digital trauma meets digital art bluejoh's post about crushed fingers pointed Boynton (somehow) to a page on Gamekeeper's thumb and from there to a wonderful rendition of White Christmas by The Three Tendons (via The Mr Handman site)
Other manualism (the art of manualism involves producing music by squeezing one's hands together) goodies there include personal favourites such as Green Acres... The Girl from Ipenama ...Danny Boy ... and The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Xmany days... A picture of Boynton's family Christmas from yesteryear ...
- from a yule-cool site Old Christmas Lights (via The Presurfer). This benign looking ad induces a mild electrical anxiety with memories of bad circuitry. Perhaps it's the ominously ambiguous last cartoon: sockets practically unbreakable...even when accidentally stepped on....
Part of the culture of Melbourne's Christmas is a visit to the Myer's Christmas windows . (Although Boynton lives 2 k away we may only get to glimpse them on-line - instead of in the line) This is a brief corporate chronicle that begins with Santa at the Olympics in 1956. I wonder if it was still Sputnik that spawned the "Santa in Space" window of 1962 . This is a darker space themed Santa take...And finally here is a smoking doctor - off to deliver a Christmas baby (by camel?). Is that only snow on his coat - or have some of the side-effects started to show up?

A good read on writing at this Public Address. There's a faulty link to an article that's worth perusing on the decline of reading , featuring confessions of non-readers like Eric a young publishing exec. who ... regrets he hasn't read the Bible, because it would help him with the crosswords he devours (via wood's lot)

A poignant animation featuring a chair (via b3ta)

Blind eyes. Last week Rebecca Blood linked
(we blinked) to An Animals Place outlining the issues and linking to humane (US) farming sites
The more I learn about them, the more strongly I feel that the factory farming practices widely practiced today are unconscionable- in fact I would go so far as to call them immoral.
The issue is vexed, the stories gruesome. Is humane farming an oxymoron? But going down the “lesser of two evils” path there are indeed options for (local) carnivores that would certainly appear more moral than the factory farm- Free range. Most organic farms include animal welfare/stewardship in their general principles, and consumer demand is slowly growing - Coles calling it a trend not a fad. Here are some sample local (Victorian) suppliers – Chicken and chooks, pigs and Pork, beef and clothing. If this is indeed a transition stage in a slow cultural shift, then Temple Grandin’s work on minimising stress at the slaughterhouse is part of the evolution.
But when you read the bare facts, sometimes glimpsed within the official codes of practice, or stories from the front, the vegetarian/vegan option seems more pressing.
How do I know that it is wrong to be cruel? No one has set the rules. I just know that it's wrong - that's all. Hell is the absence of god. As I looked out across that huge industrial landscape of the factory farm I knew that I was entering Hell. (Coral Hull)
Boynton once stayed in a house where cattle grazed within metres of the lounge-room. Time to observe the herd behaviour close-up, to look into their eyes, to look away as they were loaded into the truck…. This is a poetic tale about one herd that survived

Melbourne did its thing in that missing hour - sudden change in weather. Luckily we all caught the tail end of the sun. The present fickleness is confusing Doug's coat - he was full on into the summer shedding when the weekend cold snap forced a bit of a re-think. A symbolic portrait of the dreaded process can be seen here with a labrador substitute. (via a before and after museum at sharpeworld)

To change tone completely, but with a slight thematic connection, here's an article on unseasonable changes in London - a sense of pre-war dread. (via Interconnected)

Our team has finally tasted victory. As a consequence this is where Boynton has been for most of the day. She has nontheless been attending to her duties and ignoring canines. Time to face the sunlight.

If Castlemaine is the new Fitzroy (we thought Fitzroy was the new Fitzroy), Boynton's now looking for the new (old) Cassel-maine. She knows a few remote unpretentious uncool spots that might qualify but will keep them under her hat

The "path of totality", the moment the glow of the completely covered sun radiates from behind the moon While Boynton missed the eclipse last Wednesday, today we see an Australian photo in The Guardian via a South African blog. Shirley there's a metaphor there...

They were either named for her or noted that they were not. With her shirley connections, Boynton might try and crash the luncheon.

Since the Googie post, and via a bit of Art Brut, we've been remembering the roadside culture of childhood. There is a wealth of US sites, but Boynton has been trying to find the local without much success. Even though in the Australian post-war sprawl the signage may have gone global, and the American pages offer a familiarity, it is the host of associations that attach themselves to the landscape that are missing. (Oddly though sometimes it's the non-corporate, one-off localised sign that triggers memory)The recent decision to remove the old silos from Punt road is disturbing, even though the famous Nylex sign will remain, de-contextualised. We look forward to the digital archiving of our roadside remnants and the stories they yield.This page has a folksy history of one Melbourne motel, while Mimmo Cozzolino's site promotes the book version of his "commercial archeology".