Whoops!

Three significant things happened yesterday on this blog:

1. Clayton called me out on the title of Thursday’s post.  In the comments he said that “Work, Not Safe For” fails to meet the criteria for a “W” title and therefore my streak is over.  Which is ironic, because…

2. That was the 100th consecutive ”W” title post, and…

3. I didn’t write a post yesterday!  For the first time since April, a non-holiday weekday went by without me posting.  I plumb forgot.  I don’t really have an explanation other than work was really busy and amidst all the stuff I was doing, I was at the same time instant messaging back and forth with our travel co-ordinator getting some last-minute tickets booked for France.  I’m going for work, but it’s March break, so my wife and daughter are coming too.  So this is my first ever post from home on a weekend.

Anyway, I appeal to you to renounce Clayton’s claim that I failed to live up to the “W” rule.  Leave a comment and tell me my streak is still alive!  Or, if you believe I did fail, say that too, and I’ll slink off and pout.

101!  [Defiantly]

Wanna See a Yurt?

Too busy for real post, so here’s a link from a service I subscribe to that sends me interesting stuff every day:

In the last days of the Russian Empire, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii traveled the land in a specially outfitted railroad car: Czar Nicholas II had commissioned him to photograph the entire length and breadth of his territories.

Unusually for that time, the photos are in colour. By taking three shots in quick succession with red, green, and blue filters, Prokudin-Gorskii was able to capture the peacock robes of a Central Asian emir, the lushness of a Chakva tea farm, and the vibrancy of Russian Orthodox icons in a Smolensk church. Prokudin-Gorskii took his last photographs, of the Murmansk railroad, in 1915; three years later the czar was dead. The photographer ended up in Paris. His glass-slide negatives found their to the Library of Congress.

Oh – here’s the yurt: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_6x__00006_.jpg

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Was it a Miracle?

In honour of the Super Bowl, here’s a clip of the “Immaculate Reception.”  It occurred in a 1972 playoff game between Pittsburgh and Oakland.  Oakland was ahead 7-6 with 22 seconds left on the clock.  The Steelers were fourth and 10, so this was their last chance to avoid ending their season.

The Steelers obviously won the game, which was their first playoff win since their inception in 1933.  They lost the following week to Miami, who were of course enjoying their “perfect season,” and who went on to win the 1972 Super Bowl.

But, this marked the end of 4 decades of failure, and Pittsburgh went on to win 4 of the next 10 championships.

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Wrath of Khan – the Opera

This whole making a living thing has really been interfering with by bloggage.  Another lame post.

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Work Prevents Blogger From Meaningful Post

So here’s a link to a strangely hypnotic slideshow of flickr photos from all over the world.

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Wiccan Prime Minister?

Barack Obama is being inaugurated today.  What?  You already knew that?  Dang, so much for my blog being a source of late-breaking news.  It is of course significant because he is black.  Just as JFK’s election was significant because he was Roman Catholic.

I know it seems silly now to think that Catholicism vs. Protestantism would be an issue in selecting a President, but 50 years ago, it was.  (Maybe in another 50 years, skin colour won’t matter either.)

But back to religion.  I have a friend who is a practicing Wiccan, and who ran for office in the last federal election.  I don’t for a moment believe her religion affected any of the voters, but what if she had been on a bigger stage?  What if she had been running for the leadership of her party or even Prime Minister?  Even if you believe that Canadians are tolerant enough to handle that, imagine a devout muslim or sikh running for the US presidency.

Why should it matter which invisible friend you believe in?  I personally don’t believe in any supreme being.  But then I don’t believe in acupuncture or meditation either – and that doesn’t lessen my regard for those who do.

So why is it that people can get over an obvious physical difference like race or gender, but not a subtle variance in belief systems?

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West is South

In Montréal, like many cities, the main cross-town streets are divided, somewhere near the current or historical center of the urban area, into “East” and “West”.  This seems like a fairly easy concept to grasp, and should help people get around more easily.  The problem in Montréal is that all of the streets with East and West bits run almost directly North and South.

Consider Sherbrooke St. in this map.  I have not changed the orientation of the image – north is straight up.  You can see that “Rue Sherbrooke E” runs north and that “Rue Sherbrooke O” (Ouest = West) runs south.  Similarly, people talk about the “East End” and the “West Island” when they are actually north and south, respectively.

The reason for this (I presume) is that Montréal is located on an island in the Saint Lawrence River.  The river, over its whole course, tends to flow east into the Atlantic ocean.  But the bit where Montréal is located flows nearly directly north.  Regardless, people think of downstream being east, and vice versa.

I don’t suppose this mattered much for the last 300 years, but now, many cars have electronic compasses or GPS guides in them.  How is that going to work?  Will tourists be freaked out when their navigation system tells them, “Turn north onto Sherbrooke St. East.”?

I like quirky things like this, and I think they can be huge marketing advantages.  Every bar should have something slightly off-kilter – something remarkable – to set it apart.

P.S. Also on this map is Île Sainte-Hélène, where the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is located.  That is where there will NOT be an F1 race this summer.  Sorry, Netdud.

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Wynton Marsalis and the Lessons of Jazz

Over at Presentation Zen, design guru Garr Reynolds gives glowing praise to the book Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life by Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey Ward.  He also links to, and comments on, an interview with Mr. Marsalis from a few months ago.  The lessons are many and profound, but one resonated especially with me.  I will not try and do better than the words of Garr and Wynton.  Garr writes:

The lessons found in jazz — its meaning, its history and its relevance for life, business, and education — run deep and wide. It’s really quite amazing. Every student should have a good exposure to jazz (and classical music for that matter) in their education — music education is not a nicety, it’s a necessity. Organizations and schools are always talking about the need to foster creativity and innovation, the need to encourage dedication and self-discipline, and the importance of developing skills for collaboration. Yet the arts — especially jazz — teach all these things. In his book, Wynton illuminates the deep beauty that is found in jazz and why and how it’s relevant for us all. Here’s a line from Chapter seven:

“Our desire to testify through some type of art is unstoppable. A palpable energy is released when inspiration and dedication come together in a creative art. The energy is transformative in an individual who is innovative, but it is transcendent when manifested by a group. There are no words for the dynamic thrill of participating in a mutual mosaic of creativity.” – Wynton Marsalis

 I couldn’t agree more.  I sit on the board of directors of the Capitol Theatre and the Cultural Affairs and Heritage Committee for the city of Moncton, and the Advisory Board and Marketing Committee of the Capitol School of Performing Arts.  I believe that a firm grounding in some art form needs to be a part of our childrens’ school curricula and embedded in our society.  The government (theoretically) won’t let someone graduate without knowing how to read, and having “performed” the act of reading the classics of literature.  They won’t let a student go unless he’s learned math and proven it by “performing” math on a word problem.

 But yet we set loose our children into the world after high school with most of them never having played a musical instrument, written a serious poem, painted or sculpted a visual piece, acted in a drama, danced a minuet or accomplished any other form of artistic expression.  I think this is wrong and short-sighted, and that we must move from an education system that was designed (very successfully) to produce factory automatons and office drones.  The information (as opposed to industrial) age needs a process that produces creative, mold-breaking individuals.  And what teaches creativity better than the arts?

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Whoa – That Was Weird

A few months ago, I opined about the whole global warming issue in this post. I sub-divided the big picture into 5 smaller questions:

1. Is it real? (Yes.)

2. Is it caused by human activity? (Yes.)

3. Is it bad? (Yes.)

4. Can we fix it? (Yes.)

5. How/when should we fix it? (Soon.)

Then, yesterday, I watched a very thought-provoking presentation on Larry Lessig’s blog about why taxpayers should fund election campaigns. You can go watch it, but beware, it’s about 40 minutes long.

The spooky part was that in the section where he talks about Al Gore’s campaign against global warming, he shows this quote:

I have never seen An Inconvenient Truth.  But if you switch points 4 and 5, I duplicated Mr. Gore’s asssessment of the climate change situation almost verbatim. As I said in my last post, just drop by the Nobel Prize any day next week.

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Wear Your Yarmulke Today

It’s the first day of Hanukkah!

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