William Poy Lee's Blog
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May.12.2010
James Kuai talks to author/professor/activist William Poy Lee about how his 2007 memoir The Eighth Promise has influenced his thoughts about US, China, Tibet and more.
Date Published: 03/02/2010
William Poy Lee is an author and political activist whose 2007 book The Eighth Promise has won him...
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Jun.29.2008
A few weeks ago, I had RSVP'ed to attend the 25th anniversary party of Mustard's Grill, that culinary lodestar that placed Napa on the map not only as a wind destination but a gourmet valley. Greatest food, finest wine, music and from the invitation, what promised to be a never ending stream of...
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Jun.23.2008
For those of us who love Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Mort Sahl, Chris Rock, and all other comedian warriors who loved all words and tolerated no hypocrisy, please honor the passing of George Carlin who has gone off to that great, open, free stage in the sky.
Take a few minutes and watch his famous...
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Jun.17.2008
I'm being Kindle-ized by Amazon.com., so my agent recently informed me. The good news is that my first book, The Eighth Promise, will be downloadable in about six weeks from their site into the Kindle book pod. The bad news is that the royalty per digital sale is much less than for a real book...
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May.24.2008
What a hoot -- journalist Linnea Due pits me, an empircal habitat gardner, in a smack-down against the contra but politic recommendations of a UC Berkeley entomologist, Professor Gordon Frankie, who is the lead researcher of the Urban Bee Project, a research garden facility literally a mile up...
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May.12.2008
Last weekend, I saw the world premiere of Amiri Baraka’s Jazz Opera, The Sisyphus Syndrome. I read his groundbreaking The Blues People in 1969, when he was still known as LeRoi Jones. It was my first year at UC Berkeley and I had enrolled in a Black Studies Course on music, taught by the jazz...
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Apr.30.2008
A pleasing afternoon at the Annie Leibovitz Retroseptive yesterday, Tuesday: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005, at S.F.'s Palace of the Legion of Honor. 'Twas a beautiful day - warm yet breezy and with a clear, blue sky view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the squeaky clean towers of downtown, and in-...
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Apr.21.2008
One nicety of living so close to the UC Berkeley campus is the ease of dropping in on lectures, international performances, rarely screened movies at Pacific Film Archives, openings at the Berkeley Art Museum, and the occasional, delightful student presentation.
Last Friday, I attended the Berkeley...
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Apr.11.2008
Today, the winds are inexplicably blowing down from the Eastern Hills. The leaves are all streaming the wrong way, slightly creaking as if in protest. But spring is bursting out all over.
Ahhh me, so many complex emotions and conflicting thoughts following this week's Olympic torch run in San...
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Apr.09.2008
So no sooner than I return to SF than I discover a friend of mine, Helen Zia, writer and lifelong civil and human rights activist, decided to run the O torch for 2 blocks through San Francisco. She is concerned for her safety given what's been going on in London and Paris (where the second day was...
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Apr.07.2008
The Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas is a swell place, i.e., swell as in swanky because it is an old Grand Dame hotel, but so well maintained, it doesn't feel in the slightest dowdy, and seems, well -- up-to-date in a classy retro way. Yes, there's the old cushioned lobby sofas and armchairs with...
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Mar.30.2008
Attended panels on Editor-Agent Relationship, a psychologist who counsels authors on unrealistic/unrealistic expectations, and humor in thrillers.
First one informative and especially on a publisher's marketing commitments -- it will change and the trick is to manage the communication so the...
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Mar.29.2008
Our moderator, Susan Donovan gave us a brief tour of the original UV campus, designed and built by Thomas Jefferson himself. The original dorms, still in use, flank a huge, lawn where students lay down to read while listening to iPods or play ball. Each room has a fireplace for warmth and indeed...
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Mar.28.2008
Soaring over lower Virginia and preparing to land. A green, curving landscape, a few large homes here and there, winding rivers, some farms. A local manager of Chore-Time, a Warren Buffet company tells me how they've redesigned their chicken facilities so there is the ability to free-range. But...
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Mar.19.2008
So we finish up a PR taping for "FYI," a local municipal cable station that keeps folks informed of Ann Arbor events. The cameraman is Japanese-born and subsequently naturalized. I must have mentioned the chapter, "The Butterflies of Death," where a Japanese Zero strafes and...
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I’m hooked on it and keep saving your words for dessert. One of the few books that truly conveys a life as lived from the inside. It is a reader's joy, and a path to empathy and shared humanity.”
—Gloria Steinem
About William
Born 1951 in San Francisco and raised with one root in the traditional Toisanese speaking urban village of SF Chinatown and one root in the heady Bohemian North Beach culture of jazz, Beat poetry, Zen, the counter culture, hedonism, and good Italian food....
Causes William Lee Supports
Kim Baptiste's Culture Clash Hip-Hop Clubs for Youth, SF Bay Area East Bay Meditation Center, availing Buddhist wisdom to inner cities Belladonna Sanctuary...
William’s Favorite Books
Temple of My Familiar, Red Harvest, The Thin Man, The Long Goodbye, The Love Wife, Androgyny, East of Eden, Notes of a Native Son, Seeing Through Shuck: An...