One of those nostalgia emails is going around, showing pictures of things that under 50s can’t recognize. The lunch bag reminded me of the time my mother asked us kids what we should get for our stepfather’s birthday … or Fathers Day … can’t be sure which it was.
Anyway, Helen wanted to get the children involved in choosing the gift, probably as a way of cementing his position as “Dad”. We suggested golf things that were too expensive at the time. A carton of cigarettes seemed too mundane.

Over 88% of visitors to this site in June spent less than 30 seconds here. I take this to mean that I am popular with speed readers.

Whatever you may think of Leonard Cohen’s work, I think you’ll agree that this interview with young Adrienne Clarkson (much later our Governor General!) stands up quite well. Toronto, 1965.

The painter he refers to as “Town” would be Harold Town who was enjoying stardom at the time. I find that interesting because the two men share similarities as artists. They had a knack for plucking bits and pieces from academic culture and popularizing them with romantic flair.
There are more videos of the young Cohen aggregated on Open Culture, if you’d like to see serious young ladies under the poet’s spell.

Before Danica packed up all of Helen’s discovered art cache for shipment to Toronto last year, our 4-year-old great nephew Carson got to pick one for himself. He deliberated. His choice (below) is surprisingly sophisticated for a little boy. No bright colours, very little “action”.
Cool choice, Carson. Now that it’s framed and matted, visiting friends will drive in back to Victoria and you will have it soon. Wow! You’ve been waiting for a quarter of your lifetime!

Carson has a little brother Jackson, who needs art for his room, too. He was a bit young to make his own selection so we picked out one for him. It’s on the way soon, along with Carson’s piece.

Two watercolours, signed by the artist

It’s true that I haven’t been watching the World Cup games much this year, although I have given a few minutes to a match or two.
It’s not true that I’d take my friends to a bar, even to watch them try to score. A friend sent me the card. He wouldn’t take you to a bar, either.
I played soccer in high school … even got mentioned in a news clipping as a “marksman”. I was standing in front of the enemy goal when one of my teammates bounced a shot off my leg. I was more surprised than the goalie when it went in.

I just came across this on BoingBoing. As a promotion for his song, a musician gives away money, asking people to do someone a kindness with their 10 dollar bill.

The unadorned and somewhat unimaginative focus on money strikes me as quite Torontonian. So does the good-natured response of participants.

In a conversation with Peter Sever recently, he reminded me that those of us who live in North America and Western Europe, even the poor, have much higher standards of living than most of the world’s population.
This map attempts to draw the world, proportioning country size according to population rather than geography. Look at Canada! Australia is small, too.

It’s probably not all that “realistic” or Antarctica would hardly be visible, but the general idea is right. The unacceptable gap between highest and lowest income levels in Canada is mirrored on a global scale. It doesn’t hurt to remember that.

Gone are the screws that used to make electronic products fixable and upgradeable. Now everything is held together with strong glue. Prying open is not an option. Something breaks, throw the whole thing away.
You know we are going backward when people are paying a premium for older, fixable products.
Apple was shamed into improving its use of materials, greening its laptops by making them of recyclable aluminum and glass. The shame wore of pretty quickly, didn’t it? Today’s offerings are worse than ever.
Stop grinning, Samsung and the rest. You think you’re any better?

Danica and I rode the bicycles onto Leslie Spit for about 3 hours today. We had plenty of company out there. I took this shot to use as a screensaver.

Today’s surprise was the presence of shore-hugging carp, easily seen in the shallow water. There were many, many of them … about 50 cm (20 in) in length. Not small.

Here’s a closer look at one of them.

People fish them, but I don’t think I’d eat one.

Happy to report that the hatchlings are all out and swimming. The male swan was patrolling nearby, so the whole family is doing well. Unfortunately, people are feeding them, but whatcha gonna do.