Anna May Wong: Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me About Her?

I noticed on netflix the documentary film by Lisa Ling "Inside North Korea" was on instant play.  So, I watched it.  Then I went on youtube and proceeded to look into the history of the past 60 years of Korea's split.  Then I started reading articles on North Korea's recent military activity.  Then I started reading up on what is and isn't allowed in North Korea--the majority falling on the latter end of that spectrum.

The hours slipped away to reading atrocity after atrocity.  

But, not soon after the fourth or so hour researching North Korea, I came across an article describing the heirs to the regime.  The author described the sister of Kim Jong Ill, Kim Kyong Hui, as an "old battle axe."  Apparently, she does not at all fulfill the 'sexy' portion of that old battle-axe-of-a-stereotype, The Dragon Lady.

So, after all that, what am I going to discuss in this week's blog?

Not North Korea.  

No.

The only thing I will say on that front though, is that I feel North Korea is like the biggest LARP* in action of George Orwell's 1984.  Only, I almost want them to love their Big Brother--just as Winston Smith was forced to in the end.  

That brings me to my First-Ever....

Philosophical Question of the Week!   

Ask yourself:   If physically and psychologically you are made to fear for you and your family's lives day after day--in the vein hopes that you will grow to believe it is a good thing you're oppressed--would you rather a) give in and believe or b) fight and live in fear?  

Think about it.  No, really, really think about it.  I think most of us would actually act differently from what we hope we would, which is why North Korea is the way it is.  

**End Philosophical Question of the Week**

I repeat:  the following article will have nothing to do with North Korea.  I just happened to find some bit of light-hearted (meaning filled with racism, sexism and xenophobia but no LARP-ing) history while slogging through tonight.  And that's Anna.

Anna May Wong (Wong Liu Tsong) to be exact.  

Pst.  White people:  She's not Korean.

Doesn't she just have the perfect embodiment of the 1920s bob?

Regardless, I wanted to bring her up because NO ONE told me about her until I discovered her myself, late last night, while researching the phrase "Dragon Lady," thanks to Kim Jong Il's sister.  Thanks, Kim Kyong Hui!  You crazy alcoholic, megalomaniac, you.

"Dragon" has been used as a derogatory reference term for women, dating back to the 1800s.  But, there is no known documentation of the phrase Dragon Lady until Milton Caniff's 1930s comic strip, Terry And the Pirates, which literally had an asiatic female pirate character called The Dragon Lady.  Anyhoo, the wallflower/dragon lady stereotype for asian women, as we all know, kind of took off in the hollywood scene of the early 20th century.

That's where Anna comes in.

Anna rocks.

She was American, born in 1905 near the Chinatown of Los Angeles and was not only the FIRST Chinese-American actress onscreen, but was also the first Asian-American International star.  She began as a silent-film actress but amazingly was able to make the crossover easily into Talkies.  Bam!  How about them apples?

She got into the movie business on her own gumption (her parents were like "You're crazy.  Why are you trying to be a film star?") AND she continued to be faced with rejection by the hollywood scene.  She routinely was passed over for the lead roles:  you know that novel The Good Earth about Chinese Peasantry from the 1930s that we were all forced to read in high school and then were forced to watch the movie in 6th period English?  Anna was after that role, but in the end she was passed over for the role by the (white) German Actress, Luise Rainer.  And then Rainer went on to win an oscar for the performance.  Ouch.  But, on the positive side, Rainer's performance in that film didn't impress me at all.

Anna May Wong, however, does.

So, I wanted us to remember Anna.  She's fabulous.  She was smart, she had a lot of self-confidence, given that everyone around her kept telling her she shouldn't and, regardless of the bigger role rejections, she made a name for herself in a time that was fiercely xenophobic due to the depression and heightened international tensions of the 1930's.  Plus, when handed her first Talkie, she recorded it in three different languages--can you say overachiever?

Plus, she looks damn good in a tux.

Honestly, there's no competition with these kinds of women.  So, I've decided I'm just going to give up my life-long dream right of becoming the first Chinese-American film star.

You're disappointed, I know.   But, at least we're not in North Korea.

-beryl

*If you don't know what LARP-ing is, then congratulations.  This is a good thing.

The Spider and the Fly: Make A Wish

Ever feel like "things aren't what they seem"?  Or perhaps, it's that things are what they seem but are also quizzically something else as well.  Something extra, that wasn't in your initial intent when you were searching on google for pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal and administrative work and that's when you come across a mix of the two with Secretary and whoopsydaisyBAM.


You're in a BDSM website with very graphic images and/or audio.


I find adages, such as "Things are never what they seem," while good advice, tend to have a sinister quality about them.  As if we should beware the things that we are already unable to control.  Sort of like that other adage, "Be careful what you wish for..." That line just seems so unfair.  Wishes are meant to be filled with hope, joy for the future, and exuberance over the possibilities of life.  Being careful states there is a future involving a certain level of pain and/or death.


Turns out, from my experience, both are possible from making one wish.


And turns out, there's more drama in my window than the entirety of my life in the year of 2010.

Not that I was wishing, secretly, for drama to break out in my room.  No, in fact I generally avoid the window specifically because of my neighbor outside the window.  But, this morning was different.


**Note:  When I say morning, from now on, I mean technically after noon but it felt like morning because it was foggy outside.


So, this morning I hear this Fly buzzing around my room, making a racket.  It's loud.  It's annoyingly constant.  I consider opening my window, although it was freezing.  But, I don't.  Instead I just wish, "Something please make this Fly and this noise go away."


For a moment I forget about it, typing in Maggie Gyllenhaal into google search.  But, then I hear the buzz again only this time it is FEROCIOUS BUZZING.


I look up and there is the Fly, up in the high corner of my window.  And it's staying in this one spot, vibrating with a fury.  The shaking becomes more and more frantic, as if it's trying to win the Best Of award from Good Vibes. 


That's when this huge, giant, Shelob-Is-My-Bitch Spider comes creeping down to the struggling, now very much caught Fly.


I could hear the Fly respond to its surprise company a la "Oh FUCK THIS." and it starts buzzing/vibrating even more.


But it's too late.  The Fly is caught--the struggling only seems to strengthen the hold the webbing has on it.  The web continues to vibrate at a hummingbird rate and the Spider is like barely able to walk along the planks of it's web.  After walking around the fly, surveying it's very upset prey, it seemingly walks away.  Only it doesn't.  The Spider has taken a thread of the net that surrounds The Fly and slowly pulls on it and thus, the Fly, back up to it's layer, hidden in the wood work of the window.


And I'm standing there staring, horrified.

And I can't look away.

The Fly keeps making it's horrendous noise.  But, all I can hear is my wish I had made minutes earlier.  Please just make this Fly and this noise go away.


In a twist of dark humor, it occurs to me that the later half of the wish has yet to come true.


But then fly then stops buzzing.


I freeze.


It buzzes once again, in a final whimper attempt to flee, even though I can't even see it from my stance, five feet below in the Safe Zone of no-web.


And then there is silence.

Wish granted.

-Beryl

Woo Update:

Woo does this thing my dad likes to call "Crocodile Eyes."  

This is Woo asleep, as per usual.

This is Crocodile Eyes:

**Edited again to add:  Thank you for the anonymous tipoff of the Rapper Graphs in the last comments section; I totally used them as inspiration (and will continue to) for my blog.   Awesome.

Read, Write, Repeat: Where was I when I was his age?

Lately, I've been bumming around the internet to find something to help me with a current predicament:  I need to focus on some written projects of mine, but can't for some reason--or it feels like my efforts inevitably turn into squiggly-squash sounds, mixed with dazing off into the abyss.

Case in point.

I read my grandpa's memoirs not too long ago.  And to say the least, I came away feeling intimidated:  At the age of 24 Eugene Haderlie was diving in the Thames River, diffusing Nazi water mines, bare-handed, 100 feet below sea level.  He then went off to Utah Beach, Normandy and was part of the invasion of Germany, helped liberate the Jews left for dead in a concentration camp Buchenwald, and went on to help found the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  

(Now you know my secret for creating an amazing sea otter costume:  have grandfather be a marine biologist who works in the Monterey Bay Aquarium for 40 + years.  

It helps, trust me.)

Anyway, otters aside, I do feel as though comparing myself to what others have done by this age is a fruitless endeavor.  And I've learned something as a result:

At the age of 24 grandpa was saving the world.

At the age of 24 I am blogging.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.  But, there is something wrong if the very least I can do for this world (create and rewrite) is somewhat strained.  

In thinking it over, I realize I have had a sort of writers' block.  And yet, it's a weird off-shoot of writers' block.  The difficulty I have in writing is not so much ideas or finding interesting new things to talk about--it is more that it's hard for me to concentrate on one topic at a time consistently.  For me that's where the challenge comes in.  I have five or so unfinished manuscripts/written works in progress currently (a half-written play, two beginnings of two very different novels, a screenplay that's only up to it's first hero-struggling-but-will-overcome montage and of course, this blog).   

I have Writers' ADHD.  For example, I just rediscovered the parametric equations for the Cardiod Curve.  No, you don't have to understand what the equations mean.  But, how RAD is the animation that describes the curve's creation?  Pretty sick.  Who would have thought a circle rolling around another circle would create such a shape?  I guess the Greeks.  Another similar shape to the Cardiod is a Nephroid, which weirdly enough, occurs naturally (sometimes) at the bass of a coffee cup with liquid in it.  

Coffee Nephroid:  You'll never drink it the same way again.

No, your coffee hasn't gone bad--it's just a pattern of shadows that happen when a cup is placed under sunlight; light reflects off the cup in a pattern because the cup's got a circular curve to it (which makes in turn a reflective surface, or a catacaustic) and the outline of the nephroid, aka light beams racing back and forth against each other and the surface, appears as a result.  

And there you go.  Two paragraphs down, a fully random excerpt about nothing to do with anything later, I am back to where I started.  

But, that was a sick animation.

And you'll never look at your coffee the same way again.

Right?

-Beryl

Edited to add, A Woo Update:

This is Woo in real life.  Gotta love that amazing posture.

Found her earlier this afternoon, digging through mom's bag.

How is it possible that she doesn't even look remorseful for her crime, even though her face has been molded to look sad?

*end Woo update*

99 Luftballons and a Balm Ain't One

Relaxation.  The more you try to let go and lift up, the less you actually do.  Outside problems seem to overflow too easily these days (the US economy, the housing market, China-Japan territorial tensions, there's a giant spider now living right outside of my window.)

And for some reason, my method of yelling "RELAX!" in the mirror isn't working.


So, I decided to investigate alternative forms of healing and healthy activities.  This is what I have discovered, thus far.

Bath Balms:  Ask Yourself If You're Really Ready To Go All The Way

Recently, while on break from my latest theatre gig off San Francisco's illustrious Tenderloin I wandered up to Union square.  I remembered there were pretty things up there that I couldn't afford, but I was allowed to breathe next to.  So, I went.  

Before I could get all the way up to William Sonoma, I was stopped by the welcoming aroma of Lush, the UK-based handmade cosmetics shop.  I hadn't been in one since my last visit to London 3 years ago, so I figured why not?  I rarely indulge in cosmetics, let alone indulge.

The gal that helped me let me try out different soaps (one felt like I was rubbing jello on my hand but definitely wasn't edible. I know. I tried.) and bath balms that were reminiscent of an alka-seltzer pill, but much bigger (imagine the dosage amount for a young hippo).


I ended up choosing a delightfully pale blue bath balm ballsay it four times fast now, wrapped up with lavender, jasmine and tea leaves.


Upon coming home, delighted in my first-in-a-long-time-fully-indulgent-purchase-for-self, I immediately turned on the bath water full blast and watched as my homemade anti-acid burst into bubbles and foam.  The blue color that erupted from the thing alone was fascinating against the pale cream of the tub.  I was so excited and simultaneously overjoyed that I had found, bought and was about to experience something that was meant for relaxation.


However.

It became apparent rather quickly that freshly cut leaves, dried flowers and yes, twigs, are not exactly good to sit on top of, naked.  


And that's orifice, not to be confused with an orophus, which may be where Lush went wrong in the first place.  


-Beryl

God's Eyes and A Can of Math: A Semi-Memoir

So, I got a lot of feedback from my few fans and my parents--who aren't fans, but I force them to read this, anyway.  Basically, what I heard was, "Why in the HELL are you writing about math?  Why?  I will now stab your eyes out with non-mathematical objects just to show you how much I hate using math."

So, that went well.

I have decided to respond to these complaints... WITH EVEN MORE MATH.

But, simple math.  Math for fun.  Mom just shouted at me, "Fun and math do not occur in the same sentence." I tend to disagree as she just proved herself wrong in that last sentence.

We have now...

A comic book explanation of that function I tried showing you before.

YAY!

(Don't all applaud me at once.)

Mom just said, "Don't worry."

I'm not gonna.

Because I'm awesome like that.

The function, F(x) =1/X, is like an Unhealthy Relationship

Remember what it looked like?  No?  Doesn't matter.  Just imagine a God's Eye pattern you were forced to make in intersession camp because your public school is system is wacked and lacking funding and you're on a year-round schedule, unlike every other school system so you end up being the weird kid at the family reunion with one too many homemade crafts presents to give at Christmas.

....

Anyway, the function:

So, however far out that function F(x) = 1/X [or Y = 1/X] continues, it STILL won't be enough for the function to break even and cross the X-axis.  X will go to infinity before it will let Y finally touch that line.  That's right, folks.  Infinity.  IN-FIN-IT-TY (I felt like it warranted a second T just to get the point across.) 

That's like saying Y is pining for the X-axis at 0 and that classic love story We All Have Gone Through starts to unfold...

Y: "I love you, please be with me so we can make variable babies" 

X:  "I don't love you but I'll never really say no or yes to you kthnxbyeeeettylG2G."  

(Exit X).

Y:  "Sweet!  I have a chance!  I just have to wait... forever?"

Unrequited love = a burden even functions have to bear.

But, more importantly, what is up with that weird open space in the middle?  

You know, the part where the function keels away like something smells bad in the middle of the graph, shooting up and down to get away from said smell?

Let us go back to our halfhazard metaphor that Y is desperately trying to get with X, who couldn't give a flying fundamental theorem either way:   when Y no longer attempts to get with X, and instead gets furthest away from that seductive, tantalizing, alluring, enticing-to-no-end X, the function (i.e., the relationship between the two)...falls apart.

*dramatic pause to let words sink in*

That's why your function is spinning wildly off your graph paper in a frenzy to keep up with it's unrelenting path to smallness.

When you think about it, it makes sense.  The function is 1/____ <-- insert some number here.   

If that number gets bigger and bigger, that fraction gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller andyou get the pictureand One Day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, the fraction will be so infintesimally small it will be almost like zero, but not zero.  However, if you were to divide it by zero... oh boy.  

You just opened up a can of Math Drama.

With that, I  leave you.  I hope this helped explain why it is so important to disagree with my choice of subjects.  

UPDATE:
As per request, proof of my awkward childhood:

Not one.

But, two.

In the same pattern, no less.

Apparently, when I was a child I sustained the same level of creativity as an infant Jackson Polluck, puking up his first art piece on his bib.

To quote Mom, "Well God has two eyes, right?" 

-Beryl

If I Could I Would Ask Her, "Are Your Eyes Ok?"

Or:  Why We Love It When Emma Thompson Cries

(The silent montage)

     

Even Queen Latifah is going, "What the fuck, Emma?"

The Good News:

I wanted to reassure myself that Emma Thompson is not, in fact, horribly depressed.   I then found this picture.   So, she's not in dire need of anti-depressants.

But, rather in need of a good barber. 

On a side note, I am convinced her character in Stranger Than Fiction is gay.  Call it call it gaydar gone wild, call it stereotyping because she's playing a depressed writer with short hair (me), but I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the character's identity, only it was never directly said.  Like Dumbledore, really.

No, but seriously, it's a desperate hope on some level that she's slightly queer deep down in her heterosexual bones (this is turning into an unhealthy blog way too quickly...). 

...But COME ON.

You know, I had hopes that I would try to take this seriously and really talk about her technique or what she's done to help women in the entertainment industry or just her fantastic ability to be funny.

Instead, I wrote about how she cries a lot and that I think she's a gay wizard.  

Luckily, I don't think I'm in danger of her finding out about my poor sense of journalism.  I did, however, send her a fan letter.  And I do believe the words "obsession" "with" "sense and sensibility" "watched" and "five times" were used.  

COME ON.

-beryl