From Old Vancouver to New Vancouver

A portrait of Vancouver through Fred Herzog's photographs, reflecting on the life, architecture, and history of the city's streets and neighbourhoods.

Tony Wilson composes a soundtrack that, to me, lends an surreal air to this city portrait.  It is as if we viewers and visitors were dispassionate and time-warped, and the hustle and bustle of Vancouver were reduced to murmuring and slow motion.
 

From Old Toronto to New Toronto

Kwan Ho Tse and Robert Crossman animate old Toronto, and imagine decades speeding by like ghostly cars to bring it to new Toronto.  They draw on Johann Sebastian Bach to add a tone of majesty.
 

Memories and Music of Ireland

Mick Moloney, the Irish-American musician, author and professor, talks Irish music and his beloved tenor banjo during a rehearsal with musician Athena Tergis at his Greenwich Village apartment.

Sometimes the journey we embark on is that of memories and music, but it inevitably brings us back to our heritage.

Zeng Fanzhi in Art Basel Hong Kong

I miss art exhibitions and museums, so perhaps I will amble over to the Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art when I visit home in a few weeks.

Zeng Fanzhi

My ears perked up when I heard Zeng Fanzhi as the most valuable Chinese artist.  Three years ago I had to forgo my intense effort to deal with fine art masterpieces, because I needed to take a more strategic approach to building my clientele and catering to their interests.  But that effort is just sitting in the wings, and I will resurrect it at the proper time and in the proper context.
 

"Up Where We Belong"

An in-flight (i.e. on-eagle) camera, plus cameras high near the Burj Khalifa and low on the ground, make for an awesome footage.  I can only imagine the sophisticated navigation inside the eagle's brain, which probably beats that of people hands-down.
 

Ancient History Encyclopedia on the Mayans

Monte Alban, in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico

The Maya are an indigenous people of Mexico and Central America who have continuously inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The term 'Maya' comes from the ancient Yucatan city of Mayapan, the last capital of a Mayan Kingdom in the Post-Classic Period. The Maya people refer to themselves by ethnicity and language bonds such as Quiche in the south or Yucatec in the north. The `Mysterious Maya’ have fascinated the world since their `discovery’ in the 1840's by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood but, in reality, much of the culture is not that mysterious when understood.

From Ancient History Encyclopedia, shared publicly on Google+ 
 

Mike Elgan on Selling Iguana Meat

(image credit)

Man caught smuggling iguana meat into the US from Mexico.

A man was caught smuggling the meat of 115 iguanas into the United States from Mexico, and was sentenced to two years in prison. Sounds to me like way too much time for the crime.

Iguana is a popular meat in Mexico and Central America.

I took the picture [above] a few years ago in El Salvador. It's a boy selling live iguanas for food by the side of the road. (That wad of cash in his hand is the $10 the kid talked me out of in exchange for allowing me to take his picture.)

By Mike Elgan, shared publicly on Google+