GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • Arhat Orphan Brotherhood

    When I moved to Vegas, I attended to the Lohan School of Shaolin for almost a year until my daughter arrived to fundamentally rearrange our lives.

    I was primarily studying Tai Chi, but I got to know the Kung Fu guys, even dabbling a bit in sparring.

    A couple years ago, I slid into a YouTube rabbit hole and came across several videos that included the Arhats. I had watched their earlier work when they were starting up, and it was impressive to see their progression.

    This is the path of Kung Fu (功夫) — to work hard and maybe (or not) succeed.

    ~

    It’s odd watching a video when you know the stunt actors. The dramatic actors are naturally the focus of the film but one’s eye is immediately drawn to the individuals that you know. So I’m rooting for those guys as they get slaughtered by the protagonists. Unsettling.

    ~

    Even though the short only has two actors, the behind the scenes video shows a large team is involved throughout the process. Normally, my mind quietly ignores the background crew, but you can’t when you’re personally acquainted with each person. It’s a good reminder of the massive effort behind each of these productions that are indiscriminately published on YouTube.

    ~

    As I finally publish this post, things are a bit quiet on the social media front, but I ran into one of the Lohan teachers and was told things are going well. The films are flashy, but the foundation is the school and the temple. Everything comes from training the mind, heart, and body.

  • OPM.48 (notes on) What your CEO wants you to know, Ram Charan, 2018

    I listened to this book three years ago, and all I remember was his obsession with cash flows. Which isn’t particularly relevant to a guy who has no plans on going back into private practice.

    However, in updating this draft, I was reminded about his last chapter on “synchronization”. It sounds like a gem to revisit. This section is all about sharing information so the team can work together in unity.

    Charan emphasizes the concept of a “social operating mechanism”. It could be a regular update letter, some sort of webtool, or a recurring meeting. The key is that important information is shared and that people walk away energized to tackle the key issues in their responsibilty.

    Charan identifies four key aspects for a good dialogue:

    • Openness – be honest in the search, don’t pre-decide, listen to everyone.
    • Candor – be willing to speak and be honest about the conflict.
    • Informality – encourages candor. don’t be stiff and prepackaged
    • Closure – once done, be disciplined to ensure that follow through happens.

    I’ve tried to adopt this attitude during my time as OPM. With some folks it can be difficult, but I find that acting otherwise just makes it even harder. Social lubrication is real and has earned good feedback from my project mates (admittedly they are all financially incentivized to butter me up).

    However, this past year, I had gotten lax about the regularity of these meetings. I had a few projects with long lead times where I skipped the recurring meetings until things got started in earnest. Unfortunately, I found out on the back end that things just slipped through the cracks until we started meeting regularly.

    So until I find a better solution, I’m resorting to requiring regular (virtual) meetings on my projects. I hate the distraction of having a meeting on the calendar, even if they are for a few minutes. However, I don’t know of a better way to ensure my teams are keeping pace on their jobs.

    Even if I can’t recommend this book as essential, I’m a fan of Charan’s Leadership Pipeline which I have recommended multiple times.

    ~

    Some Links

    A few years ago, CGP Grey went on an information diet to reset his attention habits. My purge won’t go two years like Project Cyclops, but I started July by unsubscribing from news podcasts and YouTube channels.

    One immediate side effect of this cull is that the algorithm has been feeding evergreen comedy, such as British comedy skits. One of my new favorites has Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as competing psychiatrists analyzing each other.

    Weston Parker is a (mostly retired) carpenter who has been sharing lovely poems on A Carpenter’s Point of View. It’s fun to find other industry folks who are practicing the arts. A recent poem includes the line “with good drainage”. I feel seen.

    ~

    Town Hall, Halmstad, Halland, Sweden, 1939

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • Gudetama, An Eggcellent Adventure, Motonori Sakakibara, 2022

    What a strange little kid’s show.

    The characters aren’t particularly likable, but they aren’t hate-able either.

    The chick is kind of cute, but the egg is kind of gross.

    They are memorable — overeager and lazy.

    And it’s fun to watch the humans overact.

    Their journey covers a lot of ground.

    An amusing (and certainly distorted) peek into another culture.

    We’ll watch season 2, if we still have Netflix when it comes out.

    Oh and shoutout to the 1000 year old eggs!

  • Ultra Flex Steel Nib, Fountain Pen Revolution

    After reading a post by Ashlyn, I purchased a pen from Fountain Pen Revolution.

    Here are a couple before-after images.
    The “K” was drawn with a Pelikan 14k Medium nib
    The “L” was drawn with the FPR Steel Ultra Flex.

    This “L” doesn’t take advantage of the power of the flexy-flex, but the The nib pops when I’m doodling hard, as I did below.
    (The top two alphabets are the flex nib, the third one is the Pelikan Medium nib.)

    Understandably, the steel isn’t silky smooth like the gold nib, but it’s a great value at $30 (half for the body and half for the nib). Plus I’m willing to push a $15 nib to the limit, while I doubt I would have the courage to do that with one that costs 10x).

    Time to start practicing if I want to wield its power and breath life into my lines.

  • Little Mermaid, Clements & Musker, 1989

    An hour of horrific life choices followed by twenty-five minutes of consequences with a miraculous rescue in the last five minutes. Happy it worked out for the couple, but I remember why I’ve never liked this movie.

    The fact this movie is so popular makes me wonder if dominant American culture is just more optimistic than those with Asian cultural backgrounds. It felt hollow without consequences (aside from Ursula’s fate)

    Maybe that’s why I’ve always been too timid to contemplate life as an entrepreneur? I don’t think folks would accuse me of having an abundance of moxie.

    But dammit, Disney knows how to make song and dance numbers like nobody else! You go Sebastian!

  • Cinderella, Geronimi, Jackson, & Luske, 1950

    • Shocked (not shocked) that Disney+ used a single scene with cigars as an excuse to move this movie to the parent’s (ad-supported) page.
    • The king is an abusive boss.
    • Love that they named the cat Lucifer. Different time then!
    • Strange propaganda film for Chinese foot binding.
    • Biddidy bobbidy boo!
    • Amazing animation. I didn’t realize that the technique was cemented by this time. The craft of Cinderella and Bambi hold up to anything made today.
    • The backgrounds at the dance are mid-mod sumptuous.

  • Tangled, Greno & Howard, 2010

    Disney has a formula that works. It can get old, but they know what they’re doing.

    Years ago, I had low expectations when I first watched this film. It easily cleared that bar.

    Last week I came in with fond memories of first watch. It still easily cleared expectations, though I must admit to being biased for any film that extols the virtues of a cast iron frying pan.

    Unlike many Disney films, Tangled doesn’t have a truly surreal standout musical moment, though the showtune at the Snuggly Duckling is awesome.

    Also not to be missed is Rapunzel’s wildly fluctuating internal turmoil when she first touches grass.

  • Moana, Clements, Musker, & Hall, 2016

    Yet another classic Disney princess movie. No prince this time, but it’s got lush tropics, a demigod with animated tattoos, and a psychotic crab.

    I wonder what a Pacific Islander thinks about the laundering of their culture for popular consumption. On my end, I’ve become more forgiving of appropriation of Chinese culture as mass media has become more diverse.

    Maybe I’ve wearied of all the watching-over-your-shoulder critical theory overthinking of the past decade.

    I just want to enjoy my time out.

    In any case, Disney slammed their formula, with the nice twist of having a brown skinned world at the center of this movie.

    When it isn’t featuring a psychotic crab in black light!

  • Redline, Takeshi Koike, 2009

    I came across this cult classic anime through a YouTube review. A few minutes in, I stopped the review to watch the two-hour film over three sessions.

    If you want wild animation covering fast cars, a dude with a massive pompadour, cute girls, all manners of aliens, mechs, and crazy bionic monsters, you got it.

    If you want a coherent story, you got it too! Just not very deep. A dude races a fast TransAm while hitting on a competitor as his mechanic deals with the mob.

    As an almost entirely hand drawn film, it’s a love letter to a bygone era. It feels more comfortable in the late nineties than in the late-aughts. But with a production value that’s out the roof!

    The surreal moments of slow-mo speed as the cars stretch in anticipation of the nitro hitting the engine are pure art. And I love the bold black shadow work throughout the film — it feels like Frank Miller’s comic finally made it to the big screen (I’ve never had the stomach to watch his Sin City movie).

    The beauty of a cult classic as a commercial failure in the theater is that it’s now available on several free streaming platforms.

    For the price of sitting through a few ads, you can’t go wrong (as long as you’re not expecting anything contemplative).

  • Soul, Docter & Powers, 2020

    Another supremely crafted Pixar special.

    I’m not sold on the company in Emeryville dealing with internal matters. (I wasn’t hot on Inside Out either.)

    But it was cool to have Jazz at the center of the movie.

    And those quantum line Jerry’s in the other world were a helluva lot of fun. As I watch more animated films, I crave these I love these moments of visual absurdity. It’s not the best ROI, but a few moments of Jerry can redeem the rest of the time spent in a formulaic feature length film.

    ~

    I’m going to start a concerted push on here with my “Notes on My Consumption”. I don’t consume nearly as many books and movies as it might seem. I just decided to stop being so precious about these notes and flush out my three year back log!