10 Years Later, Fake Sartre Remains Viral -- Even on the N.Y. Times
March, 16, 2012 10:26 am | Comments On #Media
This is how things work in the Internet Age.
A witty writer in Boston sets up a fake quote from the late Jean-Paul Sartre back in 2003 in an article about introverts and extroverts that was published in the Atlantic Monthly online, and almost 10 years later the fake quote -- "Hell is other people at breakfast" -- is still going strong on blogs, emails and bonafide websites.
Very few people have bothered to check if the quote is correct, since the correct quote from Sartre's famous play "No Exit" is actually, "Hell is other people." In French, Sartre wrote it out as, "L'enfer, c'est les autres."
But Rauch's 2003 tongue-in-cheek witticism flew right past most of his readers then, and it is still flying past most people on the internet now.
Worse, the New York...
Read MoreFake Steve Jobs Ad in Taiwan Gets Clobbered by Bloggers
February, 12, 2012 7:30 pm | Comments On #Apple, Media, Steve Jobs, taiwanAs I reported on my home office blog "Say It in 17 Words" on January 21, long before this news story surfaced anywhere in the world, a Taiwanese computer firm called Action Electronics released a TV ad last month with a local American-born Taiwanese comedian named Ah-Ken posing as Steve Jobs hawking a new product called "Action Pad."
In the now controversial commercial, the apparently heavenly Jobs, played by Ah-ken sporting the late Apple CEO's famous black t-shirt and blue jeans and this time wearing a white-haired wig with angel wings on his back and a halo above his head, is seen selling a new kind of tablet pad, made in Taiwan and marketed by Action Electronics.
The ad was meant to be both funny and humorous -- but it appears to have backfired
judging from the reactions...
Taiwanese Ad Featuring Fake Steve Jobs: Funny or Offensive?
February, 01, 2012 11:16 am | Comments On #MediaA Taiwanese computer firm called Action Electronics has released a TV ad on Taiwanese television with American-born-Chinese comedian named Ah-Ken posing as Steve Jobs and hawking a new product called "Action Pad."
In the popular commercial, Ah-Ken sports the late Apple co-founder's signature black T-shirt and blue jeans, but now he dons a white-haired wig with angel wings on his back and a halo. The apparently heavenly Jobs is selling a new kind of tablet pad, made in Taiwan and marketed by Action Electronics.
The ad was meant to be both funny and humorous -- but is it?
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'The Constant Din': Can We Tame It, Control It?
January, 18, 2012 10:45 am | Comments On #Movies
The movie world, the music world, the entertainment world, the show-business world, the TV world, the internet world -- we live in a maze of worlds today, and all them seemingly connected by invisible wires. But this connectedness, this inter-connectedness, this hyper-connectedness, is this a good thing?
Well, if you've watching a good movie in a comfortable movie theater, you don't want to be interrupted by cellphones going off, iPads being activated or even people talking loudly. Right?
In a recent interview, the writer George Steiner spoke about "the constant din" that surrounds us 24/7 now in this postmodern high-tech world we have created. He was speaking of the need to find silence from time to time, to get away from the constant din of life.
And then Time magazine essayist Pico Iyer wrote a splendid op-ed...
Read MoreMatchmaker Ang Lee Introduces Rhythm & Hues to Taiwan
January, 05, 2012 2:51 pm | Comments On #20th Century Fox, Ang Lee, Bill Westenhofer, Life of Pi, Movies, Rhythm & Hues, taiwanTAIPEI -- Film director Ang Lee lives in America but still has strong roots in his native Taiwan, where much of his current project "Life of Pi" was shot on location outdoors and in a giant indoor studio "ocean."
Now he's playing matchmaker for a Hollywood visual effects company building an overseas office in Taiwan, and players on both sides of the Pacific are happy.
Lee made his acquaintance with the Rhythm & Hues company and its Academy Award-winning creative team leader Bill Westenhofer while directing "Life of Pi" for 20th Century Fox last year. Lee has been quoted as saying the movie would have been ''a mission impossible'' were it not for R&H's high-...
A Pear Tree, a Wink, 39 Roses: Holocaust 'Rescue' Story Really True?
December, 28, 2011 9:38 am | Comments On #Media
First, before we begin, cue the violin music. And open the Hollywood curtain halfway, so you can see the opening credits.
Ready? Hit projector button!
When the New York Times ran a weepy obituary last October headlined ”[Catholic Polish man ] Jerzy Bielecki Dies at 90; Fell in Love [With Jewish Girl] in a Nazi Camp,” not every Times reader was convinced that the backstory was true.
Was it?
Did Bielecki tell a few tall tales in the latter part of his life in order to get some love and adulation from the world around him -- including a book about him and a documentary? And an award as a Righteous Gentile from an Israeli group? And monthly payments from another Jewish group for his electricity and gas bills at home in Poland from 1997 on?
Sadly, these hoaxy, embellished, fabricated things sometimes happen in a...
Read MoreMove Over Ang Lee, Here Comes Te-sheng Wei
December, 07, 2011 4:05 pm | Comments On #Movies
One movie that made waves in Venice recently was Taiwanese director Wei Te-sheng's "Seediq Bale," and how the shy and quiet cineaste came to make what many in his own country said was an impossible movie to make is a story worth repeating – and archiving for future film school students everywhere.
The movie itself is a trailblazer and will go down in film history as one of Taiwan's finest contributions to the world of cinema.
It's based on Taiwan's storied past during the Japanese Colonial Period (1895-1945), when the emperor of Japan and his Imperial Army ran the island of Taiwan as a fertile colony to pluck and to plunder.
The story Wei tells is about the so-called ''1930 Wushe Incident,” a bloody and tragic uprising of local Austro-Polynesian Aborigines from the Sediq tribe against...
Read MoreSuccess! The Wires Now Report That the Walk of Fame Stars Are Bought & Paid For!
December, 05, 2011 12:28 pm | Comments On #Movies
Back in June, I wrote a rather contentious commentary headlined ''Let's Stop Pretending Getting a Star on the Walk of Fame Is a Real Honor,'' in which I spilled the beans on how celebrities today get stars on the famous Walk of Fame in Hollywood.
iI asked the national media to start reporting the backstory to the Walk of Fame "awards," since they are not really awards at all, but paid public relations events.
And that's cool. Paid public relations events have always been a part of Hollywood culture, and the Walk of Fame fits well into that picture, too.
"For more than 50 years, the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been handing out stars to stars, from...
Read More'Miracle on Hollywood Boulevard': A Sidewalk Star for Santa
November, 30, 2011 10:56 am | Comments On #Movies
Well, it's almost that time of year again, mistletoe and Yuletide logs, chestnuts and eggnog (not to mention Chinese food on Christmas Eve), and there's a movement afoot on the ground in California to lobby the Hollywood Walk of Fame people for a future star on the sidewalk for, who else, Santa Claus?
Mickey Mouse has a star, Godzilla has a star, and they are fictional characters, and yet Santa does not have a star yet?
I could not happen this year, as these things take time, and not in 2012, as that list has already been made and published, and for those "making a list" for 2013 and 2014 and 2015, it could happen. Ever heard about the Miracle of 43rd Street? Well, this could be the Miracle on Hollywood Boulevard. Mark your calendars: It could be real by 2015.
...
Read MoreSteve Jobs' Advice Book for Teens Hits Asia -- Hmmm!
November, 23, 2011 10:58 pm | Comments On #Media
Here we go again -- another fake Steve Jobs book for sale in Asia in Chinese.
Last April, a Chinese writer in mainland China using the unlikely and laughable pen name of ''John Cage'' published a Chinese-language book in China and Taiwan that was titled "Steve Paul Jobs's Eleven Pieces of Advice for Young People Today." It claimed to be, supposedly, a Chinese translation of ''an Amazon bestseller.'' The cover of the book listed its author as as ''John Cage'', and an inside editor's note noted that Cage was "a graduate from Stanford University and who previously served as editor in chief at mass-circulation economic and financial magazines."
Of course, no such record of such an English-language book was ever found, and the fake...
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Description
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer based in Asia since 1991. During a five-year stint in Tokyo, he covered the triumphs (and occasional failures) of Hollywood movies in Japan and interviewed American actors passing through Tokyo on film promotion tours, including Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Kevin Costner.
