The Stendhal Syndrome, hanging out at The Red Poppy Art House , murals in unlikely places in the Mission and the likely artists that painted them, belt buckles, scuba diving, synchronicity, talking to strangers, relentless spontaneity, traveling abroad by myself, theater, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, diversifying private schools (as much as they can be diversified given the tuition), consuming boats load of sushi, sarcasm: people who can take it and have smartass comebacks, brutal honesty at all costs, being called on my BS, people who create and support the arts,simple pleasures: pebbles smoothed by the water, carrying a banana in hand on my commute and watching the thoughts flow across curious faces, the area right above the hip bone, lemon trees, garden tomatoes, taking the subway to nowhere in particular in New York City, shiny new -silver- trumpets, worn out second hand trumpets that bear their owners' fingerprints, grabbing a friend and going about the city taking Polaroids, spending hours in a museum with a notebook in my hand, live jazz performances as theater, swimming sirenlike in The Aegean, words, words, words, etymology, writing that can make me cry, a whisper when I am not looking, the tension in the possibility of reaching across, paying attention between the wanting and the having.
I'd like to meet:
WhoM I'd like to meet:
Readers of Baldwin, Beckett, and Borges, who spend time thinking about the writer's words for days afterwards.
Sea-lovers.
World travelers.
Train-riders.
Letter and postcard writers.
English majors.
Doodlers.
People who find joy in everyday absurdism & notice the haiku moments in life.
Irreverent jumpstarters.
Spontaneous people who can surprise me (and do). "Pack a bag for an overnight stay. We're going to ______NOW!" kind of people.
People who can watch me swim far far away and know that I will eventually come back. Literally. [Unsolicited Hint: Someone who can let a woman do her thing is a person worth knowing.]
People with whom I can have a conversation, laugh, dance, be spontaneous, travel.Partners in Legos, scuba diving, Polaroid adventures.
People who say what they mean and mean what they say.
Folks who are familiar with the Barbapapas.
Anyone who can offer me a ride on an elephant.
Someone who can teach me how to pick a lock.
MLK. James Baldwin (I would have loved hanging out with him at a Bosphorus bar in Istanbul while he lived there). Nikki S. Lee -- I have so many questions for all of you...
Who'd like to meet me:
Stand-up comedians, actors, jazz musicians, poets, visual artists. Trust me.
Music:
Jazzjazzjazz (Chet Baker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Ahmad Jamal, Sonny Rollins, Nina Simone, The Supplicants, Marcus Shelby, folks with The Jazz Mafia, AfroCuban jazz...), Aretha Franklin, Air, Andrea Bocelli, Beck, Cibo Matto, Counting Crows' August and Everything After, Dwele, Floetry (thanks Tearon), Jurassic 5, Mos Def & Talib Kweli, Keb 'Mo, Luna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Life Aquatic Soundtrack, ?uestlove (fine, The Roots), classical music, opera when I am in the mood, David Byrne, Talking Heads, Portishead, Radiohead, the music in my head, the sound of water, waves...Â
Movies:
The Professional (Leon), LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU, Il Postino, Cinema Paradiso, Amelie, Double Indemnity, Istanbul Kanatlarimin Altinda (Istanbul Beneath My Wings), Casablanca, Shawshank Redemption, Naked Lunch, Until the End of the World, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, Bullets Over Broadway, American History X, Bamboozled, Rashomon, Baraka, Wing Chun, The Business of Fancydancing, Smoke Signals (though -as usual- the book is much better), Whale Rider, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...
Television:
I don't have a tv.
But when I did, I watched:
* 24, religiously (now, I watch it on tape borrowed from friends or at work).
* The Daily Show, The Simpsons, late night KQED documentaries, no longer, since I am now sans tv.
* Buffy, Jacques Cousteau, The Barbapapas, nostalgically.
* Bad Boys Bail Bonds commercials, strangely.
Books:
*The Fire Next Time, Another Country, Giovanni's Room, and pretty much anything by James Baldwin
*Invisible Man (Ellison),
*Jazz (Morrison),
*Kiss of the Spider Woman (Puig),
* Invisible Cities (Calvino),
*"Hamlet," and "Othello" among others (Mr. Shakespeare)
*Nikki S. Lee - Projects
*The Alchemist (Coelho),
*Ulysses, Dubliners, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce,
*The Oxford English Dictionary,
*The Professor and the Madman,
*Art Spiegelman's MAUS,
*Nelson Algren's Never Come Morning,
*Geek Love (Dunn),
* Baudrillard's Simulations ,
*Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury
*The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters and Love, Etc. (Julian Barnes),
*the Griffin and Sabine books (Bantock),
*White Noise (DeLillo),
*The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon),
*Martha Nussbaum's For Love of Country?,
*Anais Nin, Fitzgerald, Hermann Hesse, Milan Kundera, Sherman Alexie, Samuel Beckett, Pinter, Albee, Kafka, Sartre, Camus, Mamet, Athol Fugard, Walt Whitman, Edward Said, Bukowski, Borges...I'm an English teacher for godssakes.
Heroes:
I want to be my own heroine.
Heroic parts of me in others: teachers, people who talk to strangers, people who notice the haiku moments in life, people who do something for social equity and justice, people who can consistently say what they mean and mean what they say;
Not (yet) me: artists, writers, sirens with a conscience, Sidney Poitier, MLK, James Baldwin, Melba Beals, and anyone else whose written words and life stories have moved me to tears.
