When I read that Claude Lévi-Strauss had passed on, I dutifully posted the news on both my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I received one response on Twitter:
I didn’t receive any comments or “likes” (very odd I’d say, to “like” the passing of Lévi-Strauss) on Facebook. However something transpired over the next day that made me post the question “Are Asians hug-deficient?” The responses came swift and steadily:
Two things to note. Firstly, Asians are evidently indeed hug-deficient and it seems we should do something about that, maybe hold free hugs days or perhaps charge money for each hug. In any case the need is there, simmering beneath our polite Asian surfaces and serf-faces. As Lévi-Strauss’ fellow Frenchman and contemporary the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would have it, there buried in all the resounding “YES!” resides the erupting of the traumatic Real when Ejin Tan irrepressibly puts it “hug me.”
Secondly, as the father of modern anthropology and a central figure in humanities, social studies and philosophy I trust that Lévi-Strauss would have something to say about Asians needing hugs but only expressing it on Facebook. The late gentleman might also have something to say about the scoreboard:
Death of Lévi-Strauss – 0 Comments, 1 Tweet
Asian Hug-deficiency – 2 Likes, 8 Comments
Actually don’t. I’m just kidding. It’s been about two weeks since the Mid-Autumn Festival party at Hua Song Museum and I’m happy to say that everyone had a good time. Overheard: “Mmm… mooncakes…”
With happy guests I’m confident of positive publicity for the museum and for whichever museum I promote for that matter. I do wonder, though, in today’s age of super-speed twitting what will pop-up whenever I do a search for blog entries and image postings. It is part and parcel of my work to constantly keep myself updated of whatever floats up in cyberspace but I want to try something new. Rather than uploading a few choice picks after trawling through whatever I find relevant about my Mid-Autumn’s party, I’m putting up hyperlinks to ‘live’ searches for the name “Hua Song Museum” – the venue of the festive event.
A play on Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, these links will give you the latest hits on the three currently most pertinent social media channels:
There are some really decent photographs in some of the guests’ Facebook albums and a fair bit of blog chatter and tweets too so have fun surfing. Mmm… mooncakes…
There are several myths about the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mooncake or Lantern Festival. Whether you think the Festival commemorates the overthrowing of the Mongol rulers of the Tang Dynasty or romanticizes about the goddess Chang’e and her lover Houyi the Archer, the nocturnal celebratory mood is a good excuse to party.
As part of my youth outreach project, I am organizing a Mid-Autumn private party at Hua Song Museum. The museum is a center that documents the Chinese diaspora, migration and cultures worldwide, so it’s an apt place to gather some friends and down mooncakes with brews of Chinese teas. Feeling refined on a Friday night is a good way to start the weekend.
Invitation design by yours truly. Somehow I felt the need to go all NASA on a decidedly Asian festival.
I first heard Metric’s ‘Gold Guns Girls’ on Entourage. And then I found out Mike Shinoda did a remix, for use as the soundtrack for his art exhibition Glorious Excess (DIES). Matching choice since ‘Gold Guns Girls’ is about our disappointment with everything material while the exhibition is about the excesses of celebrity culture and media.
‘Glorious Excess (DIES)’ is running from August 29 to October 4 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. So I dug some more and discovered his short film for ‘Glorious Excess.’ The film also gives insight as to how Shinoda works in creating the paintings and artworks.
All the gold and the guns in the world
Couldn’t get you off
All the gold and the guns and the girls
Couldn’t get you off
All the boys, all the choices in the world
New World is phunk’s second solo exhibition in Singapore after their show ‘Universal’ in 2007. The exhibition is a collection of prints, sculptures featuring a new world that is presented in the form of an uncanny theme park. And oh, there are also some little bomb sculptures (referencing the atomic bombs from the second World War) and a large inflatable ‘bomb’ marked with the Chinese character for ‘love.’ :phunk’s mastery in graphic design (the four-man design collectives goes by the name :phunk studio) is clearly expressed in the execution of the prints. But there is something beyond good design and clever visual illustrations in ‘New World.’
Is ‘New World’ grotesque? But look how adorable and likable everyone is…
Is ‘New World’ beautiful? Uh uh sure the illustration are of cutting edge but there’s something inherently diabolical about aestheticism of the dark… [click to continue…]
Funnyman Craig Ferguson explains why society sucks. Apparently it’s because the Mad Men of Madison Avenue of the 1950s began to market to the youths, next the rest of society followed suit to deify youths and fast-forward to today where we have created the Jonas Brothers as a result.
OMG. Epiphany. My target market at work are the youths.
*cringe, roll, sob.
In other unrelated news, I have just started watching Gossip Girl to better understand the youth psychographic. It’s cool, I can handle it.
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