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Haiku and Review: Black Swan

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Balleri-Nina
Breaking, broken, soul en pointe
Oh, to be Swan Queen.

I can’t imagine this movie being everyone’s cup of tea.  In fact, I can see many people averting their eyes from the screen.  There are moments here, as there were moments in Darren Aronofsky’s previous films like Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler, where human flesh is mutilated to cringing levels — skin ripping like Scotch tape, a cheek turned into a canvas for a bout of self-stabbing.  At times, Black Swan is a full-blown horror movie, but the horror is somehow worse because the monster is within the mind of poor Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman).

It really is a horror movie, with most of its trappings — character backs away and into the arms of something/someone unpleasant, a chase in pitch-black darkness, discordant injections of noise to pump up the fear.  And yet Black Swan is more than that.  It’s a pointed, grueling character study, and boy, does Portman ever come up big in the acting department.  There’s not a single second when she isn’t Nina, and from the get-go, you can feel her confusion, her pain, her relentless drive to become someone she knows she’s incapable of being (and yet has to, somehow).   There are many shots of her smiling through misery, and each one is more heartbreaking than the one before.

It’s a movie about the pursuit of perfection, of sacrificing your very soul to achieve your dream.  But like I said, it’s also really, really scary.

I’m glad I saw Black Swan, but I’m also glad I won’t ever see it again.

High Point Regional High School and the End of the 2010 Tour

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Photo by Terry-Ann Zander; Woo was given Korean cookbooks created by High Point Regional students. Each cookbook contained recipes prepared by students in honor of his visit. From left, Megan Van Glahn, Sung J. Woo, Brittany Anello and Derek Vanalthuis.

Photo by Terry-Ann Zander; Woo was given Korean cookbooks created by High Point Regional students. Each cookbook contained recipes prepared by students in honor of his visit. From left, Megan Van Glahn, Sung J. Woo, Brittany Anello and Derek Vanalthuis.

On December 9, I visited High Point Regional High School at Sussex, NJ. There were about a hundred students in the auditorium, and after I gave a reading and answered questions from the audience, we headed over to the cafeteria. And you know what was there? Korean food!

In addition to reading my book, their teacher (Ms. Reedy — thank you, Laraine!) suggested that they delve a bit deeper into Korean culture, so they found recipes on the Internet and cooked up a storm.  Check out the gallery below to see some photos I took with my phone of their impressive spread, plus closeups of the cookbooks they made for me.  I especially appreciated these, as I’m an excellent eater of Korean food but unfortunately a nonexistent cook.

Also, the local newspaper ran a story about my visit.  And with this event, I’m done for 2010.  The totals: 17 locations, 1868 miles driven.

Photos from the Page Turner Festival

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On November 7, I participated in the Page Turner Festival in DUMBO, reading with the poet Luis Francia and the stand-up comic Hari Kondabolu (middle initial K.).  It was a wonderful event in every way except for one — Richard Price never showed up.  A shame, as I had a number of books and DVDs for him to sign!  In any case, check out the photos below.

10/25: Spartan Scholar Ceremony

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On October 25, I went back to my old high school, which of course meant I traveled back in time.  I hadn’t set foot in the building in almost twenty years, and I’d forgotten that the auditorium was right by the entrance.   What did feel familiar were the lockers, rows and rows of lockers, banks of them painted in red and blue and orange.

Every year, Ocean Township High School recognizes academic achievement at the Spartan Scholar ceremony, and this year, they were kind enough to invite me as a guest speaker.  Appearing below are some pictures and the speech I delivered.  The latter portion of the speech includes my “Backstory” piece.

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Self-Interview and Extra Chapter at TNB

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The good folks at The Nervous Breakdown are currently featuring me on their home page and in the Fiction section for the following:

11/7: Page Turner Festival @ Brooklyn

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I’ll be partaking in the second annual Page Turner Festival, the Asian American Literary Festival presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.   Check out my event below and be there!

OPEN CITY: The Diaspora Next Door
November 7, 4pm – powerHouse Ground Floor

So say you head out to Flushing for the food and New Jersey to see your fam, but who’s telling the stories of the immigrant communities, whose stories are often obscured by language barriers and economic segregation? Luis Francia, Hari Kondabolu, and Sung Woo will act as your tour guide through the diasporic landscape of Mom-and-pop shops, strip malls, and cart food in the outer boroughs and Jersey, the honorary borough. Asian American Literary Award winner Luis Francia’s new chapbook is populated by manongs, teen rappers, and a comfort woman relocated to Queens. Stand up comic Hari Kondabolu–star of Comedy Central and “a national comedic treasure” (The Stranger)–talks about coming of age in Queens. And Sung J. Woo’s Everything Asian features a Korean American family running a shop in a depressed New Jersey town. Reading headlined by Organizing Fellows of the Workshop’s OPEN CITY: Blogging Urban Change, an innovative anti-gentrification blog featuring writers gathering testimony from immigrants in Chinatown, Sunset Park and Flushing.