Xi'an, China

Here we are at the excavation site of the Terracotta Army... in a new city - Xi'an! More on this vibrant metropolis of multiculturalism later. Now, if you’re anything like I was, and have a vague notion as to what this extraordinary find was all about but mostly nod your head in blanket expression whenever someone mentions it, you owe it to yourself to do at least the sort of superficial Wikipedia scanning I generally employ before declaring myself a scholar about a subject and pretending like I have original thoughts when I then impart dubious information to others. Many of the people in my travel group were champing at the bit for this day for quite some time and I found myself awkwardly feigning just enough excitement and interest to give the illusion that I was not an idiot, but not so much as to ensnare myself within discussion that would expose my own ignorance. This type of theatrical work takes years to perfect, but oh does it pay off – I guess. Of the highest irony (I guess) was that, prior to my visit to this site, I had had a wooden miniature replica of one of these warriors proudly displayed in a central area of my apartment for years. I am exactly the type of cretinous culture vulture I have and will continue to deride whenever I step into his or her generic, “world cultures” display of a home. I do have but tenuous flooring from which to continue to toss those stones from though, as I did receive my figure as a gift. Anyway, if I may adopt an air of slight pretension, I have a tidy sum of fantastic shots from this site and I can already feel the worms of anxiety meal through my grey matter in anticipation of having so little to work with to present awesome, individual, idiosyncratic commentary from their paltry disparities. I truly wonder how this will turn out…

Gosh, every part of my being is directing me towards constructing some sort of sympathy towards this amputated and, let’s face it at this point, relatively useless soldier, however, I just can’t move past the idea of shoving something hilarious in his arm sockets. And the thing is, I’ve been mulling this over quite a bit now and I can’t even conjure up anything particularly comical. There’s been plenty of time for even the slightest drop of sympathy to cascade over my levies of emotional fortification, yet I’m still sitting here like, “brooms, M80s, mechanical claw arms, a fat ass, bananas, chopsticks…” You see, not nearly refined to my usual pedigree of comedic standards. Maybe I should just stop now; perhaps I’m now acting out some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy I activated towards the end of my former commentary. No, fuck that! You’re better than this Josh! “Toilet paper, The Declaration of Independence, a walker with tennis ball slider feet, Super Soakers, Altoids, ubiquitous white galoshes, The Dead Sea Scrolls, simultaneous smartphone selfies, an engagement ring…” Ahhhhggg!!!

As you can see, this was the site of the well, not to be confused with ye olde well. I, for one, was not so complacent with this, seemingly foundationless declaration of manifold historical magnitude. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was, in fact, ye olde well after all. Gaining closer scrutiny was not something one could achieve so easily, however, unless perhaps if in possession of a telephoto lens or something, which, as my interminable misfortune would have it, I left within the store that I never purchased it from. Alas, a sort of old school reconnaissance work throwback was deemed merited, and this “National Treasure” like escapade was going to necessitate a serious channeling of my inner Nicolas Cage. Providentially, I had spent the previous six months in Tibet honing this very conjury under the auspices of none other than, “Fuckin’ Hal Jordan,” so to say I approached this act of perilous espionage brimming over with brash aplomb destined for triumph would do a disservice to the flawless execution to follow. Beginning with what Fuckin’ Hal Jordan had repeatedly seared into mantra, “Measure twice, cut once,” I used several different theorems to calculate the same inquiry, thus ensuring an accurate analysis of the potential sightlines to be imparted to the multitude of kinetic security figures was fleshed out to relatively concurring ends. After stepping behind a stone for a mere moment’s notice, I draped myself in slate camouflage and began mentally rehearsing each dexterous maneuver’s idiosyncratic nuance, transitional options, contingency fallbacks, and just how much blood I was willing to shed to get to the bottom of this. As my considerations grew all the more encompassing, I administered 5mg of diazepam as an extra blanket of insurance and shortly thereafter found myself hand-in-hand with my inner Nicolas Cage. It was time for action. After all the cogs fell into place, I readied myself for catlike spring before noticing a placard along some stairs labeled, “The Site of the Well” with diagonal red arrow directing one towards the bottom level. I thrust my hands in my pockets with affected nonchalance and began my whistling, side-to-side gazing at everything and nothing head swivel as I made my treacherous descent. After a hasty, perfunctory glance at the site, I had forgotten what I had come down there for and began to chuckle over all of the silly objects I could stick in the missing parts of the warriors.

Was Stretch Armstrong over here some sort of human/alien offspring? I wish I could say I had a foundation of historical timeline reference in which to form a covalent bond between these soldiers and the artifacts from the relics museum, however, I possess no such knowledge, despite it invariably being divulged to me at some point. Following an extremely superficial Wikipedia scanning of “covalent bonds,” however, I do now have a threadbare understanding of what I, in all certainty, copied adequate enough information about during a test or two in high school but never truly learned, and will now be fishing with broad net for opportunity to dubiously impart in unnatural discourse that will surely bring swift, awkward closure to whatever I was vainly involved in.

Everyone back the fuck up! While I remain relatively untroubled as the retractable red belt barrier does convey irrefutably compelling deterrent for mischief, on the off chance that some assholes used the same security measures to restrict access to, say, a cascading, ornamental, waterfall wall outside your hotel or something, however, and you haven’t quite incubated the sort of regard and circumspection one must always retain whilst in the general area of such considered, calculated, and defined corridor regulation, then perhaps this eighth wonder of the world isn’t for you. We didn’t appropriate over 8,000 of these really fucking old guys from the impecunious peasant farmers who discovered them 40 years ago only to later have party officials siphon off any semblance of remuneration we had beneficently bestowed to them in the first place in some sort of grand Machiavellian attempt to elaborately crush those who cannot stand up to us just so a throng of you dullards can create mischief and place silly objects inside what is beyond the clearly demarcated.

You have been forewarned; the money shots are about to march through in unrelenting convoy like the autoerotic cinéma vérité of my more formative early teenage years. We begin with this brooding assemblage of ominous canvas for the imagination. I can just picture the calm before the storm these guys were undergoing just moments prior to surging upon the battlefield in collective rhythm of attack, giving not a second’s thought to their lives before ultimately foregoing them in trifling service to some asshole who probably did everything within his power to keep the country fucked up for his sole benefit. What an honor it is to see them erected and positioned in such a fashion that bestows proper reverence to their anonymity. My 31 years of “army men” battle reenactment experience, however, can’t help but affix judgmental eye upon this historically inaccurate battle configuration, nor can it forgive the egregious omission of bazookas. Get your shit together China.

Dear god, this is just some dark shit. All I can imagine is the especially gradual animation of this entire unit coming to life one self-discovered point of articulation at a time. It would begin with a flexing of each individual phalange before moving each one together in rhythmic wave-like unison and testing the limits of their full stretched extension. Some onlookers would begin to question their own eyes but maintain locked gaze all the same only to have their initial wild perceptions validated in bittersweet dread. Dumbfounded, most would remain inertly planted in such a fashion they would normally decry as clichéd and a “plot hole” in a film wherein something portentously similar was brewing up while the protagonists “stupidly” stuck around all too “unrealistically” inhaling the scent. By the time the roosters have crowed, ushering in the light within the tourists' heads and springing intuition into action, the warriors have all but reached their final discovery of crowning articulation. Gently rocking the kinks from their neck as they rotate their heads in full 360 swing, they engage in their very first complete corporally coordinated synchronization of movement shifting them in slow ominous drag on their back heels and in the direction of a, now frenzied and self-defeating, crowd of tourists seeking to create new archetype of example for complete and utter pandemonium. As the bumbling and self-interested humans collide and stumble into each other like the words of a poorly composed blog, the warriors dig their back heels into the dry, yet satisfyingly pliable, terra firma beneath them before lowering their shoulders in uncanny unison and firing off. While many have conceded their brutal end of days at this juncture, some find the composure to make one last mobile upload in vain hopes of culling one or two “likes” before the lights permanently shut off. Many find themselves inching backwards prostrate on their hands, feet, and rears in involuntary reflexes of survival that only serve to elaborate the run-throughs of their impending doom. At full stride the warriors loom just meters away in fierce harmonic strike before ultimately grazing the retractable red belt barrier and imploding into the fabric of space-time with such complete, utter disdain towards any fundamental law of physics that, even while thousands of miles away, Stephen Hawking gained momentary capacity for speech only to mutter to himself, “What the fuck…”

Hey, guess what folks? I have a picture of you, taking a picture of me. Guess what again? My photo is better. I don’t even need to evaluate yours to substantiate this claim. I’ve got five horses and a warrior; what did you get? Judging by the position of some of your cameras, I’m gonna go with dirt. Was there something going on with the dirt I wasn’t made aware of? Was there another well site you all conspired to keep from me? Holy shit, I’m actually starting to get a little mad now. Calm down Josh… the horses and warrior, although a bit more of the same, are still pretty badass. Okay, phew - dodged a bit of a meltdown there. Hey, I wonder if anyone in this photo is currently uploading the opposing side’s perspective to a blog of his or her own. That would be super weird. But also, what if behind me was that mysterious bald-headed man from “Fringe” who remains in the same form and always turns up in myriad eventful photos throughout different epochs of history? Wouldn’t that just be super weird, if not terrifying? I might have to start trawling through some China blogs… Anyway, I’m loving that smile on the woman just above the first horse’s head. She sure does know how to have a blast whilst looking at stuff.

While I truly do adore you all, I think I must give an ever so slight edge to… drumroll please… photo with assembly of warriors! You know, the one where some are without heads and in dire need of a beach ball, watermelon or something placed upon the empty space like a tee. No? Okay, the one where some of the warriors have their hands up while others are more in repose at their sides. Still? Sheesh… Okay, the one where some of the uniforms appear as if they required more delicate reassembly, as they were comprised of smaller fragments of ceramic. You know what, I’m not even sure who I was pulling for anymore. As a matter of fact, did I really spend hours of my life obsessively positioning my body into awkward, uncomfortable positions in order to strategically recapture the same composition over and over from slightly different angles and perspectives? Did I then, several years later, spend even more hours composing narrative around this embarrassing admission to begin with? Am I now belaboring this collective imbecility with each key I depress? Nah.

Bla-dow! Money shot bitches! Thankfully, I had a good twenty minutes or more of compositional writing time in between this and the previous one or I may have just made a rather large fool of myself when the prowess and quality of each futile thrust of photography deteriorated with every successive upload into the database of the my blog. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but the delay sure was worth it for this specimen. It’s just a shame someone had to go and play skeet shoot with some of those warriors’ heads. It’s a good thing there are still many buried below somewhere just faithfully awaiting to be excavated, rise once again, and burst on the scene. Somewhere, along with the glimmers of reflected sunlight surrounding it, the most jubilant of sailboat advances towards lands well known - imparting the world sight of its brilliant nylon, as it gently rolls into dock.

“Neighhhh!!”

Uhh, a little help here guys. Seriously, what sorts of depraved acts of barbaric, animalistic transgression did this guy dirty his hands with in order to ensure a future set of archaeologists would place getting them back to him relatively low on the list of priorities? One can only wonder eternally about that……………. Anyway, there must be some sort of extremely rigid, prescribed path these archaeologists are taking in order to correctly match every piece of earthenware to its unequivocal partner, otherwise, you’d imagine this guy would have earned a pair of legs by now. Personally, at this point I would just thoughtlessly adjoin whatever random parts my whimsy opts for and hope this leads to some sort of artistic self-possession wherein I lose time for days only to eventually snap out of it and behold with slow, astonished, progressively steeper upward gaze, a terrifying, mountainous amalgam of human and horse limbs with silly objects seated in any of the open holes. I mean, I think I proved earlier how you can only get so many different looks out of these guys before no one wants to sit through your rotary carousel slide projector show anymore. Why not do something fun with this stuff? Shit, call Banksy in so people can wax philosophically about their, “doth protest too much,” overly invested, strident deconstructions of his creation and overall contributions to the art world.

I know I’ve gone in pretty aggressively against the rampant umbrella abuse in this country before, however, after giving these two shots a good ol’ slack-jaw eyeballing for a few minutes, I’ve gotta say, I am digging the whole “Manet” thing right about now. I think before there was just never an appropriate backcloth, that is to say, a clear dearth of surreal topiary going on. I know Manet, himself, was not a surrealist, but someone’s gotta get where I’m coming from. And if not, I think we can all at least agree that the juxtaposition of rounded and edged greenery to the asymmetrical pathways, stairs, postures of the crowd, vibrant foreground vs. muted background, and shifts in perspective pack a pretty unique flurry of combinatorial stun. Don’t believe me? Stare at it all a little while longer.

Okay, so here we are - officially within the city of Xi’an! I cannot say I like the framing of this photo at all, nor do I have much love for that two-bit harlot forever making a habit of flamboyantly crossing my line of sight - the lens flare. Unfortunately, this was the only photo of this, just straight up fucking awesome, specimen of architecture taken from such a perspective. It looks like some sort of colossal, hyper-deformed train conceived for a really high-budget anime film. Each member of the production studio could have only honed his or her individual set of especially unique, peculiar, Japanese character traits from a lifetime whetstone of awkward, social interactions and repressions channeled through sundry bizarre proxies before then developing interest for and working within each respective line of work, meeting other equally demented social enigmas, and synergizing refined quirks of oddball perspective and talent. I can’t in any way recall ever entering this train, however, my money is on it being riddled with endless shopping stalls dedicated to any one or more of the following: stuff you don’t need, iconic Chinese marble figures, low-grade counterfeit clothing and accessories, esoteric herbs and nonsense that peoples’ grandparents forever fabricate and perpetuate pseudo-science for, other stuff you don’t need, counterfeit electronics, tailor-made garbage, knockoffs of their own knockoff action figures, playing cards, and videogames, slave labor, high-grade counterfeit clothing and accessories hidden behind "secret" doors everyone seems to know about, swords, large slabs of stone and mineral, and most importantly - shit that will break mere moments after you at long last find the latest shifted position of wherever the surreptitious, eternally on-the-move exit has recently relocated to and narrowly avert a nervous breakdown in the process.

So, Xi’an began construction of its 13.7-kilometer expanse of city-center fortifying rectangular wall about 1400 years ago at site where, to this day, one can still find it retaining most of its original flourish and magnificence, as it continues to stand as China’s largest, oldest, wholly intact wall. If you would like to subscribe to more dubious, vague, warranting no disclosure to begin with China facts, please send your social security number, bank account, routing number, and pin codes to Prince Josh of Nigeria. A victim of his own tragically misplaced trust, he now finds himself within the ever constricting muscular strangle of his stepfather’s elaborate, cunning, serpentine ploy – temporarily stripped of his crown and prisoner within his own walls. The narrative of his downfall, while intricate and thorny in its development, can be otherwise pithily condensed, for the express consideration of your potential charitable donation to assist with "fighting the good fight" in this archetypal showdown between noble and tyrannical, as such: First The Prince found his subjects swiftly turned against him when grains of duplicitous lies were disseminated to a peasant class overwrought and excitably awaiting the first straw of any marginal weight to fracture its back in order to cede adequate enough reason to revolt. Following an this artificially incited uprising, The Prince's stepfather seized finite moment, overworked and belabored in planning to all possible considerations, to stage a coup d'état leaving The Prince impotent, without substantial backing and at the mercy of his stepfather's rapidly aggrandizing, ruthless, despotic oppression. It was only a matter of hours before The Prince's was confined and condemned to the diminutive, square encasement of limestone otherwise normally reserved for the most villainous of traitorous enemies of the state. As the true sovereign head of Nigeria’s throne, however, he has been gradually enlisting further vertebrae of sturdy support to collaborate within the body of his conspiracy intent on dishing out just desserts and, thus, currently finds himself thickly ensconced within wily stratagem as he progresses further within the grand design of smoke and mirrors he will eventually employ in order to reclaim his crown and subjects' renewed loyalty. Physically and financially downtrodden, however, he needs your help! With a mere simple disclosure of the formerly enumerated banking data, not only will you aid Prince Josh of Nigeria in his quest to obtain the shit he needs in order to get the wheels of his stratagem in motion and become badass ruler once again, but you will receive a new, highly-vetted, esoteric yet undeniably fascinating, daily China fact text message for the duration of a whole year! What are you waiting for? Ignore any sneaking, suspicious parallels your mind may be hot on the tail of connecting to countless hackneyed Disney films and respond now!

Here you can take view of one of the several tunnel entrances through this wall. This is a somewhat unsettling shot to me. For some paradoxical reason, I do not like the image of people casually sauntering into blinding radiance. Cool photo anyway.

Upon entrance we were greeted with a partially constructed open-air concert rig. If the performances to come would prove even half as entertaining as the decorations already providing backcloth for them were awesome in their cultural festivity, then I take great solace in the fact that I could never speculate towards a lick of this in any reasonable fashion to begin with. Nonetheless I shall still contend that, in all likelihood they were predominated by myriad offbeat karaoke exhibitions. Perhaps my favorite element to the florid display is the familial cadre of soldiers standing guard to the left. At first I believed the red shapes above each of them to be hearts; a notion that not only left me somewhat befuddled as to why soldiers brandishing battle axes would be so warmhearted, but also brought tender smile to my customarily sour countenance. After zooming in, however, I realized the err of my perception and noted they were actually some sort of stylistic flourish, similar to what we may have come to envision a typical Spartan helmet to appear with. So yeah, sorry folks, no loving family here - just one intent on severe bodily injury should push come to shove. After addressing this visual inquiry, I then chuckled over the scattering of yellow safety cones. The immediate perimeters surrounding them are off limits; again, sorry folks.

Here it is from an aerial angle. Boy, after letting this all soak in I’m not ashamed to admit that, given the opportunity, I probably would have found myself skanking and vibing out to those myriad offbeat karaoke exhibitions. I now also can’t help but fervently contemplate what lay behind those grand, provocative, ornamental doors. Whatever it may have been, I’m sure it would have made the land of Narnia look like an austere black and white expanse of Siberian frozen tundra. On a different subject, after taking a look at that trash receptacle, I’m rejoicing in confirmation that New York City is not the only metropolis riddled with the sort of abhorrent swine too indolent to retain their refuse until they come across another that may actually permit collection. Then again, perhaps it was New York City tourists who strew this vexing scene to begin with. That might even be my yogurt cup…

Come one, come all! Step through these regal doors and enter a deregulated world of endless, assorted, individually wrapped candy items so mysteriously packaged to their own unique, vibrantly saturated, perplexing design, not even a literacy of the Chinese language or the utmost refined palate would be able to pinpoint but one of their ingredients and assist in decrypting the rebus configurations of their contents. One may, however, safely assume that bean paste, or paste of any sort for that matter, rests complacently within one of them – biding its time with Cheshire grin.

Ahhh, you really couldn’t ask for a better track to circumnavigate. In fact, renting a bicycle and observing the myriad spectacular arrangements of skyline is just the sort of highly rewarding mild undertaking any sensible, appreciative tourist with a tenderfoot stand in photography would derive everlasting gratification from; unless of course said tourist also retains an even more sensible appreciation for getting hammered to the point of invariable inability to exert even the most moderate of effort culminating in moderate movement the following day. I feel bad for whoever that guy might be. I’m certain that, at some point down the line, perhaps even immediately after taking exit from the city, he would surely regret his decision to cede dominion to his vices and burn in eternal hell pyre of lamentation.

Yeah baby! I am loving this shit right here. This looks like it should be the initial wide-angle shot preceding an impending launch into the stereotypical urban milieu of an 80’s buddy-cop film. I am, however, irked by the coopting garish display of “TIME” crudely rendered in “Art Lover JNL” font and the cheeky omissions of a second “S” and break between words in “TIMESQUARE.” I’m getting too old for your shit China.

Peek-a-boo, I see you – breathtaking, synergistic amalgam of verdancy, architecture, history, and future! Boy, and this is just one of the innumerable uniquely composed perspectives one could cull from the, teeming with award-winning potential pantheon of fabulous shots the entirety of the wall’s perimeter grants platform to. So then, dear reader, buckle your fucking seatbelt because you sure are in for a devastating impact when the collision into the series of spectacular visual letdowns to come merely primes you for the altogether crippling trauma of the subsequent whiplash of resentment.

I like how this photo brings new perspective to many of the formative structures I have previously showcased on the blog. Can you spot them all? Those of you blessed with acute hyper-scrutiny, immeasurable patience, and a keen proclivity for engaging in challenging adventures might also want to keep your eyes out for me, reposed in Waldo costume somewhere, doing any given awesome variation of the "Marlboro Man.” Perhaps, just perhaps, the perfect storm of genetic endowment, perseverance, and luck will permit one of you out there to arrive at this gainful discovery. So confident am I that pass of this sadistic pop-test of probing ability sits just a flagellum’s width outside the ring of theoretical possibility, that I am offering the first person to email encircled proof of sighting a three minute dip within my olympic-sized pool of countless Chinese tchotchkes and a blindfolded grab, into my treasure trove of potentially impairing saccharine delights, for any five assorted, individually wrapped candy items mysteriously packaged to their own unique, vibrantly saturated, perplexing design of an end! And who knows? Perhaps one of you possesses the mitochondrial power to yield locomotion to that flagellum, prove my hubris fatal flaw, and whip his or her way to victory…

And here’s a slightly tighter view of some of the afore-framed material. You wouldn’t believe the desert-like lengths I had to trek through barefoot and bereft of canteen in order to erect the platform needed to capture this without the benefit of telephoto lens. The lack of ingenuity prohibiting structural foresight alone would have left most prostrate, outstretched, and deliriously lapping up sand from mirage of oasis before heat stroke could have given the “all clear” sign for Death to dispassionately drag his scythe with perfunctory exhaustion and leave emblematic imprinted paths with which to ephemerally remind the world that few could ever measure up to my ineffable genius before the blustery whirlwinds of my phlegmatic concern would have breezed through with wanton indifference and ultimately dispersed them in eternal camouflage amongst the feeble dunes of the helpless.

Gee, that surely is a finely forged bell. It could only be the product of an especially gifted artisan’s steadfast dedication to a one-of-a-kind vision, ceaseless toil, innovation, perseverance through the regular materialization of hydra-like thorny challenges, and frustrating, ultimately academic, revisions only the, bordering on unhinged, demands of an obsessive would persecute mind and body with in order to create shifts in distinction that, had they not even been carried out in the first place, would have presented the same ultimate, discriminatory image to anyone other than him anyway. It sure would be a shame if someone were to…

...perform an immaculately composed jump kick! Seriously, Fuck. Your. Shit. China! That one’s for that “TIMESQUARE” bullshit earlier. Goddamn, did that, textbook, black belt, consummation of a lifetime devoted to tenaciously mastering myriad martial arts ranging from most ubiquitous to the so astonishingly esoteric their conceptions would escape even Tarantino’s coke fueled cogitations, take a lot out of me! You better believe I killed that bottle of water shortly following emergency defibrillator administration and release from hospital. Upon later return, I was not altogether surprised to discover I had not cleft even the most infinitesimal of fissure in the bell, however, this dearth of instinctive disbelief was not owing to any doubt of my brutal dexterity or the due reverence I had for its solid construction, but because China could never lay claim to their own awesome, iconic, insignia of independence tantamount to The Liberty Bell. They just don’t have the moxie for it… For those keeping score at home: US: 234723848, China: 2.

This is the sort of place you might expect me to have honed one of my myriad martial arts masteries in, however, this is actually more like the kind of shit Chuck Norris and Billy Blanks recurrently pissed their pants in whenever their shifus administered but marginal torque to the rotation of their countering reversals before the brief aerial levitations gave way to safe impacts upon the anti-microbial foam/vinyl bonded mats they would shamelessly lay prostrate on in cheeky efforts to delay rises which were invariably met with supportive pats on the rear and comforting words of encouragement. Now the shit I trained in, well, a one-of-a-kind anime production studio, renowned for its refined quirks of oddball perspective and talent, had to mock up before the meticulous, adroit skillset of Ahura Mazda, the great Zoroastrian creator himself, privileged its construction.

This sure does conjure up memory of some fine, well-spent, adolescent hours dedicated to the ever improving progression of covert finesse needed for my artful grappling hook deployments to cede ideal vantages for calculated, muted approaches before ultimately culminating in the unseen grisly, crimson-spattering, carnage my choice of blades would slice and skewer from the oblivious victims of my deep-seated sadism in PlayStation game Tenchu. It’s a good thing I, rather ironically, left my grappling hook adjacent to my “To Bring” list on the tatami mat flooring of my apartment back home.

Okay folks, it is about to get artsy as fuck up in here! Feel free to frame this or, for that matter, any of the photos to follow in the series in concerted effort to adorn the walls of your study with the sort of resplendent class only a, rich mahogany, custom carpentered bookcase boasting asymmetrical shelves, formed from the interlacing of intricately carved, geometrical, floral, fractal, mellifluously patterned beams, encasing well-preserved rare, leather-bound books the burning of The Ancient Library of Alexandria had the good grace to overlook, neighboring a large, rectangular museum-glass encasement of divergently vibrant lineups of increasingly rarer species of butterflies you personally rounded up from locations so remote and bizarre only the full sail of the Seven Seas could permit treacherous access to them, could. And don’t skimp on the gilded, ornamental baroque frames - you fucking cheapskate!

*Drool*… In a potential act of unprecedented, capricious, emotional impulse, I am ever so close to demoting the badass stone dragon image, still recurrently bringing smile to my face after its significant tenure, and yielding the absurdly coveted desktop background title to this photo - temporarily anyway. Oh hey, I just discovered I can have the two of them swap out at an interval of my choosing! I love you MacBook Air… I know this could be accomplished on just about any other operating system and build of computer, but still… Although actually, it took me far longer than I would have liked to negotiate what, in my estimation anyway, should have otherwise proven to have been successfully carried out through any given one of the preferred, instinctual logistical pathways I previously tried in error, could thereby be deemed counter-intuitive and serve as sterling paradigm of my bittersweet mixed emotions towards Apple products… Anyway, remember that “80s buddy cop” vibe I was waxing evocatively over earlier? Well, this would be the Chinese equivalent, only this one would star a Jackie Chan in his most resistant, agile, innovative prime and you better believe that wood ladder would become embroiled in a several minute series of inventive offensive strikes and self-defeating, comedic backfires before shit even begins to get real when he chugs a bucket of baijiu and breaks out his “drunken fist” zui quan.

In an editorial note, at it just so happened, I would just like to divulge that I decided against this photo’s tandem partnership in title of interchanging desktop background, and that I have opted for the earlier “Time building” photo to gain absurdly coveted shared sovereignty instead. After considerably extensive reflection, I feel this was the right move.

Do you feel the woodworked parquetry walls of your fictitious study gradually animating to life in a sort of grand unfolding of man’s infinite faculty and curiosity unwittingly becoming complicit in an abortion of incendiary creation destined to provoke the unreasonable knee-jerk scorn, and all too ridiculous other dubious motivations needed to band together in a united mob frenzy, of those too myopic to allow for calm, rational deliberation, yet concerted suspiciously in preparation of incursion with organized, well-stocked cache of pitchforks and torches coerced into being brandished as if under spell of miniature devils sat conspiring in whisper on each and every one of their shoulders? You know - kind of like that historically preeminent work of inimitable manifold literary value, penned by that precocious, insightful, considerably young female author… ummm… Oh yeah – “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Do you feel that?

 

Someone painted that. Review the previous photos in endeavor to match this to a large scale rendering of the structure it embellishes entirety and let that shit sink in for a second or two – I did. And then I took a sip of my Yoo-hoo and moved on, because I’m a boss.

And just like that the absurdly coveted shared title of interchanging desktop background spread its wings before plunging into the depths in dive-bomb and retrieving another meaty photo from the sea of awesome. Man, speaking of dive-bombing, I could totally see The Vulture catch Spiderman sleeping right now just as he’d claimed surreal repose and was becoming deeply ensconced within a literally and figuratively reflected world he was rapidly losing desire to keep under his protection.

And immediately after shredding the doors of them to it, the villagers would then bring fervent, fleet combo of pitchfork and torch charge into the world containing fictional study. And guess what? It turns out those doors were actually the grand, provocative, ornamental ones permitting entrance to a world that made The Land of Narnia look like an austere, black and white expanse of Siberian frozen tundra. And who amongst the mob brought particular shatter to them? The familial cadre of warm-hearted soldier, tenderly brandishing battle-axe, before something in its head snaps with audible denotation, and tears asunder all that foolishly dares to get in its path.

So yeah, I don't want to brag or anything, but this was the view from my hotel room balcony. I wish you could have witnessed how I just shined my fingernails in back and forth drag across the fabric covering my sternum before ultimately looking them over, slowly nodding my head in appreciative salute, and forming a gentle, unassuming grin as if to say, “not too shabby.” I've just now said this out loud for real. It felt pretty good. Can you really blame me for this sad exhibition of gratuitous hubris? Perhaps I'm just easy to please, but have you ever enjoyed, from the comfort of your own balcony no less, control of a web so uniquely intricate in its tilt-shifted distortion only the synergistic amalgam of cumulative wanton, innovative, avant-garde, experimental drug usage's long term effects and a brilliant, dynamic, foreign canvas to set this altered gaze upon could spin its aberrational pattern?

Would anyone like to take a stab at where this photo was taken from? If you guessed, “The Oval Office,” you would be absolutely correct. This, however, was the one in The East Wing and in China, so those quotation marks, capital letters, and definite articles were probably a bit misleading. Nonetheless, you should take a certain level of satisfaction from surmising either of the two. Good work. Gee, I just love the sum visual total of all of the angles and curves presented here. I’m sure that mammoth, architectural freestyle of a building merely houses a bunch of bullshit, but you really have to appreciate it’s laissez-faire approach to all that - not to mention how the golden arches managed their way to reflection within the bottom “Robocop” row of windows. Now, I’m not normally one to afford even slight possibility for fate dictating decisive circumstance in one’s life, however, I may have gone a whole day without McDonald’s had my extravagant balcony’s angle of observation not provided me with such a paramount perch for reminder. It’s just a shame I had to share this hotel room experience with an oddball, Taiwanese math teacher – Frank. While we all generally tolerated his penchant for turning mundane transactions of perfunctory discourse into occasions with which to hone our protocols of fight or flight instinct, this guy’s unpredictability would, nonetheless, always find way to fashion circumstance that would render anyone befuddled, speechless, and locked in place. Frank had an incomparable talent for separating himself from the group. While I’d be lying if the martial artist in me didn’t self-inflict marginal pangs of jealousy over his skill, this ever-predictable recurring phenomenon would, nonetheless, occasionally promote unspoken airs of vexation whenever we were all just kinda trying to move on from where we were. Anyway, at one point mid-trip, Jeff decided to contact his nearest source of slave labor in order to manufacture some t-shirts to carry our program’s emblem and read, “Where’s Frank?” in English and Chinese. On the last night of our trip, following considerable wait for Frank to slink his way out of the ether and back into our final group communion, Jeff unveiled these silk-screened tokens of joshing nostalgia to the general jovial reception of our fellowship. Frank who, say what else you may about him, ordinarily demonstrated good spirit of humor, was the sole person in the room to eschew joining in the collective mirth this well-intentioned gift of enduringly poignant nature rightfully generated. Initially, I figured his stone-faced reception a mask of minor miff, however, it then dawned upon me that he was literally unable to account for any motivation behind the genesis of its slogan; he truly never realized that he spent half the trip in a world unto himself. Fucking Frank. As it so goes, if the coals of compositional initiative firing the dilapidated steam engine powering this blog retain their unprecedented, searing, red-hot glow, you might just get to see this t-shirt in action when I don it at some point during my subsequent travels through Vietnam. If that’s not unquestionable justification to ride out this shitty wave of directionless drivel before inevitably wiping out into a sea of predicable dissatisfaction, I don’t know what is.

Is it just me, or is there an oddly substantial contingent of folks suspiciously clasping their arms together in repose here? It’s almost as if they were all aware I was about to snap a photo and sought to subtly inform me that they really couldn’t care less. Little did they know that this photo would one day grace the walls of the Internet and decry their indecent paucity of joie de vivre to an unimaginably widespread audience. The only person I can forgive for this contemptible lassitude is the man to the far right. Had his settling disinterest not arrived at such a righteous coupling of “fuck it, why not?” apparel erecting a stage garnished by curtains of cotton forged from deep cut of wife-beater his brawny, sun-scarred chest could then proudly perform between, this photo would have never pulled through my highly stringent vetting process.

I am just a sucker for the hallmarks of traditional Chinese and Japanese exterior design. There’s just something about the simple geometrical patterns their clean interlacing lines render that brings prominence to the open spaces they confine. You better believe after this artistic, cyclonic treatise of novel discourse has plowed its full, indiscriminate, merciless path and the smoke clears from the grotesquely strewn disaster scenes within the walls of the literary vanguard’s minds who have read it, a few dollars will emerge and finally afford me opportunity to purchase a mechanical pencil and compass with which to crudely draw up the blueprints to a dream house containing such detail. I’m surprised there are not more likeminded folk out there. In fact, whenever I see some filthy rich asshole’s paint by numbers mansion, I can’t help but be disappointed by his* lack of consideration towards Asian design and aesthetics.

* If your literary deconstruction happens to be magnified by some sort of misguided feminist lens, I would just like to note that I do, in fact, realize that my circumstantial gender pronoun selections in situations of prosaic flexibility fall heavily to the male side, however, in the former sentence’s case anyway, one would have to admit there are far more filthy rich men in this world than there are women, not to mention the fact that I cast my scorn upon this blanket exemplar choice. In all honesty, you should probably give whichever hand it is that eternally grips Jane Austen’s original “Emma” manuscript a rest and applaud my weighing of alternative here.

No matter how long my mind scrambles in stare, not one reasonable, theoretical justification for the ultimate framing of this photo can take form and usher in the slightest peace of mind. No sir, it persists in mocking me with slightly atilt and off-center jeer. If you could only hear how my teeth gnash together of their own violent accord right now, you would know just how much this burns me up inside…

Holy fucking shit! This one is ever so slightly off-center as well! My pen composes with Fahrenheit 451 friction right now. Or my fingers strike key at speed that corrupts data or something. Perhaps if I type with enough fury I can corrupt the sectors housing the previous two photos. Oh, whom am I kidding? It’s no use… Not with this super sweet stock solid-state drive that came with my laptop anyway. I love you MacBook Air… I know this could be installed in just about any other build of computer, but still… Although, actually, the premium I had to pay for machinery, capriciously purchased in impulsive act of materialistic fervor after a random, bored, innocent compiling of very specific tenuously justifiable computing needs would drive my obsessive compulsive contemplation into dubious belief that nothing else could fit the bill, would serve as sterling paradigm of my bittersweet mixed emotions towards Apple products…

I know what you’re thinking, “We get it - China possesses many streets lined with venders hawking a bunch of shitty wares nobody wants, yet, somehow still manage to encourage all and sundry into strolling past them in mindless tedium.” Normally, I would support this line of criticism, however, Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter brought a little something new to the table…

… to the dinner table that is! If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends – the motherfucking spice girls over here that is. That’s right; Xi’an has a fascinating history of involvement in The Silk Road trade – an enrapturing topic of historical intrigue that merits due study. This is a proclamation I am at liberty to make as I took an entire class dedicated to such subject matter. I am not, however, at liberty to provide factual testament, as I am not your slave. You know where you might find some slaves though? In your study of The Silk Road. Although, I couldn’t say with any factual testament, as I am not your slave. You know who might be your slave though? You. Think about that for a minute, man.

Gee, I forget whose palms I had to grease in order to grant me access to whatever exclusive veranda it was that provided platform for this shot. I can’t even recall just how much it set me back either, but it’s a good thing I opted not to hold a baby panda the other day, as I’m guessing a stage like this, affording me control of a web so uniquely intricate in its tilt-shifted distortion, could have only been reached by way of pretty penny. Vroom vroom! Man, it was totally worth is though, this is what I have forever envisioned in my mind’s eye whenever ruminating on any given topic or lack thereof: neurons impatiently firing off in blind merges causing near calamitous collisions with drivers long drunk on their own frustrating inability to navigate out of incessant loop eventually finding their places amongst the circuitous rhythm only to hypocritically blare their horns at the drivers who will, in turn, nearly murder them all with their very own ill-advised merges shortly thereafter - rinse, repeat in perpetuum. Vroom vroom!

I couldn’t tell you what’s going on here. My intuition says it’s one of the many factories dedicated to the mass production of cheap, generic, knockoff Chinese men. This must have been one of the last “L” bends of the conveyer belt manufacturing line as they appear to be all but configured to rigid standards of stereotype at this point. Following this segment of assembly, I believe they would then be administered a mild short-circuiting, stripped of their shirts, and sent off to various alleyways and areas of public gathering throughout the nooks and crannies of China’s great domain. Their operating systems, reduced to dubiously dictate physical actions solely from speculative interpretations of the few lines of crudely written “doctor’s scrawl” code still remaining within their crippled databases, would afford most with enough rudimentary command to operate on what little basic, raw, animalistic instinct they had left and direct desires towards chain-smoking cigarettes and objectifying women - proving the entire operation an uncanny success for the ages.

Other than our tour guide espousing these excavated pottery figurines to be, yet another eighth world wonder China could hold claim to, I retain hardly a shred of recollection of ever stepping foot within this museum. That is a mildly disconcerting reality. Nonetheless, If I may address the one iota of remembrance boldly clinging precariously to the precipice of altogether lost memories through clasp of mere phalangeal joints, I would have to state that, while you wouldn’t get much argument from me over whether the Terracotta Army warrants their level of national acclaim, the assertion that these figurine artifacts are worthy of existing within that same plane of badass wonder is subject to the utmost scrutiny. I am willing to concede that the historical narratives leading to the construction and modern day excavation of these guys are, in all likelihood, rife with captivating detail, however, I think the disturbing unease that this burial ground forever pierces one’s mind’s eye with is condemning enough grounds to preclude them from holding rank amongst any notable category other than, “The Stuff Nightmares is Made From.” Following this flurry of “would-be wonders” tours in Xi’an, Jeff and I would begin to sardonically refer to the trifling cost of a liter of shitty beer in China as a “ninth world wonder.” I had genuine intention of forever employing use of this appellation in casual discourse, though it would come as no surprise that I’ve mostly gone with “beer” ever since. I still think, however, there is value in the perpetuation of that designation. Who knows just how distant the vernacular might travel? Perhaps, one day, on holiday in Australia or what have you, I’ll overhear something the likes of, “Toss me another ninth world wonder, would ya mate.” I can just imagine the creeping development of ear-to-ear grin as I observe a can of Fosters carve its dawdling arc through the air, reach inflection point in freeze frame creating lens flare so blinding even Joss Whedon would have to schedule an eye exam afterwards, and culminate in a no-look, back-handed grab, safely ushering the toxin to some bogan’s indiscriminate lips.

"Fuck. My. Life."