Alexander Chee's Blog, page 11

Banksy, the Simpsons and the DPRK

Banksy's Simpson credits have made a bit of a splash because he's an art sensation, but watching it I understood he meant to dramatize the role inexpensive North Korean animation labor plays in the creation of much of what we see in animated film and television today, including, possibly, the Simpsons. The subcontracting of the creation of the animation cells for American programs to French companies—who are allowed to contract labor in North Korea, unlike the Americans—is the subject of Guy Delisle's groundbreaking graphic travelogue, Pyongyang. There's very little information on how many American shows and films are made this way as a result. Typically this labor is used to create the time-consuming cells in between the major still moments. According to Pyongyang, the major cells for those moments are done by more expensive Western labor and are sent to North Korea with a Western supervisor (Delisle's job, for example, during the trip he dramatizes in his book).

The animators there then also use their talents to make their own shows, such as this North Korean animated television show for children, ("subtitled" by someone with a subversive, anti-North Korean, misogynistic sense of humor).  Watching it, you can get a little of a sense via reverse-engineering for what shows might be involved.

It's Been A While

…since I've updated. But sometimes, the events of the world when mixed with my life leave me speechless.

Various updates, about to appear.

The Disease of Our Age

Last week my friend Allison put on her facebook, "Did anyone read the NYMag cover story?" She received a single response, besides mine, from a mutual friend who said "Mine hasn't arrived yet!" Granted, we were all busy, it seemed, so very busy: Sept. 11th and the Koran burning seemed to have taken over all of our lives, and if it wasn't that, then here in New York it was Fashion Week, and Brooklyn Bookfest, and then also Rosh Hashanah, and the end of Ramadan. When I found out the VMAs were...

On Getting Your Name Out There, Part 2: The Story That Sells the Story

For the first part of this series on authors, author sites and author blogging,

When approaching an author site, what I find least interesting is a sort of bland, safe, risk-free aesthetic, a headshot with links and the sense that I've been handed a corporate resume. It just looks like you didn't try. Just because Apple assures you can do the site yourself doesn't mean you should (unless you do know or have time to learn how to do these things). If you're not interested in a...

Yield, by Lee Houck

About 8 years ago, I received fan emails from a young man and his librarian mother. Both had read my first novel, both loved it, both made a point of writing to me. Both emails were among the most lovely and literate of appreciations. I was very charmed by them.

Over the years I've kept in touch with the young man, also a young writer, and encouraged him periodically, and even worked with him privately as a writing tutor at one point. Now he's published his first novel, Yield, a sort of...

On Getting Your Name Out There: Author Blogging

There is a great deal of pressure for writers to blog, for themselves and for others. Typically, whoever's asking you has the presence of mind to be a little ashamed: "We can't really pay you for this, but you'll get your name out there." This of course is disheartening for people like myself. I worked as a waiter while finishing my first novel, and being paid nothing for what I write is only going to send me back there.

Still, I've been blogging for six years now and during that time have...

New World, Again

1.

Oh horrifying new world, where every site I visit wants me to have a profile and to receive mailings. I have over 600 messages from them unread in my gmail account, and this is because I resent the time it takes me to even delete them. I don't want to die thinking, "Good thing I deleted all those emails."

Worse, with Facebook, events now send me emails. Events I never wanted to be invited to, from people far away, who believe networking and spamming are the same thing.

Yes, I am aware of...

"What needs to be true in this world for this story to be true?"

While I was watching Manila Skies, I kept being reminded of a favorite comic, Battle Angel Alita.

Battle Angel Alita is a Japanese Manga title featuring an assassin cyborg who looks like the average Japanese school girl fantasy—just built with a plasma laser in her fingers, and legs capable of running along her opponent's chain-link weapon while he's trying to hit her with it, so she can then kick him in the face.

Alita's first issue is devoted to her discovery in a junk yard by a gentle robot ...

Park Lit, Today

Tonight I'll take a break from unpacking my boxes (I just moved) and read in New York City at Park Lit at 6:30PM, as a part of the series organized by Open City and on behalf of Guernica Magazine, with two writers I greatly admire, Terese Svoboda and Joshua Kors. I think I'm going to read from a new story, as of this writing. I can never decide, of late, until moments before a reading. I've started showing up with three selections and choosing in the last moments.

If it isn't the new story...

"The System Is Broken"

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The other night, in the company of Sonya Chung (author of LONG FOR THIS WORLD), my boyfriend Dustin and I went to see the opening feature presentation at the Asian American International Film Festival. There was a moderately full crowd in the theater, but I wondered where "everyone" was, as the Taiwanese delegation, celebrating the presence of many Taiwanese films in the US for the first time, finished their speeches.

I also felt I knew where "everyone" was. For some time now, major American c...