Found Objects

A while ago I posted about the tire swing on highway 102 (which has miraculously reappears, in case you were wondering). I have always really liked found objects. As a kid I remember bringing all sorts of junk home. Some of it could be used as a toy or game, but most was just a hunk of machinery or electrical equipment that looked too cool to part with. Maybe most kids are like that.

As an adult, I don't bring the stuff home any more. I've realized somehow that I appreciate objects in the context where I find them. Even pretty stones and shells only serve as souvenirs of a particularly nice walk on the beach, rather than look overwhelmingly pleasing or interesting, once I pick them up and take them away from their location. I mean, they don't start looking ugly but they just don't hold that same facination. I guess, either you know what I mean or you don't.

That's one reason I like Andy Warhol's stuff. Essentially he worked with found objects, and either chose ones that could be de-contextualized wholesale (Brillo Boxes) or he could re-contextualize with repetition (Soup Cans), anachronism (VU's banana album cover), or medium (the movie Empire). I think that's art. It is certainly something that I cannot do -- even under the best circumstances I can't move found objects without wrecking the effect.

Not that I usually want to. Yesterday I was walking back from the office in the rain and in the middle of the sidewalk was a sheaf of human hair. It was as if a woman stood in the middle of the sidewalk and chopped off the pony-tail she had been growing since high school. It was about a foot long, brunette, fine, and rather healthy looking hair. At least it looked that way in the rain.

On the sidewalk of a city street it was facinating. Again, as with all of my favorite found objects, it suggested questions and stories with no answers or endings. It would not be nearly as interesting in a box in my garage and would definitely be more creepy.

Cheers

Dipping into Sience Fiction B-Movie Territory

Okay so, like a lot of people, I've never been terribly comfortable with Reality Television. While they are generally just really invasive game shows, they are well, a lot more invasive than regular game shows. Where the latter are gambling dressed up as a flashy School Fair, the former are gambling with lives as poker chips.

That's still not too bad because the stakes are relatively small -- short term, at least -- and there are consolation prizes. A new show being aired in the Netherlands dramatically increases the stakes.

Yep. Contestants compete for the audience's vote. The winner gets a life-saving kidney transplant. The losers die.

Wasn't this one of television shows in the background in Robocop?

Jeesh.

How campy can it get?

Now you know.



Thanks to Wee Shannon of the West for pointing me in this direction.

Was Bowie still gay in 1975? I can never figure out exactly when he started digging girls. Either way he's not very convincing when he's flirting with Cher. Hmmn. Maybe that's too much to ask of a man.

Funniest comment from Shannon: "I almost didn't recognize [Cher] wearing all of those clothes."

Cheers

Not that I'm getting old or anything...

I have a cold right now. (No, you do care, you just don't know it yet.) So my ears are plugged up more than usual. That got me thinking that my Dad was rather hard-of-hearing when he was not too many years older than me.

So I did what anyone would do. I did a bit of research on hearing aids. And what I found was shocking. Shockingly cool!! I know that it's a bit insensitive, but I sort of can't wait to have an excuse to get the Resound Azure. It is Bluetooth enabled so I could pipe my MP3 player or cell phone directly to my hearing aid. And I bet your fancy-schmancy Blackberry doesn't have a telecoil so you can pick up the audio-commentary at the opera or museum without having to rent big clunky equipment.

You have to clip a gadget on for the Bluetooth, but I figure that in 10 years when I need one the tech will all be enclosed inside the discrete ear-piece.

Bionic ears. That play music. Nothin' wrong with that.

Cheers

If you record it, it's definitely art

As cool as some ideas are, I wonder if they are all art. How many steps in the process are required? If you have too much time on your hands and do something quirky is that really art, or just puttering around in the shop?

One line of thinking could insist, or at least suggest, that it has to be commodified first. Turned into a form and set into a process where others can consume it. If you can't get people to come into your shop to admire it (if not actually purchase it), then you have to get it into a gallery, craft-fair or cafe.

So there has to be an audience.

If this line of reasoning has merit, then every quirky person should seriously consider taking up photography. No matter what you decide to do with your morning, if you take pictures of it, it is instantly commodified. I suppose that film-making could serve the same purpose, but it is more expensive and the commodity is less compact and portable, YouTube aside.

I also contend that film-making is too much process, because people expect a higher degree of artifice in their films -- even the ones that are praised as being "gritty realism", "cinema verite", or "slice of life" to name just a few common descriptions of very different sorts of films. As Guy Madden recently noted, "No one wants to watch the security tape". Especially if it is just recording the static outcome of an artists labours. Or maybe that's just me.

So if you intend to spend your summer mending spider webs then you should take a photography course in the next few weeks. Your art will have more legs... er, so to speak.

Cheers

My kids have ugg boots

So the Aussie neighbours gave Connor and Mika their ugg boots before they left on Sunday.

I suspect that means that they will end up at UWO. Outside of the Aussies, I've seen exactly one pair since I've moved here. I almost asked the woman if she was from London. At Western it seemed like every 2nd woman wore them.

Crocks on the other hand... well, I thin Shannon was the only one who wore them. Here in Halifax, they are ubiquitous. Literally. I'm sure that every man, woman and child has at least one pair. Many have two. They even sell cute buttons to put in the holes that are almost like some sort of tribal prestige fetish. The more buttons you have in your Crocks, the higher you are in the soccer mom pecking order.

I like shoes. But I don't always get them. I don't know for sure, but I think that Shannon wouldn't get the way Crocks work here either and Aussies don't get what Ugg boots signify in London, Ontario.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Cheers

Bruce Campbell = Old Spice

Okay, how cool is Bruce Campbell? Yeah, that cool.

How cool is Old Spice? Yeah, not at all.

"Gimme some sugar, Baby"...

No way, you smell like my drunk uncle.



Cheers

Lemmings

You know I'm a smart guy, I reckon. Not a genius, but smart enough. Well, tonight I just found out for the first time that lemmings don't jump off cliffs, solo or en masse.

Adjust your cocktail conversations accordingly, 'cause who knows how many times I've embarrassed myself with this one over the years.

Cheers

Oh sorry, did you say something?

How slow can a news-day possibly be? Now you know.

After a 13 year absence from songwriting, Billy Joel announced yesterday that he will continue to not be creative.

Tire Swing of the Gods

Ten years ago when we visited Halifax we drove in from the Eastern Shore, through Dartmouth. Last year when we arrived we came down the 102 in the dead of night. I think that the first time I saw the tire swing was on a trip out to Sackville to the only used sporting goods store in the region that carries ringette equipment.

Since then, I've passed it numerous times on the way to the airport, job interviews, sugar shacks, etc. The kids noticed it too and invested a few moments of wonder as well.

I know that it's just a tire swing, but it works in the mind like good art. It evokes a set of previously unconsidered possibilities and demands that you ask unanswerable questions. The questions tend to be mundane -- Who put that there? Why? Did it grow to be there or was it a dangerous game? -- but the hypothetical answers don't have to be.

And now it's gone. And that has evoked even more questions that all seem to be the inverse of the old ones -- Who took it down? Why? Did the branch just break or was it taken down to "manage risk"? But as memories of the object fades, and as no one will ever again notice it for the first time, the contemplation of unanswerable questions on that stretch of the 102 will stop entirely.

More's the pity.

Novel Political Protest

Yann Martel wrote in the Globe this weekend about a group of artists being brushed off by the PM.

This is the action he has decided to take. I would categorize it as "Harassment by Literature". Should be entertaining for people who like literature, but don't like Harper.

http://www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca/

Cheers

A bit of Dickensian fun.

I'm not sure even how many Dickens devotees have been clamouring for a theme park, but it is surreal enough for me to not hate the idea.

I would, however, hate to be an employee. I would likely murder the millionth person who got off the "Great Expectations" ride and told me that it was a bit of a let down.

Sort of a sign of the times, as well, that in the winter they change their shtick to make it "replete with snow and other characteristics of a bygone era". Climate change has apparently struck England rather hard.

Cheers

I guess that would explain a lot

While doing a haphazard search for information about how the Thibault's came to Scotland I found this interesting bit of trivia.

"In 911 Rollo the Ganger, often acknowledged as a werewolf or giant, signed a treaty with the French king Charles the Simple which gave birth to the Duchy of Normandy. From these norsemen came the Germanic surname Talabert, meaning “bright valley”. Though it has not yet been verified, it is believed this may also be the origin of the French Thibault family, which in 1780 produced the werewolf written about by Alexandre Dumas in his story “The Wolf Leader”. It is very much worth noting that another surname originating from Normandy, Saint-Clair / Sinclair, has a number of prominent lycanthropic branches throughout Europe and North America."

Incidentally, I also have Sinclairs in my family tree.

Another thing that I found out was that all of those Counts of Champagne and Kings of Navarre named Theobald are known as Thibault in French. The first was, of course, Theobald I (1201-1253) and was variously known by the epithets The Troubadour, The Chansonnier, and The Posthumous.

Hmmn, sort of thins out at the end there a little.

Cheers

Outkast Kowboy Klub

About ten years ago, when I was visiting Chris and Sascha in Regensburg, we drove by a gated chalet emblazoned with a sign: "Kowboy Klub". Inside we could see German men dressed as cowboys practicing their lariat skills. If I recall correctly, it was explained to me that since the war-guilt kicked in it's pretty common for Germans to "adopt" other cultures.

So, not surprisingly, these guys are from Berlin.

(Warning: some profanity)



There are more audio clips on their website. Maybe it's because I've been listening to a lot of Wall of Voodoo lately, but the second lead singer really reminds me of Stan Ridgeway in some of the songs.

Cheers

Edit: Damn, these guys played London a few weeks ago. I can't link directly to the clip, but there's a video diary entry on their website of them rockin' out at Call the Office.

Ya Friggin' Hoser

This was mentioned in the Globe and Mail today and I have to admit that I laughed out loud a few times. If you have no interest in Hockey whatsoever, don't bother.



Cheers

Mike

This can't be legal

Okay, so I can honestly say that when I showed this DVD cover to Cate in the video store it was the first time that I've ever seen anyone's breath be physically taken away by beauty. I don't think that I'll ever forget that sound.



Well, maybe the first time Xine saw Loch walk by the pub, but I don't remember the sound exactly so it was probably just a normal gasp.

Cheers

Twisted Site of the Week

I wish I had time to revive my old mailing-list. For the two years or so that I sent out this feature, I liked to think that I was one small reason for the success of this newfangled email. I was actually getting the occassional reply from friends of friends of friends. It would have been perfect content for a blog.

Alas I don't have the time to actively search out new twisted sites. But this is one that fell into my lap.

http://www.theroller.net/dev/index.php

Cheers

PS For those of you who weren't on the mailing list from 1998-2000, the twisted sites are always work-computer friendly or clearly labled as otherwise. For those of you who were on the mailing list, if you have the emails archived, I might be able to put a "Best of" list in a side bar.

MT

What's in a name.

For a couple of reasons -- none of which relate to me personally -- I was thinking about baby names. It made me chuckle to think about kids named after cities and states (Brooklyn, Atlanta, Seattle, etc.) and how it is probably a good thing that Quebec has laws against that sort of thing.

Can you imagine someone growing up with a name like Saint-Marthe-Du-Cap-De-La-Madeleine Savard, St. Louis de Ha! Ha! Therien. Or what about Trois-Pistoles Lafleur.

Hmmn, actually, I sort of like that last one.

Cheers

Serious Scandanavian Lecture Mojo

Wow, check this out. If you aren't interested in population health or information management, you only need to watch to the first 5 minutes or so to see what a first rate presentation looks like. Odds are you'll want to watch the whole thing anyway.



I cribbed this from Jason Hammond's blog (Head Tale in the list to your right. No, not that far right.) There are probably a lot of my friends who don't click through, so thanks Jason.



Cheers

Commonwealth Games

The big news here this weekend was the collapse of the Commonwealth games bid. I got a kick out of how gracious Ottawa's mayor was about it all. There's no way he could meet his election promises if he had to budget money for upgrading facilities and infrastructure, so I'm sure that he didn't want the games to be in Ottawa anyway. There's rumours of trying to get a CFL team. Good luck without a stadium.

You know that there's something to be said for the attitude that "We're not big, but we're small". Halifax is a beautiful little city and maybe it doesn't need the trappings of a larger city. The thing is that only a small portion of the urban parts of Halifax Regional Municipality is beautiful, and in my opinion a lot of the facilities and infrastructure could use an upgrade. I think that we just saw the entire reason for Dartmouth -- the proposed site of most of the events -- to exist disappear. It's really only useful as a placeholder for some large-scale mega-project that will have a purpose and identity. Otherwise it's a run-down suburb with a huge mall -- the Mic Mac Mall -- and a bleak industrial harbour.

Then of course, the Provincial Conservatives really screwed up the announcement. City Council was an hour into a meeting to debate and vote on a revised budget for the games when they all received a news-release on their Blackberries announcing that the Premier and Mayor had decided to pull the plug. There was quite a bit of shock and anger in the room -- at least from the Councilors who didn't run out of the room to vent or to catch the new conference down the hall.


Cheers