Blogbook
How Feng Shui shaped Hong Kong’s skyline – a vox explainer about architecture, the continuing importance of mysticism, and culture. What is Feng Shui? SBS has an explainer too:
Feng shui – literally meaning “wind-water” – is influential in many parts of Asia, where people adjust their lives and carefully position items such as a cup of wine or pieces of crystal in offices and homes to maximise their luck and wealth. The philosophy says that all events are dictated by the varying balances in the five elements that make up the universe: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
Trump’s birth date makes him a “fire dog”, but 2018 is an “earth dog” year, a mismatch of elements.
The fire in Trump’s own birth chart will foment and affect his health, says feng shui master Thierry Chow, while his words – the fire element also represents speech – may bring about “real problems” and tangible consequences.
“The elements are too much fire and too much earth, so that’s going to be causing him imbalance in his fortune,” Chow told AFP.
Chow uses the “flying star” system to make her predictions based on constellation positions, foreseeing more tensions between the US and North Korea, which is afflicted by the most malevolent number five star.
This week at MIFF2018, we’re watching Tigers are Not Afraid by Issa López, a dark fairytale about children in Mexico trying to survive the cartels. Via Slashfilm:
How Issa López’s Tigers Are Not Afraid has played some fourteen film festivals and still doesn’t have distribution outside Mexico is astonishing. Her spectacularly moving childhood journey bursts with Guillermo del Toro parallels, corpse-risen terror and emotional hard-knocks that’ll both singe and chill your core. A snapshot of Mexico’s darkest drug cartel infection told entirely from a minor’s perspective with uncompromising bleakness and fable-fancy spirit. Themes of young lives being failed on a daily basis, and how “survival” means something unthinkably different south of the border.
This is a movie that demands to be seen, heard, and discussed as often as possible – that’s a promise.
Young Paola Lara stars as Estrella, a Mexican girl who so desperately wishes her missing mother would return home. She has no family, no means of living, and that’s when she meets a local street-boy named Shine (Juan Ramón López). His gang of orphaned equals live on rooftops and hide from dangerous abductors because once you’re taken by the cartel, you don’t return. Caco (Ianis Guerrero) plays right-hand to the area’s kingpin and hopeful elected official El Chino (Tenoch Huerta), who finds himself in hot water when Shine jacks the thug’s cell phone. This is at the same time Estrella starts to see foreboding visions of her mother (nightmarish conjurings), and right before El Chino’s goons slap a target on the already endangered children.
In other words, just the beginning of a somehow even more savage “you wish it was dystopian” narrative.
How did Carnegie Hall, one of the world’s most famous concert halls, lose its famous sound in 1986? This explainer discusses it. Via Gizmodo:
In May 1986, the venerated Carnegie Hall concert venue in New York City shut down for 30 weeks of major repairs. The beautiful music hall had hosted legends including Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Judy Garland, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan and The Beatles, but after nearly 100 years, the building was in serious need of renovations.
Music lovers worried that significant changes to the hall might alter the gorgeous sound for which Carnegie was known. When the venue finally reopened in December 1986, it seemed their worst fears had been realised: The sound was all wrong.
“It was apparent from opening night. We all felt that there was something different… this brittle quality”, said Jonathan Spitz, the principal cellist of the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra. “It was a scandal”.
Spitz, who had performed at Carnegie before the renovations, as well as shortly after its reopening, described the new sound quality as harsh and hollow. Music critics agreed. One described “a mushiness in the sound”. And though Carnegie officials at first denied that anything had changed, soon they began to look for solutions.
Some suggested bringing back a large curtain that had once adorned the stage. Others noted that a hole in the ceiling had been covered over, which could affect the reverberation of sound in the room. Officials added absorbent panels to the walls, which seemed to help a little. But still, the acoustics were off.
It wasn’t until nine years later, as workers were replacing the warped stage floor, that a break in the case finally came — and as it turned out, the problem may have been under the performers’ feet the whole time.
The New Zealand Transport Agency is back with another brilliant PSA about guys defying the “mate code”, and not letting their drunk friends drive. Via Adweek:
In a somewhat similar fashion to Palau, New Zealand takes its protection of the environment. As one enters the country, signs are prominently displayed articulating the strict laws designed to keep the island nation beautiful. Additionally, this ethos is ingrained in the country’s culture and people.
Kiwi attitudes for drunken driving is similarly intense. Like pretty much any country, New Zealanders look at drunken driving as a massive no-no, but what seems different is how the message is embedded throughout its culture. Look no further than the many checkpoints for drink-driving (the term used there) and one can see how seriously the issue is taken.
Since 1995, when drunk-driving campaigns started in earnest, attitudes have shifted to the positive, with 7 percent of women and 27 percent of men saying they would be comfortable driving after two drinks. Though there has been positive momentum, there is still room for improvement, especially in the country’s rural areas and among young males from the ages of 20-29.
“Despite significant shifts in drink-driving behavior, there’s still work to be done in provincial areas, particularly among young men,” said NZ Transport Agency principal adviser Rachel Prince. “We know that getting these guys to intervene — when they likely aren’t sober themselves — is a tough challenge.”
To that end, the New Zealand Transport Agency and their long-standing agency, Clemenger BBDO released “Dilemmas,” a long-form ad explicitly targeting that young audience, where driving after drinking is still considered acceptable.
Nikita Diakur’s Ugly has debuted online, an experimental short film that won the 2017 Ottowa International Animation Festival’s Grand Prize. Via Short of the Week:
Just in time for September’s 2018 Ottawa International Animation Festival, the reigning Grand Prize winner has debuted online. Nikita Diakur’s daringly experimental short utilizes a CG technique the filmmaker has described as “interactive animation”, and in doing so has been lauded for opening up a new frontier for the form. Leaning into the mathematical randomness of the digital process rather than fighting against it, Diakur seemingly cold, deconstructed aesthetic is actually imbued with soul—by relinquishing control through dynamic simulations in a form of digital puppetry, Diakur absorbs the “performances” of his characters, allowing them to participate in their own depiction—a generative process the result of which are as much a surprise to their creator as to the audience.
The film’s plot follows the travails of an ugly cat, abandoned and alone, and how its pure desire to connect and give love is repeatedly rebuffed—by kids, by firefighters, by roving packs of dogs—until it is received and accepted by an indigenous chief, Redbear Easterman (credited as a co-director of the film). It’s an allegorical tale, based off an anonymous internet story sourced by Diakur when seeking inspiration for the project. It’s beautifully sad, though the particulars of the plot and its climax are more impressionistic than particular, leading to surreal end that is likely to frustrate viewers whose tastes lean towards more grounded storytelling. I agree with this potential complaint somewhat—the poetic spirituality of the piece feels like a bit of a tonal mismatch to the deconstructed aesthetic, hindering a true sense of elevation, and as such I expect the primarily appeal of the film will lie with those who appreciate it on a stylistic/intellectual level, as opposed to crossing over to mainstream audiences.
We’ve already mentioned this before, but MIFF2018 is here! We’re going to catch Tampopo this weekend at the Astor Theatre, a classic “Ramen Western”. A Guardian review:
In the years since first stumbling across Tampopo, I’ve rewatched many other films many more times, but Juzo Itami’s “ramen western” has always stayed in my mind. It was the first film I’d ever seen that seemed to want to do something more than stick to one linear story, that played with the language of film as it tried to do it all: to be a comedy and a drama, to show death, sex and food all together – sometimes in the same scene.
On the surface, it’s a simple story – a cook tries to find the perfect recipe for making noodles – but along the way it takes in everything from a Seven Samurai-style “get the gang together” plot, to slow-boiled romance, bar-brawling cowboys and etiquette-obsessed housewives. Tampopo was only Itami’s second film, but it’s a self-assured gem constructed like the bowl of classic ramen the characters strive to cook: a collection of individual parts perfectly arranged. It delights in getting sidetracked, meandering through backstreets, wandering off to tell other stories. Tampopo is Japanese for “dandelion”, and it’s not too much of a stretch to see Itami’s camera at times floating from scene to scene like a dandelion seed.
Nobuko Miyamoto – the late Itami’s wife – plays the eponymous noodle cook whose modest attempts at keeping her ramen cafe going after her husband’s death are met with disdain when long-distance trucker Goro (Tsutomo Yamazaki), pure John Wayne swagger in his cowboy hat, sits down one night and tries a bowl. Ken Watanabe – who seems to have cornered the Hollywood market recently for don’t-mess Japanese types in Inception, The Last Samurai and Batman Begins – plays Goro’s fresh-faced sidekick Gun. The two agree to teach Tampopo how to cook the perfect bowl of noodles, and the film’s wild ride begins.
What are you guys going to watch?
Our fav thing to watch on Netflix this week is Midnight Diner, a series about a diner in Tokyo that’s only open from midnight to 7am. Called The Best Show That No One’s Watching by Newsweek, it’s a refreshing, easily digestible series:
This fall, Netflix launched an original series from Japan that challenges these unfair misconceptions. It’s called Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, and it might be the most heartwarming and universally relatable shows on TV. It leaves viewers in a refreshing state of contentment, and at one with the world around them. Perhaps because of its slow, comfortable pacing, the experience of watching an episode feels like a meditation session. The show instills a sense of peace that you won’t likely find anywhere else on television. It also instills an appetite, as there are plenty of tantalizing closeups of the diner’s dishes being prepared and savored.
Based on an award-winning manga, the show was a hit series, and then a hit film, in Japan before the latest, 10-episode season made its way to Netflix in October. It centers around a small, back-alley Tokyo restaurant that is open from midnight to seven in the morning. Its owner, known only as Master and played by Kaoru Kobayashi, will make anything his patrons desire, so long as he has the ingredients on hand. Midnight Diner is an anthology, and each self-contained episode is named for a singular dish, which serves as a kind of soul-warming hearth for that episode’s protagonists.
Special attention is paid to the preparation of each episode’s dish, as well as to the story behind its significance. Some are whimsical, like the corn dog made with batter left over from the pancakes requested by a bitter comedian; while some carry more emotional weight, like the sour plum made for a grocer trying to cope with the death of his mother, who was able to pickle the fruit to perfection. The dishes recur throughout the episode as the characters return to the comforting embrace of the diner. Regardless of the turmoil in their lives, there will always be a seat at the counter, where the sage, omniscient Master will make their favorite dish and listen as they ponder their troubles.
Havas Germany got tired of illegal logging and made screaming trees to try and deter loggers. Effective? We’re not sure. Curious? Definitely. Via Adweek:
Some of the last European primeval forests in Romania are being illegally depleted every day, and Havas Germany has had enough. The agency has launched an initiative to raise awareness not only that these forests being destroyed, but also to inform people that they still exist in the first place.
“Many people even do not know that we still have primeval forests in Europe or that their remnants are being destroyed right at the moment,” said Darren Richardson, chief commercial officer at Havas Düsseldorf and executive creative director digital for Havas Europe. “With ‘Screaming Trees’ we wanted to clear up this injustice and raise awareness across national boundaries for the issue—this is a common heritage and local state apparatuses as well as we all have responsibility to act instead of just watching it disappear.”
Playing on the notion that the deforestation typically happens in silence, Havas teamed up with Romanian NGO Agent Green to give the trees “a voice,” according to Richardson. The name of the project is, however, a metaphor—the trees themselves do not make sounds, lest the attackers be warned that they were detected, the company said. The agency developed a proprietary device that can detect the sound of chainsaws, which in turn triggers a signal to local authorities that help is needed.
Touted as the follow-up to Mad Men, the Romanoffs is actually not–but it is by the same creator, Matthew Weiner, and will debut on Amazon in October. Via the Verge:
In 2016, Amazon Studios inked a $70 million deal with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner to produce The Romanoffs, an anthology show set in the modern day. At a TCA press tour event yesterday, the studio revealed a short teaser for the show, which announced that it will debut on October 12th.
The teaser shows off a background of words in Cyrillic, and reveals a slew of actors associated with the project, including Aaron Echhart, Amanda Peet, Corey Stroll, Noah Wyle, and others. Weiner will direct all eight episodes of the show.
The show will follow a group of people from around the world who believe that they’re descendants of the Romanovs, the royal Russian family that was executed by the Bolsheviks in July 1918. The remains of the family were first discovered in 1991, but two members of the family — Alexei Nikolaevich, and Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna or Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna — were unaccounted for, fueling speculation for years that they might have survived the massacre, although the discovery of additional remains have since suggested that there were no survivors. That speculation has led to numerous films and television shows about the family, such as the 1986 series Peter the Great and Fox’s 1997 animated film Anastasia.
While we’re a little disappointed that it’s not actually a direct sequel to Mad Men, perhaps Mad Men already ended where it should have. Looking forward to this!
Australia Post’s new ad campaign is “Everyone Matters”, by the Monkeys Melbourne, who won the advertising account last year. Via Adnews:
When Jamie Harrington has some pilates weights delivered to Braidwood Post Office, long-serving post office manager Bruce said he hoped they ‘worked out’.
Meanwhile, local postie Todd Thoroughgood not only delivers the post, but makes sure that ‘Uhu’ a blue and brown toy monkey is returned to its rightful owner. Maybe an nod to the agency behind the work?
It’s these everyday touches that are the foundations of Australia Post’s latest campaign, ‘Everyone Matters’, by The Monkeys.
It’s the first campaign we’ve seen from The Monkeys Melbourne since winning the account last year.
Directed by Derin Seale of Finch, ‘Everyone Matters’ features five stories of everyday Australians and the many and varied ways Australia Post is a part of their lives.
Aside from Bruce and Todd, the spots feature a honey producer in Tasmania and a sugar cane farmer in Queensland.
The print component of the campaign also features portraits of everyday Australians captured around the country by photographer Cory White.
“This campaign illustrates what Australia Post does for our customers every single day: we focus on how everyone matters,” Australia Post head of enterprise marketing Anne Stout said.
The campaign centres on what drives us to make a difference in people’s lives; whether that’s making more flexible delivery choices or helping small businesses to expand into international markets, or being such an integral part of local communities that our delivery people would recognise, recover and deliver safely home a little boys’ stranded stuffed toy.”