What I bought at Lai Fong

Here are the late Qing (ca. 1900) dragon coin cloisonné Chinese dishes I bought in the cavern of Lai Fong:

shopping

One of the really cool things about living in Honolulu is being able to look in all the designer boutiques. Dior and Chanel are diagonal from each other in the Ala Moana Center, and walking between them is kind of like walking through No Man's Land in the Galliano-Lagerfeld war. My eyes distracted by the latest flowery chiffon slip dress/tactical guided missile, I was almost hit in the back with flying tweed.

grievous oversight

Okay, I tell you that I live in Honolulu and that I'm a novelist who writes psychedelic comic surf fiction.
(You can check my veracity, since some stories appeared in Surfer magazine a few winters ago.)
I just noticed that I have yet to post any photos of anyone surfing.
Here's our local kid Jamie O'Brien winning this year's Pipe Masters in grand style:

Photo courtesy of The Honolulu Advertiser.

quote of the moment

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra." --Lewis Carroll

what i did last night

psycho updates to my web page:


http://www.electroasylum.com
It's even more disorienting than before.
Souvenirs available here.

Sideshow

As a down-to-earth diversion from our respective international engagements and wild limo escapes eluding obsessed, and truly wonderful, fans, Mr. Chang--of Kupaaina fame--and I--of Wave of Incarnations renown--may open a surreal and possibly existent Honolulu-L.A. trans-Pacific law firm specializing in entertainment law and assault, murder, and drugs cases.
*Do* let us know your thoughts.

Three of a Kind

Okay, this is courtesy of LA-the-sage, Petrouchka, and Prattoons:

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY ::
1) Grace
2) Grace! Grace!
3) Hey, YOU!!

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD ::
1) frankysbride
2) metropolitaine
3) midwayprincess

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF ::
1) Imagination
2) Sense of humor
3) Tall and healthy and lean rather than fat

THREE THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF ::
1) A tendency to think negatively
2) Inability to find reality as much fun as dreaming
3) It would be cool to have more focus, occasionally

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE ::
1) Irish
2) Czech (Bohemian)
3) English

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU ::
1) death
2) unforeseen taxes
3) sharks

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS ::
1) computer
2) soy food
3) lipstick

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW ::
1) Black and pink mesh top
2) Black and white tie-dyed mesh skirt
3) Necklace of antique millefiori African trade beads

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS (at the moment) ::
1) The Vines
2) The Hives
3) Motorhead

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS (at the moment)::
1) 1969 by The Vines
2) I Hate To Say I Told You So by The Hives
3) Ballad of a Thin Man by Bob Dylan

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS ::
1) having an international bestseller
2) being famous
3) having millions of dollars

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP ::
1) laughter
2) love
3) fun

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE ::
1) I almost went home with a serial killer
2) I turned down Vassar
3) I slept with Iggy Pop

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU ::
1) Intensity
2) Leanness
3) Wiriness

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE SAME SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU ::
1) hand motions when speaking
2) pleasant tones of voice
3) pretty smiles

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO ::
1) eat meat
2) admire Donald Trump
3) understand how Margaret Thatcher got elected

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES ::
1) reading
2) playing piano
3) playing video games

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW ::
1) do more web design
2) read Kenneth Patchen
3) study for the Bar exam

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING ::
1) Novelist
2) Criminal Defense Attorney
3) Uncoordinated Professional Skateboarder

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION ::
1) Greece
2) Japan
3) Java

THREE KID'S NAMES ::
1) n/a
2) n/a
3) n/a

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE ::
1) Finish reading all of Shakespeare
2) Go to the Emerald City
3) Find a map of Wonderland

THREE WAYS I AM STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY ::
1) I like to watch football
2) I love samurai movies
3) The workings of mechanical things fascinate me

THREE WAYS I AM STEREOTYPICALLY A CHICK ::
1) I like pink
2) I hate lifting heavy things
3) I like to be told I'm pretty

THREE CELEB CRUSHES ::
1) Craig Nicholls
2) Bam Margera
3) John Galliano

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW ::
1) you
2) you
3) and you

Hinky-dinky Parlez-vous Cheer up the face The war is through --Burma Shave

Buy Wave of Incarnations, the comic psychedelic surf novel, here!

Buy Kevin's funky neo-retro Hawaiian band's CD here!

Lost in Sans-Serif Land

Up to this point, I'd like to think that my approach to this blog has been humanistic and personal rather than rant-based.

The perceptive reader sights the chary but imminent pressure system looming on the red-sky-at-morning horizon.

It's not a rant. It's a question:

Where the fuck are the serif fonts?

Like IE in proportion to Firefox, Arial and Verdana appear to comprise 95% of the text displayed on current web pages, until recently including this one. And they're so fucking tiny you need a magnifying glass to read them. (Or the assistance of some abused pallid techie child wearing 3" glasses whilst jacked into The Matrix/La Femme Nikita's Section/HAL/Steve Jobs's sleep-talking dream recorder/a devestatingly revamped FORTRAN card reader/name your favorite.) They're displayed on less-than-memorable colored backgrounds--like the colors of a restroom wall--and the fact that they're so unobtrusive and bland--and that the text accompanying them is often equally bland--is apparently supposed to state with categorical force that the content is Professional and Intelligent. *scratches head and whispers: I thought we all got over the elementary school bathroom bully decades ago. Apparently-- not...?*

Look, Times New Roman, even in its cheesiest moments on wbs.net, has always been a truly elegant font capable of many, many inspiring uses. (Currently, it's usually hijacked as some pseudo-high-brained anal scribbling on fake parchment.) And Courier is matched by none for sincerity.

You'll note that it's Courier that's displayed as you type in the draft that will ultimately be published as the latest brainchild post on your beloved blog.

And it's Times New Roman that's displayed as your preview before the fucker is launched into Arial.

Anyway, I for one feel definitely adrift in a cold, cold sea of hard graceless fonts adopted by some of the more competitive members of the designer set 7 or 8 years ago in a bid to be completely different from, if not more inspirational than, the wildly-enthused crowd.

If anyone is interested in organizing on behalf of the serif-deprived, please comment on this post or email me or just post a fucking page with a serif font.

Incidentally, I am far from mad at the world, although commenting for once upon its peccadilloes, and I wish everyone a very happy Mardi Gras and Martin Luther King Day.

Photos of the really nice things from Lai Fong--and some other way cool stuff--will be posted as soon as that great dragon, Time, is no longer breathing down my neck.

Riot in drugstore Calling all cars 100 customers 99 jars --Burma Shave

Buy Wave of Incarnations, the psychedelic comic surf novel, here!

Buy Kevin's funky neo-retro Hawaiian band's CD here!

amazing

I opened the door--like solving the final riddle in a maddening RPG--and actually...stood inside...Lai Fong.

The rooms were as I remembered them-- cavernous, tall, and dim. The display cases heavy glass and ancient dark wood. Piles of brocade and pre-Territorial Chinese robes as high as the Mountain of Heaven. Dioramas of ivory carvings. Cloisonné in exclesis. Antique toys, antique furniture, antique carved boxes, antique Hawaiiana, screens, teapots, lamps, jewelry, mah jong sets, my mind boggled and melted before this vast Persistence of Memory.

The guy, tall and pale, bowed attentively over a female acquaintance seated at a decayed stool by a display case in the back. She was examining a cloisonné trinket box universe in gold and canary through a jewel-handled magnifying glass. He was surprisingly friendly and displayed a marked preference for cash.

What did I buy? Ah. Well, it's two exquisite little things, one black and one green. They're both plain enamel with scalloped gold wire (cloisonné) trim. They are two little matched circular dishes, polished to a high degree, each with one bronze Qing dynasty (ca. 1900) dragon coin forming the base. (Pics forthcoming when Time isn't breathing down my neck.)