酷我-北美枫

hahaview

Winter in Washington, DC

I am a stranger during the winter in Washington, DC (YOU, a smart reader, can replace it with whatever city you now live in). Arguments, excuses, and explanations are widespread here and meet with enthusiastic approval and harsh criticism. It is time-consuming and mind-exhausting to tell the difference between facts, lies, and simple boasting. Words confuse, and wound or plunge the soul into conflict. The city, ruled by a chill sun and blinding whiteout, produces only coarse language. Words, like the sports fans in cheap bars, don't bring relief. They are mere high-pitched noises and tire me out.
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I came, I saw, and I conquered

Champagne

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期四二月 07, 2008 6:40 pm 发表主题:

Your piece helps me spin out of this spin city. The Rhetoric of Hope or Change, no matter whose mouth it comes from, is a “mere high-pitched noise and tires me out.”

Lake · 发表于: 星期五二月 08, 2008 11:22 am 发表主题:

Let's interact: these are the symptoms of big cities; and I'm looking forward to reading their other side.

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期五二月 08, 2008 4:59 pm 发表主题:

Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport

In the airport lounge, gazing at the Chinese paintings and works of calligraphy intended for tourist consumption, I felt already the disconnection of a stranger. I would never see Taipei again, except through the eyes of a tourist.
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Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

fanfan · 发表于: 星期五二月 08, 2008 5:46 pm 发表主题:

Walking out of Central MTR station, I look at glittering corporate buildings around me; they keep the city scenery, one after one, frozen in the glass windows.

Note:

Hong Kong is one of the most crowded and populous city in the world; few historical buildings remain in Hong Kong because of limited space. Instead the city has become a centre for dense commercial skyscrapers, especially in and around Central. The glamorous commercial skyscrapers between Central and Causeway Bay lining the coast of Victoria Harbour is one of Hong Kong's most famous tourist attractions and ranked the best skyline in the world.
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Don't imitate me;
it's as boring
as the two halves of a melon.

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期六二月 09, 2008 10:00 am 发表主题:

Toronto, Twisted

A tongue has no bones; you can twist it in any direction if you like and it will turn that way. I live with my twisted tongue in Toronto, a meeting place of borrowed tongues.

Note:

Toronto is the world's most diverse city by percentage of non-Canadian-born residents, as about 49 percent of the population were born outside of Canada.
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Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

Champagne · 发表于: 星期六二月 09, 2008 10:59 am 发表主题:

hahaview · 发表于: 星期六二月 09, 2008 11:17 am 发表主题:

Mapping New York

I walk down Doyers to Division; Confucius Plaza* is around the corner. On its fortieth floor is my rental apartment. Then I turn left at Eldrige and keep walking until it comes like home. All the time taken up with circling this city in a fever is wasted. Trying to make walking the streets in this city homey is as futile as trying to grasp air. This city, grieving the smell of flowers and dust, cannot tell me what to say even if it chokes me. Not a word comes from my mouth for 150 years about living here. Dumbfounded, I walk as if these streets are a place I’m visiting.

Notes:

What follows is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry entitled Chinatown, Manhattan:

“The housing stock of Chinatown is still mostly composed of cramped tenement buildings, some of which are over 100 years old. It is still common in such buildings to have bathrooms in the hallways, to be shared among multiple apartments. A gigantic federally subsidized housing project, named Confucius Plaza was completed on the corner of Bowery and Division streets in 1976. This 44-story residential tower block gave much needed new housing stock to thousands of residents.”
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I came, I saw, and I conquered

Champagne · 发表于: 星期日二月 10, 2008 8:34 pm 发表主题:

Walking on the street of Toronto

Walking on the street of Toronto, people pass by each other, so ferocious. They are lurching forward with such fierceness, greedy determination for life. I do not understand them; maybe I'm with them with the same purpose.
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I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

redshoe · 发表于: 星期三二月 13, 2008 6:16 pm 发表主题:

A Taxi Ride in Taipei

Taipei is both large and small. The distance from Kuenming Street on the west side to the World Trade Center on the east side is but five or six kilometers. It often takes more than one hour to drive that distance by day due to traffic jams. The distance from Tienmu in the north to Kongkuan in the south is a little more than ten kilometers, yet a taxi ride only takes seven minutes during the midnight hour.
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I am a butterfly drunk with life.