SEXISM

SATOSHI SAIKUSA

Satoshi Saikusa was born in Japan in 1959. He moved to Paris in 1984 and two years later he began working as a publicity photographer. He quickly became known for his distinctive style. He proved to be extremely versatile, producing photos that perfectly envisaged different themes: sensual, glamorous, elegant and so on. His publicities soon got him noticed, as did his portraits and landscape photos. He famously worked with Shiseido, Estee Lauder, Loewe, Rochas and Cerruti. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Laeticia Casta, Monica Bellucci, Anna Mouglalis, Naomi Watts, Sophie Marceau, anne Hathaway, Catherine Deneuve… the most beautiful actresses in the world have posed in front of Satoshi Saikusa’s lens for magazines like Vogue, GQ, i-D and Harper’s Bazaar.

A shot of Naomi Watts and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Below are more photoshoots by Satoshi Saikusa. Based on the concept of Kabuki and beauty.

And my personal favorite is taken from his China Syndrome collection for W magazines in 1995. After more than 10 years...

DANCE FOR JUSTICE

YAAAY!!! SUPERHEROES!!!

SMOKING KILLS!!!

The widespread smoking of cigarettes in the Western world is largely a 20th century phenomenon – at the start of the century the per capita annual consumption in the USA was 54 cigarettes (equivalent to less than 0.5% of the population smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year), and consumption there peaked at 4,259 per capita in 1965. At that time about 50% of men and 33% of women smoked (defined as smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year). By 2000, consumption had fallen to 2,092 per capita, corresponding to about 30% of men and 22% of women smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year, and by 2006 per capita consumption had declined to 1,691; implying that about 21% of the population smoked 100 cigarettes or more per year.

I am a pack a day smoker. And during my high school year, smoking was one way to look cool. Today, smoking is a part of lifestyle. Especially for those liquor consumer, smoking is almost a must. They don't care how many people die from lung cancer every year. Even in Singapore, even though they put some nasty pictures on every pack. People just don't give a damn. So, here comes the challenge; How to quit smoking?

But no matter how bad cigarette is. It still serves as part of arts. And I just can stop smoking while I'm working. So I took a glance on these tips while I'm typing this.
How to quit smoking: www.hoptehcno.com

Happy BIrthday = shit !!! I'm getting old

Yesterday we got a birthday girl in town. She's one of my favorite. The birthday girl was sick but still celebrating her big day in a club. The birthday girl's broke for celebrating her big day, no thanks to a stupid tradition where the birthday ones got to treat their friends on food or liquors. Only happens in our beloved country. Here's the birthday girl.

I myself have experienced a very bad birthday celebration. It was my 27th birthday party and its a wrong thing to buy my friends 4 Jhonnie Walker Blue. And the present I got was 27 seconds of Blue Label non-stop gulping for each friend attending.

And after a few minutes, there I was. Collapsed on the couch fighting the urge to puke with my buddies hovering over me. The hang over was so bad on the next morning. Birthday never been a happy day for me, after spending a lot of money for celebrating it, getting bullied by friends, sadistic hang over, I still have to face the fact that I'm getting old.

Here are some funny quotes I found to lighten myself up from hang over:

-"Age is a number and mine is unlisted."
-"Looking fifty is great if you are sixty."
-"The more birthdays you celebrate, the lesser days you have to the grave."
-"To me, old is always 20 years older than I am."
-"Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese."

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF GANTZ?

I've been reading Gantz since it was first published. Yes its a manga, but with so much different atmosphere. Gantz is dark, and contains blood, despair, love, sex, gore, death and what I like the most is how the writers always show the deepest evil in human beings. Like the old saying; "No one knows one's deepest heart." Gantz is meant for adult readers. The story line is mysterious and unpredictable.

The story started with the death of a group of people who mysteriously sent to an apartment room instead of limbo. In that room they found a black ball which provides them with various weapons. Then they were told to complete a mission. They can't walk out the room nor run away. The only way to get is to accomplish the mission in order to be transferred back to life. And this is where the psychological stuffs work. Would you believe in anything at all when you obviously know you're dead? Would you trust a bunch of strangers to complete a mission that to kill aliens? And this manga really express how people would react in this situation. Different individuals, different characters, different reactions, different endings.


As the story goes, the main character Kurono Kei, was able to assemble a solid Gantz team to wage war against aliens. They fight battle after battle in environments where no one can see them. With no other purpose than to survive each battle. After witnessing so many deaths, Kurono becomes a war god and a cold blooded aliens killer. But the situation is slowly changed when they realized that the aliens are only trying to defend themselves from Gantz team's vicious attack. And unlike before they are now visible to other humans. They've been reported by media as a black ops unit. Things get more confusing when they found out that there are more than one Gantz team. But apparently there is one team representing each city from all over the world. And the worst is when a reporter found out that all Gantz team's weapons are being produced in Germany.

The story so far, things gone from bad to worse. Now, human beings are facing a global catastrophe. The earth is being attacked by new alien race. And somehow, the Gantz teams are assembled to fight a battle against them. The humans are falling, even the world's strongest military falls, and Gantz teams are the only hope to prevent humans from slavery or extinction.

Gantz, with excellent graphic and interesting story is one of the best manga out there. And there are a lot of articles reviewing the making of Gantz movie in real cast. Even though I don't think the movie will be succeed, I'm looking forward to it