Victoria Summer 2001 Under the Sea with Brennan Storr · Monday July 25, 2011 by colin newell
Under the Sea We Off the Hook, or Why I Want to be a Hermit Crab
By Brennan Storr…
I have a pet theory, one that I dreamed up during moments of great reflection –usually while sitting on the toilet or waiting for traffic lights to change. My theory is that this world is the spiritual equivalent of a rock tumbler. The rough, jagged gemstones are new souls: immature, wild and unaware of the damage they do to others.
Through the love and hardship of a thousand lifetimes the rough edges are worn smooth and we emerge from the other end as wiser, kinder old souls – polished gems – and we make our exit. I haven’t gotten as far as figuring out where the stones come from or go to but if you’re looking for hints I always recommend the “Three B’s” – Bible/Bhagavad Gita/Battlefield Earth.
The reason I mention this is because I recently moved apartments and with the hassle involved in moving this middle-class circus from one fairground to another I have decided that in my next life I want to be a Hermit Crab.
read more of the article
Victoria Summer 2011 Design ideas from Italy Chapter 2 · Sunday July 24, 2011 by colin newell
A P.R. firm in Italy has spent the last 13 months coming up with a re-branding for their product.
13 months and this is what they came up with.
Feel free to click on the photo for the slighter larger view…
I have been polling this story pretty broadly and so far only one guy (a colleague that lives and works in Taiwan) thinks it’s OK to lampoon, minimize, diminish or profit from the misery of the past.
Example: There is a good reason why we discourage commercial use of images of Nazism and Adolf Hitler in ad media around the World.
And for similar reasons, the embracing of multiculturalism and leaving behind of old stuffy racist colonial thinking is known as progress.
The image above was custom made, for me, by the P.R. firm in Italy with the designer begging me for a change of heart with a frequent; “What? WHAT? What is wrong with using this lovely plump African woman dressed in 19th Century clothing to help sell espresso beans?”
My attempts at explaining my position on this matter have prompted more; “What? What? I don’t get it…”
Help me out here folks: Using racial stereotypes to sell stuff in Europe is not, like, this common, is it?
And for the record, the White guy that lives and works in Taiwan does embarrassing impersonations of Chinese Cab drivers that would have fallen flat on a 50 year old episode of the Ed Sullivan show – still, I appreciate all opinions…
Especially yours!
Victoria Spring 2011 - Islandnet under attack · Thursday May 12, 2011 by colin newell
My ISP (client since 1995) has been under a cyber-attack since yesterday – taking down the entire operation several times over the last 24 hours – disrupting thousands of customers and hundreds of webpages.
For the time being all is calm.
Islandnet.com was contacted by the attackers who ordered that the web site in question be taken down.
Islandnet.com has capitulated. And in their words.
“UPDATE 3:12pm: we have been contacted by a group claiming to be behind the attacks. They identify the target (a customer of ours) and demand that the site in question be shut down or the attacks will continue. As much as I hate to capitulate, we can’t afford to stand up for the rights of one customer at the expense of all the others, so the site has been shut down.”
Not sure how I feel about this.
So. It was not the website I thought it might be. For all intents and purposes, it could have been my blog – which regularly speaks out on some sensitive international issues – pleases me to no end that my opinion is not so valued somewhere that I would be attacked over it. That said, I am not sure how I would feel about my Canadian ISP giving me the boot over the whims of a foreign power.
Comment [5]
Victoria Spring 2011 - Our Work Place Glee Music Therapy · Tuesday April 19, 2011 by colin newell
For most people, music in the work place comes out of a back ground music system or off of someones bleeding iPod. It’s not like anyone has a radio playing at their work station anymore – So it may come as something of a surprise to find a lab in a local University that has its own built in jam space for lunch time guitar and bass throw downs.
Seems odd to me – even though I got the ball rolling – And I am sure this is more common than I think it is – or perhaps it is a well kept secret elsewhere.
Because for some reason, my employer (a local University) seems to be a hot bed of musical talent… and trust me folks, I am not self identifying here or anything – any money I have ever made in the music biz has gone directly to charity. Not talented. At all. But I can pretend. Sometimes quite effectively.
But I do plays the guitar a bit. A bit. A bit of guitar. A bit of bass. A bit of voice and a bit of piano. All in good fun. And for whatever reason, it all feels good.
Yours truly has been playing on and off since a long time ago – first Piano since the age of 6 and guitar since I was 13. And although I am no prodigy (too old), I can read a chart or two and turn a page of lyrics into something that passes as entertainment and vaguely familiar.
Imagine the delight to realize the amount of raw talent all around me.
For my space it started as innocently as showing up at work with an acoustic guitar. Strapping it on over coffee break and busking around the lab. Before you know it, people are joining in or watching appreciatively. From there, another guitar was added… and a bass… and another vocalist or two… and more music.
We are not the cast of Glee by any stretch. But we are having an amount of fun that was completely unanticipated. Additionally, there are several other similar groups on campus doing exactly the same thing – and ironically, we all may have an offer on the table to play our music at a Summer Festival… which, for me, makes no sense at all. I am not deaf, but I cannot hear Journey or Celine Dion in much of what we are doing… at least from the regular line up. We do have a student who sits in from time to time that sings like an angel… but she is leaving town.
A bunch of geezer music players worthy of entertaining a crowd? Don’t know. Who am I to judge modern music? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, in the corner of one of our labs is a 300 Watt P.A. system, microphones and a rack of musical instruments. If you listen real closely over lunch at the University, you might just hear our noise.
