I did see some interesting Halloween costumes this year. But I couldn’t resist writing another Halloween rant about female costumes… Here it goes:
High heels. Fishnet stockings. Endless cleavages. While only the most daring women would wear those on a night out, they are everywhere on Halloween night, as part of a French maid, a naughty nurse or yet another schoolgirl costume.
We should just as well go buy our Halloween attires at the local sex shop instead of lining up in the cold to enter the costume store. And that’s because Halloween, which is supposed to be the opportunity to explore the unknown, cross the lines and be someone we’re not supposed to be, has just become another way to turn ourselves into sexual objects.
Take uniforms, for example. Firefighters or airplane pilots costumes for men look just like the real ones. But finding a female uniform that hasn’t been altered (meaning shortened) and isn’t made out of leather or vinyl is a challenge that I haven’t been able to solve.
I’m currently working on an article about Lyme disease. This is the trailer of a new documentary currently being shown in the US. I hope it will come to Montreal soon.
Barack Obama hasn’t yet won the presidential race, but he’s already won the heart of advertisers. He has been named Marketer of the year for 2008 by hundreds of advertising professionals gathered for Advertising Age’s anual contest. Obama won in front of Apple and Nike, because of his ability to market hismself and create a social network in which people can easily engage.
Mon couch est actuellement… inexistant, mais cet article pourrait servir à d’autres. Ça m’étonne toujours que des gens ne connaissent pas le couch surfing, et encore plus qu’ils refusent de l’essayer.
Last week-end I was in Toronto and I was amazed by the composting system organized by the city. It works like recycling: each resident disposes of compostable waste (food, paper…) into little bins given by the city. The content of the bins gets picked up every week. It allows residents to considerably reduce the amount of garbage that they produce without having to take care of the compost themselves, and also reduces the amount of waste that goes to the landfill.
When are we getting this in Montreal? Before or after the recycling bins get wind-resistant?
My favourite radio news program has been cancelled. It succeeded in all its goals: reach a younger audience, deliver the news in an original way, create a solid online presence and community… But after nine months on air it was costing too much and NPR, which produced it, didn’t give it the chance to prove it could solve the problem.
The BPP was one of my dream jobs and it gave me hope that traditional media could make an effort to adapt to the new realities of the journalism industry. It was a real inspiration; whenever I listened to it I thought that it was what I had to aim for. I feel really bitter about all this.
I recently read an opinion piece by journalist Tim Knight about the disappearance of the art of storytelling in TV news. He describes how puzzled he feels after watching TV news and his inability to remember any of the stories that were just told. I once had an argument with my TV news teacher last spring about a similar issue. One group in my class wanted to do a TV pack on a very interesting subject, but they didn’t have the authorization to film what they were talking about (it was some sort of genetic testing program in a hospital lab.) My teacher gave them some tips to find images that would fit the story, for example filming another lab to give visual clues to the audience. As a result, none of the images were directly matching with the text. I said to the teacher that it didn’t make sense to me, that this story was obviously inappropriate for the TV medium. He answered that in that type of situation, you still have to get the story by any means necessary.
I wonder what the effect of this particular story would have been on the audience. When the images don’t match what’s being said, you can’t concentrate on either one and you don’t learn anything. I don’t want my teachers to tell me how to do a crappy story just to satisfy my boss, I don’t want to tell them how to adapt to a medium that is stuck in its traditionnal way to function. I want them to tell me how to change this medium, and maybe help me to create something completely different. I’m talking about the Internet. If you use a website as a platform to deliver the news, then you can put some videos on when you have something to show, some text if it’s better to write, some sound if what’s being said is enough, or a mix of all of that. If you have that freedom, then you don’t have to put together a useless 1:30 mn pack with one relevant shot and the rest filled with nonsense. You can use text or sound to complete your one good shot.
If we use the Internet in a smart way, we could redefine the way we deliver the news and the formats we use. The media that we would choose for each section of a story would be appropriate, and they would also engage the audience into some kind of interaction. This would certainly make them remember what you just said…
I haven’t written a lot in the past weeks. That’s because I’ve been working on my new website, Defiant Imagination. It’s a new blog dedicated to great ideas that seek to improve the way we live together and to trends that shape our society. I write mostly about the rise of collaboration, which I think can be witnessed through the development of web 2.0 technologies and open-source softwares notably, but I’m also interested in urbanism, design, sustainability, the environment and many other things.
Wild Sound will still be updated as often as possible and will serve as my personal blog and online portfolio.
Go check Defiant Imagination at www.defiantimagination.com
Thanks,
Flavie
Voici le communiqué de presse concernant l’événement les 24 heures de la bande dessinée de Montréal.
Les 24 heures de la bande dessinée de Montréal
Une première édition présentée par CHOQ.FM
LES 31 MAI et 1ERJUIN 2008
En collaboration avec la Librairie Monet
www.24hBD.choq.fm
Un nouvel événement axé sur la création en bande dessinée rassemblera une quinzaine d’auteurs et des passionnés de radio dans les locaux de CHOQ.FM.
UN EVENEMENT DE CREATION BD
Le 31 mai 2008 à midi, une quinzaine d’auteurs professionnels de bande dessinée se réuniront dans les locaux de la radio CHOQ.FM, à Montréal. A partir de cet instant précis, pendant 24 heures, ils devront chacun créer une histoire improvisée en 24 pages, sur un thème décidé le jour même.
Participeront à cette première édition les auteurs David Libens (Belgique), Boulet (France), Jimmy Beaulieu, Zviane, Pierre Bouchard, Obom, Pascal Blanchet, Eva Rollin, Francis Desharnais, Iris, Catherine Lepage,
Pascal Girard, Richard Suicide, Simon Banville, Mélanie Baillargé, Leif Tande, David Turgeon. D’autres confirmations sont attendues.
UN EVENEMENT RADIOPHONIQUE
Au même moment, des passionnés de radio animeront 24 heures d’antenne sur le thème de la bande dessinée. Des entrevues, des débats et des créations sonores seront diffusés sur les ondes Internet de CHOQ.FM jusqu’au 1er juin à midi.
UN EVENEMENT A SUIVRE DE PARTOUT SUR INTERNET
A mesure de la production des planches, celles-ci seront numérisées et mises en ligne sur le site www.24hBD.choq.fm. Partout au Québec et dans le monde, tout internaute pourra suivre la progression des histoires improvisées par les auteurs invités.
ET AUSSI SUR SAINT-CATHERINE
Ceux qui auront la chance de passer devant la vitrine des locaux de CHOQ.FM (279, rue Sainte-Catherine Est) pourront admirer les planches originales, accrochées en vitrine tout au long du jour et de la nuit.
Les 24 heures de la bande dessinée de Montréal sont organisées par l’organisme sans but lucratif ARTfaBULLE, dont le mandat est de promouvoir la nouvelle bande dessinée et de favoriser les échanges entre les auteurs québécois, les auteurs du reste du Canada et les auteurs étrangers. Les 24 heures de la bande dessinée de Montréal s’inspirent de l’événement 24 hour comics, une idée de l’auteur américain et théoricien de la bande dessinée Scott McCloud.
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Contact presse : Julie Delporte, ARTfaBULLE
Tél. : (514) 277 4437 – Courriel : artfabulle@gmail.com – www.24hBD.choq.fm
Les 24 heures de la bande dessinée de Montréal
Une première édition présentée par CHOQ.FM
LES 31 MAI et 1ERJUIN 2008
En collaboration avec la Librairie Monet
www.24hBD.choq.fm
Go check this video by blogger Ethan Bodnar. I don’t really believe in the concept of a day without news, but this is just plainly beautiful (especially if you’re addicted to journalism as I am.)
Oh, and I read about it on fubiz.
