THE UGLY BROTHERS

"Space travel is slow going"

We know the sound of where we are going to: the way the guitar is sparse but snarling. How open strings reverberate off of the expanding gas from a newly emerging star, and how clearly the low-end grumbles relentlessly. The dry, punctual thumping of snare piercing like a pulsar veiled in the decay of an ancient super-nova. Tightly syncopated hi-hat flares and triplet tom fills washing in stereo are trademarks of where we hope to end up. But space can be tricky to circumnavigate.

Ivan and Jory have been giggling like school girls when it comes to their new project, The Ugly Brothers. They've been locked up in the basement working on blueprints to a new sound, a space saga they call The Stellar Medium.

I've heard what has reverberated up through the rafters (not to mention all the smoke!) and like what I hear. It's too bad the Albert probably won't be open when they are ready to takeoff. Hopefully they'll grace the stage at Lo Pub instead.

You can listen to a demo of their song The Hunter on their tumblr.

The Old Fashioned

Dushan Zaric, in How to Cocktail:

The Old Fashioned is my favourite adult drink, by which I mean my favourite drink that isn't just liquor + soda (always, always, always whiskey and ginger ale).

I found this video because I was reading this post on American Drink and proceeded to watch a dozen more Old Fashioned how to videos, including this one about using a blast chiller to create egg shaped ice cubes full of booze.

I like my Old Fashioned simple: sugar, Angostura bitters, water, and orange zest, muddled then either Wild Turkey, Maker's Mark, or Knob Creek bourbon, and finally topped with an orange slice and maybe a cherry.

Provincial Mythologies

Matt Williams, writing at River City Radio Cure:

John K. Samson’s first full-length album, Provincial, is built on a simple idea. He wanted to make a musical map, both contemporary and historical, about the area in Manitoba covered by Treaty 1.

I've been listening to Provincial on an off since it was released. It's an interesting diversion from Samson's work with the Weakerthans, but still sticks to his regular beat of local folklore.

5468796 Architects

Mark Byrnes, writing at The Atlantic Cities:

On a smaller scale, we’ve worked with a number of local developers who’ve experienced encouraging results with their projects, whether it’s winning an international award or pre-selling an entire condominium development in a single afternoon. These modest but significant successes prove that world class architecture can come from Winnipeg – it’s an opinion that’s starting to spread, but we still have a long way to go.

It's great to see Winnipeg being profiled positively in big periodicals like The Atlantic.

I'd love to live in a place designed by 5468796, such as the Avenue on Portage.

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Arthur C. Clarke discuss education, religion and the Universe.

Political Discourse in Canada

Sarah (@yowhatsthehaps), writing on Twitter:

No one ever live tweets a Stephen Harper speech. No one ever WATCHES a Stephen Harper speech.

This tweet caught my attention because it gets at the heart of what I was trying to say on twitter yesterday when I tweeted that Canada needs a Jon Stewart.

I got a few responses to my tweet, one saying we already do "his name is Ben Mulroney", another another stating we don't need any more bs liberal diversions.

I disagree with both responses.

1) Ben Mulroney, is not a political satirist, he's the windbag son of an even bigger windbag politician (arguably one of the worst, most destructive figures in recent Canadian history).

2) I don't think Jon Stewart is just another "BS liberal" distracting us from real political discourse. I think Stewart provides a relevant about of satire while simultaneously capturing the attention of people who would otherwise not give two shits about politics.

However what I was actually trying to say is that Canada needs real political satire, not only to lampoon our political system and the talking heads who supposedly run this country, but also to stimulate discourse, of which I believe there is non (outside of intellectual circles).

No one ever live tweets a Stephen Harper speech because he's effectively avoided the media and benefits from the majority of the population's apathy towards Canadian politics.