Jessica Marie Clauser

2012-01-08T22:03:00.000-08:00

More Lamma Island

2012-01-08T21:44:00.001-08:00

Lamma Island, HK

2012-01-02T04:49:00.000-08:00

Hunting Season

2011-11-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Brianna, 3 1/2 Months

2011-11-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

2011-10-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

2011-10-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

Brighton, England

2011-09-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

2011-09-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

2011-09-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Indian Summer in Greenwich

2011-09-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

2011-09-23T04:44:00.000-07:00

Fast Food Wasteland Part II

2011-09-21T11:29:00.001-07:00

Fast Food Wasteland

2011-09-16T03:55:00.000-07:00

2011-09-14T01:46:00.000-07:00

2011-09-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

Isle of Wight

2011-09-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

2011-09-07T04:23:00.000-07:00

2011-09-06T02:44:00.000-07:00

2011-09-05T01:03:00.000-07:00

Wild Ponies, New Forest, England

2011-09-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

2011-08-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

2011-08-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

Southampton, England

2011-08-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

2011-08-10T06:50:00.000-07:00

Kite Flying 2009

2011-08-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

going through my computer and found this gem.

I'm an aunt

2011-08-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

Brianna Shanaman Curty

August 6th, 2011

3:55am

7 lbs., 5 ounces

Waiting

2011-08-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

Feelings Are Facts, UCCA Beijing 2010

2011-08-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

2011-08-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

England.

2011-07-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

Heading back to the land of strong ale and yummy pies on August 12th.

Asbury Park, New Jersey (home of The Boss)

2011-07-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hutong, Beijing 2009

2011-07-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Valley, Beijing

2011-07-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Puppy's Most Recent Victims

2011-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Richmond, England

2011-07-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Fragent Hills, Beijing

2011-07-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

Coral, David G., and Linda

2011-07-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

Andrew in Beijing

2011-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

Beijing "Park"

2011-07-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

My Thoughts Exactly

2011-07-21T17:12:00.001-07:00

"Chicken toenails, anyone?"

By David Sedaris

"I have to go to China." I told people this in the way I might say, "I need
to insulate my crawl space" or, "I've got to get these moles looked at."
That's the way it felt, though. Like a chore. What initially put me off was
the food. I'll eat it if the alternative means starving, but I've never
looked forward to it, not even when it seemed exotic to me.

I was in my early 20s when a Chinese restaurant opened in Raleigh, North
Carolina. It was in a new building, designed to look vaguely templish, and
my mother couldn't get enough of it. "What do you say we go oriental!"

I think she liked that the food was beyond her range. Anyone could imitate
the twice-baked potatoes at the Peddler, or turn out a veal parmesan like
the Villa Capri's, but there was no way a non-Chinese person could make moo
shu pork, regardless of his or her training. "And the egg rolls," she'd say.
"Can you imagine!"

The restaurant didn't have a liquor licence, but they allowed you to brown
bag. Thus we'd arrive with our jug of hearty burgundy. I always got my
mother to order for me, but when the kung pao chicken was brought to the
table, I never perked up the way I did at the steak house or the Villa
Capri. And it wasn't just Raleigh's Chinese food. I was equally uninterested
in Chicago and, later, New York, cities with actual China Towns.

Everyone swore that the food in Beijing and Chengdu would be different from
what I'd had in the US. "It's more real," they said, meaning, it turned out,
that I could dislike it more authentically.

I think it hurt that, before landing in China, Hugh and I spent a week in
Tokyo, where the food was, as always, sublime, everything so delicate and
carefully presented. With meals I drank tea, which leads me to another great
thing about Japan its bathrooms. When I was younger they wouldn't have
mattered so much. Then I hit 50 and found that I had to pee all the time. In
Tokyo, every subway station has a free public men's room. The floors and
counters are aggressively clean and beside each urinal is a hook for hanging
your umbrella.

This was what I had grown accustomed to when we flew from Narita to Beijing
International, where the first thing one notices is what sounds like a milk
steamer, the sort a cafe uses when making lattes and cappuccinos. "That's
odd," you think. "There's a coffee bar on the elevator to the parking deck?"
What you're hearing, that incessant guttural hiss, is the sound of one
person, and then another, dredging up phlegm, seemingly from the depths of
his or her soul. At first you look over, wondering, "Where are you going to
put that?" A better question, you soon realise, is, "Where aren't you going
to put it?"

I saw wads of phlegm glistening like freshly shucked oysters on staircases
and escalators. I saw them frozen into slicks on the sidewalk and oozing
down the sides of walls. It often seemed that if people weren't spitting,
they were coughing without covering their mouths, or shooting wads of snot
out of their noses. This was done by plugging one nostril and using the
other as a blowhole. "We Chinese think it's best just to get it out," a
woman told me over dinner one night. She said that, in her opinion, it's
disgusting that a westerner would use a handkerchief and then put it back
into his pocket.

"Well, it's not for sentimental reasons," I told her. "We don't hold on to
our snot for ever. The handkerchief's mainly a sanitary consideration."

Another thing one notices in China is the turds. "Oh please," you're
probably thinking. "Must you?"

To this I answer, "Yes, I must", for if they didn't affect the food itself,
they affected the way I thought about it. In Tokyo, I once saw a dog pee on
the sidewalk. Then its owner reached into a bag, pulled out a bottle of
water and rinsed the urine off the pavement. As for dog faeces, I never saw
any trace of them. In Beijing, you see an overwhelming amount of shit. Some
of it can be blamed on pets, but a lot of it comes from people. Chinese
babies do without diapers, wearing instead these strange little pants with a
slit in the rear. When a child has to go, its parents direct it towards the
kerb or, if they're indoors, to a spot they think of as "kerby". "Last month
I saw a kid shit in the produce aisle of our Chengdu Walmart," a young woman
named Bridget told me.

This was the seventh day of my visit and so desensitised was I that my first
response was, "You have a Walmart?"

There are the wild outdoor turds of China, and then there are the ones you
see in the public bathrooms, most of which feature those squat-style
toilets, holes, basically, level with the floor. And these bathrooms, my
God. The sorriest American gas station cannot begin to match one of these
things.

In the men's room of a Beijing subway station, I watched a man walk past the
urinal, lift his three-year-old son into the air and instruct him to pee
into the sink the one we were supposed to wash our hands in.

My trip reminded me that we are all just animals, that stuff comes out of
every hole we have, no matter where we live or how much money we've got. On
some level we all know this and manage, quite pleasantly, to shove it
towards the back of our minds. In China, it's brought to the front, and
nailed there. The supermarket cashier holds out your change and you take it
thinking, "This woman squats and spits on the floor while shitting and
blowing snot out of her nose." You think it of the cab driver, of the ticket
taker and, finally, of the people who are cooking and serving your dinner.
Which brings me back to food.

If someone added a pinch of human faeces to my scrambled eggs, I may not be
able to detect it but I would most likely realise that these particular eggs
taste different from the ones I had yesterday. That's with something
familiar, though. And there wasn't a lot of familiar in China. No pork lo
mein or kung pao chicken, and definitely no egg rolls. On our first night in
Chengdu, we joined a group of four for dinner one Chinese woman and three
westerners. The restaurant was not fancy, but it was obviously popular.
Built into our table was a simmering cauldron of broth, into which we were
to add side dishes and cook them until they were done. "I've taken the
liberty of ordering us some tofu, some mushrooms and some duck tongues,"
said the western woman sitting across from me. "Do you trust me to keep
ordering, or is there anything in particular you might like?"

I looked at her thinking, "You whore!" Catherine was English and had lived
in China for close to 20 years. I figured the duck tongues were a sort of
test, so I made it a point to look unfazed. Excited even.

When I was eventually forced to eat one, I found that it actually wasn't so
bad. The only disconcerting part was the shape, particularly the base, from
which dangled tentacle-like roots. This reminded one that the tongues had
not been cut off but, rather, yanked out, possibly with pliers. Of course
the duck was probably dead by then, wasn't it? It's not as if they'd jerk
out the tongue and then let it go, traumatised and quackless but otherwise
whole.

It was while eating my second duck tongue that the man at the next table
hacked up a loud wad of phlegm and spat it on to the floor. "I think I'm
done," I said.

The following morning, and with a different group, Hugh and I took a drive
to the mountain where tea originally came from. It was late January, and the
two-hour trip took us past countless factories. Mustard-coloured smoke
drifted into the sky and the rivers we passed ran thick with waste and
rubbish. Eventually we hit snow, which improved things visually but made it
harder to move about. By the time we headed back down the mountain, it was
almost three. Most restaurants had quit serving lunch, so we stopped at
what's called a Farming Family Happiness. This is a farmhouse where, if
they're in the mood, the people who live there will cook and serve you a
meal.

One of the members of our party was a native of Chengdu, and of the five
Americans, everyone but Hugh and I spoke Mandarin. Thus we hung back as they
negotiated with the farm wife, who was square-faced and pretty and wore her
hair cut into bangs. We ate in what was normally the mah jong parlour, a
large room overlooking the family's tea field. Against one wall were two
televisions, each tuned to a different channel and loudly playing to no one.
On the other wall was a sanitation grade C and the service grade, which
was a smiley face with the smile turned upside down.

As far as I know there wasn't a menu. Rather, the family worked at their
convenience, with whatever was handy or in season. There was a rooster
parading around the backyard and then there just wasn't. After the cook had
slit its throat, he used it as the base for five separate dishes, one of
which was a dreary soup with two feet, like inverted salad tongs, sticking
out of it. Nothing else was nearly as recognisable.

I'm used to standard butchering: here's the leg, the breast, etc. At the
Farming Family Happiness, rather than being carved, the rooster was
senselessly hacked, as if by a blind person, a really angry one with a thing
against birds. Portions were reduced to shards, mostly bone, with maybe a
scrap of meat attached. These were then combined with cabbage and some kind
of hot sauce.

Another dish was made entirely of organs, which again had been hacked beyond
recognition. The heart was there, the lungs, probably the comb and
intestines as well. I don't know why this so disgusted me. If I was a
vegetarian, OK, but if you're a meat eater, why draw these arbitrary lines?
"I'll eat the thing that filters out toxins but not the thing that sits on
top of the head, doing nothing?" And why agree to eat this animal and not
that one?

I remember reading a few years ago about a restaurant in the Guangdong
province that was picketed and shut down because it served cat. The place
was called The Fangji Cat Meatball Restaurant, which isn't exactly hiding
anything. Go to Fangji and you pretty much know what you're getting. My
objection to cat meatballs is not that I have owned several cats, and loved
them, but that I try not to eat things that eat meat. Like most westerners I
tend towards herbivores, and things that like grain: cows, chickens, sheep,
etc. Pigs eat meat a pig would happily eat a human but most of the pork
we're privy to was raised on corn or horrible chemicals rather than other
pigs and dead people.

There are distinctions among the grazing animal eaters as well. People who
like lamb and beef, at least in north America, tend to draw the line at
horse, which in my opinion is delicious. The best I've had was served at a
restaurant in Antwerp, a former stable called, cleverly enough, The Stable.
Hugh was right there with me, and though he ate the same thing I did, he
practically wept when someone in China mentioned eating sea horses. "Oh,
those poor things," he said. "How could you?"

I went, "Huh?"

It's like eating poultry but taking a moral stand against those chocolate
chicks they sell at Easter. "A sea horse is not related to an actual horse,"
I said. "They're fish, and you eat fish all the time. Are you objecting to
this one because of its shape?"

He said he couldn't eat sea horses because they were friendly and never did
anyone any harm, this as opposed to those devious, bloodthirsty lambs whose
legs we so regularly roast with rosemary and new potatoes.

The dishes we had at the Farming Family Happiness were meant to be shared,
and as the pretty woman with the broad face brought them to the table, the
man across from me beamed and reached for his chopsticks. "You know," he
said, "this country might have its ups and downs but it is virtually
impossible to get a bad meal here."

I didn't say anything.

Another of the dishes that day consisted of rooster blood. I'd thought it
would be liquid, like V8 juice, but when cooked it coagulated into little
pads that had the consistency of tofu. "Not bad," said the girl seated
beside me, and I watched as she slid one into her mouth. Jill was American,
a Peace Corps volunteer who'd come to Chengdu to teach English. "In Thailand
last year? I ate dog face," she told me.

"Just the face?"

"Well, head and face." She was in a small village, part of a team returning
abducted girls to their parents. To show their gratitude, the locals
prepared a feast. Dog was considered good eating. The head was supposedly
the best part, and rather than offend her hosts, Jill ate it.

This, for many, is flat-out evil but the rest of the world isn't like
America, where it's become virtually impossible to throw a dinner party. One
person doesn't eat meat, while another is lactose intolerant, or can't
digest wheat. You have vegetarians who eat fish and others who won't touch
it. Then there are vegans, macrobiotics and a new group, flexitarians, who
eat meat if not too many people are watching. Take that into consideration
and it's actually rather refreshing that a 22-year-old from the suburbs of
Detroit will pick up her chopsticks and at least try the shar pei.

I'd like to be more like Jill, but in China something kept holding me back.
In clean, sophisticated Japan the rooster blood, arranged upon a handmade
plate between the perfect, tempura snow pea and a radish carved to look like
a first trimester foetus, would have seemed a fine idea. "We ought to try
making this at home," I'd have said to Hugh. Here, though, I thought of the
sanitation grade, and of the rooster, pecking maggots out of human faeces
before being killed. Most of the restaurants in China to me smelled dirty,
though what I was smelling was likely some unfamiliar ingredient, and I was
allowing the things I'd seen earlier in the day the spitting and snot
blowing, etc to fill in the blanks.

Then again, maybe not.

While on our trip we ate at normal, everyday places, and sometimes bought
food on the street. Our only expensive meal was in Beijing, where we went
alone to a fancy restaurant recommended by an acquaintance. The place was
located in an old warehouse and had been lavishly decorated. There was a
wine expert and someone whose job it was to drop by every three minutes and
refill your water glass. We had the Peking duck, which was expertly carved
rather than hacked and was served with little pancakes. Towards the end of
the meal, I stepped into the men's room to pee and there, disintegrating in
the western-style toilet, was an unflushed turd, a little reminder saying,
"See, you're still in China!"

Back at the table I asked for the bill. Then I remembered where I was and
amended it to "the check". In France, you can die waiting to pay for your
meal, which is something I've never understood. "How can they not want me
out of here?" I'll think. Ten minutes might pass. Then 20, me watching as
the waiter does everything but accept my goddamn money.

I'll say that for China, though offer to pay and before you can stab a
rooster with a rusty screwdriver someone has taken you up on it. I think
they want to catch you before you get sick, but whatever the reason, within
minutes you're back on the street, searching the blighted horizon and
wondering where your next meal might be coming from.

2011-07-21T06:09:00.001-07:00

2011-07-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

Random Nude New Jersey Beach

2011-07-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

My Sister is Almost a Mommy

2011-07-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

Dogs, Rules, Mao, and Barrels

2011-07-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

jiaozi making at the hutong in beijing

2011-07-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm back

2011-07-17T20:28:00.001-07:00

After 2 years in Beijing and suffering through censored internet, I am back in the west and free to blog. I'll be posting lots my China pictures and some stuff I'm working on now that I'm back in the states.

View From My Apartment

2009-11-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Modern Sky Music Festival

2009-11-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

From Back in October

Catching up on posts

2009-11-12T07:15:00.001-08:00

So since my blog is finally unblocked I am going to post a bunch of pictures I've taken since moving to Beijing in September.
Lots of updates to come.

For now here are pics from the snowfall in China.

Hooray! My blog works in China again.

2009-11-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

It keeps snowing here.

Beijing Cotton Candy

2009-04-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

More Beijing

2009-04-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

Manufactured Beijing

2009-04-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

Dogs of Beijing Part II- Great Wall Dog

2009-04-08T15:49:00.001-07:00

This amazing stray dog followed us up the Great Wall until some stupid french tourists distracted him. He was by far my favorite Chinese dog and I seriously thought about putting him in my luggage to take home. After I climbed the wall I was eating some crackers and he found me. I'll try and post the video of him and I sharing the crackers later. I'm glad I didn't take the student health seriously about stray animals and diseases.

Dogs of Beijing Part I

2009-04-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

While in Beijing I noticed a lot of stray dogs. Most days I would stalk them... walking, running, and chasing after the cutest and/or most confused ones. I don't think they knew what to think of my camera.

Stills From Performances I Did in Beijing

2009-03-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

Tree Climber, Video Still

2009-03-06T00:18:00.000-08:00

China

2009-03-05T23:29:00.001-08:00

Will in China in less than 24 hours. Be jealous.

Abandoned Amusement Park

2009-03-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

Chinatown

2009-02-18T12:06:00.001-08:00

My Sister Got Married. Craziness.

2008-10-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Flower girls climbing a tree. The inspiration for my next video piece.

Michael was my date. Doesn't he look thrilled.

Video Work

2008-10-13T20:24:00.000-07:00

So i have been working on a bunch of new video pieces but every time i try to upload them on here they don't work... most of the videos are about 2 1/2 minutes long. i guess they are too big. oh well. i'll find a way eventually. but for now i'm just going to be lazy about it.

2008-04-03T12:25:00.001-07:00

Snow Geese

2008-03-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

2008-03-27T08:52:00.001-07:00

The Parents

Bobbi Jo the Sister

(would have one of my brother but he probably wouldn't be happy to see a picture of himself on here in his long johns)

Weekend at Home Part Deux

2008-03-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

My sister and her sleeping bf.

Meat. (not pictured the awesome mac and cheese)

My cousin Molly playing quietly...that moment was over as soon as I shot this.

And my other cousin J.R. in his adorable little shoes.

After Dark at Home

2008-03-24T11:54:00.001-07:00

Home For the Weekend Part One

2008-03-24T11:44:00.001-07:00

Heidi

2008-03-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

2008-03-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

2008-03-11T08:30:00.001-07:00

2008-03-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

Wendee

2008-03-03T14:30:00.001-08:00

2008-03-03T13:54:00.001-08:00

2008-02-25T10:39:00.001-08:00

2008-02-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

Flying Leaves

2008-02-21T08:44:00.000-08:00

2008-02-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

Domesticated Branches

2008-02-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

Work Print, Domesticated Fog

2008-02-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

2008-02-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

2008-02-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

Domesticated Night Series Continued

2008-01-28T10:34:00.001-08:00

2008-01-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

My Werner Herzog Experience

2007-10-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

So yesterday there was a talk with Werner Herzog at my school. The talk was at 5pm but i made sure to get there around 4:15 and thank god i did. I don't know what Upenn was thinking but the lecture hall was WAY too small for everyone. It was packed by 4:30. And people just kept pouring in, sitting in the aisles and even a few were on the edge of the stage itself. By 5pm the room was full, i mean the whole room...it was a disgusting sea of people. The announcer kept telling people without seating to leave, that it blocked fire exits (duh) but nobody moved. Finally the fucking penn police came and made they leave.

Anyways, this just gives you an idea of how much Herzog is loved by his fans. And the talk did not disappoint. I will give you a few of the highlights, oh and by the way the talk was entitled "Why the 20th Century Was a Mistake"

-The Insanity of Penguins
-The Tree Huggers
-Anna Nicole
-What gives us an ecstasy of truth?
-Travel on foot, become a raw human being
-"There is no metaphor in walking, there''s walking. Period."
-Do raw, intense things to be a filmmaker, if you are a man become a boxer, if you are a woman play volleyball
-Don't go to film school
-Those who read win the world
-Read Read Read and Read Some More
-The Mice
-The 20th Century Was a Mistake.

Ideal Father Part Two

2007-10-08T12:07:00.001-07:00

"The Ideal Father"

2007-10-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

Work In Progress (as is everything i'm up too right now)