From The New York Times:
OP-ED COLUMNIST: Our One-Party Democracy
China's one-party autocracy can impose the important policies needed
to move a society forward in the 21st century. Is this a political
advantage?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html
Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes
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Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cynthiawang@nyu.edu
Ok, I can’t say I’m an expert in what shots the media shows of the US Open, but the Li Na/Clijsters match just ended…was it just me, but near the end, did they (aka ESPN) not show Li Na on screen at all, with all shots focused on Clijsters? And then there was the commentator who went on and on about how Mao Tze Dong’s goat ate the tennis net and how he (Mao), wherever he is, must be so proud. WTF?! And then he mentioned something about Chiang Kai Shek.
Asian faces invisible in the media? Hell yea.
This is my one obligatory pseudo-militant post this semester. Time to go back being dispassionately objective and academic.
Grace says this might be because Clijsters is the favorite.
I was walking along West 4th this afternoon after a meeting in my department with my mind buzzing with, well, stuff that I won’t bore you with here, about to pull out my cell phone to make a quick call when I heard, “Hey Cynthia!” I stared hard at the owner of the voice, silently going through my mental Rolodex as fast as my under-caffeinated, sleep-deprived, sugar-starved, and overwrought brain could handle. Not fast enough. She pointed to herself upon seeing my confusion and said, “Susan!” Of course! Of course I know Susan. Susan sang Mary Poppins and Phantom of the Opera for me at Ellen’s Stardust Diner last year! We baked cookies and made frosting together at Tanya’s, and we’ve been trying to make plans to have coffee ever since she started her grad program at NYU!
What is wrong with me?! This is not the first time something like this has happened. It seems to be a recurring issue that I’ve noticed more and more recently. The most recent incident happened at Costco in LA when I ran into Linda Peng and her mom. I met Linda at Phillip’s over Christmas last year, and had a very intense conversation/debate with her mom about the worth-it-ness of private elite universities that lasted the better part of two hours. Linda herself was learning how to play guitar, and her sister, Lisa, her, and I were supposed to go geocaching this summer. When I saw Linda and her mom at Costco, I introduced myself, only to be gently reminded that I had met them before. *sigh*
I forget faces. All the time. I remember names, and I remember details. Probably one of the most memorable forgetting happened with Emily (who’s one of my closest and dearest friends) – I met her in April 2000, when we were both at Northwestern’s Day at NU – an event held that would help us decide whether to or not to go to Northwestern. I met her in the lobby restaurant of the hotel we were both staying in, and had a rather substantial conversation with her and her parents. I later ran into her at Norris again. First day of classes freshman year – I had Chinese History. After class, the girl in front of me turned around. “You’re Cynthia, right?” I stuck out my hand and shook her’s as she said, “I’m Emily, remember?” Yes, I remember you, Emily. I just couldn’t recognize you.
This next incident is even more embarrassing…and I can’t remember if I ever told the person in question about it. It took me a VERY long time to recognize my good friend, Jane, by sight. Weeks, after seeing her regularly even – again, she was someone else I had met and had a substantial conversation with previously, who had to reintroduce herself to me.
Another one happened less than a year ago, involving my friend and batchmate (or, fellow cohort member) Ching. We were all out for Allison’s birthday at some dark Mexican restaurant, but it wasn’t so dark to excuse what happened. Ching sat diagonally across from me. I just couldn’t place her, and my brain jumped to the conclusion that I had never met her. It screamed at me, “NEW PERSON! NEW PERSON! Introduce yourself!” So I did. I even asked her name again, and when she told me, I could have sunk into the floor.
I hate not making the connection when it seems to come naturally for everyone else, and it’s even worse when it’s someone I consider a friend. It makes me feel like the other person thinks I don’t feel they’re worth my remembering, and the truth couldn’t be further from it. There have been countless times when I’ve stuck my hand out to shake someone else’s hand and said, “Nice to meet you”, only to be met with “Don’t you remember? We’ve met before.” Makes me feel awful. And, since I’ve started being aware of this quirk, I get slightly anxious when I’m about to meet someone I know I’ve met before and SHOULD recognize on sight (but often can’t picture their face in my head) – so much so that when I met my friend Kelly this summer for the second time over tea, I texted her beforehand to warn her about my penchant for misremembering faces.
So, in addition to publicly apologizing to Susan today for my brain going blank, I want to say, if this ever happens to you, I’m really REALLY sorry!!
I think it’s an indication I’ve been watching too much Law & Order SVU when I say, if you rape me, you don’t have to worry about me IDing you because I won’t be able to pick you out of a lineup, so don’t kill me, please.
I suppose it’s only fitting that Whedon himself is a self-proclaimed Sondheim fan.
Found this on Wikipedia today, while looking at the Merrily We Roll Along entry, in the section talking about the poor reception of the musical on Broadway when it first opened:
In his New York Times review on November 17, 1981, Frank Rich said of the production, “As we all should probably have learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one’s heart broken at regular intervals.”
Sound familiar?
From The New York Times:
THE MEDIUM: Facebook Exodus
Why some Facebook members are moving on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html
Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes
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Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cynthiawang@nyu.edu
In line with the discussions of copyright I’ve been having with my friends (who are still, thankfully, my friends), I just found that my cover of Brandi Carlile’s song, “Josephine”, had been taken down from YouTube by Sony. If these copyright laws applied to Shakespeare, no Shakespeare play would be allowed to be performed anywhere without express permission from whoever owns the rights…meaning, whoever had money to track down whoever owns the rights. So, it’s too bad for all of you (private companies, schools, etc) who don’t have money and resources to track down copyright owners – you just will have to make-do with a Shakespeare-less culture.
There’s a lot more to the issue than this, but it’s all I have time for right now. More information in Lawrence Lessig’s book, “Free Culture”, and why copyright law as it exists now is ridiculous. My view? Sure, there should be copyright, but it shouldn’t be as restrictive as it is now – I mean, restricting covers of songs even AFTER attributing credit to the original artist? Come on! Pressing project for the near future: Put all my songs on a Creative Commons license.
Watching Imagine Me and You again. What's so brilliantly beautiful
about about this story is that every single character in it has the
best of intentions. The three main characters find themselves
completely helpless in a love triangle. And for us, the audience, we
feel helpless too. It's so hard to take sides.
Matthew goode is heartbreakingly adorable in this film.
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Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cynthiawang@nyu.edu
I just finished my last show for a while (at least, my last one in LA till Christmas). After playing two shows in LA with very little rehearsal after two months without so much as two strings to differentiate tunes on (that was a bad homage on “without two dimes to rub together”), I’m realizing that good shows don’t necessarily need to be flawless. Maybe like all things in life, good things don’t always have to be flawless.
Show #1 was the Cat Club on the Sunset Strip. Granted, I did prepare more for this show than I did the one tonight, simply because it was a *show* – so I had a set list and all. The set list went completely out the window upon arriving at the Cat Club because the group after me canceled. I had to fill nearly an hour. Thankfully, Sue Jin had her keyboard with her, and played two songs during my set (yay! it took a bit of convincing – she’s so darn modest, that girl, but she eventually gave in and shared her music with us) but I forgot half the lyrics to Jewel’s “Meant for Me”, forcing me to give it up in the middle – surprising because I’ve played it SO many times before, and left out half a verse for my new song, “Can I?” As I told my mom, though, it’s ok, because everyone there was a friend or a friend of a friend, so they’d still have to like me, even if I suck.
Show #2 was at Mai’s Cafe tonight, where more people than I expected showed up. Helen and her mom, unexpectedly! My mom apparently had called their house, and Helen’s dad told her that they had gone to see my show, and my mom was left wondering, “What show?!” And many of the people there were folks I didn’t know. Tonight, though, was definitely the night of forgotten lyrics. I must have prefaced every single number I did with, “Uhh…ok, I hope I remember the lyrics to this one.” So much that for every cover song I did, Jerry was there with his Blackberry following along and mouthing words to me from where he was sitting, and people I didn’t even know were helping out. Season’s friend was shouting out lyrics to “Meant for Me” (which I just HAD to do to prove I didn’t completely forget it) while the random guys at the bar yelled out encouragement, and later Season herself requested my signature Deathcab cover, to which I did not remember the lyrics at all. I got to give a shout out to Lauren and Beccah and COPE before doing “Atheist’s Prayer,” which is conveniently named “The Little Church” for purposes of performing for St. John’s events. We closed the night out with an incomplete, and totally karaoked version of “American Pie” with everyone singing the chorus.
Growing up playing classical music, where one wrong note can lead to week-long agonizing, doing the whole singer/songwriter thing was very liberating. What do you mean, I don’t have to be perfect? If I mess up, or change the lyrics, no one is the wiser. And sometimes, it’s even more fun when you admit it and then crack jokes about it. You can’t help feeling, though, that you’re a bit self-centered on stage, and that the jokes you make are funniest only to you. And people who don’t know you are like, “Who’s that fool on stage who can’t remember her own lyrics?” But hey, you’re the one with the mic, right?
So, tonight’s gig. Flawed? Absolutely. Worthwhile? I hope so. Fun? Hell yea.
Mama and me on Skype with Daddy last night – Daddy had given Mama a “wishlist” of stuff he wanted her to bring to HK:
Me: Anything else you want us to pack?
Daddy: Yourselves.
Aww. 🙂 For the record, Mama’s going to HK for 3 weeks, and I’m stuck at home with Sabi (who just pooped in the upstairs bedroom – I dunno, maybe something about the scent of Ray made her want to poop in there).
Two posts about gender roles in a row! WTF? But I thought this thought was worth sharing.
I was at Toys R Us with my mom today, looking for a gift for a 4 year old girl. Naturally, we wanted to pick something that would noodle the brain a little, and opted for Legos or K-nex or something like that. When we got to the Legos section, I wanted to look for something a little bit more girly – or at least something that didn’t look so blatantly…tractor-ish. You know, the “let’s build a tractor!” type of toy. They also had sci-fi stuff like Star Wars, medieval castle/war-type themes going on too. Of course, look at what I’m saying – I’m totally playing into the gender roles too by assuming that girls and tractors don’t mix.
Herein lies the problem though – the general public (for whom “pink” and “makeup” = girls and “construction” and “cars/vehicles/science fiction” = boys) is going to go straight for the pink toys if they are looking to buy something for a girl. And what’s in what I term the “pink” section? Dress-up dolls, housewife, cooking-type toys, putting makeup and accessories on dolls and figurines… in short, nothing that really involves building, creating, putting things together, etc. What message is that sending to young kids?
Cynthia Wang 