wow -- tuesday already.  dang, this week has flown past.  right now in the studio, trying to get things re-organiz-ized, get caught up back on my email and facebook msg's etc. which is an uphill losing battle, ha! don't really know where this week went, but i do know that here we are again -- so yes, dear reader, since we last met --

lots of pre-production meetings for the upcoming shoot for "real women i know," lots of nursing my jacked-up back post-travels, lots of getting caught up (kinda) on sleep, did a walk-through of the fancy schmancy space for the asian american arts alliance house of fame gala that i'll be hosting next week with folks like Suchin Pak formerly of MTV News, Maulik Pancholy from 30 Rock & Weeds, Joe Zee from Elle, Alice Wu from Saving Face, and Tomie Arai of just general visual artist bad-assness -- so that's on and popping for tuesday night - to snag tix for the fabulous soiree -- click here -- for the super-ballers, there's a VIP ticket and for the mini-ballers, there's a discounted friend ticket -- so hope to see you in the house on the 20th in NYC --

rounded out the week by performing for asianinny.com's  harvest moon festival -- which was a fundraiser for the survivors of typhoon morakot.  over 400 people dead, hundreds still missing, and 13,000 people left homeless.  so much love to diana and chris for bringing lots of folks out in celebration of the harvest moon festival and to help raise funds for typhoon relief.  i did a newish piece that needs a lot of work tied back to the myth of the moon festival -- as far as chinese folklore goes -- the earth once had 10 suns which were scorching the earth.  houyi an archer shot down 9 of the suns and left 1 sun so plants on earth could continue to grow. there is another part of the story that involves his lover chang'e and a pill that promised immortality that she eats and causes her to float away to the moon.  once on the moon, there is a jade rabbit so moved by her story that it tries to grind up a pill to give to her to allow her to return back to earth to be with houyi -- as most myths go, there's a bunch of different versions of it, but those elements are generally consistent throughout. 
 
also, saw spike lee presents lemon andersen's "county of kings" at the public theater on sunday, and if you have any loot or any sense at all and you'll be coming through NYC between now and early november (the play is running for 6 weeks) -- YOU MUST GO SEE THIS PLAY.  i don't remember weeping and laughing and feeling in a performance as deeply as i did at this one in a long time.  to peep the ny times review, go here.  

as a performer, i think one of the bad occupational hazards/habits that you pick up is watching other performers with the deconstruct-brain on like, "hmmm...i wonder what instruments are on the lighting plot, the story structure seems to be following this or this or that, the language is moving between this or that..." -- but i gotsta say lemon's show was so disarming and absorbing, that my deconstruct-brain shut completely off and just sat with both hands under her chin in admiration, awe, and gratitude for his incredible work.  spoken word at its finest.  hip hop poetics and storytelling, not as a gimmick, but as the truth.  word is bond.  so proud to see how everybody is on the come up and innovating what we are and can become.  

about to head out to the lifeline fundraiser at nightingale's tonight in nyc raising money for the typhoons that hit southeast asia with koba, dj boo, magnetic north, taiyo na, and more all in the house.  glad to have the community come together, sad and scared that the fundraisers for natural disaster relief will become interminable given the state of global warming -- and as the now-resigned van jones has talked about -- when eco-problems hit, they're gonna hit the people with the least resources hardest all over the world.

so here's to holding our future.

blessings,
kellz

p.s. and can't go this week without a quick mention of the obama nobel peace prize sitch -- was i surprised?  yes.  do i think he deserves it for his record of work?  no.  do i think he deserves it for the potential impact he can make moreso than any other person on planet earth right now?  possibly, this merits more discussion.  do i think it's realistic to envision any state leader to move forward completely without any war/military intervention on the radar?  no.  do i think that he probably has done a lot of things in the name of both peace and war that we have no idea about and perhaps don't have the context to fully understand?  yes.  so that's all i'll say about that for now, ha!