Lomography.  Lomograohy.  Lomography. I've been doing it for over three years now, so it's about time I got the name right.  Here's what Wikipedia says about lomography:

Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, Austria for products and services related to photography. The name is inspired by the former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia. LOMO PLC created and produced the 35 mm LOMO LC-A Compact Automat camera — which became the centerpiece of Lomography's marketing and sales activities. This camera was loosely based upon the Cosina CX-1 and introduced in the early 1980s.

In 1991, the Austrian founders of Lomography discovered the Lomo LC-A.^[1] As the company states, they were "charmed by the unique, colorful, and sometimes blurry" images that the camera produced. After a series of international art exhibitions and aggressive marketing work, Lomography signed an exclusive distribution agreement with LOMO PLC — thereby becoming the sole distributor of all Lomo LC-A cameras outside of the Soviet Union.^{[citation needed]}

Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, "happy accidents," and alternative film processing are often considered part of the "Lomographic Technique."^{[citation needed]} Users are encouraged to take a lighthearted approach to their photography, and use these techniques to document everyday life, as the Lomo LC-A's small size, simple controls, and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage, and photo vérité through the much-touted "10 Rules."^[2]

That's sort of true but maybe I'm not a classic lomographer in that while I'm not a control freak when I shoot, I do take some care with many of my shots.  I think it's the awareness that the film is finite and costs money -- so I have to put a little more thought into what goes into the camera than with digital photography.  Regardless of whether I'm doing it right or not -- I love the process of Lo-Fi photography and I really like the aesthetic results.  Another thing I do that's a little different some lomography fans is that I don't develop the shots myself -- rather once the prints are in from Blacks or Fotomat or whoever, I scan them into my computer edit them digitally.  That's why you find so many variations of the same picture in this blog's photo archives. 

The Holga and the Diana all plastic cameras are among the work horses of the lomographic movement -- and there's a Hong Kong connection there as the Diana was originally produced here by the Great Wall Plastics Company as one of the many incredible plastic and tin things they used to make here.  It's also appropriate that the best lomography shop (strangely enough entitled Lomography) is in the Soho district not that far from my office at the Lippo Centre.

My two new lo-fi cameras are the Fisheye (which is where all the pictures on this post come from) and the Supersampler. Have no idea what the latter can do yet but I'm very pleased with the results of the former.  Hope your are too.

Shut about the jet-backs, already!  Sitting under the giant geodesic stainless steel ceiling pattern of Hong Kong airport, chatting on my laptop with friends in China and US, waiting to get onboard a flying machine for a week back home...I know that we are living in the Amazing World of Tomorrow!  A jet pack would just burn your bum anyway.

On Monday I had to make a last minute trip to Shanghai -- which is a community that seems even more advanced than many cities on that trek to Futureland. 

It was an incredibly clean and hospitable place and all the buildings in the downtown core looked like

George Jetson was going zip up to the top floor in one of his bubble-domed flying cars.  Not consistent with my earlier experiences with mainland China. 

But the funnest and most Buck Rogers experience was riding the MagLev train!  We were gliding along nothing but an energy field at a speed of over 460 klicks.  It felt like sliding on butter!  We made the trip from the City subway stop to the airport in less than 15 minutes.  Which is the record for airport commutes as far as I'm concerned. 

We have got to get one of these in Toronto!

They also have regular subways in Shanghai -- which are actually a little confusing -- but here's psychedelic pic of in search of valuable museum knowledge...

Yeah, it's a cliche.  The Japanese are technologically advanced.

But this was my first time there -- three days in Tokyo and while I got to see some very good museums and exhibition centres I did not get to spend nearly as much time there as I wanted to.  I loved the green and the civility and the way people seemed to put incredible amounts of thought and consideration into just about everything in the living environment.  I also loved the fact that the young lady who was the bell captain immediately recognized my Holga all-plastic and cried out:  "Toy camera!  Toy camera!  You do laminography?"  These people seemed to understand me at a level that I never believed possible.

If I believed anything that Tom Cruise or John Travolta say in their spare time (which I don't) -- I'd suspect that I had been Japanese in a previous life. 

But what the heck.  I also love Hong Kong and the rest of China -- it's kind of nice to be back here.  I'm nuts about the UK -- which has wonderful theatre, books and some of the best conversation going.  Korea is great, I like the kimchi and they have all the most admirable characteristics of Klingons (which are many).  Canada...sigh...Canada...you been very good to me and I love you more than 58 big fishes.  I'm even very fond of the United States...but I will only admit having gone as far as second base with her.

This is a very silly blog.  I get to go home for a week in a bit - and that makes me very happy.

Tomorrow I will go see dinosaurs eating each other on a big screen at the Hong Kong Space Museum.  That counts as a good day for me.

I had a rather remarkable and enjoyable evening.  And it has nothing to do with the fact that my hotel is in the middle of Hong Kong's red light district.  (The story of the Broken Girls from Accidentland will have to wait for another day).

No, this story relates to another story.  Written by my friend, the hideously successful Cory Doctorow.  (BTW - his success is all the more hideous because he's worked incredibly hard for it and really deserves it -- goshdarn him).  Anyway, Cory is doing a new on-line audio book called "With a Little Help from My Friends".  Not only does it feature some of Cory's incredibly cool stories but it's part of larger culture and technology experiment that Cory is much better qualified to describe -- so I suggest you go to his website at www.craphound.com and check it out.

Anyway, Cory did me the great honour of inviting me to read his story "The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away".   Originally I was going to use the DC Studio over in Etobicoke where Dave Nickel and I did the reading of "Sticky Wonder Tales" that you can find over at www.onspec.ca

However events intervened (mostly named Kal the Puppy) and I couldn't book the studio time before I left for Hong Kong.  I went to plan B -- and found myself crossing "Fuk Wha" Street (not be confused with "What the Fuck Fridays" which one the bars here in Wanchi holds every week) and descending into the Golden Computer Centre.  Which really is some another kind of brothel, albiet for electronic gadgets and software.  My clever scheme is to get a media recorder and tape the reading either at my hotel or in my office in the Lippo tower.  The readings do not go well.  I think the people in the offices next to mine now suspect me of being some kind of monologuing lunatic and the end product was pretty patchy at best.

Cory, as always, tries to be diplomatic -- "ummm these are at a really low byte rate...is there any way you can give the engineer a little more to work with?"   Now I thought that the whispy and scratchy quality of the recording had a rather mysterious and spooky quality to it -- sort of like receiving broadcasts of Gas Music from Jupiter on the fillings of your teeth.  But I may be rationalizing.

"No problem," I tell Cory, not actually knowing what the heck I'm going to do.

Well, thank the fates for the internet.  I do some browsing and discover Red Sound Studios in the Kwun Tong industrial district of Hong Kong.  I send out an email.  Can I book a session sometime in the next two days.  "No problem," the answer comes back in two hours.  "Come over Monday night."

When I get there I find myself in a warehouse with a studio not that different (well maybe a little more elegant and smoke filled) than the one in Etobicoke.  There I met this remarkable and charming young Hong Konger named Kit -- who actually studied guitar in London, Ontario for four years.  He was in a jazz group but set up the studio and seems to run it as a resource for radio and indie productions -- again a lot like my friends in Etobicoke.

Anyway, the equipment he's got is incredibly compact and cool, we get to talk about the music scene in Hong Kong, some of the other audio projects he's involved with, and I tell him about my On Spec reading and the radio plays of my stories that Shoestring's done.  It was a great time -- the session went really well and it felt fantastic to know that we were doing our best of Cory's story.  It felt even more fantastic to know that even though I am here more as an observer of the cultural life of Hong Kong, that just for one night and just a little bit, I got to be a participant.

Thanks Cory.  Thanks Kit.

For about eight years I worked in a basement office. 

I did travel a lot too -- but it always seemed that I was stuck in the back room with the fax machine while my associates were staying in a four/five star hotel.  I guess they needed a lot of rest before they got up and presented my work to the client.

I don't talk much about my old job.  But my novel is going really well.

Yesterday I had the honour of setting up Cultural Innovation's Hong Kong office.  It's at the Lippo Centre, one of the City's most loved pieces of modern architecture.

Here is the view from the window of CI's new office:

You have a great view of the Botanical Gardens and if you look carefully you can see one of the region's first microwave towers up on the mountain top. 

All I can say is that it's a lot more inspiring than the basement.

He turned 14.  I can't believe it.  It seems like six months ago that we drove over to the hospital for the scheduled c-section and at exactly 11:00 AM they handed us a very perfect little boy.  Simon, who was two and half at the time wasn't so sure but amazingly they get on incredibly well and have done so since we brought Evan home and Simon and he (age 3 days) watched the video of the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  I'm not sure what Evan got out of the experience but there was some serious bonding going on.

Evan asked to go to the Keg for his birthday for a big dinner of Roast Beast which we did (yum!) and then the boys went and played Wii for hours with periodic breaks to cuddle/confuse the puppy. 

The Bard only had it half right.  Sure the future is the "undiscovered country" but so are your kids.  As we scarfed back our steak I kept wondering about what kind of person was unfolding before me and feeling astonished about how much I can love this kid.

Gush...gush...apologies for being so sentimental...    

Well, it is an inevitable question when you force your kids to a Moody Blues concert.  Just after intermission the primary recreational substance shifted from beer to cannibas and that unique odor of Wacky Weed started to waft its way over the seats.  I suppose I should have been relieved that boys weren't saying things like "Gosh, lots of reefers tonight" or "Do you think that's home-grown grass or the new stuff in from Mexico?

Anyway, I explained the odor as part of the whole heritage experience -- that some members of the audience wanted to recreate the atmosphere when the Moodies were at their most popular -- a university dormatory in the 1970s. 

It was a great concert -- Helen and I have seen the Moodies three times -- the first time in 1990 at the now demolished and sort of rebuilt Exhibition Place, then back in 2005 at the Hummingbird Centre and yesterday at the Molson Amphitheatre at Ontario Place.  The 2005 concert was probably the best because the Hummingbird is great for getting up really close to the band, it has great acoustics and the sound tech is state of the art.  But all three of the shows were fantastic -- the Moodies have never disappointed us.  A contrasting experience might be the time that my sister Margaret and I went to see Eric Burton back in 1982 -- but that's a different story (to be fair, I recently downloaded EB's 2006 album and it's great!")

Aside from the fact that the boys really didn't want to go -- it was pretty much  a perfect evening out.     Fantastic songs, flawless performances, a band that treated its audience with respect, even the weather and the sunset were gorgeous.  I apologize if I'm making people feel envious -- the best way to counteract this feeling is to go listen to some of their music.

And I note that the boys did not complain about the concert on the way home...

Hope you enjoy the puesdo-psychedelic photos of the concert.  In case you're interested, they were taken with the permission of Ontario Place and Concert Security and will financially benefit absolutely nobody.

Well, sort of...

So in July we went on a camping trip to Killbear and Algonquin Parks with Cal the Puppy, i.e. the new focus of the family universe for the foreseeable future. 

I decided I was going to try and get smarter this holiday so I got a bunch of books and lectures on tape and some non-fiction out of the library.  Stuff that I'd been wanting to catch up for a while.  One was the leader of the Federal Liberal Party and Leader of the Loyal Opposition's series of lectures "The Rights Revolution".  It's a really impressive listen and much worse things could happen to us than to have Professor Ignatieff as our next Prime Minister.  I prefer being led by people who are more informed, experienced and intelligent than me.  What struck me was how false and mean-spirited those anti-Ignatieff adds the Conservatives are running saying he hates Canada and Canadians and essentially only cares about power.  If you listen to what the guy says you'd know he loves this country and has a lot more patience and affection for its citizens than we probably deserve.  The attack ads I've seen are galling not only because they being run when there isn't even an election on but also because they seem potentially slanderous.  I wish Ignatieff or the Liberals would take the Conservatives to court on this because a) slander is wrong and people shouldn't do it (especially our leaders) and b) it might help improve the quality and reality factor of political discourse in this country.

So what does this have to do with our dog?

Well, in one of Ignatieff's lectures he talks about how talk about human rights has changed family life and he gives some interesting examples about how we end up negotiating with each other at home a lot more than we used to.  Ignatieff then goes on to say that this is a good thing because it means we listen to each other more, we have more respect for each other and we cooperate with each other more.  I think he may be right as recent events associated with the arrival of Cal the Puppy in our home.

When he first came home, Helen and I were worried that Cal would not get walked enough and that not everyone in the family would help in getting the dog exercised and  house trained.  I mentioned this once to Evan and Simon and within half an hour they produced a two hour walking/poop-pee run schedule for Cal that is based on an equitable division of labour between all family members.

Exhibit A and B - what you will see on our refrigerator door right now:

Now the system , like the printing, is not perfect.  There is the constant pull of the electronic dungeon and its wondrous realms of interactive adventure and we are dealing with teenagers here -- but nobody's challenged the need for the schedule and when we try and deviate from it we have to use it as our baseline.  I guess it is our Charter of Doggie Walks and Freedoms.    And this is also what Professor Ignatieff said about our rights -- that their existence requires us to continually discuss things and work out solutions together.  I guess if we can do this for our pets we can do this for each other.

I will stop my lecture (not as well informed as Prof. I's) and end with something even more fun -- pictures of Cal and Helen walking around Col. Sam Smith Park on a beautiful Simco Day:

Cal and Helen on the Bridge

Cal interested in something while on the bridge.

What Cal is interested in -- about 20 cormerants out on the Bay!

Cal doing one of his favourite things: laying on the cool wet grass!

Now at home.  Cal relaxes with his friend and occassional nemesis, the Stuffed Puppy.

Cal, collapses in exhaustion, after being outraged by the day's news.

One day I decided I needed to get out and do a bunch of science fiction stuff.  This usually involves visiting some comic book shops and bookstores...and generally feeling like I'm twelve years old again

It was a lovely day.  I went into Bakka books down on Queen Street.  Being the vain author I am, I looked to see if there was anything with any of my stories in them.  Nope.  But I did talk to some bookly people and bought some books by other writers that were pretty darn good.

 

Then I met my fellow writer/artist/friend Dale and we had lunch together. 

Dale is very good looking, intelligent and charming.  Always a dangerous combination.

But then as the good food came and went and the enormously entertaining conversation progressed...something strange started to happen...

Dale began to change...

...pulsate...mutate...

...distort...

...Dale was warping the fabric of time and space...he's always doing that...especially when he thinks I'm going to stiff him with the bill...

I found myself in a bizarre world...

 
    It was populated by stark and futuristic architecture...
 

...with no sign of any human population.   What had happened to them?  Detonation of a neutron bomb>  Mass alien abduction?  A Starlost fan convention?
 

I felt a tremendous sense of menace as I heard a dull rumbling sound and a sickly light cast across the dead city...

Just then I was rescued by the magical powers of our Server-Goddess.  No sign of Dale,  I was stuck with the check.

I took the train home.   The subway system here is getting really dated.

To calm myself I decided to catch up on my laundry.

...but they are gone. 

Soon after we moved to the Mimico area a place called Video Deal moved into a building just around the corner where the streetcars still roll by.  Before that it was a used vinyl record store.  Perhaps this space is fated to fall victim to technological change.  

I really liked this video store, it was a local chain with at least three outlets in West Toronto and they had a good mix of material.  You could get the latest releases but they also gave good shelf space to classics and foreign films and all of their staff had a very good knowledge of movies without being rude to customers with less understanding than they did.  They even had a section called the "Spiritual Movie Circle" -- this was not a religious or new age thing -- just a selection of films they felt were just sure-fire good uses of your entertainment time and money and good for the soul at a very basic level. 

Back at the turn of the decade they did the best conversion from VHS to DVD ever -- phasing in the new format in wide range of areas and keeping the tapes around until they had something comparable or better on DVD.  

They were also very classy and smart people without alienating their customers who ranged from the professionals in the gated condos down the road through to the Eastern European Immigrants who settle here because of the proximity to the Polish consulate through to the residents of the assisted housing projects.  This was everybody's video store.  They would do stuff like hand out discount coupons to the Museum or the Art Gallery, they collected food for the local food bank at the counter and when they needed to finally wrap up the VHS stock they donated 5 dollars to the homeless shelter for every three previously viewed VHS taps you'd buy from them.  How's that for fighting poverty and keeping material out of landfills at the same time?

Mostly it's the people who worked there the most.  One of the guys at the counter had his son at the same school as my boys and we'd talk about how that was going.  I had a great time talking to the young lady who worked there who was trying to figure out what to do with her BA in anthropology -- I put her on to some internet resources on public anthropology and she went off to do other things.  I really remember the time when we were checking out some DVDs and games in January on one of the coldest days of the year and a three-year-old kid dressed in nothing but PJs with barefeet stumbles through the ice in parking lot.  We wisked the kid in and everyone, staff and customers alike tried to keep him happy while we waited for the police and tried to figure out what happened to his parents (long story...another blog)

Anyway, when we noticed that the DVDs were going at fire sale prices we knew something was up.  The guy from Saskatchewan who worked the counter on weekends confirmed it.  The owner just couldn't afford another terrible summer like last year.

Sigh.  I can't even say its the fault of the big chains, because the Blockbusters around here are just hanging on by their fingernails.

Anyway, I miss the movies and I miss those nice people.