Coming to America

Brillant essay on race in America - an African take on life on US campuses from the Bullets & Honey blog that I found through the website of Kenya's literary magazine Kwani:
It's called Friendly Advice to the African Headed to Liberal Arts College America. There's a chapter on sexual frustrations in the land of Puritans called 'The Drought': "The Drought will lead you down several wrong paths. It will make you believe for instance that the slow-nodding liberal girl from a small town in California is about to give you action. Nothing could be further from the truth, she is likely of the opinion that you are a diseased pet placed on campus for her entertainment." And it teaches how to use racial stereotypes to one's advantage: "You must do occasional writerly huffs and adopt a few eccentricities. Walking barefoot on a snowy day for example will go a long way to excusing your every absence from collegial gatherings."

Moby Dick

Here's a great Hollywood rumor - Peter Jackson's gonna shoot 'Moby Dick'. Makes perfect sense. It's all there: The myth, the quest, the journey, the overwhelming obstacles, the beast, the timely symbolism. Especially the timely symbolism. Is there a better story than Moby Dick to illustrate the Bush administration's foreign policy? With Donald Rumsfeld as Ahab, Condoleezza Rice as Starbuck (who'd YOU think she should play?), Karl Rove as Stubb, Richard Perle as Flask, George W. Bush as Queequeg, Dick Cheney as Tashtego, Paul Wolfowitz as Daggoo, Ahmed Chalabi as Fedallah and the American public as Ishmael. Well hopefully Ishmael survives Ahab's quest in this version as well.

So will Jackson remake John Huston's classic or shoot his own?

Touché

Here's an interesting conundrum to keep an eye on - the US just asked Germany to take in 15 Chinese prisoners from Guantantamo Bay, because upon their return to China they might be executed. They're Uighurs from the Muslim region of Xinjiang in China's northwest who had been detained in 2002. Since Germany has been one of the most vocal critics of American policy and Merkel the only Western leader to openly call for the closing of Guantanamo this might be a reasonable favor to ask. Especially since there's some Uighurs living in Bavaria somewhere, so the 15 released Guantanamo Bay inmates could stay within that community. Now Germany's balking, because it does not want to put strains on its relations with China and fears accepting the Uighurs would be seen in Beijing as a hostile act. Sure this just proves the role of morals in politics once more, but the real point here might be the question, that while insisting on being a lapdog nation one shouldn't choose the masters a bit more wisely.
In May Chancellor Merkel will return to D.C. for another visit.

Product Placement Cinema

Antoine Fuqua just directed the most elaborate allegory for tire traction ever. With John Malkovic and Naomi Campbell playing Good and Evil, Pirelli released "The Call" on the web and continues the tradition of product placement cinema, which BMW started with the eight-part series "The Hire". Which actually launched the career of Clive Owen who almost became the new James Bond, as hinted prematurely in Steve Martin's "Pink Panther".

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Watch The Call.

Starpower

This is the guy J. Lo's husband Marc Anthony will play in the upcoming, J.Lo-produced film 'El Cantante': Hector Lavoe. Seen here with the Fania All Stars performing in Kinshasa/Zaire for the Ali-Foreman fight in 1974.
Lavoe was a great tragic figure of the mid 70s Fania scene here in New York. his life's story one of those epic dramas just begging for a biopic. Moved from Puerto Rico to New York, became a huge star, couldn't handle fame, succumbed to heroin, got famous for his tardiness (Johnny Pacheco even wrote a song about Lavoe's inability to show up on time for anything: 'El rey de la Puntualidad'), became suicidal, then his house burnt down, his mother was murdered in Puerto Rico, his son shot dead by a friend.
In 1993 Hector Lavoe died from Aids, which he contracted from intravenous drug use. None of his albums are currently in print, so I guess Mr. and Ms. J-Lo used their starpower for a work of pure passion.

Cult of Mac

The New York Times website ran the news that Apple is allowing Windows to run on it's machines as the lead. Just as other media treated this as the big news of the day. Aren't these ecumencial undetones while reporting a mere technicality taking the adoration of suppliers of electronic goods a bit too far? Is it like 1520 and Martin Luther and the pope just announced they wanna be friends again?

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Get more news about Macintosh fanatic behaviour on The Cult of Mac blog.

Barney & Bjoerk

They need HELP ! Seriously. Self-indulgency and pretension have reached a worrisome stage. Even if that trailer looks oh so mesmerizing. Couldn't they've just shot a PSA against whaling instead? And - is Bjoerk Matthew Barney's Yoko Ono? Or the other way around?

Scam You

The biggest hit in Nigeria is currently the song 'I Go Chop Your Dollar' by a group named Osofia. The song is actually sung by Nigerian comedian Nkem Owho and is featured in his film "The Master", which is a comedy about the so-called 419 scammer. You met them - they are the guys writing you e-mail promising you a cut of the multimillion Dollar riches one or the other relative of a deposed African official has to rescue from Africa. If you just front some of the staggering transfer fees. 419 scammers are named after the Nigerian criminal code penalizing this type of fraud. They're well known all over the world, but still get away with billions of Dollars from gullible victims in Europe and America. If you think Nigerians feel bad about them, watch the video and listen to Owho sing: "I go chop your Dollar, I make all your money disappear. 419 is just a game. You are the loser. I am the winner."