Cultural Revolution

I went to a very interesting talk today, about the arts and China's Cultural Revolution. The speaker was Laikwan Pang, a professor from Hong Kong. I took more than four pages of notes and then bought her book right after as well.

I also really liked this painting that she included in her PowerPoint:


It's part of the series by Li Keran on a poem by Chairman Mao, named "Thousands of Hills in a Crimsoned View."

Old friend

Today I got to spend some time with my high-school friend W. He'd stopped by to visit us once, maybe 10-15 years ago, and other than that I hadn't seen him since I was 18, my second year in college. (Unless he also stopped by to see us when we lived in Richmond Heights? That seems quite probable, but I was only 22 or so then anyway).

Now he's separated from his wife of 20+ years and had just endured a natural disaster (the fires in Santa Rosa, where he lives), and he was in town because his mom was about to pass away at age 96 or something, from kidney failure. Lots of stress, but he seemed pretty relaxed. It turns out he's planning to move back here and live in his mom's house - he's thinking of hosting board game nights, which we'd love to play in. It feels strange to reconnect with an old friend, but he certainly seemed like a normal extension of the person I used to know. I'm looking forward to introducing him to J. So, cool!

Also, it turns out that in cooler weather, they turn the outside seating at the Friendly Street deli into an enclosed space with heaters, which was really quite nice.