issue seven volume one

摘要pré·cis

april.twenty fifteen

pré·cispublisher & editor: chris stecherassociate editor: maggie leeassociate editor: tracy wanglead translation: maggie leegraphics: stech design

photography: stech, melissa davis, eric sherman,sujinyan, katlyn murray, YPDR, edward lalonde, aram sohigian, gaylynn thornton, chris wheeler, edward lalonde, maggie lee, tracy wang, john yingling,jude domski

contributing writers: timothy k. simons chris wheeler, chris parizo, william griffith, katlyn murray, cheryl lister, aram sohigian, edward lalonde penelope rocketship, jamie lynn bellanger banta, maggie lee, tracy wang, john alexander, charles watson, allen johnston, ICVS, john yingling, melanie eugenie nunnink,

cartoonist: joel fremming___________________________

content submissions and /or letters to the editor are welcome.

please keep letters to 250 words,-submissions to 750 words, photos and images need to be at least 200 dpi at size.

contact : stech@outlook.com

A WORD OR TWO ABOUT IMAGES AND

CONTENT

All images and content are wholly and completely owned by

the respective contributor.

No redistribution of images, artwork

or republication of any content can be

made without written authorization of

the individual contributor.

PERIOD.

cargo:

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

editorias {rant} ~ 2

decibel tour Review {Music} ~ 3-4

gigs {art and love} ~ 5,6

from the bay to beijing {travel} ~ 7-9

rattlesnake taproom interview {beer} ~ 11-13

datona bike week {the ride} ~ 16-19

word on the street {music} ~ 19-21

life off the grid {travel} ~ 24-27

acting {theater} ~ 28-29

the connectome {science} ~ 30 - 33

mikkeller bangkok interview {beer} ~ 34, 35

when a student dies {teaching} ~ 36, 37

the music industry {music} ~ 38 - 41

ICVS dogs {Pets and Animals} ~ 42-44

beastly diction {fiction} ~ 46-49

profiles in helping YPDR {stepping up} ~ 50, 51

the world underground interview {music} ~ 52-55

expat nine ball ~ 56

when the spirit calls I awaken~ {spirituality} ~ 63

this war of mine ~ {game review} ~ 66 - 67

images ~ 11, 14, 58, 59, 60-62, 64-71

cartoon {joel fremming} - back page

01

Images of lifeI usually use this space to rant about something or another that has been bothering me, usually with dark un-dertones. Issue 7 will be different.

One of the reasons I started this mag was because I wanted to put some focus on photography, writer, and artists. Works that are good, and people who rarely, if ever, get credit for their work.

Let us focus in this issue on photog-raphy for a second.

I have been shooting since my par-ents gave me a Kodak 110 for my tenth birthday. I always liked trying, as all good shooters do, to get THE shot. The one that after you devel-oped it spoke not only to you, but moments that would grab other people by the balls. You had to actu-ally wait to see what you shot, and like the soldier in the trenches, you only had so many shots, so you had to make them count.

Not so much now. And it’s a pity.

It’s a different era now, where film shooters are getting too infrequent. I miss that. I miss developing. I miss the chemicals. I miss the darkroom. Having your apartment smell like a chemistry lab had a certain flair. Chicks dug it.

Whatever. It’s a different era. I now shoot with whatever digital is avail-able, and have more appreciation for those who still go at it old school, Matt Thorsen, Jeff Howlett , Ben Tang, Rudy Amedeus , and others who continually blow me away with their work. You can go to their links

and you

too will be stunned.

The aforementioned shooters are world renowned. Professional trigger folk. And I have had the honor of hanging with these guys. But I feel that are oth-ers, just as good, whose work needs to be seen. This is what I try to accomplish with this magazine. (well that and it gets me free beers... )

One guy in particular I met through my travels is Sujinyan. We met over beers, and he wanted to just submit his work on sky-scapes in Beijing.. But his other work was so compelling that I had to make one of his shots this issues cover. I mean I HAD to have it. And I want to thank Sujinyan and his family for letting me grace the magazine with it.

The point is, it really doesn’t matter if

you are a pro in what you do artis-tically. It doesn’t matter if you shoot with a three thousand dollar camera or a crappy cell phone camera. There are no rules or guidelines to your art.. Never has been, and there sure as shit never should be.

Take a look at his work and while you are at it, take a look at the other photog-raphers like Jude Domski, Ed Lalonde, Melyssa Davis, Eric Sherman and others you have never heard of… These shots are windows of people’s experiences. It’s a finger on their souls.

They deserve consideration. As do all artists who never get headlines. You would do well seeking out the lesser known creators of art.

pré·ciseditorias

02pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

My wife (Shanshan) and I spent a Saturday night last September at the Sheraton Beijing Dongcheng Hotel. This was at a time when her mother was still living with us, and her father was over most of the day as well. A crowded house is great, but we like to have some private time once in awhile.

Shanshan’s parents brought our son (Chong Chong) with them when they picked us up from the hotel on Sunday. After letting him climb and crawl around the room for awhile, we got him undressed and into the tub. Shanshan, who had brought along a swimming suit, changed into it, and joined him.

When it was time to get out, I suggested that they give the shower a try… it had a waterfall shower head on it, which I though he might like.

The photograph was taken soon after they got into the shower… Shanshan still in her fairly modest one-piece swimsuit. I loved photographing him — safe in his mother’s arms — reaching-out to expe-rience the falling water for the first time. I also liked his lines, and capturing the droplets of water. (Shanshan’s parents were also with us in the bathroom... her father clicking away with his camera as well.)

And, well, that she appeared to be naked, and in a pose… although perfectly natural and quite motherly… some people might construe as being pornographic.

(Editorial note: It is not pornographic. It is how things should be. Without judgement.)

wife & childcover

Su Jinyan is an American-born photogra-pher and writer who has lived in Beijing for over eight years. He and his

wife live in an apartment with their young son, two cats, and a dog. He can be

contacted at xiaos@sujinyan.com

or +86 186 1113 0683.His blog can be found at

http://sujinyan.com

As dark clouds loomed overhead, patrons slowly made their way in-side the Corona Theater for this year’s promising edition of the Decibel Magazine tour. Having CARCASS last year headline the event would be no small task to “best” but editor-in-chief, Albert Muldrian and co. have pulled out all the stops with Sweden’s, AT THE GATES being the pinnacle of tonight’s entertainment. Add to that VALLENFYRE, PALLBEAR-ER, CONVERGE and Montreal openers, PHOBOCOSM and fans were certainly prepared to raise Hell...and they did.

Starting at the ungodly hour of 6:30pm, it’s a shame that PHOBO-COSM didn’t receive the audience they so richly deserve. Having re-

leased their debut, “Deprived” late last year, those in the know (AND in attendance) heard a plethora of dense and heavy wall of sound which ended with a criminally short stint after only half an hour playing time. With an impenetrable wall of guitar fuzz, no stage banter was had as the band bulldozed through songs with confidence. Guitarist, Samuel Du-four, headbanged with vigor while vocalist, Etienne Bayard, deeply growled from the darkest reaches of Hades. Reminding of NILE during the slower moments, the epic quali-ty of the songs nicely translated well (as usual) from record to the stage and before anyone would know it, the set came to a quick close.

Originally a tribute to the passing of his father, Gregor MacKintosh went about forming VALLENFYRE in between work in PARADISE LOST. The debut album, “A Fragile King” set the wheels in motion for dirty Death Metal with Doom influences but on their second, “Splinters”, fans hear more of a Crust-Punk sound that was greatly featured in their performance last night. Coming off between early PARADISE LOST and crusty- Swe-Death, the En-glishmen played a solid gig that bea-coned fans to headbang with frenzy! After a few short numbers, MacK-intosh seemed to emerge from his

shell engaging the fans a little more as “Cathedrals”, “The Grim Irony”, and “Splinters” (among others) all met with much applause, especially “Humanity Wept” which triggered the first pit of the night - a job well done!

Slowing the pace considerably, Ar-kansas natives, PALLBEARER, brought forth the Doom! Long se-quences of heavy instrumentation with a pronounced hypnotic affect met the crowd head on as onlookers gazed upon the scene, heads con-torting back and forth. Sound wise, PALLBEARER definitely know how to utilize their weapons as a notice-able absence of a bassist (Joseph D. Rowland was held up at the border coming through to Toronto the night before) didn’t seem to dimin-ish the power of their sound, but added that extra touch of heaviness when VALLENFYRE’s bassist joined in support to close the set. Though some seemed rather stoic, the band’s penchant for sludgy dirges didn’t fall on deaf ears as the crowd’s reaction could attest. Periodic wails from vocalist, Brett Campbell, cut through a bit of the monotony and offered something a bit different but the times he used the microphone

sadly was few and far between. Sim-ple riffs

03

review & photos: Chris Wheeler

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

ReviewDECIBEL MagazineTour, 2015

ReviewDECIBEL MagazineTour, 2015

“We are Blind to the World Within us,Waiting to be Born”

Featuring:At The Gates, Converge, Pallbearer, Vallenfyreand Montreal’s, Phobocosm________________

ThéâtreCorona Virgin Mobile

2490 Notre-Dame Ouest, Montreal Quebec,H3J 1N5________________

April 9th, 2015.

played repeatedly can be a charm-ing way to venture off to unknown imaginary worlds but squeezed be-tween a Death Metal act and CON-VERGE, soon after, may have left some scratching their heads, in-cluding this reviewer. Still, a tight and crowd pleasing half hour left others wanting more.

As the first note rang out from the Massachusetts Hardcore Metallers, CONVERGE aimed to decimate the entire place with fierce energy and high rolling frenetic rage! A huge circle pit immediately formed and

b o d i e s

flew relentlessly into one another, sometimes unintentionally. Pranc-ing about the stage, screamer Jacob Bannon appeared possessed and like an animal trapped inside a cage, using the microphone as an aural bomb! Crouching and face to face with fans, the atmosphere was at its peak thus far and with cuts from al-bums, “Jane Doe”, “Axe to Fall” and “All We Love We Leave Behind” the crowd went ballistic! Playing to a voracious audience, the 45 minute set was once more, too short.

Everything anyone’s ever heard (or experienced) about AT THE GATES live certainly knows what to expect: full on, melodic Swed-ish Death Metal at its very finest! With frontman, Thomas Lindberg and the brothers Bjorler wielding their guitars and taking no prison-ers, the Gothenburg natives lived up to their reputation, and then some, performing a vast array of songs spanning their entire career, giving fans what they wanted. A barrage of fury was thrown out to the onlookers who in turn threw it back with contorted bodies flying in every direction! Shouts of “Ter-

minal Spirit Disease!!!” and “I feel my soul go cold; only the dead are smiling!” morbidly elevated the spectacle with raised horns and pumped fists in tow. Not wasting any time, the band ran through newer songs from their last album, “At War With Reality” in “The Cir-cular Ruins”, “Eater of Gods”, “He-roes and Tombs” and evening clos-er, “Night Eternal” all of which went down swimmingly. However it was the Classics that yielded the big-gest reactions, especially when the “Blinded by Fear” intro was sud-denly heard. “Cold”, “Raped by the Light of Christ”, “Under a Serpent Sun”, “Windows”, “Suicide Nation”, “Nausea”, and “Kingdom Gone” all received amazing applause (among others) and fans left satiated and spent. Go!

https://www.facebook.com/christo-pher.wheeler.5855

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Chris Wheeler continues to write show/album reviews and interviews for Montreal Metal shop, “La Bête Noire Emporium” and freelances his work wherever needed. His work can also be read on Facebook under simply, “Chris Wheeler”. 04

05

MATERIALS SPEAK: 2nd contemporary Exhibit of Female Sculptors@798 Artspace

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

gigs.

Artist: Kang Yue / Violence meets soft / wood iron balloon

Artist: Lin Yi / Private Order / mixed media

Artist: Lin Yi / Private Order / mixed media

Artist: Xia Feifei / A piece of Cigarette / Resin, Ready-made Articles

Artist:Cao Yun / Lost II / Bronze

gigs.

Will & Anita’s Wedding @ Love in the PRC

06pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Day 14 in Beijing: You Are Literally At Liangmaqiao Station. Already. Honestly.

Line 10 to my work. This is actually not that full.

The Beijing Subway. Truly efficient and amazing. Clean. Fast. And the translations provoke smiles.

The Beijing Subway system started in 1969. Until 2002, there were only 2 subway lines in Beijing. There are 17 now. There will be 19, total, by 2015. They have the second longest subway system, measured by distance, and third highest annual ridership, in the world.

The Subway has 2.46 BILLION stops a year. They deliver an average of 8.5 million people a day to their destinations.

Beijing knows how to build subways and move people.

The price of a subway ride in Beijing, with as many transfers as you want, is 2RMB. RMB is the English term for the Chinese Yuan or Quai. The Chinese script for yuan or quai is 元. The literal translation of RMB rather informative about the culture: R (ren) stands for person 元. M

(min) stands for people

元 together they mean people. B (bi) means currency 元. So person and people currency. Makes sense to me.

At an exchange rate of 6.1RMB

to the U.S. Dollar a subway ride costs about 32 American cents. Yep, you can ride for miles and miles and pay 32 pennies only. Does anyone even use pennies in the States anymore? I know I didn’t.

Buses, by the way, are .4RMB or about one American nickel.

As I ride the subway, there is both a Mandarin voice and an English voice informing the subway riders of the information about where the train is heading, the next stop, and most importantly what stop you are at currently.

And the serene voice that comes from above means in a very literal sense.

I get off at the Liangmaqiao (pronounced, in my horrible accent, as “Lee-ang-ma-chiao”)10 line to get to my work.

When the train arrives, the voice states one of two points:

“We are already at Liangmaqiao Station”

or, my favorite,

“You are literally at Liangmaqiao Station.”

I smile and start laughing a little bit when I hear this and start wondering who did this translation and why it is so literal and specific. I would think that the common translation would be, “You have arrived at Liangmaqiao Station” but to each city, country and culture, their own.

It is one of the joys of living in a new city, a new culture, and in many ways, a new life. So much of it is wonderment, joy and magical.

So, next time you go anywhere, literally be there. You already are.

travel.

From the Bay to Beijing

by Aram Sohigian

Line 10 to my work. This is actually not that full.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.201507

The Beijing Subway system. It is very fast, clean and easy to use.

------------------------------------------

Day 13 in Beijing: Sleep When You Can. And Where You Can. Part II

He sleeps outside the makeshift shelter.

Again, sleep when you can. And where you can.

I have yet to figure out exactly how this works. Feel free to

explain it to me if you know.

The two men that were awake seem to live “inside” this semi-shelter. The third man, who works with them, doesn’t. Every time I’ve seen him he is sleeping on that tiny mat and has no covers or protection at all. I’ve only seen him sleep during the day so maybe he stays up at night and that is why he doesn’t need protection or covers?

This is the large generator that seems to run twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. I figure, as much as I can tell, that it is the job of these three men to sit there, wait there, and sleep there, and make sure the generator doesn’t run out of fuel or break down. And, most likely, to make sure no one steals it. From what I’ve seen thievery is pretty minimal in Beijing but this may just be because I’m not aware of it. I know bicycles can

be stolen a lot

but I haven’t heard a lot about muggings and things like that. I digress. So it goes.

One Man Lying. One Man Sitting. Two Men Smoking. A Koan?

As I was walking, I discretely took a snapshot of the two awake men with my iPhone. After walking on, and looking at the picture, I realized they had seen me trying to take the picture and had waved at the camera. Sadly, the picture was slightly out of focus so I decided to go back, say “Ni hao” and pantomime a request to take their pictures. Both of the men in the “sheltered area” were awake and very friendly. They laughed at me and told me to go ahead. I took three pictures, the first two which I did not like, and then a final third that caught them and their attitudes perfectly.

I told them, “Xie xie” (thank you in Mandarin) and was started to walk away. The man lying down waved me over, looked at the picture, and broke into a huge smile and started laughing more. The other man looked at it and nodded appreciatively.

It is almost like a temple. I’ve never seen it move and it runs 24/7. Three men guard it at all times.

I told them again, “Xie xie” and glided off towards my subway stop.

Wearing a smile a mile wide.

My spirits lifting higher than the Beijing sun,

which rose to greet me.

Good morning to some.

Good night to others.

May everyone on this Earth

Sleep where you can.

And when you can.

------------------------------------------

Day 12 in Beijing: Apartment hunting…A Werewolf of Beijing?

These are the shoe covers I wore to go into apartments. They give them so you don’t have to take off your shoes every time you go in an apartment.

For some reason my title reminded me of Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London. No idea why. Maybe because I’m hunting for apartments? Maybe because I’m Armenian and Jewish and have hairy arms and legs? That was probably way more information than you wanted to know. Forget it, back to the apartment hunting.

Apartment hunting. Like nothing we have in America. I guess that goes without saying since i’m in a country halfway around the world but it bears repeating and here’s why.

It is basically impossible to find an apartment by yourself in Beijing. Being that I don’t speak Mandarin, the dominant language in Beijing, that might be a silly point to make to everyone. However, the language has nothing to do with it.

Landlords deal directly with rental agents here. You all an agency, they come pick you up in a private car, and then they call different landlords at each apartment complex and set up appointments for you. If the landlord is busy, you

He sleeps outside the makeshift shelter.

One Man Lying. One Man Sitting. Two Men Smoking. A Koan?

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015 08

don’t see an apartment. If they are free, they may or may not be there when you see the apartment, it is very different from America.

I met Cathy and Christina, which are definitely not their Chinese names, and they were both 24 years old, college graduates and spoke fantastic English. They were also both very friendly, happy and considerate. They also smiled a lot and were very professional about everything they did and tried their best to find out exactly where I wanted to live.

They showed me a few different apartments that ranged from 600 square feet studios to 1000 square feet one bedrooms. Prices ranged from $1000 to $1800 American and, if these apartments were in San Francisco, they would cost about twice to three times the price. They were all in the Western District, called Sanlitun, and this is similar to the best districts in San Francisco. The rooms were recently renovated and are beautiful inside. Some of the apartments have gyms inside them and others are located on top of malls that have restaurants that will actually deliver to your door if you call them for a meal. Winning!

Something I really love about Beijing are the names of the apartment complexes. So far I’ve visited East Avenue Apartments, Château Edinburgh, Forte International, International Wonderland and will see Private Castle tomorrow.

At the end of my apartment hunting, I mentioned to Cathy and Christina about how apartment hunting is done in America and the differences between the two. We also talked about how you can bargain for a lower rent with the landlord and this is almost expected in apartment hunting, as it is with

many things in China. This is part of their job as your

real estate agent.

However, this is where it gets tricky: Real estate agents, like Cathy and Christina, get paid to find you an apartment. the

hunter, in this case me, won’t pay them directly but they will get one month’s rent from the landlord. Therefore, there is a serious conflict of interest in regards to them bargaining for lower rent for you because they are immediately giving themselves a cut in commission. That being said, both Cathy and Christina were recommended by my agency and seem to be very honest and upfront about the money issue and did not try to hide it. I appreciate the honesty as many foreigners don’t know about this business issue and they could have not mentioned it at all.

As to how apartments are rented in America, they seemed very surprised and thought it would be difficult to find a home in a city you don’t know well and I agreed. I could not imagine trying to find an apartment by myself in this city. It would be more than one blog entry, that is for sure!

-------------------------------------

Day 11 in Beijing: Sleep when you can. Where you can.

I’m guessing this is a construction worker. Or a demolition expert. Or a shop owner. Or a rock star. Or a person that just needed a

nap.

Honestly, you sleep when you can and where you can. That is about it.

Mind you, this is at 4 in the afternoon, in a highly populated area with many high rises and apartments close by. This man is on the corner of where I work. There is a 4 or 6 lane main road right beside him depending on which direction you go at this corner.

It is not, in any way, relaxing or quiet.

And yet, he is sound asleep. And looks fairly happy and comfortable.

Sometime you just have to nap.

09

Aram Sohigian moved from San Fran-cisco to Beijing to work as a psychother-apist. He started a blog about his expe-riences two weeks before arriving and has posted once a day about his travels around the world since June 5th, 2013. His blog is www.fromthebaytobeijing.com

Sometime you just have to nap.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

10pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

images.hong kong

How did you decide to open a brewpub?

Xu Wei Guang (Snake): My first experience trying craft beer was when I was studying in the univer-sity of QILU, capital city of Shangdong Province in central east of China, the fascinating taste was amazing, making me love it immediately. My major was biotechnology, thus, opening my own craft beer bar was implanted in the back of my mind.

Dominic: we worked to-gether at a trading com-pany in Beijing. The first time he turned me on to a German craft beer, I was hooked. I was working on a masters a Masters De-gree in fermentation from Tianjin University of sci-ence

beer.

Rattlesnake Taproom,Sunhe.

by: Maggie Lee

When we moved from 3rd ring Sanlitun to 5th ring Sunhe, there were certain trade offs. Much cheaper rent, less traffic and closer to work were the pros.

But moving into a newly built city with only 40% occupancy we had to give up on a couple of perks such as music clubs and craft beer brewers within walking distance. That was a big con.

Although we have friends like Brandon at iBrew who deliver cases of his Punk IPA and Mango Love, we started to miss the fun of walking up the street and grabbing a pint of something other than (my beloved) Tsingtao.

Thankfully, one day while shopping at the Kang Ying Fresh market, I hap-pened upon Rattlesnake Brewers, Where I met up with the Owner Snake, his Manager Moon, and a cast of other local characters who graced the opening of Sunhe’s first bar of note.

Our newest associate editor and translator extraordinaire Maggie Lee gives us the interview of the first, and hopefully not the last we have to say

about Rattlesnake Taproom.11 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

and technology. And then Xu (Snake) came up with the idea for a brew-pub._____________________

Why and when did you decide to open the brewpub and how did you get your funding?

Snake: More and more people from China locally are starting to love craft beer, but not all of them can find the place to en-joy it. Fortunately, I saved enough funds after work-ing and I met Dominic, who has the same inter-est, and of course he has what I mostly need, is that his background. Then, we triggered our brewpub project last June.

Now we are here, and you can see we still have room to improve, not only the quality but introducing other flavors.

Dominic: Thanks to Snake`s funding, it gives me the opportunity to make my dream come true, offering craft beer to customers without arti-ficial ingredients was my dream, I aim to be special on the producing pro-cess, to keep our histor-ical brewing technology instead of industrial man-ufacturing._____________________

You have a small menu. Do you have a kitchen? Would you like to expand the menu?

Snake: we are a small op-eration, so we have other people cook and bring in the food. Everything from fresh seafood, to Harbin sausage, to American fried chicken.

Yes, we do have the menu but the offerings from RATTLESNAKE menu are mainly our craft beers, fruit beers, wine and whis-key. Otherwise, lots of Chinese snacks what we ordered from traditional brands can be found. I am sure that the unique taste

will impress anyone who ever try RATTLESNAKE.

Expanding the menu also the place is already in progress._____________________

Who do you expect your clientele will be?

Snake: RATTLESNAKE welcomes all friends who like and are fascinated with craft beer. Definitely,

the main clientele group will be people who work or live around SUNHE. I imagine that people will come here after a day of heavy work, ordering a glass of quality craft beer, sitting there without a keyboard and enjoying the music. It’s a beauti-ful and satisfied scene, for all the people we call RATTLESNAKE’s._____________________

How did you decide on Sunhe? Why not Lido or Sanlitun?

Dominic: We did our homework to investigate the place and people. SUNHE is a better choice, because there are people who like craft beer, but no place for them to enjoy near SUNHE. It is more challenging to start a new bar in LIDO or SANLITUN, and those places do not fit RATTLESNAKE now. We believe we can have a good future in SUN- 12pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

HE, just as old saying in China ‘ Good wine needs no bush’ ._____________________

Do you expect to ex-pand or do other loca-tions?

Snake: First of all mainte-nance of our current place and satisfaction of our cli-entele nearby is our prior-ity, we will expand to oth-er locations when there is enough funds and brand broadcasting by word of mouth._____________________

Your Location here at the market in Kang Ying is a little out of the way. Are you go-ing to Advertise?

Snake: Frankly speaking, there is a lack of advertis-ing sources in KangYing market, or Sunhe so cur-rently we depend on cus-tomer`s work-of-mouth marketing within their so-cial net, attracting more and more people to come to try us out._____________________

What Craft Beers do YOU prefer?

Snake: We mainly have 4 kinds of flavors in RAT-TLESNAKE, they are wheat beer, IPA, STOUT and RATTLESNAKE with unique taste of each of them, personally I like the one with name of our brewpub, it is our shop signature product with a special taste that can only be found here.

_____________________

Are you on Facebook, Wechat or other social media?

Snake: We are on Wechat now, and seeking oth-er media to do efficient brand broadcasting._____________________

Do you accept Credit Cards?

Snake: Yeah, we have the POS machine to rush credit cards. We take cash and other payable cards, maybe alipay soon._____________________

What impressed you most when you opened the brewpub?

Snake: Like most of the start-ups, we met diffi-culties that nearly killed our dream. But thanks to friends we overcame those blocks to achieve what we have today. To those people we say Thank You!_____________________

RATTLESNAKECRAFT BEER

Address:

A-04 Shitongjiaxin Mar-ket, Sunhe, Chaoyang district, Beijing

Ph: 131 4635 5405 Maggie Lee, graduated from Capital University of Economics and Business. She loves working on User

Interface Design, writing the occasional article,

food and traveling.

13 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

14pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

images.beijing

photos: © Sujinyan

A Corner at Night

Street Food

Mutianyu

Bicycle and San Lun Che

Rush 3

Riverside

When you live in a northern climate the winter can get long. This winter was particularly harsh on New England, so it was with much anticipation when I planned and packed for a trip to Daytona Beach in sunny Florida for Daytona Bike Week.

I was packed for over a week and on March 4 yet another winter storm was moving across the continental United States toward the northeast. I was going no matter what so I hitched up my trailer containing my Buell Blast to my Chevy Astro van and began my drive from northern Vermont to Florida. I drove down to Pennsylvania to pick up my riding buddy Kevin at his house near Philadelphia and on Thursday morning we loaded his Super Tenere and headed south down Interstate 95 through the storm “Thor”. It was a white knuckle drive but Astro the wonder van has all-wheel drive and with most people staying home we made it to southern Georgia before midnight.

On Friday we pulled into the Daytona

International Speedway infield and set up camp during a windy rain storm. We had arrived to what many snowbound northern motorcyclists dream of, Daytona Bike Week!

The rain followed us down and the weather report started looking ugly but Saturday dawned clear and sunny. After exploring the marketplace at the track we pulled our bikes out of the trailer and went for a ride to the Iron Horse Saloon in nearby Ormond. Our week of beer, bikes, and bands began in fine style. The Iron Horse Saloon is a great biker bar, an outdoor compound where you park your bike inside the bar and can watch the mayhem from an upper deck. It is my favorite bike week bar, a great place to get up close to rocking bands and to bike and people watch. We caught the Cold Hard Cash show, a Johnny Cash tribute act, and then Jared Blake. Jared’s music is what I would describe as kick ass southern country rock and one of my two favorite bike week bands. After Jared we returned to the track to catch the first of the week’s

Story and Photos by: Ed Lalonde

DatonaBikeweek2015

15pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

The Ride

racing action, the AMA Pro Supercross.

The Daytona Bike Week rally began in 1937 and racing was, and continues to be, a defining element. If it has two wheels and a motor there is a race

for it. The professional supercross races were fantastic with sky high jumps that trilled the huge audience. These guys were really fast and fearless!

On Sunday and Monday we watched the amateur motocross races and on Tuesday pro four wheelers raced on a slightly modified version of the track, which occupied the area between pit road and the start/finish line of the speedway.

When we were done watching races on Sunday we took a ride up to the Iron Horse for some more music, bike watching, and, of course, beer drinking. By now we stopped looking at the weather report because it was gloomy and, fortunately, always wrong. We had 80 plus degree sunny days all week.

On Monday we took a nice long ride out into the hill country to the west of Daytona and ended the day at JB’s Fishcamp in New Smyrna Beach. After a

plate of oysters and a fish sandwich during sunset we returned to camp fairly early and watched Wild Hogs on the tv I brought.

After checking out the quad races Tuesday morning we went to the

marketplace and test rode a few new model bikes. I really liked the Indian Scout, which has 100 rear wheel horse power in a fairly small cruiser style bike, and the Yamaha Raider, which has an unknown amount of horse power and a huge amount of torque. Afterwards we took our bikes on a ride down onto Daytona Beach. You can drive on the beaches in Florida and it is something you have to do at some point during the week. It was here that the Buell began to backfire and act like something was clogging the fuel flow. This would become an ongoing issue for the next couple of days. For the evening we went south to New Smyrna Beach to Pub 44 to catch some music and have some good beer. There is a big stage out back and a classic rock cover band was cranking out the likes of Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. It was a beautiful and enjoyable night but we returned to the track early to get

The Daytona Bike Week rally began in 1937 and racing was, and continues to be, a defining element. If it has two wheels and a motor there is a race for it. The professional supercross races were fantastic with sky high jumps that trilled the huge audience. These guys were really fast and fearless!

16pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

the van to go out to Main Street in Daytona Beach. Main Street is the bike week biker epicenter with two outdoor stages and numerous bars lining the street. It was in full swing when we got there. Dirty Harry’s was rocking an 80’s heavy metal band on their outdoor stage and we had a few beers and did some people watching there before heading across the street to the Full Moon Saloon. My other favorite bike week band, Jasmine Cain, was playing on their big outdoor stage. She rocks hard and puts out 110 percent all the time! It is great stuff, too. When we stepped through the door to the indoor bar to use the bathroom there was a country band playing to a handful of hardcore fans. It was a bit of a twilight zone moment stepping from the rocking sound of Jasmine Cain directly into the twang of country, but

that is part of what

makes Daytona bike week so great!

On Wednesday morning we had a mission to fix the Buell and it was soon discovered that the intake boot had a split in it. I went up to Destination Daytona in Ormond to the biggest Harley dealer in the country to find a replacement. They didn’t have the part I needed but did give me some new silicone type glue to try. Destination Daytona is a huge biker marketplace for bike week. They were hosting a bagger bike show which I explored. The baggers aren’t my style but are very cool to look at and expensive. There are thousands of dollars in the paint jobs alone and custom work everywhere. We got a big dose of the bikes at bike week before going to the Iron Horse once again to catch the owner of the place on stage, David Allen Coe. After his great outlaw country show I returned

to camp and glued up the intake boot, We finished out the evening watching Easy Rider.

Thursday morning dawned and bike week racing began again with the super bikes practicing and getting ready for the big race on Saturday, the Daytona 200. I put the Buell back together and rode it to the showers. On my return the bike backfired and blew the carb off so we went off to find something else to repair it. Kevin came back with a sump pump connector from Home Depot which he fashioned into something that worked! The Buell was back on the road. We celebrated by going up to the Iron Horse for the afternoon. In the evening we returned to the track to watch the AMA Pro Flat Track races. They raced on a quarter mile dirt track just outside of turn one of the speedway. The racing action was close and

action packed. There was a second round the following night.

During the race we were joined by another fellow snow bound friend from Vermont. He was visiting his mother near Fort Myers and he rented a Harley Streetglide to come over to see bike week. So on Friday we decided to give him the whole experience. After a leisurely morning watching racing on the speedway we drove over to the Iron Horse Saloon. Inside is a Wall of Death and we paid 5 bucks to see the riders risk their lives and limbs for our entertainment. It is the best five bucks I spent! After the show we enjoyed some of the best food at bike week, marinated steak tips over potatoes and mushrooms, the best ten bucks you will spend!

Afterwards we walked across the street to the

17 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Broken Spoke Saloon. I had never been to the Broken Spoke at Daytona but I will definitely return. It is a big outdoor bar under a grove of trees which are wrapped in lights. There was a cute woman swinging above the bar and Jared Blake was rocking the stage. After Jared’s set we left and finished out the night catching Jasmine Cain again at the Full Moon Saloon on Main Street before experiencing Froggy’s Saloon, a raunchy kind of bike week bar. Tony got quite the initiation!

Saturday morning dawned and soon the sounds of superbikes warming up filled the air. The weather was perfect and the Daytona 200 was about to begin but we wanted to get in a ride so we headed down the coast to Cape Canaveral before returning to the track to catch the end of the race in

the afternoon. The race is 200 miles at speeds up to nearly 200 miles per hour, 57 laps around the Daytona Speedway and requiring several pit stops along the way. It is dangerous enough that there usually are several red flags that stop the race when a rider requires medical attention. This race included multiple red flags so that by the time we got back we had missed very little of the race. It was a fight for first among three riders for most of the race, with drafting passes which changed the lead on nearly every lap. In the end last year’s winner, Danny Eslick, drafted past Josh Herrin to win at the line. It was an exciting finish to the race.

Our bike week was coming to a close but we went out one last time, back to Pub 44. We enjoyed some more good beer

and the Cherry Bombs, dancers who do a sort of burlesque show, before the classic southern rockers Molly Hatchet finished out the night with a blistering set of their classic material. It was a rocking end to a long and action packed week.

On Sunday morning the racing continued at the speedway but we packed up and started the drive back to the frozen northeast. Home was just over 1400 miles away and for some reason we decided to do it all in a 33 and a half hour marathon drive. We made it to Kevin’s house on Monday

morning and I turned into my driveway at 8:30 that night. I had mixed feelings when I pulled into my snow covered driveway. I was more than exhausted from the drive but I was happy to be home with my wife and cats. But I was not so psyched to be back in the cold of winter and faced with several more weeks before I can once again feel the warm air on my face as I ride my motorcycle.

Ed Lalonde ~ I’ve taking photo-graphs ever since my father gave me a Kodak 620 view camera when I was six. I like the ability to capture moments of time, creating an opportunity to extend the pres-ent into the future and the past into the now.

18pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Simply put, I’m not a metal guy – never have been, never will. I’m gone to a fair share of metal shows, raged out to plenty of Metallica back in lockers rooms before hockey games, been engulfed in mosh pits the size of my morning commute, but when all is said and down, it’s not particularly music I get down with. Too much of it feels empty, hallow, devoid of any real emotion. Which leads to Nahash, the metal drone project from Shanghai producer Raphael Valensi. It’s heavy, brooding, pitch black, and at times unsettling – a deafening unwavering mess of unchecked tension and aggression that’s cuts to the bone. My kind of evil. Before the release of the Nahash/To Die split from Nasty Wizard Recordings this Saturday, March 28th at DDC, we chatted with the man behind the madness about clusterfucks, douchfloors, and cult attire.

-------------------------------------------

1) What twisted mind frame were you in when you came up with the idea of Nahash?The first album I released as Nahash was made on the day that my grandma died. I think it was also the point when I was

really really over that whole DJ thing, I wanted to torture people,

to completely alienate the audience, to make them scream in suffocation.

Nahash was the name of the first song

on the first Death To Ponies album, I’m rubbish at finding names, so I nicked that one off my old band. Ea-sy.

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2) Can you comment on the essential ingredients that make up the beating (bleeding) heart of Nahash?It’s no secret that I am primarily a Disco

and Funk fan, but it’s definitely that sweet early 90’s Acid Jazz sound that makes Nahash’s heart beat, bands like Jamiroquai, US3 or Brooklyn Funk Essential.

It’s all that music that added that sweet white funk flavour to the bidibapadoo swing of the jazz sound. When you see Nahash live it’s really what I try to recreate, of course your untrained unfazed ears can only perceive a bunch of deconstructed BRRR PZZZZ TRRRRURRRRRGHKKKKKKSSSSSS but what we are doing is paying tribute to the golden age of Stevie Wonder rip offs made in England.

So yeah, When I started I was making the soundtracks for when the world finally ends, but I’m here now, it hasn’t ended so I say put some more reverb on those smooth trumpets, make that slap bass pop and always remember that those beats ain’t gonna break themselves son!

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3) Your background in mainly in producing? How did it feel to be on the other side of the process?I don’t see these as being two sides of a process, it’s just one giant clusterfuck of a process, and to be perfectly honest if you see production as an opposite side there is a fair chance that your band will sound like shit. I see producers and engineers as floating member of a band, I have this very hippie feeling that a band is a larger group of people and everybody participates in the sound, from the guy who drives the truck to the singer. but that’s just me, I’m old fluffy hippie who reads album credits a bit too much.

But yes, it does feels good to be on stage, playing too loud and letting

someone else worry about levels and knobs for a change.

------------------------------------------------

4) Musically, Nahash is as far as you can get from your work in electronic DJ team Acid Pony Club? How have audiences reacted to Nahash? Is there a sick pleasure to m a k i n g p e o p l e

by William Griffith

word on the street@livebeijingmusic.com

19

The Nahash Interview

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

as uncomfortable as possible?The main difference is that with Acid Pony Club we play for our audience, an Acid Pony party is about crowd pleasing, everybody put your hands up, people having a good time, women are looking fine kind of thing. And that draws a lot of energy cause you have to be constantly “with” your audience, party as much as they party, keeping a finger on the pulse of the douchefloor, can’t let that go man, it’s a House vibe right here.

With Nahash I don’t give a flying fuck what the audience reaction is, I wanna play to the visuals, not for the people.

Maybe the thing that makes you uncomfortable is how incredibly crap I am at playing bass. I take no sick pleasure in that, it’s just the way I am, and I am extremely crap at it.

All this being said, if you’ve seen Acid Pony Club performing live you’ve witnessed our very own take on noisy, harsh and improvised electronic music, we call it “Punk Techno” as a joke, but our jokes are not very funny.

----------------------------------------------------

5) There’s a cinematic quality to your music (made more so by the unnerving visual from Tina Sprinkles) that gives way to an apocalyptic atmosphere that’s literally suffocating. What influences your music? Do you have to be in a certain mindset when creating this type of music?The visuals are the main influence when I record as Nahash. This influence extends to the way that I produce music. Unlike a lot of experimental music which is mainly improvised the stuff I do as Nahash is really scripted, I record tons and tons

of layers

of drones and instruments and I then organize them on a timeline, fading in and out of different atmospheres and layers, exactly as you would do with different images. That happened when I looking for an alternative to the very beat dominated music that I was writing before, I basically started editing music to the time code instead of to bars and beats, again mimicking what video editors do.

In this regard Tina Sprinkles has had an enormous influence on the project and she is actually the only other permanent band member at this point, I basically looks at the way that she was

manipulating images and tried to apply the same ideas to sound.

---------------------------------------------

6) What’s your stance on metal music and bands (particularly black metal) in China? Any recommendations? Do you feel it’s steering in a different direction?You know I’m gonna say it just right out, it’s not because I live in China that I’m an authority on Chinese anything, also I’m a House head remember? Ask me about soapy clubs and bottle service, that’s my expertise. And all I really care about is gossips and cheap thrills, so until somebody stabs someone or a shrine of some sort gets burned down I’ll keep listening to “a blaze in the northern sky” thank you very much.

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7) How has Nahash transform over the past year? What can we expect for the upcoming year?Nahash started as a solo project but very soon developed into a common effort coming from both me and Tina, and so the early works we did were very centered around soundtracks for video work (like these : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVYLY_TAdfk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x77LGKCVX5k )

I never really set up to do live shows with Nahash but when I started doing it I needed an instrument that would me look bad ass, somehow synths and drum machines are just too “polite” so I took the

Need to find out who is playing where in Beijing? word on the street is..

LiveBeijingMusic.com

20

jump to page 21

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

old bass I had laying around and gave it a go, it sounded like poop. Adopted.

Now the show works around the visual, a bass and some very simple drone machines, and I have some guests drummers when I can, Michael Cupoli is fun to work with so he’s gonna come down and play with me for our opening slot for Boris, Ivan has participated in recordings that will come out soon as part of a double EP with the very pretentious title “Old Religion/New Skin”. It was a pleasure having him back in the studio, and we are now talking about starting something new together.

So yeah, we have transformed from being very synths heavy, very droney, to be something more organic with a Metal which makes all the purist cringe cause I don’t look the part and don’t give a rat’s ass about Iron Maiden. And that’s definitely where it’s headed, making more and more purists shit their pants.

On the side I have also been working on something more electronic for SVBKVLT, kind of like the sound track for a horror movie that never existed called “L’Isola Degli Dei Morti” (The Island Of The Dead Gods, even more pompous titles, yay!), I don’t know when it’s coming out, but when it does you’ll get a copy since you will probably be the only one to review it.

---------------------------------------------------

8) You ever think of starting a cult? What’s the attire? Would Michael Cupoli be allowed in?Huashan is a cult of Trve Kvnts, but we only allow one fat-ass balding white dude in our midst, and that would be me, so sorry Michael, I’m afraid your position has already been filled.

I first came up with the ritual attire, I was then accused of having zero swag, at which point I had to google “swag”. So now we all just get naked and listen to a bunch of drones.

But that’s just really all you wanted me to say, ADMIT IT, JUST FUCKING ADMIT IT ALREADY!

Here are some links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltlFAzpitEY

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjg0NjM4MjI4.html

http://huashanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-ruin-is-not-a-catastrophe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVYLY_TAdfk

https://nastywizardrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/nahash-to-die

http://huashanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/old-religion-new-skin-2

• Required vaccinations and pre-departure screening health examination to ensure smooth departure from China • Obtaining the official Beijing Animal Health and Immunity Certificate (vaccination red book required for export • Obtaining the EU microchip required for the official exit health examination to take pets out of China • Fulfilling pet import requirements for European Union and strict quarantine control destinations (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, etc.)• Completing the rabies antibody titre test required to take pets into the European Union and other countries• Transporting pet by “excess check-in baggage” or unaccompanied live animal “cargo” transport• Taking multiple pets out of China under the “one-pet per-passport” regulation• Taking pets out of China when the owner has to leave the country first• Managing the process without the assistance of a pet relocation company• Exporting rabbits and other exotic animals• Reducing the stress of travel on pets and pet owners• Safe and effective calming remedies to help pets during travel

ICVS offers monthly workshops for expatriates who need

counseling on repatriating with their pets including:

CONTACT ICVS FOR MORE INFORMATION:Tel: (010) 8456-1939/1940

E-mail: ICVS_CHINA@yahoo.comwww.ICVSASIA.com

21 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

摘要pré·cis Is seeking out individual contributors

and advertisers worldwide to help round out

the magazine.Almost anything goes. Art, photography, food, travel,

fiction, nonfiction, commentary.

Ever want to get in print? Now is your chance!

The international magazine focusing on life.in all its form.

22pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

I counted: Since birth, I have moved forty-two times. In the United States, the geographical span of these moves ranges from Hawaii to Massachusetts. On planet Earth, the moves span from Romania to the Dominican Republic.

My most recent move was last week. I’m not sure if you’ve kept up with me but my family and I had been living off the grid on a tropical rainforest farm in the Dominican Republic. There were signs that maybe, just maybe, our solar powered, passion fruit perfumed airy life would not turn out as long term as we had wished - and planned for. In preparation for our departure from the United States, we had used most of our life savings to build the house

on the farm and buy a

truck that was sturdy enough to cross rivers. My husband quit the Massachusetts based

management job he had worked so hard to achieve, and we gave away our favorite furniture. We were going for permanence.

I gave eloquent speeches to

my friends upon departure, describing how we longed for a more natural, almost old-fashioned world for our young daughters to grow up in. I wanted to live in a place where

it was unheard of that children could be gunned down in

their school hallways, playgrounds, cafeterias. In pondering this article, I researched and was horrified to discover that school shootings have

increased in the United States since the Sandy Hook

Elementary School massacre on December 14, 2012. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States) Is that the sign of a deeply disturbed society on so many insane levels, or what?

Off The Grid Mama Ponders:Can a Gypsy Grow Roots?

travel.

23 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

story and photos: Cheryl Lister

Goodbye to our ‘hood in Piedra Blanca

Author with roots

Letting go of our semi-traditional American life and leaving Massachusetts was invigorating and enlightening. Settling into the isolated tropical farm was exciting, joy-filled - and challenging. I’m a bit of a baby regarding roaches, frogs and snakes. I had to adjust to our intermittent internet and t e l e p h o n e service, to accept that just because I wanted to make a phone call didn’t mean I would be able to. And as much as I tried to learn and speak Spanish, my brain grooves for language are very shallow. Communicating with anyone took place only if the other person was gracious enough - and bilingual - to speak my language.

The other challenge was unfortunate but a fact: Ever since our arrival to the rainforest farm, I caught one illness after the next. I’m not sure what most of them were, and I don’t really want to speculate at this point. But the most recent illness, which came on about seven months after moving to the farm - I couldn’t shake. It started with a depressingly heavy, dreadful feeling of energy being sucked out of me, along with a fever and diarrhea. The diarrhea didn’t stop. My mistake was waiting so long to get to a doctor that by

the time I

did, the “entamoeba histolytica” they found in my gut were well habituated and highly resistant

to leaving.

After two rounds of medication from the Doctor and no sign of my body recovering, it became very clear to me one sleepless night that it was time to go. Immediately. My husband and I packed what we could, said good-bye to the community on the farm, left our house with dishes in the sink and books on the shelves, and flew to the place that most felt like home if there could be such a place for us: Marin County, California.

Out of the forty-two moves of my life, a significant number of moves - and years - have been spent in Northern California. I have quite a few deeply close friends scattered from the rocky

coast to the Sierra foothills. Even though I wasn’t born here, my maternal Grandfather was: He is buried in Bolinas. My Mom was born and died in Northern

California although she only lived here for two years

at the beginning of her life, and another one

or two right at the end.

Was she part of the gypsy embodied in me? There is a restless, circular path that took my Mom away from

California when she was two, and

over sixty-five years eventually brought her

back for her last ragged breaths. She had a gypsy

quality for sure. Maybe not forty-two moves but definitely a streak for being on the move, my Mom initiated unique adventures such as renting a tree-house for my Dad and her to vacation in on the isolated coast of Waipio Valley, Hawaii.

I have to admit I don’t feel rooted. As I settle into the forty-second dwelling of my life, it seems appropriate to ponder: Can a gypsy grow roots?

What does it mean “to root?” One definition of root via Google is, “to establish deeply and firmly.” Somewhat randomly yet intuitively motivated, I signed up for a yoga course shortly after our recent arrival that goes into detail regarding the Chakra System, which I’ve never been particularly interested in. Yet the first Chakra we focus on is

travel.

24pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Finding Our Way Home

the Root Chakra, “Muladhara” in Sanskrit, whose element is Earth. It has to do with survival and when acting from its balanced place, manifests a grounding energy. When the Root Chakra is not balanced, there is fear.

I ponder this. We are given exercises by the yoga teacher to work on grounding and rooting ourselves. We are asked to observe ourselves in our daily lives, to notice when we feel connected, contained, collected. All of these feelings can be associated with being rooted. We are reading a book called Wheels of Life for the course, and author A n o d e a Judith, PhD writes of being rooted: “You are here. You are connected. You are solid, but you are molten inside. Deep within your roots you find your past, your memories, your primal self. Your connection here is simple, direct. You remember your heritage, your ancient self as a child of the Earth. She is your teacher.”

I ponder this. My ancient Self...a child of the Earth. She is my teacher...

My roots are not a location, although settling into a physical home supports my growing wish

to establish myself and our

family more firmly and deeply than I have thus far. In the new home that I am writing these words from, I have a peekaboo view of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, often cuddled by lusciously fluid whipped cream slathers of fog. It’s the kind of beautiful here that makes you feel like your eyeballs have new wipers on them: Everything is outlined in vividly crisp, distinct

detail. Back at the farm, when we slipped through the jungle down to the river, I usually sang, “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight..dee da dum doowayyyyy...” When we hike here above our new home, I start singing the opening song from the Sound of Music, “The hills are alive....!” and if I had a dress on I would spin around and let the skirt fly wide around me.

It is spacious and airy, rolling and wide.

I’m trying not to dwell on the differences between my oldest daughter’s Kindergarten here compared to the one we sent her to in the countryside of the Dominican Republic. Regarding the big cop standing on the corner by her new school - the one that wears a Darth Vader style helmet on his head and full gear - I try to see that as a positive sign of

alertness. At my daughter’s new Kindergarten school,

we pass through guarded gates that

can only be entered with assigned Identification tags. This is different from the casual “Hola’s!” we shouted out to the school Secretary as

we skipped into the

entryway of the Dominican

school...and I remind myself grimly,

it’s necessary. I also notice the Kindergarten kids

here have more of their pretend Adult act “down” - I watched two young girls in a disagreement that sounded like something from New Jersey Housewives. The kids in DR were pretending to be dinosaurs and kitties and chased each other in the grass. Like I said, I’m trying not to dwell on it, and we play a lot of dinosaur chase at home anyway.

25 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

wood fairies

I like this home. It would be good to stay awhile. The routine and rootedness of a home would be refreshing - and grounding - to us all. At the same time, I see that my roots are not a place. My roots are that part in me that can find my truest Self in any moment, be it a pristine or fucked up moment. My roots are that part in me that can call to my Self, and be heard, held, and responded to. My ground is that confidence in the real me that has always been here, even when I have forgotten her. She begins from the burst of the stardust that we all share. She moves down and up from the ground and rises within me to touch both the Earth and the heavens, so that I am ever connected, to all.

Lately I have forgotten her more than remembered. My roots have been scattered about, some because of the distraction and distress of my illness, and the clamoring for breath and space to heal. It takes a lot of energy to climb up out of sickness. It also took another piece of me to let go of all we wished to create at the farm - to let go, and leave, again. But I remember, I remember my truest Self, and immediately, the sensation of the depth of my roots, my strength, my ground, is tremendous.

There is another layer of magic in becoming rooted. My oldest friend lives ten minutes away from our new home, and our daughters have become sisters over the years, in the same way that she and I are. The five of us “Goylz”, as we laughingly call

ourselves, walked last evening through a redwood forest to a waterfall just a few minutes from their house. The paths, the ground, the Earth edges were all bumpy with the continual slow growth push of a multitude of underground roots. Through this visual feast, I felt how true it is that from our reaching out to become grounded in ourselves, we inevitably seek, extend the roots of ourselves and find the strength of connection with our kin folk.

At the waterfall, us Goylz were quite a riotous sight: My two daughters were swathed in sparkling rainbow fairy skirts, butterfly wings and ladybug hair-bands. My friend’s daughter made paint from natural substances around us and face painted all the Goylz so that we looked like Amazonian tribe members. At one point we spontaneously began to dance and sing, “We like to MOVE IT, MOVE IT! We like to MOVE IT MOVE IT!” and I turned to discover that our solitude had been replaced by an observer. A silent man had arrived and was watching us unobtrusively from a hand-crafted wooden bench at the edge of the waterfall.

I laughed and said hi, and then added, “I hope you weren’t looking for some kind of calm, contemplative moment here!” as together we watched the three ochre smeared children dancing, shouting, jumping up and down like wood fairies at a riotous gathering. He smiled and said, “Actually, no: I came here looking for some magic.

And I think that’s exactly what I found.”

You can move a gypsy forty-two or four thousand times. Yet when she stands solid on the ground beneath her feet, she is home. My roots reach out and become a permanent part of all that I am: My roots are fluid and travel with me wherever I may go. Symbiotically, our roots reach out and become a permanent part of one another. Be you friend or plant or dog on a path, we travel together and around our planet home, spinning tendrils of love out, intertwining with and enriching one another with our interconnectedness.

Yes: This gypsy has grown roots.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Cheryl Lister moved off the grid with her family in the summer of 2014. Although they have re-cently moved to California, Cheryl continues to work on an EcoRetreat business to help sustain the peo-ple and the land of the rainforest in the Dominican Republic near River Whisper Farm. You can find out more about the business at w w w . E c o R e t r e a t s D R . c o m . To read more of her family’s adven-tures, check out Cheryl’s blog at:

www.offthegridmama.com.To learn more about the Fourth Way community that has established the farm, please visit:

www.gurdjieffdominican.com 26

The greatest experience an actor can have, to my mind, happens when the chemistry between cast mates is just right, and the ex-change of energy between the audience and the actors on stage is an up-ward spiral that is an elevat-ing blast for all involved.

I began acting at the age of 6 or 7, as I imagine many actors do, performing in school plays and talent shows, and do-ing impressions in miniature stand-up routines for my par-ents’ cocktail parties in Man-hattan, my home town.

As I grew, the talent shows and mini-stand-ups dropped off, and the roles improved. Senior year in high school, I was playing Napoleon in Man of Destiny by George Bernard Shaw, and, in the final per-formance of my final show of my final year in high school, something happened that I’d never experienced before: I went up on my lines (i.e., lost where we were in the show).

I was a brooding mess at the cast party, and, much worse, was so freaked out by it that I did not audition again for 10 years.

In the final year of my mas-ter’s program, 1993, I walked past the theatre department at the University of Vermont, and saw a sign announcing “Auditions this weekend for Oedipus Rex.” I had played Creon in Antigone when I was 12, and so had a warm spot in my heart for the story of Oe-dipus.

I decided it was time to dive back in, and immersed myself in preparation for the audi-tion. I learned one of Oedipus’ monologues, and practiced the physicality of the blind king.

A few days after the audi-tion, which, to my joy, had felt great, I received a call from the director, in which she told me that she wanted to cast me as Oedipus, but, because I was a few years older and not a theatre student, could not offer me the role. However,

she offered Creon, I accepted, and I was firmly back in the theatre track.

Over the next 20 years, living in Burlington, Vermont, where I was raising my boys, I re-es-tablished myself as an actor and developed my skill. I start-ed with community theatre, which rehearsed at night to accommodate cast and crew day job schedules, and pro-gressed to the point that I quit my 9 to 5, joined the Screen Actors’ Guild (1999), and then Actors Equity Association (2006).

The roles were wonderful, the need to audition became less frequent, I had the out-of-the-blue pleasure of work-ing with James Coburn, Jim Carey, Chris Cooper, Richard Jenkins, and Emile Hirsch, and my “day jobs” included bar se-curity chief, bartender, waiter, and, finally, medical journal production editor (but THAT is another story).

My boys grew up, my mother grew older and, eventually, s i c k ,

27 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

theatreActing:

A Strange and Winding Road Less Traveled

by John D. Alexander

and I moved back to New York in 2012.

I was then on sabbatical from what had become a great, small-market acting career of

back-to-back and overlapping shows, great roles, and much positive press, to be a care-giver and hermit in the moun-tains of southern New York. Burlington may be no Man-hattan, but the Hudson Valley is no Burlington.

After only a few months in New York State, I was offered

a role in a film being shot in Los Angeles. I had a couple of nice scenes with Paul Sor-vino, and thought, “OK, here we go.” However, after an-other year of solid exile in the mountains, I wasn’t “go-ing” anywhere, I realized that mom was OK, and it was time to get back to the business.

I began commuting to NYC for 2-day audition forays, staying

with an old friend. A year after that, I finally got a studio on the upper west side, and dug in to the process of auditioning in the belly of the beast, a process that is the most grueling meat grind-er ever associated with such an expressive, artistic end product.

It has now been nearly 1 year, and, although I’ve done sin-gle-weekend off off Broadway and had some nice callbacks, I have yet to hit it in NYC, and have done over 90 auditions in the past 2 years.

My experiences in NYC, how-ever, have made me realize that the small-pond star in my background does translate to the big pond. I’ve got the skill and the confidence to contin-ue striving for the goal of be-ing cast in Manhattan and get-ting back on the horse. People approach me and ask, “Aren’t you….?” or “Haven’t we seen you in…?,” I’ve been to big-time after parties and fit in, and realize that my experi-ence over 20 years in Burling-ton was a microcosm for the experience of the big-name actor in the larger market.

Some older, wiser actors have given me two pieces of advice that I live by: (1) don’t take out-of-town work; and (2) give it 5 years.

It’s simply a matter of time, and, if I didn’t believe that, I’d be back in Vermont by now.

John D. Alexander

Has performed in 75 productions.

Raised in NYC, Mr. Alexander is

co-founder of Off Center, a 60-seat

theater, a dialect coach, and member of

SAG and AEA

http://www.johndalexander.com

28pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

photo: Matt Thorson I began acting at the age of 6 or 7, as I imag-ine many actors do, performing in school plays and talent shows, and doing impressions in miniature stand-up routines for my par-ents’ cocktail parties in Manhattan, my home town.

Like Mendel said,Pea-Pod Alleles is

HomeDrifting along, whizzing through space at thousands of miles per hour, a ‘deep-blue marble’ rock orbits a ball of hydrogen gas with a surface temperature in excess of 6,000 degrees Celsius. The terrestrial planet is so far away from the star that light travels for a full eight minutes before reaching it – yet we sit happily in the “Goldilocks Zone”: not too hot, and not too cold, but just right for liquid water to exist and thus for life to form 1. This is all well and good, but you may be rather tired of hearing the same shtick since you were in the first grade, so I will try to mix it up for you – shake and bake.

To breathe some life into this idea, although it isn’t exactly

conducive to reading, I

encourage you to close your eyes: close your eyes and imagine that on the surface of this massive rock has erupted a ticket of vines, each incorporating a vast gradient of colors2, reaching towards the sunlight under an expansive canopy of trees.

Twisting and unfurling, pining to grasp the most tenuous of all substances3 , the vines stretch with such conviction: as if wishing to be untethered from the soil in which they so obediently rest. Hint: you can close your eyes now. . . Good work! When you imagined these vines, what kind of paths did they take? In case you didn’t see it, consider that they could have braided together. If you did see it, I hope that you feel pretty good about yourself

- hold on to that image, and bask in your emotion - you will need it later. It bears emphasizing, that the very fact these vivid images could be conjured with such verisimilitude epitomizes the power and unfathomable complexity of this three-pound lump of tissue that, if you were to take a whiff of, would smell like blue cheese 4,5, .

In our own evolutionary version of the “Goldilocks Zone” story, humans

29

The Connectome

Figure 1.1: One way to imagine the “vines” is using this image from the Human Connectome Project, illustrating a color-coded depiction of “principle diffusion axes” along the neuron with {red, green, blue} <--> {left-right, in-out, up-down }.

science. By Charles Watson

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

figure 1.1

were able to develop an organ so complex that they could do calculations on the fly, understand and interpret the facial expressions of people in their group, and remember the location of the den of that pesky cat that kept killing their friends. Couple all this with the ability to invent language by assigning multiple meanings to everyday objects, and you have enabled these hairless bipeds to gradually emerge as the undisputed kings of the food chain – never mind opposable thumbs6! This dual representation of language can be accompanied by a rather fun joke to which I hope you can relate: that we enjoy staring at bleached pieces of dead trees peppered with strange squiggles while we vividly hallucinate, yet people are still insisting that we are normal. How normal are you, really?

Scientists of late have been extremely interested in developing a map of electrical wiring of neural circuits that enabled all this progress: the connectome.

What follows is my speculation, as I am not trained as a neuroscientist, or for that matter as a scientist at all. I had a lot of fun writing this paper, but I could be completely wrong. No matter: what I would like to discuss herein is the point of view that, with this map, we could calculate which chemicals would be released when, where

they went, and what they did/what emotions they elicited in the subject as a response. For all of this calculating we will need to appeal to big data.

According to the Human Connectome Project: “Via tractography along the principle diffusion direction, the brain’s connections can be fully mapped.” While I will explain more fully what this means later, I would first like to say that a completely unknown mechanism actually guides, when the neuron is developing,

what path the “vines” will trace out: yet a convincing analogy can be drawn from the sprouting of root hairs in a plant to the expansion of neurons in the convincing analogy can be drawn from the sprouting of root hairs in a plant7 to the expansion of neurons in the brain. How does the “vine” know where to grow, and where to make new connections? The answer is heuristic, and ultimately rather hand-wavy, but the developmental path of a neuron relies on your experience.

Neuroplasticity, or the notion that what you experience and

think about actually physically alters the structure and function of the associated brain regions, must be the culprit. A fantastic example of this occurs in creative individuals. When someone has a creative insight, according to research, a surge of activity occurs in the right hemisphere of the brain. Due to their previous experiences, this nexus of creative electricity has forged connections across the corpus collosum – and in their moment of epiphany, a gross wave travels from right to left (and back), effectively triggering a

cascade of related thoughts underpinned by the same initial idea. The point is that the creative insight can be triggered by gazing at objects in your left visual field, as explained in the documentary: BBC Horizon’s: The Creative Brain – How Insight Works8.

I believe that we could potentially calculate thoughts and emotion9 : but in order to do so, we will need a rapid way to develop this map (as everyone’s map is different) – and a rapid way to assess whether or not such gross scale effects as those mentioned above are occurring. We will also have to consider information flow at the neuron level, as we will attempt next.

Now for the kicker: by statistically amalgamating the insights from numerous experiments (this effect in the brain elicits that response in

30

Scientists of late have been extremely interested in developing a map of electrical wiring of neural circuits that enabled all this progress: the connectome.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

the body, and these effects to the body elicit ‘them’ responses in the brain), we could one day potentially watch people’s thoughts on a hologram10 as they are undergoing a lie detector test (or engaging in a seemingly innocent conversation amongst friends). That would be the ultimate dearth of privacy, so I would like to say: “Thanks, science!”

There are, however, positive spinoffs to understanding neural connections. These spinoffs go far beyond the academic pleasure that is derived from venturing into what has been called the ‘new’ final frontier. As one could well imagine, an understanding of neural networks could help in facilitating learning: applying ‘creative-productive’ thought patterns in the classroom, preventing ‘forgetting’, and potentially in reversing the destructive effects of neurodegenerative disease.

Can we Calculate Emotion and Thought?

Before we can begin this quest, we first need to understand a little bit about the mechanism by which neural connections transmit information. Your brain is a collection of neurons, or cells that have specialized in sending electrical impulses down their “wires”. These wires are a lot more complex than the ones that attach your computer to a power source, though still roughly ‘coaxial cables’, these are more like sieves that are

very picky about what goes

through them. By selectively allowing ions to diffuse across the membrane of this wire, or axon, a certain amount of potential can be built up at the “axon hillock” to allow for a sudden collapse resulting in the propagation of an electrical impulse sent hurtling down the tube.

If I am not mistaken, this works through an analogue of the “Hall Effect”. To build up an image of what is going on, we need to imagine a cross sectional slice of the wire, by cutting it in half in the direction of current flow. Let’s say that the conventional current in the wire flows to the left, and an external magnetic field points out of the plane of the page. The Hall effect will cause a charge gradient to build up within the wire in the following way: the external magnetic field will force positively charged ions within the wire to the top of the wire, and will force negatively charged ions to the bottom of the wire. This charge gradient sets up a capacitance with the electric field between the ‘plates’ pointing down. As long as the current in the wire is in a steady state, this will continue to happen. The situation is complicated, however, in that the electrical impulse that travels through the axon (a current element) is moving quite rapidly (~360 miles per hour)11 .

If we first consider this steady state configuration- when another ion wishes to enter the axon, say a positive charge

approaching from the bottom, it will move towards and away from the wire in an oscillatory fashion, first moving in a direction antiparallel to the current flow and then away from the wire. Tracing back again, it will move in a direction parallel to current flow, and then back up towards the wire. This whole process is driven by the magnetic field created from the current within the wire, and the ion will radiate light as it accelerates. If the current is instead transitory, the electric field formed by the “hall effect” is the dominant mechanism, yet the ion will not be able to enter while the current element flows.

After the pulse has long passed, the positive charge may be far away from its initial incident trajectory. If the positive charge is above the wire, it will be pushed away by an electric field pointing radially outwards. If the positive charge happened to still be near the “bottom” of the wire, it will then be able to drift inside: as on the bottom of the wire the electric field points radially inwards. Expanding this to three dimensions with a cylindrically shaped wire of varying thickness (think resistance) and external magnetic fields pointing in all sorts of random directions (with time-varying amplitudes) results in a very confusing field configuration within the wire, but that is the general idea. Recognizing this as confusing, we think about it for a few moments, and quickly move on.

31 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

At the end of the neuron (dendrites), a bunch of calcium floods in (a positively charged ion, mind you), causing packets of neurotransmitters to drift and fuse to the inner membrane, dumping their precious contents into the gap between neurons12. These fancy-pants chemicals, whose activities determine emotional responses, diffuse across the gap between successive neurons (i.e. along the axis of the neuron), and plant themselves into integral membrane proteins like a baseball fitting in the sweet spot of a catcher’s mitt. This causes the whole process to start over on the next “victim”, with, across the brain as a whole – a myriad of these neurons firing at once. So: thoughts are governed by diffusive processes and electro-magnetic impulses: but what does that even mean?

To go a little further, let’s also consider the process of neural imaging as one taking advantage of Fick’s First Law of Diffusion: objects diffuse from regions of high concentration to get to regions of low concentration. Random diffusion follows a rather haphazard pattern, akin to a drunkard trying to find his keys under the ambient glow of a street light; come to find out he dropped them somewhere else! When scientists try to take pictures of the brain, they are taking pictures of the diffusion patterns of water (which is ubiquitous in the human body).

In this imaging, scientists are

taking advantage of a peculiar property of matter: the nuclei of atoms (a proton, in the case of water) have intrinsic magnetic moments like a top spinning clockwise or counterclockwise, and if we bombard this spin with energy from a large magnet; we can cause it to flip. When the spin flips up and down, it emits its own signals – and becomes a “lighthouse” beacon. We can then use this “lighthouse” to effectively track the diffusion of water molecules throughout the brain. This tracking will then become the map of the boundary conditions of white and grey matter: the connectome. These images are called voxels (or volumetric pixels), and graphing them graphs the pathways in the brain. We have done it!

The aforementioned withstanding, I will be happy to see you next when your thoughts are broadcast through my TV. Enjoy yourselves. – Charles Watson.

Footnotes1) Not only is this idea romanti-cized, it is also wrong- if boldly interpreted– as distance from a heat source isn’t the only thing that can affect the temperature of ice or steam.

2) - If you were a member of the Himba tribe, hailing from North-ern Namibia, you could actu-ally differentiate all the shades of green. http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/its-not-easy-seeing-green/

3) Light

4) See bullet 32 on page 13 of 20/20 Thinking: https://books.google.com/books?id=q755Fa7_oJ8C&printsec=frontcover#v=o-nepage&q&f=false

5) The image in Figure 1.1 was found at http://www.humancon-nectomeproject.org/gallery/

6) Opposable thumbs (along with, believe it or not, jaw strength) may have had a lot to do with neural development, so take this comment jestingly.

7) http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2229/8/57

8) http://www.films.com/ecTitle-Detail.aspx?TitleID=32392

9) It is also worth mentioning that research is already being done to videotape someone’s dreams. See Michio Kaku – Fu-ture of the Mind.

10) Real holograms don’t pre-serve color, so it would have to be different from the images found in the Human Connectome Project

11) This causes self inductance

12) More than one neuron’s dentritic spines can exist at the interface of the axon terminus. This is what makes the mapping of connectomes so painstakingly difficult.

Biography: Charles Watson is a loc’d-out gansta set

trippin’ banger. . . Fool!

Look ...it’s a dog in a zero-g environment!

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015 32

Right after I landed in the fascinating country of smiles and endless cilantro seasoned dishes, I headed directly to the legendary craft beer bar of this 18 million people mega-city, the Mikkeller Bangkok. As the first and only Asian outlet of acclaimed Danish beer brewer Mikkel Borg Bjergsø’s Mikkeller, it opened on January 29th in 2014.

After getting away from the bustling main street, onto a tranquil soil, a yard of a small side street, I found it in a green residential area, the teal-colored sign of the Mikkeller Bangkok. Stepping on the lawn of a stylish functionalist house built in the 1960’s washed away all the irritation of the hot weather. There is a huge garden with a few tables on the patio outside. The interior is in a bright Scandinavian style with bright wooden floors and furniture, accomplished with a lot of white. The food menu only has a few items for now, but the management will add more, once the bar becomes busier.

Here I met with Jakob Mørkenborg Rasmussen from Denmark and his Canadian co-partner Mike MacDonald. They both share enthusiasm for beer and love being

innovated. Jakob had been importing foreign beers and

holding numerous tasting events that Mike, a self-described beer connoisseur, attended regularly. That’s how they met and became

business partners. Jakob’s short full beard makes him look to me like a typical Dane. Mike smiles a lot and his outgoing funny ways make him the people’s person of the two. After traveling in South Asia for some years, Jakob felt a growing love for Thailand and moved there in 2004. His fascination for beers got matched

by finding work at Carlsberg Thailand, giving him a deep insight of this industry and also the local drinking demographic.

“We really wanted to build something that we would go to every night.”

Most beer-lover would ask why with a lot of curiosity, why would a Danish legendary gypsy brewery locate in Bangkok?

“There are a lot of beer bars in Bangkok and Thais have a really strong beer drinking culture, but what most bars compete with is the amount of beer signage or who has the most number of taps, even though they are serving

50 pale light lager tasting very much like the other”, said by Jakob,

Since the market was dominated by domestic staple Singha, Chang and Leo, Jakob and Mike decided to open a bar to showcase beer of many styles on tap and bottled. “We want to serve beer with respect.

My partner and I are both in this business not so much from a financial perspective but more so from a beer culture perspective. We wanted to bring in a different kind of quality than people are used to in this part of the world. The beers may be much pricier than the conventional brands, but we b e l i e v e 33

beer.Mikkeller Bangkok

Once a beer-lover, always a beer-lover.

Jakob rushed to the bar and poured me 2 pints of their finest each. It took me almost 5 minutes to down them and the world become bright again.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

By Tracy Chenxi Wang

they offer a whole different experience in taste,” Mike MacDonald said. “We really wanted to build something that we would go to every night.”

Speaking of the customers they want to attract, they hope to get people who are genuinely interested or curious about great tasting beer. “With most people not being able distinguish between two beers like a Mexican chili beer and Mikkeller American Dream, we want to educate the Thai beer drinking crowd what good craft beer really is. A part of that is having beer tastings with an educational scope as well offering beer tastings in our Imperial Tasting Room.” The staffs are also hardcore beer-lovers with passion. They are ready to educate the customers about craft beer culture, the stories behind the beers, and how to serve and enjoy craft beers. They want to provide a complexion of beer, service and atmosphere which will attract people. “Once a beer-lover, always a beer-lover”, Mike preached.

There is a reason why the bar is a bit away from the busy streets of Bangkok in a much quieter place, they explained, “A requirement from Mikkel was making this bar a destination and I think we have managed just that. It’s not a place you just drop by; you’ve probably made up your mind coming here, well before actually coming here. With the garden we’re able to offer plenty of outdoor seating, people love that.”

I happened traveling in Thailand during the period of political tensions; there was national curfew between midnight to 5am every day, which damaged tourists industry and local food and beverage industry a lot. Mike told me that this (policy) is one

of their biggest obstacles for now. Thailand has a lot of festivals and “No Alcohol” days, which adds up to four to seven days a month the bar has to stay close. A sudden feeling of deep dark sadness, dampening my mood, soggy, miserable everything but what Thailand is, fell over me! Mike and Jakob rushed to the bar and poured me 2 pints of their finest each. It took me almost 5 minutes to down them and the world become bright again.

Talking about the theory that they run the bar, “quality is number one; we’re not competing with price. We’ll have no happy hours or discounted days.” They wouldn’t compete with the biggest selection of imported beers, or cheapest beers. “For example, the reason of people going to the wine bar is not because it has the biggest selection, but a unique selection. Another kind of customers go to the nearest bars, they don’t care what kind of beers they are drinking.” With the mission of providing the finest craft beers to the customers, Jakob started his own beer distributing company, Hopsession. Now he imports Danish beers from Nørrebro Bryghus and Bøgedal but also Mikkeller. They only want to build a different place where the customers can keep drinking with their friends. “Every time I came to Bangkok, I’d spend every night here, and I love the atmosphere here”, said an American Sam Craig who was on his business trip here. Since Mikkeller Bangkok was opened less than half a year, it already made it way on the list of Top 10 Best Beer Bar in Asia by CNN.

The bar quenches the thirst of craft beer lovers with a selection of 30 beers on tap, 20 of them are brewed by Mikkeller, and 10 of them are changing guest beers from other craft beer makers. A large selection of bottled beer completes the collection. There’s no cheap beer here, all beers on tap are in the range of 200-350 Baht (RMB 40-70)per glass, and bottled ones are 250-1500 Baht (RMB 50-300), on the street you find a local commercial beer for just 50 Baht (RMB 10).

There are four other venues among the world in total, other than Mikkeller Bangkok, there are two located in Copenhagen, the third is

in San Francisco and the fourth is in Stockholm (opened in March of 2014).

Mikkeller BangkokAddress: 26 Ekamai Soi 10 Yaek 2, Ekamai Road, Bangkok 10110, Thailand

Tel: +66 2 381 9891

Website:mikkellerbangkok.com

Here is the list of Top 7 Best Beer Bars

by CNN:

Mikkeller Bangkok - (Bangkok, Thailand)

BrewDog Roppongi - (Tokyo, Japan)

Goodbeer Faucets - (Tokyo, Japan)

Smith Street Taps - (Singapore)

BREW – Beers & Ciders - (Bangkok, Thailand)

Brewerkz – Riverside Point (Singapore)

TAPS Beer Bar - (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

34

Tracy Wang is a traveler and foodie. While waiting for the alien moth-er-ship to pick her up, she’s developed a passion to write about the things she loves most: craft beers and fine wines. She’s the executive editor for The Beer Link Magazine and started home-brewing recently.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

By Tracy Chenxi Wang

I looked across the wres-tling mat and saw my cur-riculum coordinator on the other side. Typically, all practices, whether athlet-ic or academic, are strictly no-enter zones for anyone not directly associated with the team, so I knew that something was wrong.

I handed my whistle to an as-sistant coach and ap-proached him.

With red eyes strained from the passed several minutes of hard weep-ing, he told me.

E had died. I dropped to the ground and wept myself.

E was one of those students that a teach-er dreams about. She was bright, beautiful, and just a pleasant per-son to be around. When she was near you, you felt like a better person. She made you feel that what you did had val-ue, and she wasn’t afraid to remind you of this on a near weekly basis – in a non-direct, non-brownnosing way. She came from one of the greatest families I had ever had the op-

portunity to interact with.

She drowned on a missionary trip. This was devastating.

Over the near decade of teach-ing, it’s shocking to tabulate the number of students, past or current that died through my career, it’s a high-num-ber that even urban teaching cannot explain: one was shot while selling weed on a busy corner, another had the same

fate after leaving an all-ag-es club in the early morning, on the same day that E died another student drove home from college and got into a car accident, killing her and other passengers on board.

And now this year, a student passed away after a long, hard fight with cancer. His name

was G and I met him only after cancer had eaten away at his body and his mind – I didn’t get to see G without cancer. I don’t know what he looked like, I can’t picture him without his wheelchair, I can’t picture him speaking.

Towards the end of his life, G and his family requested that his life be as normal as pos-

sible. G was placed in high school and attend-ed classes. Of course he was exempt from all assignments and atten-dance standards, but he was there. I heard he even went to some parties and sporting events – trying to be as normal as possible.

One day the email came stating that G would no longer be attending school, that he was too weak and tired to make

the three block trip. He was put on permanent in-home hospice care.

The day they announced it to the student body, they self-or-ganized, walked to his house, and stood outside in a show-ing of solidarity with the dying boy who they all had grown up with. If

When a student dies.

Every teacher enters the profession as an idealist: you go in with your Dead Poet’s Society headspace ready to change the world one child at a time. An image of your impact on student lives is painted in pop-culture and grad school classes that teach you to be optimistic, understandings, open-minded and to be caring.

It rarely lasts.

35 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

by Chris Parizo

you hadn’t cried about G in the past, you did on that day.

It was beautiful.

G died shortly after Christmas of this year.

Every teacher enters the pro-fession as an idealist: you go in with your Dead Poet’s Soci-ety headspace ready to change the world one child at a time. An image of your impact on student lives is painted in

pop-culture and grad school classes that teach you to be optimistic, understandings, open-minded and to be caring.

It rarely lasts.

Your idealism gets chipped away over time. You care as much as you possibly can and you tell your students this on a regular basis – you try to hu-manize yourself to them, hop-ing to build a bridge.

This bridge slowly gets chipped

away – that is, slowly if you’re lucky. You begin to realize over time that you sometimes care more about your stu-dents’ lives and futures more than they do. You chalk that up to youth, but later realize that you oftentimes care more about it than their own par-ents do. And that’s when the bridge collapses.

You cross out of the Idealistic Phase of teaching and begin to enter the Realistic Phase, you

begin to note that your job is not meant to lead students to their edu-cation goals, but rath-er to increase stan-dardized exam scores so that the school can meet its own educa-tion goals.

And that’s when you notice that your job is designed only to give politicians statistical numbers that can be mentioned in a press release or into a mi-crophone.

I’m not the smiley, jok-ey guy I was only four years ago. I barely talk about my personal life in class, I don’t tell sto-ries nearly as often. I barely smile anymore. I’m brutal, honest, and fair. I tell my kids that

they need to “figure it out” rather than “tell me what I can do for you”. I’ve gone from “oh yeah, once when I was a kid…” to “that’s personal and none of your business”.

Rewrites? How about try hard-er next time? How about you take this failing grade because you deserve it, and learn that I’m not here to entertain you, but to help you build skills beyond writing and reading, and manipulation is not one of them.

The irony in this whole situ-ation is that students will tell you they find the Idealists to be jokes and the Realists to be “real”, oftentimes laughing at the Idealists in class.

I have a wall between my stu-dents and me; none can get through it. Some people call it the Jaded Phase. They’re right.

And then G died. They took his name off the class roster last week. And once again, de-spite all defenses, I was devas-tated again.

There’s an inexplicable bond in the teacher-student relation-ship that transcends whether or not a teacher is Idealistic or Realistic. Students know you’re “real” by being honest, by being objective, and being fair. And you as the teacher in-correctly feel that you are dis-tant and untouchable.

Teachers create futures. We invest ourselves in our stu-dents in the hopes that it somehow makes their futures easier – and learning that that future won’t happen, robs us of our purpose.

And whether you’re an Ideal-ist or a Realist, whether you are optimistic to a flaw or pes-simistic to a flaw, losing a stu-dent leaves you empty.

Chris Parizo is an eight-year vet-eran English teacher having taught in Atlanta, GA and Boston, MA.

36pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

While sitting in a music conference panel recently it dawned on me that the Independent labels had created a whole new series of individual and small group owned independent SUPPORT businesses . These businesses are flourishing while the independent labels that use them are not.

As a Hip-Hop / R&B / Neo Soul / Rock / Country or Gospel artist you feel that your material should be the hottest in the country. You just don’t know what to do to get started, so based on what you’re seeing and hearing today the first thing you desire is a:

Manager – Most individuals imagine that a manager will be the one person that can take an artists career to great heights. Unfortunately the entry level manager knows just about nothing concerning the intricacies of the entertainment industry. At this level it’s ALL about ego and a false sense of

power. Many mid-level

managers only know how to spend money on delusional marketing schemes and are not creative enough to really enhance an artist’s revenue streams or career.

Consultant – This person is normally hired by the artist or label based on either who they know or the company they used to work for. I recently had a label consultant tell me that he knew how to sell music because he had worked for G-Unit as a STREET TEAM LEADER. The best consultants know how to develop team strategy, work within specified budgets and develop meaningful marketing plans. _______________________ Since the majority of today’s artists don’t know how to make music they now need someone who can place music around their lyrics and make people want to listen to them.

Beat Makers – is a name that was created because rappers wanted people to believe that

they were solely making the music popular with just their lyrics. It doesn’t matter that the people inventing the music, which ultimately gives the artist their muse, are relegated to an inferior position. They only make the BEAT and sell it for a few hundred or thousand of dollars. This new business is becoming so popular that I have recently seen directories of Beat Makers for sale.

Producer – is the correct name given to the person who not only creates the music, but assembles and mixes the musical project? Sometimes considered Beat Makers, today’s producers are becoming stars in their own right and their fees are becoming astronomical also. It is normal to expect to pay $20,000 - $75,000 per track for the expertise of a Gold or Platinum selling producer, plus own NONE of the publishing royalties. These are the real “ballers” in the entertainment industry for they retain more money, more often. _______________________

The IndustryGETTING PAID FROM LABELS

Allen L. Johnston – The Music Specialist ~ www.asha.com

37 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Since there is a growing cadre of Beat Makers and Producers, then there has to be a business in making the tools these people will need to work with.

Computer recordingsoftware – Fruity Loops, Pro Tools, Sonic Foundry and thousands more have been purchased and downloaded on multiple machines around the world. These new recording software businesses have become so wealthy that they are having their own closed vendor shows to network and give rise to newer business models. _______________________ Recording has become so removed from the art of making music that people now say “Out of the lab” making recording a Frankenstein phrase. Musical products should instead be a work of genius, emotional yet precise and be originated from creative thought. Once “out of the lab” most labels and artists start immediately promoting the “upcoming” music.

Flyer & Business CardPrinters – Computers have made this business easy and home grown. Just in the streets of Charlotte NC alone I saw thousands of flyers, post cards, mini-posters and business cards ALL promoting a new artist, a new band, mix tape or song. This phenomenon is happening in every major, secondary and tertiary city in this country, and it is happening in every major

city around the world. Who is reading ALL OF THIS PAPER?

CD Inserts, posters,merchandise – This is normally a 2 or 3 person operation, with one person doing artwork, while another person does the physical machine runs. This

business physically makes most large orders obtained from Flyer & Business Card Printers who become the middle man. This company is also working with the…..

CD Duplication – Not to be confused with replication, 38pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Click here to see the video

the duplication process is just copying onto a pre made blank cd. Having to buy the cd duplicating machines is the first qualification for the owners of this type business. Computers have made this business easy to operate as long as you have supplies and your machines are clean and maintained. _______________________ Now you’ve got your product and you need to expose it to the world so you can become rich and famous. Of course your ego has told you that your song is HOT and you are the greatest performer of all time. Therefore you need to perform it in front of as many people as you can even though you have never had any training in how to perform. This brainstorm has generated many different varieties of the following business concept.

Night Club showcases – In every town and hamlet weekly showcases have opened, giving the artist a chance to perform in front of an audience. Very few showcases promise any reward and the few that do still use the performers’ audience to make additional money every week. I have yet to find a showcase that actually gave an artist a major label deal as the grand prize, or any artist that received one.

Talent shows – Not to be confused with Fashion show (That’s another article)

Talent Auditions – Normally this is a weeding out

process to see who will really pay money to be told that they have NO talent.

Music Conferences – If I read or hear about one more conference being compared to JACK THE RAPPER’S FAMILY AFFAIR I will start a fight. Today’s music conferences leave much to be desired for the new artist. Panels have people talking down to the audience or just promoting the panelists individual agendas. The dress code is loose and so are the attendees who arrive with pre-conceived ideas of grandeur, . What made Jack’s conference the best is that it WAS a family affair, with proper rules of etiquette and a complete cross section of the industry, announcers, store owners, labels, artists and support groups. It was NOT a:

DJ’s Summit Producer’s Summit How Can I Be Down Get Seen & Signed

Street Teams – someone has to place this monstrous pile of paper and plastic goods in the street. Teams have become specific as the All Woman Country Music Street Team I met in Nashville recently._______________________ Another avenue of promoting your song or performance is now the impressive…..

Publicists – Dedicated to getting you as much publicity as possible the majority of the new business publicists only have a limited

amount of physical contacts and a myriad amount of email addresses. How many times have you seen 80,000 emails sent for $100 or something just as ludicrous. A real effective publicist has writing contacts, print contacts, radio contacts, television contacts and venue contacts.

Periodicals - Have you been able to count the number of genre specific magazines in your city? Not only the Hip-Hop magazines, Country Music magazines, R&B magazines, Gospel magazines, but now lifestyles, hair, clothing, business contacts, and networking magazines ALL in print form. Add to that the ever increasing….

Ezines/ E Blasts – Interactive emails that I am receiving about 50 a week publicizing concerts, shows, new songs, new artists, and other entertainment events. This seems to be the wave of the future reaching the consumer directly.

Internet Radio shows – There is now a radio show or pod cast for every type of music and genre available. You can hear it over the Internet at any time day or night. _______________________ When you are ready you are told that retail distribution is the only way you will ever see any substantial financial reward from your product. The reality is that if you were organized you could make more money selling

3939 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

your own product.

Distribution Services – This is really the new business model for making money off labels that never sell records. You offer the label or artist distribution then you charge them for everything you do.

Major IndependentDistribution - First to get your product into a major indie distributor you must pay another company that already has a distribution deal with the major indie, thousands of dollars to be able to be a subsidiary company. Next you must hire a liaison that has a relationship with the major indie distributor to make sure that your product has preferential treatment. Finally you must hire a radio promotion person to TRY and get you airplay in several different cities over different radio stations all during a specified time period that should coincide with the product release and video showing.

Mid-Level IndependentDistribution – This new

business model is popping up at a surprising rate. Companies are now charging labels AND artists to distribute their product. Additional charges include storage fees, shipping fees, marketing fees, distribution fees, advertising fees and the new digital distribution fee. These distributors seldom have direct access to the larger chain stores (Best But, Wal-Mart, Target, etc) and must use another company to help them sell.

Digital Distribution – More and more companies are popping up claiming to be able to place your music on digital download sites and ringtones. These companies have a reputation for telling the artist that they are going to get a lot of money, while the reality is that the creator and owner of the music makes about15% of all the money from online purchases. Phone companies get the money, take a percentage then send money to the phone carrier who takes money then sends it to the mobile aggregator who takes money then sends it to the company that represents your music. You are seldom told

that you must pay for ALL marketing & p r o m o t i o n a l services online & offline.

Online Stores – The new online store model is for either digital delivery or

physical delivery. Once again most online stores are either individually owned by the artist and label, or leased operations where the store owner does not control the product or the money from the purchase. One of the best examples of this type of operation is BurnLounge, by the way whatever happened to all of those people claiming that this was the wave of the future? _______________________ There are many adaptations on the above named new businesses, but one thing remains constant. The independent labels are disorganized, unfocused and not realizing the multiple revenue streams available today. Instead of making money labels and artists are supporting many new businesses.

For more information visitwww.asha.com

Allen consults new and existing entertainment businesses, increas-ing their revenue streams while making them technically astute, providing business operations back office services for many music in-dustry clients, publishing adminis-tration, licensing, royalty recovery, business affairs, label operation, business administration and the digital marketplace.

If I read or hear about one more conference being compared to JACK THE RAPPER’S FAMILY AFFAIR I will start a fight. Today’s music conferences leave much to be desired for the new artist. Panels have people talking down to the audience or just promoting the panelists individual agendas.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015 40

A summary of the regulations for registering dogs in Beijing municipality is provided here for dog owners. Regulations have been confirmed by the International Center for Veterinary Services (ICVS) from the laws and regulations on dog ownership and from our numerous interviews with the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and the Animal Husbandry Bureau of Chaoyang District and in surrounding districts, including Shunyi:

All dogs are required to be registered by law in Beijing. Owners are strongly advised to REGISTER THEIR DOGS immediately if this has not been done yet. There are ongoing rounds of enforcement by the police. These enforcement rounds are part of the government’s

efforts to regulate dog ownership to ensure

public health.

Enforcement has become more regular throughout the year but is normally stepped-up before major holidays (e.g., National Day, Chinese New Year, May Labor Day, etc.).

During these rounds of enforcement, the police will be looking for:

1). All unregistered dogs

2). Large dogs living within the 8 districts of “strict enforcement

of dog ownership regulations” (e.g., within 5th ring road)

________________________

DOG OWNERS WITHIN 5TH RING ROAD

If you live within the districts of Chaoyang, Dongcheng, Xicheng,

Chongwen, Xuanwu, Haidian, Fengtai, and Shijingshan, you must register your dog at your local police precinct (pai chu suo).

Ask your management company or landlord or neighbors which “pai chu suo” oversees your n e i g h b o r h o o d . Dogs residing and registered within

these 8 districts may not be taller than 35-cm from ground to shoulder.

Only ONE DOG may be registered to each HOUSEHOLD address, with the dog usually u n d e r

pets

北京新天地国际动物医院International Center for Veterinary Services

BeijingDog Registration Begins May 1st for 2015/2016

REGISTERING DOGS IN BEIJING: HOW-TO GUIDE FOR DOG OWNERS

41 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

35-cms (measured from ground to shoulder). There have been some dogs that are slightly taller than 35-cms that have still been approved and given registration licenses (e.g., up to 50-cms or more such as Beagles, Maltese, Poodles, Cockers, Bichon Frise, Mini Schnauzers, assorted Terriers, Shelties, Shiba Inus, small mixed breeds, etc.).

What the police may not allow are large dogs (some also classified as aggressive breeds) such as Collies, Dalmatians, Dobermans, German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Great Danes, Huskies, Irish Wolfhounds, Labradors, Labradoodles, Malamutes, Newfoundlands, Rottweilers, St. Bernards, Mastiffs, etc. These are all classified as large dogs and are not allowed to be owned/registered within the 8 districts roughly clustered within the 5th ring road.

________________________

OWNERS OF MULTIPLE DOGS LIVING WITHIN 5th RING ROAD

Each dog is registered to a HOUSEHOLD address (e.g., address on lease contract or property deed), NOT to an INDIVIDUAL (e.g., passport holder).

If you own two dogs then you may need to find a relative or friend who will permit you to register your second dog using their household address. Please ensure this second household address does not have a dog already registered.

For owners who have “large” d o g s

within 5th ring road, it is recommended to have another property address outside 5th ring road where you may register your dog. Make sure this property address outside the 5th ring road is approved by the PSB for registering large dogs.

________________________

REGISTRATION PROCESS AT THE PUBLIC SECURITY BUREAU or “PAI CHU SUO” (May vary by “pai chu suo”)

When going to the “pai chu suo,” to register your dog, you may need to bring the following:

1). Your dog - police may want to see the dog on the initial visit, but this seems to depend on each individual “pai chu suo.” Visit your pai chu suo in advance to inquire if you must bring your dog at the time of initial registration.

2). Two photos of your dog (one-inch passport size). Must be a head shot from the front.

3). Your original ID: shen fen zheng, passport, foreigner household registration document (obtained from PSB and usually needed to extend your China visa), etc.

4). Your LEASE for your rented apartment or your property

title document if you own your home (remember, dogs are registered to the HOUSEHOLD address NOT to the passport of the owner)

5). Permission from your neighborhood watch committee – “Ju Wei Hui”

6). CASH - Initial registration fee within the 8 major districts is RMB 1,000.00. Annual registration renewal thereafter is RMB 500.00. Fees may be lower in areas outside of the 8 districts.

________________________

If your dog is NOT YET REGISTERED and you are also planning on neutering/spaying him/her, then you may be entitled to a 50% discount on the initial registration fee if you provide proof to the police station that your dog has been neutered/spayed by a legally registered and licensed ANIMAL HOSPITAL in Beijing.

The International Center for Veterinary Services is a

legally registered and fully licensed animal hospital that is authorized to perform neuter/spay surgeries and to provide the official neuter/spay certificates. Owners may present these official neuter/spay certificates as proof to the police station. With these neuter/spay certificates, owners

are entitled to receive up to 50% discount (e.g., RMB 500.00) on the initial registration fee or a significant discount on the next year’s renewal fee.

If your dog is ALREADY REGISTERED, you may be eligible for up to 40% discount 42

All dogs are required to be registered by law in Beijing. Owners are strongly advised to REGISTER THEIR DOGS immediately if this has not been done yet. There are ongoing rounds of enforcement by the police. These enforcement rounds are part of the government’s efforts to regulate dog ownership to ensure public health.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

(e.g. RMB 200.00) on your annual renewal fee.

Please check with your animal hospital first before scheduling the neuter/spay surgery to ensure that it is legally registered and licensed to perform the surgeries and can provide official certificates. Most CLINICS are not legally authorized to perform surgeries in Beijing, nor are pet shops, breeders, grooming salons with an occasional veterinarian. The police may not grant you the discount if you cannot produce an official spay/neuter certificate from a legally registered animal hospital in Beijing. Dogs that are neutered/spayed overseas are currently not eligible for the spay/neuter discount on registration.

7). Depending on the PSB precinct (pai chu suo), you would normally get your dog’s “picture ID registration card” within the month. Always keep the official “fa paio” (tax bureau receipt) from the pai chu suo. Until you receive the license, your “fa piao” is proof that your dog has been registered.

________________________

DOG OWNERS LIVING OUTSIDE 5th RING ROAD

Many dog owners outside of 5th ring road, especially in the Shunyi villa areas, may be able to inquire with the management agents to help get dogs registered or at least obtain guidance on the process. Dogs may be over 35-cms outside of the 8 major districts. Check with your property management agent or local PSB precinct (pai chu suo) for confirmation.

Many of the villa operators

have negotiated with local police precincts to allow their residents to register dogs (especially large dogs) to the villa compound. There are still registration processes and fees involved. Please contact your property management agent or neighborhood Public Security Bureau (“pai chu suo”) if you live outside the 5th ring road and are unsure about how to register your dog.

Please be advised that there may be some residential compounds technically OUTSIDE 5th ring road that may not allow large dogs. Please ask the management agents or even the local Public Security Bureau overseeing the area to verify if large dogs are allowed. It would be unfortunate to sign a lease only to later find out you cannot register your large dog in these areas.

________________________

CAT REGISTRATION

Cats and their owners may all breathe a collective sigh of relief that there is NO CAT REGISTRATION requirement in Beijing (for now!)

________________________

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND ADVICE REGARDING YOUR PETS

Please call or email the International Center for Veterinary Services with any questions on registration, importing pets, taking pets out of the country and any animal health care or pet care issue.

________________________

ICVS Hours:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday - 9AM to

6PM,

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - 9AM to 8PM

International Center for Veterinary Services (ICVS)

No. 13-16 Rong Ke Gan Lan Cheng Shang Jie

Fu Tong Xi Da Jie, Wangjing

Chaoyang District, Beijing PRC 100102

Tel: (010) 8456-1939/1940

E-mail: ICVS_CHINA@yahoo.com

Web site: www.ICVSASIA.com

43 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

Born and raised in the pictur-esque mountains of Vermont, and coming of age in the late 1980s, I found my love of art ; images of vivid color. I quickly groomed my eye for photography, and graphic design because I started making layouts, and fliers for bands of which I was a member.

44

images. photos: © Eric Sherman

spring

Evangeline Moss rose with the dawn out of habit, hunger driving her from slumber. She perched at the kitchen table, newspaper and large mug of coffee in hand, and contemplated the want ads. She wiped her mouth roughly with her palms and rubbed her hands clean against her thighs, grinning.“OK Cecil,” she said. “You get the leftovers.” She tossed the crust of toast across the room at the tidy-looking gray dog watching her solicitously with his warm amber eyes. He snapped his teeth once briskly as the crust sailed by. In one fluid motion both dog and toast were gone, leaving a patch of empty sun on the hard wooden floor. Evangeline sighed and rested her chin in her hand, contemplating the dog-less kitchen.

“It’s very easy for you to discorporate isn’t it?” Sighed Evangeline, “But without me here to toss you crusts of toast, I think you’ll find it hard to maintain your precious cavalier attitude.” She turned her attention back to the

classifieds. “Too qualified

for this, not qualified enough for that. Why is it so difficult these days for a young

woman with considerable intelligence and skills to find herself a reasonable paying job? Just once, in all these job listings, I would like to be told that I am perfectly suited to something.” She set down her cup absently on the newsprint and continued reading. When she picked the cup back up, she noticed that it had left a circular ring on the paper. “A sign?” thought Evangeline absently. “As good a one as any, I suppose. What I need here is action. I, Evangeline

Eurydice Moss, hereby resolve to apply to whatever job is under this coffee ring—

no matter how far-fetched, over or under qualified I seem to be.” And so vowing, Evangeline began to read:

“Are you inquisitive? Does your mother tell you that you ask too many questions? Are you in the habit of poking your nose where it doesn’t belong? If the answer is yes, then Virgil Investigations wants to talk to you! Unusual training, competitive wages, unique benefits.”

As a matter of fact, Evangeline’s mother

was exactly the person who did tell her that she asked too many questions.

“Nobody wants to tell you their personal business, Evangeline,” her mother would say through pinched lips. “Respectable people keep themselves to themselves.”

“A private detective,” thought Evangeline. “You read about them all the time in books, but you never meet them in real life.” She read further.

fiction.

Beastly DictionBy Penelope Rocketship

45 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

illustration: Adam Forguites

“The faint of heart need not apply,” the ad went on. “Serious inquiries only. Bring resume and letter of interest in person to Virgil Investigations.” It gave an address in the center of town.

Several hours later, Evangeline Moss stood, brushed and polished, outside the L’Esperance building, a stately, stone monolith that had seen better days.

“Here goes nothing,” she said as she opened the door and ascended the wide granite staircase.

The door to Virgil Investigations was slightly ajar, and swung open easily at her knock.

“Hello,” she said querulously, peering around the lip of the door jamb.

The office was sleek, polished and furnished in rather a disconcerting shade of yellow. The mustard-colored carpet was plush, spotless and evidently brand new. The carpet installers had, rather carelessly, left some scraps of carpet in a heap by the window, apparently in too much of a hurry to clean up after themselves. Aside from the untidy behavior of the carpet installers, the office was spotless. So spotless, in fact, that the fashionable chrome-trimmed reception desk was entirely unbesmirched with life-forms of any sort, including that of a receptionist. Gone to the restroom, Evangeline supposed of its occupant. A glossy chrome telephone, a perfect companion for the immaculate desk, rang once. And rang. And rang. And rang.

Bursting abruptly through an adjoining door was a lanky figure in a startling lemon-colored suit, lunging for the

telephone receiver with great enthusiasm. “Virgil Investigations,” it said. The accent was not quite American, but Evangeline couldn’t place it immediately. “No, I’m very sorry,” the apparition continued. “You’re much too late. Yes, that’s right. The position has been filled. Yes, I’m afraid so. Goodbye, and best of luck.” He put down the receiver and beamed at her.

“Well,” said Bartholomew Mews, for it was he. “What do you think of the place?”

“I think it’s garish,” said Evangeline honestly. “But quite clean,” she hastened to say, least she had given offense.

“It is, isn’t it,” said Mews proudly. “I’m not at all fond of dust. Although, I must admit that in this line of work, one is periodically required to become exposed to a certain amount of,” he wrinkled his nose. “Filth. That doesn’t bother you too much, does it?”

“No,” said Evangeline taken slightly aback. “I’m sure it doesn’t.”

“Now this,” Bartholomew Mews rattled on, traversing the elaborate desk and placing his hand on the back of the chair, “is your desk.” Evangeline observed him with bemusement, but kept silent. “And this,” he rattled on, “is your phone. This,” he said, opening the desk drawer, “is your stapler, your notepad, an assortment of pens and pencils, a collection of paper clips, your pad of sticky notes and your gun. And there,” he said, spinning around and gesturing towards a sleek chrome coffee pot in the corner, “is the coffee. Perhaps you’d like a cup?”

“Mr. Mews,” said Evangeline.

“Bartholomew, please,” said Mews with a self-deprecatory gesture.

“Bartholomew, then. Who exactly do you think I am?”

“I believe,” said Mews with a contemplative look. “I believe that you are the newest employee of Virgil Investigations, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

“I’m afraid you must be confusing me with somebody else. This is my first visit to your office. We’ve never met.”

Evangeline turned around to look at the door, as if expecting the rightful employee of Virgil Investigations to walk through the door at any moment.

Mews bent his lean frame at the waist and peered at her intently. “No,” he said firmly, straightening up and fixing her with a determined look. “No, you’re just the thing. I’m absolutely certain. Well? Will you accept the position or won’t you? The salary is quite respectable and your duties will be pleasantly varied. A bit of light office work, answering phones and that sort of thing. And in the meantime you will be apprenticed to me as a private eye. Does that suit you?”

“Don’t you want to know any more about me? Wouldn’t you like to call my references?” asked Evangeline, somewhat perplexed.

“No.” said Mews, brushing his hands together ins gesture of finality. “Your abilities are quite clear. Can you start on Monday? Excellent. I shall look forward to seeing you then.” And turning on his heel, he disappeared beyond the door through which he had come. The door closed behind him with an orderly

46pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

click, leaving Evangeline in a state of considerable befuddlement.

“A job!” she exclaimed ten minutes later, bursting through the door of her apartment and snatching up a petulant schnauzer in her arms. “A job, Cecil! Mummy is going to become a private detective. What do you think of that?”

“As long as you’re happy and it brings home the dogfood,” replied Cecil, negotiating his way out of her embrace with some difficulty. “Speaking of which, it must be getting towards lunch time, don’t you think?”

***

Monday morning dawned crisp and cold. Evangeline arrived at the L’Esperance building precisely at 9:00, trying to squash the colony of unruly butterflies that appeared to be conducting a vigorous marching-band rehearsal in her stomach.

“Mr. Mews,” called Evangeline softly, as she pushed open the polished office door of Virgil Investigations. Stepping gingerly inside, Evangeline could see the view of the Virgil town square through the tall, wooden framed windows on either side of the reception room. The window frames were done in the old-fashioned New England style, with warped glass panes and hand hewn rosettes in each corner. The brown wooden casements were somewhat out of step with the remainder of the garish office décor. As Evangeline was absorbed in her observations, a silvery head appeared in the far

doorway and beamed its

lamp-like smile at her.

“Ah-ha!” it exclaimed. “Ms. Moss. Right on time—exactly as I knew you would be.”

Today, Bartholomew Mews wore a light gray suit and lemon colored tie, and his gray eyes twinkling with evident good nature. He extended a long-fingered and immaculately groomed hand to Evangeline’s, and shook her proffered limb vigorously.

“Delighted to have you on board,” said Mews. “Let’s get started, shall we?” He traversed the room with a single bounding step and came to rest at the corner of the chrome plated reception

desk. “Perhaps we need more furniture,” he said absently, as if to himself. “A sofa, or someplace for clients to sit while they wait. What do you think?” he turned the intensity of his gaze on Evangeline and waited expectantly for her reply. After a pause, he continued: “Chrome and yellow, like the desk? Or perhaps brown? Yes, brown, I think is just the thing—don’t you agree?”

“Why brown?” blurted Evangeline, before she could stop herself.

Mews chuckled softly. “When I first conceived of this reception room, I envisioned

one of the old model sports cars from the 1950s. Maybe a Thunderbird—something in bright yellow paint and chrome details. I wanted it to look fast, flashy and retro. But then,” Mews, becoming excited, waggled his index finger vigorously in the air. “I had this brilliant notion.” He gazed at Evangeline with the full luminosity of his translucent eyes. “What if the sports car is actually...” he paused for effect. “A banana!” he stopped his motion with a dramatic flourish, and slapped his thighs for emphasis. “Good, eh?” he said, beaming.

“You see,” he went on, “nothing is really what it

seems. Not a sports car or the people who drive it. Nor, in some (admittedly rare) cases, is a banana. And that, my dear Evangeline is where today’s lesson begins. Now,” Mews face became serious. “Please tell me everything you know about detective agencies up to this point.”

“Well,” she said, a little taken aback by the

abrupt change in mood. “I don’t know much, I suppose. I have a cousin who was a police detective, but I didn’t know him very well. And I’ve read a few detective novels.”

“Fiction,” said Mews with an officious wave of his hand. “Is a very flimsy representation of real life, particularly in detective novels.”

“Is it?”

“But nevermind, I’m pleased that you don’t know much about being a detective. That simply means that there is less that I will have to teach you to forget. But let’s not get ahead o f 47

“Oh certainly, there will be clients,” replied an absent-minded Mews. “Clients are the very life-blood of the agency. So naturally, they will arrive in throngs. I expect they will enter, announce themselves and asked to be presented to me.” He paused a moment in contemplation.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

ourselves. First, the basics. Here is your desk,” said Mews with a magnanimous gesture. “In the mornings, you will sit here, answer the phone when it rings, take messages if I am out, and when I’m in the office, please ask the caller to hold and come tap on my door to enquire,” Mews gestured towards the heavy wooden door just behind the desk to the left.

“I expect there may be some filing as well,” Mews gestured loosely towards a series of filing cabinets towards the right of the reception desk. “And possibly some stapling,” he picked up the stapler and waggled it a bit recklessly before putting it back where it came from.

“Will clients come to see you?” asked Evangeline. “Should I greet them?”

“Oh certainly, there will be clients,” replied an absent-minded Mews. “Clients are the very life-blood of the agency. So naturally, they will arrive in throngs. I expect they will enter, announce themselves and asked to be presented to me.” He paused a moment in contemplation.

“But you see,” he carried on after a brief pause. “I do not wish you to present them to me immediately. I may be in the office, or I may be out. At any rate, I do not wish to be disturbed by the tedious preliminaries of who did what to whom when and where. That is where you will come in.”

Evangeline must have looked surprised. Mews rattled on in explanation.

“First, take down their basic information—ie name, address, phone number, occupation, hair color, height,

weight ,

shoe size and whether they believe in empirical versus relative morality.”

“Relative morality?”

“Yes, of course,” said Mews off-handedly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Then, you must find out the crux of the matter. Now sometimes,” said Mews, waggling a finger in the air with great relish, as he warmed up to what was obviously a favorite subject. “Sometimes, a person will be able to tell you the crux of the matter immediately. You will say ‘please tell me the crux of the matter, Mrs. Smith,’ and the crux will be instantly forthcoming. But at other times, the response to that very simple question will be a blank stare, likely to be followed by quite an oppressive amount of gibbering. Do you understand?”

“Gibbering, yes,” said a startled Evangeline, backing up a step.

Mews whirled on the balls of his feet, stabbing the air with a bony forefinger.

“Following the advent of gibbering is where you must take charge. If you don’t, the gibbering may go on indefinitely and, not only will it waste time, but it may also produce a taint of confusion—a corruption—in which the essence of the true matter at hand is spoiled. Or lost. Or obfuscated. Or otherwise rendered inscrutable. So it is absolutely essential that we stop,” the word stop was punctuated by another bony prod of the atmosphere, “…the gibbering. Immediately. As soon as possible. Toute suite. And how do we do that, may I ask?”

“I really don’t…” Evangeline

started to say, but was cut off directly as Mews closed the distance between them with one swooping step forward, traversing the coffee table and coming to rest with his nose just inches from her own.

“There,” he said pleasantly, from immediately opposite Evangeline’s face. “You see how easy it is? You were just starting to gibber, you see. And I stopped you.”

Evangeline had indeed stopped talking, simply astounded at the erratic behavior of her new employer.

“Positively stopped. So, now the gibbering has ceased, we can begin to shine the light of clarity upon the scene. Do you see? Good” Mews turned and glanced at the wall clock.

“Goodness me, is that the time?” he exclaimed with some agitation. “Must dash—do make yourself at home in the meantime. I’m not to be disturbed until lunchtime. Under any circumstances. Toodle-oo.” And with that, he darted across the room and through the deep wooden door of his office.

48

Penelope Rocketship is the nom de plume of an extremely cranky and re-clusive author who lives in the middle of nowhere and basically wants to be left the fuck alone

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

This time last year I was driving trucks for the local family owned landscaping company in Brisbane. Life was easy, I had my good friends that I lived with, I had a pets, a good job and plenty of spare time. I nev-er could have guessed what would happen next. My name is Timothy K. Simons. I’m the Senior Proj-ect Manager for the Young Pioneer Disaster Response and this is my story.

On November the 8th 2013, the world’s most powerful typhoon ever to reach landfall, struck the east coast of the Philippines before moving across the county with all its might. News spread around the world, the devastation re-sembled that of a massive explosion. Thousands of people died and thou-sands were missing. With this event, my life took a different turn. At this time, I was content in my life, work-ing in a job that I loved, hanging out with friends and generally enjoying my current situation. I never watched television much and rarely read the newspaper. Mainstream media never really appealed to me. I had little to no idea what was happening around the world. I liked it this way. But it was all

about to change.

In the early hours of November 11th 2013 I awoke from a dream. I remem-ber checking the time. It was exactly 1 am. I had dreamed of a backpack cov-ered in equipment and a plane ticket to the Philippines. I couldn’t understand what I was feeling. As I laid in my bed trying to go back to sleep, I couldn’t dismiss the overwhelming urge to travel to the Philippines without de-lay. This is crazy I thought to myself. It was just a dream. I eventually let go of the idea and went back to sleep.

That morning I had over slept and I rushed to work as normal. I snuck in the back of the office, warily sat in the chair at the front desk, and found the days newspaper in front of me. There on the first page was a picture of de-struction and a caption “Super ty-phoon devastates Philippines.” Imme-diately I remembered my dream. Was this what I was dreaming about? It was a little too weird to think about. With a busy morning ahead, I pushed the idea to

stepping up.

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Profiles:Young Pioneer Disaster Response

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

by: Timothy K. Simons - photos: YPDR

the back of my mind and got on with my job.

When I got home later that evening, I started thinking about that dream and the urge to travel filled my mind again. I couldn’t comprehend leav-ing. I had never traveled before and the thought of it made me laugh just at the nonsense of the idea. Besides, I had no money and plenty of bills. I had my pet cat Peter and I had a good job. Nope, not for me. I had dinner with my friends that night, forgot about the idea and went to bed early. I was sound asleep; the red glow of my bedside clock flashing dimly. I awoke to the same dream. As I checked the time, chills ran down my spine. It was 1am. I sat up and, at that point, I realized this was more than just a dream. It was too weird to be just a dream and to wake up at 1 am again. I was filled with the same feeling that overwhelmed me the night before, the urge to change my life and travel to the Philippines to help in some way. This was all I needed. In that moment, I reformed my life into what it is to-day.

Over the following week I had sent hundreds of emails and searched high and low for organizations that would take me in as a volunteer. They were all either full or I didn’t have enough money to pay for the fee to join. I was almost out of hope until I received an email by Christopher White saying that he has a team and they plan to help in the recovery and they would be happy for me to join them. I met the team for the first time in Manila, from there we gathered supplies and boarded the ferry to Cebu where we

traveled north to Bantayan Island. The island had been vastly overlooked by other organizations when they had conducted their initial damage assess-ments. It was the ideal place for us to begin the creation of Young Pioneer Disaster Response, an NGO that some have said to be the most successful startup NGO of 2014.

We arrived on the island to find that there was no electricity or running water and most of the roads had been cut off by fallen trees and power lines. We pitched our tents on the beach and went to work cleaning up debris in the local high school. As the months went by, we worked hard to make a name in the NGO world. We partnered with the medical team SAMU and start-ed coordinating medical missions in different barangays. We demolished unsafe structures, conducted beach clean ups, and even did an emergen-cy sea rescue. Everything changed quickly when we were approached by the NGO Polish Humanitarian Ac-tion, a team from Poland that were to building houses here on the island. They asked us if we could help them carry out their objectives and we said yes. A year on and we have now built over a thousand houses in partner-ship with PAH. We have all worked so hard over the last year and a half and YPDR has come so far from the days of sleeping on tents on the beach. We have distributed clothes and food, we have helped re-establish the high school and intermediate school and even started a marine rehabilitation project.

I have seen this organization grow from an idea into a reality. I have seen its high points and its struggles. The thing that makes YPDR work so well is the commitment of the core team, built on the foundation of friend-ship, we have pushed ourselves and each other to the brink of collapse to see the success of YPDR and make a difference. It hasn’t been easy. We’ve had to make many sacrifices includ-ing being away from our families and not taking any salaries. We recently endured another typhoon and YPDR was able to respond immediately. As a team we have come a long way in just

over a year and we plan to go even further in the future.

The truth is my experience with YPDR could fill a few large novels. I feel like the team has become my family and grow closer with each new chapter. We have managed to do so many amazing things in such a short amount of time to a point where YPDR has grown to be well recognized in the Philippines. It has changed my life and shown me the possibility for a better world.

Timothy K. Simons is a Senior Project Manager at Young Pioneer Disaster Response (YPDR).

He is originally from New Zealand but has been living in Australia for the past 7 years. Tim came to the Philippines with a background of over 10 years in general construc-tion, civil engineering, concrete and plumbing. He has worked for the world wide concrete giant Hol-cim and operated heavy machinery in Australia’s largest open cut gold mine as well as helping coordinate relief efforts in multiple disaster zones including the Whakatane floods of NZ 2004, and more recent the Brisbane floods 2012.

Tim has been in the Philippines since December 2013 and has found his passion working as a human-itarian and helping the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. The road to re-building is a long one and he is ded-icated to seeing it through.

50pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

So introduce yourself to our readers, what is your background, where do you hail from and what started your idea of the World Underground?My name is John Yingling. I’m from Appleton, Wisconsin, and consider Chicago a second home. My background is basically scouring dirty warehouses and bars, filming underground music. It basically all started in a Chicago w a r e h o u s e called The M o p e r y , with a r e a l l y junky Canon P o w e r s h o t camera. It’s a long story, but Chicago’s support, through a blogger site called Gonzo Chicago, built the foundation for The World Underground. I’ll never forget that. They raised money for me, for a semi-proper videography and audio recording setup, and I ran with it from there. The World Underground idea came from many different aspects of my life. First, an interview with the band Handsome Furs. They gushed about China, and it made me dig, and find Josh Feola’s website Pangbianr. Josh

was the catalyst to all of this, and connected me with Nevin

Domer and in the end, P.K.14 (www.pangbianr.com)

I found myself constantly frustrated with music documentaries and American online music content, especially when

looking at foreign scenes. Too often it was either way too short, way too sensationalist, or contained no further information on it’s subjects. Whether that be a dead film page that hadn’t been updated in 4 years, or simply lacking links to find out more. There are good people in every city around the world doing good things in this

regard, but a

lot of it d o e s n ’ t

reach. I wanted to try and change this, but take it one step further, and create a global connectivity

51 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

film&

musicthe world underground INTERVIEW

platform. Not only can you watch the film, and download a deep and ever-growing archive of live audio, but you can also connect with artists and labels across the globe. This will only grow with time, and trips filming new episodes..

____________________________

I notice that in episode one, you and your crew really try to incorporate the local culture into each one of PK14’s shows, the food, the nightlife, and not just the music, reminding me very much of a younger hipper versions of Anthony Bourdains

shows without the pomposity. Was this an intentional aim from the start, or did it just

naturally

come out while filming?I won’t say that Anthony Bourdain didn’t inspire me, because he did, and I’ll take any comparison as a compliment with a smile. He’s done a great job doing his world, with the Zero Point Zero production crew, who I bother often on Twitter and via e-mail, because I love what they do. I did want to attempt, in this first episode, to find a good middle ground between music, culture, and everything in-between. Food is obviously a huge part of people’s lives, so of course that will be included in each trip. Opinions

on government, nightlife, local scenes. It’s all a part of these

communities. My goal is be very mindful in what I

include, how I present this information in the

correct way. Even though one could

say this is “just rock and roll” to me

it’s much deeper, as music can build

global community, especially considering

how the world is opening up with the internet, and

connection platforms.

____________________________

How long did the China Episode take you to produce from start

to finish? And what was your biggest logistical hassle?We edited for a year and a half. Being a sort of “pilot” run, I knew it would be difficult. One of the biggest challenges would have to be translation. I traveled through so many different regions of China, not only did I have Cantonese and Mandarin, but also the other regional dialects. Although the reason it was so difficult was that I requested one minute time-code for the video, which in the end, is a lot of speaking, so from then on it was numerous back and forths to get the timing right for subtitles. Now I know what not to do. This was all a huge learning process, from proper interviews, running audio myself, filming b-roll. I can say with utmost certainty that future episodes will look better, as we have upgraded cameras. I’ve also learned so much on the process of it all, I’m very excited to move forward.

____________________________

I have been following your social media marketing, and I was intrigued that Rosanne Barr of all people retweeted your link. How did that come about?I always bother Roseanne on Twitter. That’s what Twitter is for, right? Bothering people who you’d never normally be able to contact? My mother and I

52pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

used to watch her show back in the 90’s, and she’s somehow always responded to me, so I always bug her. I think it’s funny. If it gets one more person interested or gets them some new favorite bands, or a laugh in their day, then all this nerding out on a computer is worth it. I’m just throwing this at a wall, sometimes to no avail, and seeing what sticks.

____________________________

I have been in and seen the US underground punk and metal scene for over 20 years, and have only seen the Beijing and china scene for the last 2 years, yet it amazes me the level of energy put out by the vast majority of these bands that are fairly new to the scene. Where do you think the Chinese counterparts are getting their creative inspiration and energy from?China’s scene is, relatively speaking, fairly new. It’s only been a few decades. Their “new” music used to come literally, from the garbage. Cassette tapes and CD’s that were shipped over for recycling or to go in landfills, kids would pick them

out of the trash, and sell them.

“Black” audio. Once the internet started opening up, they were more able to dig through our history, find bands in a more proper way, sub-genres, all of that. Plus you had the influx of, as Helen Feng of Nova Heart said to me, the “all-knowing foreigner” who would come over with a handful of CD’s, and blow everyones minds with new music they could never know about. She’s quite sick of that attitude, but it held true for quite some time. Even myself, since this project has launches, I’ve been sent dozens of things from around the world I never would have been able to find otherwise. Israel. Serbia. Russia. Africa. It’s all there, but due to language, and just plain massive amounts of information that encompass the internet these days, it can be difficult to find.

____________________________

I saw that the movie midpoints with the stop in Beijing, and I chuckled when you said that you saw a bunch of shows in a short amount of time. I know a couple of the bands you interviewed, so my question is this, did you see a decided difference in the attitudes of the BEIJING bands in relation

to music influences than in the other bands you interviewed in other parts of the country? And was your hangover worse?There is a difference, no question, but it might not be what you think. Beijing is China’s largest music scene, outside of Shanghai. One could compare the difference between, say, Chengdu and Beijing...like New York and Missoula, Montana (where I am currently.) There’s just not a critical mass of musicians and venues in Chengdu to make up the scene, like there is in Beijing. That in itself has a large difference in their attitudes. Bands like Stolen and Hiperson in Chengdu, they have few places to play, Little Bar being one of the only venues in Chengdu. That may make a local show mean a bit more, than in Beijing, where you can see a show every single night of the week, at any number of a dozen or so venues. Does it make them work harder, as a band? I can’t answer that. I did feel like the bands in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Wuhan, they seemed a little less jaded than some bands in Beijing...but I also saw a hell of a lot of work being put into productions, sound, song-writing, and overall craft in Beijing. It’s the

53 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

same everywhere, really. America, Europe, Asia. If you are talented, push yourself, and have a certain finesse, you can make a run at doing well. On the flip-side, sometimes really great bands do everything they can, and nobody ever gives a shit. Sometimes really good bands only want to play to 50 kids in a dirty American basement, give their music out for free, and never tour. Who are we to say what’s right?

____________________________

In interviewing some of the bands, you asked some of the members what their parents what they thought of the kids playing underground non mainstream music, did you get the feeling that this may be a universal parent/child situation, or do you think that some of the Chinese parental reactions were more severe than western cultures ?I think it’s universal, parents not understanding. It’s the same thing the kids of the American 70’s said to their parents who grew up in the early 1900’s. A father who went to clubs in the 1920’s who hated the flower-power generation. Those fathers who grew up on The Beatles probably hates punk rock the same way. My parents love that I’m doing this, but I’m not so sure they understand what the full outcome could possibly be. I think now with some of these articles and interviews out, they’re beginning to. A lot of the last 2 years was me basically just telling people about the idea, and what it could be. I realized a few months ago that there was no way it matched up to what was in my brain. I’m happy I can show people what all my maniacal ramblings were about now, in proper form.

____________________________

Crowdsourcing for music projects has been a big thing of late, to mixed reactions from both artists and patrons of media.. What are your

thoughts

on doing indie funding of music projects in general, and are you thinking of going more mainstream for funding like gofundme?Somebody didn’t do their research! This project is only operational because of Indiegogo campaigns, and will probably continue to be! Jab! Haha.

As for music, there’s a lot of debate. I guess I’m all for bands running fundraisers for a record, when they treat it like a pre-order scenario. Then you help pay for the record, and you get the record. Case closed. There’s so much heated debate on bands that use crowd-funding for tours. So many of the older generation who busted their ass at crappy jobs all year just to take a two week trek to the East Coast and back. I get that. I really do.

In the end, crowd-funding is here to stay, and at the end of the day, if you want to support something, go ahead and support it. I don’t know of a single music related crowd-funding campaign that reached it’s goal without people who want to back it. It’s their money. If they want to throw down $20 to get a donation perk, and help someone they love spread their art, why rip that apart?

____________________________

There is limited US market penetration for Chinese bands right now, some of the reasons are outlined by some of the band members , such as visa problems and the like. Where do you think Chinese underground will be internationally in five years? That’s a loaded question. Nevin Domer, in the film, is correct in saying that mainstream media is now just beginning to look at the Chinese scene not just as a cultural story, but as a music scenes, for music’s sake. This is good. The internet is amazing nowadays, and to tie in your previous question, I think crowd-funding could be a

huge tool in bringing over some smaller acts like Stolen, to America. The internet’s reach is now vast, but sometimes it’s also like shouting at a wall. It’s impossible to say where China will go from here, besides upward. There are dozens more places to play in smaller cities, and good bands cropping up all over. We should all be watching. I hope that this project will be a small catalyst to opening people’s eyes on what’s happening around the world.

_______________

Nevin Domerwww.genjingrecords.com

_______________

Stolenhttp://site.douban.com/stolen/

_______________

Hipersonhttp://site.douban.com/hiperson/

_______________

Little Bar:http://site.douban.com/littlebar/

_______________

Pangbianr: www.pangbianr.com

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

John Yingling : A tireless documentarian, archivist, and connectivity geek. My main goal is to spread good work, to good people, and point them to where they can find more.

54

You have obviously worked in many places across the world or else you would not have landed in Vietnam . Looking back, what was your first expat position, and how did you prepare for it?

Vietnam is the first place I’ve ever moved to that wasn’t under the umbrella of the Constitution of the United States. There was no prep. A week before I moved, I sold everything I could, got some shot-gun dental work done, bought a ticket, and that was that.

Wait. I answered a dif-ferent question. How I prepared to teach en-glish was taking an on-line TEFL course and passing it. ___________________

When you first moved to Vietnam, what was your transition like?

I do not recall a transition occurring. At least not in the traditional sense of “wow! this is shit, wow! it’s getting better, to wow! This is amazing!” Once upon a time, I only knew, for certain where 1 bathroom was that had toilet paper. Then one day, I couldn’t remem-ber the last time my ass itched, or not having a hand sprayer next to the toilet and toilet paper, from what I could extrap-olate, was a great substi-tute for a plate.___________________

Did you experience culture shock, and if so, what was the best and worst part ?

I remember a life where driving against traffic and cutting in line resulted in physical and emotional trauma. I would say the worst part was when l viewed those differences

as proof of a failed cul-ture and the best part was when I saw that proof of a eminent failure was my unwillingness to ac-knowledge those differ-ences as valid. ___________________

In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing expats in Viet-nam today?

Being right about how things should be shows up for me as the biggest challenge for expats.___________________ If you are looking at hiring an expat, or if you were in a position to, what are the most important questions you ask in an inter-view?

How are you responsible for the contribution that your being here is?___________________

Do you feel that the Vietnamese have been more or less inviting in accepting you as a for-eigner? Inviting and accepting. More like sought after. ___________________Are you finding that the

Air quality is making finding and keeping quality talent difficult?

You’ve obviously not been stuck on the 405 north or the DC beltway. I take out a knife, cut me a slice of Ho Chi Minh air, and eat it for lunch. Lack of commitment makes it difficult for anyone’s nat-ural talent to contribute to surface.___________________

What are your person-al thoughts positive and negative on living and working in Viet-nam ? All good thoughts. I’m still here.___________________

If you could give one piece of advice for someone considering coming to Vietnam to work, what would it be?

Take all the thoughts of why you can’t or it not being possible, and do it anyways. Disregard the boundaries of who you know yourself to be and what your circumstances mean. Rediscover your ability to recreate your-self.

9 ball9 questions answeredfrom an established expat

expat

55

PJ Acayan is a fine upstanding human be-ing we met on our travels who lives in Ho Chi Mihn City, PRV. The guy enjoys good food, drink and weaving through traffic on his motorcycle at high speeds. Not in that order though.

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Maple RefinedTonewood l Mad River Valley, Vermont l 802-496-5512 l www.tonewoodmaple.com l

images.

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images.

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Le Magasin de Musique Underground

Communautaireà Montréal!

Montréal’s Underground

Community Music Store!

images.

“Primarily known as a vocalist and songwriter, in the last ten years Khrystina has worked with Francky Moulet (Tony Allen), Fred Doumbe (Manu Dibango), Jojo Kuo (Fela Kuti), Jean-Claude the Funky Pirate, Grace Potter (pre-Nocturnals), Lee Buhaina, and Grupo Sabor. She was born and raised in NYC, and at an early age she immersed herself in the creative arts. She discovered a particular passion for music, from Jazz to Hip Hop, Rock to Latin. A graduate of Goddard College (which produced the likes of Phish, David Mamet, Rob Brezny, Mumia Abu-Jamal), she first hit the scene in Long Island. An extremely versatile musician, she is comfortable in the studio, or on stage, rehearsed or improv. She mixes her influences to create an original soul sound, backed by her no-nonsense voice. She has established a loyal following, performing live at venues throughout Vermont and New York. In 2007 Khrystina started her own label, Free Soul Music, and independently dropped her LP, “Decade” and single “Alhamdulilah”, which are both available on iTunes.” ~ Precis Magazine

Khrystina Pryani

Click here for more Khrystina

She has been described as “ spellbinding ” & “ a complete musician”

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

2015SUMMER SEASON IS HERE!

Nightly Specials!Live Music!

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images.water studies

photos: Jude Domski

When Spirit Calls I Awaken

I was born with a spirit calling. I’ve always known I was called to awaken, but I was never sure how to hold this experience in my life. I was prone to ecstatic states of being, mostly in my elementary school classes. Unfortunately, in this western setting of Burlington, VT no one was interested in my astral traveling in class. They were trying to teach me how to read and write. This required my consciousness to focus in a way that wasn’t easy for me. I preferred the method of light travel and joyful places I could exist, like floating with the snowflakes outside. I felt misunderstood but had no basis to communicate my belief as it was an experience of no words. Becoming an avid mediator in my teen years offered me peace with this difference.

In my late 30’s I moved from San Francisco, CA to purify and heal in Sedona, Arizona among the beautiful oasis of red rocks and magical landscapes. I sought to find a master. Finally one came to Sedona. Master Zhou Ting Jue, a Wudang Mountain Monk, and China’s Living Treasure arrived. Realizing I needed someone to see me from the outside and understand perspectives of myself helped me begin to serve others. I didn’t understand my gift very well at the time, but this master offered his gift to show me I wasn’t

imagining

my powerful being. “It’s not an accident that you have this gift”, he explained. People don’t get this gift by accident and you have to share it, he insisted. Then he pushed me out into the world to begin serving this gift. I listened to this master because, after all, he can boil water in his bare hands.

After years of serving awakening people and spirit I’ve realized that we all feel misunderstood. More importantly, many of us actually remember who we are but lack the perspective and the nourishing environment to allow ourselves the pleasure of participating with belief. We are all incredible. Most of us knew and understood our personal gifts in childhood. Having stories like mine, we were instructed constantly to shut down and focus on the path created by the social system in our culture. Keep in mind, I’m a former high school punk rocker, bass playing, drinker, smoker, swearing, western woman. I wasn’t born in a culture of yoga or Buddhism, nor was I raised in a temple, but I embody these things in my western form. What’s my point? It doesn’t matter who you are, what culture you came from, or how unclean and unsure you may be imagining yourself according to the logic of your social system or culture. You aren’t lost, you aren’t forgotten, and you aren’t left out of allowing yourself to remember who you

are and to wake up when your spirit calls you.

“If you believe it, it’s true”, my college undergraduate Anthropology teacher once stated during class. Examining this idea of relative truths, I found it a great place to consider others ideas from a neutral basis. Being a person of extraordinary experiences I was also able to give myself a break within the voice of self criticism. This allowed my gift to thrive as I began to evaluate the perception of voices I heard, sights I saw, and feelings I had (all that I knew wasn’t “real” in the physical sense).

Utilizing a discernment tool called self -love I learned to believe in my truth over all the other systems and voices in our mundane world. For instance, I used to make fun of people who believed in aliens, but after listening to my experience and loving it more I understand I have a vast numbers of star friends myself. It’s kind of ironic really. However, that’s just the beginning of my extraordinary believing. Mostly, what I think I’d like you to know is that I believe in you, your truth, and your awakening. Believe in yourself now. My spirit calls you with big smiles. Peace and Love.

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

spirituality

When Spirit Calls I Awaken

by: Melanie Eugenie Nunnink

Melanie is an embodied Goddess incarnated on the earth to assist with the renewal of time and ascension of Earth walking as a practiced master in this lifetime.

“I didn’t come here to party alone.”

Melanie 62

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images. photos: © Sujinyan

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

china

64pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

This War of Mine is a thought-provoking social statement wrapped in the brutal packaging of a rather unusual survival game. It was released on November 14th, and you can pick it up for $17.99 on Steam

http://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/

I purchased This War of Mine on Steam a little under a week ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because I’d never played anything quite like it. The closest comparison I can come up with is a variation on the Sims. Except it’s set in a war-torn Eastern European nation, and instead of designing your posh living environs and trying to figure out how fast you can get someone to WooHoo with you, you’re doing things like crafting your own beds, water purifying units, heaters and weapons. And scavenging. At night. In the

dark You start off the game with a group of three refugees, each with their own back story and particular skill. One might be a cook, another a former soldier; one might be a really fast runner (more useful than you would think), and if you’re lucky one of your refugees is great at bargaining. Because bargaining will become a huge part of your survival. You can’t possibly make everything you need to survive on your own.

During the day you work on your shelter, doing thinks like building ovens, boarding up windows, making food (if you’ve managed to buy, beg or steal enough food and water to make food in the first place). At night you designate one person to go

out and scavenge for the things you need to survive. If you’ve made a bed, or even two (provided you have managed to scavenge enough wood and materials), someone can sleep. Sure, they can sleep without a bed, but they’ll wake up tired, which makes them more likely to become sick. And you’d better post a guard, because your shelter WILL be robbed during the dark hours of the night, doing unto you what you are doing unto others.

Will you rob supplies from the church, taking from people who need it the most, but ensuring that you won’t get shot? Will you bring food along on your nightly scavenge so you can feed the homeless people living in a burnt out shanty? Or will you arm yourself to the teeth (no easy task, given, again, that you have to scavenge for the parts to make your own weapons, AND b u i l d

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This War of Mine war... war never changes

game review

by Jamie Lynn Belanger Banta

click for video

the tool-bench you need to assemble them!) and go raiding in military outposts?

This War of Mine shines a light on the dark truth that most people will do whatever is required to survive... but each choice has a consequence, and each action affects people differently. When I sent Anica the former accountant out to rob a house inhabited by an unarmed older couple, she came home and became more and more depressed. She eventually committed suicide, unable to live with her actions. Perhaps it was because Anica wasn’t an ex-soldier. Maybe if I had sent someone else, they would have been able to live with the choices they made. It is from these small details that a thought-provoking game is made.

This is war in microcosm, not from the point of view of the soldier, but from the point of view of the ordinary civilians that have to band together to survive while war rages all around them.

The longest my little band of refugee survivors has survived is 22 days. They died from wounds, they died from illness, they committed suicide, they got shot while scavenging... they even abandoned our tenement and stole our supplies. This is a game that shows the heart-rending beauty and horror of the humanity’s strive to survive through even the darkest of times.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to survive in a war zone as a civilian then play this game. If you’ve NEVER

wondered, then play this game. If you’ve been in the military, or have a family member in the military that has ever been deployed into a warzone... play this game. It will come to occupy a special place in your heart.

Even if you don’t have military in your family, have never even contemplated the consequences of war for a single moment, how could it hurt to see the consequences of wars that are waged in far off lands? These wars are at most are just blips on our American radar, ten

second sound bytes in our 24/7 news stream, mentioned in a ten word statement on the banner scrolling across the bottom of your chosen news network. Because let’s face it, Americans haven’t had to survive a war that was waged on North American soil since the Civil War in 1800s.

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/10-facts-

about-the-civil-war/

Very few of us can say that we know what it would be like to attempt to survive an experience like the one this “game” provides. Very few of us can say that we even care to know. But we SHOULD care, and we SHOULD know.

This War of Mine is alternatively achingly beautiful, desperately

hopeful and depressingly maudlin as your small band attempts to survive the military occupation of their town. It amazes and horrifies. If you play ONE GAME this year, play THIS one.

I highly recommend This War of Mine not just because it is entertaining and engaging (from a gaming standpoint), but also because it excels at driving home the toll war takes on the civilian populace of a country. It’s social statement as game, and you WILL gain

something from it, even if it is only a deeper sense of compassion for others.

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=gotK5DLdVvI

“War doesn’t end when the last shot has been fired. It stays in people’s minds long after that. Some wounds don’t heal.”

pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

game review

Jamie lives in Orlando, Florida with her wacky but lovable husband, Greg. She has two cats, Keetah and Theo, a dog, Kona, and a one-year-old daughter named Lucy Belle. She is still (mostly) sane, surviving the challenges of being a gamer mom.

66

by Jamie Lynn Belanger Banta

I highly recommend This War of Mine not just because it is entertaining and engaging (from a gaming standpoint), but also because it excels at driving home the toll war takes on the civilian populace of a country. It’s social statement as game, and you WILL gain something from it, even if it is only a deeper sense of compassion for others.

67 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

images.photos: © Sujinyan

china

68pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

69 pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

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70pré·cis • issue 7 • 4.2015

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