Category: Art

  • Shane Koyczan’s To This Day by Giant Ant

    Vancouver-based motion graphic studio, Giant Ant, took part in the making of an animation collaborative effort centered on the poem titled To This Day by Shane Koyczan, who was in charge of the We Are More poem used for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics [1]. To This Day focuses on the lasting impact of bullying on its victims, and though it feels heavy-handed with a +6min of running time with a narrative of negative lows in contrast to Koyczan’s climbing monologue, it’s still a project worth checking out because of…

    it’s animation.

    Giant Ant (which includes work by Jorge Canedo Estrada [1]) asked animators and motion designers to come up with 20-sec sequences to go along to Koyczan’s spoken poem, developing a wonderful mismatch of styles within its narrative.

    You can check out more of the To This Day project on:

  • Edet Soft ‘Edet Paper World’

    I want this (Dutch???) toilet paper!

    The best toilet paper commercials we ever got in Peru were of Suave, featuring Luis Miguel’s hit song, Suave [MV] — that’s the only one that ever stuck in my subconscious anyway. That one, for the song, and there was another one of a little girl who wanted to go to the washroom at a mall or something, and she was only with her father. Obviously, he couldn’t go it to the ladies room, so she went in with her father staying by the door giving directions, where he spurts “ahora limpiate tu potito.” (now clean your tushy).

    We aren’t any remotely close to having this kind of toilet paper commercial.

  • Mayday – Masquerade (Male, Female, One Body)

    I just began listening (truly listen) to Mayday’s discography pre the Born to Love days, finishing off titles/pinyin/title translations, when I ran into this song titled Masquerade (Male, Female, One Body) from their 2003 album, Time Machine (時光機). The thing is, the title of the song is Ci Xiong Tong Ti (雌雄同體), which is the term used to refer to “hermaphrodites” (which, by the way, isn’t longer a term accepted for people, who are now referred to as “intersex”). Perplexed, thinking that Google Translate was giving me a wonky translation, I checked the dictionary to double check.

    On a quick google search, I found a pretty terrific (singable) translation of the song.

    Rather than you understand me—I’d rather be a mystery
    A puzzle you just cannot solve, of what’s false and real, it’ll play at your heartstrings
    I’ll play you, or play your opposite form; partake in this game of love that you’ve borne.

    via NoStarWords @ LJ + starriheavens

    My mind was melted. I mean, it’s not VERY often you get playful duality in music, playing on gender-role conventions and completely avoiding the titillation that seethes from… well, everywhere now.

    (more…)

  • TINY-G’s 90s Dancing

    I don’t want to say “POWERFUL!!!” because I will feel like the captioning person on Korean variety programs. However, I just stumbled upon this video of TINY-G doing the choreography of their debut [MV], which I liked more than the actual music video. For one, you can actually see what’s going on without much distractions, and you can appreciate that they’re bringing a lot of HMPH! to their dancing in the way that 90s pop music used to have women dancing in not-high-heels and stomping their feet looking that they’re dancing instead of seducing you.

    There’s still a long LONG way to go for TINY-G, and we still need to see if their management ever dares to push the girls for a super girly concept for a comeback single like they love to do in Korea — which, sadly, seems like a huge possibility from the few comments I’ve been able to read asking why these tiny girls need to wear such baggy clothing when they’re so minuscule. Apparently people have issues with baggy clothes. Is it not feminine enough?

    Would you rather see them stomping with high heels and minis, so they can eff up their kidneys… just so they can look feminine and show their slender bodies to you?

    Looking at TINY-G, it brings back memories of me rooting for Britney.

  • The Brightest Star in the Night Sky

    tao-pao-ji-hua-escape-plan-earth

    Just been discovered!

    Escape Plan (逃跑计划, Tiao Pao Ji Hua), aka. Perdel Band. Spotted on CNN Travel… as always [1]. Their Rock in China page isn’t up to date, but it’s always a good spot to start with. Besides their 2008 EP titled Take Me Away (带我离开), they released a full length album in early 2012 titled Earth (世界), which contains all the songs from their EP in more slick production, as well as a version of Zaijian Zaijian (再见再见) with lyrics instead of the instrumental piano.

    From all the endless bands coming out of China, they seem to be a good substitute of Yuguo while I wait for their new album, which is supposed to come out this March (if I didn’t read wrong)

    Sorry, no music embeds.

    You can preview web shorter versions of their album on their Douban page or Weibo Music.

  • A Few Weeks in Peru by Cole Graham

    My friend is super excited to be coming [1], so he sent me this video he ran into.

    I did take a peek of the pizza in Cuzco I so want to have again. You know, it’s not very often I step on Cuzco.

    I’m uncertain of the track, though, Fado by Galinhazz, some people say it’s kind of Spanish… maybe a little bit Flamenco-ish? I thought Arab. Maybe having to do with the Moors in Spain?

  • The Ultimate Guide to Boy Bands of the 90s

    yammag-ultimate-guide-boy-band-90s

    What started like a simple post, ended up taking a lot of hours of research and boy band video-watching. I may or not regret it.

    Voila! The Ultimate Guide to Boy Bands of the 90s ~

    There were boy bands I hadn’t even heard of… and some that I had to dust off my VHS tapes to get their names. Ha!

  • Mika Ninagawa

    mika-ninagawa-sakuran

    I ran into two really cool posts on Mika Ninagawa- one sort of talking about her work — mentioning her style and her work with the likes of Shiina Ringo, Bjork and- of course, Anna Tsuchiya — and the other a quite rare (and insightful) interview in English.

    I’ve been kind of dying to see Helter Skelter. I haven’t even checked if there are subtitles available yet.

    I guess people can’t stand true stars because they are so different, they’d rather watch some stupid proxies they can sympathize with.

    I guess we do live in the era of the dying movie star. :\

  • Look at that pretty Olivia Williams’ Face

    I’m finally done with the latest version of Anna Karenina, which I’m sorry to say didn’t enjoy much. I generally have a love/hate relationship with Keira, but I just couldn’t stand Aaron Taylor. Mind you, I didn’t like him in Kick-Ass either, and it was meh on Albert Nobbs. During the whole movie, I kept thinking how Olivia Williams would’ve been as Anna Karenina.

    olivia-williams

    Especially considering this photo, and how awesome that last scene could have been.

  • Mavis Fan & 100% – The God of Wealth Has Arrived

    I think I was posting a Mavis Fan track on Weibo when I ended up finding Vegetarian Fish, a site that was put up for Mavis Fan’s project with her mother, Miss D.D. Mavis produced the self-titled album for her mother, and sang a version of Doris Day’s Everybody Loves a Lover [1] with a nice mother/daughter moment in their music video.

    It’s hard to come by official links when looking in English, so I’m ecstatic that Mavis uses the channel for uploads of her group Mavis Fan & 100%, even if it’s just to wish us all Happy Chinese New Year with a short track/clip of The God of Wealth Has Arrived (財神到, Cai Shen Dao). And the doodles of the video are pretty funny, especially the one featuring Tony Leung because Mavis and Tony were on The Silent War last year. xD