Matriarchies = Awesome

Travelling in South Yunnan in December last year, I visited a village where the Dai, a matriarchal people, lived, farmed and raised fighting roosters.
I ran into some guys the night before who had hired a driver to take them out to where they lived. Though I was just a tourist out on a daytrip, what [...]

Hong Kong excursion

The arrangements are made — I’m off to Hong Kong in two weeks time.
Then back to Shanghai, then back out West by train from there. Way out on the Western edge of China, where there are snowy mountains and matriarchal tribes and reformed headhunters.
Drinking cold Chinese beer with colourful characters and talk of adventure, and [...]

This way to Interzone

Look hard enough though naive eyes, you can find anything you want — even directions to Bill Burroughs’ temporary autonomous zone. In Verona, Italy, even.
I followed it some way, hoping to stumble across a laconic, altered bar full of mugwumps, reptiles and wildboys, or a swirling market selling poisons, weapons and cloaks of invisibility, [...]

Dave LaChapelle exhibition, Milan, Italy

I was in Italy over the New Year. Luckily for me, so was a massive exhibition of the work of photographer Dave LaChapelle, hanging at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.
I hadn’t seen much of his work before, though had heard and read much about it. I could take or leave ordinary celebrity snaps, but these [...]