Werner Tian Fischer

'the jazzy guitarist with a predilection for catchy tunes'

[appendix]

Miscellanea

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"Wasn’t it ironic! He who had come to search for the Chinese soul had found nothing but the blues in Beijing. The Chinese soul remained elusive as ever. Unfathomable, so it seemed."

  • "We stood out on the sidewalk like two depression-era shivering souls watching the friendly Chinese cooks ladling noodles into the huge steaming pots of soup. The cooks, indeed, were so familiar with Ratso and myself that they would occasionally dash a ladle of soup against the window to playfully startle us out of our mesmerized state. This, it seemed, was a very big joke to them. Ratso and I, I now believe, very possibly knew something they didn't. We knew that life was the joke." (Kinky Friedman, Ten Little New Yorkers)
  • ''Take me to the station And put me on a train I've got no expectations To pass through here again Once I was a rich man and Now I am so poor But never in my sweet short life Have I felt like this before You heart is like a diamond You throw your pearls at swine And as I watch you leaving me You pack my peace of mind Our love was like the water That splashes on a stone Our love is like our music Its here, and then its gone So take me to the airport And put me on a plane I got no expectations To pass through here again"
  • "Well she's walking through the clouds With a circus mind that's running round Butterflies and zebras And moonbeams and fairy tales That's all she ever thinks about Riding with the wind..."
  • maybe she intended to slaughter her own good luck?
  • a transcultural christmas tale first he was her tiger the best thing that happened to her that winter she wrote he would never lose her then he was her frog sitting in the beijing smog laden with redeeming thought waiting to be restored to his former regal splendor when christmas came she kissed the frog & frog felt he'd become her prince again they rode on the same midnight train when christmast left she wandered off with a boy pilot of badly-glued toy planes now another year has come & gone many a blues was cried many a string was strung many a song was sung many a tear has dried now christmas-time is here again & all - beast, man, boy & woman shall lie peacefully at rest here & then
  • "Can we actually 'know' the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown." (Woody Allen)
  • ... as Amila realized that Tianji Qingwa would not escape his captivity at the Ligurian shore before winter was over, she decided to spend the coming months at Frank's bosom listening to Johann Sebastian's piano concerto in d-minor.
  • "Oh, Cherry, oh Cherry, oh baby..."
  • "Feeding off the dregs of whatever had been the cause of his vinegary disposition, my father appraised our gardening skills with sarcasm soaked in beer and whiskey. 'Aw, hell,' he sneereed, 'them shit-ass twigs don't stand a Chinaman's chance of growing out here next to the street.' Refusing to be bullied, I shot back, 'You don't know nothin'. These are chinaberry trees, and if anything stands a Chinaman's chance of growin' out here, it's a damn chinaberry tree." (Rodney Crowell, Chinaberry Sidewalks, p. 24)
  • "Hannah baby was a peachy kind of girl Her eyes were hazel and her nose was slightly curved We spent a lonely night at the memory motel It's on the ocean, I guess you know it well It took one starry night to steal my heart away Out on the water front, her hair all drenched in spray Hannah baby was a honey of a girl Her eyes were hazel and her teeth were slightly curved She took my guitar, she began to play She sang a song for me and it stuck right in my heart You're just a memory Of a love that used to be You're just a memory Of a love that used to mean so much to me She got a mind of her own And she use it well, yes she does She got a mind of her own And she use it, she used it mighty fine, yeah"
  • "A pistol shot, at five o'clock, the bells of heaven ring, Tell me what you done it for, no I wont tell you a thing. Yesterday I begged you before I hit the ground, All I leave behind me is only what I found. If you can abide it, let the hurdy-gurdy play, Stranger ones have come by here before they flew away. I will not condemn you nor yet would I deny, I would ask the same of you, but failing, will not die. Take up your china doll, take up your china doll, Its only fractured and just a little nervous from the fall. La-la-la-la-la-la-la." (Grateful Dead)
  • ssssshhhhhhhh.
  • a cool pic out of the hot pot of Beijing.
  • "A bogus heartiness, as weak as a Chinaman's tea, moved into her face and voice." (Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely)
  • meanwhile back in Beijing...
  • "The weak-minded choose to hate," she said. "it's the least painful thing to do, isn't it?" (Yiyun Li)
  • downside up!
  • The Amilal Bar in Beijing
  • Beijing mon amour!