Link Log To December 5, 2005

After December 5th

To December 5, 2005

AV Club Blog

Mark Martin's New Blog

The World of Kane Blog Via Pete Ashton

Jog The Blog via Tom Spurgeon's Link-a-Rama

Scans Daily also via Tom Spurgeon's Link-a-Rama

and Composite Superman via Scans Daily (see how that all works?)

CBC Documentaries page where you can watch some that have very low volume for some reason.

'Lost' film found in old cameras and then developed:

From the October Harper's Index:

Months of vacation that President Bush has taken in five years: 11
Number of toilet seats at the EU Parliament building in Brussels that a TV station had tested for cocaine: 46[Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research (Nuremberg)]
Number that tested positive: 41[Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research (Nuremberg)]

Show at the New York Met of paranormal photography from the past:

Writing recently in The New Republic about threats like natural disasters, avian flu and terrorism, Richard A. Posner contended that "Americans simply do not accept the inevitability of disaster." He was looking at systemic preparations, and he had a point: massive infrastructure planning in anticipation of something that may never happen is, politically, a hard sell. But on an individual level, we are quite receptive to the idea that this or that consumer purchase might be just the thing to prepare us and protect us - at least from the threats we are able to imagine. The BananaBunker, for instance, is flying off the shelves at MoMA's design shop.

Last place I stopped looking in NYPL Digital Library Gallery Dust Jacket Collection.

Andy Bleck (aka Konky Kru) must be somewhat insane, but in a good way. Via Bugpowder:

Olivier Kugler strip I like:

Some bands I'm liking via NYUB Podcast:

Why?

The Bridge Gang

To November 17, 2005

Watch the Fifth Estate on demand. The Cheney episode from last year is great.

The New York Digital Library site.

Inside the Ripley's Warehouse of Oddities on NPR:

Until the 1970s, the U.S. Army disposed of tons of mustard gas and other chemical agents off the coasts of countries around the world:

In 1964, mustard gas canisters are pushed into the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey. Millions of pounds were dumped this way.

Both of these avalaible on the Podcast of NPR's Most Emailed Stories

New book by Dava Sobel gives a tour of the Planets. Listen to the interview on Planetary Radio.

Headline news in Georgetown. Marianne used to work in this pub:

Ruggle, an owner of The Shepherd's Crook on Main St., was alone in the front of the pub, which hadn't opened yet for the day. She was working at the computer at the bar shortly after 11 a.m. when she was startled by a loud crash from behind her.
"I thought someone had driven into the front window," said Ruggle.
She turned to look, and saw some glass falling from the window, but it took a few seconds before she saw the cause of the crash-- a deer, bleeding profusely from its nose, running frantically through the restaurant desperately trying to find a way out.

To November 7, 2005

Books to get:

Hilary Mantel- Giving Up the Ghost, Beyond Black. Via Writers and Company

A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich:

In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited by a publishing acquaintance to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and "Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fur junge Leser was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in seventeen languages across the world.

In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties"

Via NPRs Most Emailed Stories Podcast

To November 2, 2005:

Lots o' Chris Ware on the net:

His NY Times strip:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

And a new show at The Adam Baumgold Gallery with lots to see on the website

And his cover for the new Penguin edition of Candide:

Scanlations of Matsumoto's Ping Pong

Music I want to remember to get if I have money one day:

Boop-Oop-A-Dooin' - The Songs of Sammy Timberg from Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman and Other Musical Classics

The next 11 volumes in The Complete Songs of Robbie Burns

Emmett Miller was a minstrel performer who had the good fortune to have top-notch Jazz musicians assigned to his Okeh sessions in the late 1920s. His records made between June of 1928 and September of 1929 where labeled Emmett Miller accompanied by his Georgia Crackers and are of Jazz interest only for the back-up musicians that accompany Miller on these sessions.

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks appear Monday and Tuesday nights 8:30-11:30 at Charley O's Times Square Grill, 611 Broadway at West 49th street, Manhattan: 212-246-1960.

To October 20, 2005

I am really enjoying Christopher Niemann's work:

SIZE MATTERS: The Mini-Comic Blog

What Lola's green poo means: Says Vicky Pigott: 'If your baby's stools are green and frothy she may be taking in too much lactose (the natural sugar found in milk), which happens if she feeds often, but doesn't get the rich milk at the end of the feed to fill her up. It may also be caused by overfeeding or underfeeding, or is a sign that your baby has a stomach bug.'

Nursery rhymes:

Goosey, goosey, gander,
Whither shall I wander?
Upstairs, and downstairs,
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who wouldn't say his prayers!
I took him by the left leg
And threw him down the stairs.

New Barnstable strips on the Wilbur Blog

2005 Reith Lectures, The Triumph of Technology by Alec Broers, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

This summer Republican Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham have tried to pass legislation laying down clear guidelines for humane interrogation of prisoners. Behind the scenes Vice-President Dick Cheney has threatened to veto any such attempt to curtail presidential power in wartime. Alberto Gonzales, the man who helped craft the memos redefining torture to meaninglessness, is now attorney-general of the United States. The one sane, principled man who objected to the policy change, Colin Powell, got the boot.

And it looks more and more like Canada unofficially sanctions torture by other states for the same ends; an interview on the Current yesterday with Abdullah Almalki a Canadian citizen and father of five was tortured for almost two years in a Syrian prison under the suspicion of terrorist links.

I haven't read this yet, but I want to. I'm still not sure if 'subverting from within' is anything more than a mantra of the delusionial.

Paul Karasik has a new blog about living in Florence:

New Jordan Crane Screenprints:

Limited edition portfolio of Edgar P. Jacobs art. The cover roughs are really nice. I should read some Blake and Mortimer.

Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester in interview with Tom Spurgeon:

I think especially in the Anglo-American culture, there is strong distrust of visual culture, particularly in its popular, vulgar form. This goes back, I think, to the Reformation. Catholicism made its arguments through visual media like architecture (think of all those great cathedrals), painting (the Sistine chapel), and stained glass windows. Reacting against this, Protestants argued that truth resides in words alone: only reading the Bible can give you truth. To the Protestant mind, pictures are always suspect: babbles to confuse children and the weak-minded. This attitude, secularized in the 19th century, is the undercurrent of most hostility towards comics (and cognate art forms like film).

MPEG screen grabs of the first episode of the 1998 MTV puppet series Super Adventure Team. via Puppetvision

to October 12, 2005

Barrie restaurant rewiews. We tried Wok Inn on Monday. It was pretty good Chinese.

I discovered my new favourite CBC Radio show during the strike- Wiretap. Here's why: "How I became so hostile: Goldstein's friend Evan berates him for being hostile, prompting him to go back, way back, in order trace the roots of his hostility toward the world. In search of answers, he speaks to his old secretary, his fourth grade teacher, an expert on circumcision, and his parents."

Pete Ashton's review of new collection Pictures and Words by Roanne Bell and Mark Sinclair and designed either partially or fully by Tom Gauld

i fogot about these:

to October 10, 2005

Exhibit of obbsessive drawings at the American Folk Museum: "The artists’ motivations for making art are married to their self-taught survival skills to help them cope with illness, loss, loneliness, fear, and regret. Inevitably, though, the process of drawing eventually dominated this motivation, and making marks on a page became captivating, so that it is now an obsession for each man. The lust for line trumps everything. Each artist thus discovers what John Ruskin (1819–1900) said about drawing years ago, that one purpose of drawing was to record things that could not be described in words."

Who is this person who joined the convoy? A BLONDE lady you say? Who seems a bit posher than the rest of them? Not quite a grubby unwashed punk? Oh, it’s YOU, Jo. How unspeakably tedious. Jo gets carried away with the band’s hate-filled ways, rejects the Doctor and starts smoking joints.

To October 5, 2005

Bad Science. Blog of 'skeptic' articles from a Guardian science writer.

I quite like these paintings by Rob Evans:

Van Morrison's contractual obligation album on WFMU's blog. 31 tracks including Just Ball, The Big Royalty Check, Ring Worm,Want A Danish, Here Comes Dumb George, Goodbye George, Dum Dum George, The Wobble and Wobble And Ball!

To October 2, 2005

Great NY Times audio slideshow about the decline of modernist architecture in Moscow.

Cool tee shirt site with ongoing design competition. Guidelines here:

To submit a design to Threadless, follow the steps below!
1. Design your tee in a vector art program such as Adobe Illustrator, or Macromedia Freehand... or design in a raster program such as Adobe Photoshop. If you are designing in a raster program, make sure you design actual size at at least 150dpi.
2. When you are done, transfer your design to one of the following templates. Be sure to keep your hi-resolution version of the design somewhere in case your design is picked.
Download Photoshop (PSD) Template
Download Flash (FLA) Template (30 fps)
3. If you are using the photoshop template, save off a copy of your design as a gif. If you are using the flash template, publish your file so that you have a swf of your design.
4. You will need to create a gif thumbnail of your submission. The thumbnail must be 100 x 70 pixels and under 4kb.
5. When you have the files ready, and know what you want the title of your design to be, fill out the form below to send us your submission.

To September 28, 2005 (More Lola sleeping in my lap)

I recently found a collection of Dave Berg's The Lighter Side Of...in the basement and decided to give it another look, because I always hated it. But aside from some nice art, I have to agree; it's loathsome.

I have been waiting for this for years:

I think the new Fiery Furnaces will be good:

the band again pushes the boundaries of sonic experimentation with Rehearsing My Choir, an 11-song anthology of an elderly woman reflecting on her life. On each track, listeners will notice a new and temporary addition to the Furnaces' sound, their grandmother, Olga Sarantos. Both Olga and Eleanor sing on Rehearsing My Choir as the elderly woman reflects on past and present times. Meanwhile, Matt performs a variable cornucopia of musical theatre in the background. Eleanor notes that the unique album idea came about because time was of the essence.

"You know my grandmother was becoming very sick," Eleanor said. "She's turning 83 this next month, so it was kind of like it's now or never. She was always the real musician in the family. She loves music very much, so we thought if anyone should be making records it should be her."

Nice photo of Chester by Sam Javanrouh. Via Blamb.

NPR Podcast directory

"Communities can replace sand lost to erosion or storm waves. But it can be hard to find good sources of replacement sand; the projects are unsightly, mining and applying the sand brings other environmental problems, and the projects often do not last long, which means the process can be extremely expensive." This also kind of relates to Momus' post of a few weeks back:

55% of Japan's coastlines are covered in concrete laid down by government programs. Government programs which will cease if the Post Office Savings Bank is privatised. Kerr's arguments are mostly aesthetic; he thinks concrete reinforcements on coasts and rivers are ugly: "The gray concrete of the once-natural beach lines is punctuated by piles of countless concrete and iron tetrapods — four-legged anti-erosion barriers that look like large jacks and are often as large as bulldozers."

But death by drowning is ugly too, as we've seen in New Orleans. Our vision of a future which can only get more and more "liberalized" (in other words, capitalist) might be blocking our view of a future climatologists tell us is now increasingly certain: a future in which global warming causes sea levels to rise and weather patterns to become more extreme. I suspect the people of New Orleans would have been happy to have a bit more "ugly" concrete between them and the sea. Each year Japan is experiencing more and more devastating typhoons, which endanger life by depositing huge amounts of rainfall in very brief periods, making rivers burst their banks. Are the private banks who profit from post office privatisation going to construct barriers against that?

Jason Shiga is back online. I've read a couple of his Nickolodean strips before, but not these two- very inventive and fun.

Book that I want to remember to read:

Both Alyson and Margaret are creations of the Canadian writer Merilyn Simonds, whose first novel, "The Holding," chronicles each woman's experience on the same piece of property many generations apart. Margaret witnessed its transformation from deep forest to cultivated homestead, arriving from Scotland with her three brothers, whose ambition is to bend the land to their domestic purposes.

Relying on historical documents, memoirs, Ojibwa tales and the fact of her own great-great-grandmother's emigration from Scotland to Canada, Simonds infuses Margaret with an authenticity that's both substantial and appealing. Brazen and independent, she is unmoored from convention by a terrible tragedy; she's implicitly brave, open to the world in ways that Alyson, so many years later, is not.

Canadian music I am liking (Most via the great CBC Radio 3 New Canadian Music Podcast):

Panurge (Vancouver). I'm totally loving this song called Mixed Calvary and Just Concerts studio session which is great too. Also, the cover over their last album is of a logging truck is by Eboy. Buy their Mp3s.
Wintersleep (Halifax) Buy their mp3s.
The Summerlad (Calgary)
Two Hours Traffic(Charlottetown): Buy their Mp3s.
They Shoot Horses Don't They (Vancouver)
Sparrow (Vancouver)
Bend-Sinister (Kelowna)
Mike O'Neill Buy his MP3s (Halifax)
Gentleman Reg Buy Mp3s

To September 20, 2005, Lola was born on September 17th at 11:48 am and these are sites I've been looking at with her sleeping in my lap at 3am:

Former photo editor for Vice Magazine Tim Barber has some amazing Winogradish work by himself and others on his website Tiny Vices. Leah Ledare stands out- particularly her series of photos taken in Russia.

Also via Tom's site, I never could get a straight answer about this from my high-school science teacher

Echo Eggebrecht folk-art inspired paintings at Gallery Sixtyseven from a show in 2004. There's also some interesting detail shots of them on Bloggy

Recent intaglio prints and paintings by Scott Prior that are thick with humidity:

I liked this Lileks Bleat entry from the other day, reminiscing about the convenience store he worked at as a kid:

... the place had two aisles, and we still had our own meat department. The store had a big walk-in cooler devoted to beer and soda and milk, but it had one small cooler for things like hamburger and chops. We got the meat from the wholesaler, weighed it, put it in the plastic trays, wrapped it in plastic and pressed the plastic against the iron to seal it. Then we weighed it and added a label bearing the store’s name...

...A man could walk into this place, nod hello to the clerk, select a bunch of bananas, get some hamburger, a six pack, a pack of Barclay cigarettes and a newspaper, and walk back across the street to his apartment without feeling as though he had just entered some sticky-floored machine whose entire purpose, and whose profit margins, revolved around the sale of sugary slush in flavors like “Totally Tropical.”

Could White River Junction be any sleepier? Via Comics Reporter:

To September 13, 2005 (1 week past due date)

Gotta remember to start picking up the New York Times on Sundays:Each Sunday beginning Sept. 18, the magazine will run "The Strip," a serialized, full-color and full-page comic strip that will feature one self-contained story. The strips will be created by what the Times announcement calls “stars of the graphic novel,” with each running about six months. The first strip will be by alternative newspaper star Chris Ware, author of the graphic novel, "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth." His first Times strip “tells the story of a young girl and her adventures in her apartment house,” the magazine saidVia Comics Reporter

People from the documentary about capital punishment in Illinois called Deadline that I want to read more by:

Anthony Amsterdam:"Minding the Law explores psychological processes involved in the work of lawyers and judges: deciding whether particular cases fit within a legal rule ("categorizing"), telling stories to justify one's claims or undercut those of an adversary ("narrative"), and tailoring one's language to be persuasive without appearing partisan ("rhetorics"). Because these processes are not unique to the law, courts' decisions cannot rest solely upon legal logic but must also depend vitally upon the underlying culture's storehouse of familiar tales of heroes and villains."

and some quotes I liked from a write up of Anthony Amsterdam and other heros of law:"C. S. Lewis wrote a wonderful slender book on education called The Abolition of Man. It should be required reading for anyone in the teaching profession. Lewis wrote: “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.” The poet e. e. cummings expressed a similar sentiment: “I’d rather teach one bird to sing than 10,000 stars how not to dance.”

Bryan Stevenson: "With the intense condemnation that comes with the trial process, the folks I work with often have a real sense of abandonment. Increasingly, my clients are young--more than half of those sentenced to death in Alabama last year were nineteen or younger--and for these younger clients particularly, this condemnation and abandonment creates a relationship with the lawyer that is very intense. Many of these kids never had relationships with anyone who had much vision of them becoming something different."

To September 11

New Marcel Dzama show called The Course of Human History Personified at the David Zwirner Gallery in NY. Take a walkthrough. I quite like this one. Via Warren Craghead

"Cars and trucks, clustered together with nowhere to go, are a jumble of rectangles against the dark water in Chalmette, La." Via NY Times

To September 10 (Still waiting for the baby)

Watched DiG! on thursday night and enjoyed it a lot, but I probably for the same reasons the subjects hated it. I can see how both guys felt they were unfairly protrayed: "Taylor(Of the Dandy Warhols)the says director ONDI TIMONER deliberately manipulated the footage during the film's editing. He says, "The director, Ondi, moulded it into a confrontation, so it would be a good film."" And Anton? "the footage concerning myself and the BJM in the film stops in 1997, while the Dandy's footage goes through 2003. This leads the viewer to believe that I fell off the earth in a drugged-out downward spiral of insanity. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I quit heroin over 5 years ago, thank God, and have been more productive than ever making albums and touring all over the world"

Former Spitting Image puppet designer Wilfred Wood makes great sculptures now. I want this one. Via Coolhunting

To September 8 (Waiting for the baby)

Children missing since Katrina hit:

Lots of good commentary on Katrina in The Washington Post. Terry Neal: Representatives from the much-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday that it didn't want journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims, because "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect." An agency spokeswoman told Reuters, "We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media."

and a retort by blogger Jeff Goldstein:"the Washington Post‘s Terry M. Neal (exhibit B) joins Andrew, Oliver Willis, Attaturk, “Azael” and others in pushing this new “censorship” meme (and remember, kiddies: FEMA’s refusal to give up space in their vehicles to photographers looking for hurricane porn is the very definition of censorship)." It was at this point that I realised Jeff was full of shit: "Of course, those in Indonesia or Honduras probably don’t need the reminder, but to Andrew, the TRUTH must out—particularly if said “truth” (and really, what could be more real than an event staged for media; because remember, Andrew is asking you to go out and film the bodies, not the cleanup) can be used to hurt an Administration who doesn’t agree with him on a host of gay advocacy positions. "

Also, commentaries by 'lefty partisans' Tina Brown: "if 9/11 was Bush's Woodstock, Katrina is his Altamont -- the place where his ability to unite people behind a flurry of flag-waving came to look like the hollow sham it always was."

and Harold Meyerson: "many of us who argue for universal health coverage have grown inured to that distinctly American indifference to the common good, to our radical lack of solidarity with our fellow citizens. Besides, the poor generally have the decency to die discreetly, and discretely -- not conspicuously, not in droves. Come rain or come shine, we leave millions of beleaguered Americans to fend for themselves on a daily basis. It's just a lot more noticeable in a horrific rain, and when the ordinary lack of access to medical care is augmented by an extraordinary lack of access to emergency services." and a retort by the British blogger "Deogolwulf" that I didn't find a all convincing.

and panaromas of the destruction by John Poole

Frank Stronach helps lots: "all will be given medical attention and new clothes courtesy of Palm Beach residents, and then taken to Magna's new training facilities at nearby Palm Meadows. There they will be housed in facilities intended for grooms and thoroughbred trainers, fed at a brand-new state-of-the-art cafeteria and, some time within the next two months, returned to Louisiana to live in a 240-hectare trailer park yet to be built" Article by Roy Macgregor in the Globe and Mail. Via THIS Magazine

And this is a good blog for coverage, via the Guardian Newsblog. It has lots of CBS news reports updated throughtou the day including this short report about how real estate developers are already getting excited: "(CBS) — Because up to $200 billion in aid could pour into the New Orleans region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, urban developers are dreaming of substantial renovations to the city, which would reinvigorate run-down segments of the city, the Wall Street Journal reports. One firm, Historic Restoration Inc., foresees an "Afro-Caribbean Paris" full of garden walks and a trolley system. Others envision a slate of new schools, a riverside park and a light-rail system. " At least there won't be insurgents to deal with. Or maybe there will.

And there's also an item that's probably not at the top of anyone's agenda at the moment, but interesting: "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (CBS) — Katrina was no big deal for the Kennedy Space Center, but it did leave big footprints on NASA, according to a published report. USA Today says an internal memo written by the top boss of the space shuttle program says hurricane damage to Gulf Coast shuttle facilities, combined with other technical problems, may delay the next shuttle flight until late next year. The shuttle's fuel tanks are reportedly built at a plant in New Orleans, its engines are tested in coastal Mississippi, and many workers at both facilities are evacuees who are at least temporarily homeless. "

Non-Katrina related; I really liked the Rhythm Incursions: Podcast Show #1 from the fairly new(2years old?) London experimental/ art radio station Resonance FM. 'Pussyriders' by Urban Haiku is really excellent ("You're making Stevie Wonder") as is this P-Love track on the Bully Record's website. Actually all of the tracks are great. Notification of podcasts via Pete Ashton's excellent linklog.

To September 7

Disturbing paintings by Ray Caesar

Will Dawbarn's archive of his very funny Wilbur strips

Original Japanese Cartoon for Battle of the Planets DVD has been released. Via WebMikey. (How is it that an episode title of poorly animated 70s cartoon can send me into spasms of ecstactic expectation?):

"Gatchaman VS. Turtle King"
"The Evil Ghostly Aircraft Carrier"
"The Giant Mummy That Calls Storms"
"Revenge of the Iron Monster Mechadegon"
"The Ghost Fleet from Hell"
"The Grand Mini-Robot Operation"
"Galactor's Grand Airshow"
"The Secret of the Crescent Coral Reef Operations"
"A Demon From The Moon"
"The Big Battle of the Underground"
"The Mysterious Red Impulse"
"The Greedy Monster Ibukuron"

Article about great New York radio in the Village Voice, with illos by Kaz. Via WFMU blog

Bryan Munn's blog about Canadian Comics News

George Monbiot in the Guardian:

"Nine days after that, on July 28, the United States, which had appeared to give some ground at Gleneagles, announced a pact with Australia, China and India to undermine the Kyoto protocol on climate change. On August 2, leaked documents from the World Bank showed that the G8 had not in fact granted 100% debt relief to 18 countries, but had promised enough money only to write off their repayments for the next three years. On August 3, the United Nations revealed that only one-third of the money needed for famine relief in Niger and 14% of the money needed by Mali had been pledged by the rich nations. Some 5 million people in the western Sahel remained at risk of starvation. "

"Two weeks ago, we discovered that John Bolton, the new US ambassador to the United Nations, had proposed 750 amendments to the agreement that is meant to be concluded at next week's UN summit. He was, in effect, striking out the millennium development goals on health, education and poverty relief, which the UN set in 2000. Yesterday, ActionAid released a report showing that the first of these goals - equal access to schooling for boys and girls by 2005 - has been missed in over 70 countries. "Africa," it found, "is currently projected to miss every goal." There is so little resolve at the UN to do anything about it that the summit could deliver "a worse outcome than the situation before the G8". Yet Geldof remains silent."

"Right from the beginning," says Kofi Mawuli Klu of the Forum of African Human Rights Defenders, "he has acted in his own selfish interests. It was all about self-promotion, about usurping the place of Africans. His message was 'shut up and watch me'. Without even understanding the root causes of the problems, he used his role to drown the voices of the African people and replace them with his own. There are many knowledgeable people - African and non-African - who could have advised him, but he has been on his own, ego-tripping."

George Monbiot's website

To August 31

I just watched The Weather Underground and thought it was pretty damn good. Most of the reviewers on IMDB agree, which is unusual. I definately fit into the white liberal hand-wringer category that Bernadine Dohrn talks about, and am therefore part of the machine that must be dismantled! The guilt!

Blamb blogger lunch:"I was walking home along Queen a couple of weeks ago and there were lots of people out and it occurred to me that the city blogs -- BlogTO and Torontoist -- haven't evolved to the point where they give you any real sense of the actual city. Right now, those two blogs seem mostly like repositories for shallow news snippets and product placements. Sometimes when I visit them I feel like I'm reading the Yellow Pages.
AMBER: What's missing?
BLAMB: Repetition, for one thing. Each of those blogs need to pick some iconic Toronto things -- people, locations, landmarks, social cutoms -- and have them appear in posts on a regular basis."

Psychbloke loses a ring at the Reading Festival.
This is funny too, but probably only if you know what a Kobold is. I certainly don't.

To August 29

"Creative Skin Art skin was born out of an idea between three sisters and their friends who write and make art, but spend most of their days slaving away at 9-5 jobs. With participants across the U.S., we decided to create an online creative space that allowed us to share and support each others' works, engage in lively discussions about them, and to cultivate and develop our own individual creative process. No matter what your day job is, we open this space to anyone who has a deep appreciation to thinking and making creative things in positive ways." Via Warren Craghead

Damien Jay sketchbook. "We're both Ghosts now-maybe we could do something sometime."

The snowflake method for writing a novel

The medieval remains of a mother and daughter found in North Yorkshire shows signs of an attempted Caesarean operation, scientists have revealed. Via Mirabilis.ca

Renovated mill in Bradford houses a David Hockney gallery that have to remember to visit next time I'm in Yorkshire

Some Randolph Caldecott illustrated stories and Daddy Darwin's Dovecot: A Country Tale

To August 19, 2005

Why do we forget our childhood?

Doodle Archive Project

Mpegs of Japanese traditoanl Bonraku puppet plays. Via Puppetvision.

Barrie News: A police officer, who coordinated a program to wipe out marijuana outdoor grow operations, fed information about the location of the crops to two men so that they could harvest the pot before police raids, a court has heard. Ontario Provincial Police Det. Const. Scott Duguid, 34, pled guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice yesterday to breach of trust in connection with incidents in Simcoe County in August and September 2003...In another taped conversation, the Proctors talk about Duguid agreeing to delay the police raid on the larger site to allow time for Jody Proctor to locate the crop and harvest it. The brothers also make references to paying Duguid $1,000 for helping them, but state at least twice that he doesn’t seem interested in the money.

Duguid, who had been recommended for promotion and had just written his sergeant’s exams - passing with the third highest marks in the province when he was arrested - was suspended with pay pending the outcome of the case.

Earth News: They found two such events, both in 1993. The first was on the morning of October 22. Seismometers in Turkey and Bolivia recorded a violent event in Antarctica that packed the punch of several thousand tons of TNT. The disturbance then ripped through Earth on a route that ended with it exiting through the floor of the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka just 26 seconds later - implying a speed of 900,000 mph.