Guavalog: really regret that some have taken totally out of context my use of the world 'clean.'

A name with stories.

I went to a library event during Litquake last month at which Ben Fong-Torres spoke (about a new book co-written with some of the band's members on The Doors). I had been a little curious about the hyphenated last name at the time, and thought to look it up later, guessing that it was something he acquired after marriage by adding a spouse's name. I was wrong. (I was also busy so, later turned out to be today.)

In the introduction to "Not Fade Away," I wrote: "On the job, meeting with musicians, managers, publicists, concert promoters, and record company executives, I never sensed any surprise on their part as they discovered that the guy from Rolling Stone was Chinese. Far more often, I would hear that, from having heard my name on the phone, they expected a Latino ("Torres" or perhaps a Scandinavian ("Von Taurus," maybe?)         

But despite the name - the result of my immigrant father acquiring a Filipino name to defy the old Chinese Exclusion Act and gain entry into the United States in 1921 - I am indeed Chinese. (benfongtorres.com)

and from another interview...

JournalismJobs.com: Coming from a strict Chinese upbringing, how did your parents feel when you wanted to become a journalist -- and to cover Rock 'n Roll? Were they disappointed you didn't want to take over the family restaurant or become a doctor or lawyer?

Ben Fong-Torres: I came from a family that very much adhered to Chinese culture. In terms of strictness, it was really more the feeling of responsibility to be a part of the family business, which was the restaurant. You were simply expected to be there and to work pretty much every day and night and weekends and summers [laughs]. But aside from that, hey, we're loose man. Not to mention the language barrier. They were shouting at you, but you didn't know what they were saying. I was not inclined to tell them very much. Or I wasn't very able to articulate what I was getting into. They knew that I was kind of heading toward the newspaper racket because they would see that I was bringing home newspapers with my articles in it. But that was as far as they knew. They didn't express a great disappointment. (October 2001)

This past summer he wrote about visiting an Emerville restaurant he had worked in as a teen in the late '50s, a location now serving tapas-styled "New Wave Asian" dishes.

... an earlier lunchtime customer had left a $6 tip. 

I couldn't help but laugh. Six dollars was just about what I used to make for an evening of work in that restaurant. Well, it wasn't Furenzu, and we certainly didn't offer any wine. Nor were there any such things back then as sake-based cocktails ... 

When I worked there, it was Moon's Chinese Kitchen. It was the late '50s, and I was all of 14. Yeah, I know. Child labor. But my brother Barry (who was 16) and I were earning a little extra money for the family. And so, after classes at Oakland High School, I'd take an AC Transit bus to San Pablo Avenue, into the town of Emeryville. I'd trudge a block over to Adeline Street, and to Moon's, a tiny, six-table operation that specialized in cheap food for takeout and home delivery. Shrimp fried rice was 75 cents, fried prawns 80 cents and a ham sandwich 40 cents. 

My job was to take orders over the phone  --  invariably, people wanted shrimp fried rice and fried prawns (talk about Old Wave Asian)  --  and then pack the food into a paper sack for the delivery guys. 

... 

There was one weekend afternoon I remember well. I was reading back an order to a customer on the phone, when, suddenly, my voice cracked. When I pieced it back together, it had slipped a notch. At age 14, I had reached adolescence  --  in a Chinese restaurant. ("Many Moons Ago")

The photo above is from reelradio.com. The caption is "In 1960, while in high school, I did some weekend work at KEWB, where I met the morning man, Gary Owens."

Random ruminations (repeated?)

#1 When I heard the name of the judge in the Moussaoui case - Leonie Brinkema (and this was quite a few times as the case drew to a close, just from hearing the news headlines), I think of a stop on the Long Island Rail Road called Ronkonkoma. I know, they're not even that much alike. But it's like an involuntary mental twitch. Probably because I like the sound of Ronkonkoma (Massapequa and Patchogue have their charms too, in my mind's ear anyway. I haven't heard them pronounced much by present-day natives of those locales.)

#2 Twice now the Little Tokyo branch has helped me out when a book I wanted was missing or checked out of the Central Library. Just a few blocks away, it feels new and light and airy inside.  I think a previous post has some of my cell phone cam shots of the place.  There's a view of St. Vibiana's bell tower from one window. I read the fliers on my way out and noticed one for a pilgrimage to Manzanar. Maybe I'll see it someday.

Of Mice and Men (and Magazines)

When I subscribe to magazines they end up stacked in unread piles on the coffee table. One year I signed up for multiple magazines at once and the many unread issues filled up the car trunk and one file cabinet drawer at work too.

But when I come across them in waiting rooms, it's like finding unexpected treasure and I can't tear my eyes away from the glossy pages. The thought of subscribing to The New Yorker, for example, makes me feel like puking. But I still remember that time I went with someone to her doctor's appointment and sat by myself in the waiting room after she went inside, luxuriating in that magazine's excerpted first chapter of Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex.

My love of waiting room magazines extends to airplanes, which in a sense are really just large steel-reinforced waiting rooms in the sky, and their sometimes cheesey in-flight magazines.

While waiting at the auto service center, I picked up an issue of Time. It had a funny interview with South Park's creators. And a column called "Verbatim" with a quote that made me wonder...

"I have no animosity toward them at all," he added. "I've seen their little villages. They're dirt poor, poor as field mice." - Texan oil worker in Nigeria, on his militant captors following his release on his 69th birthday after being held hostage with eight colleagues for nearly two weeks.

Shades of Stockholm Syndrome? It's possible. But his words say and suggest more. Maybe there's some truth in that old saying about his home state - "Everything's bigger in Texas." Big trucks, big hair, big portions of food and big hearts with a bigger-than-average capacity for forgiveness?

Past pictures.

I finally emailed myself a couple of photos I took during a tour of City Hall when I was downtown last spring for jury duty.   

I guess I was impressed with all of the craftwork inside the elevator.  It was sort of like taking a gilded bronze cage to the upper floors.  There was a lady in a turquoise suit walking a circuit around the roof when I was looking at it.  I recall the docent saying the helipad was used by the LAPD and someone else. 

I also finished a book that day - Clean Slate.  It had been sitting around my room since last summer, mostly unread, because the first few pages hadn't really inspired me.  Thinking back to some long waits in the holding pen-like assembly room in years past, I figured it was better than nothing and put it in my bag as I rushed out the door that morning.  I remember folding a bunch of pages (hey! it's my personal copy) with passages that caught my interest, but the book is still in my desk at work, so maybe I'll add a few quotes in the morning.

Quotes from Clean Slate

The book is narrated in the voice of a Sikh man growing up in the US, beginning with his childhood days and ending in his young adulthood on an unexpected note.   

The things I didn't learn in history class - (p.108) Apparently, Nehru Gandhi, the reigning Prime Minister, and Mahatma Gandhi, the common spiritual leader, gave the Sikh people a promise.  The Sikhs were supposed to be given land (Punjab) for their help in fighting against the British.  It was decided that the land was to be given to them at some later date....By the time the eighties rolled around, the Sikhs, still without land, became enraged and a militant movement started. 

On hilarious hair hijinks at Sikh summer camp - (p.81)  After all, it was our hair that set us apart from everone else.  For many of us, it was a source of hardship, just as much as it was a source of spirituality.  So using it to provide a little humor for us certainly felt innocent. 

I can't really find a single quote for it, but another interesting theme in the book was the resentment towards teen Sikh girls coming from some teen Sikh boys - regarding the girls "getting off easy" with respect to their religious observance and their interest in boys with short hair.

Little library.

The book I wanted was checked out of most nearby libraries.  But the Little Tokyo Branch had one copy on the shelf.  The copy looked brand new, like it had never been checked out by anyone.  Kind of like the library itself.

I parked right next to this corner, at a street spot with a broken parking meter. 

If I had parked in the adjacent lot, I could've entered the library by this pathway. 

The entry lobby contained a collage-style mural on one side.

I peeked into this meeting room and saw what looked like a tapestry hanging near the window.

This is the view that greets a visitor upon entering, a few steps beyond the circulation counter.  I got the impression of lots of beautiful wood and light.  As I walked around looking for my book's call number, I noticed a Japanese Heritage section along the back wall.  While I waited in a short line to check out my book, a man self-checked a large stack of anime magazines out at a nearby machine.

This is the garden view that could be yours if you were seated at one of the tables shown above.   

That must be where most of that light was coming from - I noticed the windows and the cupola of that mystery building while in line.
Looks like mystery building is... the St. Vibiana cathedral.

Beautiful bookstores.

I went to Skylight Books on Friday to hear Barbara Ehrenreich talk about her latest book Bait and Switch.  By the way, that bookstore is the shiznit.  I was standing off to one side of her podium, in the children's section, because when I got there 15 minutes before her scheduled appearance, all the seats were taken.  When people in front of me shifted their shoulders one way I had an excellent view of her profile.  When those shoulders shifted the other way and blocked my view of the author, I listened to her disembodied voice while perusing the pages of Little Stevie Wonder, Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa and glanced longingly at a a very tempting Pippi Longstocking photo calendar.

I've heard about Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, which tells about her experiences supporting herself as an entry-level worker in various cities.  The latest book had her going undercover (she said she legally changed her name) to experience the job search from a middle-class professional perspective.  She talked about some of the absurdities of career coaching and personality testing.  I haven't read the latest book yet, so I don't know if she addresses ageism, but given that she's over 40, I wonder if she experienced it while doing her research. 

Thoughts on 33 1/3:  Speaking of distinctive bookstores, earlier this summer (well, it's not really summer anymore but it sure feels like it), a friend introduced me to 33 1/3 Books.  She'd heard about an appearance there by this guy who had reported from and written about Iraq.  When we got there I was impressed by all of the artwork around the store.  It seemed to be by local artists and some of it was quite big.  One wall, right behind the speaker's microphone, had a large depiction of a woman with one breast exposed (an Amazon?), so that was maybe a little distracting while he was talking. 

The author started his talk with the story of an Iraqi man that wanted to name his son after George Bush, and offered an explanation of how the U.S. wasted that kind of goodwill towards it after Saddam's fall and actually did things that completely turned around Iraqi opinion of the U.S.  Though I didn't think of it during the question and answer period, I should have asked whether the man ended up naming a child after Bush or not.  I suppose now I'll just have to read the book to find out.

The night I was there, mention was made of the bookstore's tenuous existence.

Leonard's LA library lecture.

I went to Chang's talk entitled "The Terminator, John Updike, and Asian Americana."  I think he compared The Terminator and the author John Updike at one point because of their ability and tendency to keep going, plugging away at what they do, even when they are shot down.  And the Asian Americana...well, he talked about a certain type of feedback he got from editors before his books were published - complaints that the characters weren't Korean/Asian enough, didn't eat Asian food, or in one instance, contemplate her Asian features while looking at her reflection in the mirror.  I am the sort of person who contemplates my own ethnic features from time to time, so I didn't think that last one the most laughable idea even if the audience did laugh hard at its mention.  But Chang explained how that would not have fit the character's personality or his own for that matter.

Having read his first novel The Fruit N' Food, I can recommend it.  His style is straightforward, easy to read, and the story quickly propelled me through the book.  From one of the amazon reviews of the book:  "different from what I expected, September 18, 1998.  Reviewer: A reader.  I had to read this for a class, and expected another one of those precious "ghost" novels, with ancestors and fake Asian myths. Instead, this novel was really surprisingly true and real. I liked it a lot, and am going to take a look at his second book."

I started reading Chang's latest novel, Fade to Clear:  An Allen Choice Novel.  It's the third in a series about a private investigator.  It's interesting how even with the added richness of detail and background story that these characters have compared to the ones in Fruit N' Food, the style still feels similarly spare and understated.

So:  I met Soo at the lecture.  That was definitely cool.  While we were waiting around for Soo to have his picture taken with the author, a lady approached us and said that we should limit ourselves to 60 seconds with the author, given the small crowd forming around him (and maybe it was partly around the drinks table, next to which he was standing).  I gave her a quick "ok" because she was talking to me and because I actually had no idea of anything to say or ask him, but in hindsight her somewhat possessive concern that people not monopolize his time seems weird.  Unless maybe she was his mother.

The rest of you are hypothetical punks (not Patty, though) who missed your chance to meet me.  Maybe next summer.  If you're lucky.

Hey:  Zócalo rocks, even more so now that I realize that the next speaker has little or nothing to do with the infamous Jacoby & Meyers.  The lecture series includes courtyard receptions with drinks and snacks.

Rabbit reading.

You're Watership Down!
by Richard Adams
Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

It kind of sucks when I do one of those web quizzes and the result is something I've never heard of - it usually means I have to do outside research to just begin to interpret the quiz results.  (Yeah, I know, what a tragedy of an extra search or two on google.)  But this time, on this book quiz, I got a book I've actually read and enjoyed.  I read it because I had this grandiose idea of reading every book in the fiction section of the children's library one summer.  Not sure how far I got, but I'd be surprised if I made it as far as C.  I read much more back then, but it was a very well-stocked library.  This book's author has a last name that starts with A, so there was no missing it.  I tend to like stories in which animals are anthropomorphized.

A rabbit has two ears; a rabbit has two eyes, two nostrils. Our two warrens ought to be like that. They ought to be together—not fighting. We ought to make other warrens between us—start one between here and Efrafa, with rabbits from both sides. You wouldn't lose by that, you'd gain. We both would. A lot of your rabbits are unhappy now and it's all you can do to control them, but with this plan you'd soon see a difference. Rabbits have enough enemies as it is. They ought not to make more among themselves. A mating between free, independent warrens—what do you say?"

See also:  The Real Watership Down, or pictures of it anyway.  "Richard Adams set the book 'Watership Down' in the region he grew up in."

Go goth girl.

JOLENE SIANA, former teen goth girl, discusses and signs her epistolary memoir, Go Ask Ogre: Letters From a Deathrock Cutter, featuring her Reagan-era letters to Skinny Puppy’s lead singer. Book launch party at Ghettogloss Gallery, 2380 Glendale Blvd., Silver Lake; Fri., July 29, 7-10 p.m. (323) 912-0008. - LA Weekly.

"..an overdue riposte to the bludgeoning morality of the fabricated Go Ask Alice.”—Doug Harvey, LA Weekly -

Between 1987 and 1989, Siana wrote Ogre hundreds of pages of letters, but she never expected them back. When she saw Ogre at subsequent Skinny Puppy shows over the years, "He always told me that he still had my letters, but I didn't think that he would hold on to them," Siana said.

He had. Three years ago, he sent them back to her in a single box. Looking through them, she said, "was sort of a sense of closing a chapter on my life and dealing with it and being OK with the dark things that happened."- LA Times

Gifted guide gone.

So much important history remains untold and unexplored.  One less gifted person to tell it, to say the very least.   

One of history’s worst atrocities might have remained little more than a footnote had it not been for Iris Chang.

She was just a little girl in the Midwest college town of Urbana, Ill., when she first heard the frightening stories from her Chinese émigré parents. They seemed unbelievable, conjuring visions of terror, death and a river turned red.

...The stories Iris Chang heard were from one of history’s worst acts of systematic bestiality,  the Japanese rape and slaughter of the captive populations of Nanking, China, in December 1937 and the early months of 1938.

When Chang’s parents first told her about Nanjing Detusha, the Nanking Massacre, their voices had “quivered with outrage.” But her childhood library visits searching encyclopedias and history books turned up little on the carnage. - www.irischang.net

Breaking the silence