This article, about a rather peculiar business practice in China, is quite amusing, I think you will agree. Hell, with my look, I would be in high demand there! From The Atlantic:

Not long ago, I was offered work as a quality-control expert with an American company in China I’d never heard of. No experience necessary—which was good, because I had none. I’d be paid $1,000 for a week, put up in a fancy hotel, and wined and dined in Dongying, an industrial city in Shandong province I’d also never heard of. The only requirements were a fair complexion and a suit.

“I call these things ‘White Guy in a Tie’ events,” a Canadian friend of a friend named Jake told me during the recruitment pitch he gave me in Beijing, where I live. “Basically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We’ll be in ‘quality control,’ but nobody’s gonna be doing any quality control. You in?”

I was.

And so I became a fake businessman in China, an often lucrative gig for underworked expatriates here. One friend, an American who works in film, was paid to represent a Canadian company and give a speech espousing a low-carbon future. Another was flown to Shanghai to act as a seasonal-gifts buyer. Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image—particularly, the image of connection—that Chinese companies crave. My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: “Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face.”

I just have one question: What KIND of racism is this? Positive racism? Lucrative racism? Self-loathing Chinese racism? It’s clearly racism of one stripe or another, seemingly positive, at least for white males who look like business men, but still, it’s a bit confusing, isn’t it?

Rent a White Guy: Confessions of a fake businessman from Beijing (The Atlantic)

Via Steve Silberman’s always interesting Twitter feed

 
It feels like a Pop Group sort of day, so here we have a couple of vintage promo clips I’ve never stumbled upon before. Having long loved the records, the clips are a bit of shock. Such wholesome looking kids in their nice new wave gear making all that racket ! I never managed to see the doc that Mr Novicoff posted about here nearly a year ago and it doesn’t appear to be available anywhere. I both snooze and lose. Still, the shriek of vocalist Mark Stewart is a true force of nature, a sound like no other !

 
The great Mixmaster Morris drew my attention to this bit of coverage of the G20 demonstrations in Toronto this weekend by Miguel Barbosa’s YEAH! Films Company. Clip #1 is more raw, and seems to have been converted to the more stylized clip #2. It seems like some of the most de-sensationalized, semi-balanced coverage so far, although Barbosa & co. seem rather generally disenchanted by the protestors, as shown in his posting on the YEAH! site:

If your going to attack a city, I would suggest weapons & better tactics. I knew these guys were gonna attack 10 minutes before it happened…

Anyways, they didn’t like people taking photos & video. It was kind of too late only a few minutes into the protest, the year is 2010, and everybody has some sort of camera. One protester attacked me when I yelled “Do you think this burning car is going to change the world?”

I hope you at home are sane and human enough to see what they did to this city & what they put innocent people through is completely wrong. It was embarrassing for the City of Toronto and it was embarrassing for Canadians. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. I heard you guys smashed a Tim Hortons. If that isn’t crossing the line I don’t know what is.

Barbosa points out the extreme mediation of the event—“everybody has some sort of camera.” Although it can be useful in documenting and possibly preventing police abuse—which seems to have been somewhat the case since, say, Chicago ’68—it’s hard not to detect a bit of collective narcissism as well.

Is there any doubt that the anti-globalization protest video is now its own genre?
 

 
Exactly what the world needs…

And yet another Teletubbie is subjected to the horrors of circuit bending. This poor fellow has been gutted and halved, and his skull has been de-fluffed so that his electronic guts could be relocated behind his face (a major improvement, I dare say). He is now rebuilt and can happily jabber on, speaking the eloquent language of circuit bent toys, like a power tool being tossed about in a blender that is tumbling down several flights of metal stairs. Poetry. Enjoy!

(via Mister Honk)

MC Gunsmoke
 
When done right, the underground music genre primer can be the most dynamic type of documentary. We’ve seen it time and again, whether it’s punk, hip-hop, or in this case the hugely energetic scene surrounding the dance music subgenre known as jungle in early-‘90s London. In 1994, the All Black show on BBC 2 presented this community-conscious look at a genre that would eventually morph into a largely over-the-top mish-mash of sci-fi imagery and unsubtle software flogging.

At the time of the doc, jungle is definitely posited as young, multicultural black music, and treated in classically analytical BBC style. DJs, producers, MCs, label people, academics—everybody seems to chime in on issues of roots, authenticity and commercialism. Not only do you get an intro to the basic ingredients of the music—the samples! the reggae! the soul! the basslines! the breakbeats! the speed!—but the producers even weave in some drama surrounding a club gig starring the legendary Shy FX and his crew.

Of course, this program fails to feature some of the genre’s giants, like Goldie, Roni Size or Dillinja. But the American Moonshine Music label sent journalists a VHS copy of this doc along with their compilation Law of the Jungle for good reason—it’s a quality document of a time now long gone. Check it!
 

 
Via Manooshi, memes, memories… Timestamp

 
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? is expat American in Paris, William Klein’s satirical look at the mid-60s world of fashion. In my opinion, it’s one of the best shot movies of all time. Notice in these clips from the film, just how much Klein is cramming into each meticulously arranged wide-angle shot. His composition is nothing short of breath-taking, up there with the very best cinematographers of world cinema. Who Are You Polly Magoo” will be dissected frame by frame by film aficionados (and music video directors), probably forever. This film was incredibly difficult to see until Criterion put if out as part of the excellent DVD box The Delirious Fictions of William Klein in 2008.

Original movie posters for WIlliam Klein’s films are scarce and can cost a pretty penny (say $1000). I searched for a reasonably priced 60s vintage Polly Maggoo poster for some time before opting for a Japanese reissue poster with the top image here printed on mirror-like mylar. It looks amazing and only cost $20!
 

 
C’est magnifique!

 
Nice! Multi-talented Noel Fielding of the Mighty Boosh has an upcoming show of Bryan Ferry-themed paintings at London patisserie Maison Bertaux and a new non-narrative (that could mean a lot of things!) program coming up on the E4 network. From the Guardian:

Noel had his first show there in late 2007 and he’s looking forward to the launch of this one. “I was thinking of getting everyone to wear Bryan Ferry masks and then I’ll dress up as the Jelly Fox and challenge them to a mass game of badminton. Or something.”

This makes more sense when you know that the show is to be called Bryan Ferry vs The Jelly Fox. It will feature a shrine to Ferry, including a large portrait of the Roxy Music singer, as well as a picture of a tree, with Ferry masks hanging off, and another with a headless man on a hill, a Bryan Ferry kite flying high above his neck. The Jelly Fox is part of another convoluted fantasy, a little like The Wizard of Oz, in which three characters go in search of the Jelly Fox: “This one doesn’t speak, this one says ‘Am I nothing?’ and this one, Little Chrissie, is the main narrator.” . All may end up as part of a new series Fielding is making for E4.

What will it be like? Well, there are random stories in it, though Fielding says he got a little bored of narrative after the third series of the Boosh on BBC3. But he doesn’t want to make a traditional sketch show, either. Not that his explanation of some of the concept (he’s living in a jungle and becomes the local newsreader) sounds traditional, though he insists he’s partly inspired by the Kenny Everett show.

Noel Fielding’s Life of Bryan (The Guardian)

Childmen in New York (with recent Boosh Q&A at the 92nd St Y) (The Velvet Onion)

Thank you Paul Gallagher!

 
Dr. Michio Kaku tells what he would do about the BP oil spill if he were President. If only he were charge! (And if only 1/10th of the lip flapping punditry were as well-informed as he is… *sigh*)

 
Whatever drugs he’s on, I want a barrel of ‘em!

Via WFT Japan Seriously