I'm afraid I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with this journaling for my website. I blame this largely on Facebook, which has absorbed most of my 'blogging' efforts. It's a lot more rewarding when you get instant recognition for your posts in the form of 'likes' and comments. Harder to keep up the the blog slog when you don't get any feedback. Nevertheless I'm still using this website as the fundamental repository for all of my writing and film projects.
This is a busy week for me. In addition to all of my duties, responsibilities, projects etc. for my current job with Duke Kunshan University, I've been asked to give two public talks in Shanghai and one public walk. The first talk happened on Wednesday morning, where I gave a talk on Shanghai nightlife in the Age of Deco based on Shanghai Nightscapes and my earlier book Shanghai's Dancing World for the Shanghai Art Deco World Congress. Then on Thursday evening I gave a tour of the Bund at night for a sizeable group of participants in the Art Deco Congress. We visited the Astor House, Peace Hotel, and Waldorf Astoria, and ended the night with a great blues band at the House of Blues and Jazz.
Tomorrow I give a talk for the Shanghai Literary Festival at 1 pm at M on the Bund in their new Glam Bar. Thanks to Michelle Garnaut for including me in this event. This will be my third book talk for SLF in the past five years. Of course the focus will be on Shanghai Nightscapes.
Speaking of which, That's Shanghai published an interview with me and James in order to promote this talk.
Hope to see some of you there!