Border Studies

Matthew Niederhauser and the greatest-ever Minsk World Photoshop...

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:15:57 -0400

Matthew Niederhauser and the greatest-ever Minsk World Photoshop Souvenir -

“But, anyways, I got the photo taken and then I got to sit down with the crack photoshop guy, and if you look at the other examples, maybe they’ll have like one line of troops, or maybe just one helicopter, but I was like, “No, no, no, I want the works” — the tassel, the medals, the epaulets, that’s all photoshopped. I was wearing a white suit, but the collar and tie is theirs. It’s a small little neck thing that only goes as far as there. And the hat, of course, is theirs.

But, yeah, I was directing them like, “Yeah, we need more. More, more, more. I want eight fighter jets in formation, I want helicopters, I want an army, I want more helicopters… and then by the end, the other attendant and the photoshop guy just looked at it: “This is the best one we’ve ever made.”

I said, “You’re damn straight it is. You can print that and put it up in the window”.”

See also this WSJ interview for his travel tips

(via SmartBeijing.com | [Culture Bureau]: Matthew Niederhauser)

“Why is Christian Slater guiding an ice cream cone to...

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:02:00 -0400

“Why is Christian Slater guiding an ice cream cone to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s crotch?”

And other questions on the first cast photo from Lars Von Trier’s new “porno”: Nymphomaniac, which is attracting attention as much for its innovative CGI as for its explicit sex.

“For the truly hard core elements of the film von Trier used body doubles for the stars. But, Vesth revealed, the Danish director will use digital technology to superimpose the actor’s non-explicit displays with the pornographic performance of the doubles.

“We shot the actors pretending to have sex and then had the body doubles who really did have sex and in post we will digital impose the two,” Vesth explained. “So above the waist it will be the star and the below the waist it will be the doubles.””

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-nymphomaniac-producer-sex-scenes-525666

Meet cadmium, the newest toxin waiting in your food to kill...

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:22:19 -0400

Meet cadmium, the newest toxin waiting in your food to kill you.

From the WSJ article: “In Japan during the late 1960s, an outbreak of itai-itai disease, or “ouch, ouch” disease, was traced back to cadmium after it poisoned people and softened their bones.

Experts say removing cadmium from the soil is a costly process that would likely require seeding certain plants for long periods to help remove toxicity. The metal doesn’t degrade on its own, and can linger in the human body for decades.

Local and national food-safety regulators didn’t return requests for comment.”

"One hurdle may be the particular nature of China’s modern business landscape, which emphasizes..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:16:52 -0400

“One hurdle may be the particular nature of China’s modern business landscape, which emphasizes guanxi—stoking a web of interlocking personal and professional connections. “Guanxi itself is such a male world,” explains Susan Brownell, an anthropologist specializing in China at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. “Businessmen go to KTV bars and often patronize prostitutes together. It’s hard for women to share the same bonding experiences.” That’s why at least one successful female business owner, bowing to the fact that male clients expect to be wined and dined at karaoke bars and massage parlors (where there is at least the possibility of paying for sex), has designated a young man on her staff to take out clients on her behalf. Her solution is crafty, but it’s a depressing form of accommodation. “Successful women in China must develop tactics to handle the male aspects of guanxi,” says Brownell.”

- Depressingly real commentary on gender parity in China’s business landscape

Why China Needs a ‘Lean In’ Movement - Businessweek

Asian skyscrapers to be sadly bereft of Kanye West’s...

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:32:24 -0400

Asian skyscrapers to be sadly bereft of Kanye West’s visage… (not to mention African and South American ones too) Why you gotta be so Eurocentric, Kanye? @kanyewest NEW SONG AND VISUAL FROM MY NEW ALBUM BEING PROJECTED TONIGHT ACROSS THE GLOBE ON 66 BUILDINGS, LOCATIONS @ http://KANYEWEST.COM

Nice cover for a great story. onthestrand: COVER REVEAL! A mini...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:30:22 -0400

Nice cover for a great story.

onthestrand:

COVER REVEAL! A mini Zadie Smith for October ‘The Embassy of Cambodia’. Designed by the fantastic Jonathan Gray.

Other items for scale.

Speaking of Le Carré, stellar book trailer for his newest....

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:58:25 -0400

Speaking of Le Carré, stellar book trailer for his newest. (Better than most movie trailers indeed)

onthestrand:

“This Book Trailer Is Better Than Most Movie Trailers” MTV

A DELICATE TRUTH by John le Carré

A specially commissioned film by Kim Gehrig is produced by The Ink Factory and Somesuch & Co.

I love how modern espionage is so bro-bootleg, a far cry from...

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:48:33 -0400

I love how modern espionage is so bro-bootleg, a far cry from the bleak glamour of Le Carré/the past (or at least our imagination of it)…

When news of the Moscow spy scandal broke yesterday, Russian Internet users quickly came up with plenty of colorful names for the alleged, blond-wigged CIA agent who was nabbed on his way to recruit a key Kremlin expert: “masquerade,” “a bad show,” or “a circus with one clown.” People wondered who could have sent a young, dark-haired American in a puffy wig to woo an official described as a Russian secret service expert on Islamic extremism. The would-be spy carried a compass, thousands of Euros in cash, and a typewritten letter that set the honorarium for espionage at a cool million dollars.

(via The ‘Cold Peace’ Between Moscow and Washington Just Got Colder - By Anna Nemtsova | Foreign Policy)

"The literati in pre-modern China left us a sizeable record of the human experience. This talk will..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 04:28:08 -0400

“The literati in pre-modern China left us a sizeable record of the human experience. This talk will focus on treatises written by literati on chrysanthemums, as these number the greatest amongst those devoted to specific types of flowers, and problems modern readers face in appreciating the descriptions and poems in these works will be discussed.”

- This talk sounds quite intriguing.

Prof Andrew Lo: Chrysanthemum Treatises and Literati in Pre-Modern China | SOAS, University of London

★ Who is your favourite villain?

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:33:33 -0400

★ Who is your favourite villain?

Courtesy of a friend who writes, “Apropos of nothing, I...

Tue, 07 May 2013 06:06:30 -0400

Courtesy of a friend who writes, “Apropos of nothing, I present this story from today’s Beijing Evening News on whether dog piss harms car tires”

(via 不伤胎也别让它随意“滋”)

Amazing - add the “Lisa Frankfurt School” to the...

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:42:55 -0400

Amazing - add the “Lisa Frankfurt School” to the list of fantastic new Tumblrs fusing critical theory injokes with twee memeology, which includes “Discourse on The Otter”, “Sexts from Marxists”, and hopefully more soon… (Thanks Elaine Ho)

From the annals of...

Sun, 05 May 2013 13:14:11 -0400

From the annals of performance-art-history-in-GIF-form:

showstudio:

‘Spirit House - Dissolution’, Marina Abramović, 1997

A4rizm: Benjamin Archiv

Sun, 05 May 2013 11:27:19 -0400

A4rizm: Benjamin Archiv:

read-only:

Walter Benjamin’s Paris address book

Where does the archive dwell? The archive, writes Derrida, needs to be sheltered. The Greek origin of arkheion refers to: “a house, a domicile, an address, the residence… of the archons, those who command”. The archive is both “there