Warm Spring

Friends,

I must begin with an apology (two actually: I’ve not asked you how you are; I hope you are thriving, in love even). Standards have declined a bit on my end––this was supposed to wish you happy new year, it failed to wish you a happy Year of the Monkey––but can we settle for spring? As with almost anything, spring is better than January. There is a nice murmur of people leaving their homes as if reborn and repackaged. If you go to the heart of any city and place your ear to the ground, you’ll get a dirty ear.

Below are some resolutions, brief notes on Hong Kong, something eavesdropped, two music mixes for you, a video, some vocabulary, a drawing of a polar bear, an update on my fake family, some movie recommendations, and a fortune for you in the new lunar year. It’s a lot of words to say (in a shabby, general way): I’m still alive and thinking of you.

[This is the first time I’ve put one of these online. It’s slightly less discrete but, hey, pictures. Should you have stumbled across this, welcome.]

Resolutions

This section would have made far more sense if I’d sent this off in January. Still, maybe it is more appropriate to the spring? It is, after all, a time of beginning (afresh, afresh, afresh). And let it never be too late for self-help by way of self-pity.

This year, to set me frontiers, I have given up one thing: the news.

There are reasons. If one is vigilant with the news — with a kind of news — then he lets Kanye compete with the aftermath of a tsunami for his attention and compassion. Worse, this week’s science says compassion can fatigue, wither, and die of exposure; while that would be professionally helpful, it also makes a person rebarbative, a thing to be endured, a thing to be ignored at parties. If I am forced to choose between miserableism and ignorance — well, I have never had any difficulty with the latter. I can live with the fact that Trump has ruined burnt sienna for me. But to run out of sadness? That’s a little black.

I now binge-read my news over the weekend. Yes, much still muscles its way into your consciousness. (Are you aware of Dostoevsky’s commandment that you not think of a polar bear? Well, now you are and now you are. That’s me with Ted Cruz and I hate it!) Insidiously, the internet has the cure for its own disease, and I am aided in my quest for better stupidity by the inbox and various magazine subscriptions. Occasionally, per Agent Cooper’s advice (below), I will give myself an unplanned present and read something on paper. I must recommend it.

Hong Kong

The place, despite the best efforts of our government, is still standing. It’s lovely. A lot of it is tremendously inspiring, equal parts the bits with people and the bits of beach and jungle without. It is particularly nice in this March moment with the humidity softened by the irreversible damage we’ve done to the planet. I grew up here and there’s that too.

I won’t get into the politics — this would start edging into news-territory and, about that, stum — but there are things you can’t ignore. They’re also pretty universal to cities in 2016: the cost of living and inequality of wealth has become too cruel; the city and its monopolists don’t bend to help anyone; the strain placed on people during the more delicate stages of life, like ageing or coming of age, can destroy that life; oh, and the silly things we do get the energy to do, like laying out plots of land for a museum, are almost hurtfully misdirected and do nothing for art and spirit either (about which, Auden(*)). But that is hardly stum. My apologies.

[(*)Auden famously said poetry never stopped anyone from dying. I don’t think he meant to have people politely object. I also don’t think he was right. Art can do very much, especially if within reach in those fragile moments; but museum building seems more and more like vanity in the best light and a real-estate/tax-efficiency deal in the darkest. It is consoling that much of the wonderful, moving stuff––most of my favourites––can still be found at the lowly bookstore.]

Perhaps I’ve gotten used to 2015–16’s catastrophism. So much in Hong Kong is the opposite––it’s resilient. You see this everywhere offline and out of print. We have trees that grow out of rock. We have people who will put up with much (too much maybe). We have nonagenarians who walk miles to exercise before sunrise.

An anecdote from hundreds: There was a famous pigeon restaurant out in the woods on Lamma Island, one of the larger surrounding islands, barbell-shaped and mile-long. (Pigeon is no odder than chicken; I eat neither.) I went walking there a few weeks ago and saw that the restaurant had closed for good. Almost everything from my childhood has closed for good and I was about to get mopey when I was shat on –– by what was last year’s lunch special. The shop liberated (or forgot about) its inventory and now the whole southern end of the barbell is filled with doves, nacreous and beautiful, roaming free. I must believe, even if only from a bird’s-eye view, that the place will get fairer and freer for those who endure this moment. Shit can only be made to fall upwards for so long.

Oh, A Conversation I Had

It stayed warm later this year. I had a conversation around a swimming pool with a moneymanager who claimed to have seen a respectable political figure undress and shape-shift into a lizard. While somewhat unbelievable (respectable politician?), the moneymanager was pretty adamant. I pressed my new friend as to who exactly we were talking about but he felt he had said too much, although he did then add that the lizard people have been running things for quite some time, plain as day, and that they do make a habit of visiting the earth’s hollow core to scheme and vacation. I repeat this — at what the moneymanager assures me is a great personal risk — because you might want to rethink your entire worldview or whoever is looking after your nestegg.

Music

In January, I made you two playlists — one uptempo, one down — and they’re available on AppleMusic (*).

[(*) Why not Spotify? Mainly because I don’t pay for it anymore and the local tracklisting is very different here. But I also do take issue with how little the free tier pays artists. I think 10 bucks is a grand deal for access to just about 95% of all recorded music (compare and contrast with, say, Netflix). That said, Apple and Spotify’s paid tier are not without worry: your dues don’t go directly to the musicians you listened to but are thrown into a stew with everyone else and, most likely, cross-subsidising Macklemore. A hateful thought.]

That music seems a little distant to me now. Since January, I’ve done little other than listen to David Bowie. I won’t trouble you with my thoughts — not that there’s anything shameful in it, or in public grief for public figures. I loved almost everything the guy did and think there’s something in there for so many people (consider the miracle: to be personal and universal). So I won’t impose any picks on you, but thought you might like this list of some great musicians’ most cherished Bowie albums. You might also like reading his 100 favourite books; even if you only read the list, you’ll see more (not less) of the mystery of the man.

Ok, give me one. Station to Station, the song, can do what it wilt with you. It is the strongest kick from the frailest feeling. A wonderful place to start.

I’ll end Music with this selection from Alan Yentob’s Cracked Actor. To set the scene: Bowie is riding across America in a limo when Aretha Franklin comes on. A nice moment. (I believe it’s queued up, but if not it begins at 4:36. Hit stop at your own discretion.)

Bad Words

Was there no more distasteful word in 2015 than ‘Macklemore’? I was almost equally unenthusiastic about Ted Cruz’s ‘prayerfully’ — really, anything out of that man’s rubber mouth; common prepositions even — and I do still detest ‘uberise’, ‘learnings’, ‘impact’ (as a verb), or ‘beer’ (as an imperative). “Beer me, Macklemore!” is something you won’t hear me say.

I found far more lovely words than bad this year, especially amongst those foreign to English. A list of a few (lifted shamelessly from this larger list):

arrangiarsi. Italian for the ability to ‘make do’.

gunnen. Dutch, wonderfully so, to let someone else have some joy. Often, at your own expense.

uitwaaien. Also Dutch, also wonderful. To walk ‘in the wind for fun or exercise.’

sobremesa. Spanish for when ‘the food has finished but the conversation is still flowing.’ In the States, this is when the check is frisbeed in your direction and the waitstaff finally rest their smiles.

koi no yokan. Japanese (as 恋の予感) for the knowledge, on first meeting, that love is unavoidable. What I like about this, above and beyond ‘love at first sight’, is that it implies knowing the whole person has led to this feeling. I speculate that it also implies no massive rush between, say, catching someone’s eye through a fishtank and entering into a loving deathpact. About which…

ya’burnee. Arabic (يقبرني) for one true love. It comes from ‘you bury me’. That sounds morose; it just means I can’t live if living is without you.

ah-un. Japanese (阿吽) for the wordless communication between friends. Let’s use that as a guide and wrap this bit up.

Oh, fine, one for your day-to-day is Backpfeifengesicht. That is, a face worth punching. Used in a sentence: I turned on the debates and saw nothing but backpfeifengesichten.

A Polar Bear

My Fake Family

These updates on my imaginary family have grown a little long in the tooth. That said, a friend expressed concern that they had met some horrible end (of neglect, or of moving to some sunny/shady tax haven). To set the record straight, and for the last time, here’s an update:

Morgan, my wife, is not happy that I am talking about our lizard overlords and so she has gone into hiding at 3A 24 Chancery Lane, San Diego, CA. I obviously respect her decision.

The children have fallen to me as a result. As this makes three, canasta night has been ruined (quite deliberately, I think). Not one to let his fun be sabotaged, I’ve taken up adult colouring books and set the kids to work.

As conventional wisdom has it that technology is the future, I have them in a correspondence course on coding. Our family’s first app ($2.99) is designed to fight hairloss. You just apply the camera flash against your skull for 20 minutes a day and it blinks new follicles into existence (after 10–12 months). It is gamified and social: you can play against friends and unlock a pretty decent story in the process of improving your departing appearance. We’re also working on a separate tipping calculator app. I see a gap there.

Our youngest, Zach (11), is now a green-belt in judo and is trying out for next year’s MasterChef Junior. His elder sister is a pretty good chef too (they rotate on all meals), but Zach can be wonderfully bitchy about other people’s cooking and I just think that shade will make for good TV even if it is pretty intolerable around the house and almost-certain to leave him friendless as he ages. Since nobody wants him to lose to some preternaturally jaded kid from Brooklyn, I’ve got Zach on our own plan to bore of standard family food. It’s bloody expensive! The other kid is driving an Über to make up the difference. I often miss the simpler, canasta times.

Quite enough of that.

Social Media

I joined social media this year. For the most part, it all looks like this to me:

I can see why Zuckerberg is so selflessly committed to the idea that this will make the world better. (If you do wish to contact me, email.)

Movies & TV

Lastly, movies. We’ve all got our taste by now. Absent that, Netflix’s robots might be helpful (I’m told I like 90’s British Female-Lead Crime, about which, prepositions?). There are also professional critics and, should you not have lost faith, awards shows if you’re still undecided about what to watch. I enjoyed (where that’s the right word) most of what they enjoyed. Spotlight really shone.

Should you have missed Sicario, or Anomalisa, or Duke of Burgundy, or Inherent Vice, then here’s another voice saying go-get’em. (The sex scene in the animated Anomalisa is better even in its brevity than most films I saw this year.) On the small screen, no matter the plot’s celerity, wow TV asks for a heck of lot of our time. Should you somehow still want more––or feel withdrawal––Toast of London and Show Me a Hero were grand in very opposite ways. The series finale of Peep Show was perfect right down to the horrifying parting glance of the El Dood Brothers.

I became obsessed with the film Heaven’s Gate this year. I watched it ten times — what do you make of the epilogue? — and then re-watched Thunderbolt & Lightfoot and The Deerhunter over and over between HG screenings. Cimino did something great with friendship, and groups, and with many emotions that English doesn’t have words for. Profligate, sure. But that first day in The Deerhunter (90 minutes long mind you) is one of the greatest days set to film. They are all worth revisiting, especially if it has been a while.

Celine et Julie vont en bateau is one I’ve always felt guilty about not getting to, and now feel guilty about having put off for so long. Like Cimino’s films, it has a completely personal rhythm and touch. Not everyone will like it; equally, I have to believe someone will never like anything quite so much. (I have to believe that person also likes Muriel’s Wedding.)

The End

And that’s about it. Until the next arbitrary month, I wish you everything. The Year of the Monkey is supposed to be prosperous (I paid someone to tell me that so it’s already working out for him). It is also supposed to be joyous, full of the best surprises, warmer (in every sense), and memorable. Your lucky numbers are 3–22–9–45–71. Don’t go swimming immediately after eating.