Bonnie Chan Photography | blog

the 100 photo project.

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:58:00 -0700

“Over the course of 2012, we’re giving 100 disposable cameras to 100 people aged between 1 and 100, inviting each of them to capture one week in their life.”

the burning house.

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 01:48:02 -0700

A while ago, I sent in a submission to a tumblr called The Burning House, which posts people’s responses to the question “If your house was burning, what would you take with you?” The majority of submissions are from people who, like me, take it as an opportunity to lump a bunch of their favorite things into a pile on the floor — which, I will admit, is actually more closely answering the question “If you had to pack for Burning Man, what would you take with you?”

A few people seem to equate “burning house” with “the apocalypse.” (They are probably also the ones who regularly check the batteries in their smoke detectors.)

Fascinatingly, some people would grab things like deodorant and mascara.

And a few parents just get real.

plans.

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 01:33:32 -0700

Tonight, my friend Molly and I started a conversation about Making Plans. (Notice the capitalization, which signifies Importance.) I’m a big fan of Plans — making them, that is. I have tons of Google Docs with titles like “Things to do in NYC” and “Writing retreat planning doc.” In fact, I just created two new Google Docs today.

Molly’s and my latest respective Plans will essentially revolve around moving ourselves upward through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

The pyramid above is a generally accepted summary of Abraham Maslow’s theory about which needs must be met for a person to achieve self-actualization, which is essentially the “full personal potential.” In the pyramid representation, the most fundamental needs form the base of the pyramid. Once those basic needs are met, then an individual can begin thinking about meeting the other needs that move him/her towards the top of the pyramid.

I can say that I’ve managed to nail down the basic physiological needs pretty well. Though honestly I’m a bit confused that “sex” is down there right alongside things like “breathing” and “pooping.” How much sex is enough sex to qualify one as meeting basic physiological needs? But digression aside, generally speaking, I take care of my own physiological needs and regulate my own pH levels like a champ.

That generally leaves me squashed into a combination of the other levels of the pyramid, as I imagine is true of most people. And all joking aside, contemplating Maslow’s hierarchy is pretty thought-provoking. Certainly his hierarchy helps me to organize some of my thinking around goal-setting. I work in different ways to move towards self-actualization on a constant basis — in photography and otherwise — but deep, true, authentic creativity is hard to come by when I’m not yet secure in some of the pieces underneath.

This summer, I’m focusing on allowing myself to lean into my friendships a little bit more. That’s the big thing, but there are also Plans to be made around employment, eating habits, homemaking, and health maintenance. For example, I’ve cut a few things out of my diet, mainly cheese and refined sugars, which I’m sure I’ll mention again here in this blog; and I go to a Total Body Conditioning class headed up by a tiny, immaculately muscled Colombian woman who blasts reggaeton while we all buff the floor with our sweat beginning at 6:30am.

Plans are fun.

Any day now…! (From a photo session with Svea at seven...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:49:00 -0700

Any day now…!

(From a photo session with Svea at seven months. As of right now, she is two days from her due date.) (!!!)

A shot from a photo project about my friends’ band, the...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:36:00 -0700

A shot from a photo project about my friends’ band, the Solace Trio. Here, Joe and Josh do some recording on a weekend afternoon. Ps- You should definitely check them out playing their song “Stairs” at Tim’s kitchen table.

insta-stories.

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:34:00 -0700

I’ve been spending some time this past month building up my Instagram grid (if you have Instagram, you can find me @bonnafied). I’m pretty new to Instagram and feel like I’m just now starting to get a handle on what I can do with it. I spent my first month on Instagram just trying to sort out what filter did what. I started sharing some of my Instagram photos on a carefully edited Tumblr, but my Instagram grid itself was a haphazard scramble of photos, half of which I wanted to delete and didn’t bother to. It took me a month to realize that you could take photos using your regular phone camera and then pull those photos into Instagram to edit, rather than taking photos directly through Instagram. Then it took me another little while to realize that Instagram is a photo-sharing network in and of itself, with a whole community of users who take their Instagram sharing and storytelling very seriously — promoting the iPhone as legitimate photographic tool, with its own set of beauties and limitations, just as with any other kind of camera; promoting iPhone photography as its own medium, with all of the filters and apps attendant to an art form that people take time to master.

This is such a photographic journey, discovering and utilizing all of the tools that are available now to instantaneously share, connect, reach out, and communicate with each other.

As I’ve spent more time on my Instagram feed, I’ve learned a bunch about how people are editing their photos, and seen many different kinds of storytelling. Some people use Instagram like Facebook (fitting, too, now that they’re One), sharing snapshots of meals and friends; some have 100,000 followers and every photo is a small photographic masterpiece. There are those whose photos tell an unfolding, daily story of family life spent in fields and backyards; those who document the ways light plays off of the skyscrapers in Manhattan as they walk to or from work every morning.

I’m also seeing the kinds of photos that people are taking on the iPhone 4. My friend Casey (the one who gifted his old iPhone 3 to me) did warn me about the staggering difference in quality between iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 photo resolution. He knew that, as a photographer, I would care about the difference once I realized what the difference was. But it took me a while to realize it; it was a novelty for me simply to take a cell phone photo that didn’t look like I was underwater.

Now that I’m aware of the difference, it’s probably just a matter of time before I upgrade. Yes, I’m thinking about upgrading, two years after the iPhone 4 came out. There’s always a sort of bittersweetness to realizing that I want something better than what I currently have; for a while there, I was practically tucking my iPhone 3 into bed and kissing it goodnight each night… and now my mind is already on to the next shiny thing. But that’s the line that I keep attempting to walk: Do something beautiful with what I have, upgrade when I can, and then keep doing something beautiful.

(Instead of, for example, making a virtue of using low-grade tools, and then making a virtue of refusing to upgrade, and then feeling weirdly resentful and hating my own art and going into a death-spiral and ultimately becoming a nun.)

First dildos, so clearly, now vaginas. The Bay Area chapter of...

Thu, 10 May 2012 13:18:00 -0700

First dildos, so clearly, now vaginas. The Bay Area chapter of NAPAWF (the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum) is putting on a production of the Asian Pacific American Vagina Monologues on May 17th, and last week they had a fundraising party in Oakland featuring a photo booth that featured a giant hand-sewn plush vagina.

The plush vagina will be auctioned off at the show, BTW. So buy your ticket now if you’d like a chance at a new body pillow.

The photo booth was manned by yours truly, and I gotta say… generally speaking, people tend to be pretty self-conscious in front of a camera, myself included. But make some props available, set up some studio lighting, have a full bar, and BAM! It becomes a tryout for America’s Next Top Model, Playa Playa Edition. Props are amazing. They’re like masks that allow people to give themselves permission to let loose. Then again, when the props are crotch-themed, I guess you can assume that there’ll be some letting loose involved.

You can view the full set of photos here.

My friends Jason and Svea are pregnant. We did a photo session....

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:47:00 -0700

My friends Jason and Svea are pregnant. We did a photo session. It was lovely. And then I spent the next few days crying. Neither joy nor sadness, exactly, but everything. This is one of the film outtakes.

This past month was full of opportunities to do photo sessions...

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:32:00 -0700

This past month was full of opportunities to do photo sessions with friends, which is perhaps the greatest gift for anyone who likes looking through a camera — looking through the viewfinder to find someone you care about on the other side.

In early April, my friend Michele and her fiance Chris drove up from Southern California to do an engagement photo shoot here in the Bay, which is where their relationship first began. I met Michele six years ago at a leadership training in Washington, DC, and last month I finally got to meet Chris. And not only did I get to shoot their engagement photos, I also got to host them in my living room. I showed them how you can lie on the air mattress while you use the remote to inflate and deflate it, which is a game I could play all day long. We also ate like horses. Fun times!

This photo shoot was a truly collaborative effort between Chris and Michele, the wardrobe and styling team of Retrofit Republic, the makeup team of Step Heavvy, and me. The whole episode was a total blast.

Congrats, Chris and Michele, and thanks for the day.

Meet the newest member of my family. This is the Leica M6 film...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:51:00 -0700

Meet the newest member of my family. This is the Leica M6 film camera that I’m in the process of buying off of my friend Joe, who takes beautiful photos. When Joe told me that he was selling his M6, I asked quite mildly, “Do you know how much you’re going to ask for?”, which ultimately really meant, “Pleez, let it be mine?”

“PLEEZ?”

(Image courtesy Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half, a blog which has nothing to do whatsoever with Leicas or this blog, other than that it’s one of my favorite blogs ever.)

A Leica is like a classic car — a beautiful piece of machinery designed and constructed to perfection, to be handled with some matter-of-factness tinged with reverence. I always assumed that a Leica would be on my wish list for a long, long, long time; given my financial resources, there are many other pieces of photo equipment that I probably need more immediately. But I couldn’t turn my back on the opportunity to buy a used Leica off of a friend who helped me to see myself as a photographer. This isn’t buying a camera off of a stranger. This is like recognizing and buying back a piece of myself.

I’ve been practicing a new thing lately, which is: Buying myself nice things. Last year, J.dub bought me a 16-35L lens for Christmas — another of those things I figured would take me years and years to acquire — and it was a gift that shattered my mind into a billion sparkly little pieces. It helped me to realize that Nice Things certainly have their place right alongside Cheap, Thrifted Things. More recently, he gently but firmly insisted that I accept a pair of boots that I was trying to pretend I didn’t want. And I bought myself a guitar to practice on. And a set of autographed limited edition postcards from Jim Goldberg’s Rich and Poor series.

(And after all that, the IRS is trying to tell me that I owe them money.)

Joe is kindly allowing me to buy the Leica in installments, so I made my first payment to him a few days ago on the 11th, and we agreed to keep on a plan for the 11th of each month. I calculated that I would therefore give him my last payment on August 11th — which, entirely coincidentally, happens to be my birthday. I think this is the best kind of gift I could give to myself.

lavatory self-portraits in the flemish style.

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:26:00 -0700

lavatory self-portraits in the flemish style.:

Nina Katchadourian:
“While in the lavatory on a domestic flight in March 2010, I spontaneously put a tissue paper toilet cover seat cover over my head and took a picture in the mirror using my cellphone. The image evoked 15th-century Flemish portraiture. I decided to add more images made in this mode and planned to take advantage of a long-haul flight from San Francisco to Auckland, guessing that there were likely to be long periods of time when no one was using the lavatory on the 14-hour flight.”

A great reminder to TAKE PHOTOS EVERYWHERE.

I got re-inspired by b&w film the other day. And since I...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:09:00 -0700

I got re-inspired by b&w film the other day. And since I have no time on my hands, I’ve started turning the photos on my Tumblr from color to b&w, one photo at a time. Stop by and check it out… it’ll be like watching the 1950s slowly eat up 2012!

welcome to my cottage!

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:12:00 -0700

One of my most favorite design websites is Design*Sponge, which perfectly combines voyeurism, obsessive compulsive disorder, Martha Stewart, and Sunset Magazine all into one. The genius of Design*Sponge is that it has regular features like Sneak Peeks into other people’s houses, and Before & Afters. I mean, who doesn’t love Before & Afters? (That was a rhetorical question.) (Before & Afters about anything, really — weight loss, wardrobe makeovers, interior design, you name it. I think Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is America’s version of prime-time porn.)

In the spirit of making a humble contribution to the design porn industry, I’m going to post Before & Afters of my new home. This will be a long, drawn-out extreme makeover because: a) I’m on a budget, and b) home makeovers are not, unfortunately, my full-time job. But one thing I’m really good at is squirreling boxes away into places where you can’t see them anymore!

Welcome to my cottage!

LIVING ROOM

As you can see, I strategically tidied up, put away my pink tutu, and unpacked some books. The shelving (above) is the most budget-friendly, disassembly-friendly storage option ever: some salvaged wood and some cinder blocks. All costing about 1/50th the price of any one of the photo books that I store on it.

Next steps for the living room: buy a rug, acquire a shabby chic armchair, install some high shelving along the ceiling for the four boxes of books I have not yet unpacked, get some plants, put up some photos, and paint the walls (yellow? purple?). Hopefully my property management company doesn’t ever find this blog.

One of the fantastic things about decorating is the stories that can come out of great finds. The sofa, for example: I bought the vintage white sofa from a woman named Stacy who had gotten it passed down to her from her great aunt. Stacy was moving and she really wanted to see the sofa go to someone who would love it and take care of it. She was happy to sell it to me because I was clearly so enthralled by it. I promised her that I would cherish it. Then, in front of her very eyes, my friend TK and I proceeded to move it from her living room into the back of my SUV, which unfortunately turned out to be about half the length of the sofa. It was also raining out. As Stacy tried to look as unconcerned as possible, TK and I wrapped the exposed half of the couch in plastic, tied the whole mess down with nylon rope, waved goodbye to Stacy, and drove the couch across town with half of it hanging out over the street — an episode for which I will think fondly of TK for the rest of my life.

BEDROOM

I don’t have any After photos for the bedroom yet because nothing’s changed. I wish I could say that my next big-ticket purchase is going to be a bed frame, but I’m instead prioritizing some photo gear, and will probably end up spending my money on 1,000 cups of coffee and the usual things that I end up spending my money on.

KITCHEN

When it comes to cleaning shit up, the best thing you can do for yourself is invite girlfriends over for dinner. In the interests of being able to cook food without having to first move aside boxes of shoes, I transformed my kitchen in two days — and 95% of that two days was devoted to assembling the black IKEA shelving unit.

Special thanks goes to my friend Chris, who held my hand (literally and figuratively) during my trip to IKEA. Chris is the perfect person to go IKEA shopping with, because in the moment when you’re on the edge of sanity and insisting that you really do need a $4.99 jute doormat, he will look you square in the eyes and tell you to put that garbage down.

the in-between post before i post for real.

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:38:56 -0700

I moved last weekend. With the help of some good friends, unexpectedly fair weather, and a U-Haul truck, I successfully relocated my worldly possessions from a storage unit to a small, sunny one-bedroom cottage set back from a street that is a designated “bike boulevard.” Photos coming shortly (of rooms filled with half-unpacked boxes that would make a Hoarders watcher shudder).

The last week has been filled with fantastic adventures that include: a very memorable flat tire (more on that later); a half-hysterical trip to IKEA for household necessities like Grunwald the bath mat; breaking myself at the climbing gym; breaking myself while assembling Expedit the IKEA bookshelf; and finally developing a cough that morphed into a fever that has now morphed into the common cold.

I will return when my body is once again whole and my household in order. And, also, when I have finally managed to set up Internet at my new place and no longer need to blog from my iPhone.

notes from the midwest, a.k.a., on revolution.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:58:00 -0700

I got back from Ann Arbor a couple of days ago and am still trying to get my thoughts together about what to write. Ok, I’ll start here.

Quick notes:
1. It’s cold in Michigan in mid-March. Like, windchill-and-bare-trees cold. Why did I not predict that? Because I’m from California and I perpetually arrive everywhere under-dressed, with a one-inch strip of exposed skin between the bottom of my jacket and the start of my pants.

2. My hair liked that weather. I don’t know what it was, maybe just the shampoo? But every morning that I woke up in Ann Arbor, my hair was like, Ta-Daaaa!!!

——-

Longer notes:
This post is really called “On Revolution.”

I was in Ann Arbor for five days to spend time with my friend Shelley as she negotiated a healing process. There wasn’t any question for me about being there, only how long I might be able to stay.

There were times during those few days when I felt paradoxically heavy with feeling and stretched perilously thin, like a water balloon that was just a little overfull.

But most of the time, I felt space on every side and in every direction. I could see my own breath in the mornings, and the clouds of my breath indicated my aliveness with every exhale. I remembered more clearly that what I really want to do is to take photos, to create beautiful space (both home and community space), and to feel okay with where I’m at. That’s all. And that everything that I’m doing, every day, gets me closer to the things that will happen when I’m ready for them.

I would never presume to think that my Future and Destiny are waiting patiently for me; more so that I create them as I’m able to, one day at a time. In the meantime, I’m also here, today, just as alive right now as I presumably will be in the Near and Far Future I’m working towards.

The revolution that I’m trying to build is, firstly, inside of myself. It is intrinsically tied to better learning how to bring myself into every space that I come into, as honestly and wholly as possible. Being available to a friend and feeling all of the shades of emotion that come with it. Asking for and accepting help in turn when I recognize that I need it. Telling a story about myself that is real, in every interaction with another person. This is the most foundational form of revolution I can imagine.

I recently took a leave of absence from a volunteer-run health clinic that I’m a part of. No particular reason why, except that I knew that I needed to not have that obligation for a little while. At the meeting where I needed to get the request approved, I felt compelled to try to justify my leave with some kind of made-up reason that I thought might go over better — something about additional work responsibilities or travel or school load. I ended up saying the truth, without apology: I needed to take a mental health break so that I could take care of myself and ultimately want to come back. I was surprised, and then not, when no one asked for any further explanation.

Why? Because I represent myself accurately at that clinic and it was clear that I was saying exactly what I meant: that I need a break and that I’ll come back. And because it’s the kind of workplace culture that accepts that people are real. People don’t go through rough times in their personal lives and then come into the office excited to productively create measurable outcomes. Of course not. And in that clinic meeting, for one of the first times in my life, I said out loud that I needed a break to take care of myself. Regardless of the response I got, it was a revolutionary act on my own behalf.

This is the kind of self-care work that centers on myself, but I don’t consider it self-centeredness in the way people normally use the term to mean selfishness or arrogance. It’s a matter of treating myself as an equal, and of refusing to compromise or sacrifice myself in my quest to make greater social change. I don’t want to be a martyr. If I wouldn’t volunteer someone else’s life and happiness to a social cause, I won’t volunteer my own.

There was a time when my ideas about social change were more “progressive,” more filled with protest and political theory — and I do think that being curious about theory and history and social movements is a part of loving oneself and loving others. But lately I’m going more local and more self-centered. I’m imagining creating a community space filled with good food and art and books, the kind of space where people come to have conversations and to sit with themselves, where I get to interact with people as they come and go. A community space where people are treated as though they’re real. I want to make good space, have good friends, raise happy kids, and revolt. This is the start of my revolution.

flight status.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:13:00 -0800

Tomorrow morning at the crackadawn, I’m catching a flight to visit my friend Shelley in Ann Arbor, Mich., for a few days. But in usual fashion, I managed to inadvertently turn the flight into a road trip. The flight coupon I had was for Virgin America, which doesn’t fly to Michigan; instead, I’m landing in Chicago, then driving the five hours to Ann Arbor.

I will try not to take iPhone photos while driving. Because driving would totally distract me from properly focusing on photo-taking.

I would ask you, encourage you, beg of you, to take an hour...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:29:00 -0800

I would ask you, encourage you, beg of you, to take an hour — an hour you would normally spend running errands, or an hour you would need to squeeze out of your already-packed week — and watch this. It’s a livestream of a conversation between legendary activists Grace Lee Boggs and Angela Davis, which took place this past Friday in Berkeley.

Whatever your political background, the ideas discussed in this talk pertain, fundamentally, to love. I’ve spent the last few years focusing more closely on how to shape my own thinking rather than on how to shape the larger world, but the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive, and in fact, they cannot be. Grace Lee Boggs’ thoughts on “growing our own souls” and re-imagining social structures outside of our existing social structures, these ideas speak to lifelong learning and revolution. And at 96, she serves as an exemplary model for such.

As of yesterday, I’m a first-time iPhone user. I may never...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:36:00 -0800

As of yesterday, I’m a first-time iPhone user. I may never pick up my digital SLRs or my film cameras ever again. No no, just kidding.

Must… fight… the… tide…

In the meantime, while I’m struggling to remember the point of any camera that can’t instantaneously post a photo to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, and Foursquare… you can follow my new Tumblr, where I’ll be posting instantaneous photos. BECAUSE I CAN.

Thank you for reading. I love you.

loved books too much.

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:55:00 -0800

As a lifelong word-lover, I have a handful of names that always float to the top of my list of literary heroes — among them, Philip Levine, an old-school English professor and anarchist from Detroit. Philip Levine has spent a lifetime celebrating the working man; he’s like the Poet Laureate version of Bruce Springsteen. The first poem of his that I ever read was “Today and Two Thousand Years From Now”:

The job is over. We stand under the trees
waiting to be told what to do,
but the job is over…

Mr. Levine did a reading yesterday afternoon at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. The whole auditorium was filled with old people and the scent of mothballs. After his reading, despite the fact that I had a brand new copy of Levine’s New Selected Poems, I almost fled instead of waiting in line to get my book signed.

Because the thing is… What do you say to someone you consider to be one of your heroes, the kind of hero you never thought you’d actually shake hands with in real life? When faced with this person at a book signing, how do you just go up to this person and make small talk for 30 seconds, when what you want to do is to convey that they changed your life in some small measurable way, and that they should maybe consider becoming your retroactive godparent? Would tears and chest-heaving convey the message clearly enough? Or would that be too subtle?

Sure, these writers probably hear it all of the time — YOU CHANGED MY LIFE — and that’s exactly why I can’t say it. Because it would sound just like what a thousand other people have said to them, and what I really want to say is, YOU CHANGED MY LIFE, you changed MY life! MY life, in a way different from other lives. Because, you see, I’m different and I’m here, standing right in front of you.

——-

When I was in seventh grade, I saw a sign at the Tower Books in Mountain View advertising that Russell Means would be making an in-store appearance to publicize his new book. The sign was one of those giant stand-up floor signs with a cutout of the author. In it, Russell Means looked extremely grim and extremely Native American. His new book was called Where White Men Fear to Tread.

I was excited because I recognized Russell Means as the guy who played Chingachgook opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, a movie that my siblings and I had watched approximately 8,274 times. Chingachgook at the bookstore, in flesh and blood? Are you fucking kidding me? COUNT ME IN.

On the day of the in-store appearance, the whole front of the bookstore was packed. The outing had become a family affair because clearly my brothers and my sister were just as excited as I was — maybe he’s brought Uncas with him! We thought we were going to hear Chingachgook talk about what it was like to play Chingachgook.

But disappointingly, in a full hour of talking, he did not once mention playing Chingachgook opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. It was as though acting in a Hollywood movie hadn’t even made a blip on his radar — like, Oh, Hollywood movie, NBD. Instead, he told stories about the reservation, about growing up there and then returning there as a militant activist, a whole bunch of stories about life as an Oglala Sioux. I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know about the reservation. All I knew about his life was that he’d been Chingachgook, which I knew was fucking badass.

When it came time to line up for the book-signing, I lined up because I really wanted to shake hands with Chingachgook. But I clearly had no clue about him as a real person, and I realized that this would be a hindrance in coming up with something to say to him. I nervously scanned the description of his book as I stood in line, and seized on a brilliant opener just in time:

—So, uh, I didn’t know you were also the voice of Powhatan in Pocahontas?

He totally ignored this, and instead sat there looking at me with a big smile growing on his face. I was completely unnerved.

—Are you Sioux? he barked.
—Uh, no. Um, Chinese.
—YEAH?? Alright girl, gimme five!

He seemed extremely pleased with my answer. I slapped his hand, he gripped it for a moment in a kind of mutual power handshake, then signed my book with a flourish. I was kind of dazedly thrilled. Chingachgook likes that I’m Chinese!

My autographed copy of Russell Means’ autobiography sat on my bookshelf, unread, for years. I still had no idea who Russell Means was.

Eight years later, I wrote my undergraduate history thesis on the American Indian Movement and the 1973 Siege of Wounded Knee. Where White Men Fear to Tread became a primary source document in my thesis. I’ve been to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation twice now — and I have a much clearer understanding of who Russell Means is. Chingachgook kind of changed my life.

Well, him and Dee Brown’s book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. But mostly Chingachgook.

——-

In eighth grade, my English teacher’s name was Annelisa Hedgecock. She was young and spontaneous and lovely, and I will always remember that she seemed really moved when she found out, during our Anne Frank unit, that Anne Frank’s given name was the same as hers — Annelies.

One afternoon, Ms. Hedgecock invited me to go to a reading that Amy Tan was doing in Berkeley. She knew that I’d read The Joy Luck Club, which was the toast of the bestseller lists at the time. Berkeley was an hour’s drive away. An outing with Ms. Hedgecock on a school night, to Berkeley? COUNT ME IN.

Ms. Hedgecock, my best friend Verna, and I made the journey together. I don’t remember anything about the drive up except that we talked the whole way. It was just like in those books where the teacher sees something special in her student and the student ends up becoming the President of the United States. That kind of feeling.

Amy Tan was witty and charming in front of her enormous audience. I was swallowing convulsively the entire time, and at one point during the reading, I somehow managed to choke on my own spit. As I was coughing, I started choking on my own tongue, which intensified the coughing, and I had the distinction of making Amy Tan pause dramatically in her reading while the entire bookstore waited to see if I would actually die.

My headstone would have read, LOVED BOOKS. A LITTLE TOO MUCH. RIP.

Afterward, the line for book-signing was so long that Ms. Hedgecock, Verna, and I headed next door to grab dinner. When we got back to the bookstore, the line was gone and I got to hand my tattered paperback to Amy Tan to sign — which she did, quickly and casually with a blue ballpoint, barely even looking up at me before she moved on.

I felt disappointed that she hadn’t paused to allow me to wash her hands with my tears. But I would have felt absolutely crushed had it not been for the evening as a whole, the drive and the conversations with my favorite teacher and the tuna melt in the red booth at Saul’s. Years later, I found Ms. Hedgecock online and wrote her an email to say that that night really meant something to me. It really did.

——-

I stayed to get my book signed, with no idea what to say to him. “So, uh, how’s Detroit doing lately?” He signed my book with a blue pen, barely acknowledging my presence — which at least saved me the whole “Will you be my godparent?” dilemma.

But that’s okay. I have the rest of my life to read his words, whether or not I’d ever met him. And years from now, I’ll still be remembering this: Amy Tan had to stop reading her greatest work to let me untangle my tongue from my own throat. And Philip Levine, I saw him do a reading once right after he was named U.S. Poet Laureate, and afterward he got to shake my hand.

Watch this video. It kind of, but doesn’t really, begin to...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 22:04:23 -0800

Watch this video.

It kind of, but doesn’t really, begin to show the beauty of the ballet piece called “Chroma,” currently being performed by the San Francisco Ballet. Total magic.