INSTANT YANG v. 18: ASIAN AMERICAN MANHOOD; ERIC BYLER AND AMERICANESE; THE SFIAFF BEGINS; BLOGROLL BETA

It’s been a big week on the Instant Ranch, with both my wife and I turning 38 three days apart, then welcoming the newest member of our family, my sister’s lovely new daughter Sienna Kauh. Props to Sienna, who’s going to have to be a rough-and-tumble gal, growing up in a sea of male cousins, and to her proud parents Chris and Austin!

Adding another year to a swift-rising stack always puts one in a contemplative mood. This week’s column catches up with Eric Byler, whose impressive debut CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES explored a tangled tango of sexual longing and frustration among a quartet of young Asian American twentysomethings. Byler’s sophomore outing, AMERICANese, refracts Shawn Wong’s groundbreaking Asian American novel AMERICAN KNEES through the prism of his unique sensibility. One of the questions it explores is the nature of manhood, and how this nature is shaped by race and age--a subject I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently myself

ASIAN POP - THE MAN SHOW
Hot on the heels of its award-winning premiere at Austin's South by Southwest Festival, Eric Byler's latest exploration of tainted love, "Americanese," is tonight's opening film at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Jeff Yang talked with Byler about some of his favorite topics -- love, sex, masculinity and the plight of the Asian American male

As it turns out, manhood and its representation is the theme of one of the special programming tracks at this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Fest--brought to you by the great folks at the Center for Asian American Media. The fest begins tonight with AMERICANese, but the cinematic buffet creaks with other fab offerings as well. More on the fest and a schedule of programs here.

Meanwhile, last ish, I promised the institution of the first-ever Instant Yang blogroll; there's a rundown of what I'm looking at now in the sidebar to the right. A caveat: this roster is currently composed of blogs penned or significantly contributed to by Asians and Asian Americans, both in the U.S. and abroad. This is chiefly for reasons of space, but also because I don't think I've seen a list like this elsewhere. More suggestions always welcome...