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10 Ruble Russian Coin featuring cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (Photo by Mike) Today is “Day of the Soviet Space Program (Cosmonautics)” for Russians – a day to remember the cosmonaut and national hero Yuri Gagarin, who on April 12, fifty years ago, was blasted into orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. [...] Mike has been an earnest student of film since he studied the “History of Cinema” and “Italian Cinema” at university. Mike is an aspiring filmmaker with a few short videos under his belt. Currently he is working on “City Symphony” – a hybrid documentary / music video that includes music by his alter-ego “Mikooshka.” Here [...] I finally launched a long discussed travel presentation night – the idea gestated over the last year and was conceived when I was a friend’s at Christmas and we were all exchanging stories about trips to exotic overseas lands. Eventually a laptop was fired up and we were shown an impromptu slideshow. The problem wasn’t [...] I am a huge proponent of the multiculture. It informs my design and my world outlook. I also teach English and through my teaching have met students from literally every corner of the globe. In my artistic life, as Mikooshka (my musical alter-ego), I craft music which crosses over from genres like reggae, rock and [...] The opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup is taking place right now, and it’s reminiscent of the large-scale ceremonies I remember from the Vancouver and Beijing games. The stadium is ginormous and hundreds of Africans, primarily women, are performing synchronized dancing as performers do songs blended together in medleys. I just saw the singer [...] The annual Contact Photography Festival is taking place through the month of May. Unlike the other famous Toronto festivals, including HotDocs and TIFF, this one is completely free – so there are no excuses – check some stuff out! This year’s theme is “Pervasive Influence: Exploring the social and political consequences of the medium of [...] The branding and identity work for the Olympics features some stunning illustration. Kudos to the Vancouver Olympic committee! Today I fired up Google Chrome and saw the Olympic graphic (or “doodle”) Google created for their homepage. (It’s pictured at the end of this article). The image is subtle and appealing. It doesn’t even [...] "World's Tallest" Illustration by Strongandfree.ca From our old building we could see, through a sliver of highrises, Toronto’s downtown and the CN Tower. Now we look west to the green canopy of the west end and if we peer south from the balcony edge we have a view of the immensity of [...] This is my team – We be strong and free baby! Yesterday the Swiss beat the favoured Russian team at the World Junior Hockey Championship. I was shouting “davai Swiss!” (Go Swiss! in Russian) with Irina cheering her homeland. I was rooting for the underdog I told her, [...] Art by a Chinese artist named Liu Bolin. He specializes in camouflage painting. His work challenges us to think about identity and ambiguity in contemporary Chinese society. Click to view larger image. It’s no secret that China has long been the world’s factory and is increasingly looking to change its position from that of producer [...] |
Mike Simpson is a teacher, writer, musician and designer from Toronto, Canada. He is a new media enthusiast and has been "strongandfree" since 1996. Mike is working on new graphic design, developing websites and multimedia, and leading training workshops on weekends. Check out Strong+Free for his Design and Media work. Check out Mike's Edu-Tech Workshop site. Please contact him at this address: mike | strongandfree.ca 
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