Critical Art Ensemble rocks. Check this:

“… unlike the military (where the soldier is supplied with the technology to transform he/rself into a weapon system) the civilian force will buy the technology of their enslavement…”

and later:

“… the body must be trained to meet the demands of the technology…”

A bit deterministic, but still disturbing.

(From _Flesh Machine: Cyborgs, Designer Babies and New Eugenic Consciousness_)

Happy Lunar New Year friends, family, readers and lurkers! Hope the Year of the Dog is a good one for all of you.

Starting the year auspiciously, working on the new novel, reading poetry submitted by two students for my first consultations tomorrow. I’ll hang with Rita later. She has assembled all the ingredients for a New Year’s vegetarian recipe that the Chinese American poet Frances Chung used to make.

I am sort of allowed to drive now. “You probably can,” said my physiotherapist, “as long as you stay away from my route home.”

Big party last night put on by birthday boys Steve Lee and David Khang. Great seeing more old friends and making new ones. Stuffed my face with chap chae.

On the way home we saw a single huge firework go off at the end of my street. The things you can get over the counter these days!

Just in case you imagine that it’s stopped raining, it hasn’t. Spent yesterday working at home to the delightful crooning of the backhoe on the construction site outside my window, while in front of the house the city is tearing up the road to replace the water mains or some such. Thank goodness for the email from Monika containing the essay she wrote on the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre which we visited together in New Denver last summer. Some really interesting thinking on the relation of the memorial garden to trauma. I like the ideas of a “living archive” and “tender research.” It was a day of good email, actually. (Good machine, good machine.) My friend Jay sent along a link, and two songs from Pacifica. I think he said he’s friends with one or some of them. Lovely elusive Ivana dropped a note also. She is on her way to Mexico tomorrow.

In the evening, more gastronomical adventures at the old Daimo (I think it’s called Kwong Chow now. “Kwong Chow” I said to Rita, in a flat toneless accent because I think the transliteration is funny. Which set her off an a rant about why CBC announcers can’t say “Gung Hei Fat Choy” properly.) Stewed beef muscle and tendon with daikon, bitter melon and eggs, soup noodles with gailan– I was happy. Then off on the Wong rounds– to see the Janets perform at Emily Carr. They are very cool, interesting zine girls. They take their name from the Janet of Three’s Company. First issue is a John Ritter memorial. Hilarious. It was pub night at ECIAD. We got our Tarot cards read (for $2.50!) by a smart young student running a Tarot table. Then off on the hunt for ma ku li, a kind of Korean rice wine we drank with Ashok at a downtown restaurant last week. I told Rita, I told her. It’s illegal for them to sell it to take away. But she wouldn’t believe me. So down to the West End we went on this (of course) unsuccessful mission. Stubborn girls on a rampage. Then to London Drugs to see about buying a sunlamp. It isn’t just me. Rita is also having a hard time staying awake in the rain and dark.

better. now if only i could think of a name for the no-name novel.

So the writer-in-residence gig is now in full swing. There’s a reception on February 3 and you are invited. Please see the invite below. Also, if anyone is interested in getting feedback on their work, or just coming and talking to me about writing, there is now a process in place for that. Details below.

And, while we’re on the subject of good news in my writing life, my story “I Love Liver: A Romance” will be coming out in The Year’s Best Science Fiction #11, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer in the US. Yip!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AND DISTRIBUTION

The Department of English at Simon Fraser University is pleased to invite you to a special reception for Larissa Lai, Writer-in-Residence for 2006 (January - June). The evening will feature a reading by Larissa Lai, followed by a reception.

Friday, February 3 2005
Segal Building, Simon Fraser University
500 Granville Street at Pender
7:00 - 8:30

This event is open to all members of the Simon Fraser
University community as well as the Vancouver arts community.
Please RSVP to Simon Fraser University,
Harbour Centre, at cs_hc@sfu.ca or phone 604-291-5100
(fax 604-291-5098) by January 31.

Sponsored by the Writer-in-Residence Program with funding
assistance from the Office of the President and the Dean of Arts,
Simon Fraser University.

About Larissa Lai

Larissa Lai’s first novel, When Fox Is a Thousand, was short-listed for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and has recently been republished by Arsenal Pulp Press. Her second novel, Salt Fish Girl, about an ageless female character who shifts shape and form through time and place, was shortlisted for The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. She has also published short stories, critical articles, and poetry. She is an accomplished editor and curator, and she is currently completing a doctorate in literature at the University of Calgary. In 2005, Lai’s work was the subject of a special issue of West Coast Line, an established periodical on literature and art.

For Writers

Larissa Lai will be available for consultation at Simon Fraser University from January to June, 2006. To contact her call the Department of English at 604-291-3136.

For information on the Writer-in-Residence Program, please consult the Department of English website ().

lovely dinner with sophie, david and their daughter maya on monday. maya hid on us and we couldn’t find her. thought she went behind the picture frame, or into the olives or under the table. she can also walk like a penguin, and had us following her around the living room in full waddle. delicious food, great talks about books (dionne brand’s _What We All Long For_ in particular), david’s novel-in-progress (which he promises to share, but so far has not coughed up… david…). they gave some super helpful feedback on paper i’m working on.

working at school has been productive. i’ve got several projects starting to gain momentum. though the no-name novel is still giving me grief. students have starting coming by to introduce themselves. there’s a recently started up student mag at sfu called _iamb_. lots of energy behind it. i’ll have my first student consultations next week.

last night had supper with my old friend haruko okano. she’s working at a community gallery right in my neighbourhood, at the britannia community centre, and doing a bunch of her own art, all with found, organic materials that decompose and change over time. haruko’s work is amazing because it breaks all our expectations about gallery art as permanent, archivable, transportable and (financially) valuable. every thing is time-based, slow-paced and biodegradable.

i’ve been riding to school on monday and wednesday mornings with roy– great chats about the election, citizenship, the global world order. much fun.

tonight– a panel on citizenship at sfu harbour centre, with roy miki, david chariandy, lorena gale and daphne marlatt. some heated discussion. a bunch of very conflicting discourses. question of the value of citizenship when it can be suspended at any time through moments of exception, invoked through the patriot act, the war measures act, the anti-terrorism act etc. some anxiety in the room about the notion of ‘belonging’. afterwards, caught the tail end of the launch of the new _west coast line_ at the honey lounge. i’m tired, but it’s great to be in the midst of all this thinking and doing.

roy miki gave a talk yesterday at a space on hastings street. some really interesting stuff about knowing oneself proprioceptively, as opposed to knowing oneself by how one is hailed, internalizing the name and acting it out.

on the way back from physio this evening i saw a (white) man with a cane get on the bus. the bus was crowded. he saw me notice him (of course i noticed), and eyed my seat like he wanted it. understandable. and i’d have given it to him, but it is a gloomy fact of my sad-sack post-operative state that i can not stand up on a moving bus without falling down either. a seat came up two rows ahead. he moved towards it but an oblivious (white, able-bodied) woman took it. a (chinese) woman in front of me saw what happened and gave him her seat, which was right in front on mine. he turned around to snarl at me. “f-ing chink,” he said. it was an unpleasant jolt. i could have said something. i should have said something. i didn’t. where do you start? how do you unravel this? was it him, me or the city?

is watching knowing? a couple of days ago the construction guys tarred the outside of the foundation, presumeably to keep the copious groundwater out of the basement. today they are pouring gravel. i will know how to build a house after this, at least theoretically. is this voyeurism? how about what you are doing now? ha ha. don’t go away. it’s nice having you here.

aren’t they pretty? i like them.