Mamahuhu + more things

1 minutes estimated reading time

Scarlett, Shanghai and Me is a short film by comedy troupe Mamahuhu. They describe it as a film about coming to the end of your life as an expat in China. But I thought it was interesting as an examination of our lives with technology. Major Chinese cities now routinely use facial recognition as a biometric ‘key’ for things like entry access and voice services. Mamahuhu then ply a good deal of creative licence on top. The technology drives a ‘programmed’ world around you, what I’ve called in the past, the web-of-no-web.

Action Bronson’s latest single Latin Grammys taps into Bronson’s long held love of bodybuilding and powerlifting. The video is like a sophisticated version of JibJab’s Elf Yourself with the sheen of VHS tinged nostalgia.

Sam Chui got a behind the scenes tour with United Airlines to see how they were preparing for passenger flights in a COVID-world. Its fascinating to see how they’re re-engineered the passenger experience and back-end pre-flight processes such as cleaning the plane. It’s fascinating to watch, I am curious to see how much of this will stay when the COVID crisis is over?

If you have ever watched Reservoir Dogs; or listened to the soundtrack you will know the ‘boss radio’ sound. (The Reservoir Dogs soundtrack was very popular in its own rights; in a similar way to The Guardians of The Galaxy mixtape of a few years go). ‘Boss radio’ was started in Los Angeles in the 1960s. You had a rise in teenage culture, surf culture. So KHJ decided to compete by devoting more of their air time to music. It was also famous for the ‘sound’ of their DJs. You can here this sound in this sales presentation recordings, presumably for brands and advertising agencies at the time.