Category: Literature

Daily Mind-ful 7 April 2017

Daily vlog diary: Kippers for breakfast – they’re nasty-looking as hell but scrumptious; my cousin, Yang May Ooi, a published novelist and all-around, left-wing kick-ass multi-hyphenate is writing a play called Butterfly in Blue Jeans to upend the sort of race-gender stereotypes enshrined in works like Madame Butterfly; having your own domain gives you much more control over my content; one of my huge life-hacks is purposeful procrastination without stress; I just filed a 500 word feature article — right before the deadline — but there’s a hitch; seeking advice to recover monies wrongfully withheld by an art gallery from my friend, an artist (with a huge social media following no less); I’m posting about this mess so that the offending art gallery can see and hear about it before a lawsuit is commenced; Louise cooks up a groaning repast.
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Daily Mind-ful 6 April 2017

Daily vlog diary: The economic tax of slow internet in the countryside; until now, I’d taken high speed broadband for granted and considered it a god-given right; what it means to be an artist – not that I’m a good one, of course; my son, Sam, helped me realize that I have an obsessive, nearly pathological artistic need to vlog; it’s quite possibly the most liberating thing that’s ever happened to me as an adult; now, I don’t worry about being popular or building a following and just follow sheer personal conviction; my biggest life-hack is religiously reading The Week; my first visit to London Chinatown; my cousin, Yang May, talked about her upcoming play, Butterfly in Blue Jeans, at China Exchange; Asians are probably the biggest users of Dettol in the world. All my cousins had a bottle in their handbags and one cousin was wearing her Dettol on the outside; home in time to enjoy a cocktail with John and Patrick.
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Vlog #7: Not just a book review


This vlog is about my extremely personal reaction to last year’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sellout by Paul Beatty. This novel is a caustic and hilarious condemnation of political correctness. Reading it allowed me to understand (in the most backwards-ass fashion possible) why the righteous, high-minded condemnation of historical oppressions by do-gooding, white, liberal progressives bugs the crap out of me. I say “the most backwards-ass fashion possible” because it took the absurd character of Beatty’s “Me”, an over-educated, young black farmer from East LA, who reinstates segregation and takes on a slave, to understand why white people have no standing, by definition, to pronounce, let alone act upon, the prejudice experienced by black, brown, yellow, orange or dusk-colored people. By the way, it is because I read this defining book that I revised my personal mission to “vlog in a post-PC world without apologies). Now, if only I could write 1/10 as well as Beatty!
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