For those who don’t know, Mary Margaret O’Hara is a cult Canadian musician who produced only one album, Miss America, in 1988. It’s said this is because she’s reclusive, but in fact she has never stopped working publicly. Since ‘88 she has composed soundtracks, sung backup for others (Morrissey for example) and acted in films, so it’s not as if she’s been languishing in seclusion. Outside Canada it’s probably not known that she’s the sister of comic SCTV and film actor Catherine O’Hara. Tom Waits has said she’s his muse; pax Tom but I’m quite sure she’s her own muse, if women have muses. She’s on Mojo’s Top 100 albums of all time list, and her fans include Radiohead and Rickie Lee Jones. My favourite song by MMOH (can’t bring myself to call her M2OH, the way her acolytes do), is actually Year In Song, but since the only youtube video of the song contains no moving pictures I didn’t embed it above. There’s a rare newspaper interview with her here in The Guardian.

Quotes:

“My Brass Rule: Treat others better than you treat yourself until they screw you, then apologize to them.”
“I have a long history of being told I have no rhythm, and of people saying ‘I’ve heard chickens sing better than that’.”

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L’Ogre on Vimeo.

Can you identify the unidentified paintings in this video? It’s a music video for the song 70 Million by Hold Your Horses, directed by L’Ogre. Via Jessica via boooom. It was a fun art history test. I had to dig far back into art history class memories and managed to get:
The Last Supper
Botticelli’s Venus
Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson
a Vermeer?
Raft of the Medusa by Gericault
Death of Marat by David
Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam
(cont’d)

(more…)

There are more tunnels and round things where this came from: see  y o u h a v e b e e n h e r e s o m e t i m e. This photo originally via OWI.

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Superb. A rival to both Montreal and Munich. Thanks to the Canadian Design Resource for pointing this out.

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Logo and graphics from the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, by Otl Aicher. Via. Unfortunately the excellent design produced by Munich was eclipsed by the gruesome tragedy that unfolded at the Games.

It’s a little-known fact that the graphic icons for each sport – now so familiar to everyone - originated with the Munich ‘72 Olympics. Above, ceramic vases and shot glasses, official souvenirs, and below, matchboxes. Beautiful.

Below, poster from the torch relay, and Waldi, the Munich dachsund mascot and the first mascot of the Olympic Games. Thanks to Christina for the mascot image and information (see comment). There’s a photo of a Waldi toy here.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my valentine and to all the valentines, nuns, freaks, backup singers, everyone.

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David Bowie and Marianne Faithfull singing live in 1973 on the US variety show The Midnight Special. I Got You Babe was written by Sonny Bono in 1965.