DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN

[review of the opening night performance that we saw monday. i thought it was a little weak in several places, and the sets seemed more designed for frugality than for modern minimalism. but then again that is not unusual at the first performance of the season. after three visits in a week, i know i will really miss the Met when i leave. even got to see the queen of spain, flanked by bodyguards, at yesterday's performance of La Boheme.]

MET OPERA REVIEW | 'FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN'
Ethereal Queen Redeemed by Her Human Heart
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/arts/music/19FRAU.html

Two years ago, the Metropolitan Opera lifted the spirits of music-lovers in New York with a humane, visually ravishing and musically distinguished new production of one of opera's most problematic works, Richard Strauss's "Frau Ohne Schatten." Every element of that production by Herbert Wernicke in his Met debut was enchanting. Add to that the winning cast, headed by the soprano Deborah Voigt in a milestone performance as the Empress, and the incandescent conducting of Christian Thielemann, and this "Die Frau" was the finest work the Met had done in years.

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A Day at the Movies

saw three (no four!) movies yesterday. my friend elizabeth and i went to kips bay and movie hopped through Kill Bill, Lost in Translation, and Matrix Revolution. Later that evening i also watched Blade Runner again, after having just finished the novel it was based on by Philip Dick.

i found Kill Bill relatively empty and annoyingly unfinished, albeit with some nice camera angles and interesting stylized details. Lost in Translation was airy, moody, and slow, but very enjoyable as a brief vicarious sojourn to Tokyo. and surprisingly, i really enjoyed Matrix, even after getting a 30/100 on rotten tomatoes. although it wasn't breaking any new ground, transcending the level of discourse previously achieved, or offering any real tangible existential answers, i felt it was still a relatively fitting end to the trilogy. which makes me wonder why the reviews were so visceral in their criticism. anyway, i'd see it again. i definitely will.

Nocturne

"In a world in which every action has intentional meaning, most people must seem either like stuttering fools or like the creators of surreal collages (and you stare dumbfoundedly, head half-cocked, like a puzzled dog.) The graceful aesthete may go unnoticed by the rest of the world but you, with your intentional language, can pick him right out. Everyone else, for example, might only see a guy with a green shirt spilling his coffee on a small pile of books. But, to you, it is sublime poetry."

one of my best friends from school (well, actually the little liberal arts school up the road in cambridge) has been in town for his birthday. it's reminded me of the good old days when i first moved back to NYC after school, and we would be out 4-5 nights a week (on average!), going to a little marathon of locales each night.

after getting off the plane, i took him to meet some friends at the second night of Michael Ault's newest place, Nocturne, and the energy felt like an evening from the mid-90s. we got there at 10, and there was already a crowd of people that Irv and Wass were keeping at bay. everyone seemed to be out again. and we were out past 5am at Bungalow 8 afterwards. NYC has been longing (even before 911) for a new hip club that is "The" place, and with a night like that, perhaps this could finally be it. at least until the spring. things move on fast here.

anyway, it was great to see so many people out. people we've known from a decade plus in the fashion/club scene. which makes me think, do i really want to leave all this and move to asia/HK? i think the answer is still a strong and affirmative "Yes".

and now to chinatown for some dim sum...

Doori in Soho

[my neighbor kathy says i haven't been blogging lately. it's true! so here's a feeble attempt to have some more personal content in here, in addition to the digest of stuff i read, that PQ+ has become. ;-) really though, my life is boring...]

took some pictures (not the runway ones) of a cool young korean designer earlier this summer for audrey, the asian women's magazine. she's got a cute little boutique on sullivan street in soho. go check it out! she's super nice, and she has some beautiful stuff.

Ebay

Bought this 15Gb super light ipod two months ago for my girlfriend, but it didn't arrive in time for me to take with me before i left to meet her in asia for an extended trip!! (Thanks to an idiot at buy.com who had assured me it would come within the week before i left. Had to buy another one here at full retail plus NYC sales tax! arrrgh! @#%%@#!!)

So now i'm selling the one that came after i left. what a pain!! so please tell all your pals! Help me sell it!

Back in NYC

finally back from my two months in asia (and a family wedding in boston this weekend). every time i come back from asia something seems to happen. the last time, i came back two days before 911. this time i came back a day before the blackout. it was only fate that my sister from paris convinced me to drive up a day early with her and her kids, so i missed it. guess i was lucky. although i'm sure it could have been fun to be here.

now it will take a few days to get back to normal. bills, a foot and a half of mail, errands, and ebaying the extra ipod that i had bought for my girlfriend (which arrived late after i left forcing me to buy another before i left at full retail with NYC taxes!! argh!!). another wedding in two weeks, and a third in october. i really must be getting old. [maybe its finally time for me to grow up. yikes!]

i feel like i took way too many pictures while i was in asia. all digital, and hardly any real pictures. (had to get another portable hard drive to fit them all!!) so it will take some time to put up a few. i always feel like i am in a constant struggle to live or to document instead. i know it does not have to be either/or. but unfortunately, it becomes necessary to split my energies, and i sometimes never really feel in balance. for if we are *really* living, we have no time to be cataloging our past. but if we do not document our present, how soon it is for its completeness to disappear forever from our memory. (like, what did i have for breakfast two days ago!)

i like rich's take on my earlier post. if only i could selectively and capriciously freeze time. good poetry is mood and senses frozen in words. photographs, like architecture and sculpture, are frozen poetry.

Koh Tao

exhausted from diving every day for about ten days here in Koh Tao. did my PADI open water and advanced open water. too bad i have to leave already. so tomorrow an all day trip back to bangkok, then a stop in singapore before i return home, just in time for a family wedding in boston. i only wish i could somehow make time stand still so i could really experience and savor my life. am i too greedy? time stops for no one.

Koh Tao

haven't written or posted at all for several weeks. just too busy to even sit down in internet cafes to get my mail.

anyway, just arrived in koh tao this morning and began my PADI open water class this afternoon. just lucky to be here after our overnight bus hit something in the road and put a big hole in the gas tank!

been losing alot of things this trip. most recently my digital camera battery and charger! ugh! thankfully i should be getting it back tomorrow from the bus office in bangkok where i had left it. (thanks to a conscientious dive rep from Crystal Dive Resort named Thai.)

and hanoi was just awesome. love vietnam. some pictures are already up, but more to come soon...

Settling into Hanoi

its been a busy two weeks since i first arrived in hanoi. hard to believe its really been that long. but i've been adjusting to the heat, the daily routine, and a little work. after a long day at the office, errands, and dinner, i've been too exhausted to do almost anything else. so haven't done any real exploring yet, but i'm going to start later this week.

for some reason, i'd been expecting problems with my laptop, and came prepared with system disks and other installation software. but i didn't expect my first problem to be the failure of one of my laptop's two screen hinges.

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Hanoi Arrival

after my one day layover in singapore, arrived in hanoi yesterday afternoon at the sparkling new (and air conditioned!) terminal at Noi Bai International Airport. it was so surprising to step into what seemed like such a modern airport, after spending some time at the older and very basic concrete block styled terminal, only a year and half ago. then again, there seem to be a lot of new terminals and airports these days -- the new airports in athens and mykonos, chep lap kok in hong kong, terminal 1 & 4 at JFK. in singapore's changi international, it was such a nice surprise to discover free broadband internet hookups and mobile phone chargers scattered throughout the terminal! if only all airports were like that.

driving from the airport into the city, there seemed to be so many new and modern looking buildings looking completely out of place, scattered in between stretches of rice paddys and older concrete constructed block houses. arriving from singapore, the contrast in cities could not be stronger. in singapore, the city and streets are so ordered and manicured, and even downtown seemed deserted during the day. hanoi in contrast, has virtual hordes of people on bicycles, motorbikes, and cars and trucks and buses, all careening down small dusty streets blaring their horns as old women balancing loads of produce on bamboo poles stride into the middle of busy streets. there is definitely an authentic energy of life here. and it makes our more developed cities seem standing still by comparison.

the last time i was here, i stayed almost two months, including a significant time touring saigon and hanoi on motorbike. but arriving yesterday, i definitely felt overwhelmed with the crush and anarchy of distinctly vietnamese traffic. despite expecting it, being on the crowded streets almost felt claustrophobic. then again, maybe it was just a feeling of disorientation, arriving into the city from a different and unfamiliar direction.

last time i loved being here more than almost anywhere else, and i know i will again. it'll just take a few days to sink in and get comfortable and oriented again. including painfully slow internet connections! i've just been too spoiled with NYC broadband.

just still can't believe i'm actually here...

singapore

arrived in singapore early this morning via frankfurt for a one day layover on my way to hanoi. with all the cheap fares to asia this summer, it was too tempting not to come over. i told myself that i could still proceed with my work, and have a vacation at the same time. but we'll have to see how much work i actually get done.

after a week of trying to secure the right flights, everything came together almost too quickly. got my visa this friday, and a ticket saturday, for a sunday flight! hardly had enough time to tell anyone i was leaving, not to speak of getting myself ready. my plan is to spend a few weeks in hanoi, then go diving in koh tao, and a few more days in singapore on the way back.

my first impression of singapore is like a mix of hawaii, san francisco, and hong kong. relatively, a relaxed tropical environment, in a spread out urban area (lots of people drive here), with a mind for business. yet walking around this morning, the city seemed deserted around the "downtown" areas of robinson and bridge roads. virtually no tourists, and many businesses opening at 11am still closed. around noon, people seemed to come out of their air conditioned offices for lunch. but definitely not the desperate freneticness of HK.

got to meet up with an old NYC friend for lunch, and later dinner, together with another ex-HK friend. she used to work across the street from me while i was at DLJ, and later came over to work for DLJ too. afterwards, she had moved to HK, where she put me up for several weeks while i was travelling in asia on my last trip two years ago. can't believe its been that long.

tomorrow, on to vietnam...

Storm King, Dia Beacon, and Donald Judd

this weekend, went with MOMAJA to visit the Storm King Art Center and Dia Beacon in Orange and Dutchess Counties, 50-60 miles north of the city.

Storm King, which was founded in 1960, is a beautiful 500 acre park and open air museum that "celebrates the relationship between sculpture and nature" -- viewing oversized, man-made, and often hulking heaps of stone and metal by Mark di Suvero, Alexander Calder, Andrew Goldsworthy, and others among the carefully manicured landscape was more than beautiful. it made my conservative aesthetic wonder if all the more urban placement of oversized modern sculpture wouldn't all look better placed in the natural landscape instead.

Dia Beacon, in contrast and newly opened in an old Nabisco manufacturing complex, was more of a return for me to the more familiar post modern minimalist art in industrially bare context. however, with its 300,000 square feet of raw space, pieces by Walter de Maria, Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Michael Heizer, and others, for once seemed able to breathe in a relatively almost-equally spacious context.

last evening, it was fitting then, after our weekend field trip, to visit Donald Judd's prior home and studio in a 5 story cast iron loft building in Soho with Peter Ballantine, who was an assistant and fabricator for Donald Judd for over 25 years. in my eight years in soho, where i had lived just a few blocks away on West Broadway and was still pre-conscious and ignorant of contemporary art, i had always walked by and wondered why that first floor was so empty, except for a few colored flourescent lights (a sculpture by Dan Flavin).

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Together

last evening went to see a special showing of Chen Kaige's new film, Together. the film was pretty in parts, but i felt a little manipulated with its almost forced storyline and sentimentality. that being said, it was still a pretty film, despite one woman a few rows back who sobbed through the last third of the film. (actually, she was not alone, as probably more than a dozen people were sniffling right up through the end.)

nevertheless, the music was the real attraction in the film and did what the script couldn't in holding the film together. in addition, the father in the film was more than excellent in his portrayal, and i also liked the alltogether feisty but tender character of the young girl who becomes the young boy's friend. unfortunately for me though, Temptress Moon still remains one of the most beautiful and my most favorite of Chen's films.

Afterwards, there was a reception at Carnegie Hall where Chuanyun Li, one of the violinists featured in the film, played a short recital. the food (and drinks) were surprisingly delicious. but my real treat and surprise was getting to meet an old violin hero of mine -- Annie Akiko Meyers, whose recording of the Strauss and Franck violin sonatas i used to listen to repeatedly.

Seoul

just added a few images of seoul to my Asia Project.

while i was there in 2001, i had been wandering around Gyeongbokgung Palace and happened upon a film crew shooting (what my friend annie who lives in seoul tells me was) a popular korean soap opera.

the city was so grey then, and large parts of the palace were under construction, so it was great to participate in a little colorful fantasy from another time in korea.

[btw, know anyone who wants to buy images to put up on their walls? need to start making a real income! send them my links:]
http://www.paulwhkan.com/orderprints/index.html

Not enough

i know i haven't written or added anything in almost a week! partly from being swamped with my work, and partly from an urge to disconnect myself somewhat from the flow. despite that, there were quite a number of interesting articles that i collected in my article link file. especially the article on north korean defectors, efforts at spam legislation, and a Newshour piece on blogging. i feel like i am so behind. but will have to weed them out and post them later.

went to the tail end of the Costume Benefit at the Met the other night. they just get worse and worse every year. sometimes, i don't even know why i still go to the parties, as i get so bored.

anyway, another week goes by. and what have i done? not enough. not enough.