Lovely.

Andrea Gibson has one of the most impactful voices I think I've heard. Full, strong, and wielded like the weapon a voice with passion and intellect to back it can and should be. She's amazing, and seeing her live at Girlfest Honolulu is something I get all misty just thinking about. I can't even listen to her recordings without getting all emotional- and I can't watch her perform without getting all kinds of conflicting things- joy at seeing her, extreme unprecedented attraction, solidarity, pride, horrible horrible unprecedented attraction, and all of it mixed up with a dab of unrequited love. She's pertinent, she's throbbing with life, and she's one of our strongest voices continuing to spit reactionary truth in the faces of the establishment and the plastic wrapped completely irrelevant entertainment of today. Take a gander (please, leave the geese.) This is what i saw live.

EDIT: Here is where I was going to put a video from youtube of Andrea preforming her piece "For Eli". Unfortunately, China doesn't want to let me access youtube at the moment so I can't. Please go look it up yourself, if the government of the country you are accessing the internet from is lax with these kinds of allowances. Seriously. Do it.

(after watching -isn't she unwholesome amounts of attractive? violently, beautifully, gorgeous?)

<3

Yes Indeed.

Durian, sweet succulent Durian, how do i love thee?
Apparently enough to buy two of you in one day- and finish both.

Also, in other news, this morning before we jetted away from Guangzhou (tears! resentment! damn you, shanghai...) I found a market even more grand and amazing than all of the other ones I had found combined. It started out the way most of my market discoveries start. I saw an old chinese lady with a bundle of vegetables walking down the road- there! theres another one. Pretty soon, as long as you keep following the red plastic bags filled with vegetables, hunks of meat, and eggs, you find yourself in a neighborhood market.

Man, this one was epic. But I can't start to describe it, or give you my pictures. know why? I'm on the verge of sick, its late, and i want to get some sleep.

What i will do, after all the build up (oh, aren't I a tease of an blogger?) Is open up what from here on out will be a feature on Le blog. Music really gets to me, and lately I've been hearing a lot of songs that give me visceral memories. I'm a classic example of an auditory learner, something that i think ties into my extremely strong associations of times, people, and events with particular songs. I mean, I know that we all tie songs to times in our lives, but I get it bad. Like, can't listen to albums for years kind of bad. Not like, one album once in a while needs to be retired. It seems like every month I'm crossing off a few more albums I just can't, for painful nostalgia's sake, listen to. It's very inconvenient.

This having been said, since I'm being reminded so often lately, I'm going to attempt to exorcise some of these memories. I'll be putting up a little blurb and the music video for some of these. You guys can tell me if you like it. Theyll be short, and vague. So typical, eh?

All Falls Down
Kanye West, Lauren Hill

I’m in your car, and we’re driving through the cool Hawaiian air. I think it’s the H-1? The lights are blurring together cause my eyes are half open, too comfortable for complete lucidity. We’re both muttering the words to the rap, actions heavy with familiarity and repetition. The air on my skin is cool, coats me with a fine sheen of chill against the heavy warmth that’s been baked lately, by long hours landscaping, into my being. The evening air, as it always does, sings thick with promise. I push your hand.

Odd the things that stick within sensory memories.

新年快乐！

It's New years in china, there are fireworks and firecrackers everywhere.

And this is stuck in my head:



Love you guys, more posts when i'm in Southern China. I leave tomorrow!

Videolovenote

Quick Note

This is what is going through my head, most of the day.

Love/luz
Jess

Hello lovelies.

I'm sorry i don't have much for you today, its very late and i'm very tired. To make up for the lack of my own content on the post, I'll give you some interesting things to look at. And a quick update or two.

First off in the last few days I went to Guilin （桂林）, in Guangxi (广西） province. Guilin is one of only four cities in China whose historical and cultural protection are listed as a top priority. Well, thats what Wikipedia says anyway. What I learned on the way there is that there is a common saying in China that goes "桂林山水甲天下", which translates roughly to "Guilin's scenery is the best under heaven" or, "Guilin's scenery is better than heaven". And, from what i saw, it was rather majestic indeed. I got to hike up into the mountains and see the mist shrouded terraced rice paddies. They looked like this:

More or less, cause thats not actually my photo.

I also went to Guangzhou 广州 in Guangdong 广东 province. Guangdong is that province waaay down south, where, like in Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese in addition to Mandarin. In fact, Guangdong is a hop skip and a jump away from Hong Kong, which makes sense seeing as they speak the same language. It's also where most of the goods sold in China (and those sold around the world that bear the stamp 'Made in China') are produced, and where a lot of Chinese movies and commericals are shot. Guangzhou is filled with banyans trees, bustling street markets, and tall graceful hotels that peer down, down at clustered city slums. Like a lot of China it is a city filled with double standards and dichotomies. I enjoyed walking it's streets and seeing the trees and fruits that remind me of home, as well as feeling the closest thing to island air that i have in months. What was really nice about the trip down south was getting out of the icy terror that is Beijing.

Guangdong is, you guessed it, the yellow province. Guangxi is right next to it to the left- quick lesson, dong '东' means east and xi '西' means west. Get it? 广西 and 广东? Kind of like North Carolina and South Carolina? Wow, I never thought that I'd be 20, sitting in Beijing in the winter writing a blog post comparing 广东 and 广西 to North and South Carolina...odd the ways that life turns...

Anyway. This is whats stuck in my head:

Kisses and love to everyone. Talk to you soon, about adventures and ideas.

jess

Badass Mother-watch yo mouth!

this man rocks some serious socks.
his instrument is called a 'ma tou' which means horse's head- the top of it is carved into...you guessed it, the shape of a horses head. take a look.

Follow the link to Liz's video of the mongolian serenade we got over beer and dumplings a few nights ago. the image quality is poor, but the audio is where its at any way. (he really takes off after the second pause.)





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhxPWRjPXC4

<3

ps. a long haired tattoo artist i met a few days ago saw me on the street, smiled and said hello.
oh yeah, hes as good as mine. too bad i have the vocabulary of a second grader. if only my draw lay in suggestive sluttiness and not my razor sharp wit. (those of you who are drawn to my suggestive sluttiness would do well to keep quiet right about now. thank you)