Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
This won’t be the first or the last. Pharrell treks around Tokyo and does interviews and gives his own viewpoints about 3-11. A fun note: Kunichi Nomura is in this. Ages ago, perhaps in 2000, or even 1999, he interviewed GR for Sputnik magazine. This is only part one where Pharrell interviews creatives for his documentary type project.
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Kristina Wong‘s Big Bad Chinese Mama was one of the raddest Asian/gender studies projects ever. The zine-flavored, post-Riot Grrrl website gave the Mad magazine treatment to LA Weekly‘s personal ads, and has proceeded to deflate the erections of countless Internet surfers around the world. Since then, Kristina has gone legit. Sort of. She receives grants, hogs stages, and wins awards as a one-woman show/wrecking crew. Wong Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is her best-known piece, covering the crowd-pleasing topics of depression and suicide (which are disproportionately popular with Asian women). The performance has been captured on film and will premiere at the Burbank International Film Festival on Thursday, September 15–the same day she returns from a solo backpacking trip though Southeast Asia. I intruded on her getaway with some quick questions about the event… MW: One of the best parts of doing a live show–especially a one-person one–is being able to fine-tune it to your audience. How did you set up an “ultimate” performance of Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to preserve in concert film format? KW: We filmed it in late 2008 during the middle of a three-week run I did in L.A. for a live audience. I had been touring it for about two years at that point. When I first started the show, it scared me and there were points when I wasn’t sure if I was going to get through it. Most of the jokes in the show were things that were refined over dozens of shows with a live audiences. By the time we got to shoot it, I really felt like a rodeo champ. As for “ultimate” performance, Mike Closson (the director) and I met over hundreds of hours trying to figure out if we should rewrite the show for camera, shoot on location, etc., but when it came down to it, the show was made for a theater and the content would change if we rewrote it as a screenplay. My patience was waning and we didn’t want to wait any longer for a perfect time. Perfect was now. And “now” was 2008! MW: Does having the movie bring any sense of closure? I know you still performances booked! KW: Into the fourth year of touring this show I realized all my friends were getting married, cranking out kids and buying houses while I was putting on the same costume and doing my depression show over and over again on the road, talking to strangers about the heavy topic of suicide, and then returning home to the same post- college apartment in West L.A. It wasn’t a great feeling; it was an existential crisis. I began to wonder if I’d still be touring this show 20 years from now because, perhaps, it was the only thing I was good at doing and the only thing people would pay to see. But now, it is great to have a DVD/film archive that can now go to places where my live show cannot. And...
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Apple loses another phone… IPhone 5 prototype. The money maker? Sell it to China. Some money makers want to bootleg this badly. So a hot job? A middle person agency to broker such deals. Get your hands on the Kardashian Tape? IPhone 5? The prototype Scarlet 2 Camera? Sell it to the right parties in China. One deal might be worth a years salary. For now though, maybe this is all a hoax by Apple. (Cnet – IPhone)
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Thai Elephant gets prosthetic leg. Not much to say about this, right? But it shows Thailand’s love for their elephants. (Huffington Post – Elephant Prosthetic Leg)
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It’s not that North Korea has a new cruise ship. Big deal right? A cruise to witness famine? Perhaps it’s a possible suicide trip or a secret military mission all in one. But the photo by Reuters shows something different and revealing. North Korea is doing the Asian Squat. We are used to seeing the photos of marching soldiers, perhaps those cardboard color image crowd “paintings”. Famine shots make it out as well, but the squat with perfect form? We do see variations of heel up and heel down, armpits close to knee, and some aren’t, but this is the latest revelation. The cruise ship? What cruise ship? (Reuters – N. Korea Cruise Ship)
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