It’s rainbows and puppies with S.H.E — I think, they’re prepping for their tour (2gether 4Ever?) — but the girls have released a new (spec) music video for the song Hereafter, Hereafter (後來後來) from their last album, which is all about them growing up and being apart, not like they used to be. It’s all about friendship and fluff. You can check a decent translation here.
About a week ago Nat Geo was showing a new episode of Tabu Latinamerica, which happened to focus on food. One of my favorite subjects. Thinking about food makes me hungry. But this is Tabu, so obviously we weren’t going to be talking about regular food. While the episode focused on Mexico and Venezuela, with their talks on eating rata campestre (countryside rat??? not from the sewers of course) soup, and… some kind of tarantula/spider?
Anyway, part of the episode also focused in Peru, where they showed a town called La Quebrada, in Cañete, they prepare cat. I haven’t eaten cat — at least, not knowingly… though once while we were eating rabbit chicharron, we suspected we had been given cat because the “rabbit” was bigger and had more fat in it — but I’ve eaten a lot of other things. Of course, guinea pig is kind of a regular “bizarre” food, and I guess rabbit is bizarre to some people. Suri (the worm) is also tasty when fried (it’s almost like crispy pork skin), as well as an assortment of fishes~ Including the palometa (which I’ve heard it’s a piranha’s cousin LOL) and paiche. Shark’s fin soup and swallow’s nest soup apply.
It’s kind of always been common knowledge that people ate cats in Peru- my family (and I’m sure many other people) often joked about it, it’s like joking about everything being chicken, or eating the insides of animals — horror movies and 4D jokes are perfect. Let me tell you, thank you Afro-Peruvians for developing Anticuchos. As a Peruvian who has finally learned to eat without asking (much), and not judge cultures by my own point of view, it saddens me to see people’s comments. Especially considering that we’re all Latin Americans.
Does it feel good to call other people ignorant, or small-minded? Is it wrong to eat something just because you think it’s your pet? Is it not wrong that we eat cow so easily when Indians see them as gods? We’re eating their gods, sending them to slaughter houses, and people judge these people because they eat their pets in a non-industrialized way. This is kind of the same issue I had with The Cove [1].
From left to right.- Laure Shang Wenjie, animator Bill Plympton, Crowd Lu, and Esteman.
For the past couple of months I’ve been able to interview some of these awesome people. But that you knew if you were following all my ramblings on YAM Magazine.
For some other of my interviews, click here.
I was browsing albums, when I stumbled upon this album cover by Elliot Tupac.
Of course, for those in the know, you’d know that’s a super Chicha style type of typography [1], so interested to see what it was all about, I did a quick search. You’d be happy to know you can stream all of the EP Cuatro Tigres on Soundcloud, as well as their new album Canibalismo. Chicha Libre is a multi-ethnic Brooklyn-based group formed by Americans, Mexicans, Venezuelans and French musicians mixing Peruvian Chicha music with 60s psychedelic music and stuff. It’s pretty trippy.
I never in my life would’ve thought that I’d be sitting through more than one album of Chicha music. The most interesting thing is that there’s no Peruvians in sight on core members of the group. You can check them out on Facebook or Twitter. I’m not entirely a Chicha convert, but I appreciate the variety in the concept of the group. I do think they sound a lot like Chicha groups, but sing in English instead. Novelty, but it gets a bit tiring by the fourth track.
Conveniently, the group was asked to do a The Simpsons tune for one of the episodes.
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I didn’t know Doona spoke English this great, but I’m more delighted to see how expressive she is when she talks. xD
No wonder she placed on #2 on my list three years ago, and I lvoe her even more so than I did then. If I were making that list again, she would be my #1.
Back in 2012, during the CCTV Spring Gala, I was marveled watching Chinese dancer/choreographer Yang Liping (杨丽萍) doing her Peacock Love dance. First, I know it was totally not intended considering how visual a male peacock could be, but I loved that figuratively it was two male peacocks dancing a “dance of love” while literally it was a male and a female. ;P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F54YqlUa60
Then I was shocked that Yang Liping (after I learned her name, of course) was in her 50s. Just looking at the video, I could have thought she was in her late 20s or her 30s. It was definitely a stretch to find her no in her 40s, but her 50s. In a world where people think 30 is too old, I was even more shocked.
CCTV is doing a special these coming weeks, I think she has retired or something? She recently did a Weibo Talk, so I went on a Yang Liping YouTube binge, where I found this fabulous video, and discovered the amazingness that is Dynamic Yunnan (云南印象).
Jing Chang just posted a photo of her in MJ attire.
Though it’s hot from the knee up, I gotta say- shoes are kind of distracting.
Except for that 3-year break MTV took off the Breakthrough Music Video category, they had continued giving away the prize — which had been given to the likes of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham — until 2010, when they officially removed the category.
So I ask again, what happened to Breakthrough Music Videos?
As a reminder, I put together a list with all the winners.
[iframe width=”580″ height=”326″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLE88395EDFAA954B7″ /]
If I had been picking winners (from that past post), I chose:
For the other two years, you know I’m probably partial to SunnyHill [1], but I’ll go with Salyu’s Tadano Tomodachi [1] concept because it’s much more a production concept than a music video concept. For 2012, despite its serious hard-hitting concept [1], I would have to go with Graham Coxon’s What’ll It Take [MV] due to its imaginative execution using fan footage.
So what are some of your favorite music videos?
It’s crazy how technology has developed in the past 20 years. The latest consumer craze? 3D printing, of course! It hasn’t only been featured on shows (with a special mention on The Big Bang Theory), but it’s been used in a broad variety of ways [1]. Miniatures of yourself [1], your face in chocolate [1], miniature of yourself in gummy [1], or candy [1].
Its most striking use, because of its practicality, was how they used 3D Printing in the making of ParaNorman. Technically speaking, it was that usual “wow, why didn’t anyone else think of this before?” Printing the many faces needed to be able to animate your stop-motion movie. It gets the consistency so your animation doesn’t get blotches, and you get incredible detail (I LOVE THE LIGHT GOING THROUGH NORMAN’S EARS).
The question that arises is- if they print the faces needed to animate, once they’ve done the movements in a CG environment. Is it stop-motion? Mixed media is more common than ever. There was a lot of special effects in ParaNorman, especially in its incredibly visual last arc, but the film is still considered stop-motion. So how much use of the computer do you need to have for it to not be stop-motion?
I’m not much into fashion, but I ran into this documentary called About Face: The Supermodel, Then and Now, which featured (besides Isabella Rossellini and Christy Turlington) Carmen Dell’Orefice. I was immediately struck by the shape of her face, the lines that form when she’s posing.
Some photo credits go to: Urko Suaya for Rouge.
