Eric, t'es où?
1 day ago
Je suis à Rushville. Où les deadline sont hier. Où les lunchs existent mal. Où la charge de travail semble inversement proportionnelle au nombre d’heures qu’il te reste dans la journée.
Mais où il fait souvent, malgré tout, bon vivre. Ça doit être le rush du rush.
¶ ID’s 2009 yearly round-up of best design awards is out. All around the best concepts and design, no matter the wide range of uses and topics: from an electrical outlet to the private helicopter. Refreshing: good to see an Apple-less list of design awards nominees.
Watching it burn
4 days ago
¶ Russian fashion design Irina Shaposhnikova’s prisms surfaces Crystallographica collection. The idea is great, though seems a tad excessive for dresses; the vest and pants look strikingly sharp though.
Bridge Burner 2009
7 days ago
3 raisons pourquoi le Bridge Burner, c’est hot (oh, v’là un calembour gratis):
- 1. On fête la Saint-Jean sous un viaduc, exploitant les richesses spatiales du bâti public urbain
- 2. On fête la Saint-Jean collectivement avec des DJ comme maîtres de cérémonie, dansant énergiquement sur des mélodies et rythmes qui façonnent notre culture contemporaine électronique
- 3. On fête la Saint-Jean sans les Guy A. Lepage de ce monde
¶ Clever music video for Lily Allen’s for Fuck You (very much). Simple ideas make always the best vids. Y a quelqu’un qui sait comment c’est fait? Quel logiciel? Rocklapin? (merci Laurence)
Fantastic dialogues. Colin Farrell’s “Ray” character is surprisingly likable.
Ken: Coming up?
Ray: What’s up there?
Ken: The view.
Ray: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.
Ken: Ray, you are about the worst tourist in the whole world.
Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.
+ In Bruges on IMDB.
¶ What details captured at 1000 and 2500 frames per second look like. That’s one bouncy jello. UPDATE: The link. Some days I wonder where my head is.
¶ Blanpied Rubini agency à Paris: a great collection of fashion and editorial photographers and a greater exemple of fine no-bull web user interface. If you double-click the image link, it adds it at personal selection cart which you can then print, download, ffffound. Love it.
The sun walked me home on a Saturday morning
17 days ago
Somebody give this man another oscar! Oh they did? Sorry, I was in China.
+ Milk on IMDB.
Lessons learned: Live and love. Travel wide and far. Cate Blanchett is unbelievably hot. CGI actors we were reading about in Wired a decade ago have arrived and they too are winning Oscars.
+ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on IMDB.
Tiananmen Tank Man Photographs: Then and Now
18 days ago
Two weeks ago, in the light of the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, all media were recounting the events, putting together then-and-now type stories and interviews, editorials of all kinds criticizing the politics of the time, the censoring and silencing that leads to the ignorance of these events by most of the younger generation. Considering all these discussions, I’m quite surprised we haven’t heard more about this following story in the media.
The NYT photography blog (suitably named the Lens blog) has published an initial article about the Tianamen tank man pictures, the world-famous photographs—there are four of them, all very similar—that have carried and stood for the confrontation up to this day. The article discusses mostly the differences in composition of each shot that thus convey a different angle of the event in a photojournalistic sense.
Comes along reporter Terri Jones. He was there on June 5th 1989 in Tiananmen Square and he too had shot the famous tank man, though somewhat inadvertently, in his mind a snapshot of the event among others. After developing the films, with the event then already extensively covered, he simply let it at that, filing the shot amongst the others of the day in his personal archives. It’s only when he read the blog post this week that he decided it was time to share it publicly. Of course, the Lens blog celebrates this revelation with an follow-up article, Jones recounting the story behind it.
In a time much before the prevalence and instantness of digital cameras, a different angle of such a historical scene helps contextualize and correctly recount the event. The relevance and insight of such a photograph is critical. As we can now see, Tank Man is standing there long before the tanks arrives, steady, bags in hand, waiting. In contrast, others are fleeing the scene, hurried. The confrontation is an idea that has yet happened. Tank man, like the tank driver, like the overlooking photographers at the Beijing Hotel, have to idea what is about the happen, how the scene will unfurl.
If released in 1989, I doubt this photograph would have made headlines. The others taken from the hotel balcony, are much more poignant, evocative of the clash on Tiananmen Square. A single man against a of tanks, you it can’t get better than that. Nevertheless, remembering the massacre 20 years later, when all that seems left are those same 4 pictures that we see over and over, this “new” picture feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s when I see stuff like this that I want to drop everything and become a photojournalist. Cliché but true: history is not what happened but what is remembered.
- Big picture has a larger shot of it and other shots of the day.
- Youtube: a video mere seconds later, the confrontation between Tank Man and the tanks.
¶ Girls, you have to check this out: The Uniform Project. In hope to raise money for the Akanksha’s School Project helping to school children from slums in India, Sheena Matheiken will abide to sustainable fashion and wear the same dress for 365 days.
The dress itself was design by fashion designer friend of hers Eliza Starbuck. It’s reversible and can open up all the way down into a kind of long jacket. She then matches it up with accessories and other pieces of clothing to reinvent her look every day. I had no idea a single dress could be so adaptable to so many styles.
Rides at Dawn
22 days ago
¶ And while were still on the subject of accidents and bikes, its being proven true in NYC: the more bikes are on the streets, casualties drop and the safer it gets. See it for yourself.
Coincidently, I recently heard many stories of policemen fining cyclists and pedestrians in Montreal (crossing red lights, not using bike paths). This is obviously hurting more than helping anything, it is not the kind incitement we need here to make streets safer for the cyclists and pedestrians, especially when the city is trying to popularize a bike-rental system of its own. “Fine pedestrians [or cyclists] or otherwise discourage walking [or cycling], and you only make streets less safe.”
¶ Talking about bikes, Transportation Research at McGill (TRAM) and the McGill School of Urban Planning “are conducting research into Montrealers’ cycling habits and route preferences. This research will help improve cycling conditions in the city for all types of cyclists.” I invite you to fill out the survey, it’s mostly multiple choices, 10 minutes you’re done. I just hope the city will tap into this research.
I had been wanting to try this writing exercise based on David Foster Wallace’s literary style for awhile now. The following [true] story seemed like an apt one for me to try it out.
0. Begin with an idea, a string of ideas.
As I was biking yesterday, I crashed into a taxi door. I fell and broke my finger.
1. Use them in a compound sentence.
As I was biking yesterday, a taxi door was flung open in my path, the crash resulting in a broken finger.
2. Add rhythm with a dependent clause.
As I was biking yesterday, a taxi door was flung open in my path, and though riding fast, the consequent fall resulted only in a broken finger.
3. Elaborate using a complete sentence as interrupting modifier.
As I was biking yesterday, a taxi door was flung open in my path, and though riding fast, the consequent fall—15 feet across the pavement— resulted only in a broken finger.
4. Append an absolute construction or two.
As I was biking yesterday, a taxi door was flung open in my path, and though riding fast, the consequent fall—15 feet across the pavement—only resulted in a broken finger, the taxi driving off with a clunky rear door, my evening spent at the hospital.
5. Paralell-o-rize your structure (turn one noun into two).
As I was biking yesterday, a taxi door was flung open in my path, and though riding fast, the consequent crash and fall—15 feet across the pavement—only resulted in a broken finger, the taxi driving off with a clunky rear door, my wednesday evening ruined and spent at the emergency clinic.
STOP HERE IF YOU ARE A MINIMALIST, WRITING COACH, OR JAMES WOOD 6. Adjectival phrases: lots of them.
As I was biking through breezy rush-hour traffic yesterday, a careless cab door was flung open in my narrow car bound path, and though riding fast, the inevitable and consequent crash and fall—15 feet across the rutty pavement—only resulted in a fractured finger, the taxi driving off with a clunky rear door, my whole wednesday evening ruined and spent at the emergency clinic.
7. Throw in an adverb or two.
As I was biking through breezy rush-hour traffic yesterday, a careless cab door was flung widely open in my narrow car bound path, and though riding fast, the inevitable and consequent crash and fall—15 feet across the rutty pavement—only resulted in a fractured finger, the taxi driving off with a slightly clunky rear door, my whole wednesday evening ruined and spent at the emergency clinic.
8. Elaboration — mostly unnecessary. Here you’ll turn nouns phrases into longer noun phrases; verbs phrases into longer verb phrases. This is largely a matter of synonyms and prepositions. Don’t be afraid to be vague! Ideally, these elaborations will contribute to voice. […] The goal here is word count.
As I was riding my fixie down Sainte-Catherine street through breezy rush-hour traffic yesterday, a careless cab door was flung widely open right in my narrow car bound path, and though riding fast, the inevitable and consequent crash and fall—15 feet across the rutty pavement—resulted only in a fractured finger accompanied by a side dish of rough scrapes on the right elbow and lower back, the more fortunate party of this brutal encounter drove away with a slightly clunky rear door, my whole wednesday evening ruined and spent devoted to waiting with an overly swollen right hand at emergency clinic.
STOP HERE IF YOU ARE NOT WRITING PARODY 9. Give it that Wallace shine. Replace common words with their oddly specific, scientific-y counterparts. Finally, go crazy with the possessives.
As I was riding my Harris Cyclery hubbed fixie down Sainte-Catherine street through breezy rush-hour traffic yesterday, a careless Camry cab door was flung widely open right in my narrow car bound path, and though riding fast, the inevitable and consequent crash and fall—15 feet across the rutty pavement—resulted only in a fractured annular accompanied with a side dish of rough scrapes on the right elbow and lower back, the more fortunate party of this brutal encounter drove away with a slightly clunky rear door, my whole wednesday evening ruined and spent devoted to waiting with an overly swollen right hand at the Hotel-Dieu emergency clinic.
- UPDATE Following from the Kottke post, another try out of growing sentences with John August. Other examples in his comments.
¶ The music video for Symphonies, Dan Black’s new single, recycling title sequences from famous movies, a bit like what Justice did with DVNO. Can anyone name any of these movies references? I spot some Goldfinger, Catch Me if You Can, Sin City… but other are stuck on the tip of my tongue, just can’t seem to figure them out. Some Hitchcock?
¶ Young photographer Richard Mosses discusses with BLDGBLG his recent visit and photographs of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Iraq where American soldiers have established living quarters amongst the rubble and marble. Gorgeous pictures.
“Vast, self-indulgent halls of columned marble and extravagant chandeliers, surrounded by pools, walls, moats, and, beyond that, empty desert, suddenly look more like college dormitories. Weight sets, flags, partition walls, sofas, basketball hoops, and even posters of bikini’d women have been imported to fill Saddam’s spatial residuum. The effect is oddly decorative, as if someone has simply moved in for a long weekend, unpacking an assortment of mundane possessions.”
¶ À faire ce week-end: aller voir la douzième Coupe du monde de cyclisme féminin, la seule étape nord-américaine étant ici à Montréal. Départ du parc Jeanne-Mance à midi, les cyclistes parcourent le circuit ceinturant la montagne 11 fois, pour une somme totale de 111 kilomètres au fil d’arrivée, 3 heures plus tard. Si t’es pas vite en maths, ça fait une moyenne d’au moins 37 km/h malgré les montées. (Merci Laurence)
D’autres détails du parcours, avec ce que je comprends être une vue de profil de la course? Si c’est le cas, pourquoi l‘échelle horizontale ne va qu‘à 88 et non à 100? Un titre, peut-être? Cependant, si tu connais le coin, déjà dès Côte-Ste-Catherine, ça devrait monter, non? Et les nids de poules qu’on se tape tous déjà trop, Gérard, t’en as fait quoi?
¶ Bill Gardner’s yearly round-up: trends in logo design for 2009. All in all, the exercise becomes an accurate picture of the current logo design world, but also evokes what companies want us to identity them with, ideas that trigger our present-day collective memory.
À Westmount
38 days ago
Je vis la vie de papi depuis 3 semaines.
Dans une jolie maison de ville.
À Westmount.
Être en transition entre 2 appartements (ce type d’itinérance légère) + avoir des amis en voyage pour un mois en quête d’un gardien pour le chat (Will de son prénom) = tout tombe donc parfaitement pour moi. Et Will.
Merci les Kelly.
Westmount, quartier de la ville où tout semble heureux.
Westmount, c’est Pleasentville sur l‘Île.
Westmount, c’est tellement loin des tensions sociales des Hochelaga. C’est loin de la vie citadine du Plateau, de la gente populaire de Villeray.
Même Outremont n’est pas tissé si uniformément.
Dans les rues de Westmount:
- Le matin, tu verras les mamies faire leur jogging avec le chien-chien.
- Les femmes de ménage qui arrivent une à une.
- Un camion d’ouvriers qui viennent refaire le terrassement d’un jardin.
- Vers les 16h, les écoliers en uniforme dévalent les rues.
- Puis c’est au tour des Audi et Volvo qui rentrent du boulot.
- Ensuite des papis qui font leur jogging avec le chien-chien.
- Et tranquille tranquille, dès 20h, le rue ne gazouille plus.
Mais:
- Même à Westmount, les vidangeurs garrochent les poubelles vides.
- Même à Westmount, un chien fait ses besoins sur ta pelouse.
- Même à Westmount, t’as un voisin qui ne te dit pas bonjour.
- Même à Westmount, la nuit tous les chats sont gris. Will? C’est toi?
¶ Les gens me demandent souvent qu’est-ce qui est bon ces jours-ci à Montréal, et surtout où aller manger. Sans être fin connoisseur de toutes les nouvelles tables, une qui semble recueillir tant les éloges des critiques que des clients, c’est bien le gastro pub (currently sans pub) The Sparrow, niché dans le Mile-End. J’y ai mangé à quelques reprises depuis son ouverture il y a 4 mois, dont un brunch du samedi, une de ces matinées où tout semble bien flotter jusqu‘à se poser, là, une tasse de café à la main, et le meilleur crumpet de ma vie, tout chaud avec des confitures maison. La cuisine y est excellente, le menu est renouvelé régulièrement. Serein Sparrow, on ne veut plus bouger de son siège de la journée. Les amies de P45 en avaient fait une admirable critique dès son ouverture, le Mirror en ajoute une couche et ne peut s’empêcher quelques jeux de mots, et les Martini Boys décortiquent son succès et retracent son héritage new-yorkais et londonien. Go Sparrow.
¶ En tout temps, Fifi lapin est la plus sexy des lapines. Elle sait si bien se vêtir! Quelle garde-robe!
¶ Parlons vélo un instant: je vous informe que j’ai essayé ce fameux Bixi avec mon cher ami Xavier la semaine dernière et nous en avons rédigé une critique complète sur p45 avec photos et suggestions et tout et tout. De plus, ce même Xavier m’a envoyé ce matin cette jolie animation expliquant exhaustivement la loi du stop-cédez pour les cyclistes en Idaho, chose que tout cycliste adopte sans même y réfléchir. Comme quoi les lois peuvent suivre le common sense. Mais sachant qu’au Québec on donne des contraventions au gens qui ne tiennent pas les rampes ou qui ne vérouillent pas leur voiture, je suis quelque peu cynique face à l’adoption d’une telle loi en terre québécoise.
¶ Les photographes Winkler & Noah le voient à l’inverse: transformer nos enfants en poupées, les rendre sages commes des images, en non pas comme ce qu’ils sont: des enfants. Pour moi, les poupées, avec un regard vide et figé, n’ont rien de rassurant, ça ne s’améliore surtout pas quand leur physionomie et apparence deviennent carrément humaines.
¶ Nouveau site web de la photographe montréalaise Dominique Lafond. Belle collection de séries de photos, l’oeil documentaire de Lafond est honnête.
Malgré la critique — non pas de la qualité graphique et interactive des interfaces épurés, mais bel et bien seulement des technologies utilisées —: il existe malgré tout, encore et toujours, chez les photographes, cette attirance implacable pour les sites portfolio en flash. Comme un village gaulois qui résiste encore et toujours à l’envahisseur. Sauf que là, on demande simplement de quitter le village, pas d’y entrer.
¶ Core77: Object Fetishism – Someone please explain. “I’m a utilitarian, your classic I-don’t-want-a-toaster-I-just-want-toast kind of guy. I don’t care if my car is banged up or if my iPhone is scratched, I just want these things to work.” Same here. Objects are made to be used. And funny things is, most of the people I know who preciously pamper their material goods are not object designers. I feel graphic designers have a knack for this type of behavior… am I right boys & girls?
Hot: she was, they were, the movie was. After watching this I immediately read everything I could on Marilyn’s life story. I had yet seen a movie starring Monroe (really — kind of like going to a very popular city/country you know of but just haven’t visited yet), and boy does she leave you with a high. Plus two words: celebrity crush.
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon form a superb duo, smart and witty. Their acting felt extremely (overly?) demonstrative, using their whole bodies to convey ideas and emotions, much more than film actors do nowadays—at least, that what it felt like. Next up: The Seven Year Itch (1955) or The Misfits (1961) for Monroe, and the only other fiction starring Curtis and Lemmon is The Great Race (1965).
Olivier Morin & Friends
53 days ago
Sans hésitation, je lui ai écrit le lendemain matin:
Eric Demay is a fan of Olivier Morin.
Il — que j’ai, depuis, la seule envie d’appeler «Machine» —, Machine, donc, nous a chanté son répertoire complet, toutes ses compositions, dans toutes ses formes, tous ses personnages, dans toute leur grandeur. Vendredi dernier, inaugurant le petit café du Théâtre de Quat’Sous [tout récemment rénové repatché désalubré], il a changé, un après l’autre, ses chemises et ses partenaires de scènes, entonnant une dizaine de chansons par acte, et nous, public profiteur présent, avons eu la chance d’assister à trois uniques duos d’une énergie monstre. Mémorable soirée, je vous le dis.
Le discman en guise de band pour tous, seule une guitare au cou, les micros parfois trop forts, en ordre de passage: le très gai Incontinental (adulé par une troupe d’hipster-punk du village), les Froeurs (en grande première mondiale — vive le froeur et sa froeur) et concluant la charmante soirée avec distinction, mais non sans l’impudence qui les rend si famousse, c’est Otarie qui tira doucement la plug.
Un band pour chaque ton, et chaque ton en son band. Ça changeait donc habilement de style, mais pas d’Olivier. Une chance.
NYC and Demay in May
57 days ago
Encore une foué, comme ces quelques dernières années, je vais aller me saucer les yeux au International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) à NYC la semaine prochaine. Design Week à New York, c’est un week-end de quatre jours d’expositions et de vernissages1 de meubles et autres objets de la sphère de design contemporain (un peu de design art aussi), mettant en vedette des productions locales et internationales, plein de beau monde, plein de beau design, plein de partys, plein de rencontres: ça s’avère à tous coups un week-end aussi dense que Manhattan.
Et, best of all, cette année, j’y vais pour du boulot.
À la suite de la publication en ligne des photos prises en Chine, plusieurs ont noté cet appétit pour le photojournalisme. Du coup2, l‘équipe du blogue de design MocoLoco m’a offert de l’accompagner à NY pour l‘évènement, avec moi réalisant la couverture photographique. C’est donc une toute première gig officielle de photojournalisme, wish me luck.
Note à tous, que je vous connaisse ou pas: si vous planifiez être aussi dans le décor new-yorkais le week-end prochain (15 au 18 mai), let me know (courriel, twitter, facebook, cell, pigeon): I’ll make sure we meet up some way or another.
- 1. Festif et bon joueur, Core77 reprend l’initiative de recenser et d’afficher le calendrier de tous les évènements pour le weekend. Classé par quartier comme il se doit.
- 2. Du coup? Du coup je me trouve à écrire comme parlent les Français.
¶ Salone Satellite 2009 au Salone Internazionale del Mobile à Milan: Tous les blogues de design essaient tant bien que mal de couvrir les évènements et les objets présentés, mais seul designboom regroupe et archive toutes ses photos de façon claire et ordonnée. Le Salone Satellite met en vedette les jeunes designers présents à la foire: à «702 young designers, 22 international design schools, from 14 countries», y a du stock.
¶ Internet + clever people, uh, I just love you: Justice’s DVNO on yooouuutuuube. Now you too can explode any youtube video frame by frame. (via Piette)