Sculpteur: Stephane Halleux

View more work here.

Ran Hwang: Installations

Created using buttons with pins, Ran Hwang's installations are insanely beautiful & intricate. Check out more here.

The Selby

God bless Todd Selby & his insane photography collection of creative people in their creative spaces. Toronto places have yet to make it on the list, so Todd... consider this an invitation.

View The Selby here.

Watch: Sheep DAWG

And you thought the Skateboard Tetris guys were talented. Zeesh.

Street Installations: Mark Jenkins

This man fully understands the potential of a mannequin.
More here.

Watch: Bathtub IV

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Amazing stop motion animation by Keith Loutit.

Walking The High Line

It's official! New York is the super coolest.







Welcome to the High Line, a raised park in the sky! Built on an old freight train track constructed in Manhattan in the 1930's, the High Line opened on June 8th, 2009. For more info, click here.


All images courtesy of the High Line Blog.

Earth 2100: Civilization at Crossroads

It's a rarity to actually see a program nowadays and be stunned by both the context and the aesthetic quality of the production. [Except for The Hills. That gets me everytime.] Earth 2100 is a 2 hour documentary that aired on ABC last night. Examining climate control, it poses the question if this is the last century for civilization as we know it.

Says Alexa Daner, a writer for ABC News, "In order to plan for the worst, we must anticipate it." Following this thought process, a sub plot of Earth 2100 is narrated by Lucy, a fictional character who was "born" on the evening of June 2, 2009. Earth 2100 follows Lucy through her life span based on predictions and imagined environmental catastrophes from real life scientists, environmentalists, and anthropologists.

Apart from the program being incredibly poignant, it's beautifully executed. Lucy's sub plot is animated in such a way that it would make all your Graphic Novels get together and weep with envy.


If you missed this program on ABC last night, fear not. Watch it here:
Earth 2100: Civilization at Crossroads

Shared via AddThis


To read more on Earth 2100, click here.

Watch: The Story of Stuff

If you have a spare twenty minutes across the next week or so, give The Story of Stuff a go. This is an animated "short" about consumerist society, written and hosted by Annie Leonard. It's easy enough to understand if you're a baby to the term consumerist culture; similarly, it's invoking enough if you're already a sociological/ecological veteran. A great film to watch when we're in the midst of a recession - when our existing business structures are breaking down, what can we be doing to shift industries in a more humanitarian and environmentally friendly manner?

The film is produced by Free Range Studios, a production company built on the ethos of "Creativity with a Conscience"; namely providing creative branding, strategizing and execution for those on a mission to save the world. To view Free Range Studios, click here.

To view The Story of Stuff, click here.

Date My Single Friend

I love the premis behind British dating site mysinglefriend.com, for who knows you better than your besties?

I've been given the nicknames Heather Bailer and Chancellor Canceller before as all whom I love know I'm prone to a bit of what they like to refer to as - ahem - "cancelling". I prefer the term "plan procrastination". But these little insights about yourself that you may have overlooked while writing a "Me! Me! Fabulous Me!" online dating profile before have no room at mysinglefriend.com. There the truth [and probably a more accurate connection] awaits for you, based on whatever your beloved pal writes about you.

Happy Matchmaking! Visit mysinglefriend.com here.
Unfortunately this only works for our UK buddies... Sarah Beeny, can we work on getting a North American site?

Volunteer on your Cell Phone

I have to admit, I'm a terribly selfish volunteer. Last year I had the grandiose idea of becoming a Big Sister, until I realized that my 9-5+ schedule would not work out with my future Little Sister's 3 PM after school program. A brief brush with becoming a kitten feeder at The Humane Society followed [Sundays? Thursdays?], as did contemplating being Saturday staff at St. Michael's Hospital, but apart from all my thought-that-counts volunteering, that's as far as I made it. The thought.

For those having similarly pressing schedules and an unshakable desire to volunteer, The Extraordinaries have devised a program that can suit all volunteer time constraints. Through what they refer to as "micro volunteer opportunities", you can now volunteer for many organizations simply by using your cell phone. [And no, peanut gallery, not to make the call!]

How would you like to identify craters on the surface of Mars for NASA? Or tagging images for the Smithsonian? Or fact checking items for reporters on the run? If you have a smartphone and a pocket of time [waiting for the bus / a client approval / an internet upload / parking space], it's possible.

The Extraordinaries

View more presentations from benrigby. (tags: extraordinaries spare)

For more on The Extraordinaries, click here. Hats off to all the volunteers who do find the time.

Dinner With A Stranger

"If you got an email from a stranger who said they'd donate $200 to a charity of your choice if you'd have them (and a friend) to a dinner [at your house], would you say yes?"

And so marks the opening statement of Franke James' most recent artistic diary/social experiment. James, an incredibly talented artist and equally as talented environmentalist, received an email across the December period from said stranger, Mark Shouldice, who proposed the entire scenario and enticed the lovely James with the invitation.

"We often talk about how some of our best conversations are with strangers," said Shouldice, whose intentions were strictly whimsical. No creepy romances included in this invite.

To view the entire drawn diary of the account, click here.

James is now set on developing "Dinner With A Stranger" into a charity event. Read all about her ponderings here.

Question is, if your safety was entirely guaranteed, would you like to have dinner with a stranger? I would definitely be game. Who's cooking?

Great Podcast

The short story is a beautiful thing. In the preface of In The Bedroom, a short story collection by Andre Dubus, Todd Field says of Dubus' style, "Like Chekhov, [Dubus] didn't write novels - because he didn't have to."

If you're stuck for reading time and are craving a great story, please go drive somewhere for half an hour [your commute perhaps?] and listen to this one.

Fans of Jane Goodall's work and Roger Fouts' novel Next Of Kin will love this podcast. Infact, anyone fascinated with the concept of thinking will love this podcast.

Have a listen here.

Class Action

US Airways Flight 1549
photo from: Calacanis.com

This sort of thing is really interesting. I am sure there is a logistical explanation for why the first class passengers get a flotation raft with seats and the coach passengers get...the wing. I'll wait for the answer.