Summer sense

Summer song

Vanessa da Mata — Vermelho – Vídeo Oficial

Summer sick

It was great wandering around on the newly blazing Summer streets over the weekend, but I think I overdid it a bit; after rushing around all day I got home with a splitting headache from sunstroke. I had forgot to respect the Aussie sun!

Cartoon explaining the recent incident of Sri Lankan “gatecrashers” (asylum seekers) detained in Indonesia

I love it! “Door bitch Indonesia”! Geopolitics made easy.

Interesting Asian celebrities: part 476

Pornthip Rojanasunan is not an actress or (despite her punky look and shock-dyed and spiked hair), a singer. She is a doctor, or forensic pathologist more precisely and the go-to woman for the investigation of violent crime in Thailand. As the head of Bangkok’s Ministry of Justice Science Centre, she has pioneered the use of DNA evidence in crime investigation in Thailand.

Her efforts have included one of the world’s least enviable jobs – heading up the post-tsunami autopsy operation in 2001 – as well as presiding over the investigation of actor David Carradine’s recent death in Bangkok.

But she has become a wellknown media figure in Thailand for her daring attacks on authority; during the Thaksin government’s “War on Drugs” she spoke up against the extrajudicial killings that claimed up to a thousand lives, and recently presided over an investigation that found there was an 80% chance a jailed Southern Muslim activist had been murdered in custody.

What a hero for democracy, human rights, feminism and fashion, although her striking look has not always been admired:

Crime Scene Bangkok 2

The last one is odd: “no metrosexual attire, no aggression”. So they want men who dress like real men ‘… yet don’t beat the shit out of each other?

2PM teases, Brown Eyed Girls terrify

One fun aspect of Korean pop music that is, in my opinion, under-utilised in the West is the “teaser”. This is where artists produce highly stylised, brief , often slightly cryptic clips – with little or none of their own music – to announce to the world that an album/ single is indeed on the way. Basically they hint at the “concept” the artist has decided to follow, in the hope of whipping up a flurry of interest.
Here, boyband 2PM – fresh from having sacked their hugely popular frontman, Jaebum, for his recent myspace indiscretions – announce their return, with each member filming a monologue, while apparently in intensive care.

But even that is nothing to the chilly brilliance of girlgroup Brown Eyed Girls’s recent effort:

[MV Teaser] 브라운아이드걸스 (Brown Eyed Girls) – 싸인 (Sign)

MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS | I AM NOT A ROBOT

G-dragon rocks a baby blue cape!

The world’s most stylish man strikes again:

Backstreet scenes

Gay world

Parada Gay reúne mais de 1 milhão no RJ (01-11-2009)

Despite the rain, a million people celebrate gay pride in Rio – amazingly enough, only Brazil’s second biggest LGBT festival, after Sao Paulo’s monster party in July.

Meanwhile closer to home, (and on a much more modest scale) the neighboring town of Castlemaine is hosting a lesbian danceparty on December 4! How surprising/ progressive. Well, you know what the say – think global, act local.

And the world’s only “out” gay royal, Prince Maheandra Singh, is headed to Melbourne for a conference on HIV Prevention in Asia, next month. The prince is heir to the Mewar dynasty which governs parts of Rajahstan, including the famous “blue city’ of Udaipur. But he doubles as a leading gay activist, having contributed to the recent decriminalization of homsexuality in India (as well as appearing  in a UK reality TV program about “secret” royals wandering the streets of Brighton).

Mixed messages

World conspiring to freak me out!!

Recently in the span of two days I had two completely surreal experiences. Surreal as in mind-alteringly jarring “what kind of reality am I in?” moments. Moment like that don’t come that often. But this week I had two.

The first happened when I dozed off on my bedroom floor halfway through a David Lynch film (pretty much the best way to guarantee yourself a creepily surreal moment, I guess). I had been watching Laura Dern in “Inland Empire” – an indescribably bizarre and icky film – when suddenly my eyelids felt heavy and I rested them for a moment.

The next thing I was started awake and sitting bolt upright as screaming ran in my ears, and it was suddenly pitch dark outside.

Startled into an instant fight-or-flight adrenaline rush, I tried to calm myself with the voice of reason ” ïts just the film” – but when I looked, it wasn’t. The film had now switched to a scene in which a family of puppet rabbits were sitting at a table while canned laughter echoed behind them.

So the screams? They were real. It turned out to be my next door neighbour, who had accidentally let her dog run out of the gate.

But for a second, my whole perception of reality was scrambled.

“The screaming is coming from the film – no it isn’t – well maybe this is the film, or a dream – and the other world, the David Lynch world, was reality????”

Freeeeeeeeeakout!

The second incident occurred just the next day. I was staying at my mum’s house and just about to get into the  bath (so I’m completely naked for added vulnerability). My mum had put a huge, beautiful single rose in a vase on the sink. I was almost tempted to pick it up and smell it, but luckily I didn’t.

As I turn from getting in the bath, I see a huge, armour-plated, scaley spider – without any exaggeration, the size of a …rhinoceros – climb out of the beautiful flower. It had obviously been coiled in the centre of those fragrant, inviting blossoms.

Bear in mind that when I was younger I had an intense fear of spiders (it is better now, but this particular specimen was enough to trigger a relapse). I grabbed a towel and ran out of the bathroom screaming. The completely unexpected nature of it, the hugeness and vileness of the spider and most of all the weird juxtaposition with the lovely flower it was hiding in, were just too much.

Thank god nothing too freaky has happened since….

Sheean: New Seoul star

 
I recently became aware of singer/DJ/ club promoter/ Korean “it girl” Sheean when she appeared with teen heartthrob Lee Minki in his single “Power of Love”, (scroll down, I posted a few days ago).

Now I can’t get enough of her.

She released her own ëlectronica/pop album last year “Stellar Song” (impossible to find in Melbourne, I might order online) and has collaborated with fellow Seoul scenester DJ Eunchurn on a clubby cover of New Order’s Bizarre Love triangle here. And she looks fabulous:

And as if she actually needs to be any cooler, Sheean is one of the regular team behind Seoul party “Locksmith Night” which looks (from the pictures I took off this website) like a blast:

    

 

I wanna go.

There was nothing like this when I lived in Seoul (in 2004?). But then, there was nothing like it in Melbourne either and now there is with John. And there was no “FancHim” yet  in Tokyo either. I wonder how much Seoul has changed? These pictures  – and others from the recent, fabulous-looking Seoul Fashion Week – make me curious to go back and see how the city has developed. After all,  few cities in the world have changed so quickly, (Korea was a dicatorship with a GDP per capita equivalent to Ghana in the 1950s , and is  a demoncracy with an economy on par with much of Europe now, not to mention a popular culture that dominates much of Asia).

What else is it capable of?

The stealthy South American invasion continues

 

Melbourne’s Latin community continue to grow, by stealth. Its expansion is being powered not by immigrants, but by overseas students from countries like Argentina, Brazil and especially Colombia, coming to the country to work and study for a year or two.

Already you hear more Spanish (and sometimes, Portuguese) on inner city streets and anecdotally at least, the cleaners in many city tower blocks now come as often from Bogota as from Bangalore ( or Brisbane).

My first attempt at “eating Latin” was foiled when the venue I had been recommended turned out be a regular city greasy spoon diner that ran occasional Colombian events, rather than the Colombian cafe I had been promised. But the other day, up on the “English language school” end of Lonsdale Street I noticed this sign at “El Gran”cafe – that’s more like it!

This looked fun too:

Halloween – still not a really big thing in Oz

Thai film banned over Muslim/Buddhist gay sex scene

New documentary “This Place is Under Quarantine”- which was due to screen at Bangkok’s “World Film Festival” has been denied a rating, effectively leaving  the film banned.

The documentary apparently features interviews with a Buddhist Thai boy and his Muslim partner where they discuss issues in Thai society, before making out at the very end.

The filmmaker said one of his purposes with the film was to expose how much hate and racism occurs in Thai society, hidden behind the polite veneer of the all-purpose Thai smile.

Meanwhile, separitist violence continues in Muslim-dominated Southern Thailand, where as many as 200 people a month are being killed. How long before this seemingly inextinguishable conflict breaks out of the Deep South to Bangkok?

…. or else!

Wall dialogues #1