Chinese Tea and the Bone Cup

a short story by Danielle LeClerc

Within the seed of every apricot lies a small, soft kernel. Just a few of these pack enough cyanide to stop your heart in minutes.
Jasmine flowers, a popular Chinese tea ingredient, benefit the immune system and lower cholesterol. Jasmine berries, however contain a powerful neurotoxin.
Goji berry, known in China as gou qi zi and in Europe as wolfberry, has recently gained much attention in the West as a naturopathic herb. In small doses it improves circulation and aides the kidneys and spleen. Higher concentrations were used by Germany to poison Nazi bullets, stopping the hearts of victims with remarkable efficiency. Continue reading…

Illumin8tors at Mao Livehouse Tonight!

H.A.L. proudly presents: Kelly Tsai live in the ‘Hai!

Read about this past event at: http://shanghai.talkmagazines.cn/blogs/2011-11-01/evening-kelly-zen-yie-tsai

The H.A.L. crew is very proud to present our next feature, Brooklyn-based bad-ass Chinese Taiwanese American performance poet Ms Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai in  her first ever performance in Shanghai! As part of the infamous HAL BARd Fight series of hard-hitting literary events, we’ve lined up five of the baddest female poets Shanghai has to offer, including SLAMHAI! winner Susie Gordon and loose canon poet Andrea Fassolas. The evening will also premier the first installment of Shanghai Erotica winner Dena Rash Guzman and Jerimiah Whitlock’s film adaptation her story “Dan Orange of Shanghai,” along with a  screening of her video poetry created with Viv G. All in all, not an evening for the faint hearted.

We take Girls on Top very seriously, so drinks are free for all early birds (get it?), courtesy of the Rabbit Hole.

The Rabbit Hole (408 Shaanxi Lu/Beijing Lu), 8PM, Saturday Oct 29th.

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (察仁义)

Spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai has been featured in over 450 performances worldwide at venues including the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the House of Blues, the Apollo Theater, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and three seasons of the award-winning “Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry.” The author of Inside Outside Outside Inside (2004), Thought Crimes (2005),No Sugar Please (2008), and the CD’s Infinity Breaks (2007) and Further She Wrote (2010), Tsai has shared stages with Mos Def, KRS-One, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Amiri Baraka, Harry Belafonte, and many more.  (www.yellowgurl.com)

Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative

Note: This is a true story. Some names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

Deep in the wilds of Western Oregon, HAL contributor and foreign correspondent Dena Rash Guzman was in the midst of a coffee fueled all night editing bender, with only the damp chilly summer air and some howling coyotes in the river gorge for company, when a text message from an unrecognized number appeared on her phone.

What’s the name of your publisher?
And do you have an email for them?

Though somewhat startled, Dena was not ever in the mood to miss out on a submission for HAL. She responded to the text.

You are likely thinking of HAL Publishing.
My email is dena@haliterature.com
They are in Shanghai but I am
Managing Director North America so
I can direct your query. Who is this?

A few moments later came this response.

You’ll be receiving a message soon.

Continue reading…

Monstrum Poeticum

By Tom Mangione

Poetry, you are a monster.

I was told to stay away from you.
I was told to head for the safe and warm:
To dip myself into the safe and warm
Toes-first, testing the waters of the safe and warm
Sliding in up to my waist, warming my navel in the safe and warm
Letting the pleasant tingle work through my innards as I slid deeper into the safe and warm
Until I was submerged, cut off from air, sucking a tube to breathe in the safe and warm
Incubating for an entire lifetime in the safe and warm

But I didn’t.

I went looking for you, Poetry.

The ones who met you said you were radiant.
The ones who met you called you attractive as the sun.
The ones who met you said you’d stick in my eyes – an image impossible to blink away.
The ones who met you said I’d go blind – screaming, bat-fogged blind,
Blind from you, Poetry, babbling about you, from you, for you.
The ones who met you said you’d possess me.

I imagined you’d be a beautiful woman:
Body heavy and full with smooth curves
Eyes carved from the gems glinting in waking, bright-morning dreams
Hair flowing in an eternal wind on which you bounded
Legs smooth and slender dancing every step
Feet arched, giving way to symmetric, dainty toes Continue reading…

Submit!

Just like Charlie Sheen Shanghai was created from fairy dust, sex, drugs, money and a whole lot of crazy. Do you want to be as awesome as this guy? Well check out our submissions page for more details on our upcoming new book!

A Party

By Sarah Cottee

He woke up, put his panda outfit on and walked to the party at about the same time he slouched into his usual seat at the bar. ‘I’ll only order one tonight’ he thought as he took the last swig of his 4th, or was it his 3rd, double whiskey. The barman kicked him out again and he woke up on his 26th birthday which he was sure was 2years away. He decided to celebrate it differently this year so went to the same pub and drank a number of double whiskeys. A woman was there who he might or might not have known so he said hello to her again and she smiled. She asked if she could try on his Panda outfit and he said ‘I’m sorry I quit that job a while ago and got a real job at a supermarket, kids parties just aren’t for me’ but she picked up the costume from his bedroom floor in any case and put it on while they had sex for 3 to 300 minutes. Continue reading…

About Eric Leleu

About Featured Series, 696

I arrived in Weihai lu 696 only 1 year ago. And busy as always, i could not get the chance to meet all the artists of 696. So this project was a good chance to get into their space, into their world, into their imagination. That is probably what i preferred in shooting this series, mixing their imagination with mine.

My idea was to shoot the artists in their own studio, with eyes closed:

- to give access to their imagination, like if they are dreaming, we can imagine with their studio around them what is inside their mind, their next work.

- to be a metaphor of the closing of the place, like closing curtains…

If the closing of such a place as 696 happened in France, people would have complained. Maybe even demonstrate… The feeling in Weihai lu 696 today is both resignation, Chinese “mei banfa” but also confidence in the future. Confidence that everyone will find something as good.

Continue reading…

Art Rotation 5

Art Rotation 3