Monday is Canada Day here in the Great White North. Unlike last year, when we were blanketed by wildfire smoke, the weather looks like it will be good if a bit cooler than seasonal (which is fine by me). I'll be taking the weekend off from blogging and will be back here on Tuesday.
In the meantime here's a picture of one of our native species, the Canada goose.
 |
| Canada geese at the bay |
The Group of Seven were an important and influential school of Canadian landscape artists. They aren't particularly well known outside of Canada, though that is changing, but in Canada, they are THE artists that people will mention if you ask them to name a Canadian artist. And for good reason too; their paintings are lovely.
 |
| Overlooking Lake Superior |
They travelled extensively, especially in Ontario, and many of their paintings are of scenes in Northern Ontario and around Sault Ste. Marie where I grew up.
Here's a site created by Sault Tourism that allows you to view some of the locations that they made famous and get information about how you can visit the area to see those sites in person. I highly recommend doing so; the Sault is a great place to visit and the scenery of Algoma is awe inspiring.
Trey Anastasio, guitarist for Phish, is one of the most creative and influential rock musicians playing today. He's managed the rare feat of making Phish both a creative and commercial success and helped to foster a whole generation of new jam bands.
Vulture has published a long profile interview with Anastasio.
Your annoying friend who won’t shut up about Phish has a point: The 40-year-old jam band with its intensely dedicated following is in an incredible groove right now. They rang in 2024 with a puppet-enhanced New Year’s gig, then brought their psychedelic improvisation skills to the Las Vegas Sphere for four sold-out nights with no repeats on the set list or the screens. They’ve also got a new album, Evolve, coming out on July 12, just in time for a summer tour that concludes with their own four-day festival (they do this kind of thing periodically) in Delaware.
But for the prolific Trey Anastasio, Phish’s primary songwriter, guitarist, and lead singer, that’s not nearly enough. You may have seen him recently sit in with Billy Joel or introduce Steely Dan at the Songwriters Hall of Fame when he should have been home practicing for some upcoming solo gigs he has with a full symphony orchestra. He also just ended a short tour with his Trey Anastasio Band, a slimmed-down quartet from the usual percussion-rich, horn-enhanced octet, following the death of saxophonist and backup vocalist James Casey.
If you don't have time to read it, Relix has a helpful summary of some of the key points. But I encourage you to read the full Vulture article, which takes advantage of the web format to embed some of the songs being discussed in the profile.
Paper subway tickets in Montreal have an NFC chip in them that's about the size of a grain of salt and get their power from the radio signal broadcast from the reader in the ticket gate.
To use the Montreal subway (the Métro), you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it opens. The ticket works through a system called NFC, but what's happening internally? How does the ticket work without a battery? How does it communicate with the turnstile? And how can it be so cheap that you can throw the ticket away after one use? To answer these questions, I opened up a ticket and examined the tiny chip inside.
This is mind-boggling tech that reminds me of the smart dust in Vernor Vinge's 1999 science fiction novel, A DEEPNESS ON THE SKY. And the chips cost only 9 cents.
Great research and analysis of the tech in this article.
The winners of the 2024 Locus Awards have been announced. These awards are voted on by the readers and subscribers of Locus, the field's newsmagazine.
These are some of the winners:
Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.
 |
| A transplanted yucca |
This week's photo is another typical Southern Ontario scene taken near the Crooked Creek Garden Centre, northeast of Newcastle. I took this with my Pixel 8 Pro, cropped it to remove the motion-blurred foreground, and applied the Dynamic filter in Google Photos.
 |
| Farmland near Newcastle |
Mike Campbell was the guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and like Petty himself, had a side band, the Dirty Knobs. They've just released a new album, and if you like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, you'll probably like it. I do.
Once again, I've collected links to several articles about misinformation and disinformation. Some of these are quite long, but very much worth taking the time to read.
I'm going to start with a newsletter post from author Annalee Newitz, who has just published a book called Stories Are Weapons about the history of psychological operations, or psyops. Many modern disinformation campaigns fall into this category. If you read one article from this post, it should probably be this one. The post is titled "How to recognize a psyop in three easy steps". Here's how it starts:
Psyops are everywhere, but not in the way that you might think. Here is a quick-and-dirty guide to recognizing these mind-warping weapons in the wild.
As I discovered while researching my new book Stories Are Weapons, psychological warfare became a professional industry in the early twentieth century, modeled in part on the new field of public relations. The basic structure of an American psyop is cobbled together out of advertising techniques, pop psychology, and pulp fiction tropes. Using insights gleaned from these sources, the military spent the early years of the 20th century figuring out how to craft messages that can hurt, demoralize, and distract you.
Then something terrible but predictable happened. Just as military equipment was transferred to civilian police forces during the 1990s, psyops found their way into the arsenals of culture warriors today.
Unlike bombs, however, psyops can be dodged. Once you know what to look for, your brain can treat this cultural ordinance exactly the way your spam filter treats e-mails about CrYpT0 InVeStMeNt$ – it will throw them in your mental trashcan unread, so that you can focus on constructive information.
In a following newsletter post, she talks about two other psyop campaigns, both of which have had major effects.
This past week, the RNC feed has misleadingly called attention to two video clips of Biden. One was so distorted that it resulted in a “community note” on the X platform calling out its dishonesty. But the RNC’s dismal track record — which we have highlighted on multiple occasions — has not stopped right-leaning outfits from echoing the RNC’s framing and reinforcing its narrative that Biden has lost a step.
It's a sad commentary on the current state of the news media that such blatant misrepresentations are being passed off a actual news by media outlets.
Here's another example of disinformation, perhaps not as impactful, about videos and photos purporting to show US aircraft carriers being attacked in the Red Sea. However:
This video shows the USS Eisenhower docked at Pier 12 at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia in April 2023.
It was created by combining an image from Google Earth/Maps of the ship at dock & pasting a Shutterstock photo of a bullet hole over the flight deck as fake damage.
Here's an article about a major Russian campaign to influence news media in the West.
“Please Check”. More than 800 organisations, among which many media outlets have been flooded with emails and social media mentions urging them to verify dubious claims undermining Ukraine, France and Germany for the most part. The issue is that these solicitations are part of a massive pro-Russian operation, still ongoing at the time of writing.
Finally, a long article from Wired about how programmatic advertising leads to the spread of misinformation. There's more going on than just ads that can load malware. The unintended consequences of the current system are wider and deeper than you might think.
I've always enjoyed multiverse stories, those that science fiction fans used to call "alternate histories" before the rise of the MCU. I also love the Beatles and enjoyed both Bryce Zabel's Once There Was a Way and the movie Yesterday, so I was interested when I heard about It's Real Life, an alternate history by Paul Levison. (Disclosure: I received a review copy of the ebook directly from the author after posting a comment on his Facebook page).
The first paragraph introduces the alternate timeline.
That’s 'Real Life,' from the Beatles’ 1985 Go and Come LP, and I’m Pete Fornatale on WFUV’s July 4, 1996 weeklong celebration.”
Fornatale, is living in a world in which John Lennon wasn't murdered in 1980. The Beatles are still together and performing occasional concerts though otherwise the world seems much the same as ours. But one day he walks through a tunnel under the Fordham University campus and comes out in a slightly different world, one in which the train line has a different name, a different president is on the bill he gives to a busker, and John Lennon was shot in 1980. Our world, in other words.
As the story progresses he travels between several different timelines, but only one has the Lennon assassination and he becomes obsessed with the idea of preventing Lennon's death. Along the way, he meets the mysterious Suzanne, who claims to be the woman who inspired Leonard Cohen's famous song. And she's also able to travel between timelines, and has other capabilities.
Levinson throws in a lot of Beatles lore, along with other musicians (David Bowie, Tom Petty, and Leonard Cohen all make appearances, and in one of my favourite moments treats us to a Beatles concert in Central Park.
Along the way, Levinson juggles several timelines, all of which are similar to ours, but with the Beatles present, something I found a bit implausible. The ending of the story seems to be a setup for a sequel. But it's still an enjoyable read, especially if you're a fan of the Beatles or 20th-century rock.
A year ago today, the Titan submersible imploded on its way to the site of the Titanic, killing the five passengers. Since then, many details about the development of the submersible have come to light. It's now clear that Titan was a disaster waiting to happen, driven by the hubris of OceanGate's CEO, Stockton Rush.
Wired has published a long article published a long article that examines the history of Titan, OceanGate, and Stockton Rush. I found it compelling reading. Given what we know now, it's hard to believe that OceanGate was able to send Titan to the Titanic in the first place. It's a classic case of a leader's megalomania driving a company to destruction.
One former employee remembers preparing Titan for multiple successful Titanic missions, prior to 2023. “I put my heart and soul into building that sub,” he says. “Many, many hours inside the sub, outside the sub, building and testing it. She was my baby.”
Each time Titan was about to dip beneath the waves, he would pat her hull lightly. “I’d say, ‘Come on back to me baby, you’ll make it, you can do it.’ And when she’d come back up to the surface, I’d say, ‘Good job. You got everyone back up safe.’”
Until one day, she didn’t.
Now the bottom of the North Atlantic is littered with more evidence of human hubris, tiny pieces of a plastic video-game controller nestling among the barnacle-encrusted gold fixtures of the Titanic. Both vessels were at the cutting edge of technology, both exemplars of safety in the eyes of their overconfident creators. And in both cases, their passengers paid the price.
Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.
 |
| Half moon |
I took this photo on Durham Regional Road 18 between Port Hope and Newcastle. It's a typical Southern Ontario summer scene. I love the rolling hills of this part of the province. This was taken with the 5x zoom on my Pixel 8 Pro, cropped to eliminate some distracting telephone polls, and I used the Dynamic filter in Google Photos to add some punch.
 |
| On Regional Road 18 |
Out of all the acts I would like to see perform live, the top three are probably Drive-by Truckers, Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, and Richard Thompson (preferably with his electric band). So it was with some elation that I recently scored tickets to see Drive-by Truckers at the Danforth Music Hall in October. This will be the first time I'll have seen them live.
Now, in one of those bizarre coincidences that sometimes make me wonder if the universe is not only uncaring but malicious, Richard Thompson announced a Toronto date for his fall tour, and it's the same night that I'm going to see Drive-by Truckers. I'll just have to console myself by remembering that I've seem Thompson perform many times, both solo and with his band. was with his band in Toronto on a very cold December night in 2018.
I would post a recent Thompson concert if I could find a good-quality one that was more recent than the Shrewsbury video that I already mentioned in the post linked above.
Instead, here's decent audience recording of Drive-by Truckers concert from 2023. Video is from a fixed camera, so steady. I haven't listened to the whole performance yet, but what I've heard is making me glad that I will finally be seeing them.
This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.
 |
| Decrepit shed and flowers |
The New York Times has published a list (gift link) of the 25 "images that have best captured — and changed — the world since 1955". The judges were a varied group of photographers and academics.
I spent some time viewing the images and reading the descriptions. As you might expect, it's a varied group containing well known images from the news and esoteric fine art photos. I've seen many of the images before but nowhere near all of them.
If I had to pick one image from the list it would be William E. Anders' "Earthrise" from the Appllo 8 mission, an image that helped to galvanize the modern environmental movement. Notably, there are no images by Edward Burtynsky, the Canadian environmntal photographer whose photos are now a cornerstone of that movement.
It's interesting that they published the article in their Style magazine and not in the main Sunday magazine. I wonder why,
It's a fascinating article, well worth the taking the time to read and think about.
Over the weekend, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced the winners of the 2023 Nebula Awards. The awards are voted on by SFWA members and are one of the major awards in the science fiction and fantasy field.
These are some of the winners.
Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.
 |
| The hydro marsh from Alex Robertson park |
This week's photo was taken along the shore of Lake Ontario with my Fujifilm X-S10 and the wonderful 27 mm. pancake lens. I grew up in Northern Ontario and love being close to the lake even if the scenery is rather more bland then up north. Note the two gulls on the rock also enjoying the view. The boat on the horizon is probably checking the water intakes for the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. I edited this in Photoshop to correct an accidental overexposure and straighten the horizon.
 |
| Fujifilm X-S10 with 27 mm. F2.8 WR at F4, 1/4000 second, ISO 640, Velvia film simulation. |
Nancy and I saw Stephen Fearing last month in Scarborough in one of the series of concerts put on by Acoustic Harvest. We've seen him several times, both as a solo performer and as part of the Canadian folk-rock supergroup, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, and always enjoyed his performances.
During the concert, he mentioned that he'd performed in Europe with a Danish group called The Sentimentals and that one of the shows was on YouTube. That's this week's musical treat: lStephen Fearing and The Sentimentals at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival* in 2022. This is a pro-shot video with soundboard audio and is first rate in every respect. And he's wearing the same shirt that he wore in Scarborough. Enjoy.
* The festival is not allowing me to embed the video here. On the positive side, they have posted many of their concerts to YouTube including Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Richard Thompson, Steeleye Span and other top flight acts and many more by artists I don't know but who are probably worth checking out.Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in May. I do these posts mainly so I can keep track of what we've been watching, so the reviews are cursory.
Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.
 |
| A peaceful place |
I haven't seen many swans on the bay recently and now I know why. They've been nesting and they're now out with their cygnets. I took this picture of a lovely swan family with my Pixel 8 Pro.
 |
| A family of swans |
This week's musical treat is a rather obscure album by Miles Davis that I had not heard of until reading this articlereading this article from Everything Jazz. Recorded in Paris 1957, it's the soundtrack to the filrm Ascenseur pour l'echafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) directed by Louis Malle.
He was met at the airport by his old flame, the actress and singer Juliette Greco, and 24-year-old film director Louis Malle, a crucial figure in the burgeoning Nouvelle Vague movement. Malle had an intriguing proposition for Miles – the offer of a soundtrack for his debut film, “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud”, starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as a couple embarking on an illicit, murderous romance. Miles accepted the assignment, subject to viewing a rough cut.
The album is classic atmospheric Miles, parts very reminiscent of Kind of Blue, which he would record in 1958. The film, under its English title, is streaming on Plex or can be rented on Apple TV so I may check it out. But for now I'm very much enjoying the album and I hope you do to.
