Taiwanese American Artists for Typhoon Relief

[reposted from taiwaneseamerican.org]

Taiwanese American musicians and artists unite to benefit for efforts to relief the catastrophe caused by Typhone Morakot in Taiwan last week. This announcement came through via TaiwaneseAmerican.org. All proceeds made from these artists' events and merchandise sales until August 31 will go toward relief funds. YellowBuzz gives a shout-out to all artists and organizers involved in this benefit!

Taiwanese American Artists & Performers Contribute to Typhoon Relief Efforts!



As of Sunday, August 16th, the government has reported over a hundred deaths and countless injuries in Taiwan due to Typhoon Morakot. Our hearts go out to the many families suffering. Indeed there has been agitation and different emotions as more developments unfold in Taiwan, but we call on Taiwanese America to see this as a time to stand together as a global community.

Showing their true colors of generosity and compassion, many previously mentioned or highlighted artists on TaiwaneseAmerican.org have risen to the occasion! Until August 31st (or other mentioned dates), the following artists have offered to donate a percentage of all their sales to typhoon relief efforts. (Proceeds will be directed towards several of the coordinating organizations and charities that TaiwaneseAmerican.org has mentioned previously.) These artists are doing some amazing and interesting things within our community! Check them out and contribute to Taiwan relief by supporting them with purchases!

Alice Tong:
We last saw her performing and wowing the crowd at Tuesday Night Cafe in Los Angeles! What an amazing and soulful voice! Check out her April 22nd, 2009 Spotlight! http://taiwaneseamerican.org/2009/04/check-out-singer-songwriter-alice-tong.html

Purchase her CD "Small" on Blacklava at: http://tinyurl.com/qkmhgu
Check out her music at: http://www.myspace.com/alicetongmusic

Kelly Tsai:
We also saw Kelly spitting spoken fire in Los Angeles earlier this month. Check out Kelly's website at http://www.yellowgurl.com for your daily dose of wisdom and sass.

All the proceeds from any CD's and chapbooks bought on http://www.yellowgurl.com/store from now until Tuesday, August 18th to the Taiwan Relief Fund! Act fast!

Dawen Wang:
With exciting news of his long-awaited "American Me" CD Release Party on September 12th, Dawen has generously offered us a space where TaiwaneseAmerican.org T-shirts will be selling next to a venue-matched Taiwan Relief donation box. If you're in the Los Angeles area, check it out!

http://www.dawenwangmusic.com

Our July 13th, 2009 Spotlight on Dawen: http://spotlight.taiwaneseamerican.org/2009/07/conversation-with-singer-songwriter.html
Want something a bit more personal? Video interview with Dawen: http://vodpod.com/watch/1900267-conversation-with-dawen-wang

Abe Young:
Abe was quick to offer donations from sales from his thought-provoking and articulate book written as a conversation among three particular individuals. Humanity at Stake: On Why the World Should Now End China's MIlitary & Political Aggression, Understand Taiwan's Democracy, and Defend 23 Million Citizens' Human Right to Self-Determination is available on Amazon and on www.HumanityAtStake.com

Calista Wu:
Our June 10th, 2009 Spotlight, soulful and passionate singer Calista Wu debuted a wildly successful first EP "The Prologue" and didn't hesitate on giving back! Check out and purchase "The Prologue" from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/nxnwf6

Calista's Spotlight: http://spotlight.taiwaneseamerican.org/2009_06_01_archive.html
http://www.calistawu.com
http://www.myspace.com/calistawu

Grace Lin:
The prolific and ever so talented children's book author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is also donating portions of her book sales!
http://www.wherethemountainmeetsthemoon.com

She has many other books under her belt that look like perfect gifts for a loved one or younger friend that's starting to read! Head on over to IndieBooks for more information: http://tinyurl.com/mprt9j

She's donating a portion of sales of her lovely artwork collection at her store: http://www.cafepress.com/gracepacy

Johnny Hi-Fi:
Feel like rocking out and giving to a good cause? Eric Hsu, lead vocalist from Johnny Hi-Fi, has upped the ante and offered to donate $2 from each ticket, CD, and merchandise sale from two upcoming performances at the Taiwan Fest in Canada (Toronto on 8/29 and Vancouver on 9/7)!

If you're in the area, this is a great opportunity to give back and enjoy an amazing concert!

http://www.johnnyhifi.com

Jenton Lee:
For those that just want to donate by clicking, check out Jenton! A rising YouTube sensation, Jenton has entertained us with his vibrant, likable personality, keen vocals, and such songs like "Taiwanese Night Market".

Watch Jenton's performance of the song here-- donation based on the number of clicks: http://www.youtube.com/jenton#play/uploads/13/fQFxhakOnhM

http://www.jentonlee.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/jenton
http://www.thesixtyone.com/Jenton

Shawna Yang Ryan:
Author of the poetically-written and recently-published novel, Water Ghosts, Shawna is donating a portion of her book sales if you forward her your receipt by email. An easy way to do this is to buy your copy online before August 31st at: http://www.amazon.com/Water-Ghosts-Shawna-Yang-Ryan/dp/1594202079 then send an email to shawnayangryan@gmail.com. Tracking sales is not automatic, so don't forget to email!

Visit Shawna's Blog: http://shawnayangryan.blogspot.com

Karen Lin:
You've seen several of the works of music video producer and independent filmmaker Karen Lin, but she's so behind-the-scenes, you often don't know that she's behind some amazing videos out there. On the side, she's been working on some independent film productions, and her current project will be set in Taiwan. Buy a DVD copy of her first award-winning short film, Perfection, and she will donate 50% of the proceeds!

http://zuzufilms.com

Smash Your (Literary) Idols

When I was 21, I had a mini English major crisis when I found out T.S. Eliot was anti-semitic. I asked my creative writing prof if it would be--well, not quite un-ethical--but unseemly to keep loving "The Wasteland." Could I separate the man from the work? UC Berkeley in the mid to late 90s was a Foucault/Barthes/Derrida Lovefest (probably still is), and the fashionable route was think the author was dead, even if s/he was not dead. But T.S. Eliot was dead. However, I still can't read my favorite lines in all of poetry--

Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

--without thinking of...old anti-semitic Thomas Stearns (to be fair, in researching this post, there seems to be more recent disputes about these charges).

Anyway, I'm having T.S. Eliot flashbacks as I grapple with my admiration for Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose." It is a fictional account of the life of writer/frontier woman Mary Hallock Foote. The controversy is that he had unfettered access to her letters and included large chunks of them, unchanged and uncredited, in his novel.

The book is, without a doubt, structurally impressive, and flawlessly weaves the stories of two generations, and has a bit of metafiction that is also a fun surprise. But as someone who understands the work it takes to sift through historical documents for that one right detail, I wonder if he got an unfair shortcut, which would diminish my admiration of the skill and work it took to pull off such a rigorously detailed piece of historical fiction. And then there is the ethical problem of plagiarism, of course. If he had used huge excerpts and then acknowledged them as such, I would have thought that was pretty cool--mixing historical document with fiction. But there is no acknowledement in the book that this is based on her at all. The only acknowledgment reads:

My thanks to J.M and her sister for the loan of their ancestors. Though I have used many details of their lives and characters, I have not hesitated to warp both personalities and events to fictional needs. This is a novel which utilizes selected facts from their real lives. It is in no sense a family history.

In the pre-Google world, how would anybody know that this book was about Foote? Thus, in combination of his very liberal use of her letters, it's pretty sneaky.

Ironically, Foote's family was apparently more upset at the part of the book that deviated greatly from their ancestor's actual life--the fictional plot turn (not quite twist) that really solidifies the meaning of the book.

Despite my google research, I have not found anything that puts her letters side-by-side with his version of her letters, so I can't say definitively to what extent the book was plagiarized, and Stegner defenders still call bs on the whole accusation.

So last night, I was just about reconciled to the whole controversy, willing to just say "whatever," because the book as a whole is so artful, and there is no one to credit but Stegner for that, when I came across a quote from Gary Snyder as part as a hippie manifesto by one of the characters. In part:

If we are lucky we may eventually arrive at a totally integrated world culture with matrilineal descent, freeform marriage, natural-credit Communist economy, less industry, far less population, and lots more national parks.

Hmm, I thought. I'm pretty familiar with Snyder's work, and, except for the national parks line, it didn't sound much like him. It lacked the playfulness of a Snyder line, and it's uncharacteristically sloppy. But at least Stegner was crediting someone, right?

Ha! It turns out that Stegner made up the quote.

So now I am just irritated. He doesn't credit who he quotes, then credits fake quotes by real people. I just want to shake my Farrah Fawcet hair and snap my gum and ask, "What's up with that?"

Hiatus

This is my #444 post--a very inauspicious number in Chinese culture ("four" sounds like "death") but if you add them up and add them up again, you end up with 3 (4 +4+4=12, 1+2=3), so let's go with the auspicious number three.

After my little respite in the woods, I've decided to retire the blog indefinitely. I'll put up occasional posts about events and readings, but otherwise, I'm going to try to take a break from interfacing with people via the web.

So perhaps I'll see you via email--or better yet--at the local bar?

Little House in the Big Woods

A little over a week ago, I was in New York, racing through the Met with my friend Jeffrey to check out the Francis Bacon exhibit before the museum closed, and then we headed downtown to meet his friends for drinks and then dinner at Schiller's, where, when we got the bill, I pointed out they had charged us for two carafes of wine and then was told, no, we drank two carafes of wine. I was just too wined up to notice.

And then, in about 36 hours, I went from that to a quiet cabin outside Nevada City, so far away from anything that it is "off the grid," that magical land of solar energy and well water (and an "outhouse," albeit a nice one) where on my first night I heard a little bear shushing itself against the side of the house. Well, it might have been a wild boar or any manner of large, furry, shushing-type snorting animal, as I was too scared to peek out to see, and I was bewildered by my dogs' lack of notice. They just kept snoring. I am about a quarter mile from the nearest house, there is no internet, tv, or radio. Just food, dogs, books, and my mind, which is an okay place to inhabit, though I notice that the urban world affords a lot of defenses that help one avoid thinking too deeply about things one might feel more comfortable ignoring. Without those defenses, I am supposed to write, but I also find myself running over relationships, pondering regrets, dreaming of long lost friends and I get a bit achey. (But hey--at least there's no immediate internet so I am prevented from sending out emails I might regret!)

The cabin is owned by a former professor of mine, and he is within yelling distance (sound travels well in the woods!). He has been wonderfully hospitable, checking up on me, offering me use of his library, providing better conversation than the dogs (though they are quite good listeners, even if my stories put the little one to sleep).

So that is where I'll be for at least another week: watching my dogs spin around delightedly in piles of dead leaves and hearing my footsteps on gravel against the backdrop of birdsong.

"Slow-food Organic Radio"

Hi Friends, I'll be on West Coast Live this Saturday, June 6. The show runs on KALW 91.7 in SF from 10-12, but it also streams online. Additionally, the show is recorded in front of a live studio audience! And if you are looking for something fun to do Saturday morning, and would like to spend a nice morning in Napa, you can be part of that studio audience because tickets are for sale. I'm linking their site with all streaming/ticket/show info here.

ok, pitch over. :)