Tibetan film Old Dog at IUP's Foreign Film and Music Series.

I'll post about this again in April, but the Tibetan film Old Dog will run on April 10 as part of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013 Foreign Film and Music Series. From the series' website:

A family on the Himalayan plains discovers their dog is worth a fortune, but selling it comes at a terrible price. Old Dog is both a humorous and tragic allegory and a sober depiction of life among the impoverished rural Tibetan community.

There are two showings, at 5:30 pm and 8:00 pm, in Sprawls Hall. The shows are free and are funded in part by the IUP Student Activity Fee. Before I repost in April I will ask if there is a way for non-students to chip in a little money to the Office of International Education, which is putting on the series. IUP student SiLu Jia will be the evening's musical guest.

I bring up the series now for three reasons. I noticed, four days late, that a Chinese film was included in this year's series on February 10. Additionally, Indiana is within reasonable driving distance to Pittsburgh at roughly 90 minutes away, and may be of interest to people on this side of the state. Finally, the campus puts on good international films. The best film series I've seen in western PA was a Korean festival nearly a decade ago, which had Chunhyang; Spring Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring; Chihwaseon; Wakiki Brothers; and a few others.

Sushi: The Global Catch at Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival.

Advance notice for this, but Carnegie Mellon will show the documentary Sushi: The Global Catch as part of its 2013 International Film Festival on April 10. Details to follow, but the festival will run from March 21 through April 14 (the website gives multiple variations on this range) and hopes---according to festival organizers---to include various cultural activities and presentations to promote Japanese culture in general and Japanese community in the area.

Memories at Carnegie Mellon, February 18.

The third installment in the 2013 Pittsburgh Anime Film Series is 1995's Memories, a film comprised of three episodes based on Otomo Katsuhiro's manga. Writes the film series' website:

In “Magnetic Rose,” an abandoned spaceship contains a world created by one woman’s memories; a young lab assistant accidentally transforms himself into a human biological weapon in “Stink Bomb”; and “Cannon Fodder” depicts a city whose entire purpose is firing cannons at an unseen enemy.

The movie begins at 7 pm in the McConomy Auditorium in the University Student Center (you'll find it on Google Maps; it's behind the Forbes Ave opp Morewood Ave. bus stop). Admission is free.

Tehching Hsieh lecture at CMU School of Art, February 19.

At the 2010 Gwangju Biennale, from DesignBoom. Hsieh photographed himself once an hour for one year, and has the timecards and prints to prove it.

Carnegie Mellon University School of Art will host Tehching Hsieh on February 19 as part of the Spring 2013 Lecture Series. Hsieh

was born in Taiwan in 1950. He did his first performance “Jump Piece” in 1973 and broke both ankles. Trained as a sailor, he arrived in Philadelphia in 1974, jumped ship, and stayed in the states as an illegal immigrant for fourteen years until granted amnesty in 1988. From 1978 to 1999, Hsieh did five One Year Performances and the Thirteen Year Plan in New York City. The first four One Year Performances made him a regular name in the art scene; the last two, in which he intentionally retreated from the art world, set a tone of sustained invisibility. Since 2000, Hsieh—released from the restriction of not showing work during the Thirteen Year Plan—has lectured and exhibited worldwide, including MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Liverpool Biennial, the Gwangju Biennial, and the Sao Paulo Biennial. He received the United States Artists award in 2008.

Google will be your friend for more on the artist. Pictured above is an exhibit at the 2010 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea from DesignBoom, which has more photographs on and information about on Hsieh's work.

All in This Tea at Winchester Thurston School, February 23.

As part of the annual Asia Unreeled series, Winchester Thurston School in Shadyside (map) will show the 2007 documentary All in This Tea on Saturday, February 23, at 2 pm.

Japanese plays, "Seinendan Theater Company – Robot / Android - Human Theater" in Pittsburgh, March 8 and 9.

Two Japanese one-act plays will be performed at the Andy Warhol Museum (map) on March 8 and 9. The Seinendan Theater Company + Osaka University Robot Theater Project, sponsored by the Japan Foundation and Japan Society, present "I, Worker" and "Sayonara", which star two robots and "an incredibly human-like android who consoles the human actor dealing with a fatal illness", respectively. An introduction from the Japan Society website:

Imagine a time when "robot maids" are commonly found in family households. That's the much-anticipated setting of these two heartrending short plays by Oriza Hirata, founder of Japan's celebrated Seinendan Theater Company. In Sayonara (android and human actors), an android is bought to console a girl suffering from a fatal illness, but when its mechanics go awry, the meaning of life and death to humans and robots comes into question. In I, Worker (robots and human actors), a husband's struggle to cope with the loss of his child is juxtaposed with the malaise of one of his robots, which has lost all motivation to work. This double bill was developed in collaboration with Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, a leading international researcher on robotics and Director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University. Sayonara will be performed in English and Japanese with English subtitles. I, Worker will be performed in Japanese with English subtitles.

The Verge has a review from last week's New York shows.

The performances are at 8:00 pm on both days, and tickets are available at the Warhol Museum website.

Friends don't let friends write bad poetry. The Post-Gazette gives us "Learn to Speak Chinese" at the start of the Lunar New Year.

5 Centimeters Per Second (秒速5センチメートル) at Frick Fine Arts, February 11.

The second installment in February's Pittsburgh Anime Series is 2007's 5 Centimeters Per Second (Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru, 秒速5センチメートル), which plays at the Frick Fine Arts Building in Oakland (map) on February 11. A plot summary from Anime News Network:

A tale of two people, Tono Takaki and Shinohara Akari, who were close friends but gradually grow farther and farther apart as time moves on. They become separated because of their families yet continue to exchange contact in the form of letters. Yet as time continues to trudge on, their contact with one another begins to cease. Years pass and the rift between them grows ever larger. However, Takaki remembers the times they have shared together, but as life continues to unfold for him, he wonders if he would be given the chance to meet Akari again as the tale embarks on Takaki's realization of the world and people around him.

The works of Makoto Shinkai, of which this is a prominent example, are especially well known for their exceptional animation and attention to detail. His 2002 short film Voices of a Distant Star is among my favorites.

The film starts at 7:00 and admission is free.

Make Your Own Peppero, February 13.

Peppero, by ThisDeliciousLife.

On February 13th is an event for Pitt undergraduates: Make Your Own Peppero. This is done by the Korean Culture Association and will be held at 7:30 on the 6th floor of the William Pitt Union. And on Valentine's Day:

We will also be tabling in Towers lobby on the following days to sell Peppero! 1 bag for $2.00 and 2 bags for $3.00. Come out and get some goodies for yourself or your hunny :)

Valentine's Day is one of the bigger couples' holidays in South Korea, a day when, for a change, a girlfriend or wife gives something to the special man in her life. On March 14th, White Day, he returns the favor. If you're alone, you have Black Day on April 14th. Actually, each 14th of the month is a consumer holiday: January has Diary Day, May has Rose Day, June has Kiss Day, with Silver Day, Green Day, Photo Day, Wine Day, Movie Day, and Hug Day rounding out the year.

If you prefer to wait for Peppero Day (November 11) to do your cooking, or if you are not a Pitt undergrad, you can find plenty of Peppero recipes online.

MEPPI Japan Lecture Series: Counter-Culture in Japan, February 21.

Dr. Gabbi Lukacs, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, will be giving a talk on February 21 in Oakland called "Counter-Culture in Japan".. This is one of several events this spring sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc., which has an office in Warrendale. An overview from the Japan-American Society of Pennsylvania:

Dr. Gabbi Lukacs, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, will examine new labor subjectivities such as the net idols that become famous by posting their photos and diaries on the web, cell phone novelists whose novels have recently come to dominate literary bestseller lists, and entrepreneurial homemakers who conjure wealth from day trading. The subjects of mass culture theory, digital media theory, work and play, consumer culture, and Japan in the twentieth century are also topics for discussion. There will be a cash bar and light refreshments.

The talk is from 5:30 to 7:00 at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association on Fifth Ave (map).

Dr. Lukacs gave a lecture in October 2012 at Pitt titled "The Labor of Cute: Net Idols, Cute Culture, and the Social Factory in Contemporary Japan", a lecture that had been going around for about a year at that point. In 2010 Dr. Lukacs presented on similar topics, "The Net Idols: Cute Culture, Social Factory, and Neoliberal Governmentality in New Millennial Japan" at Pitt:

In this presentation, I analyze a recent Japanese phenomenon, what is called the net idols—young women who produce their own websites featuring personal photos and diaries. Many net idols earn an income from maintaining these websites, thus I understand them as new labor subjectivities that have evolved in late 1990s Japan in response to the deregulation of labor markets and unprecedented developments in new information technologies. Mastering cute looks and embracing cute behavior are key to the popularity of net idols. While the culture of cute has drawn considerable scholarly attention in recent years, it has been dominantly understood as a form of resistance to work-oriented adult society, a retreat to childhood—a space within which young women find redemption indulging in infantile play and passive behavior. By contrast, I draw on the Italian autonomists’ theory of the social factory to analyze the net idols’ production of cute culture as symptomatic of the ways in which the meanings, forms, and conditions of work have changed as intangible commodities (such as cute) have become the new center of economic gravity in the wake of growing economic volatility. Equally important, by analyzing the net idol phenomenon I also aim to theorize an emerging form of rationality (the foundational logic of neoliberal governmentality) within which individuals accept and even celebrate the end of job security as a marker of a shift from the postwar order of “working to find pleasure” to the neoliberal imperative to “find pleasure in work.”