October 4, 2009
Berlin de Luxe
I was in Berlin for few days and guess what…they just started the ‘ Fall of the Berlin wall 20th anniversary’.
I had heard about these two giant mechanical marionettes situeted in Brandenburg Gate. I went to see them, I couldn’t resist and, as I expected, it was very crowded. Dozens of artists and technicians from the French troupe Royal de Luxe manoeuvred the puppets across several kilometres.
I thought the puppets had something special, I didn’t see them walking and meeting each other though.
I saw the ‘little’ girl still sleeping…here’s the pick I took.
September 21, 2009
Paper Plane Airline
A boy with no official nationality who lives in Thailand captured third place in a Japanese paper airplane contest Sunday after his tearful pleas to be allowed to attend prompted authorities to grant him a rare temporary passport for the event.
Mong Thongdee, 12, won a national paper airplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba, near Tokyo. But Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, is the son of Myanmar migrants who are stateless and so have no legal right to travel abroad.
His first application to leave Thailand was denied, but after national media coverage of him quietly sobbing after the refusal captured the hearts of many Thais he was granted a temporary passport.
Mong appeared Sunday in a white T-shirt decorated with the Thai flag, whipping his carefully folded airplanes high into the air during the competition in front of hundreds of spectators.
He placed third in the division for elementary school students with a time of 10.53 seconds. In an earlier exhibition, Mong’s airplane stayed in the air for 16.45 seconds.
September 19, 2009
Nat Pwe
The sounds and the colours are one thing, the way they dance, the high pitched notes, this music really gets me.
