BALANCE of CULTURE

McPsy is Lovin' It

Psy's "Gangnam Style" video (which has 282,944,140 Youtube views as of this morning) may have inspired some recent "branding" by entities like McDonald's (a cleverly-timed spoof), a Major League Baseball team, and Thai Airlines to name a few, but just wait until this Halloween: retailers are busy anticipating that the Psy costume "will be the costume." 

Hillary Gets Down in Johannesburg

I don't know why I love seeing Hillary Clinton let her hair down, especially when she's technically at work. Last night in Johannesburg she put on her dancing shoes during an intimate dinner with South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.


Around the 0:35 mark, she even gets a little freaky!

Ballet & Radiohead

Just beautiful! My ballet instructors were super old-school so we never used contemporary music like Radiohead during my serious dance years, but this video makes the two look like they go hand-in-hand...

Bad Girls like Middle Finger Malfunctions

M.I.A.'s latest video "Bad Girls" is a much better thing to watch than yesterday's rather tepid Superbowl halftime performance with Madonna, Nicki, M.I.A., LMFAO, and Cee lo (let's face it, Madge needs all the youthful help she can get at this point) -- the music video has lots of cool scenery in Ouarzazate, Morocco with creative choreography and car stunts.

To her credit though, at least M.I.A. stuck with her new video's theme and flipped the bird (aka middle finger malfunction) to the primetime cameras yesterday, effectively riling up the usual suspects like Parents Television Council and of course Fox News.

It's "big news" today but I doubt too many people noticed at the time, though -- most were staring longingly at either Madonna reinventing herself again or the hordes of dark, ripped young guys she brought with her…I guess some things never change!

The influence of ballet pointe shoes

Ballet pointe shoes as technological artifacts -- quite an entertaining thesis presented over the weekend at the Society for the History of Technology conference.

I'm not sure if we should be giving the innovation kudos solely to George Balanchine, but the renowned choreographer's contributions to developing pointe shoes that enhanced the dancer's body and movements is undeniable and surely worthy of further exploration.

Ballet is a relatively older form of dance in the Western world, and the path to honing your skills is even more old-fashioned. As an eager ballet dancer since the age of 4, there's one thing about pointe shoes that I won't soon forget: even with all the "technology" that has gone into them all these past years, the archaicness of pointe shoes is part of the challenge of the craft.

There isn't much way around the clunkiness or the extremely precise way you need to "install" (or "wear") them, even if you're putting on the latest pair from Bloch or Capezio. And, frankly, if you don't put in the hours --daily -- it really doesn't matter what kind of pointe shoes you dance with.

All the years of dance training have inevitably left me with a formidable collection of dance shoes of all kinds, from pointe to character to jazz (minus the tap shoes!), as well as adopting the outlook of human bodies as "IBM machines." I've always attributed dancing en pointe to not only my love and familiarity for high-heeled shoes but also my strangely innate clumsiness in flat shoes, as strange as that sounds!

Korea's Summer Song 2011

Here's "Bubble Pop!" by Hyuna of 4Minute, the 2011 song of the summer across Korea and the rest of Asia. It plays all the time in Korea, kind of like this year's version of Katy Perry's "California Gurls":

Let Your Butt Go Free

Whether you're a dancer, traveler or just interested in exploring culture abroad, the Travel Channel's recent 1-hour special called Dance the World is definitely worth watching. The show follows New Jersey dancer Jaycee Gossett, who is on a mission to "learn the authentic dance of each culture she encounters." Here she goes to Brazil to learn how to samba before a group performance at Rio de Janeiro's Carnival! It's a rigorous and experiential learning process even for an accomplished dancer like Gossett, who spends several steamy days shaking her booty, immersing herself in the local culture, and ultimately letting her "butt go free."

Astonishing how so many New Yorkers have never heard of samba (it's not a taco, sir!):



Gossett explains her mission:

It would be amazing if more channels would devote their airtime to shows like this! Traveling and exploring world culture through the lens of dance is an awesome complement to the Travel Channel's approach to food diplomacy (one of my favorite shows of all time is Bizarre Foods, hands down!). There's so much to work with here -- this template could be a critical new theme for future programming!

BoC Dérive: 13 May 2011

Getting closer: Muki the Yorkshire Terrier and Mazinga the Labradoodle have been getting along wonderfully the past week! I think they're officially BFF now. Happy Friday the 13th!

Online Dérive:

Digital diplomacy: Dutch MEP believes that Europe is doing too little as a cultural leader and needs to invest in digital (and cultural) diplomacy.

OBL: President Obama understands the technical futility of releasing photos of a dead Osama bin Laden (hint: it's 2011 and anybody can photoshop anything).

Korea: Despite recent reports, South Korea is still open to meet with North Korea at the 2012 Global Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.

Human rights: It was a relatively good week at the UNHRC.

Dance: How American Ballet Theater's first black soloist in decades became a muse for musician Prince.

USC: It's commencement day at my alma mater, with Microsoft CEO Steven A. Ballmer as speaker.

Internship: The spring deadline to intern at the State Department is July 1.

BoC Dérive: 1 April 2011

Spring fever has officially hit this week, giving Los Angeles a gorgeous backdrop for all of the events going on lately. The city has been so bustling with activity that I think people have finally come out of their hibernation from the winter! I myself had a little time to organize some art pieces from our storage -- the Kaws stuff above is only one of the things we've revisited this week, from years ago, that have since blown up like crazy! You might notice that I did a bit of a redesign to the blog earlier this week as well. I'm still tinkering around on it but it's a nice visual change, especially after a year. The watercolor portrait of me at the top of the page is by an artist whose work I always enjoy, Luke Vicious (you may have heard of him from the Electro Wars)! Enjoy your April Fools' Day!

Online Dérive:

Japan: Have you canceled your plans to visit during cherry blossom season? You're not alone!

Video Games: Sega has put their official E3 Bayonetta costume up on Ebay for auction, with proceeds to go to earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan.

Fashion: Designer Prabal Gurung, who grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, has been named a Goodwill Ambassador by the nonprofit group Maiti Nepal to spread awareness on human trafficking.

Cote d'Ivoire: Heavy fighting continues in the main city, Abidjan, as the West African country faces a political and humanitarian crossroad.

Los Angeles: The city's museums are not well-attended at all by the public, according to a national survey.

LOL: A handy checklist on how to be a NYC tech entrepreneur.

3D: Ballet and opera companies embrace 3D!

RIP: Engineer Paul Baran, who worked at the RAND Corporation (an "old haunt" for me) and helped create the technical foundational platforms for what is now the internet, has passed away.

Libya: Even though he arrived in the UK late Wednesday, so far Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa has not received any immunity from the state.

Jesus likes my lucite heels, right?

...Well He'd better, because these religious ladies in Houston, Texas are pole dancing in the name of Christ! Get your dollar bills ready to be thrown into those collection baskets, because the moves in this new exercise class, Pole Fitness for Jesus, are already full of win:



I just don't see how this is a good workout in terms of burning calories or even pumping up your heart rate!