MinJungKim.com

Life chooses a metaphor for me today.
A physical manifestation of an emotional state.
Something I did not expect to be so obvious.
Almost comical in expression how these things happen.

The other night I was making my bed, I fell and tripped over my metal file cabinet. I have an 8 inch curved scratch, quite deep in the skin that it looks like it might scar. It’s just over my breastbone.

There are many things that make me think that God chooses neither to be subtle nor discreet with me. God knows I’m often dumb. Really really really really really dumb. Sometimes a fool and asshole. Of late, quite a bit of both. It happens, I’m human. I can be a total asshole sometimes.

But then, I hope I’m redeemed by the fact that I can also appreciate these little things that make me recognize that the message in the metaphor is as noticiable as the scratch across my skin. It’s red. I’m pretty pale. You could almost mistake it for a thread from my shirt that’s run awry. Until you’re near enough to notice that it’s puckered a bit and raised.

it’s ok to be transparent and honest and direct and not a bad thing to wear your heart on your sleeve or your wounds uncovered on your chest.

In fact, it’s ok to spot check every once in while how those scratches are healing. It’s healing. It won’t scar much I don’t think. It’s a big scratch though. Takes the entire palm of my hand to cover. The palm of the hand is warm over the heart. And you know that the scratch beneath will heal well.

“Frankly, the fool for love, at the end of the day is still just a fool. Tis better to be rich. Very rich.”

If I talk to one more gawddamn idiot who trys to convince me of a load of patronizing hooey I’m going to smack them.

There was this parking lot, at night.
It was dark except for the moon, still bright above the street lights.
You played something out of Cinema Paradiso from your car.
And we danced out there. You spun me faster and faster until I was out of breath. Me in my boots and that dress you loved. You were wearing that jacket that always made me want to borrow it so it smelled like you.
I couldn’t see your face, and that was ok, because we hadn’t met yet.

You whispered in my ear “Don’t worry about me until then. I’m coming for you.”
And I sighed “Yes, I know. “

Yes folks. I’m reading. A few short bits. No big woop. If you can come, I promise it’ll be entertaining. If it’s not entertaining, I’ll maybe buy you a beer.
Maybe if you all come and buy *me* the beer it’ll be extra entertaining.

********
Lit at the Canvas III: “Relationships of a Different Color”

Location: The Canvas Cafe
9th and Loncoln, San Francisco, CA View Map
When: Monday, September 29, 7:30pm
Phone: (415)504-0060

Perhaps we’ve been here before…

Lit at the Canvas, a monthly, themed literary series hosted by Kevin Smokler splashes down again at the Canvas Cafe this coming Monday at 7:30 PM. This month’s theme, “Relationships of a Different Color” will be about sex, love, and human relationships at all levels of raciness.

Reading will be:

Ethan Watters (of the book “Urban Tribes” on the loose affiliations unmarried folks form in cities).

Writer and activist Mattilda (aka Matthew Bernstein Sycamore)

Black Books sexuality guides editor Bill Brent

Humor Columnist and Web Maven Min Jung Kim.

Audience members will also be reading freaky ass personal ads, all thanks to our friends at Craigslist. We’ll be giving away free books too.

Admission is 5$ sliding scale. No one turned away for lack of funds. Oh and we’re going to try to get out there at a reasonable hour this time, thank God.

Hey, You.

I pray for you that you believe in magic. Yeah, magic. That certain fantastic something that catches you off guard and takes your breath away. That moment when you realize how easy it is to smile. How effortless it is to reach out and touch someone; their hand, their shoulder, their chin in the cup of your palm.

I pray that you believe in magic and those little wishes and sighs that are said in glances askance, between the lines of postit notes, in the humming of tunes, and in the thought and memory of times past and hopes future.

I pray that you believe in magic and take the smallest of moments in thanks to the universe for the good things that have come to you and the lessons from those rougher times.

I pray that you believe in magic. And trust. Me.

It’s there. This magic. This thing that makes it easy to rest your eyes at night. This thing that makes your heart crack open just a bit. This thing that pours honey and wine over your tongue so that it loosens up and becomes less timid to express the magic within you too.

There’s magic here, between you and I. Do you feel it?
Yes yes. Smile, though we’ll never speak of it. You know. This wild thing of magic. It’s there within you. And that’s why I’ve loved you for so long.

This magic that’s crossed our paths once, maybe twice this past decade. This magic that’s made us know that our hearts were knit akin to each other in creation and find refuge in knowing that the other was found and would always be there.

This magic that speaks truth when we fail to have the courage otherwise. This magic that wraps itself over our shoulders on cold nights, miles between us. This magic that you’ve forgotten about, it seems. Remember the magic, my love. The magic that’s still under your skin. Near your wrists where your veins run blue, it’s so near the surface you could taste it.

This magic that makes you beautiful to me. Don’t let them tear you down. Don’t let them steal your flame. Don’t let them cause you to regret or doubt who you are and the magic that you choose to use in healing others instead of shredding them.

Don’t let them make you like them, those jealous ones who don’t know what it’s like to have a heart so wide and big that it has no choice but to bump into things like walls and strangers. That heart so large that occasionally it topples you over with it’s weight so that it gets scraped against the gravel.

Dear friend, remember, this magic is a blessing always. Precious as is the very breath in your lungs. The beat of your heart rises with it. This magic. Do you believe?

Karmic Justice

For she that walks away from diamonds
The soles of their feet will be cut and dragged by silk threads
Slicing them from the root to their parietal lobe
Vertically so that the sun and dust can whip through them.

For he that seizes a knife in the dark
The palm will be shredded so no lover’s hand
can make it whole to hold pen or clench fist
Their life line abused and mangled by haste and harshness

For she that stands very still while the world spins fiercely beneath them
They will find that the effort of a single step will carry them miles.
Fortune may be kind and carry them back home
Because that’s where they always belonged.

You. Yes you. You too.

The Kissing Bandit Says:
“Fame is fine and all. It’s just a bore. Give me infamy, it’s loads more fun.”

The Chagall exhibit is breathtaking.

Not only am I keenly sensitive and overwhelmed by how well the audiotour and presentation of works by Chagall was tailored at the MOMA but the life of a man is an adventure in self actualization, exile, challenge, laughter, joy, love, and overwhelming tenderness.

I’m very fond of how he paints poets.
Lying prostrate on the ground.
Overwhelmed with emotion
Gazing skywards and hands to their breast as if breathing took effort from the pure experience of undistilled emotion.

The whole world above. Ordinary life in the background.
Feeling in the peripherary.
Along the borders of this world.
As if its wonders made the observer feel as if they were unworthy and alien to the splendor.

…

Amazing what that man has done with finger paints.

What?!

Chagall would have laughed.

In an ideal world.

In an ideal world: I could combine the simple elegance of Tribe.net, the grasp of community of Craigslist and the sheer critical mass on Friendster. I’d be able to use Plaxo.com and update contacts, old and new , from those community of folks there. (In subfolders, categories,lists, etc)

And then I’d be able to invite everyone to the same events using upcoming.org and evite. For shows it would provide a link to Ticketmaster or the appropriate venue’s ticketting service with ease. And with my RSVP purchase the tickets immediately from my Paypal account.

You could Moblog or audioblog directly from the event. Maybe even chat via textmsging to folks who couldn’t be there.

You could purchase merch after the concert that you didn’t get a chance to buy there. Either directly from the artist’s website or another likely retailer.
Events would autosync to my PC’s calendar. Outlook or Palm or whatnot.

After such social outings, a public/private photoalbum. Reviews. Etc. Authority rankings/ratings on reviewers.

You could autosubscribe to certain folks’s events and see a listing of related interesting events or appropriate subject references via Search, Popular Opinion, Discussion, News, and Amazon.

Of course profiles, privacy, subscribe, unsubscribe, and block settings.

And if folks from any of the sites above that interested me had blogs, there’d be a single place I could go to catch up on them all. Xanga. Livejournal. Blogger. Blogspot. MT, Typepad.

A blogroll & rss feed on steroids.

My life would sync. I’d see what my friends are doing, what’s interesting in the world today and what to plan for in the upcoming month. Plus Microdiscussion groups that web between any of the associated feature sets.

It’d be available by web. By web enabled cel phone. And Sync to a PDA.

Fuck.

Internet. Technology. Geekdom. Hast thou failed me?

And oh yeah, in an ideal world, this would also guarantee me orgasms every night.

Now is that too much to ask? Consider me a non-nerd but a technology-social-junkie. And I do like nerds ever so much. They’re snarky and fun and fix stuff.

And yes, I’ve cut my blog vacation a bit early, but there’s too much in my head that keeps on begging to spill out.

Ahem.

My costarring role in Emotion Eric’s latest adventure.

Just Grand

And hey! I’m sporting the “I will not love you long time” tank top.

Check it out.

If wishes were like
candles then my heart would be
ablaze in fire.

You absofuckinglootly gotta go.

Seriously.

Apature 2003.

APAture Film Night Thursday, September 25
Doors open 7 PM; Program 7:30 – 9:30 PM $7
With Featured Artist in Film Michael Wilson

APAture Literary and Performance Night Friday, September 26
Doors open 7:30 PM; Program 8 � 10 PM $7
With APAture Literary Featured Artist Barbara Reyes

APAture Main Event Saturday, September 27
1 PM � 1 AM $10
With APAture Featured Artists Golda Supanova, Frances Sedayao, Jane Chen, and Gene Yang

What is APAture?
Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture is an annual multidisciplinary arts festival presenting the work of emerging Asian Pacific American artists, ages 18 to 35, living and/or working in the San Francisco Bay Area. APAture’s mission is to provide young artists with an early experience presenting their work at a large event; to build audiences for young, emerging artists; to strengthen the sense of community among our young artists; and to raise awareness of the existence of and diversity within the APA arts community. APAture values community-building, ethnic and artistic diversity, and collaboration across ethnic and disciplinary lines.

Now in its fifth year, APAture includes a visual arts show, film screenings, workshops, a panel discussion, literary readings, performances in spoken word, music, dance, theater, and other performance genres, and an area for zinesters and comic artists to display and sell their work. The last day of APAture is a twelve-hour event that attracts over 600 people–last year over 700 people attended the final day of APAture, and over 1300 total turned out over the course of the festival. APAture generally lasts for two weeks, with the visual show opening one week before the rest of the festival’s events.

Each year APAture also features a select group of artists who exemplify the work being done in their discipline.

APAture is curated and produced by KSW-Next, the next-generation component of Kearny Street Workshop.

Buy Tickets Online

You so so so so so so so absofuckinglootly gotta go.

Really.

This interruption in blogcation has been sponsored by the letter A.

I now return to the rock beneath which I’ve been hiding.
Thank you!
Smoochie booches. I Shmoo you!

See you in October.

Realization:

You are harder to love and than you thought.

And you wish your heart would dry up like jerky.

And that someone would still want to poor pureness and lucious affection into you.

In spite of yourself.