Archive: 2009

2009
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TRAVELS

Yuantong Si, Kunming, 1990

On my first trip to China, in October of 1990, I entered from Hong Kong by rail to Guangzhou Station, then bought a ticket on a flight to Kunming for the following morning. I was staying at the Camelia Hotel , then a backpacker’s paradise, with a huge co-ed dormitory and easy access to various transportation routes. At that time, the entire Hong Kong women’s volleyball team was staying there, after having competed in the 1990 Asian Games. What a deliriously stimulating dorm room that was!

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IDEAS

It Smells A Rat - Americas Collapsing Cities

Attending Antonio Di Mambro‘s lecture last night at Boston Public Library, it was amazing to see the giant crowd that packed Rabb Lecture Hall. Who would have thought that an urban planning talk — stoked with dire warnings and gloomy facts — would bring out such a vibrant cross-section of the city? It is almost as if, after thirty years of vapid hand-wringing and self-gratifying acts of “green” living, the mass of architects, planners, designers, and technocrats are beginning to realize that if they do not actually change the way America is built starting immediately, that our cities are literally going to fall apart. Cities can only take so much pillaging by the greed heads, then they go belly up.

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ARTS

Nuie Reith Rocks: Her First Solo Show

Yes, I knew her way back when… That is to say the original sproutling. Here we are in the artist’s hip pad, with me sporting my usual fantastico look! Now my daughter, Nuie, has launched her first solo art show at Backstage Studio Productions in Kingston, New York. The website is out of date, but they actually are hosting the show this month, and held the gala opening last Saturday night, February 9th. Nuie somehow managed to sell 9 pieces on the opening night! Way to go, Nu!

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COSMOS

We need a new racket!

Boys, it says here that GoogleMoon is buying up all the prospecting claims from Tycho all the way over to von Braun. With the kind of muscle those guys are bringing in, our little stake will be wa

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IDEAS

Your feet are diamond-cutters

Thinking about Master Sheng Yen prompted me to run back over my own history of attempts at meditation, which dates back to the early 1970s and takes a ragged course up to the present day. It occurs to me that even without touching on the teachings themselves, just a brief note on the course of events might be an amusing trip for those of us who took similar journeys, or who might not have been born yet.

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HUMAN BEINGS

So Long, Master Sheng Yen!

The parting message written by Master Sheng Yen to all of us: **Grown old while busy with trivial matters, Shedding tears and laughter over emptiness… But in the beginning there was no I, So birth and death can both be tossed aside.**

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ARTS

Psyched for Boskone 2009 Art Show

This will be my first time to participate in the Boskone Art Show, woot! I’m having fun getting some prints mounted and ready for the show. There will be four 8×10 prints available for the th

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ARTS

Domokun Birthday Cake

Irina baked this amazing birthday cake for my brother, Sangpo, in the shape of the ubiquitous Domo-kun character from NHK Japan Satellite t.v. According to the artist, the cake was coffee flavored