“Oh Land [first] borrowed a dress from our Fall ‘11 collection to perform on the Craig Ferguson show,” Cushnie tells Style.com. “Then we met her for the first time after her show at the Bowery Ballroom in September—where she was wearing the dress again,” Ochs adds. From there, the three decided to coordinate on a series of tour pieces, based on the fringed dress the singer had taken such a liking to.

“The fringe moved so well onstage while she was performing,” Cushnie explains. “It’s a total rock star dress and she made it come to life, so we made four additional dresses all with fringe.” “We just wanted to make sure she would have fun performing in it,” Ochs says. New Yorkers can verify that particular detail when Oh Land and her dresses return to New York stages on December 11.
—Kristin Studeman

Photos: Courtesy of Cushnie et Ochs

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Salford-based band the Happy Mondays are re-forming for a month-long tour in May.

Tickets to see the group featuring Shaun Ryder, Rowetta Satchell, Paul Ryder, Mark Day, Paul Davis and Gary Whelan will go on sale on Friday.

Rowetta Satchell is one of the band’s singers and told Radio 5 live Breakfast the tour would be one of their more sober ones.

To hear other 5 live interviews, please visit the best bits page.

Breakfast broadcasts weekday 0600 to 0900 on Radio 5 live.

The maker of Tide laundry detergent, Crest toothpaste and Pampers diapers said Friday that its market value grew 9 percent in developing countries over the latest quarter, but just 2 percent in North America and 0.5 percent in Western Europe. That news came as P&G reported a 49 percent drop in profit for the second fiscal quarter, hobbled by higher costs for materials and a big write-down on the value of two of its business units.

Developing markets like Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia now make up almost 37 percent of P&G’s sales, up from 27 percent five years ago. That growth was buoyed by recent expansions like toothpaste offerings in Nigeria and fabric softener in Indonesia. In the same period, the share of sales that P&G makes in the U.S. dropped to 37 percent from 43 percent.

“We are shifting the footprint of the company to take advantage of the growth where the growth occurs,” CEO Bob McDonald said in a call with analysts.

He noted that P&G has closed technical centers in Western Europe and North America but recently broke ground on a new center in Singapore and doubled the size of another in Beijing. Of the roughly 19 plants the company had under construction in the last six months, only one was in the U.S.

That adaptability has helped P&G gain revenue no matter the economic climate in the U.S., McDonald said. For example, while some competitors have blamed slowing diaper sales on a drop in the U.S. birth rate, P&G has focused on selling baby products to fast-growing populations in Asia. P&G’s baby care revenue rose 6 percent in the quarter,wholesale Frankie morello, while overall revenue rose 4 percent.

The globally focused strategy isn’t without challenges. In some cases, P&G has to convince a new crop of customers that they need a product they’d previously lived without, like disposable diapers. The products sold in places like Africa and Latin America are usually lower cost, which means they typically carry lower profit margins.

But P&G also is keenly aware of the fragility of recession-weary customers in the U.S. and Western Europe. This quarter, it took big write-downs on the value of its salon professional unit and the appliances unit, which mostly sells electric razors.

The company noted that discretionary purchases are a tougher sell in a weak economy. It also noted that Western Europe, where concerns about a debt crisis are crimping consumer confidence, accounts for about half the sales for both units.

P&G is also raising prices across the globe to make up for its own higher costs for many raw materials like alcohol and the resin used in making diapers. In the last quarter, it raised prices an average of 4 percent.

P&G knows it must proceed carefully or risk driving away customers. In the last earnings call, it said the higher prices hurt its market share in Western Europe and North America.

But Friday, executives sounded more optimistic. They said more competitors were following suit and raising their prices as well, which should stem any loss of market share. For example, Colgate-Palmolive Co. announced Thursday it had raised prices in North America after more than two years of cutting them.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Mark Astrachan, who described the quarter as “not a terrible result,” said P&G should lower prices in some categories to gain back lost market share.

McDonald said P&G closely watches whether other companies follow its price increases, and if they don’t, “then we react to resume the value equation we had when we were growing share.”

P&G also noted that, like other U.S. companies that do business in foreign markets, it is no longer benefiting from favorable foreign currency exchanges. When the dollar is weak, as it was for much of last year, revenue a company raises overseas translates into more dollars when converted at headquarters. But now, many foreign currencies are slipping.

As a result, P&G lowered its per-share earnings estimate for the fiscal year, to $4 to $4.10 per share from $4.15 to $4.33.

For the quarter, net income fell 49 percent, to $1.69 billion from $3.33 billion, on the higher materials costs and the write-downs of the appliance business and the salon business. But after stripping out the one-time charges like the write-downs, net income was $1.10 per share, beating the $1.07 predicted by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue grew 4 percent to $22.1 billion, helped by the higher prices. That was roughly in line with analysts’ expectations.

P&G’s stock fell 50 cents to close at $64.30 Friday.

But for the two residents interviewed it was not enough to defuse fury over the death of Xue, whom villagers believe was the victim of police brutality — a charge the government denies, citing an autopsy that found he died of heart failure.

“Is there a risk of disruption? Yes, absolutely. Is this a place just waiting to explode? No,” said Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C. think tank.

“If there really isn’t any injury on the body, then why would you not return the body to us?”

Wukan has been surrounded by police and anti-riot units.

In a bid to allay suspicions that other villagers detained over protests in September had been abused, the local government put online footage of four suspects being visited by relatives and reassuring them of their wellbeing. (http://www.shanwei.gov.cn/163661.html)

BEIJING (Reuters) Villagers in southern China on Thursday defied authorities and continued protests over a death in custody and land dispute in the latest outburst of simmering rural discontent that is eroding the ruling Communist Party’s grip at the grassroots.

Rural land in China is mostly owned in name by village collectives, but in fact officials can mandate its seizure for development in return for compensation, which residents often say is inadequate and does not reflect the profits reaped.

FURY

He and another resident, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said villagers remain enraged over last weekend’s death in custody of Xue Jinbo, 42, who was detained on suspicion of helping organize protests against land seizures.

Many hundreds of residents in Wukan Village in Guangdong province held an angry march and rally despite moves by authorities to halt a land project at the center of the months-long unrest and detain local officials involved.

Wukan, with its clannish unity and big stake in rising land values, is an example of the kind of slow-burning discontent that is corroding party power at the grassroots.

Residents say hundreds of hectares of land was acquired unfairly by corrupt officials in collusion with developers. Anger in the village boiled over this year after repeated appeals to higher officials.

Although China’s Communist Party has ruled over decades of economic growth that have protected it from challenges to its power, the country is confronted by thousands of smaller scale protests and riots every year.

One expert on unrest, Sun Liping of Tsinghua University in Beijing, has estimated that there could have been over 180,000 such “mass incidents” in 2010. But most estimates from Chinese scholars and government experts put numbers at about half that in recent years.

The Chinese government has not given any unrest statistics for years.

The real worry for Beijing is not the sheer number of such protests, but their tendency to become more persistent and organized - both features on display in the unrest in Wukan, where there were torrid riots in September.

(Addition reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington D.C. and Stefanie McIntyre in Hong Kong, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Yoko Nishikawa)

“We won’t be satisfied until there is a full investigation and redress for Xue Jinbo’s death,” said the second resident.

“The chances of long-term, systemic instability are very, very small. The chances of some major disruption — like 1989, but on a much larger scale — are considerably greater, but still the odds are they can avoid it,” he said.

“If you say he wasn’t beaten to death, then you can show us the body,” another villager who had his face hidden from the camera by the hood of his jacket told Hong Kong’s Cable TV.

China’s leaders, determined to maintain one-party control, worry that such outbursts might turn into broader and more persistent challenges to their power.

The government of Shanwei, a district including Wukan, said on Wednesday a “handful” of Communist Party members and officials accused of misdeeds over the disputed land development were detained and that the main land development project had been suspended, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But they usually stay local and Beijing’s grip remains strong, said Kenneth Lieberthal, an expert on Chinese politics.

OUTLOOK: Management says it isn’t projecting any improvement in the housing market for the next two years, but believes it can boost its revenue and move toward profitability by selling homes from newer communities, which it plans to add next year.

HOMING IN: Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. reported a smaller loss in the fiscal fourth quarter, aided by lower expenses and charges. The homebuilder lost 90 cents a share on revenue of $341.6 million.

* Matt Dame, a father of high school and middle school students, ran for school board in November. Dame and his wife Barb launched the campaign against “Beloved” and “Waterland,” saying they have no place on an advanced English required reading list.

* “Beloved” is described by Spark Notes as a fictional story based on a true account. It is often used in high school English classes, particularly for college-bound students. It is so-named because it is the word written on the tombstone of the main character of Sethe’s child, whom Sethe murdered to prevent the girl from enduring what she endured as a plantation slave. The baby’s spirit returns to haunt the home where she was killed.

* According to Plymouth Patch, the Dames object to “Beloved” because it contains references to sex and particularly forced oral sex and sex with cows as part of the description of the things slave owners did to their slaves. Barb Dame calls the references gratuitous, lacking in historical context and offering the reader nothing. She also points to the book’s Lexile score of 870, which makes it at fifth grade difficulty. The Dames also want it pulled because it takes God’s name in vain.

* The Dames objected to “Waterland” for its violent and sexual content. According to Book Rags, “Waterland” takes place in the fens of England. It involves a girl who finds herself pregnant and seeks an abortion to avoid persecution from harsh, restrictive male members of her family. The book deals with kidnapping and murder.

* At a public meeting last week, parents and teachers voiced their concerns. One parent likened book banning to a “slippery slope” that sets a bad precedent, reports Patch. Others said it showed lack of trust in teachers to best decide what materials were appropriate and educationally valuable. Parents were informed of the decision to include the books and enrollment in the class was optional, says Michigan Radio.

* Superintendent Jeremy Hughes pulled “Waterland” immediately from the assigned reading list, saying he was uncomfortable with it. According to the Plymouth-Canton Schools website, “Waterland” will undergo further discussion and review, but a date has not been set for that process.

Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben writes about people, places, events and issues in her home state of “Pure Michigan.”

The filmmaker behind such beautifully crafted and emotionally powerful films as “The Scent of Green Papaya,” “Vertical Ray of the Sun” and “Cyclo” has made only five films since 1993, leaving his many admirers constantly wanting for more. (Especially those of us in the United States, where his fourth film, “I Come with the Rain” didn’t even get a release.)

The fact that there’s a new Tran film in theaters would already be noteworthy; that “Norwegian Wood” is also a visually stunning and moving piece of storytelling bolstered by searing performances and a standout score by Jonny Greenwood (”There Will Be Blood”) is icing on the cake.

In the first few minutes of “Norwegian Wood,” we’re presented with two powerful images — first we see Kizuki (Kengo Kora) swim underwater in a public pool to embrace his girlfriend Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), and then we see him put a hose through his car window to commit suicide. Kizuki’s death haunts the film, for its impact not only on Naoko but also on Kizuki’s best friend Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama).

Watanabe, our narrator, leaves his small town for college in Tokyo, where he soon crosses paths with Naoko. A budding romance ensues, but the memory of Kizuki is never far away. And while classmate Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) clearly enjoys flirting with Watanabe, she has a boyfriend, while Watanabe is clearly hung up on Naoko, whose fragile mental health keeps expanding the distance between the two of them.

Tran and his cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin create one stunning shot after another, whether it’s surges of protesters charging through the streets (the film is set in the late 1960s) or the beautiful,Wholesale Ed hardy, rolling hills of the countryside, where passing clouds turn the lush greenery into something more foreboding.

As with his previous films, however, Tran isn’t interested in creating a pretty coffee-table book — he’s a master of telling his story (he adapted Haruki Murakami’s bestselling novel for the screen) through images, and of using light and shadow to convey mood and emotion.

We see those hills, incidentally, both awash with foliage and covered in snow, and it’s a reminder of what a director can accomplish with locations when the shooting schedule allows him to return to them at different points in the year.

At its most romantic, “Norwegian Wood” is as swoony as Wong Kar-Wai at his most lovesick, but this is a rare romance where discussion of sex (and sexual dysfunction) occurs throughout without disrupting the tone. Naoko’s reticence to love again after Kizuki’s death, as well as her guilt over his having committed suicide in the first place, can be tied to her own body’s reactions to intimacy.

Kikuchi, incidentally, is the perfect star for Tran; her virtually-silent performances in “Babel” and “The Brothers Bloom” were no less captivating for being non-verbal, and while she’s got much more dialogue here than in those previous two films, she conveys volumes with her face.

“The Artist” may be a nostalgic reminder that silent films barely exist anymore, but Kikuchi has been proving for some time that she doesn’t need words to be a compelling actress.

The film really belongs to Matsuyama, who has the thankless task of playing a protagonist who’s completely committed to a love that is clearly doomed. He gives Watanabe’s yearning a clear-eyed resonance that keeps the character from seeming like a delusional doormat; we understand his actions and become the coxswain encouraging him to row faster, even when we can see the waterfall ahead.

Completing the central triangle is Mizuhara, whose Midori is clearly shielding her vulnerabilities with an outward mask of coquetry: When her father dies, she first asks Watanabe not to come to the funeral and then requests that he take her to a “very dirty” porno movie. That’s the sort of winsomeness that can be hard for audiences to digest, but Mizuhara makes this complicated college girl completely empathetic.

The first months of the year are generally considered a dumping-ground for movies that can be easily ignored during awards season, but “Norwegian Wood” is that rare January release that has a real shot of popping up on December’s Top Ten lists.

By Wednesday, the young artist was getting plenty of attention after a nationwide TV channel reported on his stunt at the National Museum in the southwestern city of Wroclaw. He told reporters he hoped galleries would give more exhibition space to young artists as a result.

“I decided that I will not wait 30 or 40 years for my works to appear at a place like this,” Sobiepan told TVN24. “I want to benefit from them in the here and now.”

Sobiepan, a Wroclaw Fine Arts Academy student whose last name means “his own master,Cheap Ed hardy underwear,” said he was inspired by the elusive British graffiti artist known only as Banksy. His own painting is small, white and green, and partly uses swine leather to show a drooping acacia leaf.

On Dec. 10, Sobiepan put it up in a room with contemporary Polish art when a guard at the museum was looking the other way. Museum officials didn’t notice the new painting for three days.

Museum director Mariusz Hermansdorfer told TVN24 on Wednesday that the action revealed some security breaches, but that he also considered it a “witty artistic happening.”

“It has shown that the young generation of artists, unlike their predecessors, wants to see their works in museums,” Hermansdorfer said.

The museum has kept the painting on display in its cafe. It will be offered for sale at Poland’s biggest charity auction on Sunday.

Kiefer has since moved on to another studio in Paris, taking “110 trucks” of the art with him, but La Ribaute remains. He and his small team of workmen were filmed in their labors by the British director Sophie Fiennes, whose mesmerizing Cinema Scope documentary “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” appeared at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Playing at Film Forum in New York from August 10-23, it doubles as a post-biblical, post-apocalyptic prophesy about the eventual fate of the earth and a self-reflexive meditation on the artistic process. Reflecting Kiefer’s canvases, it is etched in the colors of lead,wholesale Ed hardy shoes, earth, ash, charcoals, blacks, and discolored whites.

Occasionally, a splash of blue — that of industrial drums — obtrudes, or the muted golds and greens of the surrounding foliage. Kiefer comments in the film that he’s pleased vegetation is reclaiming La Ribaute, but this scarcely admits a return to the Arcadian, as did an unrelated exhibition bearing the same name as the film that ran at London’s Hidde Van Seggelen Gallery this spring, featuring work by Piranesi, Friedrich, Brouwn, Janssens, Almarcegui, and others. In contrast, Kiefer’s studio is a theme park dedicated to the notions of destruction, decay, annulment, and eventual absence.

“Over Your Cities” begins wordlessly as the disembodied camera glides up, down, along, and around the eerie subterranean passageways — made of corrugated iron and cement, some interspersed with stalagmite-like columns — to the sound of Jörg Widmann and György Ligeti’s spectral music. Shards of pottery and glass, broken slabs of concrete and rocks proliferate. After nearly 20 minutes of immersion in this dead zone, Kiefer and his workmen appear — pumping water, making a plaster-like substance, smelting ore. Among the artworks they make in the film are an installation suspending miniature lead battleships (a tribute to Céline’s novel “Journey to the End of the Night”) and a painting of the Ardèche forest, the boles stripped bare and stained with ground cement. The latter work is reminiscent of Kiefer’s great “Varus” (1976), which deals with the birth and growth of German national consciousness via its inscription of the victory over the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD — Germany, year zero. Anselm’s Teutonic forests, influenced by Altdorfer and Friedrich, augur the Nazi horror.

At the center of the film, there’s a statically shot interview, conducted in La Ribaute’s library, between Kiefer and a German journalist who prompts the artist to ruminate on his ideas. Though we learn little about the historical or nostalgic influences on the Gesamtkunstwerk, Kiefer does refer to “The Odyssey,” the Kabbala (in reference to broken vessels), and Heidegger’s belief that boredom is useful in bringing about consciousness of one’s existence. Kiefer strongly believes in the importance of emptiness as a precondition for creating. “I fundamentally believe that through my work I can fill an empty room created in my childhood,” he says. “The space has not been filled yet things fall into it and take effect.”

Through his work, Kiefer has been a provocative and consistent critic of the Third Reich, and there are enough installations and imagery at La Ribaute to have prompted a detailed discussion of Nazi atrocities and the devastation of war — fabricated dragons’ teeth adorn some of the artworks, the teetering concrete towers suggest Dresden and Berlin after the Allied bombing (as well as Ground Zero). When Kiefer and the workmen drop sheets of plate glass on the floor of an installation room, or strew glass around a warehouse, it’s impossible not to think of Kristallnacht. Kiefer has a crane mount one of his massive trademark lead books onto a huge canvas; other books are burned — connoting the Nazi repression and the death of knowledge.

Regrettably, Kiefer doesn’t engage with this. Instead, he speaks about man’s origins as a sea creature who longs to go “back to our happy, unconscious being as a single cell in the ocean,” and about scientific theories such as the Big Bang describing “our lack of knowledge. They describe our ignorance…. All the scientific and technological progress only tells me how incomplete I am and that I know nothing…. How inhuman I am, and how inhuman humans are.” Well, not entirely. Shortly after he delivers this humbling peroration, two small boys, the artist’s sons, enter the frame, playfully scooting behind their father.

After the interview, Fiennes returns to the construction outside at La Ribaute. Kiefer and one of his workers pour molten metal, like so much lava, down a small hill of earth. A huge mechanical drill bores holes in the earth that they fill with cement and plant with metal rods — one thinks of what might have lain under the Nazi Party rally grounds designed by Albert Speer — and erect one of many skeletal towers made from concrete modules. In one shot, a cement staircase rises for a few steps and then, having broken, stops abruptly. Whither did it lead?

Kiefer says the towers were influenced by the Jewish folkloric figure of Adam’s demonic first wife, Lilith, who was expelled by him from Paradise and dwelled in abandoned ruins, threatening that “over your cities grass will grow.” “I think that’s fantastic,” he remarks, sweeping the devastated past historical into the ghost towns of the future.

Watch clips from “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” below:

ONE: Raising the Painting

TWO: The Towers
 

THREE: Melting Lead