*boggle*

Rise of the Chinese Elvis

Chinese Elvis impersonators across the globe are donning white jumpsuits and glossing their quiffs to pay tribute to the singing legend, who died on 16 August 1977. In the Far East, Elvis is a karaoke bar obsession, while in the UK, Chinese Elvis impersonators are starting to make themselves heard. . .

Do I splutter about globalization and cultural imperialism, or do I giggle hysterically until the small mid-morning meal I'm eating comes out my nose, or do I track down somebody who's seen one of these guys and demand photographs, or what?

And cadhla, you can relax; Fang isn't putting on a sparkly jumpsuit any time soon.

BANG bang BANG bang BANG bang BANG....

That's the sound of someone trying to write her Chinese History Lecture for the day. It involves a forehead and my desk. See, I swore up and down that after Confucius I'd do Lao Tzu/Laozi, then probably go on to the Warring States and the Classical Kickers of Ass (Sun Tzu fans, this means your boy's due fairly soon). Only thing was, I'd forgotten exactly how FIRPING DIFFICULT it is to find any solid historical information about the man. Even Sima Qian had to pull together crap from all over the place to get anything that made sense. The lesson's gonna be more philosophy than history, I'm afraid. I don't plan on getting TOO far into it, because it's hard enough doing the history without doing philosophical stuff as well, but... well, when you're dealing with a guy like this, it's 'pad the entry with his philosophy and hope nobody notices' or else go bugnuts. Since I'd like to keep at least a few of my fingernails intact rather than chew 'em all off as I fuss over trying to find more information, I'm a-gonna pad. Fair warning.

Side note: since I couldn't find my copy of the Te-tao Ching (translation taken from the Mawangdui manuscripts) the last time I cleaned my room, I figured I'd better buy a new copy. Went to the bookstore. Looked under Philosophy. Es nada, plus the philosophy section was half taken up by books on Why Not Being Stupid Is A Good Thing and Why Companies Need Ethics and Why People Shouldn't Be Bad - sad, no? That people need to buy books to understand that human beings' only real survival advantage is the capacity to think, or that a company that screws people over will get screwed over in turn (because, see, the other companies will also assume that screwing people over is okay), or that 'doing whatever you want and the hell with everyone else' is only going to lead to disaster? Anyway, after I got out of Philosophy (across the aisle from occult studies, speculation on UFOs, and New Age shiny happy crystal books), I tried Religion. Almost worked myself into a froth over seeing 'comparative religion' next to 'Judaism', 'Islam', and 'Christianity' with no section specifically for the Asian religions visible anywhere - I was already feeling cranky because the entire Chinese section of the history area took up a shelf and a half. Fortunately, I happened to glance over towards Philosophy again, and saw that the Asian Thought section was on the other side of the shelf. Got me a hardcover copy. First they translate it. Then they translate it one character at a time, and list every single possible meaning for each individual character. Then there's the concordance, and there's commentary and stuff too... I'm impressed. I'll be keeping this one nice and handy. Won't be able to read it until after I'm already done with the lecture, but even so, it's a good thing to have on hand.

Now back to office work. My head needs to recover from the banging before I try any more research.

Crikey! Almost forgot.

Asian Thought is across the aisle from Young Adult Fiction, and at the end of the Young Adult row - a shelf away from A Wrinkle In Time - I found this:

Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging.

Didn't actually read the back beyond something about it being the life of a 14-year-old or something like that. But my immediate thought was to reach into my purse and pull out my celphone, because I wanted to call cadhla and chirp, "I found a Judy book!"

I didn't. Put down the pitchforks and torches, 'k?

(no subject)

For the last few days my sister and I have been waiting for a company my dad hired to come and cut down some dead trees in our backyard. I didn't want them to, because I know that woodpeckers loved at least one of the trees, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Came home today. Looked out the kitchen window. The water in the pool was all grey and uck. I went outside to test it. The screened-in porch floor, the table on the porch, the dish on the table... everything was covered in grey dust. Even when I opened the screen door and looked outside, where wind might have been, the dust was clinging to everything.

I looked up and over at where the woodpeckers' tree had been, and it was gone, so I knew the tree guys had come and that this was sawdust... but it didn't stop the thought that flashed across my brain, that the last time I had seen a fine grey film of dust covering everything in sight, it was Manhattan and it had been September 12th.