Oct 08 2012
Jian Ghomeshi
I have been watching Jian Ghomeshi get better and better as a radio host over the past few years and now I think he is Peter Gzowski’s equal. (Not the same, but equal in strength and vitality and skill.)
Oct 06 2012
Corridors to the Waterfront
Pedestrian plaza by Boomtown & more changes coming to Hall St., waterfront, & Cottonwood Creek in Nelson. My story in the Nelson Daily: http://tinyurl.com/9ctt8ug
Oct 06 2012
Rosalie Margaret Metcalfe
Yesterday I drove my dear daughter Rosie to the Spokane airport. She is going to Oaxaca to study Spanish for a month or so and in two weeks she will take a break from that to meet me in Mexico City which we will explore for a week. After Oaxaca, Nick is joining Rosie and they are going to travel south.
Sep 05 2012
Seth Godin
“We don’t need paid professionals to do retweeting for us. They’re slicing up the attention pie thinner and thinner, giving us retreaded rehashes of warmed over news, all hoping for a bit of attention because the issue is trending. We can leave that to the unpaid, I think.
“The hard part of professional journalism going forward is writing about what hasn’t been written about, directing attention where it hasn’t been, and saying something new.”
—Seth Godin. You can read the rest of that blog post here.
Sep 03 2012
Corazón sings Bon Iver’s FLUME
This is Corazón’s version of Bon Iver’s FLUME with soloist Robin Birkett. There have been many great solos in Corazón’s history but one of the most exciting, for audiences and singers alike, was this one– I think most of the singers would agree. It was also incredibly interesting choice of music by director Allison Girvan. I made this audio slideshow using the track from Corazón’s CD “To Slow Down The Time,” and some great photos taken by the official photographer at the Rocky Mountain Music Festival in May 2011.
Corazón is a 65-voice youth choir in Nelson directed by Allison Girvan. I’m their manager. I like the tag-line: Corazón: destroying stereotypes about teenagers and about choirs since the year 2000.
I can’t get the video to scale down to this page, so here is a too-wide version.
Sep 02 2012
Typically an older person (over fifty, maybe?) will sign up on Facebook, get a few friends—mostly contemporaries and family members—and then never really engage with it. They go on occasionally, never post anything much, never comment on anything, don’t put any photos up, and then wonder why Facebook seems unfulfilling.
Most of their Facebook friends (older people, like them) are doing the same thing. So among that group, nobody has much to react to. It’s like they all decided to go to a dinner party together, but when they get there they all stand around silently, reluctant to talk to each other. They miss the defining feature of Facebook—interactivity. It’s called social media for a reason.
I don’t mind if people do it this way. Being on Facebook is not necessary to a fulfilling life. The thing that does bother me, though, is when those same people then make dismissive comments about Facebook when actually they have not really experienced it.
I have a few pieces of advice on getting started:
Get lots of Facebook friends. Search people you know and “friend” them. The number of friends a person has is misleading because there is always a large percentage of them (1/3?) who are inactive. So to get things going you need lots of friends.
Post a status update every couple of days for a while, just to get things happening. Tell us something about what you are doing or thinking, or give people a link to something interesting you’ve read.
Comment every couple of days for a while. Say something about something someone else has posted. “Like” things other people have posted. People like to be liked. It’s part of interactivity.
Put some photos up. You don’t have to document your life story. Just show us something interesting you’re up to.
When people comment on something you have said or done, respond to them. This is about conversations and interaction. It’s not just another form of email.
I’m suggesting this initial daily routine because when was the last time you learned how to do something new without intense practice?
Again, even though I enjoy Facebook a lot, I am certainly not saying you need to be on it. But if you’re going to try it, give it a fair chance.
If you have any questions about these opinions or about Facebook itself, I would be glad to answer them here. The comments section below does not require any log-in or sign-up. Just start writing.
Aug 30 2012
Headphones
People (mostly older) see other people (younger) walking around with headphones in town and they judge them for shutting out the real world. But tell me, what shuts out the world more, travelling across town with headphones, or in a car with the radio on?
When it comes to insulating us from nature or our neighbourhoods, the automobile is the real culprit, especially when it is used casually for short distances in town, and most people I know do that, even those who think they are environmentally sensitive.
In the meantime, the headphone wearer feels the breeze, notices the beetle on the sidewalk, smells the flowers (and the car exhaust).
Aug 27 2012
You, me, over 70
Sometime after 70, roughly, most of us will face the most intense mental and physical challenges of our lives. So why do so many people over 50 think it is OK to get weaker as they age? I mean in terms of cardiovascular ability and muscle mass. My plan, and it has worked for a few years now and I am in my mid sixties, is to each year be noticeably stronger this year than last year. I expect this will work until at least 70, hopefully longer. I’m in training.
Aug 18 2012
Revenge of the Electric Car
There is a new documentary out that I have not seen called The Revenge of the Electric Car. It is made by Chris Paine, the same man who made Who Killed the Electric Car? and in the new one I understand he admits to having been a bit wrong, because there is lots of capitalist interest in the electric car now. You can read about it in a Guardian article here.
Here is the trailer
Now what I want to know is, where is the electricity supposed to come from? Coal? If so, we have a problem. Maybe someone has the answer to this.
Aug 16 2012
Samantha Nutt 2
“This lack of rigour surrounding the arms trade– from the point of manufacturing through to govenment export controls, to a shipment’s arrival on a combustible foreign shore– ensures that the arms industry is proffered every conceivable market advantage. It is an industry with very few consistently applied global mechanisms of accountability. And a weapon such as the AK-47 is virtually indestructible, guaranteeing that once in circulation its first step will never be its last. The biggest problem with all of this– well known to anyone who has been on the receiving end of a glabrous teenager armed with an AK47 and a callous disregard for human life– is that this availability of cheap weapons in fragile, impoverished states is an invitation to war. Even Mikhail Kalashnikov has expressed regret that he did not invent a lawn mower instead.”
from Samantha Nutt, Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies, and Aid, McClelland and Stewart 2011
