Author: smartpeopleiknow

What Damien Hirst is up to

I’ve written about others taking jabs at Damien Hirst lately. While others are taking pokes at him, he is busy.

According to TIME:

“On September 15 and 16, Damien Hirst, 43, already one of the world’s richest artists, will take 223 new works directly to auction at Sotheby’s in London, in a sale that could bring $230 million or more. / The auction marks the first time an artist has sold a sizable amount of work directly from his own studio, bypassing the galleries and dealers who have traditionally operated as the art world’s middlemen.”

That’s a staggering amount of money. And likely not something that will endear him to others in the art world. Nor will bypassing the art world’s middlemen win him many friends.

It also says that he is going to go back to painting works by hand. As TIME says, “plenty of people are waiting for him to fall on his face”. Perhaps. One thing for sure: if he does fall on his face, he has alot of money to cushion the blow.

(The photo is from an excellent photo essay in TIME that you can find here. In the photo above, Hirst “stands beside “The Kingdom”, a smaller scale reprise of the shark-in-formaldehyde piece that first made him famous, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.” “)

Listeria, Maple Leaf Foods, and the design of meat slicers

According to the globeandmail.com, Maple Leaf’s CEO says likely source of listeria found:

“Listeria contamination deep within two meat slicing machines at a Toronto food-processing plant was the likely cause of the recent outbreak of the bacteria that has killed at least 13 people.

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. CEO Michael McCain said at a press conference in Toronto Friday evening that the Formax 180 slicers, on lines 8 and 9 of the company’s Toronto plant, were regularly cleaned but that listeria was found in parts of the machinery “well beyond the [manufacturer’s] recommended sanitation process.”

The slicers, which are about three metres long and two-and-a-half metres tall, have been completely disassembled, and Mr. McCain said that similar measures would be taken with all of the company’s slicing equipment.

He added that despite the discovery of listeria deep inside the machinery, “it’s not reasonable to expect that each piece of equipment has to be disassembled completely prior to use.””

I put the last part of the quote in bold, because I think that is relevant.

I went over to FORMAX site to see if I could get more information on the Formax 180. Given that there is no mention of the particular model on their site, I am assuming that a) it is an older model they no longer support b) it is similar to the newer models.

If I look at some of their new slicing models, like this one, I can see why the CEO of Maple Leaf would say it is “not reasonable to expect that each piece of equipment has to be disassembled completely prior to use”. They look like complex machinery. And I am assuming that complexity allows them to produce sliced meat at a very fast rate.

So, we have machines that are explicitly designed to be highly productive and implicitly designed to be hard to thoroughly clean.

My personal opinion is that I would like the machines to first and foremost be very easy to clean and then be highly productive.

In the meantime, I think I may cut back on my use of processed meat. I’ve already stopped using Maple Leaf Foods meats, but this is not likely a problem associated with just Maple Leaf Foods. I am assuming everyone in this business is using such machines, and all of them have the challenge of being able to clean them.

I also think Maple Leaf Foods and others need to rethink this problem, for their own sakes, as well as that of their customers.

 

Francis Bacon, Karl Lagerfeld, and the importance of living space

Francis Bacon is one of my favourite painters. One thing I have always been interested in is his studio. There’s a good article at the Guardian about how Francis Bacon’s studio reveals about his art (guardian.co.uk). For example,

“Chris Stephens, co-curator of the Tate’s major retrospective this month, remembers Bacon’s doctor once telling him that sometime in the 80s, by which time Bacon had been famous and wealthy for a good few years, he bought a flat around the corner. He wanted “to live more comfortably”, he tells me, “but he just couldn’t bear it – he just ended going back to the one room flat with a kitchen.” “

It reminded me of an article I read and posted on concerning Karl Lagerfeld

“Perhaps the most revealing index to Lagerfeld’s creative mind—to his insistence on keeping history alive even as he professes the need to forget it—was a room on the first floor at the end of a crooked hallway, which he saved for the end of his house tour. Here, Lagerfeld had reassembled his childhood bedroom, using the furniture and art that he had as a seven-year-old in Germany. Hanging on a wall just outside the bedroom was an oil painting that his mother gave to him when he was a boy, depicting Voltaire meeting Frederick the Great of Prussia: a group of eighteenth-century courtiers in velvet coats and powdered periwigs. “This is how I dreamed life should be,” Lagerfeld said. “Can you imagine—at seven?” “

Lagerfeld could have and did live grandly, but settled back into a room he had thought about as a child. Bacon was also highly influenced by his living conditions as a child. They seem to have been locked in these rooms, mentally if not physically. Perhaps locked is too strong a word; they seem to inhabit the same rooms they lived in as a child, regardless of where they physically lived.

 

TIME Discovers TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival)

TIME has an review of the Toronto International Film Festival. The Festival has been going on for decades and is beloved by many. Richard Corliss has an introduction to it here, Oscar Goes to Canada – TIME, but it seems to me dismissive and condescending. I did like this one good paragraph he has towards the end, where he says that

“Toronto, which used to call itself the festival of festivals, still is — a jumble of a dozen or so different programs that offer everything from high art to, in the invaluable Midnight Madness section, delirious low trash. Moviegoers thus create their own festival out of the films they want to see and can get into. (And you almost always can: stand in the returns line; be patient; it’ll happen.) It’s Lourdes for serious moviegoers, Rodeo Drive for the Hollywood set. But you needn’t see the big films to feel as important as an Academy voter. At TIFF, the audience is the real star. Standing in line for a movie from Africa or South America, you’re Brad Pitt.”

The Festival is really a number of film festivals rolled into one, and offers an exhausting array of films to see. If you love movies, you should go. And after you read the TIME review, you should read more about it. Better yet, come up and see it.

Hacking is not just for computers? IkeaHacker shows you how to hack…IKEA furniture!

ikea hacker is a great idea for a blog.. Take IKEA products we all know and love – or at the very least are very familiar with — and come up with innovative ways to change and reuse them.

Some of the ideas are very simple to do, and others will take skill, but all and all, some novel approaches are outlined here.

Now you can do something with that old Lack wall shelf stored away somewhere. And if you have your own ideas, share them with the good folks at ikea hacker.

Oops!

In the rush to get out the news quickly, I found this little typo at this page (I put it in bold): From a Distance, Bush Offers Praise for McCain – NYTimes.com

“For Mr. Bush, and the extended Bush family, the speech represents a passing of the torch. The president’s parents were at the Xcel Energy Center here on Tuesday night, his wife, Laura, had a speaking role, and the White House said his brother Jeb and sister Doro would be can we confirm? there — a reminder that America’s ruling Republican dynasty is out of the family business, at least for now. The United States has had a Bush in the White House for 20 of the past 28 years; soon, the Bush clan will include two ex-presidents.”

So see: typos happen to everyone! 🙂

Sarah Palin brings reality TV to government, John Doyle explains.

John Doyle, who has written insightfully about television for many years at the Globe and Mail, has a succinct explanation for the phenonema that is Sarah Palin. Namely, this is reality-TV run amok.

As he says,

“What’s happening with the Palin story is what has happened over and over again on U.S. TV over the past 20 years. Ordinary, working-class people, sometimes startlingly inarticulate and with messy personal lives, are thrown into the TV spotlight and, by being ordinary – bartenders, truck drivers, hairdressers and janitors on Survivor or Big Brother – they are a good bet for being compelling on TV.”

And compelling TV can make a big difference in elections.

It’s a good article to read, and Doyle is worth reading on any topic.

Chocolate cake! In 5 minutes! In a microwave!

Try this: follow this recipe Chocolate Cake In 5 Minutes! It will take you the same amount of time to make a bowl of cereal, which is to say, no time at all!

And while the cake is baking in the microwave, make a cup of coffee, tea, or whatever your favourite beverage is that goes with chocolate cake. No sooner will you have your drink that you will hear the “ding!” of the microwave!

The other great thing about this is that you can have your cake, eat it, and then not have more slices in the fridge to tempt you. (Ok, that is a rationalization, I know, but it works for me.)

You need to have a recipe like this around. Trust me! 🙂

P.S. You need the cake flour for the rising action. But it’s easy enough to get a small bag. It’s worth it.

Free music, or how the music business is becoming more about supporting other businesses…

…as can be seen in this article: New Nokia phone offers free music where owners will be able to “keep all music they download during the 12 months of the package.”

The tide may turn, and the purchase of music may again become a viable business. But for the next few years, I think it will be something provided free as a way of supporting the purchase of something material (like a phone).

(Flickr photo from klabusta’s photostream)

Who’s tracking fun in cities? Urban Prankster is

There’s more to Urban Prankster than just pranks and tomfoolery. 🙂 It really covers all sorts of interesting events that happen in cities, including coverage of David Byrne’s wonderful bike racks for NYC.

Lots of innovative thinking wrapped with a smile at this site.

As an aside Toronto has some really nice city lighting: I hope they can get their hands on some bike racks like this.

Madness in the Mad Cow Test Decision

Perhaps there is more to the story than can be found in this short nytimes.com article, Appellate Panel Bars Tests for Mad Cow Disease, but according to the story, “A federal appeals court has ruled that the government can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease.”

If this makes the least bit of sense, I would like to hear why.

(Tip to Ezra Klein’s blog. Flickr photo from foxypar4’s photostream)

The Claw

When I was a kid, after watching wrestling on Saturday afternoon, I would hang out with my friends, emulating what we “learned”. We practiced our body slams, our holds, and one of our favourites: The Claw. It sounds violent, but like professional wrestling, it was mostly great fun.

The Claw came from this man, Killer Kowalski, who just died at the age of 81. He was a favourite of mine, and no doubt alot of other middle aged men who came across this stopped and thought back fondly to those days, just like I did. Lots of great memories there. May he rest in peace.

Now get out of here before I apply the Claw to your head! 🙂

Damien Hirst Slapdown watch

In a critical review of the the J. M. W. Turner retrospective at the Met (Heavy Weather: Critic’s Notebook: The New Yorker), in which Turner is said to convey “only irritable ambition. We must never forget to admire him. This tires.” is this last sentence: “Turner was the Damien Hirst of his day.”

Coupling this with the dig taken in the nytimes.com recently, it appears that Hirst is becoming an art symbol, and not a good one.

What kind of car can you get for $199/month?

According to the Globe, there are six of them (in Canada). The list and the details can be found here

What is also interesting is a rundown on the current state of auto leasing in Canada. While it is diminishing, you can still get a low cost car, even without leasing. As a bonus, these half dozen cars will use alot less gas than an SUV.

Anyone interested in buying a car should consider this article.

The Human Race 10K by Nike and me


Like many many other people, I participated in Nike’s Human Race 10K today. While Toronto isn’t one of the official cities on the list — for Canada, that city is Vancouver — there was still a well run event held at the Nike Lounge on 1219 Yonge Street today. I went down and got a free sports T shirt (not cotton), and I also got to borrow an iPod Nano with a chip to record my time. Bonus: they let me try a pair of Luna Trainers that I really liked: very neutral with tons of cushioning. Nice.

The route itself was a bit tough: the first half was a big steep run up Yonge St and then all the way up the beltline. But after that, it was all downhill through a morning filled with sunshine. And at the end, there was lots of food, drinks, and general festivities at the lounge.

It was a great event, even if my time of 53:42 over 10.6 km was not. 🙂 Kudos to Nike.

It goes on until 8 p.m. in Toronto at that location, so if you are interested, check it out. And check out the site here for more details:

The Human Race 10K – 8.31.2008 Join a million runners worldwide for a 10K like no other.

Computing in the year 1924…

…looked liked this:

(note the sign in the top left). According to the blog, Shorpy where this comes from, this is a photo from ‘November 24, 1924. Washington, D.C. “Bonus Bureau, Computing Division.
Many clerks figure the amount of the bonus each veteran is entitled to.”‘

There are lots of amazing old photos at the site.

(tip from andrewsullivan.com).

Estelle on Saturday Night

Nothing could be more perfect for a Saturday night than Estelle and the way she sings “American Boy”.

YouTube – American Boy – Estelle Feat. Kanye West

BTW, that link has some swearing in it that this link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY7xXSW_NG4, does not have. Oddly, in this second link, the Michael Jackson button that Kanye is wearing is grayed out. Then again, this second link is associated with WEA music: that may have something to do with it.

I like the reference to Gladys Knight and the Pips in this song: Estelle reminds me of singers of that era.

I like how the shadow dances out of synch with her too. Heck, I like lots about this song/video, from the changing tempos, the guest appear of John Legend, the use of black and white patterns visually, her outfits, even.

Definitely bears repeat watching and listening.

IBM and Data visualization via many-eyes.com and wordle.net

The nytimes.com has a good article on an captivating web site that IBM has produced called many-eyes.com:

Novelties – Lines and Bubbles and Bars, Oh My! New Ways to Sift Data – NYTimes.com

The site has been getting alot of attention not only because of the ability to effectively visualize data, but also because of the community aspect of it. It’s very smart in alot of ways.

Another smart site that is associated with IBM is wordle.net. Jonathan Feinberg is the author, and although he calls it a “toy”, it has been used extensively already in the US presidential election by people/bloggers analyzing the speeches of candidates.

Speaking of speeches, here is a famous one. Can you guess whose it is?

Anyone with a boring spreadsheet of data or a word document in need of analysis should check them out.

George Orwell’s Blog

Much has been written about this already, but in case you have missed it,

“The Orwell Prize, Britain’s pre-eminent prize for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s diaries as a blog. From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.”

For more on it, see here

P.S. One thing to note is the really good blog roll. There are dozens of great news sources there.

The 100 Best First Lines from Novels

American Book Review has the list, from:

1. Call me Ishmael.

to

100. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

Some are short, while others slowly unwind. Some are very dramatic, while others are almost plain. In any case, you’ll have fun reading them.

P.S. Ok, they also have Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s “It was a dark and stormy night…”, which, come to think of it, isn’t as bad as I have come to expect.

The ikan and other robots we will know


The Ikan is a new way to shop for groceries, it says. You can read about it at the site. I would include some text on it here to promote it, but all the text is trapped in Flash. 😦

While it seems like a neat idea, I actually think it has the potential to be a great idea. I was thinking of this when I read about the listeria outbreak this week. What would be good if I could have something like the ikan and have it scan the food in my fridge (or tell it where I purchased the food). The ikan could then check and tell me whether I should be concerned about it or not.

In fact, it could take it even further. If my grocery bill had good marking on it, I could give it to the ikan when I got home. Then it could do things like periodically remind me about food in my fridge that has gone off, or even advise me of specials that might be occurring.

More and more appliances are morphing into agents and robots. Like the roomba, the ikan might be the beginning of the next wave of things in our home.

Death to Arial! (The font, that is.)

Can you spot what is wrong this picture?

If you go over to the blog, panopticist there is a posting talking about it: Mad Men Gets All the Details Right—Except One

I was surprised that I actually found one error myself, but the other is subtler. I was also fascinated by the discussion of a font that we — ok, I — use all the time: Arial.

After you read this posting, the ones below are worth a read, too.

Styrobot!

What do you do with all that styrofoam that is shipped to your house? If you are Kevin Kelly, you make this!

No, it doesn’t transform into a car, but the transformation from packing material to awesome robot is cool in itself.
For the whole story, see here

On my other blog or why I will have two blogs

Right now I have two blogs. This one that you are reading is one I plan to keep for short blog posts that are mainly about things I find (and I hope you find) interesting.

I am planning to use my other blog for longer posts that are more opinionated. If you are not interested in that, you can just say “meh” and move on.

Over time I may consolidate them, but for now I may just post over there and point to it.

For example, here’s one: On how to focus

Is it cheating if I say: I find this post, which I just happened to write, interesting? 🙂

Black Camel restaurant for superb food (especially the pulled pork sandwiches!)

This is a so-so picture I took of the wonderful Black Camel cafe, just outside of Rosedale subway station in Toronto. As they say:

“The goal of Black Camel is simple: to prepare good tasting, high quality food, to deliver it quickly and to price it fairly”

I had the pulled pork sandwich with chipotle mayo on a kaiser-like roll. At other places, you would get bland mayo, dried bread and stringy pork. At the Black Camel, you get just the opposite. It was a delicious sandwich. I can’t wait to try the others.

It’s a little gem of a restaurant. You should go.