Canadian Design Resource

Some neat stuff here.

Footage You Were Never Supposed To See

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.
Take the time to watch it from beginning to end and you'll never look at TV reporting the same again. Tell your friends about it. This extraordinary film released in the early 1990s is almost completely unknown. Hopefully, the Internet will change that.

Via Daily Jive

On The Train To La Musique Francaise

Les langues de France en chansons

Click on the Trains Directs box in the lower corner and listen to music from the various regions of France and get a geography lesson at the same time.

Coming Soon To a Theatre Near You

The U.S. Vs. John Lennon

Tidbits from the new book What to Eat

*There are 3,500 calories in a pound of body fat. It is estimated that carbohydrates and proteins yield 4 calories a gram, fats 9 calories a gram and alcohol 7 calories a gram.
*Seventy per cent of shoppers bring a list to the supermarket. Ten per cent stick to the list.
*French fries, potato chips and iceberg lettuce account for a third of the vegetables consumed in the U.S.
*Misters in the produce section can spread mould.
*Waxes on fruit and vegetables are a nuisance, but not a health problem. It is difficult to wash off all traces of wax.
*Snack calories account for a quarter of U.S. calorie intake.
*Good and bad news: an increase in the production of dairy foods is linked to high-fat products (cheese, ice cream) and to low-fat milk.
*Margarines are all basically a blend of soybean oil and food additives. Margarine was invented in 1869 after Napoleon III offered a prize to anyone who could invent a butter substitute for soldiers. It was originally a mash of suet and milk.
*All salad and cooking oils are from vegetable sources. Unidentified 'vegetable oil' is from soybeans.
*You should assume that all salmon and shrimp are farmed unless labelled wild.
*Farmed salmon are fed pellets. Their flesh is grey, so dyes are added to the feed.
*To get rid of half the PCBs in farmed salmon, score the flesh, grill or broil until juices run off and internal temperature is 175F, remove skin before eating.
*Profit margins on bottled water are 20 to 60 per cent. Forty per cent of bottled waters (plain, bubbly, coloured or flavoured) start as tap water.

It's the 4th of July

And nothing says it better than fireworks and hot dogs.

Via Miss Cellania

Martinis On The Patio Music

David Byrne's collection of standards is exactly what Mr. Nag and I lounge lizard it up to most evenings (without irony). Nat King Cole, Chet Baker, Julie London, a warm breeze, a cool intoxicant - ain't nothin' like it.

Though they are often referred to as standards, these songs are only viewed that way by a relatively small group others would view Hank Williams as the 'standard', or Robert Johnson, or The Doors, or Professor Longhair or Aretha or Grandmaster Flash. And they are right- this music has little to do with the majority of existing musical genres but it has influenced all of them. To my mind, here is what happened to classical music between the wars here is where that road led. The rest of orchestral classical music burrowed deep into academia or morphed into Hollywood soundtracks but, for sophisticated music that was as popular as the Italian operas once were, and that's how I'm defining classical music not by instrumentation this is it. And this was where musical genius of a certain stripe gravitated.

Harry Reasoner Hated Hippies

And hippies would have hated Harry Reasoner if they knew he existed. This video makes me feel ancient!
CBS Interview with the Grateful Dead (1967) -

Saw Two Flicks This Weekend

Schultze Gets the Blues sounded promising and had won all sorts of awards:

Schultze is a retired lignite miner living in an East German village and a passionate Polka musician on his accordion. One night he listens to a Zydeco tune in the radio, which changes his taste of music radically. Notwithstanding his complete ignorance of the English language he starts a trip into the heart of the Zydeco; to Louisana.

I thought I'd love it but I didn't. Now I'm not a fan of action flicks but I do like something to happen in a movie. I found this one almost unbearably slow. I didn't want to be blown away but this movie was as uneventful as Schultze's retirement. The premise was filled with promise but didn't deliver.

I did enjoy the award winning documentary, My Architect , Nathaniel Kahn's quest to understand his long-dead father, legendary architect, Louis Kahn. We also develop an understanding of the elder Kahn, a complex man who had a charismatic effect on people, especially upon the two women who mothered his illegitimate children, Nathaniel being one. Some of the most celebrated architects of the day are interviewed as well as the women, taxi drivers and Nathaniel's siblings. Nathaniel travels a long path through understanding to forgiveness and we walk along it with him. Kahn's architectural accomplishments, though few, are breathtaking, especially the Capital Complex in Bangladesh which he did not live to see completed.

Find the Absolut

A Where's Waldo type game for vodka drinkers. I did well but I think Mr. Nag would have more natural ability.

Via Metafilter