Brett Davis - AsiaLIFE Magazine

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The Selby is in Your Place
www.theselby.com
What can a spigot, doorframe or bookshelf say about the occupant of a
home? A lot, thinks Todd Selby. Since 2008, Selby has been pulling back the
curtain on some of the coolest living and working spaces in the world and
building a name for himself as an alchemist of portrait, interior and fashion
photography on his website www.theselby.com. The Details photo assistantturned-phenom
began capturing friends in their New York residences, but
once word got out, invitations from the hipsterati of home decor began
pouring in. His portfolio has since grown to include spaces occupied by
cultural luminaries like Tom Wolfe and Robert Longo and fashion icons such
as Alexander Wang and Karl Lagerfeld. Selby’s approach has also earned him
contracts with the likes of Louis Vuitton and high profile commissions, including
a gig shooting New York Magazine’s entire 2009 design issue. Not bad
for a dude with a camera. Check out @theselby for tweets on his latest home
invasions. Tom DiChristopher
Le Quy Don packs a lot into a limited space—restaurants,
sightseeing and a lively nighttime atmosphere among
some beautiful old colonial homes. Thomas Maresca
explores. Photos by Jay Zhang.
Fake AP Stylebook
@FakeAPStylebook
AP Stylebook: /n/ a guide to style and grammar that serves as the newspaper
industry standard in the United States. Fake AP Stylebook: /n/ a Twitter
feed that should be regarded as the standard for absolutely nothing—except
linguistic one-liners, satirical citations and precedent puns. That said, you
don’t have to know how to wield a semi-colon to enjoy Fake AP Stylebook.
Throughout the week, the Fake AP tweeters dispatch dubious advice along
the lines of, “‘Men’s room’ should contain an apostrophe. And a urinal.” and
“Remember to end every sentence in your sports column with a healthy
‘booyah!’” The advice is courtesy of the Bureau Chiefs (www.thebureauchiefs.com),
a band of journalists, writers, artists, graphic designers and
other like-minded satirists and pop culture commentators. For anyone who's
ever wanted a view into editorial office culture, this is basically it, folks: jokes
about homophones. (Maybe we should have gone into advertising. It looks so
sexy on Mad Men.) Tom DiChristopher
ThinkGeek: Stuff for Smart Masses
www.thinkgeek.com
These days, geek is a lifestyle, not a putdown. ThinkGeek has absolutely
everything for the discriminating techno-nerd. There are plenty of novelty
items, like the Annoy-a-tron (six irritating sounds including cricket chirping
and electronic grating), a BeerBot bottle opening T-shirt—even a whole
section dedicated to zombies and bacon. There’s also an array of products
on offer that could actually come in handy. The mini filing cabinet, which at a
petite 6.5 inches can fit more than 800 business cards, is just one example.
Customers can also sign up for an incentive programme and redeem Geek
points for dorky gadgets, apparel and edible treats (wasabi-flavoured gumballs,
anyone?). There’s an interactive element, too. Readers are encouraged
to send in their own Techie Haikus (Told my boss swine flu / but I really came
down with / Modern Warfare 2) and self-portraits with ThinkGeek products.
Suitable even for non-geeks. Beth Young
Le Quy Don extends from the
northern end of the Reunification
Palace a scant six blocks
to Vo Thi Sau (where it meets
the Women’s Museum, 202 Vo
Thi Sau). Like other streets in
this immediate area of District
3, Le Quy Don is home to
a large proportion of wellpreserved
old colonial buildings.
It also stands out for its
concentration of restaurants,
including some of the most
popular in town, and it shares
a corner with one of HCM
City’s top tourist attractions. A
frenzy of construction is going
on, with a couple of large new
restaurants being built and
residential buildings going up,
so this information may be in
need of an updating sooner
rather than later. Like all of
HCM City, really.
Mini-You
3 Le Quy Don
Looking for a unique and
slightly ridiculous gift for a
friend or loved one? How
about a miniature figurine in
their likeness? All it takes is
a photo, and in two to three
weeks, Mini-You will supply
a hand-sculpted, caricaturized
version of your lucky friend,
doing any of a wide range of
activities—from watching TV
to playing golf to chilling on a
yacht to getting married. The
choice is yours. Prices start at
around 1.1 million VND.
War Remnants Museum
28 Vo Van Tan
Probably the first stop on any
tourist’s itinerary in HCM City,
the War Remnants Museum
offers a slightly faded but stillpoignant
accounting of the war
with America. The spoils of said
war await visitors in the exterior
courtyard of the compound,
from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter
to an M-48 tank to a massive
155 mm Howitzer. The interior
of the main building is devoted
to photographs and artefacts of
the war, with special emphasis
on atrocities such as the massacre
at My Lai and the damage
done by Agent Orange (this
used to be called the War Crimes
Museum, after all).
The Requiem exhibit, a moving
tribute to the photojournalists
from every side who died
covering the war, is a highlight.
A temporary exhibition, Vietnam’s
Post-War Recovery, is
currently on display, featuring
before-and-after photos of cities
and towns that were damaged
during the war and have since
been rebuilt. If nothing else, the
museum is a powerful reminder
of how far Vietnam has come
since the dark days of the war.
WE Lounge
172H Nguyen Dinh Chieu
Open for four months now, this
slick glass-walled establishment
features a ground-floor restaurant,
a first-floor lounge,
18 asialife HCMC asialife HCMC 19