It’s summer, make yourself a friend in a local farmer. Enjoy the tastiness.

Farm Fresh Farmers’ Markets in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada:

Shan and I enjoyed ourselves exploring Winnipeg this past Friday.

We started with Cafe Americanos and some tasty treats at the Pastry Castle. A group of ladies from out of town asked us where they could find souvenirs. We sent then across the street to the Keepsake Gallery.

After our coffee we walked over to Mayberry Fine Art and then on to Ragpickers Anti-Fashion Emporium. The second floor of Ragpickers houses a wonderful collection of (mainly non-fiction) used books. (I gravitate to their philosophy section). I picked up the Manticore (Robertson Davies); Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas R. Hofstadter) and two books from Issac Asimov’s Foundation series.

Antiques and Funk is just around the block, and there I bought a lovely old Gillette razor.

A short stroll in the rain and we found ourselves at the Yellow Dog Tavern. Draft beer (especially Half Pints) seems to taste best when drank at the Yellow Dog.

After a delicious sushi dinner in the village Wasabi we were ushered off the street into Music Trader by Pete Samples and John Ward. They played whimsical music for us, blew bubbles from plastic ice-cream cone dispensers, and even performed a magic trick.

Oh, and I shaved the mustache. The “Chaplin” also paid us a visit.

Show + Tell: Notions of Home and Place by Alumni is a group exhibition featuring contemporary art in various media by 13 graduates of The University of Winnipeg.

My father, Allan Geske, has two recent prints, titled Atlas Vignette (above) and Prairie Orbs, highlighted in the exhibition.

The exhibition is organized in conjunction with The University of Winnipeg’s 40th Anniversary and Homecoming celebrations and introduces the University community — past and present — as well as the general public to work by professional artists who are UWinnipeg alumni.

Opening reception:
Thursday, September 13, 4:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
Performance by Glen Johnson at 5:00 p.m.

Special Gallery hours for Homecoming:
Friday, Sept. 14, 10:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 15, 10:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m.

Regular Gallery hours:
Monday — Friday, Noon — 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, 1:00 p.m. — 4:00 p.m.

It’s the Summer of Thought brought to you by Winnipeg’s Consideration Liberation Army.

From their manifesto:

We are the Consideration Liberation Army. Underground, over airwaves, lollygagging in air-conditioned offices, and cavorting behind basement curtains. We smile in broad daylight and shout while you are sleeping.

[…]

The indifferent will be tattooed with troubling questions. The thoughtless will be flogged with compact lines of verse. And the cruel and condescending will held captive in waterparks until they learn to laugh like children.

The Consideration Liberation Army was created by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan.

donning a balaclava he thought of letters

to the editor supporting burqa bans

on the colder nights he saw diamonds in the snow

On Tuesday I started a new project with my pal Kyle M. Together we’re writing daily emails to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. We’ll be blogging all the emails, along with any responses we receive. The subject matter will be diverse, ranging from the serious, through the mundane, to the fancyful.

You can find more information here: Dear Mr. Harper

Or, you can jump straight to the emails we’ve sent Steve thus far.

* * *

Links:

• The Basic Principles of Communication
• Dead - In - Iraq - A virtual protest using the US army’s recruitment video game.
• Graf in Chernobyl - Move you mouse to the top of the screen to reveal the menu. Haunting images.
• How big dare you dream?
• Visual Scratch
• Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood - a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milne
• Visual Composer
• Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights - We saw this up close in Spain. Amazing.
• Skateboard music interface

Also, if you live in Winnipeg and haven’t seen the Supernovas exhibition at the WAG yet, you have until Sunday. Go go go… inspiration awaits you.

• saturday, march 4th, 2006
• galaxy skateland
• wpg.mb.ca

In the late 90s I watched a “documentary” at the Pyramid —before a DJ Spooky show, I think— where some kids claimed to have found the ruins of an abandoned subway under Winnipeg. Since then I’ve heard many rumours about a past proposal for a ‘peg city metro.

From the truwinnipeg.org site:

In 1959, when renowned civil engineer Norman D. Wilson was asked to examine Winnipeg’s long-term transportation options, his report recommended building a subway.

Wilson admitted the expense would be gigantic —up to $500 Million 1959 dollars— but prophesied that if we failed to build, Winnipeg would suffer. Parking lots would become more valuable than buildings, giving land owners incentive to demolish. Cars would take over our downtown.

“In fact if a metropolitan city were to be wholly or even largely dependent on the private automobile for transportation, so much space would be taken up in roadways and so little left for business purposes, as to destroy the value of the district for the business uses that attracted the traffic in the first place.” —Norman D. Wilson

If the subway had been built, there would be a metro stop at the end of my block.