This has been everywhere lately, and that’s a good thing! So I’m jumping onto the bandwagon and posting it here for (my own little corner of the web’s) posterity’s sake. Backstory here.

very, very nice…

I found this brilliant little piece of street art just outside of the Mont-Royal metro station last week. Not only is it incredibly intriguing as an object (a doorway…), but seriously, what are the chances that it would have been found by a typophile such as myself? In the middle of the night. And in a foul, searching mood to boot (the interior inscription by the arrow reads “for the broke(n) hearted”). Small miracles, I guess. Cat simply couldn’t believe it…

Some casual googling led to this gallery, but not much other info. Anyone know about this work? I’d love to know the provenance and backstory.

or nostalgia for a time when thought was free(er).

This was such a great thread…

Submissions for issue ten are all in and we’ve begun the long, but very exciting process of selecting, editing and designing. We’ve received a wide range of amazing submissions from over 40 people for the next issue, and its going to be a challenging task to weave it all together.

In order to do this we need some glue to hold things together, and I’m hoping you (whoever you may be) can help. So, a small request to tell us something beautiful. It could be a few words, a line a paragraph, a simple testimonial of an experience, person, object, etc. that you found beautiful. We’re not looking for anything overwrought, philosophical or “poetic”, just an honest description.

You can leave your response(s) in the comments below or send it to me by email. Looking forward to hearing from you…

PS. The fugue is still going too… sort of.

Once again this year I was honoured to be selected by my good friend Oliver Vodeb to act as a jury member for Memefest, the international festival of radical communication. For the last seven years, Memefest has challenged students, professionals, artists and activists around the globe to create and present work that counters the dominant (read capitalist) communications environment, both in theory and practice.

This year’s theme was radical beauty (from which we drew our inspiration for issue ten) and it certainly proved to be quite a challenge. A lot of work didn’t manage to quite stick to the brief, and I found that many particpants failed to contextualise their work, but nonetheless some exceptional pieces emerged. A nice development saw a growing number of participants from the UAE, which certainly proved to be an interesting challenge for me as a juror, being rather naive to that particular communications context. A selection of works from this year’s festival will also be included in issue 10!

The results of the festival are in, so please go check it out and be sure to browse through the archive of past years as well. You’ll find a ton of inspirational, radical work.

I was not speaking of marginality one wishes to lose, to give up, or surrender
as part of moving into the center
but rather as a site
one stays in, clings to even,
because it nourishes one’s capacity to resist.
It offers the possibilities of radical perspectives
from which to see and create,
to imagine alternatives,
new worlds.

–bell hooks

Watching this is making me smile uncontrollably.

Link via today’s Very Short List.

Emily_Dickinson_I Bring_An_Unaccustomed_Wine.ppt

www.readatwork.com | A pretty damn silly/funny campaign site for the New Zealand Book Council that (unintentionally) raises some interesting questions on literature and visual form. More parody than paradox, yet also uncomfortably close to the sacrilegious…

link via SpeakUp.