Category: Uncategorized
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The Happy Pals are happening!
Late afternoon last Saturday I found myself walking past Grossman’s Tavern on Spadina in Toronto when a thought suddenly struck me: “Hey, don’t the Happy Pals play here every Saturday afternoon?” I went in and sure enough, the best traditional jazz band north of N’awlins was just setting up, as they have done every Saturday at…
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Phone Sax
A few days ago I posted a video of a poem of mine called Digital Kiss. Now here is another poem called Phone Sax from that same show at Casa del Popolo in Montreal last September. Again, thanks to Zoe for the videography and once again my apologies for the crunchy sound. I guess that’s…
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Digital Kiss
A few months ago I did a music and poetry gig at Casa el Popolo in Montreal, a club I have previously written about in another post, as part of Ian Ferrier’s Words and Music series. Fortunately Zoe Toupin happened to be there videotaping, and as a result I have now got a few new…
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No News Corp. is good news … or is it?
As regular readers of this blog will know, I believe we are living through a profound cultural crisis as digital culture (OS3) undermines and overthrows literate culture (OS2). My new book, You Are Your Media, tracks this conflict across many different social spheres, from food to architecture to business and beyond. Remarkably, we can see…
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Rethinking 7 Generations
You may have heard of the 7 generations idea or concept or phrase. It is typically understood as being derived from First Nations culture and to mean that when making decisions today we should consider the implications of those decisions on people living 7 generations in the future. As such, it is a useful and…
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To Give or Not to Give – The Pros and Cons of Birthday Gifts
My kids have been invited to a lot of birthday parties over the years. One thing I’ve noticed (or to be more accurate, my wife has noticed…I only noticed her noticing it!) is that more and more kids are having parties where gifts are politely declined. “No gifts” has been scrawled on more than one…
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A Better Way to Occupy
Yesterday I introduced the idea that the greatest transformative potential for any social initiative lies in creating feedback loops between OS1 and OS3. By OS1 I mean oral culture and technologies and by OS3 I mean digital culture and technologies. I also said that in order to effectively implement such strategies, which I refer to…
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Organizational Reorientation = Personal Reorientation
Interactivism proposes that the greatest transformative potential for any social initiative lies in creating feedback loops between OS1 and OS3. The objective is for these feedback loops to spiral outward, gaining momentum and reach, virally increasing their impact and generating sustainable social transformations. The greatest challenge in achieving this objective is one of reorientation. For…
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Get Back to Your Post!
Hello blogophiles, I have returned refreshed from my holiday hiatus. So tomorrow you will be returned to your regularly scheduled program hereabouts, consisting of a moderately steady stream of insights into how and why You Are Your Media. This past year, my first on this blogging platform, I enjoyed straying at times into somewhat tangential…
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Remembering A Cosmic Christmas
My late father Ken was a great writer who spent much of his career working in educational TV. He started writing for Nelvana back in 1975, when the global animation giant was just a gleam in the eye of its founders. He wrote or contributed to many series for them over the years, and many…
SOBOLTALK 