Stories about Arts & Culture from March, 2006
India: An artist and her art
The Middle Stage on the art, life and times of Amrita Sher-Gil. “Half-Indian and half-Hungarian, of aristocratic lineage, she was born in Budapest and brought up in the Hungarian capital and in Shimla. She studied art in Paris in the wake of high modernism”
Irshad Manji deceives and doctors are the most likely to blog in Morocco
Now that I'm becoming more familiar with the Moroccan blogosphere, I can tell that one of its characteristics is the fact that many of its members are doctors or student-doctors. In this week's roundup, we'll find out what interested some of those doctors-bloggers last week. We'll also pay a visit...
Nigeria: Vagina Monologues
Ore's Notes writes about her visit to see the Vagina Monlogues in Lagos last Thursday… Ore is not so sure about the call to reclaim words like “the C-Word” as a means of removing power from the speaker of the word.
Ethiopia's bloggers remember their poet laureate
Memories of one man dominated the Ethiopian blogosphere over the past few weeks – the father of Ethiopian theatre and Poet Laureate Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin. His death in late February went unnoticed by much of the international and African press outside Ethiopia. So it was largely down to the country's bloggers,...
Chilean Art through Blogs
Víctor Castillo s art work Chilean artists are discovering blogs as a way to introduce their work in Chile and in new markets. Bitacora del Artista (ES), is a blog that has a selection of Chilean modern artists. All fields of art are included. Tropicaltoxic posts about illustrations, Sergio Lay...
Images from Venezuela: From Bolívar Avenue
“Desde la Av. Bolívar” by Guillermo Amador Bograd The main bridge of the Caracas La Guaïra highway wasn't the only thing to fall down on Sunday. More than 1,500 Venezuelans dropped their drawers for American photographer Spencer Tunick who has been capturing large groups of naked volunteers in major cities...
Cayman Islands: Grammar
Fed up with the quality of the writing in his comment thread, Cayblogger urges the people of the Cayman Islands “to unite in your indignation of all things grammatically incorrect, and stand up against the scourge of poor grammar”.
Aruba: The value of Lent
Though not a Catholic, ArubaGirl still appreciates the value of Lent as a period of rest and reflection after the frenzy of Carnival. Among her compatriots, however, she notes an increasing indifference towards observing the season.
Caribbean/Latin America: Two architectures
Jon at Posthegemony posts two architectural analyses: one on “an architecture designed to repel nomads”, also known as forts, and another on architecture designed to attract them, in this particular case, the Internationalist-style Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
China: Down on the gold farm
AsiaPundit showcases a video clip of Chinese rural communities engaged in “gold-farming”, where players work their way through the lower levels of online games on behalf of others, in return for virtual currency. These “gold farmers” work every day, in 12-hour shifts, playing computer games to harvest gold coins and...
China: Participatory gangster yarn
ESWN has translated extracts from one of the most popular forum posts on Tianya, entitled “My Seven Years in the World of Gangsters”. Ostensibly a memoir of someone who has now left the triad fraternity and is looking back on his experiences there, the fictive nature of the story becomes...
Belarus: Plans to Invite U2 to Minsk Maidan
19. People's Blog on the Presidential Election reports (RUS) that Lyavon Volski, a Belarusian rock musician whose band NRM is often not allowed by the regime to play in Belarus, intends to invite U2 to sing at Minsk's Oktyabrskaya Sq. in support of democracy in Belarus.
The Caribbean blogosphere does Phagwah
A chowtal group performs at the Phagwah celebrations in Trinidad. By Nicholas Laughlin In the Caribbean, the Hindu spring festival of Holi is more commonly known by its Bhojpuri name of Phagwah. This past week, Hindus in the Caribbean celebrated Phagwah, with non-Hindus like Caribbean Free Radio also taking part...
Cuba: The Bicitaxi
Zenia pays tribute (ES) to a great Cuban invention: the “bicitaxi”. “A ride in a bicitaxi can be very folkloric, as en route the passenger can get the latest news on black market prices, the quality of electrical goods. . . .”
China: Animating domestic talent
Angry Chinese Blogger writes a long analysis of China’s fledgling animation industry, noting a new initiative to stimulate domestic talent in a market that is largely dominated by foreign imports.
Buying In, Selling Out or Scraping By: Francophone African Bloggers on Social Mobility and Education
School on Hold While Mom Scrapes By Carine. Courtesy Tony Katombe. Le Blog du Congolais shares (FR) the touching story of Carine, a 22 year-old from the DRC with an infectious smile who sells omelettes and doughnuts during school hours: Today I don't feel like eating Carine's omelettes. I can't...
The Week That Was in Bahrain
While the F1 was at full speed, some of Bahrain's bloggers at home and abroad were enjoying cultural and arts activities while others were immersed in politics!
Slovenia: Zlatorog
Isoglossia shares all he knows about Slovenia's Zlatorog, or the Golden Horn: “the goat, the myth, the beverage, the soap.”
Serbia & Montenegro: Eurovision Conflict
Ed at Balkan Baby writes that Serbia and Montenegro seriously disagree on who should represent their country at this year's Eurovision Song Contest: No Name, a Montenegrin boy-band, or a Serbian band called Flamingoes? “Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic said that this music competition had caused ‘much more excitement last...
Guyana: Buying mangoes
Guyana-gyal learns that there are risks involved in buying mangoes.
Caribbean: Women writers’ blog
Over at BlogHer, Karen Walrond announces her new project, The Pan Collective, “a community blog featuring the voices of wonderful women writers from the Caribbean”.
