the return to beijing, beginnings, et all.

Stills from Blake’s “Winchester” series.

Currently, I have 12 Scrabble games in play on Facebook, and I don’t think I’m winning any of them. I’ve been playing online Scrabble like a fiend and it’s never going to get old. After a 26 hour journey and on our return to Beijing last week, we spent the next four days drinking into oblivion and wasting our days on a backwards theme. Sleeping in the mornings, dancing in the nights, karaoke at 5am, Korean bar-bques at nine. It’s such a surreal feeling being back in this country and after nearly a month of watching the cars whiz by in England, it is now terribly disconcerting to have to watch incompetent Chinese drivers navigating their way down the chaotic ring roads of Beijing, and on the wrong side of the road, no less!

I’ve been following the Theresa Duncan/Jeremy Blake story quite closely, reading what I can on the internet about all the various conspiracies and assumptions. There’s a touching eulogy written by writer Glenn O’Brien at Duncan’s blog, The Wit & The Staircase, there’s countless articles, there’s even a blogger out there claiming that their deaths are in fact the final stage of an alternate reality game. I wonder what it is about these kinds of stories that captivate us so? I suppose it’s the fact that they seemed so in love, so promising. It’s the hook, line and sinker for most of us and the harshest cynics relish the fact that they’ll never hit their peak, the secret romantics sigh and shake their heads.

I’m still testing the waters with this new WordPress account, so bear with me while I find my feet. If you’re up for a laugh, go to the Tag Team Records site and read up on their excess bloggage. Kyle’s tour diary is especially hilarious, and Time Out Beijing’s music editor and general muckabout Ian Sherman writes an epic on this summer’s CH+Indie music festival.