1. City planners in China want to combine the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta into a 42-million-person megacity that’s the size of Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire combined. [via Gawker]
2. Patti Smith is currently “about 68 percent done” writing a detective novel that opens in the churchyard of St Giles-in-the-Fields in London. [via NME]
3. Keanu Reeves says that he met with the Wachowskis and that they are working on a “script treatment” for a fourth and fifth Matrix movie that would feature him as Neo. [via Kottke]
4. According to TVline’s Michael Ausiello, McG — who helmed the Charlie’s Angels movies and is an executive producer on Nikita, Human Target, Supernatural, and Chuck — has emerged as the odds-on favorite to direct the pilot for NBC’s much-hyped Wonder Woman remake.
5. While their reps aren’t confirming anything yet, there are reports that Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are celebrating the birth of their first child, a baby boy. [via NYP]
In his “Manufactured Totems” series, which we spotted thanks to Trend Land, Paris-based photographer Alain Delorme presents individual portraits of migrant workers who transport unbelievable piles of products across the city, driving everyday life in Shanghai. Both humorous and a tad depressing, these colorful “Made in China” sculptures echo the towering construction that dominates the ever-changing landscape. Click through to view more photos from the series.
Photographer Tom Carter’s CHINA: Portrait of a People documents the 56 wide-ranging ethnic groups living in the 33 provinces that compose the vast, overwhelmingly diverse nation.
Backpacking through every region of China over the course of two years, the photojournalist met and documented everyday people who live and work far from the tourist-traveled trails. Gaining his subjects’ trust, while at times risking arrest, Carter captured the fascinating faces that comprise the People’s Republic of China, creating a stunning document in the process.
Writer and artist Belle Yang’s first foray into the graphic-novel format, Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, is a coming-of-age family saga that eschews the typical saccharine baggage of the memoir.
Yang spent more than 14 years composing and illustrating this autobiographical tale — a story that combines her own struggles as a self-doubting twentysomething Chinese-American with the legacy of struggle that her father’s family experienced in China. Rather than forcing a tidy parallel between the two tales, Yang instead presents a natural concurrence — at most a subtle complement — between her own experiences and the highly-nuanced drama of her heritage.
The Shanghai World Expo has been conducting a trial run this week in advance of the opening on May 1. What is a World Expo? you may wonder. Well from what we can tell it involves a gigantic baby, a hefty helping of LCD lights, a pavilion or two, and interpretative dance.* Boston Globe’s Big Picture site has some most excellent pictures of the preparations at hand. Click through for a world vision that will knock your American socks off.
*Technically it’s a World’s Fair-type event that lasts six months, expects to host 100 million visitors, and costs more to throw than the Beijing Olympics. Way to show ‘em, Shanghai.
Just in time for the president’s visit to Beijing next week, Chinese artist Liu Bolin — known primarily for his crazy camouflage work — has debuted a bronze effigy entitled Burning Man Obama, which he hopes to sell for $15,000. The sculpture was inspired by this Time Magazine cover and Obama’s victory last November.
While a flaming Obama head might mean something else to most of us, Bolin insists that his work is intended as tribute: “I think it represents more his popularity… I think my piece represents more the fact that Obama’s on fire.” That said, we can only imagine what would happen if something like this fell into the wrong hands.
China has a strong tradition of theater, from folkloric operas to dreamscapes of shadow puppetry to the workman’s ballets of Mao. Director Meng Jinghui’s latest, however, marks a stark departure from this deeply rooted tradition of musical theater. Known for his boundary pushing and avant-leanings, Jinghui has made a name for himself with plays led by rhino keepers, and others performed behind a glass wall. This time around, he’s taking on the musical. And then, he’s taking it down.
Lunch is long gone, it’s 4 p.m, Manny has mud in his eye, GM is experiencing a “revenue implosion,” everyone’s wondering what Zuma‘s (multiple) wives will wear, Savage wants us to boycott Britain, China is in mourning, the head Democratic donor dabbled in fraud, California is anticipating a cash-flow crisis, 2 billion people may catch swine flu, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a new daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability).
Like Zhang Ke Jia’s Unknown Pleasures, Zhang Wei’s Fish Eyes is a bleak and brilliant portrait of life on the fringes of China’s rapid industrialization. The film, which premieres tonight at Tribeca, is a rural nightmare, continuing a recent trend in China’s emerging independent scene — small films that feel more like documentaries charting the growth of a country far too complex to be harangued by simple criticisms about industrialization, or capitalism. Read More »
The Black Lips are legendary — for their travels. Channeling garage rock of the ’60s along with some straight psychedelia and ’70s street punk, the Lips famously played at West Bank in Israel back in August ’07 and more recently did a six-city tour in India this past January. According to the Guardian, guitarist Cole Alexander stripped naked onstage during their show in Chennai and proceeded to leap into the audience. Following the very rock ‘n roll incident, the boys had to flee the country without making a single rupee. (It’s a good thing Indian society isn’t too keen on letting lady-folk into shows, or they would have REALLY been in trouble.)
It kind of makes you wonder: are the Black Lips a politically defiant touring band? Or do the boys just want to have fun? So we headed over to the Vice offices in Williamsburg for a sit down with Alexander in order to find out. Read More »
