Vancouver, BC

Ominous clouds move swiftly upon an otherwise placid summer sky, blanketing it in darkness. A brief flash of light gives way to slow thunder that groans achingly in the distance. Our hero looks up past the brim of his dusty, worn hat—knowing and weary. An epic battle is afoot…  and this is how the movies begin.

The notion of a meritocracy

I was raised a capitalist. The child of immigrant parents, I came to believe that capitalism was fundamentally just and egalitarian, with the vast bulk of wealth largely shared amongst those who worked hardest for it. For my mom and dad, and many of their era, this steadfast belief turned out to be both necessary and at times quite accurate. They started with little, toiled deliberately to build a life for themselves, and saved (when I’m sure they would have preferred to do otherwise), all so their kids could have access to opportunities that weren’t available to them.

I have to admit that when I too held to this construct, most things seemed to make sense, and the world appeared infinity simpler: The people who “picked themselves up by the bootstraps” could prevail over anything; Those with the best ideas profited from them; I would have even reasoned that those less fortunate were likely so as a result of their own volition.

I oversimplify how I once pictured things, in part for the sake of this story (any more detail, and I fear you’d nod off). Nevertheless, I must admit that I looked at things in polarizing terms, seeing few other possibilities. Perhaps I was also a bit naïve, believing that most things must “balance out” in favor of the honest and decent.

 The world we’ve created

To think in those same terms today, I would either be a fool, or one of those great many, steadfastly determined to maintain a comfortable illusion (but an illusion nevertheless). This fantasy I speak of is one that persists regardless of its cost to our neighbors or future generations. It’s one that requires us to not ask questions.

In subscribing to it, we can’t allow ourselves to wonder how corporations afford us such (suspiciously) under-priced goods. We can never ask how all our trash magically disappears each day, and why we rarely find it in our own backyards. We must in no way challenge notions that masquerade as plain fact: perhaps best illustrated by the deluge of products brought to market using the words “eco” or “green” as prefixes, with little real consideration as to what such words should actually represent.

. . .

Read the rest of this great online article by Eric Karjaluoto on his blog ideasonideas here… (article re-posted with permission).

Hiroshima, Japan

This is a day that weighs heavy on the hearts of pacifists and peacemakers every year… 65 years ago today, at 08:15 on Monday, 6 August, 1945 the first nuclear weapon ever deployed on human beings (a bomb named Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima by the crew of the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay. Several days later, at 11:02 on Wednesday, August 9, Nagasaki was the target of the world’s first plutonium bomb (named Fat Man) dropped by the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Bockscar, flown by the crew of 393rd Squadron.

In 2005, I was one of 24 designers invited to contribute posters to Lest We Forget: Canadian Designers on War, an initiative marking the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (I’ve posted on that previously, here).

Davos, Switzerland

My brother Phil (together with his über-energetic wife Tammy) has just completed the highest high altitude marathon in Europe—the gruelingly beautiful 42.2 km Swiss Alpine Marathon. The pair ran side by side from start to finish along a demanding route, partially on rough mountain trails, with a total ascent of 1890 meters and a descent of 1710 meters. A record number of participants (5910 entrants) and stellar weather helped make the event an unforgettable experience. More information about the race here.

Congratulations, you two!

Caldas da Rainha, Portugal

Rosa Quitério is a design student I met at ESAD/CR during the days I spent in Caldas in May this year—she had earlier contributed to the feature on Portuguese design I’d written for Communication Arts magazine. Imagine my surprise and delight when I received a beautiful time-themed linocut engraving by post from Rosa last week (printed on Artistico + Fabriano paper, 390 mm x 558 mm). She recalled my mentioning that I was fond of clocks (which she is too it seems)…

Obrigado!

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.

Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours.

—King Richard in Richard II by William Shakespeare

Warstein, Germany

A nude climber stuck halfway up a cliff face in the pitch dark had to phone German police officers, who shone a spotlight on him so he could find handholds to lower himself back down, they said Friday.

The 47-year-old man was unable to explain why he had drunkenly stripped off at dusk on Thursday, packed all his clothes in his rucksack and headed up the 40-metre quarry wall in Warstein, 100 kilometres east of Düsseldorf.

Clinging to a ledge, he became too weak to proceed and could not get dressed for fear of falling. Hours later, becoming both very cold and sober, he managed to get out his mobile phone and contact police.

Police took him to hospital as a precaution, in case he had suffered from “exposure.”

Could happen to anyone… though methinks there’s a cautionary tale in there somewhere. Source: the Alpine Club of Canada newletter (thankfully without accompanying imagery).

Via Ads of the World, here.

Winnipeg, Canada

I’ve always been interested in the oral narratives that are passed on from one generation to another. The launch of INDIGO’s Mother Tongue project provided incentive to begin a series of graphic “copyfree” posters featuring such stories as told by First Peoples. Above are the first two pieces: Two Wolves features the well-known Cherokee tale of the battle between good and evil as told by an elder to his grandson; Turtle includes the Anishinaabe story of how the turtle got its shell, and passes on the knowledge of the 13 large moons and 28 smaller segments that appear on the back of every turtle (many First Nations descendants are taught that the turtle shell represents the perfect depiction of the lunar year—I learned of this from one of our Indigenous clients).

You can read the stories (or download, distribute, or print these posters) here: Two Wolves (1.2 MB PDF); Turtle (1.3 MB PDF).

Thanks to Adrian J. K. Shum for your assistance. Credit for the wolf images goes to www.firstpeople.us

On mountains, everywhere

This past weekend, Ev and I enjoyed a short sortie with the Westie out to Riding Mountain National Park to take in the latest of her Manitoba Crafts Council show openings in Wasagaming. We spent a delightful dinner and overnight with old friends Celes and Sue Davar (Celes and I were both partners in Praxis Photographic Workshops some 20 years ago; he now runs Earth Rhythms—Sue is a remarkably talented potter and book-maker, and a longstanding friend of Ev’s). During the course of our conversation, Celes asked me whether I had noticed melt-back on glaciers in the Canadian Rockies in recent years (which of course I have, quite visibly in places like the Columbia Icefield). So it seemed more than a little coincidental that David Breashears’ latest documentary initiative would cross my desk today…

Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya showcases the work of photographer and mountaineer David Breashears, who with Glacier Research Imaging Project (GRIP), has retraced the steps of renowned mountain photographers of the past century to recapture images of these mountains and their glaciers from exactly the same vantage points. Rivers of Ice displays his recent photographs alongside the corresponding historic images, revealing the alarming loss in ice mass that has taken place over the intervening years. Visit the website (reports, videos, comparative photographs) here.

Above images: Graphic evidence of the loss of glacier mass between 1921 and 2007; the dotted line shows the Main Rongbuk Glacier’s height in 1921, while this 2007 photo freveals a loss of 320 vertical feet (nearly 100m) in ice mass since George Mallory took the same photograph in 1921; the tiny climber (upper right corner) gives scale to the remaining ice pinnacles.

Lisbon, Portugal

Pedestrian advocates in Lisbon have replaced the white “zebra” stripes in four crosswalks with the stenciled names of 137 pedestrians killed by cars. On the curb, the tagline reads: “1/4 das vítimas de acidentes de automóvel são peões,” 1/4 of the victims of automobile accidents are pedestrians.

Story and images found here.