Showing 11 - 19 of 19
Back to the future
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 01/02/2015
» Nostalgia apparently is what it used to be. With new Star Wars and Mad Max films coming, AC/DC and Giorgio Moroder releasing albums, and K-pop hairstyles that look like A Flock of Seagulls, you could be forgiven for feeling like Marty McFly stepping out of the DeLorean in Back to the Future II. There is more than a bit of 1985 about 2015, even though there are no flying cars and only Tony Hawk has managed to get his feet on a hoverboard.
Hating Thailand ... and loving it
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 07/12/2014
» We've all been there. You come to Thailand, get your bag/passport/shirt stolen and you are left wandering the streets shouting at policemen, throwing rocks at cars and sulking at a cute girl who hands you an orange juice and a phone charger. It's essentially a rite of passage all young men have to endure on their first weekend in the country. Right?
Mind over manners
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 23/11/2014
» From time to time, the Land of Smiles seems like it's anything but. It becomes the land of smirks when you're waiting for change and the motorcycle taxi rider insists he doesn't have enough. It becomes the land of scowls when you suggest to a middle-aged woman with the khunying hairdo that she wait her turn at the 7-Eleven counter. It becomes the land of blank stares when you point out to the smartphone zombies that they shouldn't block the door of the skytrain.
The faceless pop star
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 29/06/2014
» She pumped out Rihanna’s hit Diamonds in less than 20 minutes, and when the Barbadian megastar copied her demo inflection for inflection she thought it was a joke. She was shocked when David Guetta used her voice for a rave anthem that sold 3.7 million copies, but used the money to buy a fabulous fridge. She won’t go on tour for her new album, but she sang on Ellen with her back to the camera and just might do a few songs for dog charities.
Behind the news
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 25/05/2014
» One of the curses, or blessings, of being a journalist is that everyone else’s story seems more interesting than your own. It’s great to meet the famous and powerful, and be in that ringside seat to history, but seldom does anyone else care about the reporter who acts as the conduit. JFK, Castro and Nixon changed history; Cronkite, Walters and Frost just got to talk to or about them. The best we can hope for is “Oh, the humanity”, a headline or phrase that will be forever linked with the event to which it was connected.
The canvas is his world
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 23/03/2014
» His mouth is a river of phrases and run-on sentences flowing over tongue and teeth. His eyes, below straggly brown curls, bristle with energy and ideas. For Henri Lamy, art is all about the face. So when his palette knife plops white into blue and smears the new shade across the canvas, he leaves an impression of a nose to explain a point.
Making a splash
B Magazine, Michael Ruffles, Published on 10/11/2013
» Earlier this year we may have witnessed a watershed moment in the sexualisation of Thai pop music. At the very least it was a water closet moment.
Don't stop 'til you get enough
Life, Michael Ruffles, Published on 26/08/2013
» Choose life. Choose Facebook. Choose your own senators to misrepresent you. Choose not to choose life but choose something else instead. Choose opium.
CSI: Hogwarts
Life, Michael Ruffles, Published on 22/07/2013
» The Boy Who Lived stands over the charred corpse, the lightning scar on his forehead and the police badge on his hip glistening in the Miami sun. The medical examiner, a curly-haired Muggle, explains how an accelerant was used to burn the murder victim. "Well," Harry Potter says, pausing to don his sunglasses in the seconds before the CSI theme music starts. "You should always expecto petroleum."