It could be the Sandman Dustcover book that I've just flipped through, but I feel like tackling many of the upcoming sketchbook assignments right now.

The next one is insides, and I'm currently debating whether to carve into my nice, thick, and antique copy of A Room with a View for it. Definitely want to do something about how (as PZB said in Drawing Blood) "ripping and taking someone apart, bit by bit, is like solving a mystery; it's an act of love." She didn't word it like so (I have yet to find that book that's lying around somewhere) but generally that's what the book is more or less about. Or that's what the blood-encrusted hammer is all about.

So, I plan to do some evicerating of the more-metaphoric kind. But not myself. That's for "mirror," which is up in two months or so.

Regardless, there will be carving of sorts for both.

Speaking of which (and also spurred on by the Duck's post about the non-existant Asian American identity) I expect great things from my friend Christine. She's an amazing folk painter of sorts whose main subject matter is her Korean family. Although she herself lives the life of the white bourgeois, her artwork is more along the lines of Whistler's Mother. Except that everyone's yellow.

Take whatever you want from the previous sentence.

There definitely needs to be more predominately "asian" artists in America. My artwork (what little introspection I do) is constantly completely ambiguous racially or ethnically. I myself am said white-washed Asian. Doesn't really help that my preference in men leans and, off balance, falls completely on the white side.

A hypothesis: Asian Americans, due to our "grey" standing in a literally black and white world, have to be a bit cosmopolitan. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" and all that. But despite the "black" or "white" side that we predominately display, ask most asians about their heritage and they would know at least a little about their background.

To expect everyone with oriental blood to be able to connect themselves to Confucius or Murasashi while being about to recite twelve holidays from their native soil is downright unrealistic. Try asking someone of Irish decent if they can name five specifically Irish holidays. Exactly.

America, by tossing its racial salad, offers no true heritage except for those of native american decent. To compensate, all nationalities are being fused (no matter how slowly the process) into one group with the story of "our founding fathers" to cement ourselves into some sort of history.

Or it could be that we're just a racist nation. Which is why the slowly redeveloping class system is a bit of a mixed blessing. Don't ask me how or why, it just is. Trust me.

... ha. I doubt I'll be able to stand half of the things I've just said after a couple of months.

Just dismiss it as the ramblings of a youth angered at a society robbing him of his own identity.

Or it could be the notion that everyone has to cleave their own niches, no matter the location or company.