tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82678171278215605812024-03-05T18:43:21.362-08:00The Blue Busrideraka PED XING, mild-mannered foreign housewifePED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-84598751503976376022011-06-08T14:38:00.000-07:002011-06-08T14:38:33.503-07:00We're Not Drinking Any F*cking Merlot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLKLkw7umbnjFJKo1CzHQAgW5jZX6DvBa-qKgEHdD3mf5eULYLDgSQhQAPj_tixftwW27BGePTXX3GF7HrZDANHPoA2tXSU_FqomfUYRKzujWioqjh5cs2pKgZhaJrobIGi7mwknXSrw/s1600/IMGP3922.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLKLkw7umbnjFJKo1CzHQAgW5jZX6DvBa-qKgEHdD3mf5eULYLDgSQhQAPj_tixftwW27BGePTXX3GF7HrZDANHPoA2tXSU_FqomfUYRKzujWioqjh5cs2pKgZhaJrobIGi7mwknXSrw/s320/IMGP3922.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-84115628254779516332011-05-08T21:24:00.000-07:002011-05-09T00:17:45.174-07:00Don/Ron McLean<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In honour of American Mother's Day (which we are not celebrating, since British Mothering Sunday was April 3rd and Interflora has already taken its cut): </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><u><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Five Shameless Lies My Mother Told Me When I Was a Child</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></u><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- If I brushed my hair more often, I'd look like Winnie from 'The Wonder Years'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(More realistic advice might have been: if I went outside more often, I'd look less like Wednesday Addams.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- If I wasn't so greedy, I'd realize that plain yoghurt was a perfectly lavish dessert.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Excellent child psychology. Now I eat snickerdoodle cookies for breakfast.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- If I listened quietly to the car stereo on long journeys, I'd be able to distinguish between the famous singing brothers Don and Ron McLean. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(To this day, I hear 'American Pie' and think 'Ah, Ron'; not <i>entirely</i> wrong, I suppose.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- If my sister and I watched 'Grease 2' again we'd end up living on a park bench.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">('Grease 2' was on cable the other day. It's not quite the masterpiece I remember.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- If I didn't always ask for what I wanted, I'd stand a better chance of getting it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Come on, mum. I know we lived in the countryside, but this was the <i>1980s</i>.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"></span><br />
<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;"> </span>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-76134743853104860882011-05-08T20:58:00.000-07:002011-05-08T21:26:59.964-07:00The Old Man and the Sea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBkJ6NmDJabF7sp35TRi93lY1du6AZ_yLTuvuNgW8fJxD3aVdKAK0_nH4NSMm7bd_04tX_m5PXODrEV3-6NSOR_y4JfWAnuw1zw9qIGurHxcsDxHYR591CdxfoXOdReGJz4nUfAS1wuXM/s1600/IMGP3859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBkJ6NmDJabF7sp35TRi93lY1du6AZ_yLTuvuNgW8fJxD3aVdKAK0_nH4NSMm7bd_04tX_m5PXODrEV3-6NSOR_y4JfWAnuw1zw9qIGurHxcsDxHYR591CdxfoXOdReGJz4nUfAS1wuXM/s320/IMGP3859.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-10599833777096855412011-04-09T00:21:00.000-07:002011-04-09T11:44:34.787-07:00Mary Poppins and Other Suspicious Foreign Drifters<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The majority of this week has been spent on my CV, hopelessly shuffling and rejigging its items, like some pathetic greengrocer trying to hide rotten apples behind mouldy tomatoes. Huh. Having moved approximately one bajillion times in the last eight years (typing that, I begin counting on my fingers the actual number of moves, which for some reason greatly amuses Dr Strangename; it's ten times, and therefore we cannot move anywhere ever again because I just can't bear to start on toes) my work history is as long as each job is short. Since the ten moves have spanned four countries, anyone examining my full CV can come to no logical conclusion other than that I am a) on the run from the law, b) irretrievably feckless, or c) Mary Poppins.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
Midway through trying to fit all of this onto one side of A4 (utilizing the same size font they use to write your name on a grain of rice down at the pier) I have a wonderful revelation: this isn't a research paper or a court transcript or my letter to Santa. It doesn't have to include everything. So I start the CV again, editing my messy life history into a Lifetime movie -- easy to grasp, nice-looking and with a compelling <i>but not too alarming</i> plot. I have cut most jobs that <i>didn't </i>involve Microsoft Office -- because, really, if you weren't logged onto a PC, what productive POWER VERBS could you possibly be using? -- and especially highlighted positions where I spent much of the day staring into the middle distance, because these usually have the safest-sounding titles (Information Assistant, Billing Clerk). The story ends with me skipping along the shores of California, waving my work permit and trilling I'm Jolly Glad to be Seeking a New and Challenging Position in the American Workforce. Fade to credits, commercial break.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Yippee.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The only thing that's really getting me down now (I mean, apart from: the job for which I spent two days drafting the perfect covering letter, only to notice that its posted date was several weeks ago, and then they didn't even deign to answer my email asking if the position was still available. Or the morning I spent trying to input my inconveniently foreign qualifications and work history into a recruitment agency's website, which was not designed to countenance anything existing outside the borders of America and thus awarded me a GPA of 0.0 and a list of jobs in LOCATION NOT FOUND. Or the number of job ads which specify I must have a car, except I can't afford a car until I get a job. Or that I have degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge and am applying to 'clerical/administrative' positions where the main duties are making coffee, making sure we never run low on paperclips, and being shouted at by everyone else,)... the <i>only thing </i>that's really getting me down now is that American CVs all seem to have a little tagline or motto or what-have-you underneath your name. Like,</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><b>Ped Xing</b></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><b> </b></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Twenty-five years' dynamic experience in sales, with PROVEN RECORD of TRIPLING TURNOVER by 800%, implementing DYNAMIC SERVICE-IMPLEMENTATION, and REDUCING COMPETITION TO ASHES AND SOWING THOSE ASHES WITH SALT. </i></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">or simply</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><b>Ped Xing </b><i> </i></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i>LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR</i></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Naturally, as a British Citizen, I might occasionally hint that I am a rather wonderful and accomplished person (did you see the bit above, where I mentioned Oxford and Cambridge? Weren't you impressed? I'll be very self-deprecating about it from now on, as per Michael Milton: 'Once he knew that <i>you </i>knew he had gone to Yale, he tended to play that down.') but I don't like having to spell it out, especially in sentence fragments all dressed up in italics. But I try.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Foreign Socialist seeks Westside position in order to buy a car. Moderately proficient in photocopying and answering the phone (no complex switchboards; will not wear a headset). Types with two or more fingers. Enjoys tea-breaks and passive aggression. Work permit expires 2012. </i></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><i>Cinderella-complex waif seeks Evil Stepmother boss. Will do crappy job for low pay and silently resent you for it. Don’t you know she’s a special little princess?</i></div><br />
<i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mary Poppins type with ten addresses in four countries over the last decade requires employment in Los Angeles. Intrigued? Send letter via chimney. No childcare, please.</i><br />
<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;"> </span>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-19246870471246242242011-04-01T22:01:00.000-07:002011-04-02T16:36:01.890-07:00The Königsallee in Winter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlSWneW9s_zaOmw_g1E1qjlRCAWcqQWyf4jlWVIBzlYGcqXD-XJaB1bvKIoJiJV3ATn1ipn1GT8gFwJidqezGxyfrhvqeu5kgGYu2DWUWesx8czyQkGXriGpHDhtgcGkYluKP9yRgYnnk/s1600/IMGP2373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlSWneW9s_zaOmw_g1E1qjlRCAWcqQWyf4jlWVIBzlYGcqXD-XJaB1bvKIoJiJV3ATn1ipn1GT8gFwJidqezGxyfrhvqeu5kgGYu2DWUWesx8czyQkGXriGpHDhtgcGkYluKP9yRgYnnk/s320/IMGP2373.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-30804589720039214632011-04-01T18:07:00.000-07:002011-04-02T16:36:57.034-07:00Lack of Snow<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Reason #1021 why I will never be cool in Los Angeles: I have bus-stop sunburn. It’s ninety degrees today, and I am as pink and porcine as an English rose should be. <br />
<br />
It’s only ever this hot on the four-bus days, when I have to spend two hours getting from West Nowhere (WeNo) to West Hollywood (WeHo) for a thirty-minute volunteer job. My first blue bus is crowded with perspiring UCLA students, and I sit in the middle of the back seat, wedged between a man wearing a scooter helmet and a Japanese girl in lollipop brights. The bus smells like squashed, overripe fruit, and we are all dozily subdued. <br />
<br />
CAD -- PLOTTING <br />
<br />
MOUNTING<br />
ON DEMAND<br />
<br />
says an printing shop, an enigmatic semi-haiku of menace, and in Little Persia the billboards wish me a<br />
<br />
HAPPY NOWROOZ<br />
<br />
and sell legal counsel.<br />
<br />
As usual, transferring to the Metro at Westwood ramps up the lunacy level, and I get on board alongside a man dressed as an vagabond magician -- top hat, black trousers, white puffy shirt, and a hot-pink lint-roller holstered onto his belt. The bus driver honks at a gardener’s truck full of lilies. Beverly Hills is coming to an orchestrated bloom amidst a symphony of palm trees, with bougainvillea playing every other note on the scale of pink: cerise, sakura, baby, fuchsia. The bus is very hot and I think I might be sick.<br />
<br />
<i>Why won’t it snow<br />
Like they said it would<br />
What is it that they know<br />
That I really should</i><br />
<br />
whines my iPod, and I think about snow. Snow in Japan, snow at our wedding, Königsallee snow, snow <i>lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns</i> and then <br />
<br />
The rooms was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was<br />
Spawning snow and pink roses against it<br />
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: <br />
World is suddener than we fancy it.<br />
<br />
[...]*</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">*Louis MacNeice, 'Snow' (1935?)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-9327353053843194822011-03-29T12:12:00.000-07:002011-04-02T16:37:22.381-07:00A View from the Front Seat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtb-3ME2b2nMCsFw4ckRbfg5z31N2sJ6op5B-9SXZqZjmoJ6WdrQy31LbqBcmpO3mmnO1lrpwoFnzHgwxJgsc2TXTVR6PJ0wNH5jCxvASsI7hwvqzWcA4LqMaH48cO6amucBG4sgJEZU8/s1600/IMGP3709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtb-3ME2b2nMCsFw4ckRbfg5z31N2sJ6op5B-9SXZqZjmoJ6WdrQy31LbqBcmpO3mmnO1lrpwoFnzHgwxJgsc2TXTVR6PJ0wNH5jCxvASsI7hwvqzWcA4LqMaH48cO6amucBG4sgJEZU8/s320/IMGP3709.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-21552986982229083232011-03-29T12:07:00.000-07:002011-04-02T16:38:03.211-07:00Return of the Blue Busrider<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Blue Busrider had English visitors. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That's not a euphemism -- there were two visitors, and they rented a car.</span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[pause for reverent silence]</span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yes, a car. I've been cruising around LA in a car, betraying the very ideals that founded this blog. We went to Venice and Malibu and Westwood -- on the same day. We drove out to Pasadena. We got lost on the freeway, confusing east with west and the 101 with the 110 and the 10. It was splendid. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It was also like being on holiday in another city. Our local area -- of which I know every pavement crack, fig tree and psychic readings sign -- suddenly shrank to nothing more than a convenient junction. Left or right? We're already gone. Instead of viewing the LA metropolis as a tangled, fraying circuit-board of bus lines, it was long straight roads and freeways and parking lots. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I didn't hoard dollar bills for busfare, although I was expected to remember that we were parked in level p4, area B, space 313. Certain things faded from vision, somehow filtered by our windscreen -- homeless people, crazy people, anyone waiting on a street corner in the rain. The bus itself was no longer a glorious steamship, bearing down and rescuing us from the desert island bus stops; it was more like a dangerously decrepit old supertanker, edging up the road in a tide of traffic, foundering over to the sidewalk every block to disgorge sloppy passengers. We drove past, thought no more about it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Saturday, our visitors returned to England, and our Honda to Alamo. They are all greatly missed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- We really have to get a car, </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">remarks Dr Strangename, a sage observation we have only made a couple of thousand times in the last six months. I nod. But not too emphatically -- we're on dangerous ground. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Contrary to the tagline on this blog, I am now in possession of a work permit. Oh, yes. It says DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY on it, and it's very useful when I'm being IDed buying liquor. Since the cashier at Vons often has doubts about the validity of my namby pink EU driving license, and I don't want to carry around my passport, I feel that this function of the work permit is very nearly worth the $400 application fee. Dr Strangename has more traditional views, i.e. that it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a legal alien in possession of a work permit must be in want of a job.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Frequency of blog posts will increase in direct proportion to the amount of time I should be spending on my CV, which needs to be translated into American. Power verbs! Superlatives! Give me a job so I can buy a car!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-54061201129351691712011-03-17T21:46:00.001-07:002011-03-17T21:46:54.057-07:00LACMA, Afternoon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoQ1G9NEn2AFBWwHc65PUfhLDqdh3nHa_M_BnF32uEElFiMgkt47_SeVLa2-OKtkXmQg-jA8hLxVQK_4fnsSJuSQy7dLZKGjmwg993TIIhyp-1x4xlbVV06NO__8djpL6Xvgj1brlk9U/s1600/lacma.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoQ1G9NEn2AFBWwHc65PUfhLDqdh3nHa_M_BnF32uEElFiMgkt47_SeVLa2-OKtkXmQg-jA8hLxVQK_4fnsSJuSQy7dLZKGjmwg993TIIhyp-1x4xlbVV06NO__8djpL6Xvgj1brlk9U/s320/lacma.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-55029871491368992342011-03-17T21:42:00.000-07:002011-03-18T00:29:38.198-07:00Avocado Thieves<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On the corner of Military Avenue, a bald man is kneeling on someone's lime-green lawn. He's holding a flower.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Hello,</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I say, on my way to the Westside Pavilion. He nods. His feet are tucked very neatly under him; for a moment I wonder if he's meditating, but there's a shopping trolley full of old Fanta bottles nearby. Beyond, a sign on someone's wall tells us that</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">AVOCADO THEFT IS A CRIME</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">which only makes me look at the tree above -- avocados. I steal none. At Barnes and Noble, I buy 'The Hollywood Economist'.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Your accent makes me homesick. I was born in Britain.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">says the girl at the till. I ask her where, because she sounds entirely American; I don't tell her that, though, because these things are complicated.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- London, she says. And I went to school in Marylebone.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I smile because I can't think of anything to say. I can't even spell Marylebone, and, like most other London names, it only reminds me of the Monopoly board. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I grew up four or five hours away from the city, in the rural south west of England. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">London? We went there a couple of times, usually on the coach, for West End shows (with the entire PTA: group discount, safety in numbers) and important birthdays. Always an expedition. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tableau of country mice in the city: my mother is holding her handbag with an iron grip , muttering prayers to Our Lady of Moral Order (Maggie Thatcher) and pretending not to notice tramps; my father is studying the Underground map; I am crying because it's my eighth birthday and I was promised a knickerbocker glory ice cream sundae. They make them in the village, but I want a <i>London</i> knickerbocker glory, and god damn it if we can find one. Then a punk spits chewing gum in my hair -- 1988, final years of the punk reich -- and that shuts me right up. Happy days. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Back here on the Westside, I walk around the shopping mall trying to find a bikini, but am disheartened when all the price tags indicate high and arbitrary numbers: $93.42 for the top, $88.57 for the bottom. I exit through the car park, the design of which does not cater for pedestrians and so obliges me to weave around dumpsters and climb over some bushes. I notice someone's convertible, with the bumper sticker</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">SAW IT. WANTED IT. THREW A FIT. GOT IT.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">and yet successfully resist the urge to vandalize. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(People from small villages rarely become vandals, or punks, no matter where they end up.) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I walk back to our apartment. It's that crushingly gorgeous late afternoon LA light: pouring from a cerulean sky, bleaching whites whiter than white, softening the long palm tree shadows, the pastel bungalows, the pile of rotting blankets and scattered trash by the 405 underpass. Ridiculous beauty and squalor all together. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At the apartment building, they're watering the flowerbeds, and the fine vapour and smell of warm earth make it feel like a rainforest. Or some other exotic foreign clime. Now I want to go back to Barnes and Noble and tell the cashier she's made me homesick, too -- but, of course, it's nothing that simple.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-46578473484391576392011-03-14T14:06:00.000-07:002011-03-14T14:06:48.436-07:00Paper Cranes, Hiroshima<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Ibulg7uZ0-PkWzviA44B0mDdhhZg14gcLozde-jMeUCj0J3k-1ojikLIe64f7iwfhw-MnGHAkA_qJLoi0ByJkMZmHyHTd1BMJBWhuze2J37Le6NEfvdljrDLxyckzvcTaOmHiMuN3Uc/s1600/IMGP0559.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Ibulg7uZ0-PkWzviA44B0mDdhhZg14gcLozde-jMeUCj0J3k-1ojikLIe64f7iwfhw-MnGHAkA_qJLoi0ByJkMZmHyHTd1BMJBWhuze2J37Le6NEfvdljrDLxyckzvcTaOmHiMuN3Uc/s320/IMGP0559.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-75937367005742040522011-03-14T13:58:00.000-07:002011-03-14T22:38:58.969-07:00Earthquakes<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Thursday night we learn that a massive earthquake has struck off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. The NHK helicopters transmit images: endless rushing swells of sea-water, choked with trees and roofs and cars and soil, are bearing down on cities, houses. The tide is barely recognizable as water, except by its motion -- so dirty and clumsy, just debris and force, a terrible dun colour dispassionately sweeping over everything.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We watch it from an aerial view, as distant as osmosis observed through a microscope. Then the camera pans in, and we see tiny people on the buildings, tiny cars racing. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The newscasters announce facts and figures, but they're clearly not facts and figures yet -- guesses and estimates, no more. Is it an 8.8, a 9? That's a train station, submerged. No, it's an airport. We're getting, we're getting reports -- </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You imagine tsunamis as a clean vast crest of blue wave, curling down over palm trees. Not this unmajestic, relentless squalor, moving and moving and moving up the country like extinguished lava.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In California, people are watching the shores. Experts tell us that it'll take ten hours for the ocean disturbance to reach the west coast of America. It sounds mythological -- these giant, terrible waves riding across the Pacific, the deepest waters, travelling for hours and hours -- gaining strength? losing momentum? -- before reaching California. As mundane as a letter, as immense as gods. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At nine o'clock on Friday morning, all our local news teams are poised at the harbour and beach. For a while, nothing happens. Then, at nine fifteen, the sea shades to sand and algae, water pulling out and out, and the reporters become excitable. Temporarily, they forget to pretend that natural disasters are bad things, and chatter over their shoulder to the camera: for a while there it looked like nothing was going to-, but here it is, here it is, can you see-? They smile.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The water bears back down on the beach, in long lines of white surf. But nothing here is destroyed or washed away. In the marina, some boats break loose, wedging themselves under bridges or slowly arcing into other boats. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- That’s gonna make some people very unhappy, </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">says the news anchor, but we know it's not a disaster. We know it's not like Japan, where you see cars crushed against walls, window-high in muddy frothing water, one lone windscreen wiper batting back and forth. Buildings silently collapsing. Unhappy boat owners don’t compare. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">***</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Friday evening I hear that a friend's friend has died. Toshiko was studying English in New Zealand. It was lunchtime at her language school when the 6.3 Christchurch earthquake struck and the building collapsed. This was on February 22nd. On March 3rd the search for survivors officially ended. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- I will say a prayer at Todaiji temple, </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">says one person.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- I'm going to the Kasuga shrine.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- I hope she's not lonely.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Of the one hundred and twenty-five staff and pupils at Toshiko's school, sixty are missing and presumed dead. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">***</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I only noticed one earthquake while I lived in Japan. It was moderate, but we were on the fifteenth floor and could distinctly feel the building rocking back and forth on its heels, as if about to swoon. The blinds gently tapped at the window, clicking like teeth. It made us all nauseous, but when we cranked open the slats and looked down at the city, nothing had changed. No smoking ruins. Maybe there were calligraphic cracks here and there, widened faultlines, a few smashed cups. Unimaginable miles below us, beneath the skyscrapers, asphalt, foundations, packed dirt, fossils, and rock, one tectonic plate had inched blindly against another. For a moment we realized they were there, but pretty soon we forgot.</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kia Kaha, New Zealand and Japan.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: white;"> </span>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-25318853421358452782011-03-13T01:17:00.000-08:002011-03-13T01:18:29.187-08:00No Hay Salvavidas Trabajando: 14<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWydc3V30F8FafRRNF5VW-RACYQ8kiUMEKjfdQ3bz7vNfvPqujE0HFsuWwBDlLVaJeEvgV4ij_Wsw4NMUjsDXsIyphzsIhfKdCVcEBwaJCPIvIrtiwi0bHJ-YVhzawUmW4SQ_vj-dO3Q/s1600/IMGP3651.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWydc3V30F8FafRRNF5VW-RACYQ8kiUMEKjfdQ3bz7vNfvPqujE0HFsuWwBDlLVaJeEvgV4ij_Wsw4NMUjsDXsIyphzsIhfKdCVcEBwaJCPIvIrtiwi0bHJ-YVhzawUmW4SQ_vj-dO3Q/s320/IMGP3651.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-38128599084690138482011-03-02T18:40:00.000-08:002011-03-05T22:24:26.901-08:00"Alarm"<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Recent days have followed a strict schedule.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Drink coffee until nauseous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Write until cross-eyed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Become agitated: twenty minutes to sunset, and I haven't left the house.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Go for an aimless stroll (aka the Pensioner's Shuffle).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I should have another forty years in which to perfect my Pensioner's Shuffle, but the Escalade of Doom will surely get me before retirement does. Oh, people of Los Angeles -- won't you please check for Ped Xing when you turn right on a red? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Taking the lift downstairs in our apartment building, I'm reassured to see they've removed the sign saying</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">PLEASE DO NOT DEFECATE, URINATE OR REGURGITATE IN THE ELEVATOR</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">and I'm <i>almost </i>reassured by the permanent plaque that tells me</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Should the elevator stop,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Or become otherwise unresponsive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Do Not become Alarmed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Press the button marked "Alarm"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And wait for assistance. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></span>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-84226104973180431632011-03-02T18:32:00.000-08:002011-03-02T18:32:31.900-08:00Pacific, February<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaDBWYkUCNBRv-L3TS0nsmhC1L5CuTC03zF6s1jBIW_J52YId4zDnTXvu22OQSBCMfjlDhKdeMKXFY3uZ5o1JTNAMc4R6sJMy8RYtdUeSLL85bWQqVrOOlDEiAHU0xsmbeVfXuPoJovkw/s1600/IMGP3609.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaDBWYkUCNBRv-L3TS0nsmhC1L5CuTC03zF6s1jBIW_J52YId4zDnTXvu22OQSBCMfjlDhKdeMKXFY3uZ5o1JTNAMc4R6sJMy8RYtdUeSLL85bWQqVrOOlDEiAHU0xsmbeVfXuPoJovkw/s320/IMGP3609.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-44314763342410554722011-02-28T16:58:00.000-08:002011-03-05T22:27:10.503-08:00Wake Me Up<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I make some guacamole, buy a radioactive flagon of mojitos, and we sit down to watch the 83rd Academy Awards. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- What's <i>wrong</i> with James Franco's <i>face</i>?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">asks my husband, thirty minutes in. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I don't know. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I thought Franco was behaving oddly during the pre-show interviews, but assumed -- he's a clever sort -- that it was some sort of hilarious <i>bit</i> that I was just too slow to understand. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Perhaps I <i>am</i> slow, because Franco's performance throughout the whole show is similarly enigmatic. His expression defies description. A statistical analysis: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>80% </b>nonplussed Keanu Reeves </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>15%</b> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">the peevish face my cat pulls when you put something too close to his nose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>5%</b></span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> the half-smirk Rhett Butler makes during Scarlett O'Hara's violent tempers</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> It really is the Mona Lisa of awards show performances. Anne Hathaway isn't too bad, albeit very GO TEAM GO perky-shrieky-yay in a way that sees me topping up my drink frequently.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Google 'James Franco Oscars' now, and the second most popular option is 'James Franco Oscars High'. Or is it a case of Occam's Razor -- simple nerves, an over-tight truss? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Monday is dull enough as it is. I give you five drug-free explanations for the James Franco Oscars Face:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- hacked teleprompter screen full of obscenities <i>so vile</i> they make a Mel Gibson rant look like a Charlie Sheen rant, and a Charlie Sheen rant look like a Julie Andrews song </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- sentient hologram of Bob Hope wandering backstage harvesting souls</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- contractually-obliged colonic irrigation immediately prior to show (Franco told it was 'standard beauty treatment, kind of like a facial')</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- at the dress rehearsal, Anne Hathaway baked a metaphorical cake of rainbows and smiles, sprinkled it with ground-up cheerleaders, Wolverine's nail-clippings and Zoloft, and stuffed the entire thing, whole, into her enormous maw. Nauseated and traumatised by this, Franco decides to go the other way, method-acting a mouthful of lye-flavoured sourpatch candy</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- is that... is that <i>Kim Basinger </i>in the wings? She's not presenting, is she? Oh dear god, no -- this is still a dream within a dream within Alec Baldwin's dream, and it's about to get stabby. <i>WAKE ME UP!</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-35975696136660234122011-02-28T16:50:00.000-08:002011-02-28T17:03:31.338-08:00Trying to Get Inside James Franco's Mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrbG02KctXSTjm5YZDeX14Rn_7TM6L56fm6UQ8E-udmGu99kOkflY0PqRT5UTgdG83NshGxfsghijNo4e5m4XH12IzzpApQjDdnsxgzkS-RBIIBzgaLAY_4KVOnTR7iFkTudOfUcdcMWo/s1600/IMGP3626.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrbG02KctXSTjm5YZDeX14Rn_7TM6L56fm6UQ8E-udmGu99kOkflY0PqRT5UTgdG83NshGxfsghijNo4e5m4XH12IzzpApQjDdnsxgzkS-RBIIBzgaLAY_4KVOnTR7iFkTudOfUcdcMWo/s320/IMGP3626.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-85597491806304386302011-02-27T00:19:00.000-08:002011-02-27T10:08:32.250-08:00You're Invited!™ (No, Not You)<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You're Invited!™</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">say the 2011 Academy Award billboards; we're not, but we go anyway. At least, we go to the Kodak Theater, twenty-four hours before the event, for a little light gawping. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We could do with the exercise. On Friday, I didn't leave the house at all; first there was a hangover -- grade 'nuclear winter' -- and then there was a migraine. I lay on the sofa for several hours, unable to find the remote or otherwise escape 'Maid in Manhattan'. The cat clambered over me, dribbling. Eventually I went back to bed; Dr Strangename came home, at the end of his working day, to find me in exactly the same position as when he'd left that morning. He can be very sarcastic.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Today I'm up by ten-thirty and we manage to leave the house before two. There's just no stopping us. We get the 12 to Westwood and, in undeserved good bus karma, transfer quickly to the 302. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It's always a relief when the bus behaves itself, as, approximately once a fortnight, Dr Strangename puts his foot down, shakes his fist, and says we'll <i>never</i> go on the Metro again. But this Saturday it's swift and uncrowded, and Dr Strangename laughs at the potholes on Sunset that threaten to disengage your cranium from your spine and roll your head down the bus like a bowling-ball. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We pass though Beverly Hills, with its ice-cream stripes of strawberry, vanilla and mint -- bougainvillea, white-washed walls, lemon-trees and lush hedges, almost pretty enough to distract you from its purpose (keep your dirty little bus-rider eyes off my lawn). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In West Hollywood we pass everyone's favourite artificially-enhanced-sex superstore:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">JOIN THE HUSTLER FAMILY!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">says a poster in its window, next to the shamrock-themed erotic outfits. I imagine the Hustler family: mom showing plenty of underboob in a sawn-off t-shirt, bending cheerfully over the (unlit, but no one notices) BBQ; dad doing some suggestive business with a foot-long; daughter eighteen yet still obliged to wear an undersized Catholic schoolgirl uniform.</span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Prohibition Is Over</span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">appears in white on a sober black billboard across the road. No, thank you; after Thursday night, prohibition is back, and this time it's personal. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(I was drinking these lovely, faux-Japanese martinis, made from elderflower and lychee and gin, and they were as light and meadow-fresh as a fabric softener commercial. Friday morning, they may as well have been Clorox.) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just as bus sickness and residual hangover are about to cause disaster, we reach Hollywood. Apart from Downtown -- where a woman directed a canary-coloured rain of junkie vomit at me -- Hollywood is the least glamorous district of LA we've seen so far. It's a particularly unappealing combination of genuine grot, tourist tat and anodyne chainstores. But everyone who visits us wants to go there, and, god, here we are again, of our <i>own </i>volition. You feel guilty for patronising it, as if encouraging some morally-dubious commerce that lowers us all, like a nice young man who keeps finding himself in Thai brothels.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But this weekend Hollywood is brisk and professional, full of tents and trailers and people with clipboards. Hollywood Boulevard is closed to traffic for several blocks, and we skirt alongside a screened area that is the Oscars red carpet. We can't see it, but <i>we know it's there</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After being diverted through some battleship-grey service corridors -- it's no more than we deserve -- we find ourselves in the Kodak Theater. An Italian correspondent in a backless evening dress and a lot of panstick is making a broadcast. I take a photo of a sign saying NO ACCESS, and am reprimanded. There's more red carpet, a cinematic sweep of stairs, and some shrouded Oscar statuettes. Although the carpet is covered in polythene, we aren't allowed to step on it. I take several more photos. Even Dr Strangename is awed. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Eventually, we get to the top of the Hollywood and Highland mall, where you can look down fifty feet onto the transparent tent and red carpet walkway below. I see the public audience bleachers; I applied for a seat, but it's something like a 0.035 chance and I didn't win. Can't catch a break. This aerial shot is the closest we'll get. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We briefly consider throwing ourselves off the mall terrace onto the plastic roof, where we'd bob, waving at celebrities, for a short while, before being shot down like a couple of rogue parade balloons. But the celebrities aren't here until tomorrow, and we can't be bothered to take the bus again. </span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">They told me to come to Hollywood,</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">that it was the third biggest industry in the world.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Number one was safety razors.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Number two was sticking plasters.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hollywood was number three. So I came.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-- Cowboy Actor</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is written on the mall's floor, along with lots of other dubious stories relating to The Road To Hollywood. Outside, we're filmed by someone getting establishing shots for The Lead-Up To The Oscars -- do look for us on Belgium TV -- and I linger outside a production van for Channel WowWowWow Japan, hoping to be discovered as a new Gaijin Tarento. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the end, we walk south back to Sunset and wait for the Metro home. Our companions here are a guy with a guitar and gas mask, and another man who looks exactly like the reprobate who shot Sam in 'Ghost'. But on the way back through West Hollywood, I see a sign saying</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pierced People Pray Too</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">and resolve to be less superficial.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-10515567209652565332011-02-27T00:07:00.000-08:002011-02-27T10:11:44.142-08:00Hermetically Sealed Hollywood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVJ5xHEOdWUhlBcaA4NMEB2LzWQms3hnXHu1sTJcNYfTL_SJl3gqOpjq0LXL1qx0oPFGkNVMqkz1njoryG3Mxi2A9-a7Q4OLxsJakq_H-sP361eW5KI4GJ-VbNyjn_uodP2TUTmdAiIgA/s1600/IMGP3636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVJ5xHEOdWUhlBcaA4NMEB2LzWQms3hnXHu1sTJcNYfTL_SJl3gqOpjq0LXL1qx0oPFGkNVMqkz1njoryG3Mxi2A9-a7Q4OLxsJakq_H-sP361eW5KI4GJ-VbNyjn_uodP2TUTmdAiIgA/s320/IMGP3636.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-29517938663275637752011-02-23T18:41:00.000-08:002011-02-24T16:09:36.116-08:00Bloody Foreigners<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><u>Ten Things That Happen When You Live Overseas</u> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(especially, but not exclusively, in non-English-speaking countries)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You spend a week thinking you have a terminal illness, and then you realize you've <b>bought</b> <b>decaffeinated coffee</b>. You also think that supermarkets should put alcohol-free beer in a separate aisle.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- When you visit your hometown, and people ask <b>"How's [new country]?" </b>your answer is either incomprehensibly specific: </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>"...well, my Steuerberater just told me that the Finanzamt have declared our 2000 Euro freelance tax exemption invalid because I was working on a Lohnsteuerkarte for the first half of 2009; that's bloody Germany for you"</i> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> or merely witless:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"...s'nice thank you".</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You get annoyed when: Germans claim that <b>Japanese people eat cats</b>; Japanese worry that Britain is overrun with football hooligans; Brits say they met an American once and he was a <i>right</i> prick; Americans ask if Germany still has a Nazi Party.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You become so accustomed to no one understanding quick, idiomatic comments that you will remark, loudly, on a busy Newcastle street, that <b>"it's always the heifers that wear tube tops, isn't it?"</b> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You are <b>fluent in zero languages</b>, but able to mime 'our broadband connection is running very slowly today, please tell me if there's a local problem'. You can also order a meal via interpretive dance: "uh, boss? There's a foreigner out here prancing like a chicken and waggling her fingers to indicate noodles. Should we give her the poisonous blowfish?".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Your voluminous correspondence with the <b>Student Loans Council</b> rivals that of the Mitford sisters.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You're glad you wear the <b>largest shoe-size for women</b>, because you don't have to bother remembering that you're a British 8, a European 41 and an American 10. You just follow the trannies to the right part of the shop.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(In Japan your footwear choices will be restricted to a mistakenly-imported pair of white Birkenstocks or the men's department.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You <b>prefer moving west</b>, because you're several hours younger there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You understand that <b>bitching about the NHS</b> is like complaining that the hem is down on your inherited mink coat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- You only know you're British because all your underwear says <b>'Marks and Spencer'</b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-91929098216668052762011-02-23T18:33:00.000-08:002011-02-23T18:53:07.851-08:00Duck Soup, Düsseldorf<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZBeSufNG3YNGApBEhcae8A1n-ns3HNvh34LcQ3n0G3Y0-bQpQj3cjerWAJxLDR4XhH8Kuz02ihwQEH-yadsc_FMMfbWvu-PIh4YaXx7UraaXeyISewgAm4c5QdYIUjM62TxkcYCIV128/s1600/PA220017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZBeSufNG3YNGApBEhcae8A1n-ns3HNvh34LcQ3n0G3Y0-bQpQj3cjerWAJxLDR4XhH8Kuz02ihwQEH-yadsc_FMMfbWvu-PIh4YaXx7UraaXeyISewgAm4c5QdYIUjM62TxkcYCIV128/s320/PA220017.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-2630973390834114562011-02-22T13:41:00.000-08:002011-02-23T12:37:56.292-08:00Exposition Boulevard<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I forgot to wash any clothes this weekend; really, my housewifing standards are getting very lax. Sometimes Dr Strangename is reduced to quark-wrangling in yesterday's socks. On Presidents' Day I leave the house dressed, for lack of any other choices, in United Nations blue: blue blazer from California, blue t-shirt from Germany, blue jeans from England and blue plaid scarf from Japan. In my handbag I have a blue beret in case it starts raining again, but the storms are over; our building's swimming pool is a bright aquamarine, rippling to koi-gold in the sun.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On the streets of Los Angeles, in the Westside, the walking wounded are out again. A tall, thin man in an old-school business suit -- pinstriped with matching waistcoat, and I'm sure there's a watch in those pockets -- comes along very slowly, more slowly than anyone with business. His face says nothing. Another middle-aged man pootles past on a mobility scooter, exercising a cheerful dog that is raw and pink with a skin condition. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Sepulveda Boulevard, as I walk northbound, gets dirtier and dustier. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bungalows offering Psychic Readings and Garage Sales turn into construction warehouses and lumberyards, with a handful of South American laborours lingering outside. They're there every day, wearing trucker caps and thick jackets, leaning against the fence, not talking; I assume this is a bad day, as it's already mid-morning and work would have presented itself by now. Cornerstone Mantels has eight Stars-and-Stripes fluttering from its roof, and a FOR LEASE sign. Nearby, The Best Little Doorhouse in Town is doing brisk business.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At my destination, I wait in an empty, high-up, doctor's office. Its inland-facing picture windows show a city panorama -- more tall mirrored buildings, SunAmerica and MGM and the Die Hard tower, and glittering lines of traffic, and usually the snowy mountains beyond. Today, even though the sky is a clean arctic blue, the horizon fades into a white blur and the mountains are invisible.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Last week, at my volunteer job in West Hollywood, I was enjoying a similar view from a picnic table in the playground while I waited for my student. A small boy came up, stood in the herb garden and -- kicking wildly at some lavender -- remarked</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- I need someone to keep me SAFE I ate too much SUGAR and now I think of SCARY THINGS.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Then he ran off shouting</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- BLEEEEEEUUUUUUU.</span>)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After ten minutes with a laptop-tapping doctor, I'm walking back down Sepulveda. I have to pass under the freeway to get home; two freeways, actually, the north-south 405 and east-west 10 that meet here in a compass-pointed rose, forming one of those looping cloverleaf patterns so beloved of LA aerial views. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But, underneath the intersection, nothing is clear, and all you know is a terrible moaning cathedral of concrete joists, shade and strange detritus: a pair of trousers snagged on a tree, a water-bottle of piss, fluttering reams of toilet paper. Abandoned vehicles are parked at the curb, with cars full of stacked trash, and a duct-taped RV covered in hand-written signs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">YOU ARE UNDER SURVEILLANCE</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">says one, and I hurry past before the fat man sleeping at the wheel wakes up.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The only cheerful point around here is Exposition Boulevard, regarding which I've prepared a laboured witticism: I <i>would</i> take Exposition, but it's long, pretty dull, and I'm not sure if it leads anywhere particular. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Except I do know, at least, that it passes the astonishingly shabby local Postal Depot -- but why let this ruin a bon mot?)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;"> </span> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-36166374561840113692011-02-22T13:35:00.000-08:002011-02-22T15:46:16.837-08:00The Westside: 101.28 square miles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIS5gBeUsT0kjDz3nIe3-9TZyO28qn1WeNoEMLQme71A_7yMcesU_XMBIIH2inBi7rOAfMN5JwUo1KMs0yFguSag9593sW8awwN-n2_uNor4bqMhAPnnmFcxVnLa-2JA1d80OUo2qMSE/s1600/a24+-+West+LA.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIS5gBeUsT0kjDz3nIe3-9TZyO28qn1WeNoEMLQme71A_7yMcesU_XMBIIH2inBi7rOAfMN5JwUo1KMs0yFguSag9593sW8awwN-n2_uNor4bqMhAPnnmFcxVnLa-2JA1d80OUo2qMSE/s320/a24+-+West+LA.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-12648260106084245992011-02-20T13:36:00.000-08:002011-02-22T19:18:04.740-08:00Conversations With My Mother<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It's the fortnightly transatlantic phone-call to Mother Dearest. I'm updated on the latest news from Little Village Primary School, England, where my mother has taught for the past twenty-two years. The updates are less compelling now that nearly all the teachers I remember from my time as a pupil there have either died, retired or inexplicably retrained as carpenters. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mother Dearest is mainly concerned with Younger Sister's upcoming wedding. 'Upcoming' is relative; it's still seventeen months away. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A little bit of backdrop: the glorious nuptials of Dr Strangename and myself were not that traditional. We got married in our college chapel (variously built and rebuilt according to taste in the 1300s, 1500s and 1800s), but without bridesmaids, hymns, or sugared almonds. It was winter, and the bride wore a red Armani-knockoff dress; 'marry in red, you'll wish yourself dead', they say, although <i>they</i> probably don't look like a corpse bride in white. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I somehow always assumed Younger Sister would go the other way; veil copied from a magazine picture of Maria Shriver's wedding, that sort of thing. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But Younger Sister is going the <i>other</i> other way, making mine look like the average Republican-Senator's-Daughter-Crabcakes-Yachts-and-Lilies bash. She's having a non-legally-binding open-air Humanist ceremony at our family's farm, with a hog-roast and teepees and bunting. She's already started on the bunting. She plans to wear a floaty white dress and flipflops and carry sunflowers. </span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- What does the Mother-of-the-Bride wear to an open-air wedding ceremony?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">wonders my mother, who wore a shift from Whistles and a large black hat to our day. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm greatly enjoying discussing the technicalities of wedding planning when a) it's not mine, b) I'm 6000 miles away and can't be asked to make bunting, and c) it's not mine. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Did I mention that the field chosen for the ceremony is also an ancient, pre-Druidic (possibly Neolithic) burial site? The barrows were opened in the 1700s, and the human remains moved to the British Museum. Wade and Wade (1929) describe it as:</span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">a remarkably fine tumulus of masonry, said to have been one of the finest in Britain, in the chambers of which skeletons have been discovered. A few vestiges of it now only remain, the rest has been used as a lime-kiln.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Well, perhaps as my ancestors have been using it to make quicklime for several hundred years, a wedding in the vicinity won't be too disrespectful. Still. The date's set for July 2012, and anyone who's ever spent a summer in England knows that actual sun is a privilege, not a right. Younger Sister is hazy about what we'll do should it rain.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Everyone can go into the teepees,</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">she says, sketching floral wreathes for her five bridesmaids. The teepees have no windows. Nearly 150 people have been invited. If I were pitching this wedding as a concept, I would say: Age of Aquarius meets Tess of the D'Urbervilles at the Battle of the Somme, with a touch of The Shining and just a hint of Dancing With Wolves.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I can't wait.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"> </span></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8267817127821560581.post-14942542862212310712011-02-20T13:26:00.000-08:002011-02-20T13:27:11.483-08:00Summer of '89, Great Britain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcP1p6pBkGSb9ckpYqpveMLJtfoOK0F97CNMilRTXBy9UQkjSBdNnidFzU4LJpss-eLp8wuDM8X9Np933c45j9Dp9SewwO1ukjwlOx5qsFKpROVZtXaebviLJl08wTuCnPtZx6gWl1CI/s1600/summer+of+%252789.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcP1p6pBkGSb9ckpYqpveMLJtfoOK0F97CNMilRTXBy9UQkjSBdNnidFzU4LJpss-eLp8wuDM8X9Np933c45j9Dp9SewwO1ukjwlOx5qsFKpROVZtXaebviLJl08wTuCnPtZx6gWl1CI/s320/summer+of+%252789.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>PED XINGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14027178496124396434noreply@blogger.com0