ABC it's easy as 1-2-3!

For those of you who are Chinese American I have a great opportunity if you're an aspiring visual artist of any sort. Or if you know any Chinese American artists pass it on.

You may know that I work at the Chinese Culture Center, whose mission is to preserve and promote Chinese and Chinese American arts and culture. Well, we are in the midst of scheduling an exhibit of young Chinese American artists for March 2007 and the call for submissions will be out soon. I wanted to give you a heads up about it so that if you have projects in the works or a lot of pieces from which you would need to select, you will have plenty of time to get things together.

I don't have all the details yet, and I am not the one who is currently coordinating the exhibit or deciding which pieces are getting shown, but this is a good chance for you to showcase your art in a public space where it will be seen by a considerable number of people.

As soon as I have the specifics I will post it here. But here's what you need to do in 3 easy steps.

1) Work on and/or select a few pieces that you would like to submit (it can be a wide range of things, drawing, mixed media, paintings, photgraphy, video art, prints, collage, sculpture, etc.). In fact, one of the things they are looking for is traditional Chinese art done in a contemporary way (e.g. brush painting, calligraphy, paper cuts) but it is certainly not restricted to that kind of art.

2) Submit your selected piece(s). Remember originals will not be returned if that's what you submit, so I would advise either sending a digital copy/picture. Of course, the originals will be shown at our gallery if they are selected.

3) Don't call us, we'll call you. But if we do call you, duh, it means you're in!

Good luck!

If your heart's in San Francisco

In preparation for my departure to South Africa I have begun to brainstorm for things I would like to bring to share with people. Since part of my obligation in my scholarship is to serve as an ambassador, I intend to be a good representative for San Francisco. Often, ambassdorial scholars who have preceded me bring gifts from their hometown to bestow upon Rotarians and other people that they meet as a way of greasing the ambassadorial wheel, and as a gesture of friendship and goodwill. As someone fiercely proud of being a native San Franciscan, I wanted to proselytize a bit as well as take the opportunity to generate some creative production.

As such I am now asking those of you who either live in San Francisco or have a connection to the city to submit materials for a San Francisco zine. I will serve as editor and produce the zine as one of my gifts to people in Cape Town. There are no restrictions on what you create as long as it has something to do with San Francisco, it is suitable for publication in a zine, and does not contain anything obscene (although don't be afraid to push the envelope in your intial offering--I'm not here to stifle you).

I am also planning a mix CD of San Francisco and California songs to accompany this zine. Any song suggestions would be welcome too.

So c'mon people, get those creative juices flowing!

"All the News That's Fit to html"

You may want to know the news that is going on in South Africa. For an excellent source, turn to the Mail and Guardian Online: http://www.mg.co.za/

I have been reading this website on a regular basis and it is a good short summary of major news in the country. If you are curious about current events and espcially if you plan to come and visit me when I am in Cape Town, I hope this is helpful.

At least give me credit for resisting the demands of vicarious readers for this long

But I do have a purpose. For me, this is just another tool among many to keep a record of things.

This is a blog that is also for information that I deem pertinent to share in an easily accessible form for friends and family. It is also for chronicling my Rotary ambassadorial scholarship stint in Cape Town, South Africa which begins in 2007. Many people have expressed a preference to read a blog as opposed to other forms of keeping tabs.

As you have read in the blog's description Avera and Palimpsest are defined as follows:

Avera: A name of Castillian origin, towards truth. On a visit to Ellis Island in 2001 I looked up my own surname on a computer and from what I recall what I define above is accurate on that count.


Palimpsest: a manuscript (usually written on papyrus or parchment) on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible. This palimpsest defintion is from dictionary.com.

In juxtaposing these two words together to title my blog, I sought to provoke reader's thoughts about the nature of text, writing and truth. While on the constant search for meaning and worthwhile purpose (i.e. truth), when that process is textually recorded there is always something obscured or hidden. Some scholars argue that something called "textual supremacy" exists, a privileging of that which can be verified or communicated by text as opposed to other means of diseminating and understanding information. The existence of textual supremacy often invalidates and lessens the value of that which is communicated by speech, or physical movement. Or if in a given context all that we validate is a textual form, then we often miss or ignore what is not captured in text.

Think of examples as varied as undocumented workers, oral history, the energy of an audience during a musical performance...

So by the very nature of its title I ask readers to think about not just what is possible to be expressed in blogging and writing in general, but also what is hidden beneath the sufrace text, and what parts of truth evade written record. Text can be penumbral just as much as it elucidates.

Since a palimpsest is most often on papyrus or parchment, and usually very antiquated, it is especially fun to invoke it in a new and paperless medium like a blog. And as someone unsavvy with new-fangled technology (at least compared to my peers) to begin with, calling it a palimpsest reflects the tension between the evident benefits of digital documentation and my staunch love of reading and writing things on paper.

Beyond this explanation, I hope that any reader encountering it will draw their own titular interpretation. A palimpsest lends itself to multiple meanings.