I play trumpet, fyi, not the saxophone. Here I am performing in Central at Hyde a few weeks ago. See the whole album here.

My neighbor Michael Leung is a product designer and urban beekeeper. He lives about a block away from me in Yau Ma Tei. This is a video profile about him and his organization HK Honey. I already knew he was awesome, now you can share in the awesomeness.

Evasee.com gave me my own post with a number of images I took at the Semipermanent Conference in Hong Kong.

Justin, who just recently left us made a number of brilliant graphics to begin his last blog posts. These are below:

My new living space

Will work for bone marrow

Faith and Positivity

Smart Cookie

The Plot Thickens - this last image isn't as doom and gloom as it looks. Justin was a bit humorous in that he had already come to terms with the possiblity of death, but he was really annoyed that he couldn't find his green hat.

Here’s an animation used to help visualize a talk by Sir Ken Robinson about reforming education, or at least adapting it to the modern age. Very cool and worth the 12 minutes.

Today we say a final goodbye to Justin Yuen. He was my friend in Hong Kong and we played music together and talked design and innovating the Hong Kong arts scene before moving to the US after being diagnosed with cancer last year. He passed away just days ago. When we first hung out one on one – trumpet and violin, I gave him a very thorough music theory lesson and we talked about a Michel Legrand song which is the theme for the film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg also known as “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”

As Justin was getting steadily better at the end of January before his decline, he sent me a message that I am very thankful for: “Hi Michal – Just want to let you know that your music theory lessons are really beginning to sink in. I’ve started learning the guitar in the hospital (the music therapy people are teaching me, and were even kind enough to lend me a guitar) and am making sure to not just memorize chords, but understand their structure and why they sound the way they do. I am even more thankful now than ever for your kindness in teaching me, as the satisfaction I have gained from playing, listening to, and understanding music has healed me in ways that medicine cannot.”

In lieu of flowers at the memorial service today, donations in memory of Justin are being made to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, P.O. Box 27106, New York, NY, and will be designated for the Music Therapy Program in his name. Justin is not the only creative folk I know who has recently died of cancer. Maggie Chang, a really cool bass player, all around wonderful person and wife of a good friend of mine has also passed. They will be missed greatly by their familes, friends and the creative community of Hong Kong.

Considering Justin’s passing I felt the lyrics of Michel Legrand’s “Umbrella song” speak to me slightly differently than the first time around. Goodbye Justin. Goodbye Maggie:

Woman:
“I’ll never be able to live without you
Don’t go, I will die
I will hide you and I will have you
but, my love, do not leave me”

Man:
“You know it is not possible
My love
I have to go”

After watching Nabil Elderkin’s documentary Bouncing Cats, I have K’naan’s voice and music playing at the music venue that is my brain. It’s a popular and iconic song, and one that sounds like it will last.

I recently heard Stefan Sagmeister speak in Hong Kong and he said some things that were very provocative and quite fun, if not also deeply wise and just a step away from intuitive. I’ve heard most of what he had to say before in a TED talk he did a while back. He finds a lot of power in not time off alone, but sabbaticals that keep him creative. Stefan keeps a diary and makes artwork based on his realizations he calls Rules for Living.
Here is a complete list:
Rules for Living:
Helping other people helps me.
Having guts always works out for me
Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
Starting a charity is surprisingly easy.
Being not truthful works against me.
Everything I do always comes back to me.
Assuming is Stifling.
Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted.
Money does not make me happy.
Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
Keeping a diary supports personal development.
Trying to look good limits my life.
Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
Worrying solves Nothing.
Complaining is silly, either act or forget.
Actually doing the things I set out to do increases my overall level of satisfaction.
Everybody thinks they are right.

See the video below for how he manifests those realizations into publicly viewable creative typography.

*What I really didn’t know before is that Stefan lived in Hong Kong in the early 90s. Seeing as he is on a quest for happiness, Hong Kong perplexes him. It’s commonly said and intellectually know that money does not make one happy, yet Hong Kong is on a never ending quest for money likely at the expense of other seemingly lesser goals.

Stefan Sagmeister interview by Simon Birch

The participants at Semipermanent were really awesome! There was Simon from Goods of Desire, speaker and filmmaker / photographer Nabil Elderkin, Tweeting up the conference was @AnjKan and we even ran into some Cosplay folks from the nearby Comic Convention. Goodtimes!

The folks at Troika visited Semi-permanent and showed us a variety of kinetic sculptures and other installation artwork that was used at the Shanghai World Expo and this piece below, Cloud for the British Airways terminal at Heathrow Airport, London.