Motown 50


Ladies and gentlemen....The Supremes!

Press Leak

In the midst of this euphoria over the monumental and historic event of Barack Obama's election to the US presidency and all the hopes that we pin to this, there is a small and quiet voice that speaks of how dangerous and difficult the road ahead truly is.Below are three articles via Common Dreams that recognize that voice and address its concerns for more eloquently than I can.

Published on Friday, January 23, 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle
The Gulf Between Hope and Change
by David Sirota

Published on Saturday, January 24, 2009 by the New York Times
More Than Charisma
by Bob Herbert

Published on Thursday, January 22, 2009 by The Washington Post
Calling a Time Out
by George McGovern

Swiss Bit

So we got out of the house over the last week or so, traveled up to Basel on Monday and Tuesday (and missed all the feverish inauguration coverage) and took the Max up to Les Mosses to ski the weekend before last. I hadn't been on skis in a dozen or so years, but was pleasantly surprised how it all came back to me.Not so pleasant was the stiff and sore muscles the next day.

Up in Basel they were thawing out from the unusually cold weather all of Switzerland experienced at the beginning of the month, and the Tinguely fountain was a delight of ice and Tinguely mechanical weirdness.

Motown 50


Here is the first of many Stevie Wonder tunes that are on my top 50.

Vimeo Valise

For all my Canadian friends suffering through another long and cold January here's a two minute instant vacation.

Ocho Rios - Jamaica: Timelapse from Brian Boudreau on Vimeo.

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I missed all the TV coverage, but after reading Obama's inauguration speech, this song started playing in my head.

Motown Top 50

Guess who turns 50 this year (aside from me and Barbie that is)? Yes, Hitsville USA! I'm going to attempt to pick my top 50 Motown hits over the next few months, a task I fear might be beyond my Libra sensibilities (can't I love them all the same?!?). I'll be posting some of that signature sound on a regular basis,in an effort to narrow it down and I'd like to hear which songs make your top 50 (or top 10). First out of the post 'My Girl':



"I've got sunshine on a cloudy day...."

Swiss Bit

I first read about the Kaufdorf car junkyard near Berne last summer and thought it sounded both enchanting and weird in that Swiss way.The site contains around 500 cars mostly from the 1930s to 60s has not been touched for more than 30 years. The local commune and canton would like to see the site cleaned up so that oils and solvents from the vehicles don't leach into the ground which prompted a local artist to put together an installation last summer, in hopes of raising public awareness and have the site deemed a historical monument.The wheels of Swiss bureaucracy grind exceedingly fine and slow and with any luck I'll get a chance to go see it next spring.In the meantime, I found this on Vimeo:

run out from Jörg Brönnimann on Vimeo.


There's also some lovely photographs over at The Artificial Owl.

Vimeo Valise

As if I don't already waste enough time, I wandered over to Vimeo today and discovered hours and hours of HD quality videos, animations, short films, documentaries and other bits of art.The Vimeo Valise will stop in here from it's travels and give us a taste from time to time. For starters, here's a little bit of fun:

Ooh Yeah - dancing headphones from beshart on Vimeo.

Short Cuts


It's been awhile since I posted any short films, so here's a wonderful piece from the incomparable Pixar.

Swiss Bit
Ice Faeries

Lovely little crystal formations all over the yard the last few days!

Swiss Bit





We had a snow/freezing rain storm on New Year's Eve and the temperatures have remained frosty enough for some natural ice sculpting to form.Pictures courtesy of 24 heures (photo credits online).

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Bill Withers doing a slower acoustic version of this r&b classic.

Bonus track:
A static clip of Fiona Apple rocking another great Bill Withers tune:

Random Stuff


So I haven't been posting much lately, due largely to being underpowered from the lack of sunlight, but I have done some interesting (all right, aimless) surfing and found this for starters. TinyEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks.I love this widget and I'll probably put some more up over time.

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Gives one a little perspective.

LOLCat of the Month


Oldest LOLcat ever?

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The Hollies with one of my favorites.

The Ties That Bind


*sniffle*