Mark Vistorino is Flyerman, a real life superhero who possesses the ability to hand out movie extra flyers in the streets of Toronto with the flair & charisma of a Broadway star. And yet, he can't understand why he is not famous.
From this seemingly absurd premise, directors Jeff Stephenson and Jason Tan follow Vistorino through five years of his life; in the process revealing one of the most engaging and self-destructive personalities that you are ever likely to meet.
Labels: Crucial Viewing, Film
Monday, September 24, 2007
First Child Demo Release
Probably the only venue that my musical efforts are worthy of entertaining at this point, this weekend saw the exclusive Facebook premiere of the long time coming 5 track demo of First Child: Looping Through the Array. If you are on the Book, then please feel free to join the group. Otherwise, you can download the tracks here:
A Love This Strong (intro)
Unleashed
Collide
The Autumn Days of Disco
Julia Sets
Probably the only venue that my musical efforts are worthy of entertaining at this point, this weekend saw the exclusive Facebook premiere of the long time coming 5 track demo of First Child: Looping Through the Array. If you are on the Book, then please feel free to join the group. Otherwise, you can download the tracks here:
A Love This Strong (intro)
Unleashed
Collide
The Autumn Days of Disco
Julia Sets
Labels: Music, Shameless Self Promotion
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
CBC Book Club: William Gibson Podcast
As an update to my writeup about William Gibson at the CBC Book Club, the podcast of the event has been posted over at Studio One for your listening pleasure.
As an update to my writeup about William Gibson at the CBC Book Club, the podcast of the event has been posted over at Studio One for your listening pleasure.
Labels: Literature, William Gibson
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Art I Pass By On My Way To Work - #9
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Heima
One of the most beautiful pieces of film I have seen since...well, probably the last video I saw by Sigur Ros... check out this trailer for Heima, a documentary that follows the band as they play various gigs throughout their home country of Iceland.
One of the most beautiful pieces of film I have seen since...well, probably the last video I saw by Sigur Ros... check out this trailer for Heima, a documentary that follows the band as they play various gigs throughout their home country of Iceland.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
As It Happened..
From the Digital Collection Project at Interactive Publishing:
"This collection of screen shots from over 250 news sites around the world was taken on Sep 11 and 12, 2001. We hope the archive will serve the education of the online news industry and further its quality. Our logs tell us that it also has helped historians, researchers, students, teachers, journalists and many others."
From the Digital Collection Project at Interactive Publishing:
"This collection of screen shots from over 250 news sites around the world was taken on Sep 11 and 12, 2001. We hope the archive will serve the education of the online news industry and further its quality. Our logs tell us that it also has helped historians, researchers, students, teachers, journalists and many others."
Labels: World at Large
Sunday, September 09, 2007
But will they ever come to Vancouver?
A bit last minute -- the result of disappearing for a week in a half into cottage country-- but Dawn Landes, who was featured here a few months back with her bluegrass take on Peter, Bjorn and John's Young Folks, is just wrapping up a week-long tour with one of my current favourite bands, Midlake, so if you have an opportunity to get out to see them, it is sure to be a really great show.
Sept 9 – Paradise Rock Club – Boston, MA
Sept 11 – Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH
Sept 12 – Metro – Chicago, IL
For the rest of us, here is the most recent offering from Dawn, off of her self-released album, Dawn's Music:
Dawn Landes: Suspicion
And something from Midlake:
The Videos of Van Occupanther
A bit last minute -- the result of disappearing for a week in a half into cottage country-- but Dawn Landes, who was featured here a few months back with her bluegrass take on Peter, Bjorn and John's Young Folks, is just wrapping up a week-long tour with one of my current favourite bands, Midlake, so if you have an opportunity to get out to see them, it is sure to be a really great show.
Sept 9 – Paradise Rock Club – Boston, MA
Sept 11 – Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH
Sept 12 – Metro – Chicago, IL
For the rest of us, here is the most recent offering from Dawn, off of her self-released album, Dawn's Music:
Dawn Landes: Suspicion
And something from Midlake:
The Videos of Van Occupanther
Labels: Music, The Payola Chronicles
Friday, September 07, 2007
William Gibson at the CBC Book Club
William Gibson’s stretched stooped figure curls over book and microphone under yellow lights that hang like a field of beauty salon hair dryers before an unlit neon sign tracing out the words Studio One on a wall deep within the bowels of the CBC. He has just returned from touring in the States and Europe, hitting a dozen cities in twice as many days while promoting his new novel, Spook Country. He is honed at this point. Listening to him read, you realize that this is how his writing is best taken in. He reads like a jazz musician plays his horn, echoing Kerouac and, of course, Burroughs in the way that the words fall into punched syncopated rhythms, sentences building into what has been described by one reviewer as "miniature aesthetic jolts".
He will tell us later that the part of the brain that writes fiction is also the part that reads it, that in fact "writing and reading are two halves of the same activity", that the exercise of reading a book is as active a part of the process as the writing. Only upon doing so, when the words of the writer project their world onto the back of the reader’s skull is "arch of the text" successfully completed.
So went the discussion at tonight’s CBC Book Club, with Gibson delivering poignant, often comic takes on how Google has replaced our memories, the inevitability of blended reality and the "complications" of sci fi, all the while riddled with deep, cerebral observations on the writing process. You got a sense that writing for Gibson -- if not for all writers -- is an act of discovery. "My own experience with creativity," he tells us, "is that it is incremental." The development of a character will begin simply as a point of view, a camera angle. Often characters are not so much created as they simply show up on the scene with their own demands and opinions so that all the writer can really do is try to "keep them on topic".
He tells us of a fan site called Node, named after the under-the-radar magazine that the protagonist is hired by in Spook Country, on which Gibson fans have mapped any and all linkable references found in the pages of the novel. Gibson marvels at the speed that such endeavours can be executed in this day and age. A dozen people, in different times zones, "who are crazy" can achieve enormous things. Gibson describes it as cheap A.I. In fact, as he continues talking, you come to understand his view of the human race as something that has evolved well past nature, that our present "natural state" is more cyborg than animal. Gibson seemed to mark the point of no return down this path as the dawn of broadcast television: "We still have no idea what the impact of broadcast television has had on us and it is pretty much a dead medium". But none of this is to be interpreted as a pessimistic world view; a writer like Gibson has a tendency to remain agnostic on most accounts:
"I'm kind of ok with where we are," he say with a smile. "It's interesting."
NOTE: A podcast of last night's Book Club will be available for download in the weeks ahead on World at Large.
He will tell us later that the part of the brain that writes fiction is also the part that reads it, that in fact "writing and reading are two halves of the same activity", that the exercise of reading a book is as active a part of the process as the writing. Only upon doing so, when the words of the writer project their world onto the back of the reader’s skull is "arch of the text" successfully completed.
So went the discussion at tonight’s CBC Book Club, with Gibson delivering poignant, often comic takes on how Google has replaced our memories, the inevitability of blended reality and the "complications" of sci fi, all the while riddled with deep, cerebral observations on the writing process. You got a sense that writing for Gibson -- if not for all writers -- is an act of discovery. "My own experience with creativity," he tells us, "is that it is incremental." The development of a character will begin simply as a point of view, a camera angle. Often characters are not so much created as they simply show up on the scene with their own demands and opinions so that all the writer can really do is try to "keep them on topic".
He tells us of a fan site called Node, named after the under-the-radar magazine that the protagonist is hired by in Spook Country, on which Gibson fans have mapped any and all linkable references found in the pages of the novel. Gibson marvels at the speed that such endeavours can be executed in this day and age. A dozen people, in different times zones, "who are crazy" can achieve enormous things. Gibson describes it as cheap A.I. In fact, as he continues talking, you come to understand his view of the human race as something that has evolved well past nature, that our present "natural state" is more cyborg than animal. Gibson seemed to mark the point of no return down this path as the dawn of broadcast television: "We still have no idea what the impact of broadcast television has had on us and it is pretty much a dead medium". But none of this is to be interpreted as a pessimistic world view; a writer like Gibson has a tendency to remain agnostic on most accounts:
"I'm kind of ok with where we are," he say with a smile. "It's interesting."
NOTE: A podcast of last night's Book Club will be available for download in the weeks ahead on World at Large.
Labels: Literature, William Gibson
