When a Book Has Multiple Titles

As a selector and reader, I often feel flustered at the fact that a so-called new book turns out to be something so familiar that I seriously suspect either I have had a relapse of memory or writers are guilty of plagiarism. They are two recent instances, namely,

Karin Fossum's Eva's eye (2013 US edition) is the same as In the darkness (2012 UK edition)
Jussi Adler-Olsen's The keeper of lost causes (2011 US edition) is the same as Mercy (2011 UK edition).

The latter especially threw me into a mental torture like Merete Lynggaard, the kidnapped victim, for the last few weeks. Last night before going to bed I decided to end my misery once and for all: I had to confirm that The keeper of lost causes was Mercy. Thanks to Amazon, my confirmation was finally proved positive, and I rewarded myself with M.C. Beaton's Something borrowed, someone dead for a bed reading.

Don't Let Your Dogs Loose

Not the real K9 pair. Illustration only.

This morning around 7:30 am Highway 1 northbound was paralyzed from Soquel on. I looked around and everything seemed normal, CalTran workers were working steadily on the extra lane.

Suddenly all cars stood still and I had to brake hard. Looking ahead I saw two dogs sauntering towards us, one black and white, and the other, light-brown. They were apparently let loose, with collars and short leashes attached. The light-brown dog was standing ahead of my car, refused to leave until the smell of nearby roadkill attracted it. It soon joined its black and white companion.

Thus I escaped and congratulated myself for not harming two lost K9s. Far away the sirens from an ambulance and fire truck could be heard! Don't let your dogs loose, dog owners!

Never Too Late for Halloween in SC

Lee Anne sent her Halloween photos performed by her kids, with an apology attached that they arrived after the Halloween. We thanked her, but all laughed. Too late for Halloween? Go to Pacific Mall, and you will see Halloweeners all year around.

Photo: Courtesy of Lee Anne

Pooh Lesson

Paul sent me a cartoon about Pooh's philosophy towards life. It makes me wonder why I did not think about it sooner in my life. Maybe that's why I felt frustrated most of time.

天下無不散之宴席

On hearing Sue and Jim are retiring at the end of the year, I cannot help recalling the happy working environment at Dianying xinzuo in the mid-eighties and DIALOG in the mid-nineties. Most of Dianying xinzuo fellow editors were dispersed to the four corners of the earth to seek further education and a brighter professional future, whereas DIALOG colleagues were either laid off or quit after the company was bought twice in less than three years, and finally left California. 

The past and present experience has re-confirmed the truth in 天下無不散之宴席, i.e.,  All good things must come to an end. There is an end to everything.

Resilence Show Coming Down at Cruzio

14 August 2013 was a busy day for Paul, working, attending his long waited lecture by Hitoshi Murayama. In the late after he took down his 30 art works from Cruzio, and got ready for his China-India show at 2014 PVAC (Pajaro Valley Arts Council) with other 5 local photographers.


The show at Cruzio is a success, getting lots of attention from media and friends. I am glad that our May New York reunion intertwined and inspired the whole event.

Hitoshi Murayama at Rio Theatre

Yesterday 8:00 pm, 14 August 2013, Paul and I went to a lecture entitled Quantum Universe by Yotoshi Murayama at Berkeley and University of . It was quite an adventure for me to experience the community's zest for dark matter and dark energy. The whole theatre was packed; all tickets were sold out before the lecture. After the lectures, the audience were limited to only 10 minutes' Q&A.

Murayama's lecture was focused on a number of questions, with a predominant emphasis on where we came from. His saying that we are from star dust seems to be kindred to religious interpretation of our being from dust to dust.

Murayama is an extremely good presenter of a gigantic topic, familiar with his subject areas and his audience, old and young. He has introduced us to some well-known scientific experiments being conducted in Switzerland and Japan.

At a quantum or personal level, I was reassured that our sun would have a collision in 4 billion years. It has always been a childhood scare of mine ever since my next door friend told me that the world would explode soon. As an extra bonus, we saw the long time-no-see Ling at the entrance and sat together through the lecture.

Resilience Show at Cruzio

Santa Cruz Sentinel Art Editor Kirby Scudder published his article on Paul and his new show in the section of The Guide, entitled Photographer Paul Titangos captures images of courage in new show 'Resilience'.

The exhibit is to opened tomorrow evening 6-9 pm at Cruzio, as part of First Friday Santa Cruz for June 2013. Dedicated to human resilience in general and New Yorkers in particular, it will continue to be on display through months of June-August. The following is an interview by Kirby Scudder on NPR's KUSP.

Reunion at Atlantic

This morning, Paul and I arrived in New York the second time this year. We were soon picked up by Yvonne and her husband. We are going to stay with them in Brooklyn today and leave for Atlantic City tomorrow mid-morning.

It will be a true reunion for all of us. For the first time, Paul will see my college mates of 35 years ago, even though only half of us will gather in New Jersey. Th other half are in China either working or engaged in their projects.

In March 26, 1975, 600 of us were selected to study English, French, Japanese and Russian by three universities in Shanghai. There were two grades before us. Two hundred students went to Congming Island, east of the city. I was one of them. For three and a half years we stayed on the island. Some planted rice, cotton, and wheat. Some grew vegetables, and raised pigs and goats. Still some manned the kitchen to feed us with our home-grown vegetables, rice and pork.

In addition to farming, we studied our selected languages, with the ratio of 1/3 the first year, 1/2 the second yeah, 3/1 the third year and full time the fourth year. Being Class 3, English was our major (Classes 1-4 were English, Class 5, French, and Class 6, Japanese). We never finished the 4th year.

With the fall of Gang of Four, the temporary education system established by the radicals was forever replaced by a more permanent one, i.e., high school graduates take entrance exams and go to universities, instead of having to farm or being factory workers for two years, before they could be eligible to become perspective candidates.

In the new era, our hybrid experiment also failed as a regime change. Some classmates might not understand it then, they felt resentful towards our instructor, who in fact was a victim of time himself. A lot of water has passed under the bridge; we have been scattering along the two sides of the Pacific. Now we are going to meet and time will stop for us for a while.

Before our reunion, we are going to see Hui, Ying & Mama for a dinner in Brooklyn this evening. I am so happy that Hui's plan worked: Ying happens to visit home at the moment.