Winning Design

It's hard to believe this idea didn't see the light of day sooner. The winner of ID Magazine's Best Package Design award - a squared paint bucket with a lid that serves as the roller tray. I admire this kind of clarity.

Designed by Jeroen Verbrugge of the Dutch design firm, Flex/the InnovationLab.

Happy Birthday, Lifehacker

Lifehacker, the entertaining and quite useful website dedicated to making lives more productive, efficient and interesting, is celebrating its first birthday. Thumbs up and congrats from me.

Sunny and Mild - Is It Really Winter?

Photos from a noon-hour walk at Woodend Conservation Area. It felt like September. This month's weather has been weird, but quite awesome.

Manhattan Polaroids

Ten years ago, I took a night school creative writing course at my local community college. The teacher was pathetic and not the least bit inspiring, but I did manage to produce something I was happy with. I wrote a series of short poems I called "Manhattan Polaroids." They've been sitting at the bottom of a filing cabinet drawer for several years. Now, I share.

without hesitation they hop the turnstile
night train to battery park
leather jacket clusters
beehive with attitude
threats flow like a pollock painting
and on a bench two brothers
cancer got their dad last week
they'll be home at sun up with the vodka mom ordered

--

east village rain
limo wipers sweeping
two girls in the back
laughing all the way down first
to a bar
to buy black russians
with money they shouldn't have

--

sitting silent all night deli
wound up tight
teeth grinding
buck ten in the pocket
right next to that photograph of the asian girl
he hasn't seen since seventy eight

--

riot girl wandering the aisles of the strand
pierced eyebrow nose and heart
boots smell of piss
a copy of naked lunch under the leather
she slides
her sister died in paris while drinking

--

december thirty fifty eight
you sat smoking on a folding chair
paul and philly joe locked on
you just listened
your trumpet still warm
herbie and bill stepped out
and you took the last drag
then somebody lit a candle
for you and the night and the music

Web Radio for Wandering Minds

The latest Points in Time playlist has been posted. This week's show features some nicely textured ambient work from Myke Weiskopf, Steve Roach and Tyler Bates (who composed the score for Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects"), and concludes with a track from Toronto's great 80's throwback, Solvent.

Scenes from a Basement : Vol 1

Old Blog / New Blog

For a few years, I maintained "Spinning Away" - a blog based around the interests in my life (mainly film and music). This new blog is similar, but more focused. I plan to use this space to document the merging of my business and my life. I find my work interesting and don't see it as separate from my personal life. Work is life and life is work. It's the blend that makes my job entertaining. Everything I absorb becomes a seed for something, somewhere.

Dave Bush Media Design is the small design shop I run from my home. I use the adjective "small" with pride. Most of my work is for small business and I'm quite content with that. The whole operation is run from a small workstation in my basement, here on a beautifully quiet street in St. Catharines, Ontario. I do venture out for meetings, but most of my time is spent at the desk from where I currently type.

I value my clients and do my best to keep them satisfied. I hope they'll visit this space and get to know me better. It'll be good for both of us.

Points in Time

For over two years, Points in Time was a weekly hour long broadcast, heard Thursdays at 11:00 PM on CFBU 103.7 FM - a local campus and community radio station based in St. Catharines, Ontario. To shorten the story - I decided that playing music for a very small audience, limited by the constraints of a weak FM signal, wasn't terribly gratifying to me anymore. I grew up loving campus radio and value the education I got from it, but traditional radio is decaying. It was time to move on. The web is now - and everywhere.

Points in Time Web Radio for Wandering Minds

Visit weekly - a new playlist will be in place every Monday. Please, if you're part of the ambient / experimental / electronic community - contact me and say hello or get involved by submitting your music, sounds or comments.

The music and sounds featured here will largely originate from the many netlabels and artists who kindly offer their art for free. This sort of non-commercial distribution is what makes the internet a beautiful place. Please don't hesitate to send along your comments and encouragement to any of the artists you encounter through this webcast.