La Carmina
Encyclopedia
La Carmina is a Canadian blog
ger, author
, journalist
, and TV host. She specializes in Goth
and Harajuku
fashion and Japanese pop culture, and has been described as “kind of adorable, in a somewhat bizarre way” by Andrea Walker in The New Yorker
. She appeared in one of the segments on the Tokyo
episode of Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel
.
, Canada
. Her parents are from Hong Kong
. She attended Columbia University
and graduated in three years. She was
accepted into Yale Law School
at age 20 and graduated with a JD.
first published book, The Cosmos in a Carrot. The book combines nutritional information and health advice with Buddhist notions of balance and moderation. She made the deal without an agent, but was later taken on by a New York
literary agency.
In September 2007, she began her La Carmina blog
about Japanese and Gothic subcultures, Harajuku fashion and visual kei
music. She is a professional blogger, and has cited sales of direct ads, Google
AdSense
, affiliate programs, sponsorships, RSS, search functions, and her YouTube
videos as among her sources of income. Her blog has been quoted in Boing Boing
and Women’s Wear Daily.
In 2009, Perigee (a division of Penguin Books
) published La Carmina’s Cute Yummy Time, a cookbook based on Japanese "charaben" ("character bento"), a style of bento
in which food is decorated to resemble animals, cartoon characters, and other such figures. She took all the photos and drew illustrations for the book. La Carmina’s promotional tour included book signings in US cities and an appearance on The Today Show
.
The Guardian
named Cute Yummy Time as one of the oddest book titles of the year, and the Washington Post recommended it in
Gift Guide. Sarah DiGregorio of The Village Voice
's "Fork in the Road" food blog wrote of Cute Yummy Time that "this kind of cute food (or kawaii food) seems less about eating and more about, well, looking cute and feminine while cutting food into elaborate shapes and not eating".
Mark Batty Publisher
released Crazy, Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo in 2009, a
hardcover book with full color photos. In a review, The Vancouver Sun
wrote, “Think of it less as a guidebook and more as a
ghost train ride where whimsical, madcap and absurd images of some 30 theme restaurants
materialize at every turn [...] Her tales flow effortlessly, with erudite explanations of
what she sees in Tokyo's many subcultures [...] Brace yourself for a kitsch fix.”
La Carmina is a journalist for CNNGo, where she contributes articles about Asian pop
culture. She writes a monthly “Global Gothic”
column for Lip Service Webzine, and also writes for AOL/Huffington Post Travel
In 2011, she was selected as one of the top 40 most influential fashion bloggers invited to LUISAVIAROMA's Firenze4Ever 2011/12 Autumn/Winter event in Italy.
episode of Bizarre Foods, in which she and her friends dined with host Andrew Zimmern
in a theme restaurant. According to Zimmern, the footage showcased the "exotic alternative lifestyles" of Tokyo and was originally intended for an episode of Bizarre World, but was later edited for inclusion in a Bizarre Foods episode instead, a process which refocused the segment onto the restaurant itself rather than the diners.
La Carmina’s work as a TV host includes Norway TV, CNNGo TV and a Canal+
France
documentary about Japanese subcultures alongside Antoine de Caunes
. Japanese broadcaster NHK
filmed a 20 minute documentary about her work in blogging and cooking. She will be the Asia host for educational travel TV series, Project Explorer.
In 2011, she hosted, scripted, arranged, and field produced the show Coolhunting Weird Wisconsin for Huffington Post Travel TV. In the first episode, she gave a tour of Dodgeville theme hotel The Don Q Inn. She also hosted, translated, and arranged a show in Tokyo for National Geographic and Fuel TV
.
, TV production, and promotion company that provides film fixing services to broadcasters worldwide. She was interviewed and featured in the Spanish book Coolhunting Digital.
Alongside Sebastiano Serafini
, she released a line of t-shirts for their HOPE collaboration, with proceeds going to benefit Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims.
(with whom she also contributes to LA Weekly
) to raise money in Los Angeles for relief efforts in Japan, including the organization Doctors Without Borders.
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, and TV host. She specializes in Goth
Goth subculture
The goth subculture is a contemporary subculture found in many countries. It began in England during the early 1980s in the gothic rock scene, an offshoot of the post-punk genre. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify...
and Harajuku
Harajuku
Harajuku is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan....
fashion and Japanese pop culture, and has been described as “kind of adorable, in a somewhat bizarre way” by Andrea Walker in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. She appeared in one of the segments on the Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
episode of Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel
Travel Channel
The Travel Channel is a satellite and cable television channel that is headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, US. It features documentaries and how-to shows related to travel and leisure around the United States and throughout the world. Programming has included shows in African animal safaris,...
.
Early life
La Carmina was born and raised in VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Her parents are from Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. She attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and graduated in three years. She was
accepted into Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
at age 20 and graduated with a JD.
Writing
At age 19, La Carmina submitted a book proposal to Parallax Press that resulted in herfirst published book, The Cosmos in a Carrot. The book combines nutritional information and health advice with Buddhist notions of balance and moderation. She made the deal without an agent, but was later taken on by a New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
literary agency.
In September 2007, she began her La Carmina blog
about Japanese and Gothic subcultures, Harajuku fashion and visual kei
Visual Kei
is a movement among Japanese musicians, that is characterized by the use of make-up, elaborate hair styles and flamboyant costumes, often, but not always, coupled with androgynous aesthetics. Some sources state that visual kei refers to a music genre, or to a sub-genre of Japanese rock, with its...
music. She is a professional blogger, and has cited sales of direct ads, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
AdSense
AdSense
Google AdSense which is a program run by Google Inc. allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to automatically serve text, image, video, and rich media adverts that are targeted to site content and audience. These adverts are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google, and they...
, affiliate programs, sponsorships, RSS, search functions, and her YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
videos as among her sources of income. Her blog has been quoted in Boing Boing
Boing Boing
Boing Boing is a publishing entity, first established as a magazine, later becoming a group blog.-History:...
and Women’s Wear Daily.
In 2009, Perigee (a division of Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
) published La Carmina’s Cute Yummy Time, a cookbook based on Japanese "charaben" ("character bento"), a style of bento
Bento
is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware...
in which food is decorated to resemble animals, cartoon characters, and other such figures. She took all the photos and drew illustrations for the book. La Carmina’s promotional tour included book signings in US cities and an appearance on The Today Show
The Today Show
Today is an iconic American morning news and talk show airing every morning on NBC. Debuting on January 14, 1952, it was the first of its genre on American television and in the world. The show is also the fourth-longest running American television series...
.
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
named Cute Yummy Time as one of the oddest book titles of the year, and the Washington Post recommended it in
Gift Guide. Sarah DiGregorio of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
's "Fork in the Road" food blog wrote of Cute Yummy Time that "this kind of cute food (or kawaii food) seems less about eating and more about, well, looking cute and feminine while cutting food into elaborate shapes and not eating".
Mark Batty Publisher
Mark Batty Publisher
Mark Batty Publisher is an independent book publishing company specializing in illustrated books on the art of communication: photography, art and design, graffiti and urban art; pop culture, typography and other related topics...
released Crazy, Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo in 2009, a
hardcover book with full color photos. In a review, The Vancouver Sun
The Vancouver Sun
The Vancouver Sun is a daily newspaper first published in the Canadian province of British Columbia on February 12, 1912. The paper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. It is published six days a week, Monday to Saturday...
wrote, “Think of it less as a guidebook and more as a
ghost train ride where whimsical, madcap and absurd images of some 30 theme restaurants
materialize at every turn [...] Her tales flow effortlessly, with erudite explanations of
what she sees in Tokyo's many subcultures [...] Brace yourself for a kitsch fix.”
La Carmina is a journalist for CNNGo, where she contributes articles about Asian pop
culture. She writes a monthly “Global Gothic”
column for Lip Service Webzine, and also writes for AOL/Huffington Post Travel
In 2011, she was selected as one of the top 40 most influential fashion bloggers invited to LUISAVIAROMA's Firenze4Ever 2011/12 Autumn/Winter event in Italy.
Television
La Carmina appeared in one of several segments on the TokyoTokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
episode of Bizarre Foods, in which she and her friends dined with host Andrew Zimmern
Andrew Zimmern
Andrew Zimmern is a James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, food writer, and teacher. As the co-creator, host, and consulting producer of Travel Channel's series Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World, he travels the world exploring food in its own native...
in a theme restaurant. According to Zimmern, the footage showcased the "exotic alternative lifestyles" of Tokyo and was originally intended for an episode of Bizarre World, but was later edited for inclusion in a Bizarre Foods episode instead, a process which refocused the segment onto the restaurant itself rather than the diners.
La Carmina’s work as a TV host includes Norway TV, CNNGo TV and a Canal+
Canal+
Canal+ is a French premium pay television channel launched in 1984. It is 80% owned by the Canal+ Group, which in turn is owned by Vivendi SA. The channel broadcasts several kinds of programming, mostly encrypted...
France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
documentary about Japanese subcultures alongside Antoine de Caunes
Antoine de Caunes
Antoine de Caunes is a television presenter, actor, writer and film director. He is the son of two prominent French personalities, television journalist-reporter Georges de Caunes and television announcer Jacqueline Joubert...
. Japanese broadcaster NHK
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
filmed a 20 minute documentary about her work in blogging and cooking. She will be the Asia host for educational travel TV series, Project Explorer.
In 2011, she hosted, scripted, arranged, and field produced the show Coolhunting Weird Wisconsin for Huffington Post Travel TV. In the first episode, she gave a tour of Dodgeville theme hotel The Don Q Inn. She also hosted, translated, and arranged a show in Tokyo for National Geographic and Fuel TV
Fuel TV
Fuel TV is a U.S. cable and satellite specialty channel that launched on July 1, 2003. It focuses on the cultures of such extreme sports as skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding, motocross, surfing, BMX and FMX. It is a unit of Fox Cable Networks and is currently available to 26-million...
.
La Carmina and the Pirates
La Carmina has a coolhuntingCoolhunting
Coolhunting is a term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends...
, TV production, and promotion company that provides film fixing services to broadcasters worldwide. She was interviewed and featured in the Spanish book Coolhunting Digital.
Fashion
La Carmina describes her sense of fashion as "Morticia Addams meets Hello Kitty," drawing from a mix of alternative styles.Alongside Sebastiano Serafini
Sebastiano Serafini
Sebastiano Serafini is an Italian actor, model, musician, and stylist working in Hong Kong and Japan. He has modeled for brands and fashion lines including h.Naoto, Sixh., Lip Service, Gstar, Stand Up!! The Fragile, Toni & Guy, Paul Smith, Blablahospital, and True Religion...
, she released a line of t-shirts for their HOPE collaboration, with proceeds going to benefit Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims.
March 2011 Japanese earthquake disaster
La Carmina has worked with actor/model Sebastiano SerafiniSebastiano Serafini
Sebastiano Serafini is an Italian actor, model, musician, and stylist working in Hong Kong and Japan. He has modeled for brands and fashion lines including h.Naoto, Sixh., Lip Service, Gstar, Stand Up!! The Fragile, Toni & Guy, Paul Smith, Blablahospital, and True Religion...
(with whom she also contributes to LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
) to raise money in Los Angeles for relief efforts in Japan, including the organization Doctors Without Borders.
Works
- The Cosmos in a Carrot (2006) ISBN 1888375604
- Crazy, Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo (2009) ISBN 0982075413
- Cute Yummy Time (2009) ISBN 0399535322