I am the F**King Virus – a #Covid19 Documentary Poem

20200413 Update: See this link for the latest text and video short film of “I am the F**King Virus – a Pandemic #Covid19 Documentary Poetry short film”. The following text is NO longer updated with any further changes.

20200403 Update: Kempton has now written his second poem, “We are Your Tomorrow, with love“, another #covid19 poem.

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(Written Sat & Sun March 21-22, 2020 as the world fights the deadly covid19. My heart is broken. Witness data on two screens captured 4 hours apart this morning on March 22nd. I write without malice but with hope. Never Give Up! We can and will win this WWIII of Covid19 together! Inspired by poet & reporter Yuri‘s poem “I AM THE VIRUS“. Many thanks to Yuri for her encouragement plus wonderful feedback & suggestions for improvements. As I tweeted, “Life is too short so I’m going to make a fool of myself by attempting my first poem! I hope I won’t die of #shame before #covid19 kills me!” Will see about that.)

I am the F**King Virus – a Documentary Poem by Kempton

(version 2.481632641282565121024)

I am the F**King Virus

You covered me up. And let me killed thousands

Thank you. Xie Xie. Or is it Xi Xi

WHO studied me and recommended how to beat me

but few read her report so I infected 100,000s more

How do I say thank you in Italian, Spanish, German, Persian, French, Korean, and Trumpian

I am the F**King Virus

We shall fight on the beaches

We shall fight under the cherry blossom trees

We shall fight in the churches, mosques, and synagogues

We shall fight in close combat less than 2 meters apart (with no Physical Distancing)

We can stop fighting now IF you accept my price of 1.4% of you ALL (mostly elderly, the weak plus some healthy young human beings)

I am the F**King virus

I am on the Edge of Tomorrow or is it Live Die Repeat

You are now awakened. You want to act brave and play Emily Blunt or Tom Cruise

You have finally found those bottles of deathbed messages on your empty beaches

You finally care. WHO cares. Really. Always

Give up now. My first offer of 1.4% of you ALL is gone. Now my market price has gone up to 9% (thank you China, Italy, Spain, Iran, France, and the good old US of A)

I am the F**King Virus

I am not your “Chinese Virus”. But I love your infighting. Hatred is my Superman’s yellow sun

My name is COVID19. My friend WHO gave me that lovely name.
WHO talked to me, cared about me, and studied me when few had heard about me.
I am the Fun King of Virus. Your Holocaust 2.0.
How Game of Thrones should have ended.
Your World War III genocide of humans.

I love sports. See you in Tokyo Olympics. Yes to “Faster, Higher, Stronger”, especially Faster. Like Bond, James Bond. Faster, Spread Faster

Time helps me kill you exponentially fast. But time is also fair. Time told me I cannot mutate faster to kill you better

I wish I am not illiterate. I wish I can read the WHO-China Joint Mission report, your letters/research papers in The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, Stat News and so much more. I wish I could stop you from researching for cures. I wish there is no SOLIDARITY global megatrial. I wish I could stop you from “Testing, Testing, Testing”. I wish I could change my battle plans to fight you better. Most of all, I wish I could stop you from washing your damn hands. I wish, I wish, I wish. I kill, I kill, I kill

I am the F**King virus

I am COVID-19 of the House SARS, the Second of Her Name,

Reigning Fun King of Virus, Stopper of Flights, Builder of Walls, Destroyer of Alliances

Divider of United “PPE for Highest Bidders” States, Breaker of Supply Chains and Mother of Bats.

Unless Humanity stops her infighting and work together as One to end me now

I will be back

at 10.19.08 AM 20200322 (318,209 confirmed, Total Deaths 13,664, Total Recovered 94,700) – Screen Shot

at 6.12.58 AM 20200322 (311,988 confirmed, Total Deaths 13,407, Total Recovered 93,790) – Screen Shot

Happy Green Balls from Paris

Green Balls from Play | Alexander Ekman & Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris | Palais Garnier 2017

Respect and help others, even total strangers. This is one of the many lessons my dad taught me by example.

You see. one year our family traveled to Thailand and there were performances (dancing and singing) at lunch. As our tour group finished our meals, people were getting ready to leave. All except our table.

Dad convinced our fellow travellers to stay seated for a few more minutes to allow the singer to finish her song before we left. The singer noticed and appreciated it. She was someone we would never meet again. I guess in some sense even she didn’t mind people leaving en masse mid-song as she must have come to expect and have seen happened many times. But our small gestures made a small difference to her that day.

Dad didn’t intend to teach me any lessons. He was just being himself. Respectful and polite (and be firm with reasons when needed) to everyone including strangers. I in turn got a lesson for life. By example.

So back to my green balls which signify playfulness and happiness to me thanks to the epic ballet Play in Paris (see trailer video below). It just so happened that while watching Play in Paris during an intermission, I was posting stuff on Facebook and saw a friend’s post which I saw as a “cry for help”. Long story short, after getting my hands on a few of the magical green balls at the end of the performance, I snapped a photo and sent it to my friend and promised to arrange a coffee meetup to give the friend one of my treasured green balls. We had a good talk. And the friend felt better.

Today, another Facebook friend from overseas seemed to be having a bad day so I took the above green balls photo and sent it to the friend with a few words of encouragement and care. Giving the friend my balls (photo of them) and keeping them. My version of “having my cake and eat it too“.   ;)

At the end of the day, I believe love and care are like that, the more you give, the more you have. We are all on this earth for the blink of an eye and may be gone tomorrow. Might as well be good and caring to our loved ones, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. We may not be able to be good all the time, but try we can. A new thought just came into my mind as I typed this paragraph. You see, if you think about it carefully, we are that “strangers” to others we don’t know. And the world and we ourselves would be better if we are all a bit nicer and kinder to that strangers as our world seem to fall into a darker period in our recent years.

Thanks dad. Thinking of you. OK, here are those balls, lots and lots and lots of balls! Enjoy!

Play trailer | Alexander Ekman & Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris | Palais Garnier 2017

xxx

At Eternity’s Gate – starring Willem Dafoe as van Gogh

The Oscar nominated director (and painter) Julian Schnabel‘s film At Eternity’s Gate about the final years of painter Vincent van Gogh‘s life seems fascinating.

Insightful short clip via TIFF: AT ETERNITY’S GATE director Julian Schnabel on art and creating

AT ETERNITY’S GATE – Official Trailer

AT ETERNITY’S GATE – A Journey Inside the World of Vincent van Gogh

At Eternity’s Gate’ Press Conference | NYFF56

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Banksy’s $1.4m transformative act (self-destructing stunt?)

(with 2018, October 11th & 18 updates) Fascinating $1.4m transformative act (self-destructing stunt?) by anonymous UK-based street artist Banksy. The work is not really “destroyed” because it is in a funny Schrödinger’s cat half-alive & half dead state. A total and more messy destruction would be one that cut the canvas into tiny squares and cut the whole canvas completely and let the pieces fall onto the ground. A total and more beautiful “destruction” is what Tibetan monks do when they blow away their own sand arts (sand mandala is a ritual of creation and destruction, that “symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life“).

Finally, the money/worth question is probably the easiest one to answer. It will be rather stupid for the buyer to use legal means to get out of the deal. The work, after this stunt, will easily worth a lot more. Way more! But what is more interesting to me about art is always about the questions we ask ourselves or the thinking we do about them. We (National Gallery of Canada) paid a controversial $1.8m for Voice of Fire (a painting consists of “three equally sized vertical stripes, with the outer two painted blue and the centre painted red“) in 1989. It was estimated to worth $40m in 2014 and probably more today. And of course, art can’t just be about money. [HT Seastar]

P.S. This “making of” video was posted on

Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

“New York City to me is a readymade! The beauty about New York City is co-existence and tolerance and sharing.” “Fences can be solid as a wall. But many fences you can see through. You can have hatred or admiration about the other side.” – Ai Weiwei (Vimeo video @1:47 & @2:42) (ref Public Art Fund) (Adding this to my long list of Quotes I LOVE)

PAF40: Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (here is a Public Art Fund link to donate any amount small or big)

P.S. Thrilled to have made a tiny contribution to Public Art Fund for this project. “A small act is worth a thousand Facebook Likes.”  as I like to say.

2017 Nov 6 Update: TimesTalks | Ai Weiwei (2017/10/16)

This is a cool one because they knew each other for so long. 2014/10/29 Ai Weiwei talks with Evan Osnos – The New Yorker Festival (interview with Evan Osnos)

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National Music Centre 2016 Canada Day Grand Opening

National Music Centre – Studio Bell – 2016 Canada Day Grand Opening

National Music Centre – Studio Bell – 2016 Canada Day Grand Opening

We did something special on 2016 Canada Day in Calgary by attending the grand opening of the National Music Centre (NMC) Studio Bell (Twitter)! Yes, the lineup was long and around the block (~1.5 hours) even at 10am in the morning but it totally worth our time in the wait because of the special guest pxerformances we got to watch (more on this later). Regular admission fees are $18 for adult, $14 for Seniors/Students, $11 for Youth (3-12), free for Children (under 3) and free on this grand opening day. And there is cool as there is a FREE/complimentary admission for “new Canadian citizens within their first year of citizenship. New citizens can apply for the CAP online at www.icc-icc.ca and present their pass upon arrival at Studio Bell for free entry.”

NMC 2016 Canada Day Grand Opening Lineup

NMC 2016 Canada Day Grand Opening Lineup

The NMC really has great exhibitions (22 stages) and a wonderful unique collection (with about 2,000 objects)! Have a watch of following clips and check out some photos at the end of this post.

父親節快樂 Happy Father’s Day – 與 Simon 談書法的創意 Talk Chinese Calligraphy Creativity with Simon

父親節快樂! Happy Father’s Day! In 2013, I had the pleasure of LIVE chatting (unedited LIVE streaming) with my father about Chinese calligraphy creativity.

與 Simon 談書法的創意 Talk Chinese Calligraphy Creativity with Simon

My father has taught me, by personal examples, how to maintain life-long curiosity and learning. Dad LOVEs to learn. And he is a much better teacher than I ever will be. I sometimes lack the infinite patient that he seems to have.

During the LIVE chat, dad told me (amongst many things), on a purely calligraphy level, Dr. Sun Yat-sen 孫中山, Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the Republic of China, loves to write the four Chinese words 「天下為公」 (The world is a Commonwealth). A photo example of Dr. Sun’s writing: 孫中山在故居題的「天下為公」四個大字。(Google image search of 孫中山 Dr. Sun’s 天下為公 samples.) And Chairman Mao’s 毛澤東 loves to write the five words「為人民服務」五個字. (Google image search of 毛澤東 Chairman Mao’s「為人民服務」samples.) We had some fascinating discussions on top of the calligraphy in the LIVE video chat.

After my chat with dad talking about 鄭板橋’s words「難得糊塗」, the curious me (thanks dad!) conducted some research Zheng Xie 鄭板橋 (formally 鄭燮) and ended up reaching out to Dr. Lee Shew-Hua in Taiwan to ask her if she could kindly share her PhD thesis with me. As Dr. Lee had conducted her research 20+ years ago, she didn’t have an electronic copy of her thesis. But after finding out which pages/section I am most interested in, she was so kind to arrange and scan an excerpt of her Phd thesis 李秀華博士 〈鄭板橋書法之研究〉博士論文 (4.5 MB, PDF image file) for me. As all PhD thesis are in public domain, I am now sharing Dr. Lee’s PhD thesis excerpt 李秀華博士 〈鄭板橋書法之研究〉博士論文 on this Father’s Day to celebrate the teachings and inspirations by fathers from around the world.

Thanks Dad! Thanks for your continue teachings and inspirations! You rock!

Happy Father’s Day! 父親節快樂!

P.S. Upon further research, I found this Chinese TV show about Zheng Xie 鄭板橋. Enjoy.

《老梁故事汇》 20151023 郑板桥的糊涂人生

There are two Chinese series: 扬州八怪 YouTube playlist and 鄭板橋外傳

Watch “Revolution Trilogy” 睇「革命三部曲」

(Watch my trilogy of documentaries.)

Watch my docs Revolution Trilogy 睇「革命三部曲」

20190812 Director new preface re the word “Revolution”:

The title of my debut documentary “Long Hair Revolution 「長毛革命」” was decided in 2004, so 15 years ago. The rationale is similar to “industrial revolution” or “internet revolution”, ideas for improvement. Nothing to do with violence.

“長毛革命”在2004, 即是15年前定名, 其實跟”工業革命”或者”互聯網革命”道理相同, 是嶄新改革的意思, 完全同”暴力”沒有任何關係.

Uli Sigg – Great minds of our time

I only knew Dr. Uli Sigg (1946 – ) as a collector of Ai Weiwei‘s arts and the donor of his M+ Sigg Collection. I now realize there are so much more to learn about Dr. Sigg (a major collector of Chinese art since 1979 and visited over 1,000 Chinese artists according to this video). Have a read of this NYT article, “A Swiss Champion for the Art of a Rapidly Changing China” and the following video clips. Awesome!

P.S. I am adding Dr. Uli Sigg to my list of “Great minds of our time” and “Friends of China” where I put the likes of professors Milton Friedman and Ronald Coase.

SwissMade: The untold story of Uli Sigg

中国通（3）：乌里·希克 Uli Sigg and Art

Perfect video for sweet birthday girl +Maria Quiban

A perfect video for sweet birthday girl +Maria Quiban! Language may not be suitable for kids and yes, she is acting as the Maria I know is a caring friend, a loving mom, and a wonderful host of+FOX 11 Los Angeles Live YouTube hangout with Hollywood movie, TV stars and other notable guests ! :) [HT +Ayoub Khote ]

Bill Cunningham New York – Wow!

Ready to be wowed by Bill Cunningham New York over dinner! Here is a trailer.

2012 Rio Body Painting Art in Brazilian Carnival Andrea Martins

I think the video clip “2012 Rio Body Painting Art in Brazilian Carnival Andrea Martins” is beautiful.

And I left the following comment on the video,

Beautiful without being sexual! Wish I could be there at 2012 Brazilian Carnival!

which I got this reply

@KemptonLam thank you so much for this enormous compliment…this is what I have been struggling for years and years!!! One of the best comments ever received in more than 10 million views…this is what I always fought for, remove this misappropriation of Brazil Carnival. Thank you so much!!

belavistario 56 minutes ago

and my respond to that

@belavistario I am glad my comment made you happy. The lady in the video (and how the video is shot) gave me a wonderful sense of beauty, energy, and excitement that I know I will feel in a Brazilian Carnival! Whoever filmed the video (I don’t know if it was you) did a wonderful service to show a wonderful side of Brazil to us! Keep up the good work.

See more comments and replies in this Google+ post. And text and photos in “Full Body Painting Conquered Brazilian Carnival: Body Art Gains Momentum”

[HT +Robert Redl]

P.S. Here is a Chinese reply I left to a Facebook comment “太大膽啦••• @_@'”,

大膽可能有點，但我認為絕非色情。巴西的風土人情、文化背景及個人開放程度不同，難以中國人的尺度作準。再者是一年一度的巴西加年華盛事，我看來覺得健康有活力。

Feb 20, 2012 update: Interesting read from MarketWatch, “Rio’s Carnival: Not just a local party anymore – Huge street fair seen as warm-up for World Cup and Olympics“

Tehching Hsieh – One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece) 24×365=8760

Tehching Hsieh’s ‘One Year Performance’ 1980 (VIDEO). [HT @aliklay]

Time Clock Piece

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei gets 21,000+ microloans totalling 5.9m yuan so far to pay his 15m yuan tax bill

For the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, it is not about the money, it is a chance to let the Chinese public to voice their support of him and disapproval of Chinese government unjust accusation/judgement. Read along to find out what these two donations signify:

512 yuan, about $80

89.64 yuan, or about $14

Washington Post, “Ai Weiwei fans raise funds to pay his massive tax bill”

“In a strong affront to the Chinese government’s attempt to censor artists and internet users, fans of the artist Ai Weiwei have raised more than $830,000 in three days through social media to help the artist fight a $2.4 million tax bill from the state.”

BBC English, “Ai Weiwei China tax bill paid by supporters” (with English interview)

“By Monday, there had been donations totalling more than 5m yuan ($790,000; £490,000) to pay off the $2.4m in taxes and fines the authorities say he owes.

Many people believe he was served the bill because of his outspoken criticism of the government rather than because he had evaded taxes.

“Most powerful artist” in the world Ai Weiwei (艾未未) doesn’t feel powerful

Have a listen to BBC radio interview of “most powerful artist” in the world, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (+艾未未). Ai, I don’t feel powerful at all. I am still under detention. (also see reports in UK Reuters, Telegraph)

Other recent insightful articles and video:
1) NYTimes Oct 13, Dissident Creates by Remote Control
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/arts/design/ai-weiweis-photo-shoot-from-china.html
2) Ai Weiwei’s wife urges China to drop plan on detentions
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/28/us-china-artist-detentions-idUSTRE78R0SK20110928
3) PBNS Frontline doc (free online): Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ai-wei-wei/

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations – El Bulli

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations – El Bulli (part 1, part 2, and part 3)

Eric Bricker Q&A and interview at 2011 CIFF – Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

I had a Skype video interview with Eric Bricker, director/producer of Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman before I got a chance to watch the film and I thought I would love it. After my skype video, I signed out four books by or about Julis Shulman from the library! So after watching Visual Acoustics yesterday on big screen, I can now positively say I LOVE the film and highly recommend it. Check out Visual Acoustics’ trailer if you haven’t seen it. If you can’t see the film in a theatre on a big screen, Visual Acoustics is available in DVD and also in HD via Netflix.

Here is my interview with Eric at 2011 CIFF.

Here is some of Eric’s Q&A at 2011 CIFF. (note: I edited out some questions as some are already covered in my one-on-one interviews with Eric).

Computational Aesthetics 2011 – Marta Blicharz

Check out my friend Marta Blicharz’s report where her artwork submission was accepted into the Computational Aesthetics 2011 academic conference and art exhibition. Really cool looking arts and interesting report.

Here is a brief video.

Inspired by and Rescued Bruce Mau plus Books I Love

I want to thank Bruce Mau for inspiring me since 20010103 when I fell in love and bought a copy of his autographed Life Style (blue cover) at David Mirvish Books. So I took an opportunity to make this video.

As you can see in the video, I thanked Bruce by picking up 4 copies of Life Style and casually laid a copy at each of my coffee tables and desks so I can read them at random and without worry about getting them dirty.

You can click to see the original full size readable version of the following photos. And from these two Flickr sets, “Bruce Mau Life Style & Massive Change” and “Books I Love“.

P.S. Checkout these articles, “Bruce Mau Design tries to solve Toronto’s problems” and “Design Principal“.

Reflecting on Marta Blicharz’s Exhibition – Self-Referenced Abstract Art

By chance, I come across Marta Blicharz‘s very cool & interesting MFA exhibition “Breaking The Spell – Exhibition“. Check out the Exhibition if you haven’t seen it yet.

I got more curious about abstract art especially after my 2008 interview with abstract artist Christine Cheung. I try to keep an eye of whats new and exciting. I am happy to say I found something that interested me in Breaking The Spell. Here is how Marta describe an interesting abstract image “A Sultry Blonde in a Red Dress Touching Her Lips Seductively” (emphasis and link added),

“One of the exhibited images included a display of the ASCII symbols from a single JPEG file, 4 by 6 inches in size, and 300dpi in resolution. Of course that JPEG image was not shown, but in it’s place I have put up 5.5 panels, each 4 by 6 feet in size, with a 9.5 point Monaco  typeface. I had to break down these panels into 11 by 17 inch pieces to print them affordably and store them easily. It was titled: ‘A Sultry Blonde in a Red Dress Touching Her Lips Seductively.’”

Sultry Blonde got me into a bit of Matrix-ish thinking. I want to try to extend Marta‘s idea a few steps further and define the new idea (to me anyway) of a “Self-Referenced Abstract Art”.

Here is my preliminary idea of how to create a piece of Self-Referenced Abstract Art.

Step 1) Take a JPEG image “J”