so difficult to find a good orange

the daily commute on foot. and the perfect orange. like a sunrise.

out with the old

"The idea that our possessions reflect the passing of time is hardly a new concept." -Deyan Sudjic

I love the businesses that line most of Toronto's streets... everywhere I look is a relic of a time past, holding on by a thread, somehow managing to stay in business selling old vacuum cleaners and stoves from the 90's- warehouse liquidations are bread and butter here.

But some go even further back, stuffing their stores with decades old mass-produced housewares and obsolete technologies that they don't seem aware are actually obsolete. Still selling cheap though. A new generation is raiding their grandparents' house for this stuff or sadly buying it at Urban Outfitters. Old-school is hip, of course... someone should tell them.

Note the guy's reflection in the window... he was a bit unsure of me taking photos of his merchandise but I said I liked his sign and that seemed to satisfy him.

I have so much nostalgia and love for this type of stuff. But nostalgia only... I don't want to deck out my house in it unless it pre-dates me- for some reason then it enters the realm of good design again.
But if its got a double cassette deck or a squeaky joystick, then all of the sudden I'm playing Atari in my Rainbow Brite pyjamas or dramatically gagging as my sisters spray Aquanet in our tiny bathroom.

"Possessions that stayed with us for decades could be understood as mirroring our own experiences of time passing. Now our relationships with objects seem so much emptier. The allure of a product is created and sold on the basis of a look that does not survive physical contact... desire fades long before an object grows old... Each new generation is superseded so fast that there is never time to develop a relationship between owner and object."

Desire. Obsolescence. Nostalgia. Desire.

Note the spelling on color.

If you're a lover of things, or intrigued by things, or if you own many things, or throw out a lot of things, then I recommend The Language of Things. Deyan Sudjic gets it right in so many ways, so many times. I read him for his down to earth criticisms- he joins theory with solid street level awareness... taking it all in and objectively calling out the dualities that are everywhere, spinning out of control... and sometimes shaking his head at himself as well. 

Believe me, he'll be popping up on here rather often.

on time

Do you ever forget that real time is fully made up of the same stuff as those saturated photos of days gone by. Your days or my days or random days. Every moment is likely as good as what you caught. But the photo is more. A bursting memory held captive, frozen. The chance to realize all that moment could hold. Did hold. Or maybe never held. But memory is more potent than reality and therefore the past is golden.

But we are never that aware of the moments as they come, of the present passing into memories. We lose ourselves in life, subscribe to a different idea of time. The moments are rarely isolated as we roll along.

Fascinating what an awareness of time can do... 

Perhaps as it should be. There is often an ache and anxiety when I slow down enough to realize, when I love a moment and know that its fleeting, when I look too closely at it.  Better to just experience, in the midst, no thought to time.

But if you feel like being hyper aware of time passing as the modern world knows it, then The Clock by Christian Marclay is for you. Amazing 24 hour film that documents every minute of the day through film clips. 

There is an odd feeling to watch and seek out the time, to be constantly aware of it outside of the storyline.

on technology

It is just possible that we might be on the verge of a wave of revulsion against the phenomenon of manufacturing desire, against the whole avalanche of products that threatens to overwhelm us. However, there is no sign of it yet...               -Deyan Sudjic

follow the views... 

I first walked past this scene in awe, the joy of discovery...

and then retraced my approach from the other direction... as shown above.

 obsolete. dead on arrival.

 welcome to my blog.