Nam Le Skylight Reading 6/29/2008

Over 100 people turned out on a sunny Southern California Sunday to see Nam Le read at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. (A small miracle, IMO, not for Nam (he's great), just for books in general)

I came early and found an aisle seat. Behind me, a guy told a gal all about Nam: how he'd been in the New York Times, and NPR, and this and that mainsteam publication. She responded in one of those hushed PC whispers, "Wow, that's impressive, especially for...an ethnic writer."

Ha, I thought to myself, that's exactly the attitude Nam critiques (read "clowns") in his story "'Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice." And right on cue, Nam appeared and read the first half of the story. I loved the story on the page, but to hear it with his pauses and breaks and tone, cut me to the bone.

Nam then deftly navigated a question-and-answer session, where he addressed authenticity in literature, his research process, writing influences, and general things he likes: ''good Vietnamese food'' and ''right now, poker.''

Some well-meaning, but somewhat ignorant person asked Nam how he "as a Vietnamese Australian" could write others outside of his experience (in this book: two Viet characters, a middle aged white man, a young white woman, an Australian boy, a Colombian teen, a Japanese girl).

Many of us do-gooder, thinker-types rolled our eyes. Is his background a handicap of some sort? Is Nam human or subaltern? Who gets asked these questions?You know who. And aren't all fiction writers writing "outside of their experiences?" Isn't that their job? But Nam, ever the gentleman, was way more diplomatic. He said, "There’s a conviction that I have to believe that it’s not outside my experience…That there is commonality, universality in the human experience that we can all partake in.''

Afterwards, Nam and his friends and Who's-Who of Vietnamese America got to hang out and then grab drinks at the Dresden from Swingers fame. They included author/businessman Quang X. Phạm; Professor Mariam Beevi Lam from UC Riverside; Ysa Lê, the executive director of VAALA; poet and film producer Jenni Trang Lê; film producer Hiếu Hồ; and director Đòan La.

AAPW Has a Home!!!

Marvel at just under 200 square feet of prime North Long Beach real estate. Thanks to the Maxwell Gluck Foundation for making this happen and contractor Jimmy "I-know-you-so-much-better-now-that-we've-been-to-Home-Depot-together-
over-100 times" Liang.

So if you've ever wondered where the site and blog comes from or "where the magic happens," your wish has come true.

As you can see, we went for a white and chrome, minimal modern look. The biggest influence was the Tantive IV Blockade Runner from Star Wars (no joke). Hence the name of the office is "Spaceship."

Dwell on Design Show 6/7/2008

Not sure this is true, but is it only in Los Angeles that the Dwell on Design show can be held the same weekend as the Erotic LA show, which is just what it sounds like: a pornstar Convention.

I imagine people getting mixed up at the various Los Angeles Convention Center buildings, design heads wandering amidst leather and lace. Porn fiends lost in a sea of Eames chairs and pre-fab houses...and I love it! Hybridity hybridity.

Here are my favorite pieces from the show.

Gabriela Jauregui's Los Angeles debut reading 6/8/08

Poet and AAPW editor Gabriela Jauregui reads from her debut collection of poetry Controlled Decay at the Poetic Research Bureau in Glendale. In addition to crowd favorite poems like "Get On Down to the Floor to the Heaven of Other Animals" and "Collective" (about the metro system in her hometown of Mexico City), Gaby varied the reading with humor in her Lokus (the opposite of Haikus), tragedy "After Goya (and Fallujah and Kigali and Juarez and Da Nang and Wounded Knee and Tiananmen and Cali and Compton) which is one of my favorites, and new works from a manuscript called Beast Language.

Shout outs to the Poetic Research Bureau, an amazing and much-needed new space. The big crowd that turned out on a scorching afternoon. And to poet Ara Shirinyan who helped Gaby open the reading with a hilarious duet. His latest book Your Country is Great is probably my favorite book of the year. You must read it and trust me, you'll be hearing much more of him in AAPW later this year.

How Does This Happen?

Smoking Gun victim, urgh, writer James Frey has written a new book called Bright Shiny Morning. You may remember Frey as the writer who faked two memoirs and faced a public flogging by Oprah Winfrey on national television.

Full disclosure: I haven't read the book. But AAPW senior staff writer was keen to point out two reviews, one by the Los Angeles Times and one the New York Times.

David L. Ulin, the LA Times Book Page Editor, hated it. Janet Maslin, a NY Times reviewer, loved it. Huh?

Well, I read both reviews and am inclined towards Ulin. Ulin is a die-hard LA transplant and has over the years made an earnest effort to know and love Los Angeles on its own terms. God knows this region is one of the most beat up, reputation-wise, in the country if not the world.

Maslin seemed to be reading the book in a void or vacuum of realism: There is no Los Angeles. Diversity is static here. Brown people are unactualized. As usual.

Kudos to Ulin for being such a keen reader and pushing his criticism and thus the way we read contemporary literature (with contemporary ideas) and Los Angeles (a much more complicated place than its given credit for).

The Lamest Article Ever? Ever, Ever? Ever Ever

So I was reading the LA Times and ran into an article about n + 1, the critical and brainy journal out of New York, and how a lot it initially defined itself by what is was against: McSweeney's, the war, the New Republic, and yes, even exercise.

Well, as I was updating the site, for some odd reason, I remembered this article about Asian men being en vogue to date. It appeared in Newsweek in 2000, right as the dot.bomb thing was happening (not to be confused with the home-bomb thing happening right now). It is so bad it can't even be funny bad. Who thinks of articles like this? Was it the writer? Was it the editor who walked into a party and noticed like two gals with Asian bf's? Were they both strolling the streets of NY and bumping into Asian men accessories left and right?

Whatevs. It was so yesterday, it was a week ago. And it was written in the year 2000, when the new millenium was supposed to mean something. Oh well. It's so bad, I can't even believe it is still hosted by Newsweek. I would have taken it down as fast as my Robotech posters when I bring a girl over. But I guess, it's good for you, the reader, to see it.

First amendment of AAPW's constitution: Crap articles like this get the Gas Face! (not to be confused with the Thizz Face) Don't submit them. EVER. It is one thing we are TOTALLY against. Cheers!

And Now Introducing...Fata Morgana

This sculpture, called Fata Morgana and shown at Coachella 2008, epitomizes the latest in retro-industrial design, capturing a bygone era of hope and prosperity following WWII and ushering in the Cold War and foreshadowing nuclear proliferation. That it was made now, in 2008, it works less as homage and more as satire of another technological dead end, like ships, railroads, cars, and planes, because in the end, it says, we can never escape ourselves.

It could mean all that, or, it could just be a cool hunk of a metal that spins around in the day time and lights up at night, shooting a beam of light into the blue-black sky. You decide. Regardless, I love it. Check that: I am in love with Fata Morgana, the coolest sculpture of Coachella 2008. It is totally Spaceship! one of the fashion themes of 2008. Promise!