periodic personal perceptions
My brother Mike has been living in Edmonton for the past two years. He recently told me about a friend who is apparently a founding member of the Alberta River Surfing Association. They find standing waves on the rivers and ride ’em. They’re planning an outing to Manitoba, which is likely still ignorant of its status as a prime surfing province. Apparently there are other older chapters in Italy and Munich, too.
Not only was the flash mob a vacuous fad; it was, in its very form (pointless aggregation and then dispersal), intended as a metaphor for the hollow hipster culture that spawned it. I know this because I happen to have been the flash mob’s inventor.
Harper’s senior editor Bill Wasik tells all in a very interesting article [part 1. Experiment, 2. Propagation and Backlash, 3. Co-optation, 4. Bloggers, 5. Experimental Effects on Subjects]. This puts events like the Toronto subway party and the Vancouver zombiewalk in a new light – just part of one guy’s experiment? It’s an interesting essay overall though.
Original link courtesy of Beestar via Zhan. Photo is property of Mike Epstein.
I’m now back in Vancouver. I’m not going to make this webpage a tell-all about my personal life, but let’s just say that I had two major downers during my ten weeks in Toronto. (Talk to me in person if you want the gory details.)
So, it’s nice to be back. I’ve spent too much time away from town – five of the last nine months were spent outside Vancouver. The cherry trees are just starting to flower, the back yard is filled with thick, lush grass, the slopes have a healthy amount of snow, and the grapefruit are hatching.
I’m not a fan of graphic novels, but I do have a soft spot for highly stylized films. Renaissance looks like it has potential, and I have high hopes for Richard Linklater’s upcoming A Scanner Darkly.