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Backgrounder: BlogTO had a post in late 2011 that asked readers to comment on their favourite intersections. The contributions flowed in and intersections such as Bloor and Bathurst and Queen and Spadina [...] Photo by Jackman Chiu On the morning of my birthday, August 22, we were doing our usual breakfast time things when suddenly the TV announced that Jack Layton had passed. What a shock! It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was amazing to witness the coverage on CBC and other channels [...] 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 [...] Update: March 2011 – this movie won the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 Awards ceremony A new documentary is opening – “Inside Job” – a film about the global financial crisis. Positive reviews abound: Rottentomatoes.com gave the flick an amazing 95%! Directed by Charles Ferguson, the doc features Matt Damon as [...] < Photo of Maracatu Nunca Antes, Toronto-based Brazilian music group, by Yvonne Bambrick Kensington Market is a colorful, lively place chock full of quaint shops and colorful characters. On the last Sunday of every month they hold an innovative, car-free, pedestrian-only street festival. My pal Grey Coyote is the President of the Kensington Market Action Committee [...] 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 [...] This movie looks like a “must see.” The director, Kevin McMahon has directed some amazing documentaries, including one of my favorites, “McLuhan’s Wake” – a doc on the Canadian media communications theorist Marshall McLuhan. Green Screens presents WATERLIFE Directed by Kevin McMahon, 2009, 109 minutes. Tuesday June 1 at 7pm FREE NFB Cinema – 150 [...] "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 [...] 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 [...] Today in the Toronto Star there is an interesting article on the disappearance of “Italiese,” a Toronto-specific dialect of Italian that was spoken frequently a generation ago. The article touches on the larger issue of global language extinction and ponders what the relationship of language is to culture and how, internationally, societies become increasingly homogeneous as 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 a hybrid music and video project called "City Symphony" and teaching at George Brown College. Check out Strong+Free for his Design and Media work. Contact him: mike @ strongandfree.ca 
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