Monthly Archives: August 2012

Spike Lee has a new film out now, Red Hook Summer. The reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are split. Generally I got the impression that it was a rushed, low budget production, and that these aspects of it affected its quality. I think it will still be worth seeing, even if it isn’t his best.

Speaking of his best, this article, When Spike Lee Became Scary – Jason Bailey – The Atlantic, has a great retrospect of one of Lee’s finest films, if not the finest: Do The Right Thing. It’s a great essay not only for it’s analysis of the film, but of the reaction to the film and Lee in general. It made me want to see out and see it again.

As a guideline, if you are buying shoelaces, it is recommended that for

• 3-4 eyelets, get 24/27 inches 61/69 cm
• 4-5  eyelets, get 30/36 76/91
• 5-6 eyelets, get 40/45 102/114

 Good advice, but hard to remember.

Instead, multiple the number of eyelets by 8.5 and you will get the right size.

In Cape Breton in the 1920, there were long battles between the miners and the miner owners over wages and living standards. Among other things, as it says in the The Canadian Encyclopedia,

The 1925 strike lasted 5 months and culminated in a bloody battle at Waterford Lake, where coal miner William Davis was killed by company police on 11 June 1925.

Growing up in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, we honoured William Davis annually on Davis Day, decades after the event occured.

It’s some of the things that I thought of when I read about South African Police Fire on Striking Miners in NYTimes.com. The South African tragedy was much worse, with 18 miners dead.

I hope cooler heads prevail and that the miners get much better treatment. There is nothing that can be done to reverse the terrible death of the miners, but there should be great efforts made to comfort and compensate the families of them, not to mention changes put in place to prevent this from happening again.

Mining is tough enough underground. Above ground, it should not be tougher.

This video is superb: classic song, sweet performance, excellent outfits, wonderful dancing….even the comments below the video are good. For example, I learned that the “guys behind the singers are actually the Hondells who had a big hit with “Little Honda” in 1964. They seemed to where those sweaters a lot”. I always love when people post rare clips like this from the 50s and 60s. Who knows if alot of that material will be lost for all time? Enjoy it while you can.

Dixie Cups – Iko Iko (Rare clip) – YouTube

ITbusiness.ca has a good rundown of all the products that Google has killed over the years: Google’s Graveyard: 15 products Google has killed- CDN Slideshow.

It is quite a list, and also a good reminder that just because it is from Google, there is no guarantee that it is going to be around for along time.

Just one …

of a number of great photos of Penelope Cruz in W’s September 2012 issue.

Worth a visit.