.

While waiting for the shuttle bus at the Montrose stop, I always tried to anticipate how crowded the shuttle bus would be. This entailed a Family Feud-esque process in which I would make a mental list of all the possible reasons for going into Manhattan and then assign a probability to each reason based on the day of week and time of day. I figured around 9 or 10 PM on a Saturday night, there would be a lot of Bushwick/Williamsburg hipsters going out to party. 2 PM on a Sunday – people waking up hung over and going into the city for a lazy day of consumerism. 7 AM on a Monday morning would have been work, except that I don’t recall shuttle buses ever running at that time (and I was never up at that time anyway). The best time for taking the shuttle bus was probably Sunday morning when most people were still asleep (and when I say “most people” I am referring to the mostly sub-30 demographic that populates the L line). You could tell on Sunday mornings that most people on the shuttle bus were going to church because they were all dressed nicer than usual – flannel shirts traded for collared shirts, rompers for nice A-line skirts – you know how them L-line hipsters roll.

Besides the conventional hipster fixtures on the L line, there was always a generally predictable population on the shuttle bus. At least 20% of the shuttle bus crowd were middle-aged Hispanic men, many of them wearing baseball caps. Another 20% were high school kids, several of whom always wore excessively baggy pants and obnoxiously bright high-tops. If a group of them got onto the bus together, they were usually tossing around strings and strings of cuss words and talking dirty about some girl. I remember specific instances – the conversations have been seared into my mind. Chances were that there was at least one pregnant woman (or with child) and at least another individual, usually youngish, who carried a fashionably miniature dog in one of those nylon dog-bags. The most memorable of all these people, for me, was a a tall African-American man wearing a black and purple baseball cap, a track jacket, and jeans. I remember him most clearly because when he opened his mouth and started to talk, I caught a glimpse of his yellow gem-studded grills. Yes, this was in fact my first up-close and personal look at authentic grills. It was quite exciting.

Now returning from summer past into Saturday night present, I found myself at the Lorimer Street stop in a resigned state, having nixed the idea that I was going to try to stay dry in the pouring rain. I put my umbrella back into my bag and convinced myself that I felt slightly freer not having to deal with a contraption that had the potential to poke someone’s eye out and that perhaps the rain drenching my hair and coat would feel nice and relaxing (No, this did not happen). One advantage of being 5′3″ is that I can squeeze myself between people quite easily, so I was able to make it to the front of the crowd waiting for the shuttle bus, ensuring that I would make it onto this shuttle bus and not have to wait for the next. I timed my ascent onto the bus quite preciselyt: not too early so that I would be in one of the seats at the end of the bus which would make it very hard to get off the bus and not too late so that I would have to stand in a very uncomfortable position. I picked an aisle seat that was close to the bus doors and sat down, glad to be out of the rain and another step closer to reaching my destination.

But lo and behold – at this point, I spotted a trio of literally zombie-like individuals (or dressed as such) step onto the bus. Two sat down directly in front of me so I didn’t see much of their visage except the crusty cornstarch dabbled on their necks (which I guess are supposed to be resemble guts or cuts or some sort of injury?). The last – the bloodiest and most zombie-like of them all, stood right next to me. However, because the bus was rather crowded, his clutching the metal pole as support meant that he was standing OVER me rather than just adjacent to my seat. I studied this man carefully, as I do to most people in my close proximity: a skinny, gaunt-looking man, with glasses, several piercings in his ears, head covered entirely in blood, and some sort of blood-covered dove/bird attached to the side of his head. While the visual stimulation of his get-up seemed intially to be an interesting and lively ending to my night, I noticed that as the bus started to move and he began to ever-so-slightly rock back and forth, his hair and face, which were also wet from the rain, began to drip.

And where do droplets of bloody water go but down?

As I sat in my seat impatiently awaiting the end of this ride, I suddenly had the sensation that it was raining inside the bus. I looked up at zombie-man and then down again and noticed a red trail on my cardigan and skirt. I looked up again and glared , certain that my glare was so intense that eventually zombie-man would have to make eye contact with me. And he did – my glare was that intense. I looked him in the eye, then looked at the blood dripping, then looked him in the eye again.

At this point, he realized what was happening, and with absolutely no remorse said to me, “It’ll wash out, don’t worry.”

I continued to glare at him.

“It’s fake blood. It’s just corn starch and food coloring,” he said, as a seeming retort to my persistent glare.

Funny thing is that he did not change positions. He continued to stand over me and drip his cornstarch-food coloring blood all over my garments, and I, trapped in my plastic orange seat, could not move to dodge the droplets. My only power lay in my glare, which I’ll finally admit is not much of a weapon.

When I finally got off that shuttle bus, I was relieved – yet somehow, I could not shrug off the little wrath that had bubbled inside me during that 10-minute span.

Since then, I’ve channeled my anger towards zombie-man into anger towards the shuttle bus, which I know is the kind of annoyance-derived anger that will probably never subside. Because at the end of the day, when you don’t really have much else to be angry at, shuttle buses are sufficient objects on which you can unleash any/all irrational wrath. Yes.

Everyone in there is grim-looking and the whole place reeks of the most artificial silence, and if you sneeze or cough or walk a little too loudly, all the stern and studious people look up and glare at you. The stacks can be nice once in awhile, depending on my mood, and I really do love libraries in general, but it is never bad to create a little joy in such a serious place:

And it is by far more thrilling to scan your hand than periodicals from the 1920s…

Must find other non-conspicuous, fun things to scan…

Rolando’s beautiful sea-shell collection

Benchwarming and Heartwarming in front of Liquiteria

Paleontology

A+K

Literally two minutes before I left Brooklyn foreeeeeever. My cool roommate Ten-Li and me. We are two little Asians.

Little moments from home in California…. I miss that place more this year than I did last year I think… Will be home for more than a month during winter break, longer than I was at home during the summer!!

the face of Jesus, the holiest of holy

back in May I swore off coffee for the longest time. And I was pretty good about it. I didn’t even drink it in New York – at all – even though drinking coffee is such a New York thing to do. As soon as I got back to California, I started back on those soy lattes – which I understand is the yuppiest drink alive – but also the most delicious caffeinated hot drink alive. Chugged many of these, which resulted in a painfully heightened frequency of urination.

Have always been fascinated by light trails

Before I die I would like to take a stab at bee-keeping. Have always been curious about the dynamics of the bee kingdom. Or should I say queendom. You know, more than ten generations of worker bees can live and die before the Queen dies… and the unswerving loyalty these worker bees have for the Queen. I wonder if the Queen Bee has a larger brain than the worker bees… very interesting, so curiously interesting.

The first snow in Boston was this past Sunday, October 18 – which was terribly sad, as the first snow last year was not until December 16. I miss this California sunlight, which is perennial and dampens the feeling of change. I take it for granted in California. Then when it drops to 20 degrees here and I look at pictures like these, I find myself cursing New England.

Some people just have faces that emanate a repressed anxiety. Like Zac Efron here – Though his face is imprinted on what is presumably a very comfortable pillow, and he smiles a smile which many a girl (and boy) will nuzzle in the wee hours of the night, this smile, nevertheless, is uncomfortable, and it makes me uncomfortable. Maybe it is the way his eyebrows stretch and curve or the way his lips are unnaturally thin or the way his eyes always seem to be watery, like he is on the verge of tears. Whatever it is, something about his face is tense. As a result, watching movies like High School Musical and Seventeen Again where he is supposed to be a suave character ( never fully though – his awkwardness is undeniable), it is always a bit difficult for me to reconcile *this* face with *that* character.

I’ve always wanted to express this in print. It is high time that Zac Efron’s physiognomy be fully scrutinized. Even if it means breaking the hearts of teenyboppers everywhere.

P.S. For an extra delectable treat (and partial support for my argument), read this (an automatically generated “related link” to my post).

August in California:

Currently I do not have very easy access to film developing / scanning, so I have not many photographs from my own life to post here.

Instead, I interrupt your internet-browsing time with these few images, my “new photographs” for now:

Until a later date…