Facing obstacle...

Be careful!

Women always say that most men are playboys. What about women themselves?

Which one do you like?

Two types of funny ads: one is low-budget, old-style drama; one, extravagant special-effect farce. The Norwegian ad has an ordinary script, but the director of this ad turns it into an amazingly fun commercial. The cute girl's angry reaction, aroused the boy's unscrupulous remarks (against a cow), fulfills every little boy's desire to tease their girl friend. Simply idea, and very well executed. I would say the male character's performance is far better than the female character's, because he makes every female want to spit on his face.

Japanese melodrama might let you watch one more time; not because it is so funny, but because its special effects wow the viewers. More and more Japanese TV commercials are using digital effect to create surreal, comic-style parodies. In this ad, it is mixing the actions in The Matrix, JoJo, Lefty (寄生獸), etc. It has the same ordinary plot as the Norwegian ad, but the production company makes it work.

Are these two ads showing the cultural differences between Japan and Norway?

Practice

Practice...
Well, I feel pressure to find a job, so drawing is one of my way to release the pressure. Drawing human faces doesn't require much creativity. Quite a good way to while away your time.

Uncertainty

When facing obstacles, conflicts, uncertainty, and depression, how would you react? This is one of our darkest time, and the way you're facing them--circumvention, denial, or fight--determine your future.

Confusion

When we face the injustice in society with our hands full of its products, we will start to doubt about ourselves. And what accompanies with this ambiguity is the self-consciousness of our guilt and shame. This process of self-doubt is what makes you a better person. Even you have to make a clear decision at certain levels in your life, the struggle for an unified self is what push us to have a greater understanding of our life and the world.

The Cup

This iron cup is all what its owner has.

Who can decide it?

I have been reading articles about the definition of public and private space for two weeks. Hannah Arendt thinks public space is where human beings can really be immortal, but people shouldn't bring issues about labor and worker into public sphere. Liberalists encourage everyone joins public space, but individuals have to remain neutral and to abandon issues about moral. Habermas also include everyone into public space in which everything can be discussed. However, the lack of separation between public and private, and his neglect of the methods to implement public participation have made his theory unattainable...

Ok, who care these shits? To be honest, even I know hundreds of reasons why the understanding of public and private space can benefit me, there is no use to talk about it. Writing this blog can be said as public participation, but hello, is there anyone who think we're participating public affairs through reading and writing blog posts?

When people don't have the rights to speak in public, they fight for it with their lives. But when finally they're free to speak in the public, they realize that they have nothing to say. Oh yeah, many bloggers will love to share with you about the countries they've been and the scrumptious food they've last night. I've definitely notice that the information about consumption on blogs is useful.

If no one is reading about this post, I would be really happy. After all, this is just one more useless string of electronic codes embedded in the hullabaloo of blogosphere.

Drawing at the back of an envelop

The image of the deul between 宮本武藏 and 吉岡清十郎 in 井上雄彥's comic was craved in my memory.

There is no black and white

It has been two weeks since I last updated my blog. I am in a shock therapy--reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. This book shows us that free-market strategy is not working as well as what it claims. While the government favors multinational enterprises, sells its state-owned business, and boosts up stock market, millions people are suffering unemployment and poverty.

Living in Indonesia for seven years, I saw the disaster of free-market plan. Huge disparity of wealth existing in that country for decades. When everytime I sat in my father's Honda Accord watching people begging for money on street, I always asked myself: if I lived in poverty, can I still have the strength to study philosophy and arts? Can I still be an intellectual? For these questions, Naomi Klein provides some of her insights--free-market plan only benefits a few and harms the rest.

I am not totally agree with all what Klein has said. Not everything is black and white. State-owned corporations may indeed provide million jobs for people and bring wealth to the government, but it can also be used as a political weapon, banning those mavericks with different ideology from having a decent job as what we see in Venezuela. You can dicotomize our ploblems in society and choose to stand on one side--capitalism or communism, left-wing or right-wing, government regulation or laisserfaire--but this world is always more complicated than what we think.

Olympics

Because of my job, I can see the newest soundbites of the most talented athletes and of the potential Olympic gold winners in various fields. China's “gold fever” has become so overwhelmed that people in U.S. are also caring about the number of golds they can get. While athletes are vying for the gold medals, the sports sponsors are engaging another war under the table.

For example, in the track and field, people are all talking about the three potential winners of the 100m and 200m races: Tyson Gay, Usain Bolt, and Asafa Powell. PUMA sponsors Usain Bolt; Adidas, Tyson Gay; and Nike, Asafa Powell. Any one of them who gets gold would boost his sponsor's sales and brand name, and this champion can get almost everything he wants—money, fame, power, women, etc. None of these guys would settle for a silver, not to mention a bronze. The spotlight is only focus on the winner. Others will only fade away…

Good luck, Liu Xiang.

Forbidden Cliche

This is a great, funny article written by Kaiser Kuo making of foreign journalists in Beijing. Let me extract two paragraphs:

No writing “There is an ancient Chinese curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.’” There isn’t such a curse. No writing “the Chinese word for crisis includes the character for opportunity and the character for danger.” That it may be true doesn’t reduce my aggravation each time I see it in print. In fact, just to be safe, avoid anything involving “an ancient Chinese saying.” This will save you, anyhow, from having to Google for choice quotes from Sun Tzu or Confucius’s Analects.

While we’re on puns, some common ones to avoid include pander/panda and the always irksome Peking/peeking. And no using “your average Zhou” or “Zhou Sixpack.” There will be absolutely no punning on the interrogatives “who” or “when” and the family names of the Chinese president and premier, respectively. I know you’re thinking, “Hu knows Wen I’ll get another chance like this?” and I feel for you, but just resist it, okay?

You have to leave

This is one of the images in my dream last night. I feel that it's not a bad thing to leave the place where you were born. You get your freedom. However, you will miss this place all you life.

One of the most important elements in Art--light

While there is still plenty of time before my fall internship begins, I visit museums every week. In most of the modern art--movies, paintings, architures, and photographs--the most extensive element they use is light. Light is the extent of human sensorium. Without light, we might have nothing to create. With light, every thing can be art.

Complains Choir of Chicago

Great song. I watched three times and cried three times. When they sing "the most creative minds work for the advertising industry...," I feel so sad, hahahah....

I watched this song in PS1 Contemporary Art Center. Complaints Choir was founded by Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. After the first complaints choir took place in Birmingham--the arsehole of England--and made a surprisingly success, the idea of turning complaints into a easy to learn song has spread around the world. On YouTube you can find complaints choir of St. Petersburg, of Singapore, of Melbourne, of Jerusalem, of Hamburg, and of Helsinki, etc. The lyrics of these choirs are really funny.

New Yorker just performed their complaints choir in June this year, but the video hasn't been put on YouTube. Can't waite to see what the residents of the world's most chaotic city will sing.