R.I.P. Willi Ninja

It was the summer of '89 and Willi was sashaying up the hill to Schloss Neuschwanstein, that overly campy castle in the Bavarian mountains, which became the blueprint for the castle in Disney's Cinderella and subsequent corproate logo. Those Bavarians didn't quite know what to make of the King of Vogue who upstaged King Ludwig's castle that day. That glamorous charisma was the reason, why Malcom McLaren gave him center stage and Madonna just stole his dancers. Which (ever the den mother of the House of Ninja) he took in stride. After all, his protegees got to travel the world and dance in 'Truth or Dare' and the video for 'Vogue', while he went on to teach Naomi and Paris and dance in highbrow productions.

He'll be missed,

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There's a tribute to Willi Ninja with a list of links

There's also a video tribute to him on YouTube

Willi leading the house at the Love Ball

Hot Blooded

Hackers got into Governor Schwarzenegger's computer and published a recording , which was made during a speechwriting session with Schwarzenegger and his chief of staff, Susan Kennedy. They speculate about the ethnic background of state Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia. After ruminating if she was Cuban or Puerto Rican, Schwarzenegger says:"They are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it."

This should come as no surprise to historians. Another one of Schwarzenegger's timeless appreciations of Latin traits comes from his documentaryCarnival in Rio, which he shot for the Playboy Channel in 1983. While observing some scantily clad Samba dancers at Club Oba Oba in Rio Schwarzenegger muses: „You know something, after watching the mulatas shake it, I can absolutely understand why Brazil is totally devoted to my favorite body part: the ass."

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Time for a repost - watch Arnold in Rio

Way Down South

If you know our best man Rich you probably know that he's way down South in Antarctica doing sound on a film with director Anne Aghion and cinematographer Sylvestre Guidi. Even if you don't - he's been writing a blog about his days in the ice, which might be one of the best blogs around. Because it's brillant writing, not random blogging. From a place few ever get to go.

Photos by Richard Fleming (hills near McMurdo) and Anne Aghion (Rich On Ice).

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Read A Brooklynite On Ice

Official film site

Better Behave

There's a brillant new idea for making air travel safer: Behaviour Detection Officers. The TSA trained airport screeners to look, if you seem nervous, anxious, angry or in any other mood classified as potentially dangerous. Observed are facial expressions, body and eye movements, changes in vocal pitch and other indicators of stress or disorientation. The system is called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or SPOT. They're already on duty (see photo from Dulles Airport). The Israelis developed the program, although it sounds more like it was inspired by the 'What the fuck are YOU looking at'-school of communications from the streets of New York City. It all makes sense in the grander scheme. If America really wants to be the bully, it was about time it behaves that way on micro-levels as well.

Here in the US there have already been cases, where passengers were threatened with detention, just because their behaviour didn't please the officers. So remember: Don't pick your nose at check-in. Sit up straight at the gate. Don't get fresh with ground personnel. No smoking in the bathrooms. No chatting in the aisles. No soda pop in backpacks. Reminds you of third grade? Well, back then you got away with a scolding. Now it might land you on some no-fly list.

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Try "The Micro Expression Training Tool" developed by Paul Ekman, who helped the T.S.A. set up the new screening program, based partly on recognizing facial expressions.

New York State Of Mind

How many more old lefties trying to regain some relevance by milking the 911 tragedy does New York have to endure? First Bruce Springsteen. Then Neil Young. Now Oliver Stone wants to reinvent himself as a kind of Hollywood Norman Rockwell by bringing us a family values version of the attacks (did the backlash after his celebrity worshipping docs of Castro and Arafat have anything to do with that?). He does succeed in giving a taste of being trapped under megatons of rubble, by burying his audience under two very long hours of patriot shlock. But if a guy who rarely leaves the rosy hills of Hollywood wants to immortalize New York's biggest trauma, he at least might wanna know what he's doing.

Right at the beginning Stone outs himself as an out-of-towner. First there's the classic view from East Broadway with the NYC court and the Woolworth Building behind the Manhattan Bridge, which in the early morning of Septemer 11 would've still had the Twin Towers looming behind (missing in this shot). Then there's the Staten Island Ferry going South past the Statue of Liberty, cut to a guy glaring at the approaching skyline (which would mean going North).

The most obvious bungle is the turnaround moment of the first act, when officer Jimeno catches American Airlines flight # 11's shadow on the Westin Times Square Hotel's colorful facade. Which wasn't up yet that day (see photo, which shows the hotel's state of construction in December 2001). And oh yeah - the way that plane's flying North? It would've hit the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Bulding in Harlem and not the Twin Towers. C'mon Oliver Stone. Don't treat New York Ugly American style, like some Middle-Eastern backwater where it doesn't matter what's left and what's right. Alright, shoddy artistic license ain't half as bad as shoddily fucking up the War on Terror. Although it might explain the empty New York theaters last weekend.

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Watch the trailer featuring two and half of the aforementioned moments.

Deutschland

So Germans started to feel good about themselves again, waving their flag in soccer stadiums, music videos and from their car windows. It was kind of interesting to see who put away the flags after the soccer world cup was over and who didn't. Here in the US flags mostly adorn SUV and Pickups. German flag wavers tend to drive economy and compact cars.

Part of Germany's rather relaxed new soccer-craze-fueled self-assurance is also a new will to make fun of Hitler. Director Dani Levy has shot a comedy with Dadaist comedian Helge Schneider playing Hitler. And cartoon superstar Walter Moers sets Hitler's last musings to some Reggae beats:

Back In Town

Here's a new highlight in the history of bureaucracy courtesy of the Lufthansa ground personnel in Munich on a Sunday morning 6AM. "Yes you are in the computer, but I cannot process you, if you don't have a printout of your booking." - "But you see me listed as booked in the computer?" - "Yes, Sir." - "So you could print out the booking." - "I'm not authorized to do that." Lengthy discussions, a printout faxed from New York and good old Teutonic bitchiness are followed by a twin-engine turbo-prop flight to Frankfurt due to a lack of passengers to fill a jet, which makes the trip 20 minutes longer, so almost everybody on board had quite close connections, because who in his right mind would take a Sunday 6AM flight to Frankfurt, if he hadn't a connection to catch. Whatever happened to German efficiency? C'mon, you invented prejudice, so at least live up to the ones about you.

Gone Surfing