That's Life/What's good

You know how sometimes you get good at a job... and how getting good at that job, by extension, gives you the impression that you have a handle on how the rest of the world works?

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I want to get printed bags for the store.

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Stores have printed bags... you know... with their logo and address, etc.

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Obviously these cost more than plain bags. Any fool could figure that out.

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So some stores share the cost by getting other, somewhat interconnected, businesses to also include their logo on the bag.

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I thought... why not get a Canadian label to co-op advertise with their logo on the bag?

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I contacted a few... and only one response that hinted at a possible agreement.

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So I forged ahead and started looking at websites for Canadian companies that do retail bags and printing. They are suprisingly quite poorly represented and even more poorly laid out as far as providing rate information. One was exceptionally well put together... but they had an alarming litany of add ons (plates, underruns, speed of shipping) that made me fearful of getting a last minute gouge.

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So I e-mailed a few other sources and this seemed to be the bottom line: the bare minimum of bags required to constitute a printable order would take us about 17 years to go through. I usually buy boxes of 500 plain bags... these cost between $25-50 and generally last about 4-5 months (sometimes more)... between encouraging people not to use bags and having a regular customer base that is likely more forward thinking than most stores, ergo generally turning down a plastic bag... I don't use many of them any given day. The smallest number quoted to be for a viable print run? 25 000. Did I say 17 years? Closer to 25.

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So no bags for me. Not now.

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Onto what's good for this week.

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I bought a new magazine to read at the store that I'd never tried before: Tokion. It was an issue based around a series of panels about creativity in the pop arts (i.e. television, internet, film, skateboarding). Some interesting, if overly brief, conversations. It wasn't until I put the magazine down that I realized that it was an issue from January of 2007. One of the more intrieguing panels involved new vs. old technologies in multimedia featuring contributions by the duo Matmos, Christian Marclay and Cory Arcangel. The first two I knew and had been a fan of for some time. Matmos are an experimental electronics group that have made albums entirely out of plastic surgery sound samples and have contributed to Bjork albums; Marclay is know as a turntablist but has also done visual arts projects and sound experiments... such as recording the sound of an amplified electric guitar being dragged around the backroads of the South in response to the racist murder of a black man in a similar fashion. Cory Arcangel I hadn't come across, but checked out some of his projects afterwards... mainly retro-ish internet based miniatures using very, very simple concepts... but fun ones nonetheless. Many are found here at his Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com website (53 o's).

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My new show to try out for this year is Life on NBC. A cop drama starring Damian Lewis, who I'd only seen before in a little indie film called Keane where he starred as a mentally ill man searching for a missing daughter that may or may not exist. Here he plays a cop who'd spent 12 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. After exhoneration (and a healthy monetary settlement) he's returned as a detective to the police force, partnered with a female officer who's had drug problems, gone through rehab, but whose job still hangs by a thread as she's tasked by her Lt. to monitor her partner... the Lt. plainly looking for a way to force Lewis' character off the job... perhaps for reasons not entirely pure. Lewis plays it quirky and engaging... trying to catch up with new technology, espousing Zen philosophy embraced in prison to get through constant beatings and mental torture, but with a zeal for some trappings of the material world... including... fresh fruit? Check it out.

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Well, I'm in the library and my time is almost up. A lady a few computers ahead is on a video chat with a shirtless gentleman who looks like an overweight version of Louis Del Grande (from the old CBC show "Seeing Things.") I wonder if he knows his computer cam is broadcasting him into a public library?

Now that's art.