I sure look good standing in front of these twin towers!

 

 

 

What was that Boy Scout motto, again?

 

 

 

 

 

   

The very beautiful Taman Negara, or National Park, in peninsular Malaysia, has one major drawback. It's infested with leeches. Luckily, I have some leech socks. Unfortunately they are at the moment in the rubbermaid bin full of camping supplies, back home on the shelf in Brooklyn, NY. 

"They're not going to do you very much good there, are they?" snarked a fellow birder, when I explained my situation. I was admiring his pair and wondering where he had gotten them. 

I'm starting to feel more like a World War One battle re-enactor than a birder.

Right Foot

Achilles

The problem with forgetting your leech socks is you end up going through a lot of regular socks. I suppose you could just call them "leeched socks."

Left foot. Absolutely painless, but the vast quantities of blood are stress inducing nonetheless. Leeches apparently have a combination therapy analgesic and anticoagulant which they apply while incising, so that even if you catch them at their meals and flick them off, the wound continues to bleed. And bleed.

I'm holding out for Jonathan Franzen in Double Extra Large

 

"Shoes and Clothe" boutique, of Phnom Penh

 

Engrish is an endless source of amusement. For decades already we have found ourselves cackling at the excruciating, the misplaced, the misspelled, the off-center, or the just plain random words and letters that hapless Asians see fit to emblazon on their t-shirts. (Although to blame Engrish entirely on Asia may be unfair. Just today, while filming at Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, I spied a Russian gentleman wearing a burgundy t-shirt boldly emblazoned SOUTH DAKOTA IT'S ALL YOURS DANCE MASTER SCHELUDES.)

The origins of this sort of typographic festival seem to me to be rooted in the fast-fading allure of the great United States, beacon to would-be emigrants and aspirant entrepreneurs from every corner of the globe. In China, Vietnam or Russia, clothing with the English alphabet sprayed all over it denotes a certain hipness. No matter how random, the letters alone indicate worldliness, mobility. This is ironic in that the moneyed classes the world over tend to speak actual English--the Engrish shirt only works for those too low in status and education to comprehend the meaninglessness of the slogans they are sporting. Absurdity is just a click away; Google translate makes it so easy to be so very, very wrong.

The allure of the east and the rise of China as an economic power has somewhat turned the tables, with more and more attention being paid to the parallel phenomenon of Chingrish, including an excellent blog that chronicles the tattoo catastrophes of hipster Westerners.

I can't recognize Chingrish when I see it, but I'm always on the lookout for spectacular examples of Engrish, so my eye was drawn by this window display on the streets of Phnom Penh:

 

Rising up the NYT bestseller list, it's Erheyi Sniamla

"Going Greenly into the Future," a screenplay

There was no response from the media relations office of "elegantly" Glenwood Properties in response to numerous emails inquiring why their recent marketing campaign prominently features what appears to be Merops pusillus, the little bee-eater, an insectiverous bird widespread across most of sub-Saharan Africa, but unknown from New York City or anywhere else in the Americas.

At the offices of Global Glut Realty Corp., Joe and Schmoe sit at a polished black granite conference table, wearing Brioni suits. Manhattan, viewed through the smoked glass floor-to-ceiling windows of a corporate high-rise, stretches out beneath them.

SCHMOE: They're nice apartments I have, Joe, all over the city. I don't understand why they're not renting.

JOE: You're out of date; you need to get with the whole ecological revolution. People want their place to be sustainable and stuff.

SCHMOE: What the hell is that supposed to mean?

JOE: You know, like, long lasting, and, uh...natural.

SCHMOE: WTF? You mean I have renovate? I just redid all these places. They're like minty fresh.

JOE: Nah, you don't have to do nothing. Just emphasize the environmental aspect in your New York Times adverts. Green, green, green. That's the word everyone is using. Make it green.

SCHMOE: C'mon, stop yankin' it. The apartments are painted white. Who the hell wants a green apartment?

JOE: Not green the color, you moron. Like, as in natural, you know whuttum saying? Like a spinach milkshake or some shit. Like, yoga. Put a tree in there, dickhead. I dunno, put a picture of a fountain, some bubbly water. Just make sure you call it green in big letters. Paint a picture of a tree, or a goddamn bird or something. You see how I'm helping you, here?

SCHMOE: A bird? What do I know from birds? You mean, like a parrot, or what?

JOE: No, you jerk. Like some wild natural creature, you know, that flies around in trees and stuff.

SCHMOE: How am I supposed to take a picture of a bird?

JOE: You really are thick today, Schmoe. Let me order us up a couple of frappuccinos, get that brain working. Look, it's not particle physics. Just go on the internet, and get a nice picture of a bird, and just kind of place it tastefully in your ad, there. You'll see; people will be signing leases in no time.

Backstage at the Nile

That would be the "Northern International Livestock Exposition" and rodeo, not the river in Egypt. Photos from the last four days, spent filming in Billings, Montana.

Funkin' at the Hill Top Disco

 Snoop Dogg on the wall with Sierra Leone popstars Vida, the late Amara Kabba, and Daddy Saj.

The art of the painted sign is alive and well in Sierra Leone. I've long been a fan of African hand-made advertisements, and have bought more than one right off the facade of a business, to cart across the Atlantic and install on the living room wall. If that sounds to you like a colonialist, exploitative relationship to art-making then you have put your finger on the discomfort sometimes felt when admiring the humble, naive masterpieces that Africans from Mali to Mozambique hang in front of their shops. In my defense I can only describe the smiles of surprise and astonishment on the face of the shopkeeper when offered actual cash money for an ancient and often tattered rectangle of painted plywood.

 Snoop, detail, at the Hilltop Nightclub and Guesthouse, Calabatown, Sierra Leone

The tradition, born out of necessity on a continent where creativity is more abundant than capital, is in some countries under threat. On my last trip to Rwanda digitally printed vinyl signs were everywhere. So far, these suffer from Photoshopitis, and tend to feature sandstorms, flames, lightning bolts, sunsets and masses of billowing clouds, all downloaded at low resolution from google images. The results are pale and tawdry, homogenous in their lack of personality. At home, underemployed, the former sign-painter sits on his hands and stares at the dirt, his paints crusting in the can.

The making of a sign for a tiny roadside business is an economic calculus. The beginnings of a haircutting business, called in Kenya a "saloon" and in Sierra Leone a "barbing shop," might be as modest as a single pair of scissors and a plastic stool set up under a shade-tree. The advertising budget is limited. If the vinyl sign is rising in popularity this is only because it is winning a price-war with the sign-painter.

 The Hilltop is a legendary name in the history of rap music. This was the name of a Bronx after-hours club of the 1970s where some of the first raps were said to have been rapped, and some of the first deejay battles battled. I suspect the Hilltop of Calabatown, Sierra Leone owes nothing to this legacy. This fine establishment is simply at the top of a hill, on a red dirt road, in a semi-rural setting. But they are clearly ready to turn the party out. Just to step inside the place is to understand that it would be inconvenient to live next door.

Donflan would like to go on record as offering our services to return and do a gig here. The club is a series of well-protected cinder-block walled enclosures (African nightlife is primarily enjoyed out-of-doors), much of their many surfaces covered with spectacular murals illustrating the fantasies of disco-going: abundant, curvaceous women, tropical diversion, musical superstardom. No partying colonialist with a fat wallet will carry these off; they are painted directly onto the block walls. We were there during the day, to shoot an interview. The place made me want to put on my dancing shoes, and go back at night.

"What happens at the Hilltop, stays on the hilltop."

Trademark Fringement

I'm in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where a trip to the gas station put me in mind of a post from earlier this year in which I documented the hand painted branding efforts of Vietnamese marine diesel fuel dealers in Dong Hoi. A google search for "NP Petroleum" brings up the National Petroleum company of Trinidad and Tobago as well as a Canadian outfit called Northern Petroleum, neither of which share this BP-inspired logo. Could it stand for "Nigeria Petroleum," or was the B simply changed to an N on a whim? Perhaps these are the proprietor's initials.