Alvin Lu 2/17/25 Alvin Lu 2/17/25

A Message to the Public

City God has (temporarily, more than likely) migrated to Substack . I’ll continue to post here on occasion, but you can find me more often there (for now).

Alvin Lu 3/20/24 Alvin Lu 3/20/24

Headless World by Ascher/Straus

There is in fact a profusion of heads in Headless World. One might even note that there seems nothing but, although most heads seem about to be, or are in the midst of being, severed from the necks they belonged to, the condition to which the title likely alludes.

Alvin Lu 3/3/24 Alvin Lu 3/3/24

The Pallbearer

I was guarding my son one on one when I made the mistake of reaching just as he was about to make his move. The ball bounced hard off the blacktop, and as it accelerated, for a ball deflected travels with greater velocity than one merely tossed through the air, it smashed into my right eye.

Alvin Lu 11/13/22 Alvin Lu 11/13/22

Style

As I drove, it occurred to me that thought sprung from this flat and open landscape would take on its reverse character. By necessity it would become dense and self-reflective. Because there was no mirror to check, one’s reality would always come into question.

Alvin Lu 9/27/22 Alvin Lu 9/27/22

Fat, Sugar, and Salt

I waited under the giant head of Charlie Parker, addict and practitioner of a dense and self-reflective midwestern modernism.

Alvin Lu 8/17/22 Alvin Lu 8/17/22

Carnival of Souls

Between Fallon and Austin, someone had carved the entire preamble of the United States Constitution into the embankment.

Alvin Lu 5/28/22 Alvin Lu 5/28/22

Above the Fog

Rode out to the bayshore at sunrise, snowy egrets skimming the water's surface and a solar halo above the fog.

Alvin Lu 5/13/22 Alvin Lu 5/13/22

Skyscraper of Broad Daylight

If I’m to avoid succumbing to jet lag, I should get out of the hotel room and move around. Having gotten up at three a.m. and finished, more or less, with my work for the day, I decide to take the afternoon off. So far, I’ve spent my drowsy evenings in an uncommonly relaxed Tokyo (it being Golden Week) shopping for eyeglasses for my wife, in Shinjuku, and pajamas for my kids, in Ginza. Today, though, I have for myself. It’s a straight shot on the Tozai Line from Iidabashi to Nakano and gets there in 22 minutes, so why not?

Alvin Lu 5/4/22 Alvin Lu 5/4/22

Tokyo Interlude

Now for an oddly timed Tokyo interlude. So far, guy taking phone pics of weeds growing out of the sidewalk; mousy girl in glasses confidently rocking sweatshirt emblazoned with "I AM BABE"; oroshi soba with draft beer; crowds strolling by on a soft spring day in Kagurazaka.

Alvin Lu 4/4/22 Alvin Lu 4/4/22

Noyo

Drove to Fort Bragg, first time for me on Mendocino Coast it wasn't totally fogged in. On the bluffs you can see sea lions in Noyo Harbor, gulls and vultures circling overhead, attracted to the fishing boats, like some scene from one of those frozen-in-time Taiwanese port towns.

Alvin Lu 6/16/21 Alvin Lu 6/16/21

Old Cypress

In front of Kong Ming’s shrine, there’s an old cypress,

With branches like bronze, roots like stone,

Alvin Lu 5/1/21 Alvin Lu 5/1/21

On Errands of Life

I found myself reading two novels, both in their way about foreign writers who are lost in America, a Frenchwoman in Nathalie Léger's Suite for Barbara Loden and an Argentinean in Ricardo Piglia's The Way Out.

Alvin Lu 4/12/21 Alvin Lu 4/12/21

Building a Nest

A pair of young scrub jays are building a nest in the blue potato bush, which had been pruned last winter, but has now already grown back, with purple flowers in bloom.

Alvin Lu 4/10/21 Alvin Lu 4/10/21

By the Sky Thinking of Li Po

Cold wind’s picking up the sky

My man, how are you?

Alvin Lu 4/9/21 Alvin Lu 4/9/21

The Hawk and the Crow

This morning, as the sun rises, such that anything its slanted rays touch seems made of solid light, a red-tailed hawk is perched on a playground basketball court backboard.