Salinger, the documentary

When a person is dead, then there is no stopping what the living will speak. This applies to everyone, regardless of power, status, respect nor dignity. 
- My key takeaway of the documentary.

My life on Netflix is pretty unexciting. Whenever I really want to spend time on it, it stops loading. Like #foreverPIXELATED!!!! [Insert all kinds of worldly profanity here]. I then proceed yelling at everyone in my family to turn off their phone wifi to maybe perhaps get less pixelation... But of course, to no avail. When it's working though, I'm usually shuffling through the documentaries.

As always, my reviews of stuff come way later than when I actually viewed them. This one, I viewed a long time ago. "SALINGER" came out in 2013 and has a lovely unimaginative poster that resembles a book cover. SO CLEVER!!!!..... Not.  Apparently this director guy (Shane Salerno) had spent about a decade working on this documentary. SO WORTH HIS TIME!!!!...... Not. I sound sour because the documentary leaves you feeling sad and sour to the extreme. I watched it to kill some time in between the two FIFA games of the day, and because I knew I'd learn something new. I was also never a big fan of The Catcher in the Rye and Holden Caulfield, so I was mildly intrigued in what ways would this documentary glorify the book even more than it already is. In fact, "Salinger" glorifies EVERYTHING even down to the unpublished characters of JD Salinger's work. Go figure. Making the documentary pretty "phony." LOL! Get it??? hahaha..... (insert awkward turtle hand gesture here..)

Source: chicagonow.com

Most of the interviews are quite generic (more and more extraordinary compliments of JD Salinger, his looks, his writing, his style, his perfection-obsessed personality, yaddayaddablahblah), except for Jean Miller's as she gets pretty deep, personal, and sentimental when revealing her side of the story. This is when I was shocked about how a person could keep silent for more than half a century and spill the beans on EVERYTHING when Saliger's gone off to the heavens. Same sentiments ensued when I watched the other interviews of the women Salinger had encountered (pretty much countless). Then I went onwards to assure myself to never fall for word-masters who are suave, brilliant, and veiled-in-secrecy-in-super-mysterious-sexy-ways. Hard. Very hard. I think I'll fall for a personality like Salinger's just for the sake of self-destructing my emotional self. Anyways, back to the documentary review... Not only is the privacy-invading content from these women pretty disturbing, but it is more about the documentary's existence itself. Salinger had spent his whole life with a mission to seclude himself from the outside world, truly pursuing the art of living in secrecy and in insane mental state. One can't blame him as his fame did not merely bring money and happiness, but also heavy burdens; there were three--not one--murders in America where the killers quoted Holden Caulfield in the court testimonies. The most famous incident would be the murder of John Lennon. This topic is also briefly covered in "Salinger." Despite all of Salinger's troubles and wishes to remain away from the world, this entire documentary is about divulging his life, tearing his secrecy apart, and publicizing almost everything he had wanted to keep silent about. It fucking starts with this guy stalking around to take paparazzi photos of JD Salinger walking out of the mail depot. RUDE. Just so rude! Poor JD Salinger... He will definitely not rest in peace now, would he? :( :( :(

Yet there are still good parts to this mediocre documentary. There is a somewhat ridiculous amount of time spent on Salinger serving the state in WWII. I never took the effort to read JD Salinger's wiki page, so I had no idea how long he had served, how hard he tried to get enlisted, what kind of position he undertook, how he came back, et cetera. This part and his survival through WWII is enriching and complements his subsequent life events well. Needless to say, this fact-driven history lesson in the middle shines out and stays with you after the documentary, because it clearly juxtaposes against all the emotional, sappy, and overtly pretentious interviews and viewpoints on JD Salinger.

Still interested?
Watch the trailer below. 

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URGENT: finding more friends on the app, Yo

Source: businessinsider.com

About two weeks ago, Yo launched with vigor. 

It accumulated a ton of curiosity as its sole purpose is to send yo's to friends. What does that even mean? It means I tap on your name on the screen and it sends a push notification saying that I just yo'd you. Sometimes (and I still haven't figured out why it's only sometimes) the phone says "yo" out loud in this mechanical manly tone, "yo~" Listening to it "yo" is EXTREMELY satisfying and instantaneously makes your day 400 times better.

Plus, as if the app isn't a joke enough (parodies like the Game of Thrones Hodor-ing instead of Yo-ing has emerged), the reviews on the Apple app store page are hilarious!

The problem with Yo (as an app) right now is its decline in popularity. Just like how it had shot to the top of the app store, now it is just another app floating in the appsphere. There are talks about how Yo is a revolutionary app opening the doors into a new level of push notification strategies... but isn't this taking everything a little too far? Isn't this the model example of the North American way of flourishing everything with words for depth? Though we all know what is shallow and what is not, we are all prone to influences. When embellishments are smartly stated, they have the power to disorient the audience into believing in them. In all optimism and fast-paced world of technology, let's see how Yo turns itself around. Until then, I'm having a ton of fun Yo-ing three contacts. THREE. So sad. Therefore, I am searching for more friends on Yo.... add me @ rachelchungg and we can Yo all day...!!!!!!! 

On a side note, there's apparently this new social networking portal opening that is going to be strictly emoji-only. If you've IM-ed with me before, you know how critical emoticons are to my well-being and heightened level of communication. I've already reserved my Emoji.li username. Maybe you'd like to do so? Then we can be friends on the two of the world's "dumbest" + "minimalistic" apps.

Ciao, till later!
Yo!

TokyoInspi14Summer

You know what the problem is with liking dressing like a freak? It's really weird when you are outside your confined yet comfortable place called home. Also, it's really about how similar your friends' styles are; they could be accepting of all your wilderness, but they may still find your outfit super odd so that they won't stop talking about it. Bummer.

So this is why I need a crew who dresses very similar to me when I like to hit the extremes, and such lack of fundamental wardrobe friends is the reason why I haven't been venturing my outfits lately. You can catch me walking, looking like the same old girl in Vancouver (sort of, but yeah). My wardrobe is truly boring and the fact that I don't like wearing 90% of the pieces put me into automatic misery. Boo hoo. Then what do sad people in reality do? Go on the I*N*T*E*R*N*E*T for swag-satisfaction. My kind of freak show wardrobe still has to be somewhat wearable... so let me return to my long time passion of Japanese street style: summer 2014 update of the Tokyo streets.


1. PRINTS. Imagine the ennui of a world without prints nor texture. Why do I forget that such elaborate prints and texture do exist in the world and that they exist to CLAUSTROPHOBICALLY-MAGICALLY-CLASH with each other?! Below are two examples of how prints should be worn with other prints and colours even if they look like unicorn-puke. That's the whole look anyways. And lace can be worn with oversized sneakers. No problem-o. *also shout out to odd future! hehe.

2. True friends will not give a shit about how the fact that you are wearing high waisted undies with low-riding jeans. They will think you are hot for showing your midriff (think 2004), will love your greasy hair in need of a dye job, and will pose beside you for photos with absolute no shame. Okay, let's be serious... The stuff we need to grab from these three outfits are: a) beads in a bob; b) pom pom earrings; c) tiny braids (like cornrows but not); and d) choker necklaces. #WINATLYF

3. Couple looks. Tricky concept since it has to be done with the right balance of chicness to portray your love for each other but also individual identities. When done right, couple looks are really awesome!!! Unsure why North America has not yet enveloped this concept, as they can be super fun when both are stylish! I'm personally not digging their lettered tees, but them pants! The guy has fun star-print, totally 90's Asian hip hop baggy jeans on while the girl goes for a more feminine touch with her pinata-like white bootlegs! Sew kewl. I can't handle. That's a damn good summer couple look.

4. Tone it down now! Any piece that is white screams summer, and just lay it down low with primary colour blocking. Spin it with style with a trendy-coloured beret and make sure you have sunnies that are large enough to cover half your face.

Hope this post will get you to play around with them old, funky pieces that are bagged into a "maybe donation" pile in your closet.

It's summertime! People are expected to lose their minds a little bit, so let's put our "normal" sensibilities away.

* All street snaps from DropTokyo

For more inspirations and messy thoughts depicted in visual mannerisms...

i am purpose is also on tumblr.