Tuesday, June 27, 2006

introducing vik anadottir - the purple bee


Iceland is a magical place where we feel like being on the moon at times, and the people there have names which are just from the moon! Everyone’s last name ends with something “Xdottir”, meaning the daughter of X; or “Yson” meaning the son of Y. The “X” or “Y” are usually the first name of the father, or sometimes the mother. There I adopted my first daughter, Vik Anadottir. She is a happy bee with purple stripes, who swings with the wind, loves the beach and kisses anyone who brings her sunshine.

According to Iceland tradition, my name could be something like Ana Gudmundsdottir (that would make me the sister of Björk, we could share the same father who goes by the first name of Gudmunds). And if I were to marry someone called Djüpak Smithson, our son will be called Lysühöll Djüpakson, imagining the four of us: Ana Gudmundsdottir, Djüpak Smithson, Vik Anadottir and Lysühöll Djüpakson with four different last names trying to check into the same hotel, people will never believe that we are actually related.

Despite all the confusion, brave Vik is proud of her nationality and named herself after Reykjavik, the capital and Vik a seaside town on the south side of this land of ice. Vik is also short for Vikings and Victoria. After her first adventure, she brought home some smoked salmon and she wants to invite you to a rooftop picnic, at the house of Anadottir’s… so what do you say?!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

wednesday lo-fi

scanned from silver gelatin print, may 2006

Yesterday I found a piece of paper at the bottom of an old suitcase, it is from 8 years ago, it is my handwriting, but the words are somewhat shocking to me, as I cannot imagine those would be my words. Yet they go very well with the photo I took a couple of weeks ago.

"his extraordinary gift for hope vs. his shrewd perception of actuality
his almost renaissance love of fame vs. his awareness of the confused reality of success
his understanding of love vs. his conscienceness of the grubby actuality of mere sex
his ecastatic delight in the fresh responsiveness of youth vs. his sharp sense of the fading emotional energy with the passing of time..."

hope I wasn't writing about my boyfriend at that time, it doesn't seem romantic to me or if it is from a book or film, maybe someone will tell me where from.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

masse à la mer (sunday mass)

Grew up in a Buddhist Communist Atheist Catholic family, the choice of my religion was not that easy. Baptised Catholic in a church not recognised by the Vatican (in fact no Catholic church in China is recognised by the Vatican), I was never forced to go to church, my childhood memories of bible studies were sitting in the lap of my grandmother, leaning on her round and warm shoulders, her sweet voices telling me bible stories, the touch of her silk Chinese dress (Qi Pao), the mixed odour of her perfume, powder and cigarettes. Her favourite brand was Mu Dan, gigantic flowers on a bright red packaging, she actually allowed me to have a puff or two from time to time.

When Grandmother passed away, I almost forgot that I was Catholic except when I was exempt from all communist political studies in teenage years. I once thought it was romantic and very “Thorn Birds” like to be a Catholic and that I would certainly grow up to fall in love with a priest one day and finish my life fighting between belief and desire.

Years later, I ended up in a protestant school in America, a Methodist one; instead of converting to Methodist, I actually tried to compensate my 3 hour weekly religious study of John Wesleyan’s teachings by Sunday church in a local Catholic Cathedral where I prayed, sang, balanced my check books and wrote love letters; but most importantly I thought about my grandmother and I missed her immensely. I often went to church in a Chinese dress thinking she would probably have liked it.

Ever since I came to France, my guilt of not going to church reduced to zero, because this is the largest Catholic country in the world where least people go to church. From time to time, I would walk into a wedding or funeral service in Paris, or hear the choir singing as I am passing in front a church. The little moment of peace brought me joy and memories of my grandmother. I believe she has been watching over me all those years, one of the proofs being that I still cannot quit smoking, as that is one of the habits she gave me at my early child days.

This Sunday on the coast of Normandy, after two naps and a few strokes along the beach, I lit a cigarette, the favourite brand of my grand mother – Mu Dan. That was my Sunday mass in memories of my dear grandmother in her silk Chinese dress...

Friday, June 09, 2006

Ana's Crystal Ball

Would you like to know what kind of car you have? And where your parking spot is? Come consult with world renowned psychic - ANA and find out what the future holds for you!

Specialised in
-Mediumship

-Clairvoyance
-Tarot
-Angel's
-Crystal
-Palms

Conveniently located on Rue Saint Honoré, Ana’s psychic allows you to do Shopping and Psychic Reading all at once.

How do you like the ad for my new business? Actually I don’t know how to do any of the above: mediumship? What is that? Tarot, I have seen those cards, a bit bigger than normal poker cars. Palms, I have, just don’t know how to read them. Crystal balls are cool, let me try that.

A trader friend once explained to me how they, at Morgan Stanley, build trading models based on historical data of the stock market, and then use them to predict future performance of a particular stock. That must work since Morgan Stanley seems to make lots of money and hire lots of people in suits and ties. In order to beat the market of psychic sisters, I shall employ some modern day science.

If we take the first name and last name of all women/men you have dated in your life time; and let’s suppose that these letters are statistically non-correlated; we can then run a linear regression on that, and build a model to predict the name of the future “Love of Your Life”. This will be the secret to my crystal ball.

Before opening ceremony of my new business, I decided to test my crystal ball on myself. I successfully plugged in all letters came from first names, last names, middle names and nick names of my past and current loves. I got a model, very linear indeed. I have two top letters:
P & G. hmmmm… that is some kind of shampoo, I believe. I decided to include the third letter which was “I”. With all the creative juice I have on a Friday morning, I can only come up with one word – PIG!

With these words, I shall spend the whole weekend sleeping which corresponds to the habits of my future ….. just give me a crepe from time to time… and dear friends hope you come visit my store soon on rue saint honoré!

Good weekend to you all! And all my sincere excuses to those who contributed to those three letters.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

heLmet nOt?!

For some stupid reason, I accepted to race against a scooter with my cute little bike. However, if you have seen this scooter you will then believe that I might not be that stupid. A serious sports woman I am, I took my bike for a pre-race morning training. To test endurance and flexibility of my bike, I put some heavy load in the front basket. Right there in the middle of traffic, it broke completely: the basket, the front light, the break, everything. Terrible!

Midday, I walked into a bike shop in the 7th, nice shop keeper, chatty and eager. I realized a very strong and familiar accent, “so where are you from?” asked Ana. “Ah, Napolie!!! Italie, you know?” All of sudden I just see this image of my dear little bike getting a serious surgery, all parts removed and replaced with plastic body parts shipped directly from China. So much for my trust in Italians and especially Neapolitans. I felt bad, “Sir, I think I might just come back later tonight, because I have to go back to work now”. I pushed my bike quickly out of the store, not even daring looking back.

Later in the evening, I walked into a bike shop in my hood, run by some honest French guy, who once pumped my tires for free. I like this shop, because it is full of gadgets for serious bikers. I don’t even know how to explain their functionalities.

Shop keeper: It looks pretty bad, but we will get it fixed.
Ana felt so relieved.
Shop keeper: Are you riding around Paris with no Helmet? That is not a good idea.
Ana: It is okay, I go slow.
Shop keeper: You go slow, but the buses and motorcycles don’t.
Ana: You are right.
Shop keeper: I have some simple stuff, if you want to try while waiting for your bike
Ana: ok, yeah I guess!

Next thing I knew, I was trying on this Pink Helmet for professional races, it costs 130 euros! My entire bike doesn’t even cost that much. But I have to say it looked really good on me and felt even better.

“I will think about it, thank you for fixing the bike…”

I managed to leave the shop without the helmet, but the whole night I have been longing for this Pink Helmet. Should I have trusted the Neapolitan? What is the catch with the French? Now I am lying in bed going through all potential reasons to justify this purchase… Helmet? Not?

Monday, June 05, 2006

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?

For someone who has no car and no driver’s license I had the pleasure to be in the passenger's seat for a few hours over the weekend, this few hours of experience were so exceptional that I had all the time to think about the most philosophical issue in life.

Finding the right person to love in life is exactly like finding a parking spot on the busy streets in the middle of Paris Friday evening. There are beautiful people on beautiful streets with beautiful cars everywhere, yet parking spots are scarce. The rule of winning this game is simple - you need to be at the right place at the right time. There is no science to it, only luck!

The best and most sweet spot supposedly is just downstairs from your apartment, yet how many times can you park right in front of your front door?

- You can always turn up the music in your car, singing to your favourite songs and keep circling around the block, saying “I am not in a hurry, I will keep looking”. This is the bachelor waiting to find the perfect love of his/her life.

- After you circled around the block 5 or 10 times, you are so sick and tired and you finally decided to enlarge the scope, you go beyond the normal circle. As soon as you surrender your car to a sweet spot 5 blocks away, you walk yourself home, along the way, you see 2 spots that are much closer to your apartment. These nice spots move their hips around in the most erotic way and singing to you in pussycat dolls’ voice :

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

Don’t you wish you had waited? That’s called “I settled too early”.

- Sometimes you can get really frustrated and desperate that you decide to double park. That is when you date married men or married women, it is not recommended, and you know you will get a huge fine one day, but it is convenient for the moment. So what the heck!

- For those who would like to plan ahead, they actually pay for a parking spot monthly. They cannot park any where else except where they paid for a spot. Guaranteed space yet lack of surprise and flexibility. And it costs money. That is called being in a relationship which requires high maintenance.

- Occasionally, you can successfully park right up front, you say “God, I am never gonna move ever again”! As you turn around, there is a panel that reads “Wednesday morning street cleaning starting 7h30” or “Saturday morning farmers market”, that is when I know the guy has a track record of relationship of no more than three months and I am still willing to give it a try. Do I get to move the panel or simply move my car and myself Wednesday morning?


Dear friends, how to solve this modern day urban issue of “where do I park”? Don’t you just want to go to the countryside where you have all the space to park and re-park and open all four doors of your car? Wouldn’t life be too easy that way?

So those who take taxis, are they ignoring the fact that we all need a spot somewhere? And are huge underground parking lots whore houses? You just need to pay to get in?! So then what would be valet parking?

Tired and perplexed, I took the metro home tonight yet I couldn’t help looking to see if there are nice spots downstairs from my place.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

happy international children's day


Some of you might not be aware, but today is the international children's day, it is a holiday dedicated to kids.

After having indulged in some chocolates from michel chaudun, I have decided that I am still a child and I never want to grow up and I will continue to celebrate this holiday for the rest of my life.

Happy children's day to you all!!!