How awful that I’ve not updated in so long. Spammers have taken advantage of my absence and wasted no time in infesting my entries with hundreds of obnoxious spammy comments. Ugh.

Lots has gone on. For now, a pic of me (just call me “greasy bangs”) and Peg with the most excellent Park Chan Wook. <3 <3 <3 He was a real sweetheart, kind of goofy and sincere. Incongruous with the mastermind you'd expect behind all those intense, effed up movies. We have a small collection of pictures with Asian (American) male "celebrities," and you can bet yer bottom that this prized pic is included.

ps – his latest, Thirst, isn’t that great. But still worth watching, of course

back in the day, my mom frequently took us to the library (berryessa, what what!?) and it was always a joyous occasion. i was practically a barnacle in the young adult section, but i often wandered the other aisles too. i guess there could be a map that charts my favorite spots correspondingly with my age…

there are vivid memories of excitedly hogging the spinner racks that housed the christopher pike collection (r.l. stine was his weaker, diluted counterpart). i think this was after graduating babysitter’s club and boxcar children but before i moved onto the stephen king canon. in the classics area, i distinctly remember thinking, “wow, what a cool title!” when stumbling upon of human bondage (i never even read it).

at any rate, we all have our beloved library memories. we all know libraries are super cool places. we all know they bring us back to simpler, satisfying states of being. so why is it that that i rarely take advantage of the main library, literally next door to my work? a visit yesterday reminded me how stupid i am for neglecting this neighborhood treasure. i was rewarded handsomely: some flicks that i’ve been dying to see, and random CDs i’m eager to dig into:

anyway, i’m looking forward to the newly re-opened inner richmond branch!

i know i’m overdue for an update when i can’t even remember what my last post was about.

lots of photography things have happened, so i’ll debrief here. everything’s been thrilling and enriching, but i’m not getting my hopes up. “photographers” are a dime a dozen, and anything good that’s come my way is 95% luck and guanxi. so far, i’ve been dang lucky. i’m having a great time, and that’s key.

en route, the air canada magazine contacted me asking if they could use a photo of mine of dottie’s for a piece they were doing for SF. yes, of course! pretty random, but there’s an example of why it pays to tag the hell outta your pictures on flickr. that’s how they found it. the funny thing is that it’s a totally random, useless photo.

i guess a couple of my photos made it into the april issue of food & wine? in an article about gastropubs (magnolia). i’ll have to hunt down a copy. to clarify, they used photos i had taken for magnolia gastropub awhile ago. it’s not like they hired me to shoot for them, though ultimately that’d be my dream!

and then i woke up this morning i found an email from jeff adachi — our public defender and passionate filmmaker — asking if he could use my photos for his film’s (you don’t know jack: the jack soo story) website.

i also recently bought a domain! jenntakespictures.com
all it does is take you directly to my flickr portfolio page. chintzy but practical. it’s the best i can do at the moment, and anything’s better than giving people a cumbersome, lengthy link to work with.

not a big deal, but for a small fry like me these little things can make or break my day. okay, so on to the recap:

i splurged and purchased a bigtime beautiful lens (60mm 2.8), thanks to all my wonderful friends (and ringleader peggy) for getting me a GC to looking glass in berkeley. this pup’s been especially good for portraits, and i haven’t even taken it for a macro spin yet.

in february i shot for SF Beer Week. dave mclean, the kind owner of magnolia and alembic (both of which i’ve previously photographed), asked me to take pictures so i jumped at the opportunity. i documented nine events, each one a little different. i met many sweet, passionate people (the craft brewing community is not unlike the comics community), and cultivated a deeper appreciation for the craft. i was TERRIFIED with nervousness the first night, fumbled like an idiot poseur, but quickly dropped the whiny little bitch act and acclimated. another bonus was that i had to rent some gear, and that in itself was a big step. learning how to operate a speed light (though very crudely) was nice.

these guys were at a 21st amendment event. i overheard them speaking mandarin and found out that two were from taiwan, and one from china. i enjoyed meeting them.

there was a slight sabbatical from eater sf’s “gatekeeper” series, but it returned with a spotlight on bar tartine’s lovely, hospitable xelina.

afterwards i ate there and awkwardly took some general shots during the peak of their brunch hour.

and then, just this past weekend, i suddenly threw myself into the fire and signed up to be a volunteer photographer for SFIAAFF, thanks to gracious photog albert chau for offering me a chance. it all transpired on friday afternoon. i was hella stressed and didn’t feel adequate, but despite my baggage i thoroughly LOVED the experience! it’s a perfect fit for me — i’ve been a film fest groupie ever since working at the museum, so it makes sense. going year after year after year, you get a strong sense of community, and being able to capture the energy on camera is a pleasurable thing.

the highlight must’ve been seeing older generation asian american folks like these, and being able to photograph them. they were so plucky and cheerful, just having a jolly ol’ time with each other. tugged on my heart strings.

here’s our public defender at his post-screening reception

kiyoshi kurosawa

joan chen

well, that’s it for now. fingers crossed for onwards and upwards…

i’m sorry, but this makes me cringe a little. alas, despite the stiffness and stilted acting, i’m still xxxtremely excited and am counting down the days til march 6.

got the SFIAAFF program in the mail a coupla days ago, and i already got into my obsessive ritual of printing out a blank calendar, grabbing a pencil, and gettin cozy with the program to plot out a robust movie-watching schedule. srsly, there’s no way to plan for this unless you have a chart or calendar system to visualize how the days play out.

so i sent my mom and sister a tentative plan of what films we should watch when the fest has its share of screenings in san jose.

this is mom’s reply:

he’s an uneducated chinese farmer who accidentally burnt down his home and plunged his family into debt. but damnit he creates robots from scratch!

check out how creepy his robot is. do you like the moving eyes, flapping ears, and freaky weird rectum/cephalopod-esque mouth? i love that he’s wearing a hat and got the sweat rag draped around his shoulders. lastly, the wife is spicy, what with her sassy twilly action.

god i love china.

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on my jack lemmon kick, i recently watched the 1962 blake edwards’ film days of wine and roses (based in SF!)

it was bleak. jack lemmon, a well-meaning but damaged PR guy in the two-martini lunch era, has a crippling dependency issue. he meets lee remick, a pure, sweet thing who doesn’t even like the taste of alcohol (but loves chocolate). they “fall in love,” marry, procreate, etc, but everything quickly disintegrates because of booze. she too has become an alcoholic to pass the days of being a bored and pensive housewife.

in the end, he miraculously manages to give up the bottle, but she’s a wreck wandering the streets in an ethanol-induced stupor. mind you, they have a daughter! as immensely as he wants her back, he needs to know she can stop, or at least try to stop, but she refuses to promise even an effort, acknowledging, “But I can’t face the idea of never having another drink.”

and that got me thinking: wow, that’s heavy. is there something that i crave and am so severely addicted too that i couldn’t even imagine ever giving up? for life? (other than love, affection, friendship?) forgive me for my offensively rude and crude analogy, but the answer is food. yeah, i guess could just subsist on chicken breast and fish and veggies for the rest of my life (if i was a vegetable), but it’s the starches, the sugars, the deep fried goodies, all that stuff, that i need.

understand that i am not likening my relationship with food to an alcoholic’s relationship with alcohol. hardly the case. it’s just that thinking about substance abuse in this way gave me an extremely deep appreciation, or vague idea, of the impossible epic battle that addicts must face if they want to win. it’s downright depressing, and requires the sort of willpower that i can’t even fathom. i think about a relative whose life was lost to this battle, and it saddens me to no end.

i’ll be the first to admit that i have an eating disorder. sure it’s not bulimia or anorexia, but there’s definitely a pathological, psychological connection i have with food. it’s intense. the passion for good eating is fine and dandy, but i’m talking about the sick primal binging (no really, it’s disgusting), the absolute lack of control, the full-throttle consumption, and how all of it feeds into my body image, the incessant utterly violent self loathing. it’s probably my one true consistent sourse of unhappiness. i don’t think it’s just emotional eating either, a la jack donaghy (but i assure you if i could find a huge tub of cheese balls i’d be all over it)

well this has probably been my most navel gazing post ever. if you didn’t know it before, it’s been confirmed for you here: yes, i really am that superficial and shallow.

in days of wine and roses, jack lemmon would ritually say with pleasure, right before taking a swig, “magic time.” and that’s how i feel every time i eat something delicious.

ohhhhhh yeah, i can’t wait to settle in with these babies.

ana — programming guru at work — generously loaned them to me. awhile back during the sugimoto exhibitions, sugimoto himself “curated” a mini film series that had ties with contemporary japanese visual art movements. we screened the two flicks above and face of another (also on my list). sadly, i was unable to make it to any of the showings, but now i can finally watch.

my only nikkatsu studios experience thus far was seeing gangster VIP at yerba buena’s 60s era yakuza films program. that was a lot of fun. it had basic eye candy appeal, but managed to balance b-movie-esque, over-the-top cheesy hamminess that would give MST3K a field day, with poignant, delicate memorable moments. i’m thinking tokyo drifter might be similar, if not just a visual hammer over the head. as for the world of geisha, well…soft-core is always nice.

PS – advance screening of hellboy FAIL. the line snaked up to the upper level of the metreon. suffice it to say, despite the fact that i had “won” tickets (bastards!), i didn’t get in. however, i ran into jing and talked about the dark knight a lot.

anthony shared this cute 20 second youtube clip with me (first one). the second clip is hellboy being charming. apparently it’s a possibility that ron perlman’s makeup is so cumbersome that they dub his voice in after filming? anyway, i’m posting to celebrate what landed in my inbox the other day. proof that if you enter a million contests and giveaways in your life, you’re bound to get something.

“Congratulations! You won a pass (good for two people) to the advanced screening of Hellboy II, The Golden Army which screens next Tuesday, July 8, 7:30PM at AMC Metreon”

james lipton is pretty delightful

haha, “i don’t even think they have pockets”

i’m overdosing on eye candy. between this and the dark knight, i am going to be an insufferably giddy child come mid-july. *squeal*

ps – the name of the post references perhaps my most favorite hellboy moment. it’s marvelously endearing and cute: