Visions of New Haven II

[print/paint on cardboard, bus stop, Whalley Avenue.]


Photoblog making its reappearance soon.

All around the world...

...same song

An index of recent work gathered from around the net.

• Murders for Gold in El Salvador - protest leaders killed on behalf of an American mining company
• Hip-hop Is Saving Asian-American People... - Asian-Americans find a voice through hip-hop (later reposted on Yale's AASA Blog)
• Flex Mathews: Making Music, Having Fun. - profile of DC hip-hop artist Flex Mathews for NomadicWax.com
• To the Rulers - a reflection on Psalm 58's prophecy of vengeance on the unjust
• The Responsibility of Christians in Art. - transcript of a talk originally given in April 2009 on Christians called to art

Thoughts on a wintry night

This city... I have great love for this city.

I remember one of the first thoughts that I had, upon arriving here. It was a stroke of uncharacteristic humility amidst the self-promoting, slyly arrogant chatter of Camp Yale: This is going to be home for the next four years.

I had, of course, no idea of how right I would be. For the next four years - and then another one and a half, and counting - this city has been my birthplace. Every year, every semester - even monthly, weekly - I've been renewed, reborn, found myself weaker and more capable than I'd dreamt (in nightmare or ecstatic reverie).

Now I'm taking steps - concrete steps - toward finally bidding farewell to New Haven.

That name, so fitting: a new haven. New - budding, bidding me forward. It's been a cold wind on my face as I bustle down the sidewalk, invigorating my strides. A warm breeze on my back - Oh, I'll see it at least once more! - lying out, out in the sun, conversing with people who are long since departed from here.

Haven - a place of rest and peace. I have fallen ill here, I have been healed. I have left it, but always only for a time, and then returned; and, far more tellingly, my heart has always returned with me (if, that is, it ever even left at all).

Of course, it is not now the time to leave - but it is drawing up. I found my haven, of course, or perhaps it found me. But the Spirit calls, and I think the Spirit calls me away.

I remember standing at the crest of East Rock last Fall, when the wind was biting but still an embrace, and looking out over its streets and valleys. From the summit, you can see the terrain: New Haven lies cupped in a shoreline valley, surrounded - by friendly hills beaming benevolent? Or towering giants glowering down? - and I could see all the paths of this city that I have walked, run, biked. Sometimes I walked hand-in-hand, or in comfortable chattiness; a few times, awkwardly, neurotically, all too self-aware.

This is, I guess, a salute

BACK IN THE STUDIO!

Parental Advisory - PG13 vocabulary (i.e., I say bulls**t in the chorus... my bad. dont listen if this will cause you to stumble; or talk to me about it first thats good too)

BUT GRAND MASTER IS BACK IN THE STUDIO!
WRITING UP HOOKS!
AND VERSES!

WE BACK UP IN HERE MAN!!

dropping that hot, hot, fire (as opposed to the cold fire) that you have been missing.

but you already know that! you are the ones what done been missing it!

NEW INTERNETS SINGLE: HUSTLE & GRIND

Also streaming at the Grand Master - 108 Tongues/BUSTOUT - myspace page.

Original collabo version with Macken' available too....!

1

More brothers ballin it up

Congratulations to the homies (and my ex-housemates) Yier and Nate for balling out on the electrical engineering circuit (pun always intended, you know that).

Yale is not a school to which honors often go, but I guess these guys were able to rise above the vapid sea of mediocrity surrounding them and overcome the odds... who knows, "that school in New Haven" just might become a credible academic institution (nah) with guys like this around.

A new beginning.

"All Good Things..." -English Proverb. Or Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.

Even the humblest of things can spring from a humble beginning; but every humble beginning must come from the end of some other beginning (it's profound. [no it's not]), whether more or less humble.

And so, I must, with misty-eyed regret, contemplate the end of a thing; and the beginning of another.

It's one of the oldest voices in the book of tragically spurned love: "I'm sorry; there's another...". But here we go: while American Dream, Chinese Hero has served as a wonderful jumping-off point for my musings, personal and professional, I now find it more useful - if not necessary - to divide the two spheres of my identity.

But this is not an end! It is a beginning!

American Dream, Chinese Hero will continue on in more or less of its present (and traditional) form: a forum for me to post shakily-taken photographs from my camera(phone), eject musings of a highly unprofessional (and undesirable) nature, and post about the latest and greatest in the sneaker/mixtape/rap album world.

But there will be no more of the wittily incisive (yeah right) commentary on race, ethnicity, politics, philosophy, or theology that have preceded it. Instead, new things arise:

1) For vague (and unqualified) sociological discourse - both personal reflections and public musings - having to do with the field of Asian-American studies, hip-hop discource, political discussions (such as Affirmative Action and Just War theory), and other academic subjects, please head to Iason De Silentio.

The title - "Jason from the Silence" - comes from the pseudonym of Danish existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, Johannes de Silentio, referencing the Biblical John the Baptist: a voice out of the silence, speaking into silent world around him. This was literal and prophetic: John came into prophetic existence in the wilderness of 1st-century Judea, far from the urban centers of his time; and his voice came into the public sphere following four hundred years of prophetic silence. John's voice - strident, urgent - was the wake-up call preparing the people for a new revelation.

Kierkegaard found himself in similar circumstances. In his 19th-century Denmark, he faced an overbearing church hierarchy, a numb national congregation, and inadequate, distant theologies. Kierkegaard's voice awoke, aroused, and enlivened his people, Church, and philosophy forever, in his role as the Father of (Christian) Existentialism.


2) For formal and informal reflections on Evangelicalism, ministry, the global Church, Scripture, and faith, I am establishing a third space, seeking my name.

Names, in short, have power: when they are forced onto us (as by a schoolyard bully), they are repugnant, hateful, instruments of spite and derision. When snatched from the lips of a lover, they are glorious, shimmering, eternal things.

As a Christian, one of the things to which I cling dearly - desperately - is the thought that my name - given to me not only by my earthly parents, but my eternal Father - is written "in the Book of Life", a book within which no hand could ever dare raise the power to blot or inscribe a single character.

The Biblical conception of naming is an interesting thing: not only does a name describe who we are, a well-chosen name - a true name, as it were - prophecies (tells the truth) about who we will be. Names are not only references, but serve as stories - signifiers - prescriptions.

As a young, immature man seeking - seeking Christ, God, Grace, and Love - I think, ultimately, I and all others who are on a journey of faith are simply seeking our names. Our true, eternal, right names.



The long and short of it:
-3 blogs:

1. American Dream, Chinese Hero - an informal personal blog: photographs, personal updates, and my music.
   
2. Iason De Silentio - a formal ethnic studies blog, particularly touching on current events, Asian and Asian-American studies, hip-hop culture, and philosophy (primarily ethics) blog.
3. seeking my name - A reflective and contemplative faith and ministry blog, discussing Christian living, Evangelicalism, Scripture, and theology.

Complex.com - 50 Most Racist Movies

Full disclosure: my homegirl sooey is on her hustle over at Complex mag's digital division, so I have a personal stake in this...

Still I am not gonna front like complex.com's commentary is anything but 50/50 (at best) in their track record... half of the time, they're profiling dope outfits, brands, personalities, etc.; and the other half of the time, it's puerile attempts at lowest-common-denominator frat boy comedy that blow up in their faces (sorry, "ironic" misogyny is still misogyny...).



And this time, it looks like they got one mostly right, calling out 50 flicks that (more or less) deserve to be called out for their B.S.: Complex.com's 50 Most Racist Movies.

I'm not all that crazy about some of their choices - Passion of the Christ, for one - but all in all, I'll shoot off some props (none) where they're deserved.