There’s something about the Anne Johnston Health Station which I find inordinately stunning.  This deco style absolutely arrests my eyeballs every time I walk past it.  It exists both as a blessing and a sort of ill omen – a reminder that the similarly stunning building next door was torn down in recent years to make way for a boxy and bland Future Shop.

Click the fullscreen button at the top right-hand corner of the embedded frame below and have a gander.

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This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

All hands on deco

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

A day in the "life" of EA Support

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

dubya.tee.eff.cn

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Why settle with petty narcissism…

WordPress friggin sucks at managing images. The only thumbnail option, generated every time you upload whether you want it or not, is stuck at a puny 100×100 pixels. I figured out which value in the voluminous code to edit back in version 1.5, but it got away from me in 2.0.

Thus I’ve been using Microsoft’s free Image Resizer powertoy to generate thumbnails manually at 400×400 (whichever axis is greater). It’s a nice little tool but there’s no batch converter so I’ve been dreading having to make thumbnails for all these awesome pictures.

I’ve been taking more and more pictures with my cell phone and downloaded Google’s Picasa just for fun. I noticed a feature called “Web Albums” so I tried it out and found features for remote linking and thumbnails! So let’s give ‘er a whirl, shall we?

edit – linking to Picasa Web Albums is actually pretty annoying. Never again, I promise. When you click on an image be sure to hit the Magnify button at the top right-hand corner. My kingdom for a WordPress image manager!! Here’s a link to my Montreal web album in case you’d rather see my pics without enduring my repartee.

~

I had the pleasure of going on a business trip to Montreal a few weeks back. It was really enjoyable, fulfilling work and the guy I worked with was a composer and huge fan of synthesizers and electronic music so I was in good company. Good times!

My hotel was a couple of streets from the building where I worked so I enjoyed some short walks each morning. I was situated south of downtown near Museum Métro station. There was a really interesting mix of old, restored buildings…

… and more modern ones.

Almost every side street was peppered with graffiti. It’s everywhere! Some of it is nothing but vandalism but a surprisingly HUGE ratio was quite intricate, beautiful stuff! The pieces on one building were so amazing that I risked being late for work just so I could capture them all.

And here they are!

You can’t see it clearly in this awful photo but the writing on the orange bench says “SHIT” with the CN Tower for the I.

Such detail! I really love the urban backdrop with the shiny puffy clouds. I can’t read the lettering but it’s gorgeous. There are signatures around the name tag so maybe this was a collaborative piece. Note the “Meeting of Style” logo to the bottom-right – could this have been a graf event?

The spraycan taps into another dimension. I love it. I also dig the Mad Magazine style doodles around the margins, and how the characters are sweating or crying with intensity. Another “Meeting of Style”.

Just crazy. It’s a shame my camera didn’t capture the detail of the piece at the top left-hand corner. It’s some kind of Transformers/Giger/hawk hybrid done in very few sprays.

The stenciling is razor sharp on these pieces. Check out the electric, 8-bit, and juicy backgrounds going counter-clockwise. Do they all spell the same thing?

How wicked is the arrow motif in the Tyke piece? The starry piece at the bottom-left is my favourite. What’s 156?

Un piece de graf avec une chemise abandonnée. This one looks like it’d run under the fridge if you flipped the lights on.

In Toronto you’re an addict but in Montreal you’re a gourmand!

Ever wonder whether Inspector Gadget would spend his retirement kickin’ it with his ghetto blaster and aerosol, leering at the ladies? Wonder no longer! I like the fleur de lis/pitcher plant things in orange too.

BIGGUNS!!! Looks like this is 4 pieces integrated. Note the fleur de lis bookends.

This one is just bananas. Probably my favourite of the bunch. It looks like some kind of futuristic power plant. Is that a sickle-wielding Uncle Sam to the right? I wish I’d stepped further back!

I’m speechless. Look how smooth the gradients are. Very unconventional and classy. Looks like this one’s by Omen from the 514.

The blurriness is heartbreaking. This is one of two huge Super Mario-inspired pieces. Shyguy switch palace party!

I just googled it, so here’s the Meeting of Styles homepage. Awesome lettering – especially the T.

This is what drew my eye from the street. Looks like Toad’s Catholicism means no birth control. Would Mario keep saving Peach if he knew of her infidelity? “The princess is in another castle” indeed, you dog…

That top-middle bomb has the craziest lettering. I love the shiny neon highlights. That FAMZ piece has super cool colouring and it goes great with the cloudy backdrop. Luigi, il fume!!

Another angle of the same piece. As soon as Mario’s done his Colt 45 he’s gonna get back his baby’s mama! If Jr.’s lucky he’ll inherit daddy’s impeccable oral hygiene habits!

And the big finish. Absolutely amazing. The colouring and shading is phenomenal and the text shadows match the colour scheme of the centre. Stop leering at me like I’m the one who parked like an asshole.

If this sticker confuses you the website will render you catatonic. Dubya tee eff?!?!

I snapped this last pic in a taxi on the highway enroute to Pierre Trudeau International Airport. I spent over 10 minutes on this highway and the entire length was bisected by railroad tracks. Every single square inch of the concrete divider is adorned with graffiti. This picture is awful and unfortunate – one of the few short spans not covered with really intricate, beautiful pieces. I was mesmerized.

How apropos that this Everybody Votes question should be posed when I turned on my Wii immediately after arriving home!

p.s., the first person to leave a comment correctly and clearly stating why I chose this title will win a very, very stupid prize!

p.p.s., props to local tech journalist Marc Saltzman for writing the Microsoft article I linked to!

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Yes indeedy