Shanghai Shoe Shine
street performance
03.07
phew! just got back from China. spent one week in the intense world of Shanghai. all my previous shock at the intensity of Osaka receeded into irrelevance.
as soon as we stepped out of the subway from the airport we were spotted like fresh meat. the hawkers descended on us. "HELLO! WATCH, BAG!" they yell right in your face "HELLO! DVD, CD!" and ignore you when you shake your head and say "no thank you" and the shoe shiners too - they sneak up on you and squirt their shoe goo on your boots. i got gooed twice and had to sprint away from 4 of them on my first day.
it pissed me off like hell at first until i formulated the perfect plan. i decided to hunt them out and film them shining my shoes as often as possible. a street performance, so to speak. suddenly i looked forward to them. after one shine i would rub dirt back on my boots and look for some more. wicked.
Cellulite Rose
A cross section of my collection:
Phil Collins, Chris Isaak, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Elton John, Vanilla Ice, Cindy Lauper etc
Recommended:
Yes directed by Sally Potter, check out the cleaners in this film- they're fantastic, and the monologues about dirt. Deliciously complicated dealing with racism / cross-cultural politics.
Shortbus directed by John Cameron Mitchell (same guy that did "Hedwig and the Angry Inch") Sexy movie with some great characters. Its set in an underground sex club in New York. And music done by the very awesome band Yo La Tengo.
Don't even bother:
Babel How embarassing, lets get stereotypes of lots of different cultures and put them all in the same movie and maybe it will be like 'cultural equality' and then lets make it a happy ending ie. everyone can end in tragedy except the pretty white americans...
Love Ritual II
stills from video
the moon