Looking for love, and political power, in all the right places: the Bilderberg Group.

If you thought the Carlyle Group was powerful, check out the Bilderberg group.

Apparently when Barrack and Hillary were in Virginia earlier this month, they attended the annual meeting. 140 people from around the world attend. I must say, though, they did a terrible job of keeping it a secret. The Obama camp loaded up the plane with the travelling press team (who were expecting Barrack to board the plane with them), closed the doors without him, and took off. 

Not the best decoy to elude the press. Check out the article here.

All the world’s a stage, and the Bilderberg Group is Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Oh, Canada! *gasp*

See below for a range of branding/identities from a host of countries. Now I am not certain how many of these are actually the official logos for the countries. For example, I don’t think I have ever seen the Canada logo, as Canada brands itslef internally in Canada with the classic serif TNR font.

I certainly hope that this isn’t our best “design foot forward”, It looks like something out of a terrible grade 6 history textbook. “Keep Exploring” is right- for a new designer!

I really like the New Zealand branding- gotta go with the all black, of course. When it comes to NZ, there’s nothing that comes to mind quicker than their shit-kicking rugger squad.

But outside of that, there are way too many tacky designs!

 

pass it on- norman cook’s new video.

Check this out- Fatboy Slim’s new video is destined to be a major viral success on Youtube. Hot off the presses, most iterations of the video are currently sitting at under 10k streams. That will change very quickly. 

It used to be that, in order to make big noise with a music video, one needed the blessing of MTV. This was particularly the case in the 90s, a time of exorbitant video budgets. The premise- big budget = approval from the channel as “noteworthy content” = millions of albums sold.

Want the attention of the world? A hot concept doesnt need a big budget, nor does it require the approval of a handful of broadcast music video programmers. 

 

pass it on: the amen break tells us why you should blog.

Oscar Wilde once said that “all great art is theft”. In our current 2.0 world where ideas exchange, rearrange, and redistribute in a slightly new form, this is all the more the case. 

Check out the amen break. 6 consecutive beats from one single song impacted, rearranged and sped up, has become one of the most used beats in the history of music. Thousands of songs followed. In fact, it was the foundation of hip hop. 

Blog. Share. Tweak, Redistribute, Repeat. One never knows what will come of it down the chain. 

 

Lobby to lobby: life, death, and krispy kreme spectacle.

Here goes:

I was sitting in a lobby of some sort. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out where exactly I was or more importantly, what the hell I was waiting for. the decor of this lobby was somewhat classy but, upon further inspection, revealed slight traces of artifice- plastic plants, pleather couches, etc. I was with my parents. 

My mother, always outgoing, revealed to me that she had been there before. It seemed as though my dad had too, though he didnt mention it. Their experience at this place was like a trip to the car dealership- my mother taking the time to negotiate and haggle with the sales agent, my father standing back and taking it all in. 

So my mom encourages me to come with her to the other end of the lobby, where there is a video game machine. My dad comes as well. The game: a main menu features a variety of mini games. The games included classics like tetris, puzzle fighter, bubble bobble. Kitschy classics. What the actual arcade machine was, though, was a fortune teller. The better your score as you played the game, the more fortunes would pop up telling you about your life. My mom showed me a game that she particularly enjoyed, set it up from the menu, and then stepped away to let me play.

Some time passed- lost into the lucid void of the dreamscape.

When my consciousness returned, I realized that I was playing the game by myself. My parents were no longer around. There was a line up of people behind me waiting patiently to play the game. This little machine was like the new Krispy Kreme- big hype.

So I’m trying to set up my next game from the main menu, but it isnt working. Try as i might, I cant get the game to launch properly. The man waiting in line behind me loses his patience and makes some snarky comment- he’s standing very close behind me. I turn around to give him a piece of my mind, and I’m surprised by what stands before me. 85 years old,  he has a disheleved order to him, like a hospital haircut. His beard is 6 days old- tiny white angry sprouts of hair framing his scowl. And blind- eyes that were tornados of white, grey, and light blue. 

He makes another crass remark to me and then tries to whip his cane at me. For some reason, I am holding a cane as well and I block it. I politely remind him that, had i not been carrying a cane, he would have hit me. He continues to cuss away, and I turn back to the game. 

I’m fed up at this point- a little help would be nice to get this game going! Plus, I’m running low on quarters, so I better get it sorted otherwise I wont get to enjoy my time on the machine. I ask the woman at the lobby counter to help me out. She has an American twang- like your cliche gum-chewing diner waitress. She informs me that I need to connect the modem, and that I am to log in under Jacksonville, Florida in order for it to connect. 

As I scroll the cities, I come to realize that Jacksonville is not included in the drop-down list. I attempt to tell her this, but she puts one hand up. “Hold on”, she says, “I’m on the phone”. 

I wait.

The line is getting longer behind me. We’re at Harry Potter premiere status. The masses are angry. Finally, the waitress/receptionist comes aroudn the counter to help me. “See? Suerz, Oregon. Just like I said!” I make it quite clear to this American bitch that she had motioned me to Jacksonville, not fucking Suerz, Oregon. (Which I googled, btw, and it does not exist. Bitch.) She reminds me to hurry up- there are regulars, like ol’ blue eyes behind me, that need to get a chance to play.

So I’m connected now. I am finally playing the game, trying to play the same game that my mom had showed me. But I cant find the right one, so I’m relagated to other games from the main menu. It’s fun, but it’s not the same. I want to find my parents to get a little help here. So I tell the line-up of people that I’ll be right back. I step out the front doors to the lobby, and look around the front lawn. Turns out we had been in a portable (those stackable buildings that they use as classrooms when renovating a school). 

I can’t find them anywhere. I soon realize that if I am going to enjoy my time playing the game, I’m going to have to go about it on my own. Walking back inside and pushing my way through the group, i see that the blind man is caught up in the middle of the line. I decided that i had made all of these people wait enough, and I wanted to help this man, so i start walking towards him indicating that i was going to walk him to the machine. 

A loud noise from the front desk distracts me. As I turn back, I see that some orderlies are taking him away down a long dark hospital hallway. His eyes glare at me as he’s fading into the dark- they pop with light, and I innately know that he could see the whole time. He smiles, and I wake up.

 

Now typically when I have a dream like this, a) i forget it all right away and, b) what i do remember is confusing and disorienting at best. This dream made sense right away- the entire course of events were an analogy for my life. What I learned:

1. We all begin our lives as the good “news” in a hospital waiting room.

2. The arcade machine was a symbol for life, and how we preoccupy ourselves with range of games contained therein.

3. The more successful you are at life, the greater the insight you pull out of it. Hence the “fortune teller” aspect of the game.

4. The game was easier when I was  first at the machine, as I had the direction (and personal preferences) of my parents. Particularly my mother, who is more extroverted and up front in her opinions- with my father standing behind, quietly encouraging. 

5. The line-up of people: everyone is waiting their turn for a kick at the can. Not surprisingly, life is a pretty popular game with with the riff raff of the dreamworld. 

6. The blind man behind me was death- he’s a regular of the game of life. He’ll take a swing at you if he feels like it. He may not hit you every time, but he’ll certainly try. 

7. Once your parents leave, the game of life gets harder and more confusing, but you have to go on. People will give you advice (particulary those of authority, from “behind the counter”). Many times they will be wrong. 

8. They’ll deny that they are wrong.

9. As much as I wanted my parents to come back to help me, I understood that I only have a certain time on the machine. I need to figure out how to play it on my own.

10. It wasn’t my time to give up my place at the machine, but death will have his eyes on me until it is. 

11. When I do die, people will come together once again in a lobby somewhere, and the pattern will continue all over again.

 

Nothing like a little Saturday morning personal insight. Nothing like it.

 

C.

the long tail: a brave new world of media, encapsulated in embedded html.

who’s your city?

Ever since I moved to Toronto four or so years ago, my favourite thing to do on a weekend has been to walk the city by myself and take it all in. A bigger city like Toronto speaks to you in a lot of ways- some overt, be it the shrill angst of car horns, or the incessant jackhammers of ceaseless construction. More than that, though, are the subtle ways that experiences the city. The smell of fish heads melting on piles of snow in Kensington Market, the dull glare of unabashed wealth in Yorkville, and the veiled tones of irony and nike dunk-laden disdain on Queen Street. A plentitude of sensations force the realization that one is a tiny speck in something much, much bigger.

So what exactly is the sum of all the bits and pieces of a city (across the senses), in real terms? How does our city define us both as individuals, as well as a collective. It would be foolhardy to believe that where we live is just a background for our experience, wouldn’t it? And I’m not talking about the difference between living in Kuwait versus Michigan- the discrepancy in lifestyle is too obvious. Toronto and New York breed difference. Palo Alto and Berkeley. Cambridge and New Jersey. Big differences.

Paul Graham touches on this, particularly through the lens of ambition. If you pay attention to the conversations that surround you in the cafe, dresses in shop windows, the pace and place of automobiles, glances amongst strangers in the street- all of these examples can act as signposts to a city’s aspiration.

New York is all about the desire for money. Sure, power’s great, but if you inherited 30 million from a baron of a grandfather, you’re in. 27 year old i-banker that made it big, early? You’re in.

Silicon Valley is about power and influence. Money for money’s sake won’t get you into TED. As Graham mentions, only the real estate agents will care if you have money. If you’ve used all of that money to launch a mom and pop website like Google- well, then people are going to turn heads. (Especially if it was your lunch money, like Zuckerberg).

Cambridge is a city of smarts. You’re place on the totem pole is based around academic credentials and the size of your book case. 

Granted, much of the variance in a personal city experience is lost in pictures painted with so few colours; however, these characterizations do merit consideration when determining what kind of life one would like to lead, and what’s of greatest importance. We choose our friends based on the kind of person we would like to be- so many times those close to us are inter-twined with similar values and ambition. If that’s the case, the the city we situate ourselves in is, in every way, just as important.

Who’s your city?

C.

For more on this, check out Richard Florida. (Blog title is the title of his new book).

What’s wrong with an Oxford Comma? Your typical Cambridge convo, distilled. (Below)

the honest truth.

We’ve all wanted to say it..

the good, the brand, and the ugly.

Check out this site.

An incredibly simple concept paints an effective picture of what  marketers spend billions of dollars on every year. 

What immediately strikes me is the contradictory range of positive and negative thoughts behind a variety of brands. MTV for example- two of the most popular responses were “MUSIC” and “NO MUSIC”.

Because the words listed under each of the brands comes from the user inputting the first word that comes to mind when they see a brand’s logo, the responses can act as a guide for latent/subconscious sentiments.  For example, one gets the sense of latent homosexuality/homphobia, due to the number of people that associated “GAY” to seemingly irrelevant brands. Crayola, Burger King- a variety of examples cite the popular response.

Personally, I find it pretty hard to believe that the Burger King is gay. Maybe that’s just me.

C.

PS. After initially posting this, a quick google search confirmed that the Burger King is, in fact, straight. Here and here to view the evidence. Some hot pics.

much to do about nothing.

I almost made the mistake of using a (admittedly unused) journal as a “to do” list for planning a Monday’s worth of menial tasks.

1. Pay bills/track finances/do expenses. 

2. Laundry/Drycleaning. 

3. Go to gym- run 45 mins/weights 20 mins

4. Get grocer- 

I withdrew my pen from the page in realization- I had let the mind-numbing day-to-day invade the realm of recollection, contextualization, and personal evaluation. Instead of planning my holiday Monday’s chores, I began to turn the page back upon entries from last summer in Spain.

What strikes me is the clarity of my thoughts from this time- brevity and impact. I had written much from the beach in Barcelona, and the balcony of our hostel in San Seb. Bullshit distractions from back home seemed ridiculous and futile. Carefree Spanish lifestyle had become pure common sense. I challenged myself to return to Canada and implement this newfound insight upon my Toronto routine. 

Of course- life happened. A few weeks of positive perspective wore off. Grocery lists revisted my journal. Bank statements and unpaid bills were fitting crammed into the spine of the book itself, leaving the diary eternally open and vulnerable.

It is essential to seize the moments when life’s purpose becomes clear. Write it down, and keep it seperate from the daily chatter of our lives. Tonight, the present “me”  had a conversation with “me” from one year ago. Turns out they’re on the same page, and maintaining focus on true fulfillment is the only thing that will keep them that way.