9 minute read
CITY LIGHTS
City Lights Fagara
Fagara is both a Szechuan spice and the name of a 2019 Heiward Mak Hei-yan family drama. Fagara and Twilight’s Kiss are the two remaining films showing online through July 31 as part of the National Museum of Asian Art’s 25th annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival. Fagara is the story of a young professional Hong Kong travel agent, Acacia, played by Cantopop star Sammi Cheng Sau-man, who suddenly receives news of her father’s death—then discovers from his cell phone that she has two half-sisters. One sibling, Branch, is a Taiwanese professional pool player, and the other, Cherry, is a China-based fashion seller and influencer. Acacia also soon discovers that her father’s hot pot restaurant is in debt and that it will be up to her to pay the bills and
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either run the place or sell it. Fagara’s screenplay is drawn from the 2011 novel My Spicy Love by Hong Kong romance author Amy Cheung. Although Cheung’s novels are sometimes stereotyped as “chick lit,” others point to elements in them that go beyond formula, and the movie largely does so as well. While the film touches on Acacia’s relationships with two suitors and the attempts of Cherry’s grandmother to find her a husband, the focus is on finding ways to numb familial pain and to forgive, via food and communication. The movie offers just enough humor to balance out the serious stuff and occasional mawkishness. The seemingly composed Acacia’s resentment of her late father (played by Kenny Bee) is quickly on view, but the funeral scene also establishes that she, like her halfsisters, never really knew her dad well: Acacia arranges a Taoist funeral, but in the middle of the ceremony, she is quietly informed by another relative that her father was Buddhist. And while we initially see the three sisters as very different, soon, in a manner that mostly moves beyond cliché, the three bond and work together to find their dad’s hot pot recipe. The film is available through July 31 at asia.si.edu. Free. —Steve Kiviat
City Lights
Re-Fashioning D.C. The average American will toss 80 pounds of clothes into the trash annually, but experts estimate that 95 percent of those pre-loved clothes could be repurposed. In an upcoming virtual panel cheekily titled “Re-Fashioning D.C.,” local leaders combating fast fashion will discuss flouting this unsustainable system. The host, Remake, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that frames fashion as a “force for good,” urges consumers to try their purchasing power, voice, and creativity on for size “to make the invisible women who power the fashion industry visible.” The District’s fashion followers will recognize the three panelists transforming the city’s style scene: Fia Thomas, owner of Fia’s Fabulous Finds, the independent secondhand boutique in Petworth; Sam Smith, the Baltimore creative behind New Vintage by Sam and a handcrafter of healing jewelry; and Leohana Carrera, an ethical fashion entrepreneur, human rights activist, and founder of the clothing reuse business Our ReStore. The three advocates for ethical fashion practices will discuss how their small businesses are modeling a more sustainable fashion ecosystem, and how everyone can tailor their sartorial approaches to be stewards of change. Here’s a sneak preview: Buy thoughtfully, swap enthusiastically, and restyle creatively. The event begins at 6 p.m. on July 31. Registration is available at
eventbrite.com. Free. —Emma Francois
City Lights
Project Implicit
Do you associate certain types of people with goodness, moral purity, attractiveness, or foreignness? Visit Harvard’s implicit bias test portal if you can psych yourself up enough to see your results laid bare. This batch of recognition, association, archetype sorting, and image choice tasks will yield scores for various prejudices. This international research cooperation was created to serve as a public “virtual lab” for hidden bias recognition. By requiring takers to sort through pairings instantly, the test compels snap judgments and introduces a time penalty that makes it hard to trick. Possible results include slight, moderate, and strong labels of bias. And in 2011, the team released a spinoff site: At Project Implicit Mental Health, you can do additional tests that measure the implicit associations you have in relation to yourself. Some gauge, for example, the extent to which you associate yourself with anxiety, poor health, negativity, alcoholism, and sadness. Anonymous data is made publicly available for scientists and used to map implicit bias nationwide, including in D.C. The test has been granted a Golden Goose Award from the Library of Congress and funding from the National Institutes of Health. There’s no true quantitative “screening” for racism, and these assessments, though well-circulated, are not foolproof—and there’s controversy about their interpretation. For curiosity’s sake, however, it’s useful to know what your psyche has done with what you’ve been taught. Though the knowledge is no panacea, it still can have value. And if you’re hoping to rid your subconscious of discriminatory debris, this isn’t a terrible place to start. The project is available at implicit.harvard.edu. Free. —Tori Nagudi
City Lights
The documentary Manufactured Landscapes spotlights the work of Edward Burtynsky, a Canadian photographer who’s best known for his large-scale images of quarries, oilfields, and waste dumps— the detritus of modern industrial life. Today’s landscape, Burtynsky says in the film, “is the one that we change, that we disrupt, in pursuit of progress.” The photographers and filmmakers effectively show the linkages between the mining of raw materials, their fabrication into consumer products, and their eventual disposal as waste. An ongoing challenge of Burtynsky’s imagery is that it portrays objectively ugly locations with such verve that it’s hard to not also see their beauty, even in such grim places as a ship-breaking operation in Bangladesh or a city being demolished, brick by brick, by its residents before it is to be flooded by China’s giant Three Gorges Dam. Burtynsky tells the filmmakers he’s trying to neither glorify nor damn his subjects; he’s simply trying to show the world as it is. One of the film’s most compelling moments documents this tightrope walk. At a Chinese coal facility, officials are initially averse to allowing Burtynsky to take pictures, fearing bad publicity. But after being assured that the photographer creates beautiful works, they relent. The resulting image lives up to this promise, capturing massive, rippled piles of coal stretching to the horizon. Though the film is generally respectful, it’s hard not to characterize the documentary’s opening as a sly attempt by the filmmakers to one-up their subject. It begins with a hypnotic, eight-minute long tracking shot, with the camera moving ceaselessly leftward in an enormous Chinese factory filled with employees at work. The film is available through Aug. 4 at nga.gov. Free. —Louis Jacobson
City Lights
Philosophy and The Good Place
NBC’s hit series The Good Place said goodbye to fans this year after four seasons examining the ethics of the afterlife through a comedic lens. One episode explained the existentialism of Kierkegaard through rap; another sprayed blood and guts everywhere as part of a live demonstration of the trolley problem. Dr. Todd May of Clemson University served as one of the philosophical advisors to the show, where he helped the sitcom’s writers break down these moral dilemmas for a television audience. Fans were so interested in the philosophical theories featured in The Good Place that NBC granted Dr. May his own spin-off web series, Mother Forkin’ Morals, to teach viewers about the ethics of everyday life. Now that the show and web series have concluded, Dr. May is continuing the conversation as part of the Smithsonian’s virtual programming. He’ll dive deeper into the philosophical quandaries posed by The Good Place and discuss whether the redemptive ending of the show is truly possible. “Philosophy and The Good Place” begins at 6:45 p.m. on Aug. 5 on Zoom. Registration is available at smithsonianassociates.org. $20–$25. —Mercedes Hesselroth
City Lights Diet Cig
With a combination of biting wit and unguarded lyrics, Diet Cig’s new album Do You Wonder About Me? is sincere, scrappy, and just so darn fun. On July 31, fans can attend a virtual performance by the band hosted by NoonChorus, an online music venue that has been supporting artists during the pandemic by providing an online performance platform. Half of the proceeds from the show will be split between the Okra Project, an organization that provides healthy meals to Black trans people, and the National Independent Venue Association. Among the local venues supported by NIVA are D.C.’s own 9:30 Club, which is helping put on this show, and Black Cat, where Diet Cig was scheduled, pre-pandemic, to perform in May. Black Cat was just one of the many independent venues forced to cancel countless performers this spring, financially impacting both the artists and the venues. Virtual events like those put on by NoonChorus have helped support the independent music ecosystem in a time when live performances aren’t safe. When advertising the would-havebeen show in May, Black Cat’s website described Diet Cig’s concerts as “a whirlwind of belting and high kicks” with “pure energy as yet unmatched”. Beyond that, their music speaks volumes by talking candidly and cathartically about all those pesky feelings, from loneliness to restlessness to self-liberation. If you’re toting around a little grumpiness and a pinch of vulnerability right now, Alex Luciano’s honest voice over Noah Bowman’s percussion will be the perfect Friday night musical indulgence. Treat yourself to a wonderfully fun sing-along, and humor those buried spooky feelings that only a gutsy punk band can unearth. The virtual concert begins at 8 p.m. on July 31. Tickets are available at noonchorus.com. Pay what you want; $5 minimum donation. —Ryley Graham
City Lights
Container Gardening 101
Even if you’ve only got a small slice of concrete jungle, your balcony or small yard can turn into a plant-filled oasis with a few simple steps. Container gardening is a method for taking containers, large or small, and growing flowers, produce, and herbs in a tiny space. And there’s perhaps no better time to pick up container gardening as a new hobby. As long as you have a bit of room, fresh basil for homemade pizza and colorful flowers to brighten your long work-from-home days are within your reach. Kristen Menichelli, the master gardener behind Green House Designs, is running a virtual workshop called “Container Gardening 101.” The class will walk through the basics of container gardening, how to effectively manage your space, what hardware and tools you’ll need, and the best budget-friendly places to buy containers. Menichelli’s expertise in gardening, as well as her experience working with sustainable and eco-friendly design, guarantees you’ll walk away from the virtual class with a new appreciation for your front stoop, windowsill, or patch of grass. Get ready to start planting—a new culinary concoction is just around the corner. The class begins at 1 p.m. on Aug. 1. Registration is available at dclibrary.org. Free. —Sarah Smith
