Asian American Artists - Call For Submissions

Unfortunately, I don't really have time to update this blog and keep up with my Bed-Stuy Banana blog, but I got this email recently and I wanted to spread the word:

APAture: Call for Artist Submissions

Kearny Street Workshop , the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary organization in the United States, is now accepting submissions for the 11th annual APAture festival of emerging Asian American artists. Each September, APAture showcases about 100 artists at venues throughout San Francisco, making it the Bay Area's biggest platform for Asian American art.

We are accepting submissions in five disciplines: visual arts, film & video, music, literary arts and performing arts. The deadline to submit is July 11, 2009.

Go to kearnystreet.org/apature for more info and to apply online!

Questions? Contact apature@kearnystreet.org

Durian - The Stinkiest Fruit

This is a fruit I've always been intrigued by. My aunt is totally in love with it but my mom won't eat it because it smells so bad. My mother's repulsion for the fruit, has dissuaded me from trying it. Some say it smells like dirty sweat socks. In fact in South East Asian countries where durian grows, durian is prohibited in subways, malls and hotels. But for durian lovers the recent prospect of an odourless durian raised much controversy, from the International Herald Tribune:

After three decades of research, a Thai government scientist working at an orchard here near the Cambodian border says he has managed to take the stink out of durian.

The spiky Southeast Asian fruit, variously described by its detractors as smelling like garbage, moldy cheese or rotting fish, is banned from many hotels, airlines and the Singapore subway. But durian lovers, and there are many in Asia, are convinced that, like fine French cheeses, the worse the smell, the better the taste....

Durian lovers are horrified by the prospect of a no-smell durian. They complain that the fruit, which is green or sometimes yellowish and shaped like a rugby ball, is being homogenized just like the insipid tomatoes bred to look pretty behind cellophane on supermarket shelves.

A comprehensive entry on the joy of durian is in Wikipedia:

The durian, native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, has been known to the western world for about 600 years. The British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace famously described its flesh as "a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds" in the 19th century. The flesh can be consumed at various stages of ripeness, and is used to flavour a wide variety of savoury and sweet edibles in Southeast Asian cuisines. The seeds can also be eaten when cooked. The name durian comes from the Malay word duri (thorn) with suffix -an.

Meanwhile in Guantanamo...

From today's Guardian:

No charges but US may never release Guantánamo Chinese

Seventeen Chinese prisoners who have been held for nearly seven years in Guantánamo Bay will be informed on Monday that they could spend the rest of their lives behind bars, even though they face no charges and have been told by a judge they should be freed.

No country is willing to accept them and the US justice department has now blocked moves for them to be allowed to go to the US mainland, where they had been offered a home by refugee and Christian organisations.

The men's lawyer, Sabin Willett, is flying to Guantánamo Bay this weekend to break the news to the men, who are members of the Uighur ethnic group seeking autonomy from China. In a blunt and angry letter to justice department lawyers, Willett spelled out what he thought of the way the men had been treated.

"After years of stalling and staying and appellate gamesmanship, you pleaded no contest - they are not enemy combatants," Willett has written. "You have never charged them with any crime."

Last month a federal judge ruled that the men should be freed. "They were on freedom's doorstep," said Willett. "The plane was at Gitmo. The stateside Lutheran refugee services and the Uighur families and Tallahassee clergy were ready to receive them." However, the justice department appealed against the ruling and Willett claims this will put the men into a potentially endless limbo.

Click here to read the full article. Interesting, when the American government and press get all up in arms about war crimes and injustices in other countries.

Odds and Ends

Is there anything more appetizing than plastic food?

Patchwork garage door.

I can't tell if these films are old or new but they sure have intriguing imagery.

For A Good Time...

Secret Chinese beer.

And Viagra.

New to Nice

Usually the way I judge any ethnic restaurant is by how many native people of that restaurant's cuisine are actually eating there. Read: Sushi restaurant full of white people - go somewhere else. In Chinatown, however, I've made an exception. Not being a huge fan of Chinese food in general as I find it too greasy and don't have the palate for the high end stuff (fish eyeballs and shark fins), our favourite spot is New Green Bo. Which recently changed its name to Nice Green Bo. One rumor I'd read on the internet was that the owners said after over ten years in the business they were no longer new, but that their customers were so nice, they changed the name. Whatever, doesn't matter, thankfully the management and food didn't change along with the name. As far as I can tell, the owner is this skinny Taiwanese woman with a severe face. She used to scare me when I first came in, but now she's gotten to know us, and I really like her, even though she doesn't seem any less severe. Their food is not greasy and they have the best veggie dumplings in town. And it's chock full of whiteys.

Nice Green Bo
66 Bayard Street
New York, 10013
Phone: 212-625-2359

The Motel

Okay, I know I'm two years late on this, but that's what happens when you have a kid, your life as a single person who sleeps in, gets enough sleep, sleeps, watches movies in theaters, ends. But I did finally see this fantastic film by Michael Kang. From their myspace page:

Puberty sucks, and nobody knows it better than 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau). Stuck at his own familys hourly-rate motel, young Ernest divides his time between taking orders from his overbearing mom, tending to whatever miscreants the motel may attract and longing for the girl of his dreams, 15 year old Christine (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA'S Samantha Futerman). When charismatic Sam Kim (BETTER LUCK TOMORROWs Sung Kang) checks into the motel, fatherless Ernest is taken under his wing and hustled toward manhood, for better or worse. From the producers of ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW and THE GOOD GIRL, comes an unflinching portrait of adolescence as heartfelt and authentic as it is hilarious.

Well directed, written, and acted. Subtle, non-stereotypical as far as representations of Asians go, intelligent, funny. I loved it. Here's the trailer:

So if, like me, you're way behind on your movie watching, rent it or borrow it, it's worth seeing.