ADAMALONE

Yes! Toronto, snow, and streetcars. One more...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:27:36 -0500

Yes! Toronto, snow, and streetcars. One more week.

fuckyeahtoronto:kari-shma:Streetcar in the Snow (via Mute*)

The Horrifying Human Being

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:23:28 -0500

The Horrifying Human Being

Belgium Waffles: Two nations, after all?

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:48:25 -0500

Belgium Waffles: Two nations, after all? :

From The Weekly Standard:

Ever since it was carved by treaty out of the Dutch, French, and German borderlands after the Napoleonic wars, Belgium has been an odd kind of country—short on space, sunlight, and national identity. It was a shotgun marriage of two peoples, the Dutch-speaking Flemings in Flanders and the French-speaking Walloons in Wallonia, who, apart from a shared Catholicism had almost nothing in common. Since Brussels, the Belgian capital, is also the seat of government for the 27-nation European Union, Belgium has become a symbol of the unity-in-diversity that EU bureaucrats aspire to. But the marriage of Flanders and Wallonia, never a love match, has in recent decades entered a thrown-crockery phase. It has become a burning question whether the country is headed for an outright divorce, of the sort that broke Czechoslovakia into two countries after the Cold War.

The question has largely been answered. Belgium already looks less like a country than a loose confederation of two states. Partly thanks to half a dozen reforms pushed through since the 1970s by nationalists on both sides, French speakers and Dutch speakers inhabit different cultural universes. Most people have never heard of the major politicians, the major actresses, and sometimes even the major athletes on the other side of a country that is smaller than Maryland. They inhabit different political universes, too. Except in one nettlesome suburban area of Brussels, Flemings and Walloons are not permitted to vote for the same parties at the national level. They don’t even obey the same laws.

Posted for my Belgie Dad (if you can’t navigate the internet, but are reading this somehow, click on the big title of this post to read the full text).

This is also posted since few people know anything about Belgium at all; it’s not the most exciting country if you visit, but Antwerp is worth a twirl if you consider yourself on the up-scale side of ‘hip’ (and purposefully drop the ‘ster’) - one of the last places you can sit and have made hand-crafted, custom made leather gloves. Up with frites and mussles (clearly); down with ‘belgian waffles’; up with Liege waffles (the ‘other’ Belgian waffle). If it isn’t clear, I’m emotionally due for another trip to Belgium.

Outside that window was a picture of hell -or the first blizzard...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:12:01 -0500

Outside that window was a picture of hell -or the first blizzard of mtl this past week.

(via microwalrus)

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:40:30 -0500

(via microwalrus)

fuckyeahtoronto: “Free” by Sean MartindaleThe Art Gallery of...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:29:58 -0500

fuckyeahtoronto:

“Free” by Sean Martindale
The Art Gallery of Ontario kindly let me use their parking lot for this project. It’s a fenced-off enclosure that bisects Butterfield Park and Grange Park here in downtown Toronto. The installation became a bit of a marathon as I tied it together over a solid twenty-four hour period, overnight and through some light rain. In the end, I used more than 21,663 feet of salvaged string - two high-tension lengths for each of the 231 points/nodes crossing the 44-foot distance between the fences, plus the letter outlines. So far, the squirrels haven’t chewed on it for their nests…

lipglossandlollipops: jecoart: ridiculous This Is Hilarious,...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:54:30 -0500

lipglossandlollipops:

jecoart:

ridiculous

This Is Hilarious, You Should Watch It of the Day: Depressed woman touching a wall? We got that B-roll!

[via.]

kenmat: bigfun: aspettandoellis:curiositasmundi:menodizero: Dav...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:44:55 -0500

kenmat:

bigfun:

aspettandoellis:curiositasmundi:menodizero:

David Gibson

Myths & Misconceptions About Grid Systems

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:00:00 -0500

Myths & Misconceptions About Grid Systems:

From Aisle One:

“Grids can impede creativity.

Definitely the most ridiculous of the bunch, this myth suggests that a grid will cause a designer to be less creative. A grid should never define a design, it should work with it. To suggest that a grid can hinder creativity is the same as suggesting that a music tempo can as well. A grid is a building block that can never, and should never, impede creativity.

The legendary designer, Josef Müller-Brockmann, explained it well:

‘The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.’

Another outrageous claim is that grids are confining. When used properly, a grid will never limit or confine a design, it will grow and adapt to your liking. If someone tells you a grid gives you no freedom, that person doesn’t fully understand the purpose of a grid or how it should be used. Grids are flexible and allow for an infinite number of possibilities.

Graphic designer and writer Ellen Lupton explains:

‘To say a grid is limiting is to say that language is limiting, or typography is limiting.’”

“Language is limiting.” Excellent analogy. Because language is, importantly, a limit on our communication; as much as it enables us to communicate, language is a constraint, allowing us to communicate through, among other things, the ruling out of the nonsensical. Good article.

twothirty: thedailywhat: Spot-On Impression of the Day:...

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:54:29 -0500

twothirty:

thedailywhat:

Spot-On Impression of the Day: Stephen Colbert does a (seemingly) extemporaneous impression of a nuclear explosion, which turns out to be one of the funniest things of all time.

[via.]

Colbert is a genius.

Scrawled outside my apartment last night.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:39:06 -0500

Scrawled outside my apartment last night.

The Future of Activism

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:53:45 -0500

The Future of Activism:

From Adbusters:

“Bringing an end to this descent toward hell is the burden of the activist. But we cannot halt the decline without taking heed of Hawthorne’s story. The dilemma we face is thus: If we burn the world without a change of heart, it will resurrect; if we change our hearts without leveling the world, it will persist. Untangling this difficulty begins with acknowledging the complicated relationship between our interior reality (the mental environment) and our external reality (the physical environment). Mental pollution is not just an annoyance; it is a tool in our oppression. The interjection of advertising and other info-toxins into our mindscape neutralizes our attempts to construct an alternate future because from a poisoned mind spring only poisoned deeds. Only a new form of activism that works on both the mental and physical registers – an activism of the mental environment that defeats the enemies of our mindscape by confronting them in our landscape – will succeed in turning us away from catastrophe.”

I have a real contempt for Adbusters. Anyone who uses “mindscape” is failing (not to mention the philosophical fail of drawing such a glaring distinction between mind and world).

bigfun: (via baubauhaus)

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:35:36 -0500

bigfun:

(via baubauhaus)

The Band and the Beast: Some Concerns about the Results of a Google Search for 'Mastodon'

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:05:57 -0500

The Band and the Beast: Some Concerns about the Results of a Google Search for 'Mastodon':

From the local scholar Justin Smith, on Metal vs Mammals:

“Before I arrive at my real point, let me stress that it is the last of my intentions to seek to condemn heavy metal. As I understand it, this genre emerges out of the auspicious combination of late ’60s psychedelic blues with the multifarious strains of creatively anachronistic neopaganism that became visible in the following decade, but that all, likely, have their roots in 19th-century romanticism, in Waterhouse’s fairies, in Wagner’s recycling of the Niebelungenlied, and so on. A distinguished genealogy, to be sure.”

kenmat:nevver:Cinema is Dope

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:52:52 -0500

kenmat:nevver:Cinema is Dope

It’s settled. Sometime I’m the next 8 months, I’m going to New York city....

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:22:54 -0500

It’s settled. Sometime I’m the next 8 months, I’m going to New York city. It’s about time.

Dio, Judas Priest, Wasp, Iron Maiden, Quiet Riot… -...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:09:14 -0500

Dio, Judas Priest, Wasp, Iron Maiden, Quiet Riot… - Stars

-Just listen. The solos will change your life.

First (light) snowy morning. Obviously Montreal beats everyone...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:28:05 -0500

First (light) snowy morning. Obviously Montreal beats everyone else to the punch. Bleh.

Found this guy parked outside my place this afternoon. New gold...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:13:15 -0500

Found this guy parked outside my place this afternoon. New gold rims on an old white Bronco: totally badass.

kenmat:(via mouette7)

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:45:52 -0500

kenmat:(via mouette7)