I've been trying to get over to the Film Forum to see Godard's La Chinoise, but in the meantime, I've been going through some self-criticism sessions... anything to avoid the drivel coming out of the 17th Party Dictatorship Congress.
If I'm not mistaken, my copy of the LRB still has Lin Biao's preface, which was ordered ripped out after his attempted coup and mysterious death by airplane crash in 1971. Somebody evidently didn't follow orders. Bad comrade! I got this copy, btw, from a girlfriend who went to China to teach English in 1988. Her year there was interrupted by Tiananmen, since, as you may remember, most of the Westerners there were urged to get out asap.
I remember the dust on the Buddha's shoulders, great dandruff falls of it, and the way how at the Summer Palace, a square stuppa had had it's little Buddhas decapitated during the Cultural Revolution (a.k.a. "the great ten-year upheaval period"), but only those that could be reached without a ladder or chair to stand on.
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