Golden Half fallout

Play the video below while you read through this post. It will make sense soon enough. [mike spears if you are reading this, i love CLAM$ CA$INO man, my blog has become like an homage to it over the past two days]

Here are a couple of updates for the Golden Half fans out there, who have been writing in droves (ha) after last week's adoring post.

Ryan of manga supersite SAME HAT! SAME HAT! pointed out that the name "Golden Half" does not actually come from a pun on "Golden Calf," as I had imagined. Instead it has got to be a reference to an all-female band from the 1970's. Here's a clip from an article explaining a little bit about the group's cultural context:

By the time I was growing up, the more offensive postwar view of children of mixed race had largely disappeared. The derogatory term "ainoko" (half-breeds) or its equally loaded successor, "konketsuji" (mixed-blood child), were of the past. The experience of my age demographic is captured more aptly by "Golden Half," the wildly popular 1970s singing group that helped inject "haafu" into the language. The five women, all of mixed Japanese and Caucasian parentage, were glamorized and exoticized.

That's Golden Half above, of course.

So this would definitely explain why the book Life as a Golden Half is made up of photos taken by half-Japanese models. I guess it doesn't make too much sense to name a camera after a pun on "Golden Calf," but maybe I was imagining strange rites performed in tribute to the almost supernatural prowess of this image-making object. (Would that make dumb flickr users or digital dogmatists—need a link for that—Moses, breaking up our fun?)

FADER, in a desperate move to show that they're in touch with the youth of today, moved quickly to react to my wave-making post by writing a Golden Half post of their own. But you read it here first. In your eye, FADER! Thanks to Jessica Petunia for pointing that one out.