This, that, and the other.
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Besides introducing me to the brand of cookie called Pirates, my friend Bruce also directed me to follow Roger Ebert’s tweets. Glad I did, because not only is he a really interesting tweeter, with tons of opinions on everything (and not just film), but he also posted this excellent clip tonight, which I haven’t seen before.
I could probably spend weeks watching all the Wong Kar-Wai clips on Youtube.
It seems like I’ve been introduced to a lot of new desserts lately. For example, when my friend Bruce came to cover the Olympics, we managed to have him over for dinner and he brought with him (among other goodies) a bag of Pirate oatmeal peanut butter cookies. Never heard of them before – but in a short period of time I’ve realized they are highly addictive and, sadly for my waistline, readily available at Safeway.
Very saddened to hear about the passing of Yulanda, Toronto photographer and blogger. The photo above is taken from her blog, Little Thoughts. I didn’t know her personally, but was an avid follower of her blog, which is a trove of beauty and inspiration. Her father has written on note on her blog to all her readers – a very kind thing to do. She will be missed.
A great new JJ Bean just opened literally outside the door at my work. It’s my favourite coffee chain in Vancouver. Their espresso beans are superior to even Artigiano, imho. I think the RCMP agrees – Joe grabbed this photo of these official looking officers taking a coffee break from whatever duties they were on for the Olympics.
Johnny Weir…where do I start. Him being an American skater, I didn’t follow him to closely at first, but then last fall I saw Pop Star on Ice at the Vancouver International Film Fest and everything changed.
I have been meaning to do a post on going to see one night of the 20 Minute Musicals Premiere at the PuSH International Performing Arts Festival that took place in Vancouver last week. We went to see In the Yard, Havin’ Fun, which had the subtitle of “A Prison Musical”.
In the Yard was written by P:ano/No Kids frontman Nick Krgovich, and starred some fellow local musicians, including band mate Julia Chirka as a laundry-maid, along with Ladyhawk‘s Duffy Driediger and Ryan Peters as inmates, and Tygh Runyan of The Beans as the romantic lead.
How do I have all this information, you ask? Well because they did up a charming Playbill to hand out that included a ‘Who’s Who In The Cast’ page, along with a space for autographs. Here’s the poster:
If you are familiar with musicals, you will know that the Playbill is an essential element to the production (although I still can’t figure out the use of the Ye Olde English font for the cover). In fact, In The Yard stayed true to a lot of musical conventions and did them in a way that made me realize that musicals can be really light, fun, and funny when they aren’t taking themselves too seriously, the actors are having fun, and the entire thing is only 20 minutes long.
If you have listened to P:ano’s Ghost Pirates Without Heads, In The Yard seems like a natural off-shoot of songwriter Nick Krgovich’s stylings and interests. The opening song “The Girl From The Sticks” was probably also the highlight – the music and lyrics were amusing and it was accompanied by a cleverly choreographed group dance number.
I don’t know if there are plans to ever stage this again, but there were CDs available at the merch table at the show. You might have to try asking Veda Hille (organizer of the musicals) or No Kids to get a copy.
One of the things I remember most from my grandparent’s house is a Chinese New Year motion lamp my grandma used to set up in the window every year. It kind of looked like this. She’d put it in the front window and turn it on at night and there would be a blurry scene of lighted up goldfish swimming around and around the lamp.
Basically, a motion lamp is a light with a picture shade with a little fan on top that spins around it – the heat from the light bulb makes the shade’s propellor spin (or so I’ve been told). You can see some great ones here.
Last week the neat blog Dinosaurs and Robots did a post on some cool motion lamps they found at an antiques show featuring trees and a forest fire (they shot video and added sfx which you can see on that page as well).
Reading that got me thinking about my grandma’s lamp, which unfortunately is broken and somewhere in my parent’s basement. I contemplated trying to find it and repair it, as I like to put up decorations for Chinese New Year. But that was going to be a real hassle. Then, in a weird coincidence, whilst I was at the 21st Century Flea Market at the Croatian Cultural Centre (whoa, was that place packed) this weekend, lo and behold…an amazing two-tierd Chinese New Year motion lamp for sale! After seeing it and wandering around, I realized I had to have it and after some bargaining it was mine. And now it sits on my dining room table and it’s hours of mesmerizing fun.
The interior lamps are both hand-painted. One features a night boat scene of Hong Kong (I think):
…and the other a flying duck scene:
…and the bottom is hand-painted too:
The entire lamp is almost 2 feet tall and both levels light up and spin – in different directions.
Here’s a couple of videos – unfortunately you can’t see much scenery detail but you’ll get the idea:
That’s it for me for Chinese New Year decorations this year – I don’t think I have room in the house for any more anyway.
It being last day of the year and everything, there are more than enough Top 10, Most Notable and Best of lists to keep everyone occupied well into the next year.
If you find yourself with some extra blog browsing time though, you should read about the story of Stephanie Nielson. Her story from this past year is amazing on many levels – I first read about it on the Etsy blog The Storque, which was a post about how Stephanie (a blogger and Etsian) and her husband were in critical condition after surviving a private plane crash in Arizona. Etsy was organizing a benefit sale (which ended up raising over $12,000) to help the family.
Naturally, after reading about this, you want to find out more about her. This is where it gets a little extraordinary. When you click on the link to her blog, you realize that something a little unexpected has happened. Ever since the accident strangers, fellow bloggers and anonymous people had been re-posting their favourite posts from her archives – and writing about how much she, simply as a blogger, has done to inspire them. Not only that, there are benefits being organized, dozens of people banding together to sell things to raise money. Her sister has taken 3 of the kids and is keeping up a blog of her own.
Her writing, in it’s honesty and simplicity, is compelling. A few more details: Nie Nie is a mother of four who owns a concealed weapon to protect her family and is Mormon born and raised. I couldn’t stop reading her blog – I think I went though several years of blog posts in one sitting.
There’s something great about reading writing that comes from a completely different perspective than one’s own. The Nie Nie Dialogues speaks for itself, even while it’s writer unable to blog. I wonder if some internet historian of the future will come up for a term for this phenomenon of 2008?
We had a nice break from day after day of cold, sleeting rain this weekend when the first dump of snow fell on Vancouver. The good thing about it is that it was sort of sunny and cloudy and it created an unusual looking sky. I really like the dark, indigo colours you can get at around this time (what is it called when it’s just before twilight?) on a cloudy/sunny/day-after-a-snowfall day.
