For two and a half years I've spent countless hours refining, polishing, rewriting, and enhancing this blog - Editing Luke. The idea was that it was my portfolio and that investing this time was somehow worth it. Fellow readers and viewers I can't begin to express how much I've appreciated your interest and feedback throughout this process, but on January 1, 2010 everything is about to change . . .
This is the part of the post where I explain that there's no way I'd give up on this blog so easily and what I'm actually talking about is a complete reinvention of my brand and the launch of an actual site . . . and the crowd erupts in lackluster applause, haha.
Editing Luke as a blog has been valuable for numerous reasons which you need only scroll back a few posts to realize. What I mean by this is that this blog has provided a direct and ongoing way for me to speak my mind, share my videos, and connect with other artists, filmmakers, editors, etc. What it has struggled to do though is act as the portfolio and sleek promotional tool that I think it could be.
So, what's changing? For starters, come January 1, 2010 my brand new portfolio site will launch - not another blog, but an actual site. Editing Luke will then undergo some small revisions and re-branding to become the blog element of the new site. This won't really change the way you experience Editing Luke as it'll still be a stand alone website on blogger, however, this does change the hierarchy.
With the new site (still Editing Luke by the way) focused on the portfolio and professional side of my promotion this will free up this blog to take a more casual approach for observations. The hope is that it will make this blog even more dynamic and engaging, while the new host site adds the glossy package and clean styling that clearly highlights my work and myself. I think this fresh start at the beginning of a new decade is just what I need as I prepare for my next set of challenges ahead in 2010.
The design and construction of the new site is already underway. Stay tuned for more updates and some big changes before the end of the year!
Nov 17, 2009
Nov 12, 2009
Guy With A Library Card: Issue 01
Introduction
Written by M
Hello and welcome to the first instalment of Guy With A Library Card. This column is a personal reflection based on two thoughts. The first idea is accessibility of information and the second is the notion that knowledge is power. I don't think I need to answer what these two concepts have to do with the library but I do think I should explain why this is not based on the Internet and its capabilities. I think the best way to do that is by explaining my own connection with this column.
In the beginning when I had no library card, I considered myself a pretty regular guy. I didn't really read books, so I thought I had no real need for the library. Despite this, I did develop a knack to retain useless bits of information to blurt out when ever they did come to mind. With this, came a passionate pursuit to learn everything I can about everything I do. Now I didn't realize this until my teens when all my time and effort went into home theatre equipment. 15 years later and my stereo is worth more than all four cars I have owned combined. I learned about the best and bought the best. This habit has stuck with me and continues to be my process with everything I buy. I research specs and brands to the point that it's pretty disgusting.
As I got older, started university and was out on my own, I continued with the no need for library policy including the university's. Then in my fourth year I noticed a roommate of mine was using the library. He kept taking out all these killer old cd's that are tough to find. Stuff like Dire Straits, Soul Coughing, Primus and old movie soundtracks. I started to play around on the library website and taking things out with his card. It was great because it was free and during university anything free is great. I started getting movies that I had not seen in ages like The Rock or Howard the Duck. I was so ecstatic that I became disappointed in myself that I hadn't discovered this before.
A short while later, school was done for good, I found work out of town and my roommate with the library card sold the house and moved away. With a stroke of luck I returned to my old stomping grounds and managed to pick up a lady friend who loved to read and also had a library card. So naturally I started using her card. A few more classic DVD's later and I was hooked back. This time not because it was free but because the content seemed endless; strange documentaries, pop cd's, block busters, TV shows, books and all on a single subject of choice. It wasn't long until I was taking out more stuff from the library than my girlfriend and she promptly made me get my own card.
Ever since then I’ve been visiting the library website almost daily and take out DVD's, CD's and even books regularly. If I get interested in a certain subject matter I search the library like Google and come up with all sorts of things I never imagined. The most enjoyable aspect of all of this is that it has helped me create a stronger bond with my daughter. We can both go into the library and come up with several things we want to check out even though we went in for no reason.
Looking back, it seems ridiculous that I was so reluctant to use the library. Even more shocking to me now is that it took so long for me to realize how great the library is. The strangest thing I have come to realize is that if I tracked the items that I have taken out that I could get a comprehensive look at my life. This is what this column is all about. The library creates life in a quest for knowledge through various mediums. It provides accurate already researched information. It is accessible and fitting for all ages. Lastly, it provides you physical contact with your material. Although it may be outdated by the Internet's standards I believe it to be a better source for these reasons.
So there you have it, the first rant for GWLC. The column will continue a little differently than this introductory piece but will be filled with my own personal thoughts, movie reviews and inspiration that all stem from a more and more forgotten resource, the library.
Nov 11, 2009
Lest We Forget
I was sent this article in an email and felt it was worth sharing, especially on Remembrance Day. It's interesting reading an article with a distinctly Canadian perspective when it was actually written by a British man, Kevin Myers of The Sunday Telegraph - a London newspaper. Quite simply, this article makes me even more proud of the Canadian sacrifice of those who, both past and present, risked and risk their lives to support and honor our freedoms.
On a day like today it's important to recognize this.
Salute to a Brave and Modest Nation
by Kevin Myers
Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region.
And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.
Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.
That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts.
For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.
Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.
Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'
The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.
Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time.
Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.
So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.
It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.
Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.
Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.
Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.
So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?
Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.
Lest we forget.
On a day like today it's important to recognize this.
Salute to a Brave and Modest Nation
by Kevin Myers
Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region.
And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.
Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.
That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts.
For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.
Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.
Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'
The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.
Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time.
Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.
So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.
It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.
Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.
Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.
Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.
So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?
Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.
Lest we forget.
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