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Continue reading Iconic Canadian Connections – Coupland’s McLuhan Book Reviewed
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 and a loyal supporter of community events like Pedestrian Sundays. I asked him to write about the event and tell us what we might expect for the last two events on September 26th and October 31st. Continue reading Pedestrian Sundays Rock Toronto’s Kensington Market
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 is that the Internet, still essentially a relatively new technology and communications medium, is expanding, while the “web” is dying. Continue reading Web is Dead but ‘Net Lives On: Wired Magazine 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’m a marginal participant, but in the last year I attended Contact Photography Festival, the Gladstone on an occasion or two, and a handful of cool shows involving friends (including the amazing YYZ shopping mall at 401 Richmond that my friend Ulysses participated in). I was really stoked to get emails from two gallery spaces early this week. This weekend two shows open which document explorations of urban/wilderness spaces and concepts at the geographic extremes of Toronto and northern Ontario (easily 24 hours driving north of the megacity). Continue reading Art exhibits explore Toronto/Ontario urban and wilderness spaces
For many Torontonians, summer in the city means getting an opportunity to catch a little of the flavor that the world brings here via Toronto’s immigrant communities. The major festivals are a great place to start and I will outline some here and offer a few quieter “year-round” activities you might consider as well. Continue reading Toronto Summer Festivals – A Glimpse of the World at Home
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 of a classic Ghanaian group called Osibisa perform “Sunshine Day.” I still remember this first time I heard that incredible positive funky rock song. It reminded me of the anthem quality in the positive rock/reggae crossover songs by Bob Marley. One of the astonishing images from the first part of the ceremony was the giant patchwork quilt that spread out on the floor of the stadium – in the shape of the African continent. And then slowly the other continents slowly formed around Africa as the participants roamed the floor. The quilt was a beautiful metaphor and a stunning visual. Watch for it in highlights on TV and video. One of the amazing things that I just discovered is that K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag” is apparently NOT an official song for the World Cup. Continue reading The World Comes Home to Africa – FIFA World Cup 2010 – A Musical Perspective It’s amazing to think about the importance of Photoshop in my life. As a graphic designer I have fired up Photoshop nearly every day for the last ten years, and for a few years prior to that, friends were doing the “firing up” and I was just along for the amazing ride. In 1996, with the help of my friend Pete, I started designing logos for t-shirts. My first design was a pure bite of the Kiss logo – my brainstorm was that “kiss” (pronounced) backwards was “sick.” And so Sick was clothing was born. Continue reading Photoshop Turns 20 Can my site rank higher than Facebook and Yahoo? Yes, in the right circumstances, and with a terrifically crafted post on a specific subject. The Contact Photography Festival just passed and my blog’s Google rank was higher than EYE weekly magazine and both the Facebook page for the fest and a page in Yahoo Business. The Google result for “Contact Photography Festival” placed me on the third page of results (out of millions) and confirmed to me that my online marketing strategies are paying off. People do come to my site, read my articles and check out my videos. The question is: “How to convert that into something tangible”? You’ll also note that my blog contains no advertising of any sort, so some might ask the more elementary question “Why blog?” Continue reading Build It and They Will Come – Self-Marketing in the “DIY” Digital Age |
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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