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Illustration by Mike Simpson – Strong-and-Free Update (March 29): Yesterday the band Arcade Fire completed the trifecta – winning Best Group and 3 other awards at the Canadian Juno awards – after bringing home awards at both the British and American music awards shows. Arcade Fire won a Grammy award on Sunday [...] I have been teaching ESL and TESL for about ten years, and as a specialist in teaching speaking, listening and pronunciation, I have frequently used both movies and music in the classroom. I created “Movie Study” worksheets with teacher/student components–a project I undertook when working at Pacific Language Institute (PLI). As a singer-songwriter I would [...] I picked up the September 2010 issue of Wired Magazine and was struck by the amazing cover story and (design!). It boldly declares that the “Web is Dead!” For those of you who would like my take and synopsis, please read on. (Link at end of this blog post). The basic premise of the article [...] Two art show / exhibitions open this Friday that explore the geography of Ontario, one focusing on the man-made spit at the foot of Leslie St. in Toronto, and the other on the remote wilds of northern Ontario, north of Thunder Bay by and reached via Highway 11. I don’t really frequent art openings and [...] 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 [...] Toronto author and publisher Michael Redhill Michael Redhill is a Toronto-based author and publisher. He has taught at the University of Toronto, where he is also presently the “Writer in Residence.” A few years ago, I was fortunate to have him as my instructor for a Creative Writing (Poetry) course. He has written a [...] Click to open larger version This is a design based on stills I’m working with from a “city – streets” themed video I’m making called “Step Forward.” The dancer in this scene is Andy Wye. I want to composite him at various sizes dancing across a primitive cave background with prehistoric art. [...] I have just launched the “Radio Coco Remix” site and released the “Coconut Radio” video on YouTube. I refer to the site in the context of an “open source remix” project. Perhaps that’s a bit oxymoronic an expression – by nature the idea of the remix involves taking the stems or bed tracks of a [...] My comp art from TV series "The Wire" I often claim that I’m not much of a TV watcher – aside from a Saturday night hockey game or interesting doc on TVO or Newsworld. Truth is, that all changed when I got hooked on “Northern Exposure” about 8 years ago. I saw almost the [...] |
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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