Word of the month is..."triptych"

The cool things seem to be coming in threes. Last week I finally got to see Tokyo, the arty independent film from three directors, Michel Gondry, Léos Carax and Bong Joon-ho. The two "bookend" films ("Hiroko and Akira in Tokyo" and "Shaking Tokyo") were beautifully done, but "Merde" has been acknowledged as challenging and hard to understand. That doesn't mean it was crap ;) but Jason and I fell asleep?! OMG!

At a separate event, last month was Augustin Kofie's art exhibition at 01 Gallery which featured a large triptych that showed off the scale and detail of his work. Those pieces were wonderful, but I didn't feel I had a few grand to kick around.


So, that's why this month's word is "triptych."

Asian hip hop weekend...?

I have Tigarah in my MySpace friends list, but she never told me she moved to LA?! Hmmm.

As G4's The Feed says: "Japanese rapper Tigarah is truly one of a kind. She’s among the only female MCs on the planet with a major label deal. She’s part of an even smaller group of Japanese rappers on the scene. And she’s realy, really cute! Seriously."

I wrote up her story for our music blog, SEEN, and the boys even got some tunes from her producer, Mr. D, for *free* download. Check it out here.

BAPE, BAPY, APEE...Hmmm

I checked out the BAPE store in Taipei - a large ~4,000 sq ft, 2 storey retail statement. On the ground floor is the regular "A Bathing Ape" gear, although the sales guy distinguished between the black label collection. Yea, whatever ;-)

Upstairs was more interesting to me. There I saw the "BAPY" and "APEE" lines -for women and femal teens, respectively. It made me think of the Portfolio article I read about the struggles Nigo, BAPE's founder, is facing as he and his team try to create a worldwide brand that still has some significance to his peers and fans.

It reminds me the challenge Stussy had in the early 90s. To compare, BAPE has worldwide sales of $59m ($24m more than Stussy)!

On researching, my revelation was that one of Toyko's Major Force record-label founders (and Wild Bunch collaborator), Hiroshi Fujiwara, ventured into clothing and apparel (Goodenough and Head Porter) which are now some of the most revered Japanese streetstyle labels, oft quoted by cool hunters.

Tokyo Undressed

Vice Magazine always delivers the coolest stuff, but everyone should pray they never feature in its 'Dos and Don'ts' Polaroid section where people get dissed for the most random things ;-)

The latest email from Vice had news of a blog from Rikki Kasso, a 27 year-old American photographer who moved to Tokyo a couple of years ago. He takes photos of pretty Japanese girls in various states of undress and puts them on his blog called, funnily enough, Tokyo Undressed. Oddly enough, one photo shoot linked up with Kozyndan, one of my favourite contempory artists.

What I was intrigued about, especially since I've been to Japan was the photos mainly in the 'love hotels' (hey, can we call they l'otels? ;-) ) This is a whole part of the pop culture around the cities. I love these websites for what they reveal about the whole love hotel phenomenon: Justin lived in Japan, and this Japan Visitor is an informative website with, hmmm, info!

The Vice readers's comments expressed both joy and distaste at Rikki's Asian fetish...If you look at his blog it is a bit weird, but he has seven blogs in all ranging from customised clothing being sold in the US to sketches and drawing. Hmmm. I wonder if his cute Japanese wife features in his voyeuristic photos? Nice.