Humblebrag moment: March 2017 I peaked. What I mean by that, is that I went on the trip of a lifetime. For literature/theater/English histor

On January 30th, 2017, I attended the Oregon Symphony’s performance of Romeo & Juliet, which was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. That Monday evening at Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall followed a weekend of turmoil, coinciding with the President's (despicable) travel ban. Uncertainty, isolation, and a thick fear of what’s next, has persisted since the election. These emotions are almost palpable everywhere you turn, and because of this, I had decided that night

That awkward moment when the cruise singer is one of the best live performances you've ever witnessed.

Over the weekend, I was hosting a Portlander here in Hollywood—my friend, Ginger Duncan, down from the Pacific Northwest for her first visit to Los Angeles. Her visit comes on the heels of my own relocation just three weeks before: a sort of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants uprooting that has repotted me back home and also not home. Home, in the sense that I was born in Los Angeles; home, likewise, in the sense that home is (as my friend, Asaf, is fond of saying) wherever you are.

"Matty" Photo Credit: Molly Choma Matty and I are texting back and forth about the Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead. At the end of last season, a terrifying sociopath with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire bludgeons someone to death, but we don’t get to see who. Tonight, we find out who dies. Even though Matty and I live together, I didn’t watch it with him.

On a relatively clear July evening in Central Park, dozens and dozens of New Yorkers—men and women, some teenagers, some even with children in tow, across a surprising spectrum of racial identities, gender expressions, and (presumably) backgrounds—flooded a section of the park in search of a single Pokémon. The members of the "mob," as some on YouTube called it, were all users of the new Niantic app for Android and iPhone, called Pokémon Go, which allows players to use geoloc

We’re going to the opera house. THE Opera House. The ground was still sloughing off yesterday’s storm rains as we walked, threatening to soak our dress shoes. I can’t believe we’re walking toward THE opera house. I kept babbling at my companion, who received my constant exclamations with shared enthusiasm and a touch of patience. I was a little excited. Ever since I was young there was something about the white sails of the Sydney Opera House that called out to me. Not only d

For a while now, I’ve been debating the merits of Pride, and had all but decided this year to not make an effort to attend. The performances and shows, the exhibition, the commercial enterprise that is Pride, and Pride month in June, can feel overwhelming and stripped of the real reason to have such an event amidst the abs, sponsored vodkas, and glitter. It’s easy to neglect the older I get, that Pride was an event I used to come out. It was how I got the conversation really

On 8 April 2010, I was invited to photograph a 13-hour durational performance art piece called “Awaiting,” in downtown Salt Lake City. The piece was organized by Ernesto Pujol, a Visiting Artist at the University of Utah’s Department of Art & Art History, and its first Endowed Art Residency recipient. Ernesto invited me personally—after a meal we shared with my photography instructor (his friend), Rosi Hayes. For some reason still unclear to me, especially as an undergraduate

My introduction to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was a black and white video of a mouth forming inaudible words over bird song and bubbling water, coming through a screen of white-static. A spirit. A premonition. Something unsettling. It reminded me of the ghost stories my mom used to tell me – that she still believes, and that I don’t deny. Growing up Asian in America, there was always the touch of the supernatural, a world of benevolent ghosts, but also of ghosts that punish and ha