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Thank you, although your name is uncommon.

This is the first draft- you're the only one who knows what I'm going to paint, so what this will be. My job is to paint, you job is to guess. My job is to surprise you, your job is say "wow".

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Christopher Gardner: Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?

Christopher: All right.

Christopher Gardner: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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我的“自恋”路人皆知，“自恋”到连遮掩都懒得。解闷儿时要么照照镜子，要么便去google一下自己，看看又有哪家知名艺术媒体抄袭了我的“美文”，小门户的网站若是抄了，还经常让我觉得面子上挂不住。其实我对所有转载我文章的人都心生疑虑，因为我的工作性质是把所有的狗屁艺术都要吹得天上有地上无，这实在有悖于“批评”的性质。

若是大牌，才不吝自己的东西有多少人用，才不会在乎那点小名，就像只有小明星才动不动澄清丑闻。我尽量识着大体，端着架子，可骨子里还是在乎自己的署名的。一次因为什么事想发脾气，便迁怒到一个博客头上，留言问他懂不懂规矩，不知道任何转载都要注明出处的吗？没想到人家在回复中连连道歉，倒是我觉得太把自己当根儿葱了，气儿立马泄了。

倒有些不打不相识的味道。从此我开始看他的博客，没想到今天发现了他转载的一篇好文章，作者段炼。我是不喜欢看艺术批评的，觉得艺术是关乎感觉的，不懂艺术的看了文章只有更糊涂。不过段炼的文章写得有趣，也许他在首段便一语中的：

“按照艺术理论界和史学界的一般定义，当代艺术产生于最近二十五年，并以当代话题为主旨。可是这样的定义有嫌宽泛，几乎今日的任何作品都可以称为当代艺术。有鉴于此，本文聚焦于一个具体方面，采用正话反说的修辞法，来质疑今日流行的时髦艺术，并用性与政治的媾合，来界定时髦艺术，说明时髦艺术并非当代艺术。之所以如此，是因为今日大红大紫的时髦艺术，往往披上当代艺术的外衣，以观念艺术为旗号，既在艺术圈内呼风唤雨，也在艺术圈外招摇撞骗，实则涂污了中国的当代艺术。”

即使不从私利考虑(同行是冤家，我是厌恶嫉妒那些垃圾能换来银子的“家”们的)，我也觉得他言之在理，他所说的当代艺术现象也是我和朋友们所不齿的。从我狭隘的爱国主义出发，我是不希望外国人认为中国当代艺术就这点儿起子，就像我憎恨许多人认为北京文化就是胡同文化一样，你的无知是次要的，我的脸面虚荣可紧要得很哪。

那个博客的最新文章又是我的文章，第一次，我希望他拿下来，因为和段炼的文章、至少和我看到的段炼的文章相比，我觉得自己被人寒碜了…

Filed under: Bunch of Contradictions
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Looking at those beautiful colors, I have to, I must start painting. You have no idea how much I’m scared that I would screw up the color, since they have been in the corner for 2 years. But finally I’m going to use them, even if eventually it turns out I suck. Fine, then let's see how bad I will suck.

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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Me: When you send me the pictureee?

Snowball: Which one? You mean the one with three of us?

Me: Not exactly. It's me, you guys are just background.

The picture-Snowball, Liuhui and I ( Taken by Snowball's husband Aidan). Snowball said the Beijing trip in this summer was like a dream which everything didnt seem real to her.

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http://view.break.com/388549 - Watch more free videos

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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How long I have to suffer from insomnia. I wish I could fall asleep before midnight, it’s just a dream…I really don’t know how to get over insomnia, even if I take a prescription sleeping pill which used to work and have wine although I am so bad at drinking. I read boring thing to make me sleepy. When I turn off the light, I try to focus on my breath, but then I forget how to breathe…

I feel so awake when midnight comes. I don’t know what kind of animal I am. I will take another sleeping pill later, damn, how luxurious for me to have an appropriate sleep.

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Just watched this film. There's nothing left but the music in the ending, nothing left but a man always looks good in white shirt.

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Freedom!!!!!!!! You have to wake up and i will go to sleep, you suck!

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I accidentally found photos again. Brendan was sad when he heard Kurt Vonnegut passed away. I was sadder when I read following words which he sent me.

Where is home? I've wondered where home is, and I realized, it's not Mars or someplace like that, it's Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there's no way I can get there again. - Kurt Vonnegut

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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I hereby appoint myself Offical Hater of the 2008 Olympic Torch design. I've always been obsessed with traditional Chinese decorative patterns, which I've worked on in the past (and will do in the future, honest). I feel like I've been planning a heist for years, and now I find someone else has stolen the jewels which few care about it before. Scum. Subhuman scum.

Well, It's normal, it happens...

I think I'll just sulk.Arse.

Cloud of Promise, huh?!It's everywhere!- Pictures: pigment painting with foil/sketch of relief bronze/torch

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It's almost 6am now, I feel pretty awake though.

Looking favorite paintings would make me awake. I know it but I couldn't help doing that. I want some fun. Especially my current job is to write UK art review weekly - I really like it, it's about art! But I don't like one of the requests of the review is to talk about art only in positive way. You know, most contemporary art for me is just rubbish. I need to take fresh air break by looking chinese traditional art.

I've been looking Ni Zan's stuff in last week. He's always one of my favorite artist since I first looked his stuff. People asked him why no people in his painting, he said "Looking around, who deserves it?"

I like his answer. He's too awake though.

Sleeping pill works, i will get some food then go to bed. Have a nice weekend and i have to say sorry, my complaint seems never disappears.

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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Just smsed my girlfriends - Do you feel sometimes all the people you know are very annoying?

My favorite answer is "yes",then "especially right now and the first one is myself",then "often, my husband says if menopause comes early".

My non-favorite answer is "What's up?","You'd better have vacation",and silence. - Will be ignoring them for a short while.

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I drew this back in the Jurassic Period, so I forget whether I was inspired by Rilke's poem first or put it in the middle to fill that space:

At bottom the ancient, gnarled,
    root of all things
upraised, hidden springs,
    that are not revealed.

Hunt-horn and battle helm,
    elder's disputes,
angry men, overwhelmed,
    women like lutes ...

Crowded twigs on a tree,
    not one of them free ...
One! oh climb higher ... oh higher ...

Most still break. But instead,
    this first one, overhead,
bends itself into a lyre.

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I hate flowers. I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move. - Georgia O'Keeffe

I found this line searching Flickr for "flower", and it made me laugh. I still love O'Keeffe, although we spent more time figuring out if she was a lesbian and if her lover might have been her husband in a former life. I never thought her flowers just implied sex - she shouldn't be underestimated like that.

A couple of friends think some of my work is similar to O'Keeffe's style. I guess they mean the curved lines and intensity like this one comparing to this . I wasn't familiar with O'Keeffee's work when I drew it - I just drew the only way I knew how. This kind of blindness is very interesting.

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“Hey, you’ll leave for more than two weeks. I’m going to miss you! You indeed look like Edward Norton, so I’ll watch more Edward Norton film, for missing you! �? I said, to Brendan, two weeks ago.

. . .

Today.

“Hey, Wula, I’ll borrow this magazine from you, because there’s review about Tarkovsky, plus, Edward Norton is on the cover!�? Then I pointed Edward Norton’s photo to Wula.

“Oh, that guy,�? he took a glance at the cover, “He came here a few days ago, for interview�?.

“What?! Why you didn’t tell me?! You don’t know I like him?! Oh, yes, you don’t know. But you should know, don’t you think he looks like Brendan?!�?

“er…does he?�?

“You magazine is mine now, for your misjudgment.�?

“OK...when Brendan comes back?�?

“Who cares?! I still can’t believe I missed E-d-w-a-r-d N-o-r-t-o-n!�?

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li: 你家祖上有没有贵�??

Meatball: 我们那儿都是贵�?。

li: 那�?�?田?

Meatball: 你们中国傻呢，把贵�?都给�?�了。我们呢，把人民给�?�了，都�?�以当贵�?了。

Meatball: 我们——我们是罕�?的�?田贵�?。

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Finally someone tagged me to do that 'five things nobody else knows about you' thing…! It’s a bit difficult to remember what Brendan doesn’t know, since when he stops talking, I start, but here goes . . .

(1) I held toweling blankets instead of soft toys until…a few years ago.

I had two big toweling blankets to hold and smell –maojinbei in Chinese, so I named them beibei, which also means babe. They had a sleepy smell which made me happy and calm, so I held them most of the time when I was at home. They died though, they got thinner and thinner (unlike me) until they tore really easily.

(2) I was the fastest runner in my class at primary school

For short distance,50M or 100M. But I was only good in my class, on the school sports day I sucked – last, or second last, every time.

(3) Once upon a time, I was good at politics exams.

The comments on Brendan’s Chinese blog reminded me - I gave up the exam even though I spent months preparing. The politics textbook made me vomit, but in middle school, I was not bad. Once I got full marks in filling the blanks, which was a mission impossible, I was called “xing xing of human being�? by my classmate , xing xing in Chinese, either means star or orangutan, I had no idea what they referred to.

(4) I only can wink at you with my left eye.

Because I don’t know how to close my right eye only!

(5) My pain endurance is not bad

For instances: When I was eight the dentist pulled my tooth out without anesthetic and I didn't cry at all; when I first went to the Chinese doctor for Tui Na last year, I got another nickname – strong female solder, because I didn’t scream or yell under doctor’s hands. By the way, Brendan went to there too, it turned out he is a well-trained spy.

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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I was a bit freaked out when I couldn’t get any of the websites I usually check, particularly my email account, since I was waiting for an email about a job I am really interested in. I found out it was because of the earthquake in Taiwan, which somehow broke the Chinese Internet. I felt like I was living on a remote island, I was even tempted to tell my friends outside of China that “Hey, I am ok! We still have water to flush the toilet!�?. Then I realized it’s just the Internet, not as dramatic as I'd hoped.

But I kept pretending. I told people I came to the bar because the internet was down and I had finally been set free by modern technology. I kept asking when the internet was going to be fixed, as if asking when the army would come to liberate us? I watched too many disaster movies? Or was I searching for a chance to laugh at my friends who rely on the Internet even more than I do?

We were liberated much quicker than I expected. I still can’t open many websites, but my friend’s Internet speed is faster than before- so unfair. Maybe this is fair, yes, nobody likes complainer, including fake complainer.

Filed under: Marginalia of Days
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