The White Peril 白禍

Virginia Postrel and her collaborators' new blog is now live for real. Interestingly, if not surprisingly, they chose a purple color scheme. (I wonder what cemented purple in the imaginations of so many world cultures as the color of royal exclusivity and aspiration.) For some reason, the blog reminded me of this Kylie video:



The video isn't dominated by purple--though it is shocking pink + blue, so it's one shade of purple split into its components. But it does have a female aviator suspended in glamourous unattainability, and it has dreamy wisps of smoke in the external shots of the spaceship. And it's an excuse to post about Kylie, which I can never resist anyway.

Time to leave for dinner, but I can't let the day go by without saying...

Happy birthday, Madge. You drive us all bonkers, but we still love you anyway.

Madonna's frequently been dismissed as someone who couldn't have gotten attention without frantically courting controversy, but many of her best songs have actually been unassuming and warmly casual.

I'm such a fag I still listen to the Who's That Girl? soundtrack:



There was more to American Life than goofy rhymes about Pilates and hotties:



Romeo and Juliet / They never felt this way, I bet:



And if I were exiled to a desert island and only allowed one pop song, it would be...

Virginia Postrel has started a new blog about glamour, in cooperation with L.A.-based journalist Kate Coe. Virginia has an excerpt from her forthcoming book in the first post.

Title reference:

So I was waiting for the train and saw on the BBC that Olympics fans the world over had apparently gotten themselves Ashlee Simpsoned by the PRC:

A pretty girl who won national fame after singing at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was only miming.

Wearing a red dress and pigtails, Lin Miaoke charmed a worldwide audience with a rendition of "Ode to the Motherland".

But the singer was Yang Peiyi, who was not allowed to appear because she is not as "flawless" as nine-year-old Lin.

*******

This is the second "fake" story about the opening ceremony

Viewers around the world saw a display in which 29 firework "footprints" travelled across Beijing from south to north.

But a senior official from the Beijing organising committee (Bocog) confirmed on Tuesday that footage of the display had been produced before the big night.

This was provided to broadcasters for "convenience and theatrical effects", according to Wang Wei, Bocog's executive vice-president.

"Because of poor visibility, some previously recorded footage may have been used," he told a daily press conference.

I realize that the birthrate in China is not what it once was, but could a country with 1.3 billion people seriously not find a little girl with both a world-captivating voice and teeth that exceeded bureaucratic standards?