Anthem - New Things

Philippe Starck Reality T.V. Show on BBC2

nik.mercer — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:26:23 -0700

"BBC Two and Philippe Starck are teaming up for a brand new T.V. series to find the next great British designer."

What a concept. Obviously, reality T.V. shows have come a long way (in both a good and a bad sense) since they popped up in the 1990s and hit [an ugly] critical mass in the mid- to late-2000s. Programs about swapping wives, certain "bisexual" Hollywood chicks, angry internationally-renowned chefs, and select bachelors and bachelorettes successfully dumb down the general population with each passing season.

Now, though, Philippe Starck and BBC2 are collaborating for what might wind up being sort of interesting (albeit still a time-waster): Philippe Starck's School of Design. The show will set out to find "the next great British designer." Starck will be heading up a specially-made School of Design in Paris to instruct, observe, and (hopefully) frequently reprimand his naughty students. If hilarity doesn't ensue at some point on the program, we'll be a little let down... here's to hoping that Starck's true colors are fully exposed and he positions himself as the French response to chef Gordon Ramsay.

More information (and the necessary application!) can be found at the official homepage.

Seiichi Hayashi's "Red Colored Elegy"

nik.mercer — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:55:14 -0700

1960s Japan was a tumultuous era of revolution in which the dramatically separated left and right viciously and violently came head-to-head for a battle of political and social domination. The oft overlooked post-war time is noted as being a point in the nation's history when it could've morphed into a distinctly liberal society, but somehow failed to entirely.

Seiichi Hayashi, a manga artist, film (and commercial) director, art director, illustrator, and children's book author was a product of the turbulent time, and his 1970-1 masterpiece, Red Colored Elegy (Drawn and Quarterly) aptly depicts the frustration, confusion, and disillusionment the near-liberalization of the Nipponese yielded from the perspective of a young couple, Ichiro and Sachiko.

The two attempt to lead a healthy relationship built around their organic and natural love, but ultimately fail to overcome the traditions and inhibitors that their homeland's society places upon them (Sachiko's parents attempt to arrange her marriage, for example). In the end, Ichiro, an aspiring cartoonist, spends his days moping about, smoking cigarettes, sleeping, and fighting (often with surprisingly violent force) with Sachiko, a more diligent worker. Yet Sachiko herself is angst-ridden by the world she lives in. It's decidedly male-dominated, and she can't figure out how to carve her own path in it. At one point, she considers shaking up with a man six years her elder at the firm of her employment, but realizes the dishonesty in her thoughts.

While the underlying plot is somber, the core themes—love, growing up, individual vs. society—have no cultural, linguistic, or societal boundaries and make the read especially compelling and introspectively worthwhile. Red Colored Elegy is easy to derive unique meaning from.

Part of this is due to the fact that Hayashi's style is so incredibly sparse. In fact, his 235-page tome barely resembles the manga Westerners have become familiar with. There're no doe-eyed heroins, childish, almost girly male leads, and cartoonish villains in this post-modern work (it truly is a text and not just fluff). Hayashi omits the facial features of most supporting characters or else silhouettes them; he replaces possible backdrops with empty space, forcing the reader to make his own setting and backgrounds (literally like animation cells); he highlights motion not with action lines or speed marks, but with extra panels to divide time. (The panel technique is characteristic of manga. It slows the pace down—or speeds it up—by zooming in on a couple microseconds. Hayashi does it with incredible elegance.)

In his book, words are pictures and pictures are words. The synergy between word and line, text and drawing is what makes this read so enamoring, despite its slightly befuddling scenario (little historical context is given, although the action clearly takes place in the early-1970s).

Hayashi's genius is that he was able to essentially pare down his manga story to its bare minimum—if he removed any more, it would truly be a blank slate—without losing the raw emotive power it has. Comics in general often get a bad rep for not letting the mind wander like novels do. If anything, though, Red Colored Elegy lets you wander and fill in the blanks more than any piece of prose with it's delicate positioning of text, lines, panels, characters, and select contextual objects.

Buy Red Colored Elegy

Haruki Murakami, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"

nik.mercer — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:50:15 -0700

Reading a Haruki Murakami book is like reading something from a god. The characters, however flawed, always manage to save the day (or at least figure out a point to their own existence). The pop culture allusions keep them sounding fresh, not tabloid-y, and the surrealist elements in the novels are so flawlessly delivered you don’t even question a reality in which cats talk and Colonel Sanders is a spiritual guide. The dreamlike novels are so enriched with the remnants of our own world that you can’t help but think that Murakami must be some higher being blessed with the ability to read everyone perfectly and then write mind-bending novels about his observations.

But his new memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, reveals the elusive Murakami to be a pretty normal dude, struggling to keep a balance between marathon running, writing professionally and maintaining his life in New England and Japan. It even reveals some of his insecurities (what??)

The book—the title of which is a play off Raymond Carver’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Love—recounts Murakami’s days training for the marathon races all over the world, including Hawaii, Japan, Boston, and the famous New York City Marathon. Although most of the chapters are set between 2005 and 2006, Murakami delves into the past to provide context for his running obsession, and even more interesting, his transition into novel writing. Although the moment he realizes that he can write a novel—described as “something [that] flew down from the sky, at that instant”—is rather ordinary, it’s the simplicity in which Murakami transitions from jazz bar owner to professional writer, and later to amateur runner that’s striking. Murakami depicts these transitions as things that just happened rather than major life changes, which makes his success in both areas so intriguing. And he also makes personal goals seem so much more attainable for those out there who think the world is too unjust to even bother striving towards them.

Although this book mainly talks about his marathon training and ridiculously long running sessions, it somehow never gets boring. Maybe it’s the ease of the sentence structure, or his ability to make you feel the pain of running 62 miles in one day, but mostly is derives from Murakami’s humble persona. His isn’t afraid to address his fears in the book—which include hyperventilating before a triathlon or legs cramping up right before a finish line—or his personal defeats when he didn’t make his goal times in races. For a man whose written over fifteen novels, it’s refreshing to realize that he struggles with life problems, and unlike some of us, isn’t afraid to admit he’s not perfect!

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running may have made us realize that Murakami is no god, but we still love him anyway. If anything, it has only lowered his standard to the nicest, most intelligent man in the universe.

Municipal de Fútbol

nik.mercer — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:36:16 -0700

Los Angeles soccer leagues have never been so revered until Municipal de Fútbol, a two-volume, boxed book set co-published by L.A.'s own Textfield and Germany's Christoph Keller Editions.

The publication features a lengthy essay on one of L.A.'s most notorious soccer fields/parks, Lafayette Park, and further writing on the experience of playing the sport in the community. Each of the two slim volumes is prefaced with page upon page of soccer photos and encased in a beautiful green fabric cover that matches the box they're contained within. Additionally, each Municipal de Fútbol copy comes with a specially customized jersey, set of nine artist lithographs, and a large poster.

You can view more photos of the elegant release and order it from YouWorkForThem.