Trivia - Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) is also known as Our Lady's Tears, May Lily, May Bells, Lily Constancy, Ladder-to-Heaven, Male Lily and Muguet.

It was first cultivated in 1420 and has legends that attach it to the Virgin Mary, St George and the Bible's Song of Songs. Not bad for such a small flower.

By tradition, Lily of the Valley is sold on the streets in France on May 1st and is also the national flower of Finland.

The meaning of the flower is "You Will Find Happiness".

Sooooooo.. this May first, if you can, be a little French and give someone a bunch to assure them that they will find happiness!

Cuba - Haunting Hemingway #19, 20, 21, 22 & 23

Photo# 19, 20, 21, 22 & 23
This is my last posting about my Cuban vacation, promise!

This series of photos has very little to do with photography and everything to do with documentation.

You see, I have inadvertently embarked on a quest to haunt Ernest Hemingway's ghost. I live in Toronto working for journalists (where he once worked as a journalist), I have been to Chicago (where he lived), vacationed at Walloon Lake in Michigan (where he used to vacation) and now I have visited all of his old drinking hangouts in Havana.

For once in my life I didn't care if the venues I visited were tourist traps, though I noticed most people just stopped to take photos outside rather than going in and actually having a drink. To me that was very odd, me I was drinking for Hemingway.

Like Ernest (if I am haunting him we may as well be on familiar terms) I had a mojito (ok, a couple of mojitos) at Bodeguita del Medico. A lovely bar with lots of wood panellng, not far from the Plaza del Cathedral, where they pumped out mojitos like nobody's business five or six at at time.

We wandered on, a little buzzed to El Floridita that is not only a former haunt of our dear Ernest but also claims to be the home of the daiquiri. If you are in the birth place of a drink you must sample it so we had two.

I loved the dinning room at the back of this bar, it was very 'old worldly' and I had an excited moment where I felt like I had been transported to another time, I admit that I automatically thought of Agatha Chrisite, I am sure Ernest would not approve.

Both locations, as is the case with many places in Havana, had a live band playing salsa music, so the scene was set perfectly.

By the time our demi-pilgrimage was complete I was very content and also a little dizzy, but what a way to go.

Thank you Ernest, your recommendations were excellent!

Photos: G. Szopa

Standing Alone In Three Parts

On Tuesday night I saw the play 'When You Stand Alone' a one-man play performed by Wesley Connor.

The performance was a charity event to raise funds for a hospital in Zimbabwe. Charity events always make me a little more lenient in my criticisms, however this performance did not require that, it was good.

The play is in three distinct parts, each with a completely different character (a childlike Beatles Lonely Hearts Club President, a disillusioned housewife, and an angry young man). The common thread they share is a sense of solitude (and a pot of cellophane flowers) that each of them deal with in a completely different way.

The actor did a fantastic job of making each of the characters believable, even though he changed costume from character to character on stage, had no real set, and limited props.

I felt that the Beatles fan and housewife were slightly stronger than the third character, but I can't criticize someone who five minutes prior was able to banish my disbelief so that I believed that he was a reminiscing 1950s-style housewife hoping to escape to France.

What I like most about the actor's performance was his all encompassing enthusiasm that shone through with each of the characters. The first character's display of his Beatles figurines in particular was simple yet fabulous.

The subject matter was actually terribly sad, three people trying to deal with their loneliness, each rationalizing how they have ended up where they are, and bargaining through convoluted self-rationing a way to keep their hopes alive. However, the actor's mastery of comic timing made each situation hilarious, and gave each character an innocence they made them even more likable.

More than anything else this play restored my faith (after the dance atrocity on Friday) that if you have talent you don't need complicated distractions like props, costumes and lighting to make a performance captivating.

On a personal note that has nothing to do with the play itself. Even though each of the characters had their own voice (literally and figuratively) I couldn't help but notice that the actor had what I, as a foreigner, consider to be a 'real' Canadian accent. I can't explain how, but it's always nice to hear.

Flights O' Fancy

Flight Patterns by Aaron Koblin makes the now unpleasant experience of flying chic and animated.

Air Traffic As Seen By the FAA.
The Flight Patterns visualizations are the result of experiments leading to the project Celestial Mechanics by Scott Hessels and Gabriel Dunne. FAA data was parsed and plotted using the Processing programming environment. The frames were composited with Adobe After Effects and/or Maya.

Thanks Kurt for passing this on! x

poke me, poke me now.. porn & socialising bosom buddies?

It's not what you think, this isn't a post advocating sharing porn with your friends.

Like it or not pornography has to be acknowledged as one of the primary movers and shakers (no pun intended) when it has come to advancements in internet technology.

What is the connection to friends and socialising? Well, the marketing-research firm Hitwise says that social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are starting to snip at the heels of pornography in terms of internet usage.

"Pornography is probably as popular as it ever was, but there's a whole bunch more people who are constructing their (social) identities online," said Mark Federman, former chief strategist with the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

Well, there you go!

Hot Docs - Font Love, my dirty little nerd film

On Saturday night I saw another Hot Docs film, the film that I was the most keen to see out of everything on offer. I call it my dirty little nerd film and it more than lived up to my high expectations.

If the words Helvetica, Verdana, or Garamond mean nothing to you, nor will this post. If you can't appreciate my profound hatred of Comic Sans or my love of Trebuchet or News Gothic this post will at best seem a little eccentric, and at worst utterly nerd-like and self-indulgent. I am prepared to take that risk.

The film was Helvetica, a film devoted to the font of the same name. A film all about a font? Yes, a film all about a font, and yet so much more.

Helvetica is the most used and recognizable font in the Latin/roman alphabet world, it literally is everywhere there is signage. The font was designed almost 50 years ago in Switzerland and was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk. The name was changed for marketing reasons to appeal to the American market. The name 'Helvetica' was derived from the original suggestion of Helvetzia (which means Switzerland). As a quick tangent, my great aunt Elvetzia's name is also in homage to Switzerland, as my family is part Swiss.

The film was not only a potted history of the conception and application of Helvetica over the past fifty years but also explored the great divide amongst typographers who either love or hate the font with equal passion. As, another aside if I could have had a different life I would have loved to have been a typographer.

Is it possible to feel passionate about a font? It is indeed, and the manifestations of this adoration or loathing are both interesting and hilarious.

Pro-Helvetica typographers included Massimo Vignelli, who was responsible for designing (with the use of Helvetica) the signage for the New York City Subway and American Airlines. The comment he made that I liked best after he wax-lyricked about the elegance of Helvetica, that I will paraphrase was "that contemporary designers expect too much from their fonts, are disinterested in legibility, and too focused on emotion. They expect the word 'dog' to embody a dog and perhaps even to bark, which is impossible." (a nice little opener for those interested in semiotics there).

Another pro-Heveticer was utterly animated in his delight on how Helvica had changed the world. His enthusiastic monologue on the original excitement of how Helvetica was received when it entered the advertising market in the 1950s was both hilarious and priceless.

Those on the other side of the Helvetica divide were equally entertaining and adamant in their convictions. Typography legend of Ray Gun Magazine, David Carson's arguments against Helvetica were based in the unimaginativeness of the font, and that it conveys nothing and allows no creativity. This of course came from a man who has demonstrated incredible artistry with his manipulation of fonts, even publishing an article in his magazine in Wingdings because he thought it to be so boring, it wasn't worth being readable.

The other most ardent and perhaps hardest to sympathize with anti-Helvetica typographer was Paula Scher. Her hatred is partially based in the fact the large corporations and the government use Helvetica, so hence she associates it with her anti-establishment ideals. She went so far as to say 'Helvetica represents the Vietnam War', which I thought was pushing the envelope a little far.

Skillfully mixed into the pro/against interviews were numerous short montages of examples of the use of Helvetica out in the world at large. There was everything from people wearing sloganed t-shirts, billboards, road signs and tax forms all showing that Helvetica is so intergrated into our lives we don't even notice it.

From a personal perspective, I tend to lean a little towards the pro-Helvetica people, as I like things that are ordered, elegant and legible.

At the same time I equivocate Helvetica as being to fonts what Vanilla is to ice-cream. Vanilla is not exactly exciting or sexy, but you always know what you are getting, it's a classic that never really goes out of style and is reliable. To my mind, so is Helvetica.

After the film the director was on hand to answer questions. My favourite answer to a question as to whether he intended to make additional films about other fonts was "no, this is it - there will be no "Helvetica Two - Rise of the Serif".

BWAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH.. yes, nerd humour I know, but I don't care!

Tortured by dance

As I have mentioned before, dance is the art form that I have the least affinity with. My podiatrist many years ago told me that due to my high arches I have dancers feet, yet my natural connectedness to dance stops at my ankles.

There are exceptions to this highly generalized negative attitude, such as the recent Philippe Découflé performance, yet just when I think my attitude is changing a performance comes along that sends me hurtling back to my dance non-predilection. This performance was by the Toronto contemporary dance company, Dance Makers.

To clarify, I have no beef with contemporary dance, when it's done well it's my favourite dance manifestation. There have also been times where I've seen dance performances so atrocious that I've been mesmerized and amused by the horror of them, so in a round about way I have enjoyed them too.

Dance Makers' performance fit into neither of these categories and was an experience of pure visual and mental torture.

I will concede that the performance was an excerpt from a forthcoming show so it didn't have the advantages of lighting and costume to help ease the pain, but my instincts are certain that the experience wouldn't have been any less horrific.

All artists tend to take themselves too seriously. If you work in any arts field, you quickly become aware as to just how self-consumed most "Creatives" are. The trick that makes this either charming or mesmerizing to the public, is the Creatives' mastery at transforming their egoism into charm, eccentricity, theatricality, joie de vivre or mischievous humour. These dancers obviously missed this crucial lesson and just appeared to be sullen and self-consumed.

When we arrived the dancers were scattered around the room intensely preparing, a bit of a kick here, a sway to the side there, but they were far too obviously oblivious of their onlookers. I knew that I was unimpressed with this micro-demonstration of their so called abilities when I thought to myself "couldn't they have done this in another room?"

The actual performance was in three parts - a duet, a group piece and a solo.

We were informed prior, that the duet was originally choreographed as a piece for two men but this performance was the "world premiere" interpretation featuring a male and female partnering. I wish I hadn't had the privilege, after ten minutes of watching the female dancer throw the male dancer around the room in a over-dramatized enactment of repeated rejection that had no subtly, variance or purpose my only thoughts were "man this guy likes to be dominated" and "I wouldn't think this piece was so trite if it had been two male dancers, but only just".

I can't really comment on the group piece as I was so utterly bored and horrified, I spent the duration trying to think of ways to read my book without being obvious. I do know that the dancers had direct input into the choreography, I would probably suggest that they desist with this practice in future.

The solo held my attention momentarily because the dancer was initially on a swing, I was drawn to the prop. Two minutes in I was once again mentally willing the performance to be over. The soloist appeared to be attempting to execute quasi-robotic movements. I have nothing against robotic inspired movements, the Melbourne based contemporary dance company Chunky Move often utilize them, except they do it convincingly, purposefully and often with an injection of irony of humour. This dancer's interpretation just looked odd and suggested that she might unfortunately be afflicted with turrets or epilepsy.

By the time I was finally released from the torturous experience I realized that a contributing factor in my negativity was how underwhelmed I was by the dancers' physicality and abilities. I envision dancers with lean, muscular yet graceful bodies that you can't help but envy. These 'dancers' didn't look like dancers and one in particular, I'm certain is anorexic, I couldn't look at as I found her so disturbing. I am relatively lean and have broad shoulders and strong legs, my housemate commented that I look more like a dancer than they do.

The other feeling I usually get when I see a professional dance performance is awe at the dancers' abilities and I often desperately wish I could move as they do. With this performance, which lacked any grace or technical mastery, I felt that with a bit of practice I could accomplish the moves myself, which is never a good thing.

I left with my in a nutshell description of the performance as being self-indulgent, drivel and would not recommend it to anyone.