We treasure ourselves for looking forward, anticipating what's to come. We also measure the past -- collectively, obsessively. One leads to the other, but neither serves us well.

Now is a good time, see.

Shanghai-ku

Toes tickle expat
ballsacks; teabags in China
steep eternally.

Taikang-lu

Jarrett suggested that I take a look at this new-school alley just off of Taikang-lu, full of arts and crafts. Good call.


The alley


China is apparently experimenting with intellectual property. Only in this alley, though.


There's a street like this in Seoul.


North Korean propaganda posters at Postcard


Contribute to national growth with increased coal production! Afterwards, kegger at the Dear Leader's place!


Souvenirs through a shop window


Woman, dried flowers

Shanghai Streets

Man smokes, releases bird; bird strikes bell, returns to man.


Laundry and pushcart in the old city.


Man and his puppy on a sidewalk in the French Concession


62580000


How long before this cluster of tenements becomes a skyscraper?


Market street near the old city


Crimes against anatidae


Songbird apartments

Changshu-lu, Anfu-lu

Mike / Michael lives in a sweet bachelor pad that befits his official status as Premier of the Shanghai Expats / Chief Officer of Native Training. Its prime location in the French Concession is notable for its proximity to both the Steamed Bun boulevard and the Soup Dumpling street. Just across the street is the skyscraper mysteriously named The Center.


Mike's room


My quarters


Old Man Descending Chinese Staircase

An American Barbecue in China

After these photos were taken, Yuan became mysteriously trashed, and then we dosed him.


Yuan brought the dirty South to Shanghai. He channeled Bob Ross into some happy potatoes.


Meanwhile, Michael channeled some chocolate onto a metal pan in a process that took several hours.


"I was thinking mousse, mousse, cake, chocolate, mousse, cake, mousse?"
"Can I dip my balls it when you're done?"


Did he?


A cake grows in a Chinese refrigerator.


My contribution to the cause: stalking mushrooms. Then I went prowling for tomatoes.


Yuan's watermelon relish.

in defense of meaningless pleasure

She who cries without tears stands before the cameras and begs for forgiveness. I am in a generous mood, begot by boredom. Miss U.S.A. goes out drinking, blows a little coke along the way, and ends up with her tongue inside her fellow beauty queen Miss Teen U.S.A. on some dance floor in Manhattan. Moments of low inhibition and raging hedonism are allowances we make to those we celebrate, particularly one chosen to embody our blondest aesthetic ideals. We have -- well, I suppose we have not; a panel of free-agent celebrities has judged this young woman against our reproductive ideals and deemed her to be the finest in the country. It was Kansas this year, corn-fed and coal-powered, an old-fashioned gal from the Land of Tomorrow. She defines what is possible for the rest of us. If she can't let go and dance into the night, what and how much can we expect for ourselves?

AC

dogs

sightseeing

Never met a stranger I could not devour

A gallery of the divine