Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba
Well, we finally launched my old canoe this past weekend… Ev’s been living on the shores of Lake Winnipeg for five years now (it’s the largest of Manitoba’s 100,000 lakes, the 11th-largest freshwater lake in the world, and at 23,553 km² [9,094 sq. miles] it’s larger than both Israel and Slovenia) and we’ve only been out on the open water a few times. Thanks to a special arrangement with Boundary Creek Marina, the old red Obukwin now has it’s own exclusive mooring on the island in the middle of the harbor, allowing effortless access. (For any friends in the area—if you care to use the canoe, just drop by Ev’s first for the padlock key and paddles—access to the island is across the dock-bridge you can see in the photo above).
Amazing as it may sound, our canoe seems to be the only human-powered vessel in the harbor… among the hundreds of yachts, cabin cruisers, sea-doos, and commercial fishing boats. As we sipped a cool beverage on the yacht-club deck on Sunday, I’ll admit we felt a little smug—we couldn’t help but overhear the party beside us discussing the cost of the 600 liters of fuel they had just pumped into their own cabin cruiser.
“Everyone must believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing.”
Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) has honoured Ronald Shakespear, founder and principal of Diseño Shakespear Design Consultants in Argentina, with the 2008 SEGD Fellow Award. Ronald is an internationally acclaimed designer and the “father of environmental graphic design in Argentina.” Diseño Shakespear is an award-winning design firm specialising is the planning and design of signage, wayfinding, and identity programs for a wide variety of facility types, including the Buenos Aires Underground (Subte), Municipal Hospitals, Buenos Aires Signage System, Temaiken Zoo and many more.
SEGD Fellows are selected for promoting the highest values in environmental graphic design, and significantly contributing to the direction and growth of the field. Past SEGD Fellows include Garry Emery, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Lance Wyman, Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, Deborah Sussman and Massimo Vignelli.
Congratulations, my friend!
London, U.K.
Banksy, the mysterious guerrilla artist famed for his lightning graffiti art attacks, is a 34-year-old former public schoolboy called Robin Gunningham, the British newspaper Mail on Sunday claims… to be determined: how this may affect the man’s remarkable work. I’ve long admired his satirical take on politics, culture, and contemporary ethics… and I’ve posted re: Banksy before, here and here.
Re-mixed works by Micah Wright (who seems to have disappeared from the Internet)…
Adrspach, Czech Republic (from the New York Times)
“While it may seem suicidal, leaping across a gaping crevasse is actually an extreme sport that is gaining in popularity. Called rock jumping, or simply ‘jumping’ by the locals, this adrenaline-charged activity is taking place in the Adrspach-Teplice Rocks, a remote nature preserve in the northeast part of the Czech Republic.”
Known for its roughly 11 square miles of phallic sandstone formations, the region has been a breeding ground for lifelong rock climbers, including Jaroslav Houser, 63, the purported conqueror of more than 1,000 sandstone spires. In their frenzy to subdue as many unclimbed tower tops as possible, seasoned climbers like Houser unwittingly gave rise to rock jumping in the Adrspach. “The objective is to get to the top of as many towers as you can,” said Vladimir Prochazka, known as June Bug, a 59-year-old climber and a collector of Czech rock climbing histories. “You try to reach the hardest summit, sometimes by jumping.”
Read the full story in today’s New York Times here. Reminds me of doing the heart-in-throat Jump Traverse above 600 feet of air on Durance, Devil’s Tower, Wyoming….
Milano, Italy
The aim of Good 50×70 is to use designers’ skills to raise awareness amongst the creative community of the power we have to be a force for good (posters can have a positive impact on thousands of lives). There are 7 briefs from 7 charities on 7 issues that affect thousands of people around the world—participants pick a topic that inspires them and submit a poster on that theme. 210 posters (30 from each brief) are selected by a jury of leading designers, are then exhibited around the world, and are published in a catalogue—more importantly they are presented to the 7 charities for their use in potential campaigns.
(Thanks Adrian and Mark Simpson).
Manitoba, Canada
Well, another day of tornado touch-downs in our northern province… the weather patterns have clearly changed here over the past few years, and it now feels more and more like Kansas (look out Dorothy). Local weather over the past six weeks has been rife with tornado-watch advisories (e.g. as I write this), warnings, and documented incidents… catch a drive-by video of last year’s F5 tornado at Elie, Manitoba here or here (the latter shot by Hutterites from a nearby colony).
(from www.silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com…)
From a remarkable French website featuring thousands of antique postcards (of every genre)… century-old photographs (from around the world), poignant illustrations (like the Raphaël Kirchner above), and delightful ephemera. (Link no longer active, sorry).
…from Frank Chimero’s Inspirational Design Posters.
