Mountain View, CA · 以物觀心
Notes across powerlifting, wushu, violin, cooking, and sound.
Twenty feet of negotiation, a four-second brown-out, and what happens under a barbell when the conscious mind refuses to leave.
The irony of hitting a personal record is that I'm rarely conscious enough to enjoy it while it's happening. Usually, by the time I realize the attempt is over, the bar is already back in the hooks and my lungs are suddenly remembering to draw air.
Read essay →Waves pulling back over smooth pebbles—lots of snapping, crackling, popping. Sort of like something frying in hot oil.
A year later, I ended up recording the exact same sound on the opposite coast of Taiwan.
The neighborhood garbage truck making its rounds down below, playing A Maiden’s Prayer (少女的祈禱)—heard from the third floor of my aunt’s house.
Layered around it: birds and a low hum of traffic outside, and someone inside blow-drying their hair.
My dad doing his after-lunch ritual of making tea for the family. He loves to 保養 his clay teapots—seasoning the outside with hot water over years.
That sound of him spooning hot water over the pot is still deeply nostalgic. As a kid, whenever I heard it, I knew tea was coming to me.
Three stretches stitched together from a show in Yilan: the opening, a bit from the middle, and the close. Those were the moments that really hooked me—sort of hypnotic and trance-like. The rest of the show had a much lighter, more playful energy.