The dog days of summer are officially here. For some people, that means extra classes and loads of work. For others, it means less time in the office and more time relaxing at any of the beaches or rivers around Taiwan’s coasts. For house music specialist DJ Lichael Mambert (real name Michael Lambert), who played at Korner and Havana Pool Party last weekend, the dog days of summer mean returning to Taiwan from a nine-month hiatus in Canada.
Mambert has been going back and forth between Canada and Taiwan for the past five years and plays a lot of shows in both places. This return, though, was special because his friends picked him up and immediately had a party for him. When asked which time zone he likes better, Mambert said, “Taiwan really feels like home to me.”
Playing the final set at Korner last Friday, Mambert had the chance to go a bit darker and deeper. When he got on the decks at Havana, Mambert played more sunny and cheerful tunes to fit the pool vibe. His experience in knowing how to play the right songs at the right time is what puts him head and shoulders above the rest. While Mambert plans on picking up more sets throughout the summer, the next time he is scheduled to play at the moment will be a marathon five-and-a-half-hour set at Korner on Aug. 28.
Photo courtesy of Jamie Mactography
■ Marathon: Lichael Mambert All Night Long is Aug. 28 from 11:30pm to 5am at Korner, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1). Admission is NT$200 at the door and includes a drink.
On the other end of town, the dog days of summer are being celebrated in Taipei’s Halo, in the ATT4Fun building, with Vega’s Jungle Fiasco party. Halo has become one of the hottest spots in Taiwan because of its impressive view of Taipei 101 and the fact that people go there to be seen.
■ Vega’s Jungle Fiasco party is tonight from 10pm to 4am at Halo, 8F, 12 Songshou Rd, Taipei City (台北市松壽路12號6樓). Admission is free.
Another venue in Xinyi District (信義) that is keeping the dog days of summer at bay by planning events every weekend is Barcode. On Friday nights, resident Kay Lee has been inviting all of her DJ friends to play house, future house, classic house and nu-disco with her at a party called Friday’s Groove. This week, her special guest is DJ Jet.
Tomorrow night at Barcode, disco legend Bert Bevans will play all the funky tracks people have known for years, plus a few surprises. Bevans used to play at Studio 54, New York’s home of disco, and is still out touring the world. For special events like this, Barcode puts the DJ booth in the front of the venue instead of the back so that people can focus on dancing instead of chilling out at their tables.
■ Both parties go from 9pm to 3:30am at Barcode, 5F, 88 Songren Rd, Taipei City (台北市松仁路88號5樓). Admission on both nights is free.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and