The Black Isle

Monsieur Kalishnikov, the short story by Andre Aciman in the Summer 2007 Paris Review is kind of like a modern, immigrant-America reworking of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Sharer. Wow!

Except for the too-cheeky titles, very nice work I think from London assemblage artist and future superstar potter Barnaby Barford, aged 29.

His creations are flea market and dime store finds which he saws up and glues together.

We went to look at the Queen Mary today before it got turned into a shopping mall.

the immensity

the beauty

the observation bar

the grand ballroom

the switchboard operator’s bay

pathway to the Isolation Ward

the Isolation Ward where the injured and sick were kept

the elevators

the rooms

service window for swimming pool area

entrance to swimming pool

nice details

chart showing self-sealing hydraulic doors

Hari Kunzru’s short story Magda Mandela in the August 13 New Yorker is pretty good, though nowhere as mindblowing as Sweetheart Sorrow, the debut story by Daniel Hoon Kim that appeared in their New Fiction issue in June.

James Fallows’ article on Macau’s casinos in the September Atlantic should be pretty good but ain’t quite.

Mambo Girl

Along with the terrific 28-film lineup in its main selection, the New York Film Festival has announced a sidebar called “Chinese Modern: A Tribute to the Cathay Studios,” playing Oct 10-16. Thank God the good folks at Cathay (or rather, the good folks at the Hong Kong Film Archive) finally got their stash of classic prints from the mid-50s to early-60s restored — and perhaps even more importantly, SUBTITLED in English. The films have been available for eons at places at yesasia.com for $9.99 but it’s only in recent years that new 35mm prints with English subtitles have been struck.

Everyone’s favorite, the decidedly tame Wild, Wild Rose is on the list, of course. As well as a couple others I haven’t seen — Battle Of Love and June Bride — with screenplays written by Eileen Chang, the in-vogue-again Chinese emigre author who also wrote the short story on which Ang Lee’s new film Lust, Caution is based.

Air Hostess

Here’s an intro to the historical circumstances that led to the creation of Cathay’s sentimental dream world, focusing on Air Hostess (1959), the first color film from the studio: Modernity, Diasporic Capital, and 1950’s Hong Kong Mandarin Cinema by Poshek Fu.

Quentin Tarantino is in Manila right now watching Filipino B-movies as research for a book he’s writing on the subject, Bamboo Gods, Iron Men and Super Women. He’s also been eating. According to reports, his diet has consisted of “pancit luglug along with his medium-rare steak, pizza and gambas, which he mixed with his noodles. He said he had tapsilog (a combo meal of eggs, fried rice and beef) at breakfast.”

More from the article in today’s Filipino Inquirer via my friend Norman Wang:

He could hardly contain himself from raving over De Leon’s “soul-shattering, life-extinguishing” movies on vampires and female bondage, particularly “Women in Cages.”

“It is just harsh, harsh, harsh,” he said, and described the final shot as one of “devastating despair.”

I need to get him in touch with Cleopatra Wong, or vice versa!

Waitaminute, I’ve been here:
Julien Aurouze’s shop
8 rue des Halles, 75001 Paris.

via ParisDailyPhoto, via The Paris Blog.

Photos taken by Lucas with his Palm Pilot camera in May 2005 (or was it 2004?):

Saw “Cria Cuervos” (1976) by Carlos Saura. Could not get this song outta my head. “Porque te vas” by Jeanette, as featured in the film:

Japanese English-instruction/safety/exercise video about what to do when you’re robbed by two gaijin in an English-speaking country: