Author Norman Mailer called New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani "a one-woman kamikaze" and "a token" minority hire in a Rolling Stone interview, prompting the president of the Asian American Journalists Association to call him a racist.
Racist or not, Mailer is certainly part of the mindset that keeps the mainstream media -- whether it's journalism or the entertainment industry -- so lily white. If you're a person of color and get in, then of course it must be because you were some affirmative action case.
I've experienced this in my career, taking a job at a big newspaper and having most people assume I was an intern from the minority internship program. Even at other jobs, there is always a subtle undercurrent that the few non-white people on staff were there only because there was some mandate to hire minorities.
Sure, sometimes a minority candidate gets hired when they're not ready for the job. I've seen it. I've also seen a lot of white people who aren't qualified get hired as well. Having a diverse workforce is generally good, but it has to be done right, with good hiring decisions that don't fall into the affirmative action trap that Mailer is complaining about.
Posted by harry at 8:52 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Author Norman Mailer called New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani "a one-woman kamikaze" and "a token" minority hire in a Rolling Stone interview, prompting the president of the Asian American Journalists Association to call him a racist.
Racist or not, Mailer is certainly part of the mindset that keeps the mainstream media -- whether it's journalism or the entertainment industry -- so lily white. If you're a person of color and get in, then of course it must be because you were some affirmative action case.
I've experienced this in my career, taking a job at a big newspaper and having most people assume I was an intern from the minority internship program. Even at other jobs, there is always a subtle undercurrent that the few non-white people on staff were there only because there was some mandate to hire minorities.
Sure, sometimes a minority candidate gets hired when they're not ready for the job. I've seen it. I've also seen a lot of white people who aren't qualified get hired as well. Having a diverse workforce is generally good, but it has to be done right, with good hiring decisions that don't fall into the affirmative action trap that Mailer is complaining about.
Posted by harry at 8:52 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Author Norman Mailer called New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani "a one-woman kamikaze" and "a token" minority hire in a Rolling Stone interview, prompting the president of the Asian American Journalists Association to call him a racist.
Racist or not, Mailer is certainly part of the mindset that keeps the mainstream media -- whether it's journalism or the entertainment industry -- so lily white. If you're a person of color and get in, then of course it must be because you were some affirmative action case.
I've experienced this in my career, taking a job at a big newspaper and having most people assume I was an intern from the minority internship program. Even at other jobs, there is always a subtle undercurrent that the few non-white people on staff were there only because there was some mandate to hire minorities.
Sure, sometimes a minority candidate gets hired when they're not ready for the job. I've seen it. I've also seen a lot of white people who aren't qualified get hired as well. Having a diverse workforce is generally good, but it has to be done right, with good hiring decisions that don't fall into the affirmative action trap that Mailer is complaining about.
Posted by harry at 8:52 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
A federal appeals court upheld civil contempt findings against reporters whose confidential sources pointed to scientist Wen Ho Lee as a possible spy.
I'm a little torn here bacause as a journalist I believe reporters shouldn't be compelled to reveal sources. However, Lee was totally screwed over by the government and the media that cow-towed to whatever the government said about Lee without really checking it out, as journalists are supposed to do.
Helen Zia's book,My Country Versus Me
A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage
Maybe we'll never know what really happened and where those missing data tapes are. Maybe Lee was a spy. In any event, the whole case showed how easily Asian Americans are stereotyped and how racial profiling can proliferate in the media.
Posted by harry at 12:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
A federal appeals court upheld civil contempt findings against reporters whose confidential sources pointed to scientist Wen Ho Lee as a possible spy.
I'm a little torn here bacause as a journalist I believe reporters shouldn't be compelled to reveal sources. However, Lee was totally screwed over by the government and the media that cow-towed to whatever the government said about Lee without really checking it out, as journalists are supposed to do.
Helen Zia's book,My Country Versus Me
A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage
Maybe we'll never know what really happened and where those missing data tapes are. Maybe Lee was a spy. In any event, the whole case showed how easily Asian Americans are stereotyped and how racial profiling can proliferate in the media.
Posted by harry at 12:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
A federal appeals court upheld civil contempt findings against reporters whose confidential sources pointed to scientist Wen Ho Lee as a possible spy.
I'm a little torn here bacause as a journalist I believe reporters shouldn't be compelled to reveal sources. However, Lee was totally screwed over by the government and the media that cow-towed to whatever the government said about Lee without really checking it out, as journalists are supposed to do.
Helen Zia's book,My Country Versus Me
A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage
Maybe we'll never know what really happened and where those missing data tapes are. Maybe Lee was a spy. In any event, the whole case showed how easily Asian Americans are stereotyped and how racial profiling can proliferate in the media.
Posted by harry at 12:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Yay! If you ever worried that life in mainstream America was going to get boring, what with all the ethnic sensitivity and the lack of racism 'n' stuff, don't worry. You'll have plenty of heartburn for years to come.
This week's bad guy is T-Mobile, who are currently promoting their fee-less cell phone service using flash animated banners of the "Poser Mobile Posse". The Posse are three cartoon figures: "Big Spenda" Lopez, "The Fee" Jones, and, naturally, "25 cent" Chang. In the animations, they are "posing" as cell phone service providers who try to sell their customers on the hip hop cred of their services, all the while charging fees. You can see the three banners on this student's website. And here's a closer view of our very own representative, "25 cent Chang".
The three caricatures of a smoked-out Latino, slit-eyed, grinning Asian, and fat, pimped-out white guy are a new, interesting spin on using racial stereotypes to sell product. Instead of selling mainstream whiteness a la Aryancrombie and Fitch, T-Mobile is itself clearly trying to sell black hip hop cred. The implication of the ads is that whites, Latinos and Asians are not really hip hop, not really street, not really trustworthy. The ads are meant to appeal to a consumer base that will presumably accept this premise without question: either a black consumer base, or a non-black consumer base anxious to acquire street legitimacy themselves.
That Latinos, whites and Asians are being sacrificed in favor of a tough, street image of blackness is, as I said, interesting, since we're used to seeing blacks, Latinos and Asians sacrificed for a clean image of whiteness. But it's only interesting for about two minutes. Then it's just racist. I really hope they don't think this ploy will actually work.
If you want to tell them yourself exactly what kind of metal this balloon is made of, here's the contact info:
T–Mobile Customer Relations
PO Box 3730
Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380
1-800-932-8997
1-877-677-5505
email: click on the words CONTACT US at the bottom of their website
Thanks to May-lee Chai, via Heather Woodward, for the heads up.
Posted by claire at 2:00 AM | Comments (72) | TrackBack
Yay! If you ever worried that life in mainstream America was going to get boring, what with all the ethnic sensitivity and the lack of racism 'n' stuff, don't worry. You'll have plenty of heartburn for years to come.
This week's bad guy is T-Mobile, who are currently promoting their fee-less cell phone service using flash animated banners of the "Poser Mobile Posse". The Posse are three cartoon figures: "Big Spenda" Lopez, "The Fee" Jones, and, naturally, "25 cent" Chang. In the animations, they are "posing" as cell phone service providers who try to sell their customers on the hip hop cred of their services, all the while charging fees. You can see the three banners on this student's website. And here's a closer view of our very own representative, "25 cent Chang".
The three caricatures of a smoked-out Latino, slit-eyed, grinning Asian, and fat, pimped-out white guy are a new, interesting spin on using racial stereotypes to sell product. Instead of selling mainstream whiteness a la Aryancrombie and Fitch, T-Mobile is itself clearly trying to sell black hip hop cred. The implication of the ads is that whites, Latinos and Asians are not really hip hop, not really street, not really trustworthy. The ads are meant to appeal to a consumer base that will presumably accept this premise without question: either a black consumer base, or a non-black consumer base anxious to acquire street legitimacy themselves.
That Latinos, whites and Asians are being sacrificed in favor of a tough, street image of blackness is, as I said, interesting, since we're used to seeing blacks, Latinos and Asians sacrificed for a clean image of whiteness. But it's only interesting for about two minutes. Then it's just racist. I really hope they don't think this ploy will actually work.
If you want to tell them yourself exactly what kind of metal this balloon is made of, here's the contact info:
T–Mobile Customer Relations
PO Box 3730
Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380
1-800-932-8997
1-877-677-5505
email: click on the words CONTACT US at the bottom of their website
Thanks to May-lee Chai, via Heather Woodward, for the heads up.
Posted by claire at 2:00 AM | Comments (72) | TrackBack
Yay! If you ever worried that life in mainstream America was going to get boring, what with all the ethnic sensitivity and the lack of racism 'n' stuff, don't worry. You'll have plenty of heartburn for years to come.
This week's bad guy is T-Mobile, who are currently promoting their fee-less cell phone service using flash animated banners of the "Poser Mobile Posse". The Posse are three cartoon figures: "Big Spenda" Lopez, "The Fee" Jones, and, naturally, "25 cent" Chang. In the animations, they are "posing" as cell phone service providers who try to sell their customers on the hip hop cred of their services, all the while charging fees. You can see the three banners on this student's website. And here's a closer view of our very own representative, "25 cent Chang".
The three caricatures of a smoked-out Latino, slit-eyed, grinning Asian, and fat, pimped-out white guy are a new, interesting spin on using racial stereotypes to sell product. Instead of selling mainstream whiteness a la Aryancrombie and Fitch, T-Mobile is itself clearly trying to sell black hip hop cred. The implication of the ads is that whites, Latinos and Asians are not really hip hop, not really street, not really trustworthy. The ads are meant to appeal to a consumer base that will presumably accept this premise without question: either a black consumer base, or a non-black consumer base anxious to acquire street legitimacy themselves.
That Latinos, whites and Asians are being sacrificed in favor of a tough, street image of blackness is, as I said, interesting, since we're used to seeing blacks, Latinos and Asians sacrificed for a clean image of whiteness. But it's only interesting for about two minutes. Then it's just racist. I really hope they don't think this ploy will actually work.
If you want to tell them yourself exactly what kind of metal this balloon is made of, here's the contact info:
T–Mobile Customer Relations
PO Box 3730
Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380
1-800-932-8997
1-877-677-5505
email: click on the words CONTACT US at the bottom of their website
Thanks to May-lee Chai, via Heather Woodward, for the heads up.
Posted by claire at 2:00 AM | Comments (72) | TrackBack
Hey Bay Area, if you don't already have plans for tonight (and hey, even if you do) you might want to check out Locus Arts tonight. Our friends there are hosting a CD release party for Bao Phi, a Minneapolis-based spoken word poet. Bao's been on Def Poetry Jam. Our own Director of Photography, Seng Chen, played on a couple of the tracks.
Read an interview with Bao here at New California Media
And here's a story at Pacific News Service I thought some of us can relate to: You may be average-sized in the U.S. but in Asia, you're considered fat. One girl's story of going from a Medium to an X-Large.
Posted by Melissa at 2:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hey Bay Area, if you don't already have plans for tonight (and hey, even if you do) you might want to check out Locus Arts tonight. Our friends there are hosting a CD release party for Bao Phi, a Minneapolis-based spoken word poet. Bao's been on Def Poetry Jam. Our own Director of Photography, Seng Chen, played on a couple of the tracks.
Read an interview with Bao here at New California Media
And here's a story at Pacific News Service I thought some of us can relate to: You may be average-sized in the U.S. but in Asia, you're considered fat. One girl's story of going from a Medium to an X-Large.
Posted by Melissa at 2:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hey Bay Area, if you don't already have plans for tonight (and hey, even if you do) you might want to check out Locus Arts tonight. Our friends there are hosting a CD release party for Bao Phi, a Minneapolis-based spoken word poet. Bao's been on Def Poetry Jam. Our own Director of Photography, Seng Chen, played on a couple of the tracks.
Read an interview with Bao here at New California Media
And here's a story at Pacific News Service I thought some of us can relate to: You may be average-sized in the U.S. but in Asia, you're considered fat. One girl's story of going from a Medium to an X-Large.
Posted by Melissa at 2:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
After a recent IM with a Hyphen staffer, she blew my mind when she revealed "she only eats to get full, not for pleasure." To me, this is like drinking bad beer. How can you NOT care about what you put in your body? Besides the whole "temple = body" thing, there is just too much good things out there.
I cook out of necessity but mostly because I like to eat well. I get busy, too, and rely on bad food choices sometimes. But to make a regular habit, or not think about eating well, that would bum me out. So before she opened up a Hot Pocket, I hit her with this recipe, which comes out pretty good. I've made it a couple times now.
HALIBUT HYPHEN-STYLE
(for two)
1 lb of halibut
ground pepper
ginger (thumb size stalk, chopped)
green onions (four stalks, chopped in two inch strips)
shiitake mushrooms (handful, reconsituted if dried, sliced)
cilantro (handful, cut)
rock salt
1 1/2 tb veg oil
soy sauce
Season halibut with pepper and ginger and steam fish in wok or bamboo steamer (or wrap in foil and stick in preheated 400 degree oven) for 10-12 minutes. Be careful not to overcook and make sure fish is opaque before yanking it. When this is cooking, prep mushrooms, green onions, cilantro. Heat oil in saucepan on medium.
When fish is done, move to platter. Sprinkle with rock salt, then garnish with shiitake mushrooms, green onions. Turn up heat on oil, when it gets real hot (wait until you see a wisp of smoke), drizzle over the top of garnished halibut herb mountain. Snap, pop! Top with soy sauce and cilantro. Serve with rice and tea. Banging.
***Notes: Nothing is measured, so I'm only giving approximates. Add or subtract ingredients to your liking. You can sub any good light fish, like cod, but cod tends to smell too strong. Halibut is light, not too flaky and compliments the herbs well. Do NOT use sea bass! The delicious species is almost fished out!
Posted by at 1:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
After a recent IM with a Hyphen staffer, she blew my mind when she revealed "she only eats to get full, not for pleasure." To me, this is like drinking bad beer. How can you NOT care about what you put in your body? Besides the whole "temple = body" thing, there is just too much good things out there.
I cook out of necessity but mostly because I like to eat well. I get busy, too, and rely on bad food choices sometimes. But to make a regular habit, or not think about eating well, that would bum me out. So before she opened up a Hot Pocket, I hit her with this recipe, which comes out pretty good. I've made it a couple times now.
HALIBUT HYPHEN-STYLE
(for two)
1 lb of halibut
ground pepper
ginger (thumb size stalk, chopped)
green onions (four stalks, chopped in two inch strips)
shiitake mushrooms (handful, reconsituted if dried, sliced)
cilantro (handful, cut)
rock salt
1 1/2 tb veg oil
soy sauce
Season halibut with pepper and ginger and steam fish in wok or bamboo steamer (or wrap in foil and stick in preheated 400 degree oven) for 10-12 minutes. Be careful not to overcook and make sure fish is opaque before yanking it. When this is cooking, prep mushrooms, green onions, cilantro. Heat oil in saucepan on medium.
When fish is done, move to platter. Sprinkle with rock salt, then garnish with shiitake mushrooms, green onions. Turn up heat on oil, when it gets real hot (wait until you see a wisp of smoke), drizzle over the top of garnished halibut herb mountain. Snap, pop! Top with soy sauce and cilantro. Serve with rice and tea. Banging.
***Notes: Nothing is measured, so I'm only giving approximates. Add or subtract ingredients to your liking. You can sub any good light fish, like cod, but cod tends to smell too strong. Halibut is light, not too flaky and compliments the herbs well. Do NOT use sea bass! The delicious species is almost fished out!
Posted by at 1:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
After a recent IM with a Hyphen staffer, she blew my mind when she revealed "she only eats to get full, not for pleasure." To me, this is like drinking bad beer. How can you NOT care about what you put in your body? Besides the whole "temple = body" thing, there is just too much good things out there.
I cook out of necessity but mostly because I like to eat well. I get busy, too, and rely on bad food choices sometimes. But to make a regular habit, or not think about eating well, that would bum me out. So before she opened up a Hot Pocket, I hit her with this recipe, which comes out pretty good. I've made it a couple times now.
HALIBUT HYPHEN-STYLE
(for two)
1 lb of halibut
ground pepper
ginger (thumb size stalk, chopped)
green onions (four stalks, chopped in two inch strips)
shiitake mushrooms (handful, reconsituted if dried, sliced)
cilantro (handful, cut)
rock salt
1 1/2 tb veg oil
soy sauce
Season halibut with pepper and ginger and steam fish in wok or bamboo steamer (or wrap in foil and stick in preheated 400 degree oven) for 10-12 minutes. Be careful not to overcook and make sure fish is opaque before yanking it. When this is cooking, prep mushrooms, green onions, cilantro. Heat oil in saucepan on medium.
When fish is done, move to platter. Sprinkle with rock salt, then garnish with shiitake mushrooms, green onions. Turn up heat on oil, when it gets real hot (wait until you see a wisp of smoke), drizzle over the top of garnished halibut herb mountain. Snap, pop! Top with soy sauce and cilantro. Serve with rice and tea. Banging.
***Notes: Nothing is measured, so I'm only giving approximates. Add or subtract ingredients to your liking. You can sub any good light fish, like cod, but cod tends to smell too strong. Halibut is light, not too flaky and compliments the herbs well. Do NOT use sea bass! The delicious species is almost fished out!
Posted by todd at 1:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
I've been meaning to blog this all week --but I still think it's an exciting story. MTV has noticed Asian Americans!
As told in the NY Times article on "I Want My Hyphenated Identity" (cringe), MTV is going to be coming out with 3 new channels aimed at Asian Americans: MTV Desi (for South Asian Americans), MTV Chi (for Chinese Americans) and MTV K (for Korean Americans).
According to the Times:
The channels will not be merely tweaked reproductions of MTV India, MTV China or MTV Korea, three of MTV's 42 channels abroad. Rather, they will, like their target audiences, be hybrids, blending here and there and grappling with identity issues, mostly in English. MTV Desi will serve as the prototype. Interspersed among Bollywood videos, electronic tabla music and English-Gujarati hip-hop, it will feature brief documentary clips profiling desis, comic skits about South Asian-American generational conflicts, interviews with bicultural artists and desi house parties, live. MTV Chi will mix up Mandarin rock, Canto pop and Chinese-American rap; MTV K will tap into South Korean hip-hop and the little-known but vibrant Korean-American pop scene.
(As an aside, how are we supposed to pronounce MTV Chi? Chai, like the tea? or Chee, like cheese? who comes up with these names? Am I supposed to know because i'm of chinese descent?)
It's interesting that MTV, which to me seems to try to define and represent mainstream American youth culture in very white and sometimes black terms, is finally trying to figure out the whole "nation of immigrants" thing. After research in house groups and mini parties, "MTV concluded that second-generation immigrants not only desire their own age-appropriate connection to their parents' homeland but that they also passionately want to see their struggle to define themselves as hyphenated Americans mirrored on television."
Wow! People at MTV figured out that 2nd generation kids are not just all trying to be white, act white, and appropriate an all white culture! They didn't get that we don't like the concept "hyphenated" identity, but that will take another 20 or so years.
I'll be interested to see if this means higher visibility for our AA homegrown artists, and therefore commercial viability. If it brings in ad revenue and attracts a wide audience, it could mean good things for AA media. Or am I being too optimistic?
It is annoying to see that one of the only non-music ways the muckety mucks at MTV seem to think they can address ethnicity-specific programming is by addressing identity issues. Is that the assumption of white people, that we sit around in constant internal turmoil bleating, "I'm not white! Who am I then? I'm trapped between two (gasp!) cultures!"
Hopefully that will just be a stage of development for the channels, and they'll be able to mature to address other issues too.
Posted by jennifer at 5:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
I've been meaning to blog this all week --but I still think it's an exciting story. MTV has noticed Asian Americans!
As told in the NY Times article on "I Want My Hyphenated Identity" (cringe), MTV is going to be coming out with 3 new channels aimed at Asian Americans: MTV Desi (for South Asian Americans), MTV Chi (for Chinese Americans) and MTV K (for Korean Americans).
According to the Times:
The channels will not be merely tweaked reproductions of MTV India, MTV China or MTV Korea, three of MTV's 42 channels abroad. Rather, they will, like their target audiences, be hybrids, blending here and there and grappling with identity issues, mostly in English. MTV Desi will serve as the prototype. Interspersed among Bollywood videos, electronic tabla music and English-Gujarati hip-hop, it will feature brief documentary clips profiling desis, comic skits about South Asian-American generational conflicts, interviews with bicultural artists and desi house parties, live. MTV Chi will mix up Mandarin rock, Canto pop and Chinese-American rap; MTV K will tap into South Korean hip-hop and the little-known but vibrant Korean-American pop scene.
(As an aside, how are we supposed to pronounce MTV Chi? Chai, like the tea? or Chee, like cheese? who comes up with these names? Am I supposed to know because i'm of chinese descent?)
It's interesting that MTV, which to me seems to try to define and represent mainstream American youth culture in very white and sometimes black terms, is finally trying to figure out the whole "nation of immigrants" thing. After research in house groups and mini parties, "MTV concluded that second-generation immigrants not only desire their own age-appropriate connection to their parents' homeland but that they also passionately want to see their struggle to define themselves as hyphenated Americans mirrored on television."
Wow! People at MTV figured out that 2nd generation kids are not just all trying to be white, act white, and appropriate an all white culture! They didn't get that we don't like the concept "hyphenated" identity, but that will take another 20 or so years.
I'll be interested to see if this means higher visibility for our AA homegrown artists, and therefore commercial viability. If it brings in ad revenue and attracts a wide audience, it could mean good things for AA media. Or am I being too optimistic?
It is annoying to see that one of the only non-music ways the muckety mucks at MTV seem to think they can address ethnicity-specific programming is by addressing identity issues. Is that the assumption of white people, that we sit around in constant internal turmoil bleating, "I'm not white! Who am I then? I'm trapped between two (gasp!) cultures!"
Hopefully that will just be a stage of development for the channels, and they'll be able to mature to address other issues too.
Posted by jennifer at 5:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
I've been meaning to blog this all week --but I still think it's an exciting story. MTV has noticed Asian Americans!
As told in the NY Times article on "I Want My Hyphenated Identity" (cringe), MTV is going to be coming out with 3 new channels aimed at Asian Americans: MTV Desi (for South Asian Americans), MTV Chi (for Chinese Americans) and MTV K (for Korean Americans).
According to the Times:
The channels will not be merely tweaked reproductions of MTV India, MTV China or MTV Korea, three of MTV's 42 channels abroad. Rather, they will, like their target audiences, be hybrids, blending here and there and grappling with identity issues, mostly in English. MTV Desi will serve as the prototype. Interspersed among Bollywood videos, electronic tabla music and English-Gujarati hip-hop, it will feature brief documentary clips profiling desis, comic skits about South Asian-American generational conflicts, interviews with bicultural artists and desi house parties, live. MTV Chi will mix up Mandarin rock, Canto pop and Chinese-American rap; MTV K will tap into South Korean hip-hop and the little-known but vibrant Korean-American pop scene.
(As an aside, how are we supposed to pronounce MTV Chi? Chai, like the tea? or Chee, like cheese? who comes up with these names? Am I supposed to know because i'm of chinese descent?)
It's interesting that MTV, which to me seems to try to define and represent mainstream American youth culture in very white and sometimes black terms, is finally trying to figure out the whole "nation of immigrants" thing. After research in house groups and mini parties, "MTV concluded that second-generation immigrants not only desire their own age-appropriate connection to their parents' homeland but that they also passionately want to see their struggle to define themselves as hyphenated Americans mirrored on television."
Wow! People at MTV figured out that 2nd generation kids are not just all trying to be white, act white, and appropriate an all white culture! They didn't get that we don't like the concept "hyphenated" identity, but that will take another 20 or so years.
I'll be interested to see if this means higher visibility for our AA homegrown artists, and therefore commercial viability. If it brings in ad revenue and attracts a wide audience, it could mean good things for AA media. Or am I being too optimistic?
It is annoying to see that one of the only non-music ways the muckety mucks at MTV seem to think they can address ethnicity-specific programming is by addressing identity issues. Is that the assumption of white people, that we sit around in constant internal turmoil bleating, "I'm not white! Who am I then? I'm trapped between two (gasp!) cultures!"
Hopefully that will just be a stage of development for the channels, and they'll be able to mature to address other issues too.
Posted by jennifer at 5:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
On Friday, I and 4 other Hyphen staffers went to see Margaret Cho at Davies Symphony Hall in SF. She had two back to back shows (SF is her hometown after all). I've seen her perform twice before when I was living in Houston. Always a good time.
We went to the second show and it was completely packed. I've never seen so many cute gay boys in my life. We had awesome seats -- we were only about 10 rows from the stage.
She seemed a little tired, but she was still hilarious. I think maybe this wasn't her best show (thought I couldn't tell you why exactly). She's lost quite bit of weight. I know it's messed up for me to zero in on that right away, but it was the first thing I noticed. I was kind of surprised she didn't say anything about it -- Margaret's not shy about anything and she's gone over the weight issue before in a prior show, recounting the pressure she was under to slim down when she was on All American Girl.
Of course, she did one of her great imitations of her mom, but she only did one, like it was a requirement and she knew people expected it. The best though was her impression of Bjork. I thought I was going to burst, I was laughing so hard.
Anyways, I recommend her show. Here's her tour schedule. Did you know she keeps a blog too? It's pretty serious stuff. She's actually quite serious in person, at least the one time I interviewed her over the phone. But they say that about a lot of comedians.
Posted by Melissa at 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
On Friday, I and 4 other Hyphen staffers went to see Margaret Cho at Davies Symphony Hall in SF. She had two back to back shows (SF is her hometown after all). I've seen her perform twice before when I was living in Houston. Always a good time.
We went to the second show and it was completely packed. I've never seen so many cute gay boys in my life. We had awesome seats -- we were only about 10 rows from the stage.
She seemed a little tired, but she was still hilarious. I think maybe this wasn't her best show (thought I couldn't tell you why exactly). She's lost quite bit of weight. I know it's messed up for me to zero in on that right away, but it was the first thing I noticed. I was kind of surprised she didn't say anything about it -- Margaret's not shy about anything and she's gone over the weight issue before in a prior show, recounting the pressure she was under to slim down when she was on All American Girl.
Of course, she did one of her great imitations of her mom, but she only did one, like it was a requirement and she knew people expected it. The best though was her impression of Bjork. I thought I was going to burst, I was laughing so hard.
Anyways, I recommend her show. Here's her tour schedule. Did you know she keeps a blog too? It's pretty serious stuff. She's actually quite serious in person, at least the one time I interviewed her over the phone. But they say that about a lot of comedians.
Posted by Melissa at 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
On Friday, I and 4 other Hyphen staffers went to see Margaret Cho at Davies Symphony Hall in SF. She had two back to back shows (SF is her hometown after all). I've seen her perform twice before when I was living in Houston. Always a good time.
We went to the second show and it was completely packed. I've never seen so many cute gay boys in my life. We had awesome seats -- we were only about 10 rows from the stage.
She seemed a little tired, but she was still hilarious. I think maybe this wasn't her best show (thought I couldn't tell you why exactly). She's lost quite bit of weight. I know it's messed up for me to zero in on that right away, but it was the first thing I noticed. I was kind of surprised she didn't say anything about it -- Margaret's not shy about anything and she's gone over the weight issue before in a prior show, recounting the pressure she was under to slim down when she was on All American Girl.
Of course, she did one of her great imitations of her mom, but she only did one, like it was a requirement and she knew people expected it. The best though was her impression of Bjork. I thought I was going to burst, I was laughing so hard.
Anyways, I recommend her show. Here's her tour schedule. Did you know she keeps a blog too? It's pretty serious stuff. She's actually quite serious in person, at least the one time I interviewed her over the phone. But they say that about a lot of comedians.
Posted by Melissa at 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
In the last two weeks I've smoked approximately two packs of cigarettes directly and about twenty packs indirectly. Yep, I'm in Europe still.
I'm in Berlin, right now most definitely my favorite city in the world. I had the luck to arrive just as one of Berlin's famous and rare summer heat waves descended -- just in time for the solstice -- and to be reminded how in summer the whole city turns out of doors and into the funny wooden-slatted seats of its five thousand sidewalk cafes. Paris is famous for its sidewalk cafes, but you have to share them with traffic exhaust and traffic noise. I'm always shocked at how loud and unromantic Paris is whenever I forget long enough to go there. Berlin, on the other hand, is quiet and beautiful -- full of green, leafy parks lined with friendly cafes where they don't care if you sit all day drinking a single cup of coffee.
And now they have wifi.
In fact, I'm sitting at such a cafe right now, drinking my second wine spritzer and feeling a little drunk. They have H & M here. Now that's civilized.
I told an old friend of mine here (a documentary film producer) what kind of magazine Hyphen was and she got all excited and said, "You know my friend, [German murmur murmur]? I'm sure I've mentioned him before. He's Vietnamese but grew up here. He does the same thing, writes about the Vietnamese in Germany, you really should meet him!" I'm just waiting to hear that the Vietnamese and Korean Germans have gotten together and started a magazine. The children of the Korean guest workers invited here by West Germany starting in the fifties, and the Vietnamese guest workers invited here by East Germany starting around the same time, are now adults in their twenties and thirties. A couple of Asian American film festivals ago, they showed a German film about a transracial adoptee.
This world really is changing. Seven years ago, when l Ieft Berlin and moved back to the States, the city was one, big, ethnic German construction site, a sort of temporary Lager between the past and the future. But I didn't really think much back then about what the Berliner future was going to look like. Now the city is sparkling new glass and steel, two out of three restaurants are Turkish, Asian or some sort of Hispanic, one out of five hip, lovely young people you see on the streets and in the clubs is mixed or of some darker substance than German, and people I went to the university with are getting jobs as sensitivity trainers. You can actually start doing a little Asian spotting on the streets. On the train from Prague I sat across from three young women, presumably Indonesian, who were speaking a mix of German and English to each other. Two were wearing a hijab, one wasn't. I have no idea what that means.
I suppose I could have imagined this, but I guess I've been thinking local and working global. As my film producer friend, Sonia, likes to say, "Aber Hallo!" ["Yeah ... helloooo ..."]
Posted by claire at 12:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In the last two weeks I've smoked approximately two packs of cigarettes directly and about twenty packs indirectly. Yep, I'm in Europe still.
I'm in Berlin, right now most definitely my favorite city in the world. I had the luck to arrive just as one of Berlin's famous and rare summer heat waves descended -- just in time for the solstice -- and to be reminded how in summer the whole city turns out of doors and into the funny wooden-slatted seats of its five thousand sidewalk cafes. Paris is famous for its sidewalk cafes, but you have to share them with traffic exhaust and traffic noise. I'm always shocked at how loud and unromantic Paris is whenever I forget long enough to go there. Berlin, on the other hand, is quiet and beautiful -- full of green, leafy parks lined with friendly cafes where they don't care if you sit all day drinking a single cup of coffee.
And now they have wifi.
In fact, I'm sitting at such a cafe right now, drinking my second wine spritzer and feeling a little drunk. They have H & M here. Now that's civilized.
I told an old friend of mine here (a documentary film producer) what kind of magazine Hyphen was and she got all excited and said, "You know my friend, [German murmur murmur]? I'm sure I've mentioned him before. He's Vietnamese but grew up here. He does the same thing, writes about the Vietnamese in Germany, you really should meet him!" I'm just waiting to hear that the Vietnamese and Korean Germans have gotten together and started a magazine. The children of the Korean guest workers invited here by West Germany starting in the fifties, and the Vietnamese guest workers invited here by East Germany starting around the same time, are now adults in their twenties and thirties. A couple of Asian American film festivals ago, they showed a German film about a transracial adoptee.
This world really is changing. Seven years ago, when l Ieft Berlin and moved back to the States, the city was one, big, ethnic German construction site, a sort of temporary Lager between the past and the future. But I didn't really think much back then about what the Berliner future was going to look like. Now the city is sparkling new glass and steel, two out of three restaurants are Turkish, Asian or some sort of Hispanic, one out of five hip, lovely young people you see on the streets and in the clubs is mixed or of some darker substance than German, and people I went to the university with are getting jobs as sensitivity trainers. You can actually start doing a little Asian spotting on the streets. On the train from Prague I sat across from three young women, presumably Indonesian, who were speaking a mix of German and English to each other. Two were wearing a hijab, one wasn't. I have no idea what that means.
I suppose I could have imagined this, but I guess I've been thinking local and working global. As my film producer friend, Sonia, likes to say, "Aber Hallo!" ["Yeah ... helloooo ..."]
Posted by claire at 12:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In the last two weeks I've smoked approximately two packs of cigarettes directly and about twenty packs indirectly. Yep, I'm in Europe still.
I'm in Berlin, right now most definitely my favorite city in the world. I had the luck to arrive just as one of Berlin's famous and rare summer heat waves descended -- just in time for the solstice -- and to be reminded how in summer the whole city turns out of doors and into the funny wooden-slatted seats of its five thousand sidewalk cafes. Paris is famous for its sidewalk cafes, but you have to share them with traffic exhaust and traffic noise. I'm always shocked at how loud and unromantic Paris is whenever I forget long enough to go there. Berlin, on the other hand, is quiet and beautiful -- full of green, leafy parks lined with friendly cafes where they don't care if you sit all day drinking a single cup of coffee.
And now they have wifi.
In fact, I'm sitting at such a cafe right now, drinking my second wine spritzer and feeling a little drunk. They have H & M here. Now that's civilized.
I told an old friend of mine here (a documentary film producer) what kind of magazine Hyphen was and she got all excited and said, "You know my friend, [German murmur murmur]? I'm sure I've mentioned him before. He's Vietnamese but grew up here. He does the same thing, writes about the Vietnamese in Germany, you really should meet him!" I'm just waiting to hear that the Vietnamese and Korean Germans have gotten together and started a magazine. The children of the Korean guest workers invited here by West Germany starting in the fifties, and the Vietnamese guest workers invited here by East Germany starting around the same time, are now adults in their twenties and thirties. A couple of Asian American film festivals ago, they showed a German film about a transracial adoptee.
This world really is changing. Seven years ago, when l Ieft Berlin and moved back to the States, the city was one, big, ethnic German construction site, a sort of temporary Lager between the past and the future. But I didn't really think much back then about what the Berliner future was going to look like. Now the city is sparkling new glass and steel, two out of three restaurants are Turkish, Asian or some sort of Hispanic, one out of five hip, lovely young people you see on the streets and in the clubs is mixed or of some darker substance than German, and people I went to the university with are getting jobs as sensitivity trainers. You can actually start doing a little Asian spotting on the streets. On the train from Prague I sat across from three young women, presumably Indonesian, who were speaking a mix of German and English to each other. Two were wearing a hijab, one wasn't. I have no idea what that means.
I suppose I could have imagined this, but I guess I've been thinking local and working global. As my film producer friend, Sonia, likes to say, "Aber Hallo!" ["Yeah ... helloooo ..."]
Posted by claire at 12:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted by Melissa at 9:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted by Melissa at 9:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack