Plain Amazing

Check out this video. The guy sort of looks like a bear, but he has some serious talent. I was sent this by a friend the other day and it is too good not to share.

This is the link since the embeded video isn't working:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4&feature=fvst

It's kind of sad that guys (and gals) like this can't get wider exposure or radio plays. Frankly, he has more talent in his beard that Britney Spears has ever shown in her life to this point.

If you are looking for some lesser known but still really good bands also check out Honor by August, Less Than Jake, and The Dandy Warhols.

Cai Guo-Qiang follow up

Since I was barred from taking pictures of some of the parts of the Cai Guo-Qiang show I mentioned in the post below I had to do a Google Image search to get these pictures. They are the two coolest parts of the show by far. The tigers are life-sized, as are the wolves and you can walk around them and if guards aren't looking you can touch them too.

The dual picture above with the wolves shows the original. There have been some small changes to the this part. But the changes made it even better. It was the coolest part of the show by far. Well worth my $6.50 to get in.

Cai Guo-Qiang

Today I went with a few thousand of my best friends (there were swarms of people there) to the Taipei Art Museum to catch the end of an exhibiton by the famous Chinese performance artist Cai Guo-Qiang. He uses a gunpowder to make a lot of his works which creates some cool effects. However, I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the two coolest pieces of his work (I'll try and Google Image them and post later). That said the stuff here is still pretty cool.


This was in a similar fashion as sculpture in the Cultural Revolution and was made of weak clay so it would intentionally fall apart.

This was the enterance to the museum. There were 5-6 Chevy's hung like this and shooting lights.

Boat with broken porcelain. Not really sure what is was supposed to represent.

Facebook Privacy and This Blog

It's interesting to think that when facebook started I wasn't all that concerned about privacy. Post anything was the rule. Then over time I've become much more conservative about it. I guess the more users and variety of friends I have (adults especially) is directly proportional to how much I put up on it.

Lately I've taken some more measures to drastically limit just how much I share on facebook (for those of you with access to my fb account it may not be obvious at first). It also makes me think how much I should post here. For example, I don't use my English name, share the name of my company, or post pictures of the ladyfriend. Still the danger to that is I still post too much. In the coming days, I'll probably put up a slightly more personal post than usual. But after that we shall she just how much personal stuff I continue to post.

Books I've Read Part 4.5

So it's not that I've stopped reading. I've just been reading at a slower pace (only on the subway to and from work). But in the last few months since November I've read these books/novels. Here are my unsolicited thoughts.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Yosarian may indeed still live but I was already tired of the novel in the first few pages. There were some parts that I laughed at but for the most part it was a labor to get through the prose. In the forward, Heller even stated a review said that the book seemed to have been shouted and not written. That's a pretty apt description. Beyond that there was very little that moved me to be interested in the characters. But if I was still in school it would be a great book to search do a report on. Thing is I'm not in school , so while the novel may indeed describe dislocation and madness of war but it was long and by the end a huge pain in the ass to get through.

River Town by Peter Hessler

My mom sent me this book for Christmas. While I have an avowed distaste for English teachers I immediately forgave Hessler on account of his being in the Peace Corps and being an excellent writer. For you reading this the book may be interesting, but for me it was engrossing. Hessler spent 2 years in rural (BFE) China teaching. He went through many experiences as a foreigner that I have (to a much lesser degree in Beijing and far less degree here in Taiwan) also experienced. That said, his was much more intense. The interesting thing for me is that as a Chinese speaking foreigner I completely understood him when he stated that you start to carve out your own little world over here and that you don't like other foreigners intruding on it. I recommend the book but I hate to say many of you may not get the same enjoyment from reading it as I do since the book in many ways mirrors some of my experiences.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Who am I to pass criticism on someone who survived the firebombing of Dresden and then cleaned up the bodies afterward? So I'll keep this light. I understood how and why the book was constructed. But I thought that it would have been more effective to pay more attention to the actual events that occurred in Dresden.

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

Read. This. Book. If you want to know how the world is moving this is the book to read. Zakaria is a smart man and the book was scary in a way. It discusses the diffusion of American power and move from a unipolar world that is now having to accomodate the BRIC countries. I see this every day here in Asia. Those of you who are in the U.S., believe me, you can hardly believe what is coming your direction from China and India. Get ready. There is nothing else to say--this book is a must read to understand the changing international system.

There should be more reviews soon. I'm getting close to being done with the last book I had for Christmas and I just spent $60 today to get 5 more new books at the best English bookstore in Taipei.

Back in Bangkok

I'm in Bangkok. I haven't been here for months. After spending so much time in third world Cambodia I am shocked to be in place with similar looking people that isn't third world (Bangkok borders on first world in many areas).

I give my performance tomorrow and I'm totally psyched! Wait, no, not really.

Update: Well I found out some interesting tidbits tonight at dinner from my customers. I already knew my boss was not a drinker and doesn't like anything beyond wine. Last year at the party we left toward what I thought was the end (10:30pm). Turns out after the performances they go nuts! They told me today that last year (and this year too) they toast everyone with whiskey then do beer bongs. Some people actually have to rent rooms in the hotel where it's held since they can't make it back. Now I'm not dreading this so much.

My Review of The Tipping Point

If the point of a book is to make you think then you can consider Malolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point a resounding success for me. I have been thinking a lot about this book since I started reading it. Thing is, there is more too books than making you think.

In that wider sense, the book fell flat for me.

If I was to tell you that fashion trends spread when they are taken up by socially influential people and mimicked by others you would shrug and tell me that is standard knowledge. Then if I told you that small but intensely committed groups are one of the best ways to spread messages and organize (think the Obama presidential campaign) you would probably tell me this is not earth shattering news. On both counts you would absolutely be right.

What Gladwell is essentially doing is basing his book on those two points. He then tries to add depth by citing lots of stories and studies and giving fun names to the people who help spread these things (Connectors are at the center of social circles and have tons of contacts that they spread things to. Mavens have in depth knowledge to disseminate to the rest of us.). Then he tries to add breadth by saying this is how many social phenomena spread. He mentions such diverse examples as Hush Puppies shoes, AIDs and other STDs, Airwalk skate shoes, and the decrease in crime in NYC during the 1990’s. He is adding window dressing. He is talking about big things by using something small—but in the end he ends up saying very little and still gets people to think.

I had a problem with the book from the start. It is one thing to describe a fashion trend but it is another thing entirely to describe the dramatic decrease of crime in NYC (a more complex sociological phenomena than a fashion trend) using the same theory. Any time I see a simple and clean cut explanation for something extremely complex I get suspicious. This is no different.

Taking the drop in NYC crime rates as an example, he says there were a lot of factors—each of which was important but none of which was the single cause. First off, why couldn’t there be multiple causes? Second, why doesn’t he compare this data on crime to data in other cities or the rest of the country? Third, he mentions that fixing small things on the NYC subway system (graffiti and fare jumping) helped to improve order overall—but this isn’t part of his thesis. In fact he never offers a clear explanation of how this spread through contacts to cause this widespread social change according to his thesis. Fourth, he forgets to mention much of this was due the dramatic increase the numbers and quality of the NYPD.

When I was reading the book I kept thinking of the mistake he was making. In my LSAT class they always drilled you on “sufficient v. necessary.” Meaning if something was sufficient to cause X it doesn’t always mean it is necessary to cause X (it can be but there are a multitude of possible causes)

However, none of this is to say he is wrong. I simply didn’t buy the depth and breadth he tried to add to the two points I mentioned above. To be sure, those two points are important and understanding them is also important. For example, the election of Obama showed the power of using small groups of very highly motivated people (but has since ditched this entirely) by distributing materials and motivating a core group they disseminated the information to their key contacts and it spread through social networks. But I think it is an error to apply those points too widely and not consider wider ranges of possibilities that cause things like the spread of AIDs or dramatic drops in the NYC crime rate.

So the book was interesting and has some insight. I was wary from the start and I remain so. Still it made me think.