Time and space is filled
without disapointment

One should always be concious
of ones space, and others.

Space to stretch
Space between your ears

Space, the constant to fill
Think to much to feel!

To bissy filling
Think thaough compair give take
feel?
Shair thaught felt!

Lest you be cranking up your angry commenting energies to attack the editor, let me clarify: this is a verbatim love letter to me written fifteen years ago by someone I hurt. And remembering it is painful.
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It was in spring that I heard about the inaugural All Points West Music & Arts Festival. I was examining Radiohead’s website in hopes their tour would bring them close to my locale (then Winnipeg), within a couple of thousand kilometres even. I looked to August’s North America dates and was puzzled to see not one but two dates booked at something called All Points West. Two consecutive concerts in one place—that must be something special, I thought, before looking up the festival. Little did I know that I would make it to New York—via Toronto—for those very shows. But while they may have been the festival’s biggest attraction, All Points West (APW), August 8-10, was more than a double dose of Radiohead. (more…)

BEIJING—It’s just after 7:30 am on the day of the closing ceremonies and we’re counting down the hours at the CBC studio. The Games are almost over, and thank the good Lord for that. It’s not that I’m happy for the Olympics to end (rather glum, actually), only that I want to sleep past sunrise again. The folks here are almost giddy for things to wrap up. “I’m getting drunk tonight,” is a common refrain. Hear, hear.

It’s been a good ride for me (although I think I’ll always harbour a grudge against the CBC for the early wake-ups), and above all a learning experience. Here are some tidbits I picked up over the last sixteen days:

— Since China made its Olympics debut in 1932, the names of practically all of its athletes have been pronounced incorrectly. This year was no different. For future reference, Wang is pronounced “Wong“, “Zh” is a J sound, and Liu Xiang is not “Lu Jang.” You’d think networks would have given their on air people a few lessons in pinyin since the games were being held in, you know, China, but I guess that wasn’t in the budget. (For the record, I thought most of CBC’s talent, particularly the hosts, did well in this regard. I have no reason to lie — CBC isn’t hosting the next two Games, and it would take a miracle to get me to work another Olympics anyway). (more…)

SHANGHAI—The New York Times has an article this morning heralding the arrival of CCTV on the world stage. Turns out the Beijing Olympics has awakened advertisers to the vast viewership enjoyed by the state network—an eighteen-channel conglomerate—in the world’s most populous country. The finals for women’s table tennis, for example, drew more viewers than the entire US population. As a result, multinationals are finally starting to take CCTV seriously—and ignore its role as a vehicle for propaganda. The NYT article yet again underscores China’s rising demographic influence. But I’d credit CCTV for a different reason: the Olympics has suddenly made its programming relevant. (more…)

Seth draws back the curtain on the “solitary pursuit” that is cartooning
In the September issue of The Walrus, Seth draws back the curtain on the “solitary pursuit” that is cartooning. In the process, he also manages to speak to how we experience our own daily routines, and what it’s like to be alone with ourselves. He was kind enough to respond by email to questions about memory, time, and, of course, cartooning. The second part to this Q&A will follow in a couple days.

Q: In your article “The Quiet Art of Cartooning,” you mention that when you’re drawing and inking your mind is often visiting the past in some manner, and that these reveries often find their way into your work. Do you think that all cartooning might somehow relate back to this sense of memory, or to the act of looking back? Is memory somehow connected with cartooning in a way that isn’t true of other art forms?

A: It is hard for me to generalize on other mediums but I do feel a unique connection between memory and cartooning.I started to formalize some thoughts about this when I was studying the life of Thoreau MacDonald (the son of Canadian painter J.E.H. MacDonald). Thoreau mentioned in an interview that he never drew his pen and ink drawings of the rural landscape while actually out in the field. Instead he would go for a walk and look about and then, when he came home later, he would sit down and draw the scenes from memory. Thoreau understood that he couldn’t capture the reality of the natural world in black and white ink drawings but he could replicate the memory of being there. This struck me. (more…)

I just had to take a quick break from re-writing the movie Red Dawn (it’s a rush job to shoot it before Patrick Swayze passes away and before everyone has jumped on the Cold War resurgence bandwagon) to talk about my Twitter heroes, the truckers.

Early adoption of GPS was mandatory for truckers given their destination-driven vocation. So they have taken to the location awareness services like Brightkite that we 3G iPhone users are just getting into. The iPhone can pinpoint your exact location and, using Brightkite you can check in at that location. (more…)

BEIJING—Last Saturday something incredible happened in the Bird’s Nest. Usain Bolt, the aptly named Jamaican extraterrestrial, demolished the world’s fastest runners with a swagger, cutting three hundredths of a second off his own world record. I was fortunate enough to be there, and I’ve never seen anything like it. The stadium was on fire.

Two days later, just before noon on Monday, something equally incredible happened at the Nest, only the reaction was polar opposite. In a matter of seconds, the energy and excitement of Bolt’s run was sucked out of the stadium—and the Olympics—into a black hole of national sorrow. As famed hurdler and virtual Chinese god Liu Xiang pulled out of the 110-metre hurdles, the crowd of some 80,000 gasped in disbelief, mouths ajar, as they tried to figure out just what the hell was going on. Many broke into tears, including journalists, and an unsuspecting country went into shock.

It’s difficult to put into context the gravity of Liu Xiang’s exit from the hurdles competition. One of the CBC tech guys said it was akin to Wayne Gretzky, in his prime, gingerly skating out for a Stanley Cup game seven warm up, and then failing to show up for the opening face off. Really, though, that’s not even close. Canadians love their hockey, but I doubt the Great One could bring reporters to tears. (more…)

KARAMOJA REGION, UGANDA—We took the hospital by storm—half a dozen cameras, twice as many reporters, all zooming in on a few scores of malnourished children and their petrified mothers. Someone was supposed to have told the hospital administration that the press corps from Kampala was coming with our video recorders and tripods and tape players and questions.  But the message got lost somewhere between the town where we were staying and the place where we arrived. (more…)

Would your country ever steal a colour from another country?

Granted, from a twenty-first century perspective, the question doesn’t make perfect sense. One pictures a team of graphic designers pitted against another team, in some skyscraper in Shanghai or Mumbai or New York, concocting trademark colours for branding purposes. (Canada’s pretty much got the red-and-white scheme cornered, but did Mexico and Italy ever have a design conflict over the red-white-green of their flags?)

However, colour used to be more of a physical commodity than it is today. The raw materials used to produce colourants were costly: costly to produce, costly to transport, and costly to the environment. And, like any precious substance, they were subject to conflict, contention, and theft. Red was one of the most precious colours during colonial times, so an intense rivalry grew up between England and Spain over the mysterious red substance called cochineal. (more…)

Let’s make this clear: This post has nothing to do with a certain issue in the news about a certain post-Soviet country’s recent military activity.

Excerpts taken from a page on the Yukon government’s web site, “In a Bear Encounter…”

- “Except in some remote areas, most bears have had some previous experience with people. Whatever a bear has learned from these experiences will influence its behavior during the next encounter.

While it’s always safest to prevent encounters, there are many situations in which bears and humans interact.”

- “Some bears avoid larger more dominant bears by using areas close to human activity. This increases their risk of conflict with people.

Food-conditioned bears may be bold and approach deliberately to get to your food. They can come right into your camp, rip into your tent, or enter a building.

Your response to a bear encounter or attack should be different depending on the bear’s behavior and the circumstances, not the species.”

- “A predatory bear will be intensely interested and focused on you as a potential meal. A bear that is initially curious or testing you may become predatory if you do not stand up to it.”

- “A defensive bear is a stressed bear. You have entered its personal space and the bear perceives you as a threat. The bear may retreat, or remain nearby, nervous and uncertain. It may approach you… or charge.

Whenever a bear approaches or charges… Stand your ground.”

- “Try to appear non-threatening. Talk to the bear in a firm voice. This may calm the bear as well as yourself.”

- “If an attack is prolonged or the bear starts eating you, it is no longer being defensive. You must now fight back with all you’ve got! Your life depends on it.”

- “The two main types of serious attacks are defensive or predatory …

- “A defensive attack is when the bear is trying to remove a threat. A predatory attack is when the bear is intent on eating you. Your initial response to both should be the same… stand your ground!”

photo credit: Sasha Petite

Last Friday, I attended the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian cartooning at the Toronto Reference Library. Rather than inaugurating this blog with a post detailing a vague statement of intent I probably won’t stick to, I figure dishing about the Wright Awards will serve that introductory purpose just as well. This year, the Wrights helped spotlight everything from long-form comics created over half a century ago, to one of the last good strips in your daily paper, to a burgeoning avant-garde, with many other bright points in between. In other words, the awards share with my plans for this blog a similarly catholic interest in comics — mindful of history, with an eye to the future — as well as a preoccupation with trends and traditions in Canadian cartooning. Well, that’s vague enough, anyway—on with the awards… (more…)

The Olympics are a cesspool of hypocrisy and cold, slimy greed

JEJU-DO, SOUTH KOREA—I’ve read that the Olympics are producing some thrilling moments this year. I wouldn’t know.

During the lead up to the Games, when China blocked journalists from accessing websites such as Amnesty International and the BBC, there was a huge media kerfuffle about broken promises and the absolute need for a climate in which reporting could be done freely and without restriction. The Olympics, the argument went, are about cultural exchange and openness, and limiting access was hostile to the very spirit of the Games.

Yet here I sit in Korea, five days into the Olympic media orgy, and if I want to watch an event or a feature from my home country—because let’s not be naive: the Olympics are also very much about nationalism—I’m shit out of luck. Every attempt I’ve made to access Olympic content on an international website has been a failure, and in general, my quest for online Olympic coverage has been by far the most strangled Internet experience of my life. Not since the sweaty-palmed days of my Catholic school dances have I been so thoroughly denied.

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According to the Associated Press, the Olympics are decidedly lacking in both fans and vibe. “After the first few days of the Beijing Games, some cracks have appeared in China’s perfect party,” including “empty seats at the venues, disappointing crowds at the Olympic grounds… [and] a lack of buzz around the city,” a report said.

According to the report, just 40,000 people passed through the Olympic Green on Monday, and the IOC has told organizers the number should increase to 200,000 people per day. Olympic sponsors, with their lavish—and empty—Olympic Green pavilions, are understandably concerned. As a Canadian listening to a rock band at the Samsung pavilion told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s too bad there aren’t more people… I though this would be more of a party.” (more…)

Picture it: Red Deer, 1992. A young boy, undersized for his age and uncertain of his abilities, steps to the service line on a volleyball court. He has been brought in to close out the first set of an exhibition match. If his serve goes in and he plays solid defence, he will secure a spot as the primary back-row specialist on an elite team competing for Alberta at the Western Canadian finals the following week.
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It all happened yesterday on my porch as I anxiously watched the street for the brown UPS truck.

Weeks of waiting (all long-term customers were punished by Rogers for their patronage by having to call in their iPhone orders instead of picking one up from the now reasonably stocked stores) culminated with me labouring over a way to sound certain about Derrida’s approach to popular culture analysis called “hauntology.”

The truck pulled up and the delivery person asked if the package was for me. He said “I think it’s a phone or something.”

“A phone!” I said. “This is no phone. I’ve been waiting for this all my life. I gave up a kidney for this thing.”

He handed me my box and I sank softly into tech oblivion. (more…)