Smashing Telly has a bunch of versions of Guantanamera including this version by Celia Cruz.
Guantanamera the protest song before its time
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
One family's global surfing odyssey
Fifty years ago, Dr Dorian Paskowitz dropped out of society and embarked on a 14-year global surfing safari, raising nine children in a 24ft camper van, and catching every wave he could. He dreamt that they could all live untainted by money, school and fatty foods, and never imagined the wipeout that followed.More
What I Do At Work When I'm Supposed To Be Working
Sisyphus Office is an exhibition organized by San Francisco based artist, curator, and co-founder of The Thing Quarterly, Jonn Herschend and based out of Skydive, a Houston, Texas gallery.
The artists involved in the project are collaborating with businesses and offices in and around Houston in order to highlight art as an integral and necessary distraction in our day to day life.
Via
Stars Still Pretty
I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to the music because I was distracted by the subtitles and the pigheaded people.
Aeroplane Pageant - 'Stars Still Pretty'
Via NOTCOT.ORGThursday, May 28, 2009
Town Hall meeting calls for EI extension
I represented my MP at a town hall forum on Employment Insurance last night. I thought I was going to be introduced from the audience but, when I arrived, I found I was on the panel. Yikes! Here is a quote from the local press (I'm lucky it wasn't "duhhh"):
Desperate people who have lost their jobs and are quickly running out of money phone Welland MP Malcolm Allen's office looking for help.
They call the New Democrat as a last resort after exhausting their patience trying to figure out how to tap into the Employment Insurance benefits they thought they were entitled to receive.
Allen's constituency assistant, Marilyn Bellamy, estimated EI problems are the root of about two thirds of all calls the office fields.
'These stories are just awful,' she told a town hall meeting at the CAW Hall in St. Catharines Wednesday night. 'We hear them every day about people falling through the cracks. Well, there shouldn't be any cracks. We need to fill them up."
The Freshman
Lisa Jack's collection of photos of Barack Obama as a freshman at Occidental College in 1980. Sweet.Via
Building a Chrysler Car, 1939
Continuing the vintage car theme:
A great little film made for the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Via Dark Roasted Blend
A great little film made for the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Via Dark Roasted Blend
Collectif des déboulonneurs
I received an update from this group today. See photos of some of their activities.
Soutien aux déboulonneurs:
Soutien aux déboulonneurs:
Advertising Invasion : Let’s disobey ! Through non-violent protest with the Collectif des déboulonneurs.Objective : 50x70cm
To implement a new law limiting the size of advertising posters to the size applicable to clubs and societies in Paris : 50x70 cm (around 20 x 27 inches) ; to limit the total billboard size to 2m2 with a reasonable degree of urban density depending on a town’s population size. Achieving this objective will constitute a first inroad into the advertising system.
50 years of the Mini
The Mini is 50 years old this year. Don't you love this camper? It looks like it would be perfect for me (I'm also a mini).
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Governor General Michaelle Jean cuts out heart of seal and eats it
I'm not sure what to think of this. One part of me abhors clubbing mammals to death and says, "Yuck!" but another part says , "You go, heart eating girl".
Governor General Michaelle Jean cuts out heart of seal and eats it
It may have meant to be a sign of solidarity with Canada's Inuit people or possibly a slap in the face of the European Union after it recently voted to ban seal products.
Whatever her motivation, Governor General Michaelle Jean is certainly being talked about this morning after she gutted a freshly slaughtered seal, cut out the heart, took off a slice and ate it raw.
On This Day - May 26, 1969
Montreal wasn't their first choice.
In fact it wasn't even their second.
When John Lennon and Yoko Ono checked in to Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel at midnight on May 26, 1969, it was, in part, due to heat and marijuana.
See a clip of John and Yoko's bed-in here.
Monday, May 25, 2009
In My Garden May 25
French lavender, violas and ferns.
These ladies look like they're doing the cancan.
TamariskSunday, May 24, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Visions Of The Clothing Of The Year 2000
I don't have any of these outfits in my overflowing closet but Mr. Nag dresses just like the dude at the end of the clip.
Visions Of The Clothing Of The Year 2000, From The 1930's - Paleofuturism
Visions Of The Clothing Of The Year 2000, From The 1930's - Paleofuturism
Sad Panda: The Story of an Obsession
New York Magazine's story about a sad panda is kind of touching.
He was committed, at all times, to being the saddest panda there was. Briefly, we wondered whether he was affiliated with Falun Gong, which seem to us to be the most depressive protesters in New York.
Show Me How!
Not every picture needs to say 1,000 words. In Show Me How, Derek Fagerstrom and Lauren Smith teach the absurd (breathe fire), the hip (mix a classic martini), and the useful (fix a running toilet), with clear, often cheeky illustrations that don't waste a syllable.
Skin and Bones
Cain was branded on his forehead. The town of Bethlehem was once renowned for its tattoos, applied by pilgrims as if to commemorate Jesus’ stigmata. During the Renaissance, tattoos of astrological signs were thought to confer cosmological powers. More
I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the Fear.
The ether was wearing off. The acid was long gone. But the mescaline was running strong. Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all waiting. Then about halfway through the second hour, you start cursing the creep who burned you because nothing's happening. And then - ZANG!
Fear and Loathing: The Board Game, a nifty project by JR Baldwin.
Via
The Problem with Young People Today Is…
The Problem with Young People Today Is that they slouch.
When I was a boy, kids were expected to stand up straight. Only old people slouched and that was because they had earned the right to do so. Old folks had “the stoop” – a slouch of honor that you were awarded after a life time of hard work mining coal, forging steel or raising a dozen children in a dirt floor shack.
If I had ever slouched around my house, my old mom would have beaten me senselessness with a lemon reamer and then locked me the root cellar to think about the error of my ways.
More
Old posts from an old man about god damned young people. Hilarious.
Via
Friday, May 22, 2009
The High Cost of Poverty
Shopdropping Montreal
Shopdropping Montreal is a Montreal based collective made up of artists and designers who take part in the act of shopdropping.
SHOPDROP: to covertly place merchandise on display in a store. A form of 'culture jamming'.
via
While I was entering this world who was departing?
It's my birthday - time for a little morbidity.
115,509 People
115,509 People
People who died on May 22 (in other years)
- 2006 - Heather Crowe, Canadian activist
- 2006 - Lee Jong-wook, Korean Director-General of the World Health Organisation
- 2005 - Thurl Ravenscroft, American voice actor and singer
- 2005 - Julia Randall, American poet
- 2005 - Charilaos Florakis, Greek politician, long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece
- 2004 - Mikhail Voronin, Russian gymnast
- 2004 - Richard Biggs, American actor
- 2003 - Ousmane Zongo, Burkinabé shooting victim
- 1998 - José Enrique Moyal, mathematical physicist
- 1997 - Alfred Hershey, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1992 - Zellig Harris, American linguist
- 1990 - Rocky Graziano, American boxer
- 1988 - Giorgio Almirante, Italian politician
- 1983 - Albert Claude, Belgian biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1972 - Margaret Rutherford, English actress
- 1972 - Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish poet and writer
- 1967 - Langston Hughes, American writer
- 1966 - Tom Goddard, English cricketer
- 1965 - Christopher Stone, first disc jockey in the United Kingdom
- 1939 - Jiri Mahen, Czech author
- 1939 - Ernst Toller, German author
- 1932 - Lady Gregory, Irish playwright
- 1910 - Jules Renard, French author
- 1885 - Victor Hugo, French author
- 1868 - Julius Plücker, German mathematician and physicist
- 1859 - King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
- 1795 - Ewald Friedrich, Count von Hertzberg, Prussian statesman
- 1772 - Durastante Natalucci, Italian historian
- 1760 - Israel ben Eliezer, Polish-born mystical rabbi
- 1746 - Thomas Southerne, Irish dramatist
- 1745 - François-Marie, 1st duc de Broglie, French military leader
- 1667 - Pope Alexander VII
- 1666 - Gaspar Schott, German scientist
- 1540 - Francesco Guicciardini, Italian historian
- 1538 - John Forrest, English Franciscan friar (martyred)
- 1457 - Saint Rita of Cascia, Italian saint
- 1455 - Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, English commander (killed in battle)
- 1455 - Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, English politician (killed in battle)
- 1068 - Emperor Go-Reizei of Japan
- 337 - Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor (b. 272)
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Two of my favourite things
Read more at PrairieMod
The LEGO Group and Brickstructures, Inc. to produce and distribute Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO® Architecture Building Sets
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation announced today that The LEGO Group is now the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO Architecture sets.
Via
Balayeurs du Desert
Royal de Luxe is a French mechanical marionette street theatre company. They were founded in 1979 by Jean Luc Courcoult. Read more.
Royal de Luxe Flickr Pool
Thanks Dawn.
Royal de Luxe Flickr Pool
Thanks Dawn.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Float Your Way To A Spotless Floor - Glo-coat
I once had a party that left hundreds of black heel marks in its wake. If only I'd known about Glo-coat.
Via Jezebel
Via Jezebel
Roman street art
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Colour-In Dress
The Colour-In Dress by Berber Soepboer & Michiel Schuurman 2008
Believe it or not I had a similar dress way back at the beginning of time. It was white with a pattern of multiple strings of beads printed on the front and came with a set of markers. I haven't thought of that dress since I coloured outside the lines and had to trash it.
Via accidental mysteries
This collection is created especially for an exhibition about 'de Ploeg', a famous Dutch textile factory. ‘De Ploeg’ was a great inspiration with their amazing textile prints, fashion designs and their admirable ideology. It resulted in 4 dresses created around 2 concepts, ‘The Colour-In Dress’ and ‘The Replacement Dresses’. In both concepts textile patterns were the essence of the design, these patterns originated in collaborating with graphic designer Michiel Schuurman. He designed some beautiful textile patterns to fit in the concepts and with a touch of ‘de Ploeg’. The concept of the dresses make it possible that the cloth is partly designed by the person who wears it, which hopefully makes them more valuable to the wearer.
Believe it or not I had a similar dress way back at the beginning of time. It was white with a pattern of multiple strings of beads printed on the front and came with a set of markers. I haven't thought of that dress since I coloured outside the lines and had to trash it.
Via accidental mysteries
The Cats of Parliament Hill
I lived in Ottawa during my teen years and walked miles to pet the cows at the Experimental Farm . I would have visited these cats had I known about them. Here is a bit of history:
There is a story that Colonel By brought hundreds of cats with him when he built the Rideau Canal in 1826, to take care of the rodent population, but unfortunately that cannot be confirmed. What can be confirmed is that cats were employed in the Parliament Building (as in many other building) as pest control until 1955 when they were replaced by chemicals. Until 1970 ground keepers fed the cats in various locations, when Irene Desormeaux began feeding the cats where the existing colony now resides. Rene Chartrand began helping her in the mid-nineteen eighties and began building some wooden structures (some of which can still be seen) for the cats to keep warm in. In 1987 when Irene passed on to take care of stray cats in a greater colony beyond this world, Rene took over and loyally fed the cats to this day. In 1997 Rene and a friend built the existing structures.Read more and see loads of pictures at The Cats of Parliament Hill Blog.
Space Hippies
A very funny viddy from Smashing Telly. Mr. Nag pointed out that, apart from the his hairstyle, the head hippy bears a striking resemblance to my ex- husband.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Grizzly Bear / Two Weeks
Pretty. Edited by JT Helms with footage from Albert Lamorisse's "La Ballon Rouge" (The Red Balloon), and music from Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest".
Grizzly Bear / Two Weeks
Grizzly Bear / Two Weeks
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The cathedral that Justo built
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
ToDryFor.com
Designer tea towels for your washing-up pleasure...:
"We don't know about you, but the only kind of crunch we want to think about at the minute is an afternoon custard cream! Why not spruce up your kitchen with some shiny new designer tea towels instead of forking out a fortune on new tiles?"
Monday, May 11, 2009
Jeeves And Wooster Lamps
I want these even though they'd clash with my "decor".
Via
After first creating an installation for Kris van Assche’s runway show, designer Jake Phipps will be launching the “Jeeves And Wooster” lamp collection. For the start there will be two lamp styles, based on two very classic hats.
Via
SETH: The sweet vanished past
His stories dwell on things vaguely remembered. His new graphic novel is about a has-been fifties TV star. Is it any surprise that Gregory Gallant, a.k.a. Seth, wears a fedora, collects Ookpik dolls and uses a rotary phone?
I missed this great mini flick about Canadian cartoonist Seth in the Globe and Mail. Luckily I caught it at Waxy.
Fads of the Fifties
I had a slinky, a hula hoop and an ant farm, I've eaten TV dinners, worn a beanie and done the bunny hop but I've never heard of hunkering, have you?
See more Fads
Via
See more Fads
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