macao |1952|

榕樹 holding it down for everyone

Jane Russell plays sultry nightclub singer Julie Benson in the film noir Macao, directed by Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray for RKO, 1952

The Grand Lisboa Hotel in Macau by Paul Tsui, 2018 (left) and the same view at night by unknown (right)

cana before tenrou -- part 1 of a longer post

cana has had 3 parents in her life. the first being her mother. cana's mother was kind, caring, beautiful, and could do no wrong in her eyes. for the first 8 or so years of her life all she had was her mother. sure, her mom had told her stories of her father but he always seemed far away. he was like a myth, the strongest man in the west, he seemed untouchable compared to her mother who was always here for her. then her mom died and cana has no choice but to go on a quest to find this legendary hero.

fairy tail doesn't have any children in their guild. being a mage is dangerous work, not something a child should be doing, at least not one as young as cana. that's what makarov thinks as he looks at this little girl, but she did come all this way and she said she has no where else to go. perhaps it will be okay, just this once. she won't go on any quests yet, not until she's older but she can do some work around the guild.

cana is glad fairy tail accepted her, she really doesn't have anywhere else to go. she's not sure what fairy tail saw in her that her father didn't but small victories. cana's never doubted her mother and she never thought of her father, but now her whole life has flipped. her mother used to tell her that her father loved them and if he could he would be with them, and cana's never doubted that, but now she's not sure. cana can't stop thinking about her father, nor can she stop doubting her mother's words. did he even know he had a daughter? all she wanted to hear him say was her mother loved them and if she could she would be here with them.

macao and wakaba don't want kids. in fact, they don't really like them that much. ivan's ankle biter, laxus, is about as hyperactive and annoying as they come. they hoped another kid in the guild would help mellow him out, but cana isn't playful, she's sad -- really sad. it's honestly hard for them to watch how she mopes around the guild. unbeknownst to them she's mourning her mother and relationship with her father. wakaba worries if it's healthy for a kid to frown that much and her always red rimmed eyes are enough to make anyone feel bad. so they decide to take matter into their own hands and take her out on a job. nothing dangerous, the library needed help sorting some books. it's boring and they'd never choose a job like this but it's good for cana.

it's clear to cana that macao and wakaba have never handled children before. they're awkward, clearly knowing nothing about what children like, and inattentive, just letting her walk off and not even noticing. they're nothing like her mother, but they always come looking for her, so clearly they're nothing like her father either. cana is craving any type of parental affection so she quickly latches on to them and surprisingly they don't mind.

as cana got older more kids came to the guild. cana always welcomed new additions, she liked having more people to play with. laxus had recently entered his angsty teen phase and didn't like running around with her anymore. so when natsu joins she greets him with open arms, the more the merrier.

then gildarts comes back. over the years cana has never gathered the courage to tell gildarts of her identity. not that she had many chances considering he never stayed at the guild for more than a week. still she craved a relationship with him so whenever he left she would bring him a lunch and wave goodbye. she asked makarov once why he didn't stay longer, why he never seemed interested in hanging around. master had seen through her, and told her it wasn't personal, that gildarts' was always like that. he was a nomad at heart and didn't care for children. cana accepted that -- so why was gildarts smiling so much at natsu? why whenever he came back to the guild he would stay longer to hang out with him? was it because natsu challenged him? was it a strength thing? even though he's younger than her, natsu is strong, and apparently he was raised by a dragon. is that what she needs to be to get gildarts attention?

if cana was bitter toward natsu after a visit from gildarts no one mentioned it. although gray did look at her weirdly. macao and wakaba were always so irresponsible with children. what were they thinking leaving alcohol in the reach of her? now cana understood why adults drank alcohol so much, it makes everything a little bit easier. cana has had 3 parents in her life, and not one of them was her father.

Macao, asia

Hotels in Macao - PRC 🌏 4k link

2009 China, Macau

Macao, China

macao |1952|

Why was I in a claw machine arcade in Macao at 3 am with the crazy Taiwanese teenager I'm sharing the airport hotel room with? sleep deprivation, maybe

" Canton e Hong Kong sono situate nella regione del delta del Fiume delle Perle (Zhu), con metropoli come Macao, Shenzhen (città dallo sviluppo molto recente), Foshan, Zhongshan e altre ancora. Il 16 novembre 2002 un quarantaseienne di Foshan fu colpito da febbre e difficoltà respiratorie. Secondo quanto hanno stabilito i segugi dell'epidemiologia, spetta a lui il titolo di primo paziente di questa nuova malattìa. Non si sono conservati campioni del suo sangue o del suo muco, ma un forte indizio di SARS è il fatto che l’uomo contagiò a catena un bel po’ di persone (la moglie, una zia che gli fece visita in ospedale, il marito e la figlia della stessa zia). Il suo nome non è stato tramandato ai posteri; di lui si sa soltanto che era un «impiegato del governo locale». Un dato interessante del suo profilo, col senno di poi, è il fatto che avesse cucinato in precedenza piatti che prevedevano come ingredienti pollo, gatto e serpente. Mangiare serpenti non è insolito nel Guangdong, una provincia abitata da carnivori impenitenti e non schizzinosi, dove i menù potrebbero essere scambiati per la lista degli ospiti di uno zoo o di un negozio di animali.

Tre settimane dopo, all'inizio di dicembre, un cuoco di Shenzhen accusò gli stessi sintomi. Lavorava in una friggitoria e non si occupava direttamente di uccidere e preparare gli animali, ma ne manipolava le carni pulite e tagliate. Andò a farsi curare fuori da Shenzhen, allo Heyuan City People’s Hospital, dove trasmise la malattia ad almeno sei tra medici e infermieri, prima di essere trasferito a Canton, a duecento chilometri di distanza. Il giovane dottore che lo accompagnò in ambulanza si ammalò a sua volta. Non molto tempo dopo, tra la fine di dicembre e l’inizio di gennaio, casi analoghi iniziarono a presentarsi a Zhongshan, città portuale situata un centinaio di chilometri a sud di Canton e poco distante da Hong Kong, che è dall'altra parte del Fiume delle Perle. Nel giro di poche settimane si registrarono ventotto casi. I sintomi comprendevano emicrania, febbre alta, brividi, dolore alle ossa, tosse forte e persistente con sangue nell'espettorato e progressiva compromissione dei polmoni, che si indurivano e si riempivano di liquido. La conseguente scarsa ossigenazione nei casi più gravi poteva portare alla morte. Tredici pazienti tra quelli di Zhongshan lavoravano nel settore sanitario e almeno uno era un cuoco, anche lui dedito alla preparazione di piatti a base di serpenti, volpi, zibetti (mammiferi di piccola taglia parenti alla lontana delle manguste) e ratti. Gli ufficiali sanitari della provincia si accorsero della concentrazione di casi a Zhongshan e spedirono in loco vari team di «esperti» che si occupassero di cura e prevenzione, ma in realtà nessuno di loro sapeva nulla di questa misteriosa e ingannevole malattia. Uno di questi gruppi produsse un documento ufficiale in cui il nuovo morbo era definito «polmonite atipica» (feidian in cantonese). La stessa formulazione di uso generico fu ripresa qualche settimana più tardi dall'OMS nel suo primo bollettino. Una polmonite atipica è una qualsiasi affezione polmonare non attribuibile ai classici patogeni, come ad esempio il batterio Streptococcus pneumoniae. Utilizzare questa espressione ben nota in medicina fu un modo per stemperare e non accentuare la stranezza e la potenziale pericolosità dei casi di Zhongshan. In realtà quella specie di polmonite non era solo atipica, ma anomala, feroce e spaventosa. Il bollettino ufficiale fu inviato agli ospedali e agli uffici sanitari della provincia (ma non fu reso pubblico). Conteneva anche una lista di sintomi tipici della malattia e una serie di raccomandazioni per arginarne la diffusione, che si rivelarono timide e tardive. A fine gennaio, un commerciante all'ingrosso di prodotti ittici, reduce da un viaggio a Zhongshan, fu ricoverato in un ospedale di Canton, da dove partì la serie di contagi a catena che di lì a poco avrebbe fatto il giro del mondo. "

David Quammen, Spillover. L’evoluzione delle pandemie, (Traduzione di Luigi Civalleri; collana La collana dei casi), Edizioni Adelphi, 2014. [Libro elettronico]

[ Edizione originale: Spillover. Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012 ]

vividly art deco: Studio City 澳門新濠影滙 Estrada do Istmo, Cotai, Macau

Macau and Venice will grow up outright invincible, being raised by someone as brutal(ly honest) like Vegas and a sass-machine like Pete.

I will pay to watch the season 5 to have the next generation taking over the damn world.

And for that matter, I want Kinn Porsche to have a daughter. Unstoppable girl boss, she will be.

Macao, asia

“A man from nowhere … a woman with nowhere to go … try to forget their pasts in exciting, exotic Macao, port of sin and shady dealings!” 

On 16 February the Lobotomy Room film club (motto: Bad Movies for Bad People) whisks you away to the steamy Portuguese colony of Macao for this sordid noir thriller! Sure, the Times’ critic reportedly dismissed Macao as “melodramatic junk”, but I side with deviant queer film scholar Boyd McDonald, who concluded “Macao is, arguably, perfect.” 

Macao’s major selling point is the sullen dream duo of Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, who effortlessly match other for tough wry humour and torpid impudence. As McDonald notes in his volume of essays Cruising the Movies (2015), “out of habit rather than anything in the script, the stars of Macao – and under their spell, the supporting players and extras – loiter about leering and sneering at each other, giving attitude. The attitude is one of contempt mixed with lust – an insolent craving, a concupiscent scorn … the players look as though they can’t stand the sight of each other, yet want to suck each other off … Russell, gifted with articulate nostrils and some slight imperfection in the nerves or muscles about her lips, is especially good at competitive sneering.” Seriously – how can you resist? 

Adding to the intrigue: temperamental veteran filmmaker Josef von Sternberg (the visionary behind all those great 1930s Marlene Dietrich films) was exhumed from semi-retirement to direct Macao but when preview audiences grumbled the film was too art-y and weird, an uncredited Nicholas Ray (of Johnny Guitar (1954) and Rebel without a Cause (1955) fame) was assigned to shoot additional scenes! Watch as well for bad girl Gloria Grahame in a supporting role! 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club devoted to cinematic perversity! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s bar in Dalston! Two drink minimum (inquire about the special offer £6 cocktail menu!). Numbers are limited, so reserving in advance via Fontaine’s website is essential. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email [email protected] to avoid disappointment! The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered in time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest. Facebook event page.