…like this sheep on the famous Kjeragbolten chockstone, a 5m³ boulder wedged in a crevasse at the edge of Kjerag mountain in Norway—a lofty and breezy 1000 m above the Lysefjorden (fjord).

Winnipeg, Canada

As economies erode and monetary currencies tank around the world, here’s a fun little “value-added” activity you can do with those extra paper bills… Moneygami (money + origami)—lots more here.

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

[weird warning—blame it on the fresh air…]

While stacking my girlfriend’s supply of winter firewood in the brilliant sunshine of a perfect October day I found myself thinking about singular vision, the mythical Cyclops, and my dear old cat Erasmus (who departed this temporal realm two years ago) who I had named 18 years ago after one of my favourite old dead guys (whom I still tend to quote a lot), the Dutch Renaissance humanist Erasmus (Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus)—the man who is credited with the maxim:

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

(from the Latin in regione caecorum rex est luscus.)

Images: The Cyclops Café (below my favorite hotel in Seattle, the Ace, and with such a clever WYSIWYG sign); Cyclops (by Jaime Pitarch); and the mythical Cyclops that has stuck in my mind since first encountering Homer’s Odyssey in grammar school over four decades ago (as envisioned by monsterkid.com).

Makes sense to me… (sources unknown).

Toronto, Canada

The signs sprang up suddenly under the cover of night. Official-looking and made of hard plastic and aluminum, they were bolted to posts at major intersections along Lake Shore Blvd. Others turned up at busy downtown hubs. “Quiet,” read one, in front of a downtown hospital. “Homeless people sleeping.”

Another advised, “Homeless warming grate. Please keep clear.” For Mark Daye, who created the series of seven signs, it seemed a master stroke of subversion. How do you draw attention to an age-old urban issue, especially when passersby have long been conditioned to ignore the usual signage—those tattered posters glued to poles and construction sites? “I started thinking about the way sign systems work,” says the 30-year-old Toronto student. “There’s official signage. There’s advertising. So I thought, what would happen if I used official-looking signage, but I put an unofficial message in it?”

Read the full article in the Toronto Star here. View more images on Mark Daye’s flickr™ photostream here. (Thanks to Aiden Enns of Geez magazine for the heads-up… I’m not sure quite what to think of this either—will it reinforce stereotypes to people with no homes, or could it actually inspire compassion, raise public consciousness, and increase support for social safety-nets?)

Stumbled across these—on flickr™ here…

Ljubljana, Slovenia

This just in from my friend Eduard Cehovin in Ljubljana… “You are kindly invited to the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, 16 October 2008, at 6 pm, at Stritarjeva ulica 6 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The exhibition will be opened by Janez Kozelj, Deputy Mayor of Ljubljana.” Wish I could attend…

THE ZEBRA CROSSING (Eduard Cehovin and Tanja Devetak)

Urban centres offer visual artists a space for free expression and critical reflection of the environment in which they work. The Zebra Crossing project implements the street art concept on the existing street…  the redesigned visual image does not change the functional dimension of the street crossing, and as such creates a space for an art activity in a public area. Innovative expression sets an example for possible further use.

From all over the USA…

Chaz Maviyane-Davies writes: “Tell me it can’t be true. Following 8 years of disastrous governance, the Democrats field the best candidate this country has seen in generations, against one of the worst the Republicans have ever mustered, and the media’s political pundits would have us seriously contemplate more of the same. Is anyone ever going to learn?” From ‘30 Reasons,’  a 30-day email and internet campaign to encourage people to vote for Barack Obama.

“Our goal is simple: Use design to build a logical, multi-faceted argument for Obama and make it easy to share each reason with another person… We enlisted 30 graphic designers to create a poster that represents a reason to vote for Obama. Starting on October 5th, we will post a new poster online every day and email it to our list. Recipients can easily share the email with other supporters and friends who are undecided.”

See all the posters (to date) here: or sign up at www.30reasons.org to receive a daily email.

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David is back in Italy… after a two-year trip to the United States— corporate sponsors are acknowledged. For comparison, see a photo of David taken just over two years ago, here.

This was sent to me individually by several friends in Europe, so I know it really must be true. Le David de Michelangelo est de retour en Italie après 2 années passées aux USA—merci aux sponsors…

Somewhere in the USA

Ohne Anmerkung… aucun commentaire… an oil painting by Ron English…