“Act like you just quit” - fantastic advice from Advertising for Peanuts.

That’s doesn’t mean flip your boss the bird, or burn down the Initech division where you work.

Instead, challenge the conventions, the traditions, the ingrained habits that have held you back.

Do you have a great idea gnawing away at your soul? Are there business processes you are certain can be improved?

Or do you just feel disaffected and detached from your work? Chances are, your colleagues and boss have noticed as well.

Think about that period between an old job and a new one. What’s your normal behaviour? You:

• immediately forget all the petty interpersonal conflicts that took up your workday
• begin forecasting the work environment, work projects and personal relationships you want to develop at your new job
• maybe even take a stab at career planning - imagining two or three steps into the future

That’s right. You embrace the opportunity to change, the opportunity to abandon all your old habits and your less-than-favourable practices.

Why not do that now? Change does not require packing boxes. It just demands a level of confidence and a willingness to risk the status quo.

You’ll be surprised by how others welcome your willingness to change your life and your performance.

Quitters may be dismissed out of hand, but you’re rarely faulted for trying your hardest.

Instead of a hagiographic shout-out, or a far too quick reference to the great man, why not take a moment to consider Marshall McLuhan, the colleague, friend and neighbour?

In the Garden with the Guru, a short essay by Bob Rodgers in the Literary Review of Canada, serves up some personal anecdotes and a reference to the academic environment that surrounded McLuhan’s work in the 50s.

“…A published statement by a hugely influential classicist from Yale is not untypical: “There is afoot a mindless orgy of trend-catching anti-literacy, best typified by the appalling popularity of the jargon-laden, hyped-up, and profoundly ahistorical works of McLuhan, designed to flatter just about all the prejudices of a TV generation in which functional illiteracy is already well advanced.â€�

McLuhan can be many things to many people, simply because he was either so wide-ranging or enigmatic. It’s interesting to note how different bloggers have drawn quotes from Rodgers’ piece, from Hidden Persuader, to Chicken Scratch, to Sans Everything, to the Banana Peel Project. Was the man a futurologist, a floor dwelling aphorism machine or what?

Technorati Tags: McLuhan, U of T, medium is the message

The forecast is in, and the men’s fashions for winter 2008 have strolled down the runways of Milan.

I love reading fashion reporting because the beat offers good writers the chance to take their adverbs, allegories and analogies for a wild ride. Throw in some strong personalities and a hint of industry desperation, and you have an entertaining mix.

Still, I thought the following passage strove a little too far to connect the world of fabric, buttons and pegged pants to real-time economic disruption:

“…DESPITE an occasional obligatory reference to the failure of the subprime mortgage market, there was little about the shows here to suggest that anyone was suffering the financial jitters. Yet perhaps the sobriety of the Armani show, whose keyword was “regal,â€� was a cue.

Design surprises were few in an Armani collection built on caution and control. Those are values that made the designer one of Italy’s wealthiest citizens and his brand among the most recognizable in the world. Those are his creative defaults. Thus his show read as the sartorial equivalent of a stop-loss order. The message was risk-averse…” (New York Times)

What is a “creative default”? Is that the same as “phoning it in”? Would contrasting plaids, an over sized logo and baggy fit be Tommy Hilfiger’s default?

Let me introduce you to the Sex Patels, a punk/alt band from the Leeds and Bradford area. (MySpace) They play a mix of 80s punk with a distinctively bhangra influence (yes, a sitar and drums are involved). You should really listen to their rendition of “once in a lifetime” - the old Talking Heads classic. I think the heavy regional accent really adds something.

How did I get here?* The Sex Patels were a last minute mention in the Guardian’s Northerner newsletter. You see, they’re playing a gig at the Trades Club at Hebden Bridge later this week.

Looking through the venue’s list of upcoming acts, it struck me that, for all our talk of online communities and interwoven social networks, we overlook the influence and value of local artists and entertainment.

A comment on the Sex Patels’ MySpace page is telling:

“…Top gig on Saturday. The highlight for me was Bry’s foot on the monitor and shouting ‘Hello Howarth Community Centre’. It was genius…

Granted, their MySpace page has had less than 15,000 hits, but the buzz seems to be building. 3,000 miles away, I can’t quite make out the band’s connection to Chumbawumba - except to note that Chumba is playing the Trades Club TWICE in March.

*aaaahhhhh - see that? I threw in a reference to “once in a lifetime“! Clever little Colin!

Technorati Tags: Northern England, Chumbawumba, Sex Patel, union hall, local music

I’ve got two comments about this pairing: can you imagine being locked in a caravan with Bjork for a two week holiday, and Billy Bragg has never claimed to have the most artistic videos.

Technorati Tags: Billy Bragg, Bjork, sexuality, sensuality, 90s

I don’t think any moment of anguish over a missed deadline - whether for brochureware, radio copy, or a strategy - can compare to the agony of standing in front of a room that wants you gone or dead.

Which can be a frequent experience for a comic working the road. “I Killed: True Stories of the Road from America’s Top Comics” offers up their stories in their own words.

Hilarious stories. Offensive stories. Stories of challenges overcome, comedy condos fumigated. I laughed, I cried, I was glad I paid for the book.

It certainly didn’t teach me how to be a comedian, but I Killed has given me some solid examples of how others have dealt with outrageous situations and used their skills to overcome opposition.

Now, if you want to pretend to be a comedian, I do have something for you: “The Hack’s Handbook.” Andy Kindler apparently wrote this three page guide for National Lampoon to help people hoping to cash into the late eighties comedy boom fake their way through an appearance.

I’m not saying this an old book, but here’s one of the suggested hack jokes:

“…The Clapper—I didn’t know Barbara Bush could act…”

Thanks to The Sound of Young America for the pointer, and a gentleman called Natan Smart for hosting the file.

And you can never go wrong listening to The Sound of Young America, hosted by Jesse Thorn, “America’s Radio Sweetheart.”

Technorati Tags: creativity, mental block, comedy, road trip, hack comic

Flickr contributors and artists redandjonny have a fantastic series of Star Wars Stormtrooper vignettes, in which they place the fearless and vicious Imperial Stormtrooper in very human and sympathetic situations, like the Death Star Maintenance man … night shift copied below.

I also like the pictures of the poor guy doing his rounds.

thanks to redandjonny for permission to post this photo.

Technorati Tags: Star Wars, Stormtrooper, night shift, industrial images, maintenance man

No, those aren’t jazz hands.

KQED and WNET are filming the San Francisco Ballet’s performance of the Nutcracker this week, and the SF Chronicle discusses how you translate a highly technical performance into language easily understood by a skilled television crew shooting the whole thing in hi definition.

““Snake arms,” Kraus said as the Arabian dancer in Act 2 began her sinuous ascent from a giant genie lamp. “Four,” called [director] Diamond, popping his thumb. Dozens of shots later, Kraus readied the crew for the Chinese dancer who “enters upright, cartwheels left,” then does “four jumps in place, kung fu leg up.“

… The challenge, said Kraus, who’s married to the director, “is to translate the movement into quick images that they can understand. The most important thing the camera people need to know is where the arms and legs are and where they’re moving, because we don’t like to cut off arms and feet.”

Technorati Tags: simple language, ballet, pro sports, television

There will be pretty pictures. There will be enigmatic pictures. There will be badly composed pictures. But the idea is fantastic. Two minds quite capable of making the leap between diverse subjects, disciplines and concepts have cooked up a competition to identify the World’s Best Urban Places and Spaces.

In typical fashion, Russell Davies and Dan Hill have taken a largely critical idea (the World’s Worst Urban Places and Spaces) and shined it up.

I like the idea because it is so loosely defined. Sifting through my memories of my favourite places, I can sort memories and images according to the effect of space, weather, feelings elicited by crowds, an absence of others, or my reaction to a conscious attempt by some smarty-pants architect or artist to define the place.

Here’s Russell’s description of the project:

“We’ll leave you to interpret ‘best’ ‘urban’ ’space’ and ‘place’ as you like. Could be anywhere or anything; bus shelters, buildings, bombsites or benches. Rather than wait until we’ve got enough for a book (which, of course, may never happen) we’re planning instead on doing a series of pamphlets. We’re going to try and persuade some top designers to do them for us. There’ll be a free one as a pdf online and lovely specially printed ones for everyone who contributes and/or who’d like to buy them.

Obviously we’ve not really worked out all the details on that yet, but will let you know when we have.

Does that sound interesting? I think it might be. Pile in, if you’d like to.”

You can find the Flickr pool they’ve set up, either to contribute or simply to gawk. Consider the submissions according to your own criteria, or to explode in Photoshop looking for naked ladies and other privacy violations.

Technorati Tags: World’s Best Urban Places, urbanism, place

Today is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of William Blake, the British engraver, illustrator, poet and all-around artist.

It might be my Anglo-Saxon heritage, where this hymn is virtually required at every church service, but Blake’s Jerusalem really evokes an image of England midway through its industrial development.

These videos evoke no such nostalgia, but the first uses Billy Bragg’s fine cover of the hymn, and the second includes an entire stadium of Britons singing along.

Technorati Tags: William Blake, Bragg, arrows of desire

You’re like me, aren’t you? You look in the fridge, and all you can see is a package of frankfurters. Hot dogs. Sausages. Processed meat in a casing.

What to do? You can’t handle another hot dog. Not even a Coney Island special. Not a Chicago Style. Not a Detroit special. A New England Coney Island?

What about a refreshing meat bunny? Or perhaps you’d like a little meat trunk on your elephant?

It’s been around for a while, but Nippon Ham has a novel way of promoting the purchase and consumption of their Winny brand hot dogs - detailed instructions on how to carve them into a variety of animals. Like these instructions for making that adorable meat bunny.

The guys at Finding Japan even filmed their effort to make the little elephants.
All that’s missing is the soft velvety bed of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft Dinner to us Canadians)

You MUST visit I am an American, and I eat Hot Dogs. And Fat Dave’s Hot Dog Adventures.

I LOVE THIS! Office Space, as played by the Justice League.

I’ll give Toronto this: spacing.ca looks like an interesting snapshot of life in a big city. (and makes me pine for my days at UofT)

A recent feature highlighted the paste-up posters you can find on any telephone pole or construction hoarding. On an impulse, a show by “Armed & Hammered” or “Happy Girl Hydroponics” might just be worth it.

Another good site for fine photography of urban graffiti is Satan’s Laundromat. Highly worth a visit.

Oh, I see you there. Putting the finishing touches on that fact sheet - the one shining up the benefits of the latest semi-automated industrial drum welding machine. It might be boring, but those 3.75 billable hours will cover the gas bill. And we’ve all heard from Jack, the new outside sales guy, how well that stuff plays with the procurement folks on the road.

“This may suck,” you say, “but my future is sitting right there in that courier bag - 900,000 delicious little bytes of twisting plot and dramatic flourish.”

There’s an ibook hiding in there, the keys worn bare by hours of concentrated writing in company lunch rooms, airport waiting lounges and Starbucks. In the side pocket, a 512 meg usb stick on a keychain.

That little stick is your last shred of hope for a truly intellectual career - the draft script you’ve been working on since you finished that Learning Annex creative writing course in 1998.

Sure, picking up the 512 meg stick might have been an unbridled act of optimism - but every great work needs to be protected. Some may rely on the waterproof binding of a Moleskine notebook, but you prefer the semi-hard aluminum and tinted lucite of an American-branded, Chinese-sourced memory stick. On an oxidized carabiner.

You’re in luck. Rick Paulas has your number, and is now offering advice on “how to write an Academy Award-winning screenplay“:

“There was a period when the Academy voter pool was believed to be comprised exclusicely of octogenarian cyborgs running on a castor oil/liquefied granola bar fuel blend. This was the 1980s, when Chariots of Fire, Gandhi and Driving Miss Daisy received top honors. More recent intelligence suggests that this is wrong � they’re predominately septuagenarian.”

Such a lot of fuss about tonight’s presidential debates. 32 pages of rules. No direct questioning between the candidates. No cuban heels. Will the cameras reveal that GWB has the better head of hair? Will Perot pop out of a Jim Lehrer suit and frantically start waving multi-coloured economic charts?

What sort of debate is that? Where’s the fun? Where’s the heckling? At my college, the Trinity College Literary Institute emphasized debating as a formal skill and recreational activity. (The difference between the two? A keg.)

To win a Lit debate, you had to have a head on your shoulders, the ability to absorb rhetorical blows, a rapport with the audience, and the ability to project your voice - far. Debates were held in formal reception rooms, auditoriums, even in the quadrangle of the college. The most amusing, however, was the Subway Debate.

Two debate teams, two suitably inebriated people on each, would pile into the St. George station of the Toronto subway. Behind them would be a sizable entourage of 20 to 40 people, and they would all stream into one (already occupied) subway car.

The Speaker of the Lit would call the meeting to order and announce the topic to be debated. At the next stop, the debate would begin. Each debater stood up, stated their position, and launched into a raucous and possibly libelous argument of their position. Each was allowed 2 to 3 minutes to make his/her argument - the amount of time it took the subway train to travel to the next stop.

Other debaters, audience members and the fellow subway riders threw in comments and insults as needed, especially if the debated was flailing and failing.

The whole group continue to debate, heckle and mock as they traveled about 4 stops westward. At that point, we would all cross over to the other side of the Bloor St. subway line and continue with rebuttals as we headed back to the college - and more beer and wings.

You never know where you’ll come across a Lit veteran - like this guy.