Tamara Dean

WE'RE SUPPORTING

I spent last weekend at the New York Film Festival watching director Wong Ka-Wai’s inspiring lecture and premier of Ashes Of Time Redux, the remastered, re-edited, re-scored 1994 Hong Kong classic. It was just drop-dead gorgeous and painfully beautiful. Words fail me. Wong Ka-Wai is just pure genius. It opens Friday in New York City. Don’t miss it.

WE'RE THINKING

The artwork of James Belcher is dark and evocative, mini snapshots from an overstimulated mind.

WE'RE READING

I am really into Hong Kong action flicks from the 1980s and 90s. When I first moved to New York, there were a handful of curious friends who were also interested in watching movies such as City on Fire by Ringo Lam, which Reservoir Dogs was based on. How did they find videos like thus? At the legendary Kim’s Video in New York City. These days, City on Fire can be find online, and Kim’s is history. But all the videos that entertained the film geeks of this city for more than twenty years have found a new home in, wait for it, Salemi, Sicily. Yes, the southern island of Italy. Kim has recently relocated there, as this sad but heartwarming story about him in yesterday’s New York Times reveals.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Where would we be without synths and drum machines? Probably still listening to Grateful Dead jams in the alleyways of Height-Asbury. Done well, the remix is a wonderful thing. Case in point is Royksopp’s rendering of the Kings of Convenience track I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From. And then there’s Riton’s version of the Mystery Jets song, The Boy Who Ran Away. A White Lines for the 21st Century? I think so.

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WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

Cambodian born photographer Frederic Chaubin is the editor of French magazine Citizen K. His photo series on bizarre buildings built in the former Soviet Union during the 1970s and 80s is absolutely fascinating. Read more

There was a time, many moons ago, when I would only listen to bands off New Zealand’s Flying Nun label. Yup, I would strap myself into a comfy chair, put my headphones on and, armed with a chunk of chocolate coated Peanut Slab and a can of L&P, soak up album after album of wonderfully self-indulgent low-fi melancholy. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

Illustrator Hope Gangloff has a stack of her ‘election’ tees from the previous US election available for sale which she created with the talented New York-based artist (and her hubbie, no less!), Ben Degen. Even though they were done to mark Bush’s reappointment, they still kinda sum up her mood on the tussle between Obama and McCain. ‘If the election gets stolen’, she says. ‘What say we burn down the capital instead of blogging about it?’. Hmmm, now there’s an idea.