Stories about Arts & Culture from May, 2006
China: Blogger beauty pageant
The winner of a recent blogger beauty pageant which wrapped up in Beijing earlier this month walked away with $10,000 in prizes and all the fans she could ever want. “[T]he girls were judged on number of votes they received online, the quality (creativity, originality) of their blog posts, blog...
Trinidad & Tobago: Germany 2006's media darlings
They've appeared in Esquire magazine, several television and print ads and one of them's writing a column for the UK Guardian — the media cannot seem to get enough of the Soca Warriors, Trinidad & Tobago's football team. Stacy-Marie Ishmael at the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup Blog rounds up...
Trinidad & Tobago: Minty messages
Elspeth Duncan contemplates the charms of Trinidad and Tobago's iconic KC Dinner Mints, known for the “often grammatically challenged love messages” on their wrappers. (Among the messages Elspeth recalls seeing are “A women in love” and “True love never die”). To satisfy her curiosity about the circumstances of their composition,...
Russia: Ad Agency's Owner Advertises Himself
Konstantin Dlutskiy of Russian Marketing Blog writes about a new entertainment for Smolensk residents: they are making bets on whether the guy who put billboads of himself all over town manages to win his wife back this way.
Russia: Translating Joseph Brodsky
David McDuff of A Step At A Time has posted an interview with himself, in which he talks about what it was like to work with Joseph Brodsky on his poetry and prose translations: “I think it needs to be remembered that for Joseph the process of translating his own...
Russia: Krasnodar Encounters
Brigid of Laughter in the Dark writes about the well-meaning but racist director of Krasnodar’s archive; a Krasnodar woman whose dream is to move to the United States; and a Kuban State University historian who would really love to have a map of the world made in the United States....
Russia: Pensioners Get Young TV Stars Drafted
Yuri Mamchur of Russia Blog writes that four participants of a Russian reality show might get drafted because of a letter to the Russian minister of defense from a group of angry elderly women: “Mrs. Vrubel has a 17 year old grandson who is due for his mandatory army service...
Russia: A River “Walk”
Raffi Aftandelian of maaskva: nashimi glazami took a “river tram” down the Moskva River, part of the Moscow Cultural Walks initiative, and wrote about it both in English and in Russian: “The boat was just spilling with interesting people. I met a post-production sound man, psychologists, journalists, some delightfully out-there...
Russia, Ukraine: Misspelled Name & Border-Crossing
Stephan of Everybody I Love You writes about his “extreme Russia” adventure: dacha, banya – and problems at the Russian-Ukrainian border caused by a misspelled name on his Russian entry visa.
Philippines: Portraits of young musicians
Sidney Snoeck has portraits of young “kalutang” musicians. The “kalutang” is a folk musical instrument made of two pieces of wood and originates from Marinduque province of Philippines.
Cayman Islands: Gay cruise song
With another gay-themed cruise ship about to berth at Grand Cayman, Cayman Bobby is amused by the lyrics of a new song by local artist Barefoot Man recounting Caymanians’ attitudes to the last gay cruise to land on the island and points to some local double standards. Cayblogger disagrees, however,...
Togo: National Treasures in German Hands?
Blogger Kangni Alem contends that (Fr) “no national treasures (…) were taken from Togo by the Germans” but rather that “what colonization generally speaking stole from the Togolese is their soul.” Nevertheless, he plans to tour German museums this summer to test his theory and cautions “do not count on...
Senegal: Forum on Cheikh Anta Diop
Semett announces (Fr) an upcoming forum taking place from May 25 to May 28 in Dakar entitled “20 years Later: the Intellectual and Scientific Legacy of Cheikh Anta Diop and the Challenge of the Building of Africa in the 21st Century.”
The Global Voices Show #1
Global Voices is pleased to announce the first of our new magazine-style podcasts, which aim to do for online audio what the Global Voices web site does for text blogs — introduce listeners to some of the exciting offerings from podcasters around the world. In this episode we feature the...
Mexico: Unfortunate Name
In a post titled “unfortunate name Eduardo Arcos says that the Policy Interpretation Network on Children’s Health and Environment (AKA “PINCHE Project”) will need to change it's name if it ever comes to Mexico. In a related item, León Felipe Sánchez has posted a photograph of an attention-grabbing, if not...
Lithuania: Eurovision Mania
Andy H of Csikszereda Musings writes about the Eurovision Song Contest, which he watched in Lithuania this year: “Lithuania got maximum points from Ireland, in what I thought was testament to the Irish love of a good joke, but was told today that it’s because there are loads of Lithuanians...
Indonesia: Jakarta Biennale 2006
Juliana has pictures from the Opening of Jakarta Biennale 2006.
Cote d'Ivoire: Preparing for the World Cup
An article posted by Rewmi Abidjan says (Fr) Cote d'Ivoire is preparing for the Soccer World Cup. The team will be recouping from the African Cup during its first week of training, says its trainer Henri Michel. The team will then prepare for a friendly match against Switzerland to take...
African Music #9
There is nothing like a local library that truly caters for the community. Wandering around my local library I came across a CD “Africa Remix (Ah Freak Iya)” and the tracklisting was a delight. It was released to compliment the Africa Remix '05 exhibition, one of which i had the...
Hong Kong: Literary history
On the latest episode of Danwei TV we see EastSouthWestNorth blogger Roland Soong take Danwei‘s Jeremy Goldkorn around Hong Kong in search of landmarks featured in Eileen Chang‘s (张爱铃) novel Love in a Fallen City (顷城之恋).
Camoes Literature Prize goes to Angolan writer Luandino Vieira
Luandino Vieira, from Angola, has been chosen for the 2006 Edition of Camões Prize
