Insomnia's back? That would totally suck. I woke up 10 a.m. Friday, worked a full-time shift that evening, couldn't sleep at all afterwards, Saturday went on a photostroll in the morning, followed by an unwise 47-mile ride. Fell asleep at 9 p.m. Saturday out of pure exhaustion, woke up 3 hours later and still can't sleep. Fuckall.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27 - Morning photostroll. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

The Living Mall

Part of the old Songshan Taiwan Railway repair workshop.

The entire city block north of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (the curve of the roof is visible at the bottom of Taipei 101) is an empty lot.

Levels of traffic. Long zoom.

Nanjing E. Rd. MRT ongoing construction.

Neighborhood noon market.

Retail space available.

Furthermore, part of the reason I couldn't sleep was severe cold-like symptoms that immediately went away once I got outside (and which also curiously went away during morning sitting). Rehash: I had to move out of the first apartment I lived in Taipei due to a mysterious, severe allergic reaction to being in the apartment, which always went away once I went outside.

Seriously, if I were the least bit important, I would think I would be God's ball of yarn. Which makes God a cat, mind you.

I rang in Christmas by watching National Geographic's program on the recently published "Gospel of Judas." Christmas so often turns out to be a time to question the underpinnings of the Christian faith. Not that there's anything stable about the underpinnings of the Christian faith, the miracle is that the Christian faith remains, despite all contradictions and cracks in the foundations.

But the Gospel of Judas really emphasizes the repression of true Christianity to support a single orthodoxy promoted centuries later by the Romans, a regime which has as much credibility to me as George W. Bush would in establishing the Gospels.

Today's 47-mile ride really was unwise after being sick and not building up to a significant ride. But I did find a new riverside bikeway along the right bank of the Dahan River.

A year and a half ago, I ventured along the left bank of the Xindian River to its end where it flowed into the Danshui River. That's where that bikeway ended due to construction. Since then, the construction obstructing the bikeway has been completed and the bikeway has been opened and it continues along the Dahan River, which also empties into the Danshui River at the same place as the Xindian River.

Of course, I had to find out how developed the bikeway was, and it went pretty far, almost to the end of Taipei County in that direction, where I had been on the other bank of the Dahan River. So I went all the way to the end, got back on surface roads and found my way to the other bank of the Dahan River and returned to Taipei that way.

I forget where it started getting hard. My feet in my clipless shoes started to hurt on the return, which is pretty typical. I think my 10-year-old-plus shoes weren't designed for comfort. But my leg muscles started seizing just as a I reached the bridge to take me across the Danshui River back to Taipei. And then I got a flat just as I crossed the bridge.

Well, as many times as I've had to fix my rear wheel recently, I replaced the inner tube in record time, and I guess the break did my leg muscles well since I was able to sprint home, getting back at 4:59 p.m. just in time for "In Plain Sight". TV rules my life.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1:28 p.m. - Left bank of the Xindian River. All Ricoh Caplio R4.

1:36 p.m. - Dahan River right bank. Reaching the north end of the left bank of the Xindian River, the bikeway makes a 90 degree turn directly onto the right bank of the Dahan River and heads back south. Both rivers drain at this point into the Danshui River. Note the tower under construction at the right. That's across the water and I'll pass it on the way home.

2:19 p.m. - Eventually the Dahan riverside bikeway hits construction as it continues to be built, and transfer to surface roads is required.

2:39 p.m. - River at the far end of Taipei County (Yingge township?) and bird detail. 

3:05 p.m. - Even at the end of Taipei County before entering Taoyuan City, Taipei 101 is visible. Extreme Caplio R4 digital zoom for proof in case you don't believe me.

3:22 p.m. - South and north view from the Dahan River left bank bikeway. After the ordeal of finding the way from the right bank, the left bank bikeway is complete all the way to the end in Xinzhuang. My shoes were killing me by this time. At least I had the pretty light of riding north.

3:40 p.m. - Taiwan Railway tracks alongside the new High Speed Rail tracks.

4:01 p.m. - Taipei County, new bridge construction along the Erchong Ecological Park where I've ridden before.

Red Cliff (2008, China)
What an overblown mess! If there ever was a movie that needed a libretto, it's probably this. The first 45 minutes or so there was a big question mark floating over my head wondering who was who, and why were they doing what they were doing. A lot of people, a lot of fighting, a lot of killing, but who the hell are these people?

There is some text in the beginning that whizzes by too fast to read, and even more curious is that for every paragraph of Chinese text on screen, there is only one sentence of English subtitle. Could this be the source of the confusion?

I finally stopped the DVD in the middle to look up on Wikipedia what was going on and who was who in the historical battle of Red Cliff. That helped for the second viewing, but that wasn't the only problem during the first viewing.

It's a John Woo film, so one should expect great action, horrible dialogue, hard-boiled characters (just in ancient Chinese style), and a fair share of hard-boiled scenes that I suppose are there to delve deeper into the characters. The characters? This is a John Woo film! Who gives a frack about the characters?! The action is the characters. John Woo doesn't know how to do "character". God, I hope all those scenes get cut.

Not that it's terrible, but I can't recommend this film.

The film I'm talking about is, by the way, the Asian release of "Red Cliff", which is, at 2 and a half hours long, only part one of the film. The second part opens in theaters in January 2009, and by coincidence, I saw a poster for part two for the first time today. Good timing on my part. That is, if I plan to see the second part in the theaters. I have a month to decide.

The total film will be over 4 hours long. For outside of Asia, a shorter single two hour plus film will be released. Part one has so much fat, so many superficial scenes that I can guess (and hope) which ones will be cut. I have a feeling the outside-Asia release is going to kick ass. A real John Woo classic. But this, part one, had too many god-awful "character development" scenes that I don't recommend it, wait for the abridged version. 5 out of 10 tomatoes, anticipating a much higher rating, 8 or 9, for the international release. Please don't let me down, John Woo.

It took me a while to get to this, but several months ago, an acquaintance I met through the band made me a mix CD of Taiwanese music. I asked her for it because watching MTV here is a total waste of time, very little Taiwanese music that is popular enough to be on MTV fits my taste.

I didn't expect a whole lot from her mix, although there was hope since she seemed like the type who would listen to cooler music than what gets aired on MTV. Turns out I really liked a vast majority of it, even though it also turns out this stuff is pretty popular on MTV and karaoke. I just miss it because so much of the other music is smarmy, ballady, romantic crap music and I quickly change the channel.

Although I have to admit that a lot of this, if I encountered it on MTV I wouldn't like. Something in particular about music someone, not MTV execs, has specifically chosen, I guess.

I made her a mix in response and posted it in October. Here, for anyone interested in Taiwanese music, is the mix she made (the translations of the titles are my own interpretations):

1. 屬於(范曉萱) ("Belonging to")
2. 那種女孩 (范曉萱) ("That type of girl")
3. Self (陳綺貞)
4. 旅行的意義 (陳綺貞) ("The meaning of travel")
5. 嫉妒 (陳綺貞) ("Jealousy")
6. 陌生人 (Soler) ("Stranger")
7. 禮物 (黃立行) ("Gift")
8. 分開旅行 (黃立行 & 劉若英) ("Travelling separately")
9. 寶貝 (張懸) ("Baby")
10. 女爵 (陽乃文) ("Noble woman")
11. 崩塌了我的世界 (八三尤) ("My collapsed world")
12. 來去夏威夷 (八三尤) ("Blue Hawaii")
13. 早安,晨之美 (盧廣仲) (Welcome, beautiful morning)
14. 思念 (蔡建雅) ("Longing for")
15. 晨間新聞 (蔡建雅) ("Morning news")
16. 思念是一種病 (張震嶽 & 蔡建雅) ("Missing (you) is a kind of sickness")
17. 謝謝你的愛 (李心潔) (Thank you for your love")
18. Friday Night Girl (糯米團)
19. 我懷念的 (孫燕姿) ("What I cherish")

I've taken to riding home from work along the riverside bikeways. It's longer, but it's much more pleasant. Quiet, solitary, no traffic, no traffic lights.

November 17, 12:46-12:47 a.m.

Tonight, the Keelung River was still as a mirror reflecting lights on the other side. Reality like fabric unfolded as I moved through it. And nothing was as clear as that I don't want to be here. I don't want to be me. Anyone else, fine. Just not me with these specific blocks and obscurations that prevent me from moving right, moving left, forwards or even backwards.

As someone else, these blocks and obscurations would still exist, but hopefully they wouldn't be set in such perfect resonant circumstances, reinforced by my own arrogance and ego, that I couldn't get desperate, that I couldn't really desire and want so much that I would be willing to do anything to get out in order to get what I want.

I'm not desperate. I'm not hungry. I don't want what I can't have. If I can't have you, I don't want you. Or so I tell myself in my arrogance and ego.

If my parents weren't coming in January for my cousin's wedding, if my cousin weren't getting married in January, would I be willing to go right now? That's rhetorical. Of course, the answer is yes. But my cousin is getting married in January and my parents are coming, and I'm not willing to go right now because of that, so of course the answer is no.

There are a lot of old people in my neighborhood. A lot of old people being wheeled around in wheelchairs by caretakers hired from other southeast asian countries. This is the culmination of all their lives' efforts? Did they foresee this when they were 20, 30, 40, 50? That they would be wheeled around in a playground park with tubes up their noses?

I also see a lot of people in my neighborhood who are 20, 30, 40, 50. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. And less. To me, they're all slices of the same life.

What happens when it's my father who's in the wheelchair? Do I want to see my father in a wheelchair with a tube up his nose, clinging to life because he doesn't know what to do otherwise? Fuckall hell no. Do I want to be the one pushing him around? Why are we doing this?

That isn't rhetorical. There is a reason why we're doing this. And you may have it. Many people have it. I don't.

When I was at the monastery, doubting my monastic aspiration, I had this idea of returning to San Francisco and living a simple hermit-like life. But here in Taiwan, I have the ultimate opportunity to live that kind of life. What am I waiting for?

Why am I so tortured? Why am I so merely unsatisfied? I can live a hermit-like existence, but desire leads me by the nose to do this, desire leads me by the nose to do that. And I'm unhappy about this about the work situation, I'm unhappy about that about the work situation. I'm unhappy about this about the band situation, I'm unhappy about that about the band situation. Social situation, friend situation, family situation, photography situation, music situation, cycling situation, location situation, weather situation, apartment situation, body situation, existence situation. Why can't I just be satisfied?

Why can't I just stop and say . . . I'm satisfied? That I like it in my little motel.

Winds of September (Taiwan, 2008)
See, I'm a bit confused by this film. Is it glorification of a bunch of high school delinquents, or is it a social morality play?

When I first viewed it, I hated it. There were hints that it was a bad film in the first 10 minutes – always a bad sign. The acting looked self-conscious or the direction was poor and got unnatural acting out of the actors.

From there it got worse. The movie is about a supposedly tight-knit clique of 7 high school boys who are a bunch of bad apples. These guys get into trouble and then they get into more trouble and then they get each other in trouble.

Trouble is the movie doesn't present them as rebels without a cause. They're not angry at the world or disenfranchised. They're baseball fans. The mood created by the music seems to suggest these are just boys being boys, that this behavior is typical in coming-of-age Taiwan, when the truth is that they're just a bunch of losers.

The "leader" is a smug, arrogant letch and a liar who doesn't take responsibility for anything. He lies outright to his girlfriend's face. His best friend seems loyal, but it turns out he's just spineless. Another turns out to have no honor and is willing to let a buddy take the fall for his shortcoming. What's to like? I'm supposed to sympathize?

Upon the second viewing of the film, since I usually view DVD rentals twice, I started seeing some more of what the director may have been getting at – the social commentary of society's moral decay.

These losers' heroes are baseball players, but the movie, set in 1997 in the city of Hsinchu, Taiwan, focuses on a gambling scandal that was plaguing Taiwanese professional baseball. Their heroes are crooks, involved in gambling and bribery scams.

The petty mischief of the boys may be a reflection of the criminal behavior of their heroes, but then it leads them into the twisted mindset of not knowing or appreciating the consequences when real crimes in the real world are involved.

It's also about character. When your band of brothers are a bunch of delinquent losers, don't be surprised when they turn against you. Consequences and redemption. Who are the real friends? Ripping up baseball cards may be a realization of the wrong path to follow.

So, far from being a misguided coming-of-age movie sympathizing with losers, I think the director was going for something deeper, and that makes me look on the film more favorably. The problem with the film is that it misleads the viewer into thinking we're supposed to be sympathizing with these boys.

It needed a heavier counterweight than what is given in the female characters to convey that there's something wrong with these guys, that they are (symbolically) being led down the wrong path by their heroes.

Heroes, those in the public eye, need to take responsibility for their actions and appreciate how their behavior affects society. Fine. But the movie needed a pull in the other direction to show that this is a fight for Taiwan society's soul and future.

I give this movie a respectable 7 out of 10 tomatoes.

December 6-17

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 - Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11 - Keelung River

Dajia Riverside Park from Neihu Sports Park. Long telephoto.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16 - Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

Xinyi Road.

Fudekeng Cemetery.

Muslim section.

1:12 p.m. - Taipei 101 from early in the climb up Fudekeng and rooftops detail.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17 - East Gate of Taipei's old city. Zhongshan S. Rd.

Liberty Plaza, renamed since August 2007. Before, the gate inscription was a reference to former dictator Chiang Kai-shek, whose memorial remains in the background. Although he got Taiwan through difficult times with an iron fist and disregard for human rights, he has since fallen from grace in the eyes of modern Taiwanese who want more balance in his portrayal.

Building a new Zhongshan N. Rd. Bridge over the Keelung River, using the old bridge to store materials.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Little Motel

This whole week has been gorgeous outside after last week's chill and I've been sick. Nice.

So apparently it doesn't rain all the time in Taipei. It rained a near constant drear my first two years here, but this third year has been pretty darned nice, and now in December, instead of a rainy season, we're having some very nice weather. What one might expect from the near tropics.

The nasty part of the cold switched off as quickly as it switched on, but I'm still recovering. I can't do a whole lot before tiring out, and exertion ends with me soaking in sweat. I got a surprising 9 hours of sleep, so I'm still weak. Sat for 45 minutes after getting up after a 4 day break – possibly the longest break since leaving the monastery . . . hm, that's something to think about.

Can it really be that since 2005, I've never taken more than a 4-day break from daily sitting? And as a practice that has been going on and off since college, why do I do it? Is there any benefit? That's easy to answer: I don't know, and I do it on faith.

My negativity level doesn't seem to be abating, nor this pent up rage which constantly has me perplexed asking what am I so angry about? Perhaps sitting is helping me maintain some modicum of homeostasis in this ridiculous life that has no support and no infrastructure, and no active positive elements.

My life really is one big joke now. The layers of irony make me hope there's an anthropomorphic God so I can punch Him in the face when I meet Him. He'll no doubt be smiling smugly at me which will infuriate me even more.

My self-importance in wanting to but failing to commit suicide finally condemns me to living a life of abject irrelevance. Yup, real funny. Even as I focus on a pre-leaving Taipei attempt, I smirk at myself in disbelief, "that again?" Fine, go ahead and get your little attempt over and done with.

But that's just one aspect of it. One of the other aspects is still that I have to do it, I have to get passionate again, I need to focus my anger with it, I need to live to commit suicide. Otherwise I'm just alive. Dead. Where I am now.

What if I end up back in the U.S.? What then? Start over? I'm not 20 years old anymore. I need a reason. I have more than enough reasons to commit suicide. And all my reasons why I haven't are really lame and pathetic.

I have people throwing options at me at what I can do next. Some family members seem to have this misconception of me that I don't like other people's options because I like to figure things out myself, and I'm stubborn that way. The truth is I'm totally open to options, lord knows I'm not coming up with them myself – look at where I am now. Taiwan?!

I just don't like options offered by people who don't know the first thing about me.

And I end up deciding on whatever because I just don't care anymore, which is, mind you, a better excuse for committing suicide.

When I do consider those options people have offered, those are even more potent recipes for suicide. What the hell is this life I'm living anyway?

Lost in Beijing (蘋果) (China, 2007)

I really despise the repressive government regime of mainland China. I have a cousin who lives there and is about to get married to a mainlander . . . (waiting for the gasps to die down) . . . and he insists I can't be so black and white about it.

However, I repeatedly tell him that I don't necessarily have a problem with Chinese people or Chinese culture (which I just might, but that's a totally different issue), but the repressive nature of the authoritarian government. I understand that there are particularized difficulties in ruling over a billion people with a certain social order in mind, but I don't agree that repression is the only way of achieving those goals.

"Lost in Beijing" is a critical look at how modern life in Beijing has changed. It's so critical that I wondered how it got past the state censors. But apparently it didn't. Before it was approved for showing at the Berlin Film Festival, the director had to make over 50 cuts, watering down many seedy images of Beijing's underbelly, and basically even cutting out the bulk of one character's scenes (I'm guessing the prostitute, who has some inexplicable scenes).

The movie is about two couples of two different ages and classes that fall into a sort of tragicomedy of errors in their interactions. It's not necessarily any one character's fault. Each one contributes a small failing that turns into an issue bigger than any one of their contributions. And they keep doing it and it spirals out of control.

None of them alone are particularly unlikable, they can all pass as regular people trying to get by in the enigma of Beijing. They're not particularly stupid, but they do little things that they don't think through and then suffer the consequence. It's hard to sympathize with them, but they're not unsympathetic characters.

None of them, however, have a moral compass, and that's what I like about the English title (the translation of the Chinese title is "Apple", which is a character's name). Without a compass, you get lost, and that's what these characters are.

The statement the film makes about modern China is broad and multi-faceted. I don't even want to say what I think that statement is, because I might be wrong and it would probably be incomplete. But that a statement is being made is projected in the several montages of Beijing life that appear in the film – this montage is showing Beijing in broad strokes, and this film is saying something about Beijing.

It just pisses me off knowing that the film is censored. That some government panel decided for me, over the director, what I should see.

Recommended, very well done. 8 out of 10 tomatoes.

I've been sick in bed the last several days. I woke up on Saturday morning with the start of a sore throat and knew it was going to become el sickie. But since I wasn't really feeling it yet, I decided to go for a ride.

I figured it could go one of two ways, either the ride would tire my body out more and weaken it and make the cold worse, or it would be a psychological stand against getting sick, telling my body I wasn't going to stand for getting sick. You can guess which way it went. My body and I need a better way of communicating with each other.

As soon as I started out, I knew I didn't have it in me to do the ride I was thinking of doing (Pinglin), which would involve a serious climb. I stayed in Taipei and stuck to riverside bikeways.

The cold was getting its groove by the time of Saturday night's gig, which I got through, got paid and immediately left. Since then I've been bed-ridden, except for crawling out to work a part-time shift on Sunday.

It's a really nasty cold, but I've been taking it in stride. I've been watching a lot of movies on cable and DVDs. Sleeping when tired.

Sleeping has been iffy, but without the pressure of work or classes, it hasn't been bothering me. When I try to sleep, I leave the TV on with sleep timer, and having something in the background always gets me to sleep. It was like that during the insomnia, too.

Then I would wake up again not long after the TV would shut off, and I would turn on the TV and the timer again and do it again. And then after several times of doing that, I would manage to sleep for several hours.

But then waking up isn't bothersome because I'm sick, there's nothing I have to do, nowhere to go. No appetite. Although the temperature sensitivity was a bit annoying, varying back and forth from soaking in sweat and being frigidly cold.