This photo story by Martin Parr focuses on Nuwara Eliya, a town in Sri Lanka where the British colonial way of life carries on just as it did in the early part of the last century. The Brits developed Nuwara Eliya as a hill station in the heart of their tea estates. It became a place where planters, businessmen, diplomats and soldiers could escape the steamy heat of the lowlands and enjoy some home comforts. Here they built elegant villas and bungalows, with white fretwork and green corrugated iron roofs. They grew English flowers and vegetables. They established a golf course, a park, a club, several half-timbered hotels and guest houses and the race course. When the British left Ceylon in 1948, these oh-so-English institutions and traditions, far from slipping into neglect and decay, were taken over, tended to and nurtured by the Sri Lankans.
Archive for July, 2007
SRI LANKA - RELICS OF THE BRITISH ERA
COLOMBIA - DEVIL’S BREATH
Today we continue our exploration of the horrifying world of Colombian scopolamine with a visit to the local university’s toxicology expert for a quick primer on the physical effects of the drug and then are treated to a first-hand display, courtesy of our drug-dealer buddy Demencia Black. Never before have we seen a man so live up to his name.
COLOMBIA - DEVIL’S BREATH
Today we continue our exploration of the horrifying world of Colombian scopolamine with a visit to the local university’s toxicology expert for a quick primer on the physical effects of the drug and then are treated to a first-hand display, courtesy of our drug-dealer buddy Demencia Black. Never before have we seen a man so live up to his name.
COLOMBIA - DEVIL’S BREATH
Today we continue our exploration of the horrifying world of Colombian scopolamine with a visit to the local university’s toxicology expert for a quick primer on the physical effects of the drug and then are treated to a first-hand display, courtesy of our drug-dealer buddy Demencia Black. Never before have we seen a man so live up to his name.
IRAN - MARTYRDOM FOR NERDS
Iran’s Student Union has unveiled a new game that enables kids to feel the martyr rush, without dying. Hostage Rescue is a first person shooter where you control an Iranian special forces agent trying to free nuclear scientists kidnapped by Yankee/Zionist imperialists. Funnily enough, weapons of
choice include the Israeli-manufactured UZI submachine gun.
SUMMERTIME TOE OVERLOAD
Just when we thought the comfort shoe market had peaked with Crocs, this summer has brought a new wave of toe-exposing footwear to gross us out. First off, there’s the Dopie, a minimalist flip-flop made for
people who hate eyes and love x-treme long boarding. Then there’s Vibram’s Five Fingers Classic, a shoe that resembles a foot. Don’t these people know the rules? As we’ve said time and time again, comfort cannot dictate the way you dress, especially when it comes to footwear.
COLOMBIA - CREEPY DRUGS
Today in Bogota, VBS pays a visit to the local botanical garden to
pick some Borrachero flowers then goes for a car ride with our
drug-dealer buddy Demencia Black to score some scopolamine. We really
aren’t sure which is more unsettling–the fact that you can just pluck
the components of one of the creepiest drugs on earth in a local park,
or that our burundanga hook-up randomly plays the Andean flute on car
rides and sounds like a bootleg Harry Potter villain.
We’ve also got a new episode of Thumbs Up! to tide you over for the
morning. After finally making land just south of the Louisiana border,
our boys say good-bye to the Mississippi and catch a ride deep into the
heart of bayou country.
COLOMBIA - LAS MALAS AMISTADES
It occurred to us that we’ve been kind of taking it kind of hard on Colombia, what with the Scopolamine and the sewer-kids and the donkey-fucking and all. So today on Practice Space, we’re bringing you a little part Bogota’s friendlier side: Las Malas Amistades. It’s only fair.
Las Malas are sort of a loose collective of musicians who occasionally put on big, circus-like shows with upwards of 15 members onstage, but who are equally content to just sit around the living room rug and hum out soft little tunes on tiny guitars and keyboards, which is exactly what they did for us.
LONDON - NEW BLACK LIPS VIDEO
Here’s the brand new Black Lips video for "Katrina". The single will be released in the UK on September 3.
NEW YORK - BLACK LIPS AND FRIENDS
The Black Lips played a show in Brooklyn last Friday with the Coathangers and Turbo Fruit and another band whose name we don’t know because we showed up right after they finished their set (whoopth) which everyone in attendance agreed was one wet, churning, humping, sweating, horny, undulating group-fuck of a good time and worth missing out on every other amazing band in town that night (Fucked Up, Blues Control, etc etc etc) and trekking out to the edge of Queens to see. Check out the Vice Photo Blog for pics.
US & THEM
This photo story is all about the complex relationship that people have with animals. It’s about how animals become consumer products for people, objects for medical research to benefit humanity, and also how we use them for love and affection. Photos by Jan Ven Ijken.
MIAMI KAOS - DIVINE RETRIBUTION
Miami Kaos is the guy responsible for all those absurdly glossy rap covers that look like they were airbrushed then put through every filter in Photoshop then CGI’d for good measure. He is so sought-after in the world of mixtapes that wannabe-MC’s have resorted to forging his signatures on their own photoshop efforts just to give their CDs a fighting chance. You’d think Miami would be sitting pretty at this point, but apparently all the generic ultra-macho imagery he was constantly commissioned to crank out started to get a bit tedious. So, in an effort to break out of this pigeon-hole, he reneged on a personal pledge to steer clear of religion in his work and turned Remy Ma into a huge-titted crucifix for her album Shesus Christ. Now, following her implication in a shooting, it looks like Miami Kaos is feeling the heat from the biggest G of them all…
YEMEN - BABIES & BURKHAS
Today on Viceland we travel to Yemen, a country where women have an average of 7.9 children compared to 2.7 in the rest of the world. This disparity might have something to do with a culture that censures contraception and allows marriages to be consummated when the bride is as young as nine years old. Abbie Trayler-Smith had the privilege of being given access to a Yemeni hospital maternity unit and taking photographs at four separate births.
