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Dec. 24th, 2016
I spent most of yesterday evening at Toronto's Gardiner Museum, the national museum of ceramics located opposite the Royal Ontario Museum at Queen's Park and Bloor. The Gardiner is a good specialist museum, with a very selection of ceramics covering vast stretches of time and space, from the ancient to the contemporary. The specialist galleries on the first floor are informative, covering more specialized areas like the pre-Columbian potteries of the Americas and contemporary art, while the great collection of 18th century European ceramics on the second floor is eyecatching. The Gardiner does a great job of presenting the European search for the ability to indigenously manufacture porcelain, until that century known only through Chinese trade goods, in a light our economics-inspired culture can get.
All of the 35 photos I took are online inthis Facebook album.
All of the 35 photos I took are online inthis Facebook album.
[BLOG] Some Saturday links
Dec. 24th, 2016 10:54 am- The Dragon's Gaze reports on the ruby winds of super-hot exoplanet HAT-P-7b.
- The Dragon's Tales reports on new studies of pre-Columbian Cahokia.
- Far Outliers reports on China's Democracy Wall of 1978.
- Language Log considers William Hazlitt's writings on the difference between speech and writing.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the case of the Rockettes, forced to perform for Trump.
- Marginal Revolution notes a study suggesting that women who get promotions face relationship issues.
- The NYRB Daily reports on the film Toni Erdmann.
- Seriously Science reports on a study suggesting women make better doctors than men.
- Window on Eurasia looks at a recommendation by Western experts that Balts should prepare or partisan warfare, and suggests Putin's imperialism is an effort to bolster an unstable Russia.
I was not the only person on my Facebook friends list stunned by the above photo, taken in Ankara by Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici in the seconds after the assassination of Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov. Ozbilici's photo--he took multiple photos, but this is the most famous one--of the killer, Mevlut Mert Altintas, caught in his delivery of his manifesto with gun raised, is striking. It might even be iconic.
One early reaction of the media, as seen at Slate and Petapixel and Mashable, was to congratulate Ozbilici on his nerve, on his ability to take these photos while he was justified in fearing for his life. The Los Angeles Times carried an interview with interview with Ozbilici, explaining what he was thinking at the moment he took this and the other photographs.
I was, of course, fearful and knew of the danger if the gunman turned toward me. But I advanced a little and photographed the man as he hectored his desperate, captive audience.
This is what I was thinking: "I'm here. Even if I get hit and injured, or killed, I'm a journalist. I have to do my work. I could run away without making any photos…. But I wouldn't have a proper answer if people later ask me: 'Why didn't you take pictures?' "
I even thought about friends and colleagues who have died while taking photographs in conflict zones over the years.
As my mind raced, I saw that the man was agitated — and yet, he was, strangely, in control of himself. He shouted at everyone to stand back. Security guards ordered us to vacate the hall and we left.
I myself am impressed by his skill. Ozbilici deserves something.
I was also wondering what Susan Sontag, writer and commentator on all things including philosophy, would think of this. As noted at Brainpickings, Sontag's writing was astonishingly prescient, noting the ability of the photograph to fix an audience's understanding of what happened with an event. What would she have thought about this photo, memorializing this moment and this event for all time, shared instantaneously across the Internet?
I was also reminded of an article I read in 2012, by sociologist Zeynep Tufekci, noting how images of atrocity can be fixed and preserved and used to actively maintain memory and a desire for vengeance for far longer than we think. What will this photo be taken to signify in the longer haul, I wonder and fear?
Wired's Laura Mallonee explains how the emotive power of the photograph helps the spread of fake news.
During a campaign stop in South Carolina last winter, Hillary Clinton stumbled as she climbed the steps of an antebellum mansion in Charleston. Aides helped her regain her balance in a vulnerable but nondescript moment captured by Getty photographer Mark Makela. He didn’t think much of it until August, when the alt-right news site Breitbart touted it as evidence of Clinton’s failing health.
“It was really bizarre and dispiriting to see,” he says. “We’re always attuned to photographic manipulation, but what was more sinister in this situation was the misappropriation of a photo.”
Misappropriation and misrepresentation of images helped drive the growth of fake news. A photograph of tour buses lined up in Austin became proof that Democrats were bringing protestors to Trump rallies. Conspiracy theorists say a screenshot from a video of President Obama playing ping pong reveal his participation in a pedophilia ring operating in a Washington DC pizza parlor. (Never mind that the ring does not exist and nothing untoward has happened at the pizza place.) Some argued that an image of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s hands revealed his involvement in satanic rituals.
Such stories rely on images to sell bogus narratives. The people publishing and promoting fake news routinely take photos out of context, digitally alter them, or combine them with text to manipulate readers, knowing that people tend to accept photographs as truthful representations. “The images need to look legitimate enough to support the ‘realistic’ nature of the article,” says David Berkowitz of the social media company Sysomos. “If it’s too far-fetched, it won’t spread beyond the fringe, and the goal when someone is pushing fake news is to make it go mainstream.”
NOW Toronto's Jonathan Goldsbie examines how Toronto journalist Craig Silverman helped expose the existence of the phenomenon of fake news.
It’s generally irresponsible to attribute an election result to any one thing – but in a presidential race as close as the one the U.S. just had, any one thing could conceivably have made the difference.
In addition to especially alarming factors such as apparent Russian intervention and the resurgence of white nationalism, another theme has dominated the post-election narrative: the ascendant influence of fake news. All of a sudden, it has become difficult to consider American political dynamics without wading in to questions of epistemology – how do people know the things they know, and how do those beliefs shape not only their positions on issues but understandings of reality at large?
Unlike an election result, however, this shift in political discourse can be credited to a discrete cause: the work of Toronto-based BuzzFeed reporter Craig Silverman, whose investigations into the propagation and effects of accidental propaganda have rippled through the world’s most powerful institutions.
Late last month, for example, The New Yorker reported that U.S. President Barack Obama “talked almost obsessively” about Silverman’s pre-election story (co-authored with British researcher Lawrence Alexander) that exposed the fake-news racket centred in the small town of Veles, Macedonia, where teenagers discovered that tricking American Facebook users into clicking and sharing pro-Trump hoaxes could be a ridiculously profitable enterprise. Another of Silverman's pieces, showing that fake election news had outperformed legitimate stories on Facebook, had such thorough penetration into the zeitgeist that Reuters reported even Pope Francis had characterized the spreading of fake news as a sin. (The Vatican's English-language transcript of his remarks, translated from the original Spanish, however, leaves some doubt as to whether he was actually alluding to the same phenomenon.)
When BuzzFeed News named Silverman its media editor at the start of December – promoted from his former role as founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada – the site’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, told Fortune that fake news is the type of story that "Craig has been kind of preparing for for some time – maybe his whole life."
The Toronto Star's Azzura Lalani reports on the remarkable stalls in building a new GO Transit station in Burlington.
The long delayed Burlington GO station is turning out to be more of a wait station, with construction not expected to be completed until at least next spring.
Construction of the $13.8-million project began in fall 2012 and was set to be completed by spring 2014, but almost three years later, the station is still in the lurch.
The new station was commissioned to accommodate the increased ridership and address problems with crowding, but over four years since construction began, fences draped in black cloth, wooden boarding and caution tape still block off areas.
Metrolinx, responsible for overseeing the construction of the station, wrote in a statement that it “is disappointed with this contractor’s (Bondfield) performance to date. We share the public’s frustration and apologize for the delays and appreciate their patience.”
But, added Metrolinx, they won’t be cancelling the contract with the Ontario-based construction company, Bondfield Construction.
The Globe and Mail carries Martin Knelman's report observing the major issues facing Toronto's city-owned theatres. These problems sound dishearteningly structural, not just contingent on bad luck.
Clyde Wagner, Luminato’s executive producer, is leaving the arts festival to take charge of the three theatres owned by the City of Toronto – the Sony Centre, the St. Lawrence Centre and the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts.
I’d call it a rescue mission, because each of these three theatres has lost its way in recent years. Now, they need to be reinvented in order to help Toronto solidify its place as one of North America’s top theatre destinations – a reputation that also depends on the Mirvish organization with its four theatres, a lively fringe scene and two internationally renowned summer festivals (Stratford and Shaw) within easy reach of the city.
Despite a spiffy renovation, the Sony Centre (formerly the O’Keefe Centre) has never quite recovered from the departure of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada to the new Four Seasons Centre opera house a decade ago.
In the same period, its neighbour, the St. Lawrence Centre, lost its mandate as the place where original Canadian plays could draw large audiences and achieve mainstream success, instead relying first on shows already certified as hits in London or New York, and later driving away long-time subscribers with obscure plays from Europe.
Further north, the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts has never recovered from the shock and damage inflicted when its former operator, Livent, crashed amid charges of fraud – which eventually landed Garth Drabinsky and his Livent partner Myron Gottlieb in jail. The largest of its four spaces, once the home of major Livent musicals, became a white elephant; eventually, it was reconfigured as two smaller spaces, entailing a loss of almost 1,000 seats.
CBC News reports on some potential developments that would be lovely for Ottawa.
The federal government has been presented with three leading ideas on what to do with the former U.S. embassy in Ottawa, which has stood vacant for nearly 20 years on prime real estate directly across from Parliament Hill.
A proposal to build a national portrait gallery on the site was scrapped by former prime minister Stephen Harper a decade ago, shortly after he assumed office.
A report commissioned last summer for Public Services and Procurement Canada and released publicly on Thursday gauged support for six options for the building at 100 Wellington St.
The top three choices identified in surveys conducted by Ekos Research Associates are:
A "Canada House" venue that would give visitors a "taste of the country's diversity achievements" while also showcasing "the best of the provinces and territories."
A gallery that would host "artwork of national significance."
An Indigenous cultural facility that would highlight the "culture, achievements and the prominent role" of Canada's Aboriginal peoples.
The other options included a museum, a tourism information centre and an interpretive centre for Parliament.
The Globe and Mail's Marsha Lederman describes a program in Vancouver for artists that goes some way towards making the city actually affordable for them.
In a city such as Vancouver, high rents and a low vacancy rate do not paint a pretty picture – particularly for artists, who need a place to live as well as a studio space in which to work. Solutions can be trying and not always conducive to one’s artistic practice – finding a roommate, sharing a studio, getting a day job or, yes, leaving town. And size restrictions imposed by space issues can also limit the kind of work an artist produces.
Colleen Heslin currently has three works at the Vancouver Art Gallery in the recently opened exhibition Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures, the inaugural triennial featuring local artists.
Ms. Heslin’s works are dye on linen paintings. They are all large, but one of them, True Grey, 2016, is enormous – 330-by-244 centimetres.
The Vancouver-based artist says her studio “was very crucial” in creating the pieces. For one thing, it was big enough.
Her place has 1,075 square feet over two levels, with a bright living space upstairs and a studio space below with very high ceilings. In the living area, the windowsills are lined with plants, there’s a full kitchen – including a dishwasher – and room for a large dining table, couch, bed and more. Downstairs, there’s a large custom-built work table on wheels, generous storage space for paintings and sculptures, a shelving system for textiles and all kinds of floor space, where even large works, such as True Grey, can be easily laid out.
Her rent is $440 a month.
Ms. Heslin is one of the beneficiaries of the City of Vancouver’s Artist Live-Work Studio Awards Program, which grants spaces to Vancouver-based artists at low or no rent based on financial need and artistic merit.
There are currently seven studios in the program – two work-only and five live-work spaces. Two are awarded at no cost and the other five at significantly reduced rents for three-year terms.
It’s enough time, Ms. Heslin says, to make a difference in an artist’s practice – and the cost is liberating. Previously, she paid about $1,000 for her apartment and separate studio space, which she shared. In the new space, she’s been able to work with thicker, stronger materials. And the washer and dryer in the unit have helped enormously with the dying that is crucial to her practice.
The Toronto Star's Maria Jimenez has a great article exploring the motivations for Chinese to invest in Canadian real estate. From a Chinese perspective, contending with even higher real estate prices than in Canada and with greater potential for instability, there are few reasons not to go ahead and buy something here.
While Canadians complain about inflated real estate prices, try buying a home in Shanghai.
A two-bedroom unit in “Wonderful Place,” a complex of highrise towers in the city’s northeast, has no closets, a galley kitchen, a minuscule balcony crammed with clothing racks and an extra fridge in the living room. While the grounds boast trimmed lawns and burbling fountains — the area is marketed as a “21st-century eco-friendly knowledge-oriented garden district” — the home is run-of-the-mill. But the cost is not. It is listed for $2 million (Canadian).
A shabbier 400-square-foot apartment in a building nearby goes for $1.6-million. Parking is $60,000 extra.
“We don’t have a lot of vacancies,” a real estate agent for this area, New Jiangwan City, tells a Star reporter.
The real estate bubble in one of China’s richest cities is so frenzied the average price for new homes rose by 30 per cent in the first three quarters of 2016. In Beijing and Shenzhen, the housing markets have increased by a similar amount, making them among the most expensive cities in the world to buy a home.
The Shanghai government has tried to cool the housing market, making it more difficult for existing property owners to buy another home, and increasing down payment requirements.
“Real estate in China is just crazy,” says Bo Chen, a 39-year-old economist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. “People have money and they want to put it somewhere.”
For many, somewhere means Canada.
The Toronto Star shares Shawn Micallef's timely article about humble overlooked Christmas trees. This does matter, perhaps particularly tonight, when my Instagram feed is still fresh with photos of the great showy trees of the Eaton Centre and City Hall. Less showy things also matter.
The hardest-working Christmas tree in Toronto is in Cumberland Terrace at Yonge and Bloor Sts. It stands resolute in a back hallway of this near-forgotten 1970s mall, tucked in behind the shiny Bloor shops, a place slated for demolition and redevelopment.
Each year somebody pulls out the stubby artificial tree from storage and sets it up with care on the disco-era brown tiles, decorating it with white and gold ornaments. As holiday trees go it’s understated, without a star or angel, just an electric cord running out of the top. There’s a certain nobility to it among surroundings that are no longer in style (though for those of us who hold a candle for these sorts of accidentally retro places, the tree is an added bonus).
I like to think it’s a memorial tree for the Potter’s Field that used to be here, Yorkville’s non-sectarian cemetery for the poor. Though closed in 1855, after which the 6,685 bodies were moved to the Toronto Necropolis and Mount Pleasant Cemetery, this was their first resting spot and these unnamed, dispossessed early Torontonians deserve a nice tree of their own.
All over the city trees like this, sometimes humble, sometimes spectacularly grand, decorate the most everyday, ordinary, unremarkable and usually ignored places. All are gestures of joy and light, secular or sacred, depending on who’s doing the viewing. Building lobbies, corridors and concourses get the treatment too; the Scrooges won’t notice but the holiday decorations are the one time of year when often anonymous architectural spaces get a lot of attention.
The building lobbies of office towers have the most elaborate decoration schemes, the handiwork of interior design teams who do this kind of thing for a living. More interesting perhaps are the ones that are obviously done by non-professionals, those found in apartment building lobbies and businesses without big decor budgets. The ornaments may not have the sentimental value found on domestic trees, but these still have a quirky human touch the big corporate decorations don’t.
CBC News' Cameron MacIntosh has a wonderful story examining how Icelandic-Canadians still make vinarterta, a classic Icelandic Christmas cake that is now more popular among descendants of Icelandic emigrants in Canada (and elsewhere) than in Iceland.
Now what actually constitutes a vinarterta is an open and sometimes passionate debate. It's generally accepted that the cake dates back to at least the 1870s, when the first big wave of Icelandic immigration came to Canada.
An estimated 20,000 Icelanders — almost one-fifth of the population — left for North America. They were fleeing poverty, ruthless cold and environmental catastrophe in the form of a volcano that had spewed ash all over the island, rendering its agriculture useless.
By the early 1890s, "New Iceland," located around what is now modern-day Gimli, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, would become the largest Icelandic settlement beyond the island's own shores.
In the following decades, many of those Icelanders ended up changing their names and losing their language; yet somehow, that cake endured, the recipe passed down from generation to generation as a sort of cultural touchstone.
Purists will tell you it's a round cake, with several very thin vanilla-flavoured, cookie-like layers, bound together, without exception, by a filling made of prune and spices, including cinnamon, cloves and cardamom — ingredients that would have been considered specialty items in 1870s Iceland.
These days, you will find different takes on it — blueberry, strawberry, even maple syrup versions. (My own amma would have scoffed at that.)
Most interestingly, what many in North America believe to be the quintessential Icelandic dish is not all that common in Iceland.
Among other things, I think I may venture out to Pacific Mall. Why not? It's been years since I've been.
What about you? What do you have planned for tomorrow?
What about you? What do you have planned for tomorrow?