(Less) Exhausted Diligence

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“Imagine a kung fu flick in which the martial artists spout Situationist aphorisms about conquering alienation while decadent bureaucrats ply the ironies of a stalled revolution. This is what you’ll encounter in René Viénet’s’s outrageous refashioning of a Chinese fisticuff film. An influential Situationist, Viénet’s stripped the soundtrack from a run-of-the-mill Hong Kong export and lathered on his own devastating dialogue. . . . A brilliant, acerbic and riotous critique of the failure of socialism in which the martial artists counter ideological blows with theoretical thrusts from Debord, Reich and others. . . . Viénet’s’s target is also the mechanism of cinema and how it serves ideology.” Program Note

U B U W E B - Film & Video: René Viénet - Can Dialectics Break Bricks?

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Mixed commentary and a pretty clutch montage re: censorship problems facing dating reality show "If You Are the One" (非诚勿扰). Streaming in via Jiangsu Satellite TV, that arc of glittered women held me through many a long night in Hong Kong. (via The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia)

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Eh, mixed feelings. (via Handsome Furs)

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Yang Fudong, 'An Estranged Paradise', 1997-2002, 35 mm B&W film, Image courtesy: ShanghART Gallery Yang Fudong, 'An Estranged Paradise', 1997-2002, 35 mm B&W film. Image courtesy ShanghART Gallery. (via Yang Fudong’s video installations a contemporary form of Chinese hand scrolls | Art Radar Asia)

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Academics have a term for this: “adaptive authoritarianism.” As Peter L. Lorentzen of the University of California, Berkeley, has written, officials view protests as way to gauge popular discontent. Small-scale protests function as a feedback mechanism for the government of a country without an active civil society or elections. Far from being a harbinger of regime change, Lorentzen argues that, in China at least, they can stabilize the regime.

Do China’s Village Protests Help the Regime? by Ian Johnson | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

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Andersen played the role of Chairman Mao, sitting for a fictitious interview. “Have you seen Godard’s La Chinoise?” asked Kreamer, playing his interlocutor. “Have you seen Dali’s Mao/Marilyn?” “Chairman Mao, perhaps I might ask your opinion on birth control.” Tuten himself, a septuagenarian in a black blazer, sat at the front of the room, beaming with happiness at the event held in his honor.

Paris Review – The Long March, David Zax

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Promotional posters for Taiwan, a country with lots of delicious food (It’s true!) and fun.

I chose four images in each poster: Boba milk tea, chopsticks, National Palace Museum, Taipei 101

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Strangely the works representing by Stars Group member Ai Weiwei–the internationally recognized art impresario who captivates the media’s attention with his outspoken social and political critique–were created after the Stars Group main period of activity from 1979 to 1983 in Beijing. His 1985 coat hanger bent into a profile represents an homage to conceptual art’s godfather, Marcel Duchamp, and acknowledges the crucial dependence on Western art’s influence in Chinese contemporary art. (via China Institute: Blooming in the Shadows, Unofficial Chinese Art, 1974-1985 | RedBox Review)

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Timelapse of a taxi driver on night shift in Hong Kong (by AFP)

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Jiang, a Hong Kong corporate executive, has never been to the United States, and before buying his weekend home, he had no particular affection for cowboy culture or American life. But somewhere -- over dozens of weekends spent at a resort town that's part suburbia, part spaghetti Western film set -- curiosity got the better of him.

China’s Wild West - By Megha Rajagopalan | Foreign Policy

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My humble appeal to my (dozen?) loyal readers: as of a few months ago I've moved rather permanently to the hodge-podge hyperlink-laden commonplace book which is Tumblr. What is lost in advantage...

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The result is something of a hodgepodge: Mr. Coen is scheduled to join “Kekexili” director Lu Chuan to discuss the travails of moviemaking. Ms. Waters and “Omnivore’s Dilemma” author Michael Pollan will talk organic with Chinese food activists. Amy Tan is on tap to discuss growing up in two cultures, while Meryl Streep is slated to host a pre-premier screening of her latest film, “The Iron Lady.”

Meryl Streep, Alice Waters, Other U.S. Cultural Figures Take 'Class Trip' to China - China Real Time Report - WSJ

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“A gathering of Mercedes indicates a get-together for old folks,” the writer said. “A group of BMWs means young nouveaux riches are about to run someone over and have a party; several Audis, and you know it’s a government meeting.”

In China, Car Brands Evoke an Unexpected Set of Stereotypes - NYTimes.com