Soupandspoons posted this stencil to streetart the other day. In response I've sorted through my digicam photos of the past year and posted the first four to streetart. (Four more will be posted tomorrow. Four the next. And four more the next.)
The first four:
Create
Effective
Flow
Abstract
I stumbled across these images of pollen a few days back. Long live the microscope.
Speaking of magnification... I figured out how to take macro photos on my digicam while out at the lake last week. Many digital cameras have a special macro mode to allow you to take close up photographs. My camera however, has a minimum focal distance of 30cm (aprox. 12"). Here's the trick that shrank the focal distance to almost 10cm: holding a small magnifying glass in front of the lense! Here are two example photos: Afghan - Fingers
I'm currently sick. At home instead of work. My throat is very sore and my head and body ache. Chefquix's post on Wonder inspired the following:
A sense of wonder.
A distracted mind torn asunder.
Distracted to the point of forlorn blunder.
Why trouble ourselves with the unknown
when we can cover up these questions with a form of wonder cologne?
It provides a simple replacement masking our true intentions
It provides a laziness excuse with dollar-store bought interventions
Sure it would be nice to question and learn each and everyday
but our time is limited (right down to the time allotted for play)
We have so many things to do in this life
this can lead to something known as after-school-strife
you get home from a hard day of school or work
you want to scream. you want to shout
in fact you want to smirk
at the very idea of putting any more time into:
learning
asking questions
and traveling the mind
we are looking for distraction and a way that we can play
without doing anything ourselves at the end of every day
we have found all these ways to cover up our mind
with comfort food ideas that other people have designed
The paper teaches politics
The TV gives us Friends (TM)
Yet it all comes down to one simple fact in the very end:
A sense of wonder would distract us from our distractions.
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Just wanted to share a great article I recently read in the Vancouver Sun. The story by Graham Turner was originally printed in The Daily Telegraph in London. The title, The U.S. Empire.
here's a little snippet:
Why is there such a deep distrust between the United States and the rest of the world? To find out, veteran British journalist Graham Turner, a senior feature writer with London's Daily Telegraph, spent five weeks traveling across the U.S., talking to members of the administration, university presidents, military commanders, CEOs of giant corporations and banks - and ordinary citizens. What he came up with is a picture of the world's imperial power - seen through the experienced eyes of an older, faded empire.
I know it's long, but trust me, it's worth it... longer is better...
page 1
page 2
page 3
page 4
page 5
page 6
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The eye project. Photos of unstung eyes.
The friendship and art of Vangogh and Gauguin.
5th graders interpret Radiohead's music by drawing what they hear.
Darwinian Poetry. Help poetry evolve.
Napster uses fake graffiti to advertise their re-launch. (lame)
100 years of design.
Peepshow!
Drifter TV.
Information Pollution.
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Shouts out to the google surfer who ended up at this site 3 times after searching for the following:
how do you treat a dog that has been stung in the eye
Hope the dog is ok. On a related note we've had one visitor via google searching for: masturbation workshop israel
Non-cellular life created?
Grid Shock - "You go from the box garage in the house to the box car, driving down the street, not touching anything or being part of your environment"
Follow this story. Soak in these images.
Zen and the art of... watching TV?!?
For all you Winnipeg music lovers here's a quick overview of some exciting upcoming shows:
September 25 - Zen Lounge, Winnipeg
Pharcyde with Rahzel and DJ JS1
September 26 - Pyramid
DJ CO-Op and Hunnicut 70's Blast
Right in time for my b-day. Nice one.
October 4 - Pyramid
Panic 2003 Old School
Miss the underground warehouse parties of the early 90s? Check this event.
October 4 - U of M MPR
The Weakerthans
Man. Why does this have to be on the same night as Panic?
October 14 - Pyramid
Kid Koala Presents: Short Attention Span Theater with very special guests:
DJ P-LOVE, DJ JESTER AND LEDERHOSEN LUCIL, Also animated shorts by Monkmus
October 20 - Pyramid
Ninja tunes presents The Art of Listening Tour
DJ Vadim with MC BLURUM13 and DJ FIRST RATE
October 23 - Pyramid
Moses Mayes and Blue Quarter
Talk about a power house of funk!
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The song of the week [offline] is Phoebe Snow's rendition of the old Gershwin tune, There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York.
A new collage of mine has been added to the sticker section of the images page. Lost At Sea.
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In A Way [September 2003]
I wrote some rhymes and composed some music. The result is my latest track, In A Way. The lyrics can be found in the words section. As always, feedback is appreciated.
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And we woke up early that morning and dragged heavy adult shovels down to the beach and began to dig. We reached water at 5 feet but keep on. The deeper it got, the wider it got; the walls would crumble. Near the end of the day my dad came by to tell us to fill in the hole.
"Someone could be walking their dog tonight in the dark and fall in."
We hadn't yet reached an age where we would understand the consequences of our actions. I'm grown up now and I can only grasp the simple ones.
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People sit in rows facing forward and back.
The vessel rocks gently side to side in the sea.
A man with tanned skin makes his hand into a fictional gun and points it to the sky which is hidden by the metal of the boat.
A boy and girl sit very straight, erect, in their seats. His cap is on backwards. His arm rests across the back of the seat beside him, pointing towards her.
A couple in their late 50s cuddle across their armrests. Their bodies mirror each other: fingers interlocked. legs crossed. knees pointing inwards. She tucks her head in towards his neck and closes her eyes. He pulls her close and gently kisses her forehead.
On a ferry.
The moment we are in the exact middle we change
From departing to arriving, we are what is new
Neither here nor there, a short trip between then and now
We all want to be on the other side of the water and to get there without getting wet
The swaying sea makes walking an adventure, drunkenness that makes your thoughts slosh, held in only by the music of your headphones
On deck the two of you can be in the background of tourists' photographs, smiling or frowning a long-lasting message onto kodak paper for strangers
Kissing her is by far the best option for your mouth in this situation.
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I guess it's time for some links:
Stealth Disco! (Check out the "best of" clip) via the wonderful link blog @ Coudal Partners.
Jonathan Clark put together a hauntingly gorgeous flash/photo piece on cemeteries. This is a must see. (via things)
An interview with a great author: TMN chats with Douglas Coupland.
Kuro5hin has had some interesting front page articles of late: The Future Of Money. Legal Music Downloads. A Quick Overview Of Buddhism. (On a related note: Are Buddhists Ambitious?)
If you don't have time for all three, just skip through all the talk and read the interview that spawn the future of money discussion. What is money and how well does it work to solve society's ills? The interview features Bernard Lietaer who co-designed and implemented the convergence mechanism to the single European currency system (the Euro). Some very interesting and thought provoking ideas here. The main focus is the idea of private non-monetary currency systems that work in conjunction with our existing currencies to promote positive social change.
Culture as anesthetic. Numbed by the world.
The Harper's Index is always fun.
Streetart is a collaborative weblog for photos of DIY posters, guerrilla stickers, home-made stencils, etc.
Opium magazine - Literary humor for the deliriously captivated.
The Philosophy of Time.
What do you get when you mix a doll with an onion?
In music news, The Pixies may be getting back together.
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"First things first," he spit out as he barged through the door unannounced.
"Excuse me?� I replied rubbing the sleep that had recently accumulated in the corners of my eyes.
"I'm here to set things straight," he continued unfazed.
�Set what things straight?�
�The corners. The angles. The parts of speech that fall on deaf ears!�
On any other day the sudden arrival of a strange man dressed all in black spouting nonsensical clich�s would have sent my mental faculties off to the land of fear and paranoia. This morning however, I felt ready for anything. Although my memories of last night were foggy at best, the drugs must have been of the highest quality.
�Lets start at the beginning!� He exclaimed, so that is where I too will begin.
The beginning�
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RSS. Really Simple Syndication is an XML template used, amongst other things, to syndicate the content of news or news-like web-sites. Blogs fall under the category of news-like sites and some of your favourite blogs most likely already support RSS feeds. Have you ever seen an orange XML icon displayed on a blog or news site? That is a link to their RSS feed.
A RSS feed allows the content of a webpage to be easily syndicated to another page or to be read via a RSS news aggregator. More and more information is being added daily to the net and we need a better way to sort through it all. News aggregation lets you monitor all your favorite RSS enabled web-pages for updates. Not really a big deal if you skim through 2 or 3 pages daily, but what if one day you need to skim 10,000 blogs on a daily basis?
There are lots of free RSS news aggregators out there. I'm currently testing out a web-based tool called Amphetadesk and a windows based tool called Awasu. (If you're a Mac user check out NetNewsWire Lite.) I'll soon be adding a RSS feed to this site using this method via blogger. Much thanks to Chris over at Anti-Mega for explaining the importance of RSS for blogs.
In other news The Gender Genie can predict your gender based off a paragraph of your prose.
Notes from somewhere bizarre led me to this absolutely fascinating picture book. I urge you to take a peak... this could be my life captured in words and images. haha.
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