Thursday, May 31, 2007
Brian Wilson 1966 doll
Who needs Action Man when you can have a Brian Wilson 1966 doll - a miniature replica of the man himself before stress, depression and the strains of being a musical genius took its toll.
No wonder he retreated to his sandbox. If I thought I looked like that I'd go into hiding too.
Via Grow a Brain
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Bye bye Sam the Record Man
Sam the Record Man finally signs off:
It was an iconic landmark in Toronto – both culturally and musically. Everybody who was anybody in Toronto went to Sam the Record Man on Yonge St. to get the latest music, hang out and, if you were lucky, maybe catch a glimpse of a burgeoning music star.
I spent many hours and lots of money at Sam's when I was young. It was a destination and it was easy to spend an afternoon checking out the acres of music, much of it unavailable anywhere else. I built up a prodigious collection of rock, blues, folk and country albums. In those days we listened to music with more diligence (I suspect pot may have enhanced the listening experience). Our record collections were important. It was a sign of true commitment when Mr. Nag and I finally got rid of our duplicate records after five years of cohabiting. When we moved to Niagara on the Lake from Toronto we decided we no longer had room for all the albums and sold off 80% of them at a garage sale. That was the end of something. This, too, is the end of something.
"
Cleanliness is next to deadliness
"An obsessive nicknamed The Dettol Man died after continually cleaning himself and his home with the disinfectant, an inquest heard.
Recluse Jacques Niemand may have been overcome by fumes from the dozens of bottles of the cleaning fluid he kept in his flat.
The 42-year-old had so much of the chemical in his system his body was starved of oxygen, the inquest was told."
I keep a clean and tidy house and bathe regularly but it's my belief that too much fussing about hygiene is as bad as not enough. This story adds fuel to that theory. I'm impatient with people who use toxic chemicals to "clean" counters or produce or those who are too strict about "best before" dates. People have survived for centuries in conditions we would consider unhygienic. Don't be afraid to expose yourself to a few germs. It'll make you stronger (if it doesn't kill you).
Terrifies on the hour, every hour
"We've seen some pretty frightening things come over to the consumer electronics realm in the past, but Chris Dimino's The Shining cuckoo clock is probably the most apt to leave a very unfriendly image burned in your mind."
via Beancounters
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Today's Quiz
The Big Album Cover-Up :
Here's a quiz to challenge even the most devout music fan. Following are 15 of the biggest-selling albums in music history. In fact, all of these have sold at least 10 million copies in the United States alone.
The trick? We've left some of the covers as they originally were, but altered others by reversing the photos or images on them. Your goal is to identify which ones are 'kosher' and which are 'bogus.'
I know excuses are for losers but I would have done better if my MacBook screen were larger and/or my eyes were 10 years younger. I did quite well considering I couldn't see any detail.
Surreality TV
A Dutch reality television show in which a terminally ill woman is to select one of three contestants to receive her kidneys when she dies is to air this week despite criticism that it pushes the boundaries of the format too far.
If Everybody Had an Ocean
Brian Wilson: An Art Exhibition
A new exhibition at Tate St Ives features the work of a host of artists who have been inspired by the life and music of legendary Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson. Set against the backdrop of sweeping Porthmeor beach, the exhibition includes paintings, installations and sculptures by Bridget Riley, Peter Blake, Liam Gillick and Ed Ruscha among others, reflecting the kaleidoscopic art and pop culture of the 60s, as well as exploring the extraordinary cultural achievement of Wilson himself.
Nino Rota on Radio DavidByrne.com
Hours of hypnotic fun
Red Raven Animated Records
These were cardboard children's records with the animation printed right onto the disc itself (later versions like the one above had the animation on the label of regular colored vinyl). The Red Raven included a little mirrored device that you pop onto the turntable's spindle that reflected the animation in such a way that while the record plays you get to see a little cartoon. The effect is rather hypnotic (the mirrored device is an ersatz praxinoscope for all of you optics junkies), and a neat addition to the typical children's fare on the record itself.
Via Daily Jive
Monday, May 28, 2007
On this day the Dionne quintuplet circus began
Birth of the Dionne quintuplets
On May 28, 1934, five identical girls are born to Elzire and Oliva Dionne in Callander, Ontario. The five sisters - Annette, Cecile, Yvonne, Marie and Émilie - become known as the Dionne quintuplets, and together they weigh less than 6.5 kilograms. Against all expectations, they survive their first weeks.
On My To-Do List
Montreal abandoned buildings
Via Look At This
Girl with A Pearl Earring
Did you like the book and/or movie? I did. Find out more:
Girl with A Pearl Earring : An In-Depth Study
The Girl with a Pearl Earring is universally recognized as one of Johannes Vermeer's absolute masterworks. After more than a century of study, the work still poses significant questions. Who was the sitter and was the painting even intended as a portrait? Why had it remained in complete obscurity until it was rediscovered in 1882 and sold for the price of a reproduction? Was it a part of a pendant? Did Vermeer sell the painting during his lifetime? Why was the original background a deep transparent green rather than the black we see today? Was the pearl a real one? What significance did the turban have? Which painting procedures did Vermeer employ? Which pigments did he use?"
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Miss Sweden Drops Out Of Beauty Contest
When Miss Manners Just Doesn't Cut It
A is for ASBO. ASBO????I guess I need to brush up on my etiquette.
Build it, and they will shun
An article on the addition to the ROM:
Next Saturday, when Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, finally opens, a wave of anger and contempt will wash over Toronto. It has already started.TheStar.com - News
Shock and outrage will spew from the pages of newspapers, radio talkshows and blogs.
Never will people have beheld a building so ugly, architecture so appalling, design so bad – or such cheap-looking aluminium cladding this side of a post-war Scarborough semi.
You can see it now, the shaking of heads, rolling of eyeballs, wringing of hands, the frothing, spluttering and snorting.
It won't be pretty.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Every picture tells a story but not all of it
Photographic license: "One of the most famous photos in American history–Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’–was taken right here in Nipomo. It captured the heart of the public and moved a nation, but it didn’t tell the whole story."
via Metafilter
Today's Quiz
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?
Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend… except one. Which animal does not attend?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.
4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been paying attention? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
Brought to us by Militant Platypus
Why am I not surprised that this is in Alberta?
The "Dinosaurs and Humans" display shows considerable evidence that not only did dinosaurs exist recently, but that humans existed with them. This evidence is fatal to the evolutionary dogma which has dinosaurs extinct at least 60 million years before humans evolved.
John and Yoko's Montreal bed-in May 26, 1969
Friday, May 25, 2007
Holy Perfume Batman
We turned to the Bible to seek inspiration about which items to include and became convinced that a formulation would reveal itself,” explains Rick Larimore, IBI’s chief executive officer. “Creating Virtue® has been a journey and adventure through fragrance and scripture, with remarkable miracles confirming our choices.”
Virtue®’s subtle blend includes top notes of apricot (the real “forbidden fruit”), pomegranate and fig that transition to a gentle heart of iris, warming to a golden base of rich, exotic woods of frankincense, myrrh, aloe, and spikenard. Several ingredients cost up to $4,000 per kilogram, making Virtue® a truly precious mixture of oils.
via ATL Malcontent
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Twitter too fast paced? Try this.
dawdlr is a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: what are you doing, you know, more generally?
Answers on a postcard please to:
dawdlr, 77 beak street, london, W1F 9DB
I'll scan them in and upload and update them every 6 months. Regular as clockwork. I'm curious to see if something that slow can be 'viral' or will it just dwindle to nothing as everyone forgets last time around. Or if it's not an immediate enough call to action to get people to participate, or if actually getting a postcard and writing on it is too much work.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
What Takes The Sting Out Of Being Another Year Older?
Mr. Nag bought this baby for my birthday. Now I can blog in my garden or anywhere I like. Lest you think I'm spoiled, he insists he did it for purely selfish reasons. He's tired of me being off in a far corner of the house blogging away. He wants me closer to him and is willing to pay big bucks for the pleasure of my company. What does that make me? Don't go there!
Get a Mop!
Last night Tony became enraged when he discovered that a small time gangster insulted his daughter, Meadow. He tracked the perpetrator down at a restaurant, kicked the shit out of him, placed his open mouth over the edge of a table, raised his foot and brought it down full force on the guy's head, teeth and blood spraying everywhere. As the scene fades someone says, "Get a mop." I had to laugh even as I was gagging over the egregious violence. That's why I like The Sopranos.
Made To Measure Wine
"Wine-lovers are being offered the chance to buy a year's output from 120-square-metre patches in vineyards around the capital where the wines are usually no more than 'impertinent in their presumption'."
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Smoking Jacket
Monday, May 21, 2007
Git Along Little Doggies
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Dragon Speakers
Bacon Quiz. No, Not That Kind Of Bacon.
Quiz Francis Bacon : Results
You scored 8 out of a possible 10
Great!
You really sizzle when it comes to Bacon.
I have a weak Bacon connection. One of Mr. Nag's colleagues is married to the niece of Francis Bacon's personal assistant. When Bacon died he left many works of art to said assistant. When she died, she bequeathed them to her niece whom she had never met. There was a record breaking auction and Mr. Nag's colleague and his wife were suddenly very wealthy thanks to Francis Bacon. (I told you it's a weak connection.)
Black Declares War On US
"Despite its legal vagaries, the United States remains the indispensable country of Western civilization of the last century, a society of laws in a largely lawless world, and a country overwhelmingly composed of decent people."Apparently that was then. This is now. All it took was a little personal experience to change his mind:
Nixon was innocent - and so am I, says an unrepentant Black :
"Conrad Black, the deposed newspaper proprietor and media mogul, has smashed the etiquette normally expected of a man in the midst of a fraud trial that could land him in prison for the rest of his life, by publicly lambasting the case against him as 'bullshit' and declaring 'war' on the United States. "
Saturday, May 19, 2007
When You Care Enough To Hit Send
I Doubt That Max Is An Oenophile
The Pet Plus Wine Glasses are available from designer Alice Wang's website. You can buy them if you like but I'm not that into sharing wine with my dog.
Way to go!
PARIS, May 18, 2007 (AFP) - France's new President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday named a 15-member government that includes almost as many women ministers as men, charged with carrying out a programme of tough reforms.
France joins a small club of countries - along with Chile, Finland, Spain and Sweden -- that have sought to end male domination of politics by embracing gender parity in government.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Save The Bunny
Via Exploding Aardvark
Mary Margaret O'Hara
Via Wood's Lot
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Flavour Shaker
My sister bought me this Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker for Christmas along with a Paris calendar. For reasons I won't go into I received these Christmas gifts only a couple of weeks ago when my sister arrived with her new fella and an entourage of attractive young girls that drove Max into a frenzy of air humping and Mr. Nag into the mental equivalent.
That said, I love my Flavour Shaker. I've been making the most delicious salad dressings. There's a ceramic ball in the shaker that crushes and mixes whole spices, herbs, garlic, nuts, citrus rinds, etc. Add vinegar, oil and creme fraiche or mustard and shake up an ultra smooth vinaigrette. Yum!
Collect-Me-Nots
THE owner of Napoleon’s penis died last Thursday in Englewood, N.J. John K. Lattimer, who’d been a Columbia University professor and a collector of military (and some macabre) relics, also possessed Lincoln’s blood-stained collar and Hermann Göring’s cyanide ampoule. But the penis, which supposedly had been severed by a priest who administered last rites to Napoleon and overstepped clerical boundaries, stood out (sorry) from the professor’s collection of medieval armor, Civil War rifles and Hitler drawings.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Watch The Seasons Change
Via Grow a Brain
Aieeee!: A Gasmask Becomes the Most Terrifying Showerhead Ever
Showers are great and all, but sometimes I wish they could be more terrifying. That's why I like this Gasmask Showerhead. It strikes fear deep into my soul, which is what I look for in a bathroom appliance.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Zerofootprint
Remembering the Winnipeg General Strike
"On May 15, 1919, 24,000 organized and unorganized workers in Winnipeg walked off the job. Another 6,000 would soon join them. It was the start of the largest strike in Canadian history, and political leaders at all levels were quick to act. Parliament amended the Immigration Act so British-born immigrants could be deported, and expanded the definition of sedition. In a 1969 CBC Radio documentary commemorating the strike, lawyer Jim Walker talks about Ottawa's new laws. "
Monday, May 14, 2007
No, one doesn't swig it from the bottle.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Mother's Day Proclamation
Julia Ward Howe
(1819 - 1910)
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: 'We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
'Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
'Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
'We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.'
From the bosom of the devasted earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, 'Disarm, Disarm!'
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,
And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
Via wood s lot