Within a Sky Full of Earth

KAREN THERESE + LIZZIE THOMSON PERFORMANCE • AUSTRALIAAn artistic exchange of ideas and research of Australian artists Karen Therese and Lizzie Thomson is happening tonight at the Art and Culture Outreach (ACO) in Hong Kong. They have been in residence at aco_air for 1 month and would like to share their research in an open forum with Hong Kong based artists. OUR HONG KONG is a work-in-progress series of video and conceptual performance works,
which are currently being developed in collaboration with Hong Kong based artist Carrie So.

Karen Therese is a collaborative artist, activist and producer making work grounded in performance, community and media. Her current work includes the multi art ensemble performance work titled, The Riot Act which investigates the relationship between social unrest and news media. Karen is also director and producer of the ground-breaking community arts initiative Gathering Ground - history, ceremony, protest. Gathering Ground brings together over 30 interdisciplinary artists, to create a large scale, site specific performance work developed in Sidney.

Lizzie Thomson collaborated extensively with choreographer Rosalind Crisp for 9 years, performing in her works throughout Europe and Australia. She has recently worked in projects directed by artists including Karen Therese, Dean Walsh, Samuel James, Hans van den Broeck, Fiona Malone, Opera Australia and Nikki Heywood, in addition to her own Performance Space Residency with Brian Fuata and Jane McKernan. Lizzie teaches regularly for professional companies, as well as lecturing at educational institutions.

Carrie So is one of the founders of The Studio - a multi-discipline art-based space where the core intention is to transcend the boundaries of various art mediums, such as visuals and fashion. Carrie has returned to Hong Kong after completing her Honours degree in Theatre and Performance at the University of New South Wales. Her main area of interest is in the effects of spatial manipulation for performance. Her self devised solo works include Begins, exploring memory and her recorded self which focuses on the moving work using visual installation and light. Her experiments sample drama, live music, song, dance, video projection and poetry.

Spearheaded by independent arts and cultural worker Ms May Fung, and generously supported by Dawei Charitable Foundation, Art and Culture Outreach (ACO) is a non-profit making organization founded in 2005, aiming to facilitate both local and overseas art and cultural practitioners to have cross boundary / discipline development encouraging cross-over collaboration in different aspects.

LOCATION: 1/F, FooTak Bldg, 365 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
SCHEDULE: 7.00 PM to 8.30 PM
RELATED LINK: http://www.pact.net.au

Our great challenge at our new store, Bloom Yellow, is the wide selection of magazines we are bringing to Macau. You can check them at St. Lazarus or simply ask for a tittle throwing us an email, we can get access to hundreds of different titles in English, French, Italian, Spanish and German, you can get them either from special order or by subscription through out our counters. Of course Portuguese titles will come sooner or later.
Right now we bring you Cook's Illustrated. Published by Boston Common Press this magazine provides readers with recipes, cooking techniques, and product and food recommendations exhaustively developed in our extensive Test Kitchen facility - the same kitchen featured on our cooking show, America's Test Kitchen. Included are best ways to prepare favorite American dishes - from pot roast and chocolate chip cookies to grilled salmon and fruit cobbler. Best (and worst) cooking equipment - from chef's knives to cookie sheets. Best brands - from canned tomatoes to baking chocolate. Best cooking techniques - from brining shrimp to baking ham. And all of this is provided without a single page of advertising - just 100% cooking information.
On this issue learn the best way to preserve your natural ingredients in the fridge, keeping all its nutrients and flavours safe and in full shape.
[NOW AT BLOOM YELLOW]

This coming Tuesday there will be a special and unique event at both Blooms and in Macau. With Hong Kong stores we are going to launch at the same day the new Moleskine City Notebooks of Hong Kong and Beijing. With them we're bringing a mini-exhibition which explains the usage of this useful guides.
Moleskine has always been a favourite notebook for travelers. The Moleskine City Notebooks - the first guidebooks you write yourself - was launched in 2007, and we are very excited to announce the launch of the first two Asian City Notebooks: Beijing and Hong Kong!
At the occasion of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the first Olympic Games hosted in China, an Olympic insert was specially designed for the Beijing City Notebook, with maps of Olympic Games Area, a bilingual Street Index and Venue Index.
Moleskine Asia gave away 40 advance copies to create 40 unique Beijing and Hong Kong City Notebooks. Two of them are available one at Bloom Red and another at Bloom Yellow for a unique preview.
Apart from Bloom in Macau, all creations will be exhibited showing the unlimited usages of the City Notebooks in other stores in Hong Kong, starting June 24th, 2008 and all summer long. Moleskine Fans and media partners are invited to join and experience these personalized Beijing and Hong Kong City Notebooks.
Come to see them!

Naomi Klein is a Canadian journalist and regular contributor to The Nation, Harpers Magazine and the London Guardian. Beginning with No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (1999), Klein’s work has explored the two major forces that have shaped the post–Cold War world: the extension of radical free-market capitalism and, after 9/11, the resurgence of imperial militarism. More than just investigating the excesses, abuses, and popular resistances to neoliberalism and war, Klein’s journalism consistently links them, exploring how the corporate globalism of the Clinton years flowed seamlessly into the neoconservatives’ preemptive warfare doctrine. Latin America, the first region where neoliberalism was imposed and the first to produce a sustained resistance movement to it, has long been a central focus of Klein’s work, which includes, in addition to her writings, The Take, a 2004 documentary she produced with her husband, Avi Lewis, documenting the takeover of La Forja, a Buenos Aires auto plant, by its workers following Argentina’s 2002 economic meltdown.
In her last book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas though our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
[NOW AVAILABLE AT BLOOM STORES]

• READ AN EXCERPT
• WATCH THE SHOCK DOCTRINE SHORT FILM

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein
Penguin • Paperback • May 2008

New just-released editions have just arrived, more additions for your cool, stylish, elegant, sophisticated, dressy, smart; fashionable, high-fashion, in vogue, up-to-date, up-to-the-minute, contemporary, à la mode, chi-chi, au courant; dapper, dashing, trim, trendy, with it, happening, snappy, snazzy, modish, du jour, in, funky, natty, swish, fly, spiffy and kicky holidays.

Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Istanbul, Phuket, New York, Paris, Rome and Tokyo!

LUXE City Guides - the consummately stylish pocket travel guides, packed with astute, opinionated information for the busy and sophisticated visitor.

Each hip, smart and stylish pocket-sized guidebook is packed with a highly selective and opinionated list of only the best shops, restaurants and hotels, unique services and lifestyle options each city has to offer. And what's more, LUXE guides come with handy online updates.

LUXE chooses only the very best, so you choose only the very best.

For four years LUXE has quietly changed the face of travel guides, starting from scratch they re-thought the whole concept of why and how we all travel, of what we need when get there and most importantly what we don't. LUXE is now famous for its take no prisoners attitude, avoiding all the padding, photos, graphics and blah of other guides and getting straight to the meat. The result – ultra smart travel companions stacked with priceless information for the discerning and busy traveller.

In the notoriously fickle worlds of fashion, food and entertainment other guides are hopelessly out of date even by the time they reach the bookstore shelf. LUXE guides are not only updated each year, but come with online updates throughout the year. They’re always ahead so you’re always ahead. Saucy, sleek and slinky in an unique concertina format easy to use, small and discreet enough to fit in your shirt pocket and packed with only the very latest and greatest that each destination has to offer. With LUXE you’re not a tourist, you’re a visitor. It’s a big difference. By the time you get to your destination, all you need to do is relax, because if it’s not in LUXE, you’re not missing anything. Whether you have a few hours or a few days, LUXE really is all you need.

And in case you were wondering, unlike other guides, LUXE accepts absolutely zero paid advertising, free services or products, backhanders or gratuities. And you can't shake a stick at that.

ALL TITLES NOW AT BLOOM RED + BLOOM YELLOW.
[LUXE CITY GUIDES WEBSITE]

This is where Bloom Yellow is. In the new hub of culture in St. Lazarus district. This is Macau. This is not a copy of something else. This is all over the world here.
We close on mondays. Tuesday we're in Love. Wednesday it's art attack. Thursday we don't care, we're still open! Friday, oh Friday we're in love again and we never hesitate. Saturday wait, Saturday's forever and Sunday always comes too late. We should start on sundays. Would be much better if we not leave them.
Just a step away from St. Paul ruins and half step from Rua do Campo and Tap Seac square. It's easy to find. We're here and you are very welcome!

A Casa de Portugal em Macau inaugura amanhã, pelas 18.30, “A Viagem”, uma exposição multimédia descrita como a evocação da descoberta por Vasco da Gama do caminho marítimo para a Índia, através de estrofes de “Os Lusíadas”.
A concepção multimédia do projecto é da autorida da KinoMind Produções, produtora local, e o guião e texto é do jornalista Fernando Sales Lopes, que ao longo da viagem pelos sete momentos descritos vai apresetando a “A Viagem” dos portugueses até ao Oriente, em mais uma iniciativa destinada a assinalar o Dia de Portugal, de Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas.
“A Viagem é uma instalação multimédia sobre as viagens dos portugueses pelo mundo, e a nossa permanente Viagem interior”, começa por descrever Sales Lopes ao salientar também que “pelo poder das imagens, dos sons, das palavras escritas e ditas, do seu apelo aos sentidos, a viagem de Vasco da Gama até à Índia, descrita pelo nosso maior poeta nos Lusíadas, desenvolve-se em cinco momentos” na mostra.
Aberta todos os dias até 29 de Junho, “A Viagem” começa com a evocação das forças contrárias à sua realização com a imagem do Velho do Restelo, segue pela descida da costa ocidental de África até à passagem do Cabo da Boa Esperança - “que das Tormentas se chamara”- e continua pela subida da costa oriental africana com a recepção em Melinde, “onde se toma piloto para se chegar à Índia, a Calecut, precisamente há 510 anos”.
Aberta todos os dias até 29 de Junho, “A Viagem” começa com a evocação das forças contrárias à sua realização com a imagem do Velho do Restelo, segue pela descida da costa ocidental de África até à passagem do Cabo da Boa Esperança - “que das Tormentas se chamara”- e continua pela subida da costa oriental africana com a recepção em Melinde, “onde se toma piloto para se chegar à Índia, a Calecut, precisamente há 510 anos”.
O sexto momento leva os visitantes da exposição à sala da "Máquina do Mundo" e ao que Sales Lopes descreve como uma viagem "às visões fantásticas do futuro - as terras e as gentes que os portugueses viriam a conhecer - que foram mostradas a Vasco da Gama pela deusa Tethys" e seguindo sempre Luís de Camões.
Depois do sonho das novas terras e gentes mostrados por Tethys, entra-se na última étapa de "A Viagem" e o momento de "E ... o Mar se cumpriu!", onde dois poemas da "Mensagem" de Fernando Pessoa - O Infante e o Horizonte - e o som de fundo da música de Dulce Pontes fecham a "A Viagem" dos visitantes do antigo Albergue da Santa Casa da Misericórdia.
"É o corolário de uma Viagem nossa, interior, estruturante, que se guia, sempre se guiou, muito mais pela agulha do coração do que pelos ventos da razão", explica Fernando Sales Lopes.
Construída numa estrutura de bambú, “A Viagem” é uma exposição que estará traduzida para chinês e que a Casa de Portugal pretende, como explica o arquitecto Carlos Couto, “levar às escolas para celebrar os Lusíadas e a viagem de Vasco da Gama aos estudantes”.
Além da exposição, as celebrações do Dia de Portugal em Macau continuam no Sábado com um espectáculo da fadista catalã Névoa, cujas receitas de bilheteira irão reverter a favor das vítimas do sismo da província chinesa de Sichuan.
[NA SALA DE EXPOSIÇÕES DO ALBERGUE ]

Bloom * Creative Network is proud to announce the opening of Bloom Yellow, the new Bloom at St. Lazarus District.
To celebrate the opening, Bloom Encounters 2008 invites you for the presentation of Salman Rushdie's latest book, "The Enchantress of Florence", for which two distinguished teachers of UMAC and IIUM accepted Bloom's invitation to brighten the talks. Glenn Timmermans will be introducing the author and Tudor Vlădescu will be leading the presentation of the novel.
As it is Bloom Yellow's opening day, there will be a lucky draw of 3 books, to be attributed to 3 lucky attendees. Bring along your name card and drop it in the bowl as you arrive or simply fill in a card with your name and contact.
Bloom Yellow is located in the lovely Albergue, previous known as 'Old Ladies House', and will be a hub of beauty fool books and magazines that you may enjoy with a cup of coffee. Albergue hosts a lot of surprises, and it's a hidden paradise within the city as you can't get any other place. Come and see what's happening there.
Meanwhile, Bloom Red, the Bloom you all know, will continue blooming in the Hung Kung Temple Square.
See you there!
[DOWNLOAD THE POSTER HERE]

Round the hairpin / We go speeding / In a rented car
A few days abroad / Is only we could afford
We go speeding / Don't let me die
[THIS IS OUR FAVORITE, PUT IT LOUD AND LISTEN TO IT HERE]

At Bloom we like more food books than food itself. These type of books come in various forms and flavors. They spread their virulent fragrance around the walls infecting the other volumes and conquering the small world we live in.
In a triumphant return to the short story, the form in which she made her extraordinary debut with There Are Jews in My House, Lara Vapnyar gives us a delightful new collection in which food and love intersect, along with their overlapping pleasures, frustrations, and deep associations in the lives of her unforgettable characters.
From “Broccoli” to “Borscht” to “Puffed Rice and Meatballs,” each of these new stories invites us into the uniquely captivating private worlds of Vapnyar’s Eastern European émigrés. There’s Nina, a recent arrival from Russia, for whom the colorful abundance of the vegetable markets in New York represents her own fresh hopes and dreams... Luda and Milena, who battle over a widower in their English class with competing recipes for cheese puffs, spinach pies, and meatballs... Sergey, who finds more comfort in the borscht made by a paid female companion than in her sexual ministrations. Each of the women and men who inhabit these witty, tender, and beautifully observed stories needs and longs for the taste and smell of home, wherever – and with whomever – hat may turn out to be.
Russian in its wit and in many of its rich details, but American in its insistence on the quest for personal happiness, however provisional and however high the cost, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love masterfully illuminates a very particular facet of desire with entirely charming results.
Published by Pantheon, an imprint of Random House US, with whom we are in honey moon since we opened, this is the perfect book to start with when you want to complete your most deep desire towards your favorite ingredient. Well, whatever. Soon, that's what we hope, we'll push Random House books better into Bloom. We'll keep you informed.

Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love, by Lara Vapnyar
Pantheon • Short Stories • Hardcover • June 2008

...since Diego Velázquez was born.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660), commonly referred to as Diego Velázquez, was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary baroque period, important as a portrait artist. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).

The importance of Velázquez's art even today is evident in considering the respect with which twentieth century painters regard his work.

Pablo Picasso presented the most durable homagesto Velázquez in 1957 when he recreated Las Meninas in 58 variations, in his characteristically cubist form. Although Picasso was concerned that his reinterpretations of Velázquez's painting would be seen merely as copies rather than unique representations, the enormous works—including the largest he had produced since Guernica in 1937—earned a position of relevance in the Spanish canon of art. Picasso retained the general form and positioning of the original in the framework of his avant-garde cubist style.

The Long Blondes are a 5-piece English indie rock band from Sheffield. The band is known not just for their music, but also their "glamorous punk" image. Front-woman Kate Jackson was featured in The Guardian's style section and the NME cool list, moving from 39 in 2005 to 7 in 2006. When questioned about her place in the first NME list by The Guardian, Jackson remarked "Probably because they didn't have enough girls. It was so overrun with boring boys, they needed someone to bring a touch of glamour."
The Long Blondes' songs reflect a number of influences, including 60s pop, Buzzcocks, The Ramones, post-punk and new wave. Traces of work by another Sheffield band, Pulp can also be seen in their recordings, their debut album was indeed produced by Steve Mackey, bassist of Pulp. The prominence of these various influences varies from song to song. Jackson's vocals have been compared to Ari Up of The Slits, Deborah Harry of Blondie and those of Au Pairs. Dorian Cox's backing vocals are also very similar to those of former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. The music features angular guitars and prominent bass guitar lines. However, the band themselves claim somewhat more eclectic influences than their sound suggests, citing Burt Bacharach, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Chinn and Chapman, and Stock, Aitken and Waterman as influences. The band gained notoriety early on in their career for their bold proclamation "We do not listen to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors or Bob Dylan. We chose an instrument each and learnt to play it." This quote was first published on their website, and is a comment on the derivative nature of the contemporary music scene rather than a criticism of the aforementioned artists.
[Listen to them HERE and HERE]

Charles Frieth, preeminent composer, conductor and prodigious womanizer, is preparing for a performance of one of his early works, and the world premiere of "Demonic Aubade". Obstinate and myopic, he is oblivious to the growing turmoil around him; his wife's poor health and dissatisfaction; the exhausted efforts of his secretary; and, the disquieting diligence of his housekeeper, Maria.

As the first performance draws near, the maestro is suddenly awoken to the chaos, and as Charles struggles to regain control of his life, a terrible tragedy begins to unfold. "For You" is a beautifully wrought and compelling libretto - It is Ian McEwan at his very best.

Come to Bloom to see the latest news!

A Room Full of Toys

What exactly do toys do when there’s nobody there to watch them?
Here is an amazing journey through the world of toys and the children’s rooms that were their homes, from the late 19th century to the present day. More than seven hundred toys from the superb collection at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, are brought to life in a series of fabulous and fantastical scenes, strikingly staged to produce a toy’s-eye view of more than a century of fun and games.
Dolls and teddies, trains and planes, robots and animals, favourite characters ranging from Donald Duck and Barbie to Luke Skywalker and the Ninja Turtles – all of these and more run riot through a land that seems both strange and familiar, comforting and unsettling, and absolutely evocative of the pleasures and pains of the playroom.
The book is led by the gaze of Alberto Manguel, whose text explores what toys mean to both children and adults – how toys can tell us who we are and allow us to imagine what we may become. Manguel’s words and the extraordinary images come together to form a dazzling recreation of the dreamlike world of childhood, the serious business of pretending – and the magic of make-believe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Internationally acclaimed as an essayist and novelist, Alberto Manguel is also a prize-winning translator and has edited ten anthologies. Author of the award-winning A History of Reading and News from a Foreign Country Came, his most recent novel is Stevenson Under the Palm Trees. Born in Buenos Aires, he has lived in Italy, England, Tahiti and Canada, and now lives in France, where he was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Béatrice Salmon is Director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Dorothée Charles is a Curator in the Department of Toys at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Michel Pintado is a photographer, illustrator, special effects designer and modelmaker. Jean Haas is an award-winning set designer who has worked on many theatre productions, exhibitions and concerts. Simon Saulnier designs exhibitions and creates special effects for films and advertising.

A Room Full of Toys, by Alberto Menguel • THAMES & HUDSON

This book awaits you at Bloom!