To Inform and Delight

Here, Milton Glaser-designer of the I ♥ New York logo and co-founder of New York Magazine-speaks at the 1998 TED Conference. This one holds up well.



Further viewing: To Inform and Delight

For the love of sushi

There was a point last year where I stopped eating sushi. I'd never been one to turn down raw fish before - ceviche, poke, carpaccio, sashimi: yes, please. Still, after chowing down on a rice-less roll at Sushiyama, I felt sort of sick to my stomach. From then on, the thought of uncooked fish summoned the gag reflex. I had reached the mythical sushi-saturation point.

A few months later, I started having sushi again. Dynamite and BC rolls eased me into finally digging into raw fish. And in the past little while, I have been a loud advocate of the saba-bien roll--heavenly salty, fatty mackerel on rice, delicately topped with scallions, which add some mild bite--at Zipang Sushi, definitely the best little Japanese joint in Vancouver.

Still, I think twice every time I take a bite of that delicious concoction. I wonder if I'm threatening the delicate ocean ecosystem. It's no secret that the world's governments have enabled fishermen to overfish the sea's stocks. We may run out of fish in the next 40 years, say the makers of the hot documentary, The End of the Line:

Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

The End of the Line chronicles how demand for cod off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s led to the decimation of the most abundant cod population in the world, how hi-tech fishing vessels leave no escape routes for fish populations and how farmed fish as a solution is a myth.

The film lays the responsibility squarely on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishermen who break quotas and fish illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.

The film's trailer says, "Lay off the Filet-o-Fishes," rather well, I think:



Earlier this week New York Magazine published a guide to ethical eating which placed eating seafood at the pinnacle in the hierarchy of earth-ruining foods. I felt so sad reading it, thinking I should just eat flax and spelt for the rest of my life.

But I was liberated from my gastronomic prison when I discovered that Japanese school children were eating dolphin for lunch. HA, suckers! My greedy consumption of super-drugged salmon paled in comparison to these kids who dined on Flipper regularly.

OK, actually it was a free lunch program and the kids had no idea where their school lunches came from or what they were, for that matter. Furthermore, they were forced to clean the mercury-laden meat off of their plates. In Taiji, a sleepy seaside town in Japan, dolphins are captured for export to aquariums around the world. Others are slaughtered for meat.

But no one's blaming the Japanese. Most have had the wool pulled over their eyes regarding what filmmakers of the exposé documentary The Cove call "a systematic cover-up of mercury and dolphin hunting issues in Japan." In a piece by Brian D. Johnson at Macleans, director Louie Psihoyos links the secret industry to government corruption and the yazuka--Japan's mafia.

See the shocking level of secrecy and unscrupulousness in The Cove's harrowing trailer. It chills the blood:



Right now, I'm trying to reconcile my disdain for places like Whole Foods (yoga pants, Jack Johnson soundtracks, and $10 boxes of crackers make me grumpy) with my genuine desire to reform my habits of consumption. But curbing my gluttony is a no-brainer though; now that delicious saba-bien roll comes with a side of Green Movement shame.

For dessert: Food, Inc.



Full disclosure: I had McDonalds last night. Filet-o-fish went down.

Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light

Looking at the work of the late Richard Avedon is a humbling experience. His portraits are the work of an exacting technician, a humanitarian, a true artist, and a cruel, neurotic genius. The 1995 documentary Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light gives comprehensive insight into what a unique visionary he was - and how he was definitely the kind of person you'd want to party with. If you can get your hands on this, it's definitely worth a look.

(FYI, I hear that Bob Mercer screens this doc in the SFU course CMNS 375 Magazine Publishing)

Avedon delivers quote-worthy sound bites here that inspire you to take pictures--or at the very least, look up his work and discover what a great force he was in American photography for more than 50 years. His work extends far beyond the fashion photography and handful or portraits we know him for today.

We've all seen his work, and you probably didn't even know it. If you've ever looked at the liner notes for the Beatles White Album, or 1, then you've seen Avedon's photography. This 2008 post from perpenduum.com looks at the influences of Lartigue and Avedon on the work of Wes Anderson, particularly in The Royal Tenenbaums.

Here's some great trivia facts to take to your next social event involving art or film snobs:

* An Avedon-style photo of actor Owen Wilson, in imitation of Avedon's American West photo of Boyd Fortin holding a disemboweled snake, was used in a prop for the film The Royal Tenenbaums; Wilson's mother Laura Wilson was a close assistant to Avedon.



* This famous (and fantastic) cast photo was taken by Richard Avedon:



A clip from Richard Avedon: Light and Darkness

I'm working for HBO too

So, because of the lack of commentary due to general brain-mushiness at this time of year, this space is inadvertently becoming a series of press releases for things I am interested in seeing and reading (whoops).

Accordingly, here's a little promo for the Criterion Collection and HBO. The first is a trailer for Grey Gardens, the 1975 documentary by the Maysle brothers about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, cousins of Jackie Kennedy. The Beales are cult figures, known for their eccentric style, and for the controversy surrounding their mansion, Grey Gardens. The Beales neglected the estate until it fell into a state of squalor so severe, they were evicted.

Just below are sneak peaks at the 2009 HBO TV movie about the Beales, also called Grey Gardens, including reenactments of moments from the 1975 documentary. Drew Barrymore is lovely, don't you think?

Immersion

This video of kids playing video games was created by Robbie Cooper, a British photographer who employed a Red camera — a very-high-resolution video camera — and then took stills from the footage. Cooper, who says he was inspired by the camera technique that Errol Morris used to interview people in his documentaries, arranged his equipment so that the players were actually looking at a reflection of the game on a small pane of glass. He placed the camera behind the reflection so that it could look directly into their faces as they played. Cooper and his collaborators, Andrew Wiggins and Charly Smith, videotaped children in England and in New York.
--New York Times Magazine