Artist Kurt Kauper is causing quite a stir in the Canadian media because of his nude (and a little homoerotic, if you ask me) paintings of 1970s hockey icons:
“I was … interested in the way the male nude is received in our culture,” he said. “I think that it’s seen as something dangerous and threatening. And that’s not at all true for the female nude.
“It’s almost impossible to show a full-frontal male nude,” he added. “To show a male nude is to suggest that men and masculinity are passive objects to be looked at and I don’t think that our culture wants to think about men in those terms.”
I dig provocative, interesting work where sports and art intersects. One of my favourite books of poems is Hero of the Play by Richard Harrison. Here’s a recording (MOV) of “Russians”, a poem from that book (other recordings are here). In another poem, there’s a terrific line about Jagr sliding the puck under the goalie “like a surprise confession”.
This morning I had the peculiar experience of watching a Canucks game in Malta. Courtesy of the NASN, I was able to catch last night’s Vancouver/Calgary game (not live, thankfully) while eating breakfast at our local bar.
And the Canucks won. Considering their early season play, that was a nice bonus. They took a 3-0 lead and then, in classic Vancouver fashion, made it interesting by taking the third period off. Happily Luongo played the full sixty minutes. They did look like a team missing three of their regular defencemen.
This will probably be the only hockey game I ever watch serenaded by the clanking metal-on-metal sound of a blacksmith across the street. When I say ‘blacksmith’, I’m serious. Change this guy’s clothing, and he could be living in any of the last ten centuries. He’s got an anvil at the centre of his workshop, an open fire, and every surface of his workspace is covered in black soot.
Those guys need to learn how to pass the ball rubgy-style.
Speaking of North American sports, I’m pleased to announce that tomorrow morning I’m going to hit our local pub for lunch and, thanks to the North American Sports Network, watch Toronto play New York. At ice hockey. Amusingly, the pub is called “Rangers”, so I’m going to Rangers to watch the Rangers.
James and I were walking down the lane outside our farmhouse on Gozo, and I happened to glance at a bag of garbage awaiting pickup. Look a little closer–what’s that inside?
James Mirtle points to this story in the Washington Times about the Washington Capitals’ aggressive blogger relations program. The team has struggled on the ice, and that’s been reflected in poor attendance over the past few years (holy crap–you can see six games for as little as US $99). In the face of diminishing coverage from the mainstream media, they’ve been inviting bloggers into the press box:
“I was watching the traditional coverage, both broadcast and print, and was remarkably underwhelmed,” Keeley said of his decision to begin blogging last year. “The first thing I wrote was a general sense of being frustrated — well, really more than frustrated. Really angry. I started from this premise that Washington is not a sports town, but there’s nothing innate that says it can’t be. But the old media don’t do anything to change that perception. In fact, they perpetuate, in my opinion. So we started this blog, the idea that if you’re interested in hockey and want more coverage, come here.”
Capitals owner and AOL magnate Ted Leonsis is really drinking the Koolaid. He’s got his own blog, and posted a thoughtful response to the article yesterday:
Also, I do question some of the mainstream media and its programming choices and how it creates self-fulfilling prophecies in how it allocates its dwindling resources on some matters and ignores others. I also wonder - if you are programming one traditional way and you are shrinking, then why don’t you try something different? What do you have to lose as an enterprise if what you are doing today isn’t working? Embrace change. The NHL has and so have the Washington Capitals. Change is good.
Few CEOs blog, and fewer still would include an emoticon in their post. I’ll forgive him that idiosyncrasy, but I can’t forgive him for not accurately citing the Great One’s most famous quote (or, possibly, the Great One’s dad).
I hope the Caps get better. I saw them play Vancouver last year, and Alexander Ovechkin was an incredible joy to watch. He reminded me of a bigger Pavel Bure. Plus their new uniforms are definitely an improvement.
I watched Toews play for Canada at the World Juniors as a 17-year-old. He was a little over-matched among the 19-year-olds, but still had outstanding speed and puck-handling skills.
Oh dear. William Wadsworth “Bill” Wirtz, owner of the Chicago Blackhawks, recently passed away. He was apparently not popular with the fans in Chicago. Consider this pre-game ceremony, and in particular the moment of, uh, silence:
That’s in pretty poor taste. Thanks to Mr. Mirtle for the YouTubage.
Just a quick note to say that I’ll be in Toronto next week for a speaking gig and some meetings. Plans include:
October 14 - I’m having a geek dinner with Will Pate and other Toronto luminaries. Will hates all sports, so I trust the conversation about how much the Leafs suck will be brief but florid. Location to be determined.
October 15 - In the evening, I’ll give my 1100 Stacies talk another crack at Third Tuesday Toronto(or Facebook, if you prefer) meetup. Curiously, that’s a Monday. Thanks to Joseph for organizing that. It looks like the event is fully booked, but maybe Joseph can squeeze you in if you ask himi nicely.
On October 16, I was supposed to speak at the 2nd annual Word Up conference, but I was notified a few days ago that they were changing the date (I gather the website has not been updated). That was disappointing, as it was a major reason I was coming to T-dot. I’m unsure why the date was shifted. I’ve helped run dozens of events over the years, and we’ve never changed a date. It is, I think, the most sacrosanct part of the event planning.
Free Time for Work and Pleasure
So, I find myself with a day or two of free time in the Canada’s biggest city. If you’re a Torontonian who’s interested in the same stuff I am, let me know and we can probably have coffee.
By the same token, I’ve spent almost no part of my adult life in Toronto. I plan to see The Hockey Hall of Fame and The Art Gallery of Ontario. I have no interest in the CN Tower. What else do you Central Canadians recommend?
I’ve had a few browser tabs open in over the weekend. They’re topics that don’t necessarily merit a complete post, but I wanted to mention them:
She’s Geeky is an unconference that “will provide an agenda-free and friendly environment for women who not only care about building technology that is useful for people, but who also want to encourage more women to get involved.” Sounds like a great event. I wouldn’t have positioned this with the ‘geeky’ moniker. I know plenty of women who would be interested in and could contribute this unconference, but would prefer not to self-identify this way.
October 15th is Blog Action Day, when “bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment.” Hopefully they send me an email to remind me–I’m a very forgetful blogger. Oddly, when I registered my participation, they only asked how many RSS subscribers I had, not how many readers. Obviously plenty of site visitors don’t visit the front page, but my RSS subscribers are only a subset of the daily readers of this site.
John discovered a new alternative to cremation or burial: “Resomation is an environmentally responsible, non-burn, water based process which sympathetically returns the body to its constituent elements.” Weird, but strangely appealing.
I didn’t realize how shockingly negligent the American government has been regarding lead poisoning among its population. Has the Canadian government done any better?
I must find an anonymizing tool which will serve up my IP address as Canadian, so that I can watch Hockey Night in Canada from abroad. Because of licensing issues, the CBC restricts the games to Canadian Internet users.
If you’ll permit a brief, mid-summer diversion by a out-of-country Canucks fan, I’ve been musing about the future of the Canucks defensive core. At the moment, they have six legitimate NHLers under contract:
Ohlund
Salo
Mitchell
Miller
Bieksa
Krajicek
All of those guys could play in the top four positions. Add to that promising rookies Luc Bourdon and Alexander Edler (and what’s the status of the storied Rory Fitzpatrick?), and you’ve got remarkable depth.
Of course, the team is paper-thin up-front, so I expect they move one or more of these assets to add a scoring forward or two. Ohlund and Salo look the most expendable, though the former has both have a no-trade clause (and Ohlund, as it happens, is my favourite Canuck after Linden).
There have been rampant rumours about a trade with New Jersey. In my experience, it’s rare that the really popular rumours ever become a reality.
