Survey of Projects and Pastimes
by David Readshaw Barclay
[Current Projects]
[Completed Projects]
[Mix Tapes]
| Nice Snacks / Cold Drinks | An accumulation of zines, tapes, shirts and prints for sale, hand silk-screened & photocopied in the crudest manner possible by yours truly. Also, a side scrolling website! | |
| Academic Publication Website | A comprehensive list of research related publications, conference presentations, and creative yet day-job related activities. | |
| Smashrays.com | A encyclopedic website on the topic of smashrays, a genre of music that, to date, has been poorly or improperly defined. | |
| Every Film That Ever Won the Palme D'or | In 2009 I began watching every film that had ever won the Palme D'or or Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. Since this alone was a pretty depressing and stupid pursuit, I decided to share it with the world via this poorly written blog, making it slightly less sad. | |
| Flickr | The world is completely inundated with photography. Here is my contribution. You can also use this to reconstruct a fairly accurate portrait of my life since 2007. | |
| A Bored Life of Movies | Occasionally I become so bored with a movie that I'll stop thinking about the film and just think about my own, real life. Then I take a picture of the movie and post it to this blog, just for something to do, at which point the movie becomes part of my fake internet life and, consequently, my real life. At some point, I bought a TV for watching movies, thus took far fewer screen shots. | |
| I Beat Computer Chess | Every time I beat the computer at a game of chess, I post a screenshot of it here. You may notice that there are not many screenshots. Also, I become enraged when the computer decides the game is a draw. |
| 100 Layer Dip | As a fan of 7 layer dip, I've always been interested in the idea of a 100 layer dip. I started a blog wherein I brainstormed ideas for the 100 layer dip which I then made and ate on April 28th, 2012, somewhat in celebration of a equally round numbered life milestone. | |
| A Complete Abridged Record Collection | An internet broadcast/podcast where I spend an hour a week attempting to listen to one song from every record in my record collection. I use this time to remember where and why I bought each record. The result is an archive of my life or a "self-archive", presumably for my future self to listen to while bored. | |
| US Earthquake History | Have you ever been interested in the history of earthquakes in the United States of America, but have never been able to find the time to sit down and read a book about it? This twitter feed teaches you the rich and colourful history of tremors and shakes, quake by quake! Updated on geological time scales. | |
| Learn Calculus | Calculus is the condensed language of the physical world. Twitter is the condensed language of modernity. It seems obvious that I would combine the two in an epic attempt to teach the subject a few seconds at a time, spread over the course of many years. | |
| The Podcarst | In the continuing struggle of trying to understand why I am alive, I decided to listen to every CD and CD-R I own, while driving. My experience is captured on a 'dashcam' with the occasional music criticism, personal history and GPS directions interjected for context sake. Obviously this got old quickly, so there are only about 30 episodes. | |
| 24 hour DJ set | In order to celebrate the joy of listening to music and the freedom of self-expression facilitated by volunteer run performance spaces such as 'The Che Cafe', I played records for 24 continuous hours with no breaks, no hot meals, no back-to-back tracks and no complaining. | |
| 57 hour DJ set | In order to celebrate the joy of listening to music and the general concept of festivals and fandom, I played records for 57 continuous hours with more or less no breaks, no hot meals, no back-to-back tracks and no complaining. I did fall asleep a few times by accident. | |
| Zine Diego | I made 50 copies of a 'photo-zine' about San Diego. After I sold them all [gave away to people that I wished were my friends Ed.] I made this electronic version. | |
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A mostly complete walking tour guide of St John's, Newfoundland |
I made 50 copies of a 'photo-zine' about St John's. After I sold them all [gave away to people that I greatly admire Ed.] I made this electronic version. | |
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A cultural guide to St John's, Newfounland and surrounding area (including Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon) |
My second photo-zine about St John's with a stupid misleading title which, confusingly, has the same cover as the first one. This is the electronic version of what should be a very controversial work, thanks to the many people who don't get jokes and sentimental tributes. | |
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Cape Cod: Vacation Paradise |
Enamoured with storied history of Cape Cod? This collection of photographs was taken during my two year stint as a full-time, year-round cape resident. Less coherent than previous photo-collection zines (see above) but with a similarly brute-forced narrative. | |
| We Are Graduate Students | Everyday, for over a year and a half, I searched the internet for a website belonging to a Graduate Student based on a specific criteria. I then posted their picture to this blog, without revealing the criteria or motivation behind my selection. This created a very long and complex running inside jokes with myself. It also created a peaceful and funny daily routine. | |
| The Diary of Robert McDermand | Robert McDermand wrote an exceptionally boring diary during his trip from Edmonton to the Yukon gold country in 1889. In fact, most of his entries were shorter than a modern "tweet". I retold his story of action & adventure in real time, using the twitter platform, thereby allowing others to recapture the glory of his trip while archiving this unremarkable piece of the past. You have to read from the end to the beginning for it to make sense. | |
| Some bands (and a message board) | It was finally deleted! Originally hosted on webspace given to mcgill physics students to store lab data, this was a website that I made around 2001 for a few bands, which became an informal history of bands that I've played in over the years (not including: Steven Stephen Stefan, Burn All Prisons, The Sophistos, Are You Ready for Sex, Grandma?, The Yachtsmen, The Cardinals, Sir John A. and the Double Shuffle and a few others). There was a rad message board/chat room there. |
| Halifax Soundscapes | Ten field recordings that attempt to capture the broad picture, as well as the details, of Atlantic Canada's economic centre. | |
| The Meta Mix | Simply put, the most music for your click: a mix of mixes, 23+ hours of music, 2+ GB of data, a single MP3 file carefully curated by yours truly. Your devices can handle it, but can you? | |
| Hotel Calypso, 1971 - 1981 | This short collection represents a quest for the thin wedge of transitional Caribbean music stuck between the traditional calypsoes that lasted into the 60's (think Kitch, Sparrow and even Belafonte) and the onset of the digital dance music styles of soca, ragga and dancehall (think drum machines & keyboard brass). Mostly, these songs are the product of calypsonians picking up the electric guitar, bass and drums to play good-times island music that would please a US and European tourist audience of the 1970's, equally informed by the 'traditional' culture and the yankee dollar, hence "Hotel Calypso" | |
| Greek Νεο Κυμα, Chansons and Rock 'n Roll. | Νεο Κυμα literally means "New Wave", but describes the period in the 60's and 70's when modernized (Americanized...) folk flourished in Greece's already amazingly strong & diverse 'traditional' music scene. The effects of the rock invasion, Greek art song tradition and the early flirtations with psyche and prog blended together for some incredible results captured on this compilation. | |
| Turkish Pop & Disco Bump! | A mixtape of Turkish disco, pop and 70's dance music compiled during a trip to Istanbul in 2010! | |
| Sounds of Taiwan | A delicately curated mixtape of Taiwanese rock and pop from the 60's through the 80's made in 2009. Thanks to my friend "Simon" who helped show me around Taipei and explained to me that the Taiwanese don't like old things, like records, which is why they were so hard to find. | |
| Rare Tongan Pentecostal Gospel | In 2009, I went to Tonga and recorded the music during a Pentecostal service. Music to make your step lighter by. | |
| Lost Greek Hits! 1978-1988 | Despite possibly having the swine flu, I made a trip to Greece on the day Michael Jackson died. After seeing a man speak about the sound of snow falling on water, I spent a single day in Athens, near broke, rummaging through every 1 euro record bin to be found. My criteria was 'any record that was released between the years 1978 - 1988. This mix is the result. |
