Click Here For More Canadian Music… do it kids, stick it to The Man.
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CSN:AFU Week Twenty-Nine
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Labouring Through The Days.
I’m not sure if this is a rule or… not, but if it isn’t it probably should be. When you’re in the middle of a period of Writer’s Block start writing aboot what’s happening immediately around you and worry aboot expanding the focus later. So… it’s really fucking cold and I’m listening to Elvis Presley.
It’s officially ‘Summall’ in Canada, or halfway into the transition between Summer and Fall. Which means the temperature can swing twenty-five degrees Celsius in ten hours, then back again in four. Last night I left the windows open thinking it was still Summer. The temperature dropped to 4C while I was sleeping. It’s 8am now and it’s 15C (outside) and in four hours it will be in the really high 20’s, possibly as high as 31C according to my TV, then back down to 13C by supper-time. Try dressing for that kind of day. Just as a quick aside, Canada is the coldest country on earth. Our average temperature over a full year runs at aboot -5C to -10C (depending which website you use as a source). Which is crazy because, while most of this country is frozen tundra most of the years, we do have a large chunk that’s a rainforest… maybe not that crazy.
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The Lists From Week Twenty-Nine:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) death scenes stabbing her tits youtube 4) stuff that has happened between 1992 and 3) YOUTUBE WAR OF 1812 FIRST INVASION 2) horseporn 1) grandmothers fucking
Five Honourable Mentions: things you need to have to be emo; handjob sex; underside closeup toilet; gordon brown convicted child molester k; brit sex canada
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts For Week 29:
1) CSN:AFU Week 28 In Review 2) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 30/07 3) The Five Things You Need To Know Aboot The Canadian Movie Industry 4) Canadians Invented Hollywood: What You Need To KnowAboot Canada’s Movie Industry — Part Two: A New Hope 5) Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck — Part Four: Ginger Snaps
Honourable Mention: Canada: Offering A Safe-Sex Environment Where Humanity Can Fuck Itself Back Together Again
Damn, Elvis is still The Man… I just downloaded his catalogue from btjunkie.com. I also downloaded a three disk “Best of Grunge” package and right now I’m getting “Bitches Brew” from Miles Davis. I’ve never done this before with my computer. My cousin and my brother are both huge download fanatics and I’ve used their computers to grab stuff, but I’ve always been paranoid aboot viruses, trojan horses and having to share files with people Idon’t know — which makes sense as I reported on those issues for the better part of seven years.
I have also had some ethical issues aboot downloading copyrighted material, but holy fuck on a stick I am so freaking bored with the songs I’ve bought legally.
The only thing I’ve done so far this week and all of last week — which is what this post is really supposed to be aboot — was write a few posts on [my other blog] and sit and stare at the screen when it came time to write a post for Cultural Snafu. I did change the header on both sites, and I had to actually learn something aboot PhotoShop to do them so I guess that was something.
And now that I’ve got Elvis and Miles Davis, I’m going back to find some Oscar Peterson.
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Photo Of My Week:
My sister and her father, the dude who married my mom; Sunday, August 29, 2007; Photo by Me.
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This Weeks New Post(s):
Nada. Mostly I’ve been staring at a blank screen or writing for [my other blog].
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Coming In Week Thirty:
Six Pixies, Some Cocaine And Maybe Some Unicorns
Apples, oranges, vitamins with whole wheat bagels and
a big glass of milk… mmm.
Click Here For More Canadian Music… do it kids, stick it to The Man.
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CSN:AFU Week Twenty-Eight
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Whoops.
I had a friend over for the weekend… and this thing totally slipped my mind until I after I had taken my sleeping aid last night. I was fading off watching Roeper from Ebert & Roeper dissect a documentary aboot people who obsess over Donkey Kong — apparently it’s Thumbs Worthy — when I took a look at my stats page and noticed someone had opened every Week In Review I’ve ever done. “That’s odd”, I thought, “I wonder if they liked this weeks… oh. Shit.”
I posted my first FTS Photo Graphic on this site. It’s something I’ll be doing here pretty often now although I’ll be keeping the Photo Graphic F.T.S. site open just to post personal photos — mostly it’ll be friends and weirdness. I also put up 26 images of flowers from local gardens on [my other blog]. The idea was people could choose which ones they wanted and I’d send them the large format version which they could print out and hang on their wall. Altogether a total of thirty-two people from Australia, Spain, Germany, England, Scotland, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the United States asked for — and received — photos.
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The Lists From Week Twenty-Seven:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) safe sex sucking boops 4) is it illegal to marry you third cousin 3) large nutsack 2) eddie izzard + imperialism 1) coming illegally to canada and getting m
Five Honourable Mentions: are you legally allowed to marry second, fucking ethiopian woman, safe sex in quebec, Manic Depression Owl, gay erotic stories about my stepfather
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts For Week 28:
1) [redacted]: 2) CSN:AFU Week 21 In Review 3) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — August 20/07 4) Canada: Offering A Safe-Sex Environment Where Humanity Can Fuck Itself Back Together Again 5) The Five Things You Need To Know Aboot The Canadian Movie Industry
Honourable Mention: CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 02/07
Yeah, so Sean was over for a couple… of days. We had a nice get-together with some friends… it was the first time Steve, Sean and I had been in the same room since 2002ish. Steve owns a brewery so the beer was plentiful, good and in jug form. Between last Sunday and Sean getting here on Saturday I did (pretty much) absolutely nothing except play with the computer.
I’ve been updating the backend of my blogs while learning new and interesting things to do with PhotoShop. I did get my haircut. But that was pretty much it…
This week I’ll be helping my step-father get the garage roof mostly done — everything but the tar paper and shingles. We’ll also be working at The Museum, we’re putting the roof on the porch. It’s the last big job before the grand opening next Spring. Everything else is finishing the painting, a few little electrical things and installing the display cases — which are being made by a local Master Carpenter. The Historical Society are getting displays ready now… hopefully they’ll have something to do with history.
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Photo Of My Week:
Sean was up for a couple of days; Sunday, August 26, 2007; Photo by Me.
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This Weeks New Post:
CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories
— August 20/07 Monday’s News Sometime Later: I’ve stopped taking this thing so seriously and it’s getting easier as a result, so it looks like the Monday News thing is a keeper. What’s making it easier is the whole “sometime later” philosophy I’ve adopted. It’s something I’ve practiced in other areas of my life, so it was probably inevitable I’d adopt it in here. Check out the thing aboot the fighter jets over my village… they were wicked cool.
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Photo Graphic: 1997 Remembrance Day In Ottawa We Barely Remembered The Promise And Totally Forgot The Struggle As well as working as a reporter, I’ve also been shooting news photography for several years. A few weeks ago I started posting my photographs on another blog, but recently I’ve decided to make it a part of CSN:AFU instead. It’s basically aboot hoping to start conversations aboot photography, and maybe aboot the issues surrounding the photos. It’s also a continuation of a memory exercise I started on my other-other blog.
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Coming In Week Twenty-Nine:
Photos, A Movie And Maybe Some Unicorns
Apples, oranges, vitamins with whole wheat bagels and
a big glass of milk… mmm.
Click Here For More Canadian Music… do it kids, stick it to The Man.
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The First Three News Stories On 08/20/07
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Monday’s News Sometime Later: I’ve stopped taking this thing so seriously and it’s getting easier as a result, so it looks like the Monday News thing is a keeper. What’s making it easier is the whole “sometime later” philosophy I’ve adopted. It’s something I’ve practiced in other areas of my life, so it was probably inevitable I’d adopt it in here. Check out the thing aboot the fighter jets over my village… they were wicked cool.
1) Second Iraqi Governor Killed: Muhammad Ali al-Hassani, Governor of the Iraqi province of Al-Muthanna, was killed when a bomb exploded near his convoy while he was on his way to work. Two of his guards were wounded in the attack. Al-Hassani was a member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Iraq’s largest Shiite party. The Shiite governor of al-Qadisiyah province, Khalil Jamil Hamza, died in a similar bomb attack on August 11. The two southern provinces neighbour each other. Iraqi police have blamed the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Also on Monday, August 20, two bombings in Baghdad killed at least seven people. One targeted the Shiite district of Sadr City; the other hit a busy market.
2) Hurricane Dean Hits Jamaica: Hurricane Dean barely missed the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, but was headed straight for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Monday. The Category 4 storm killed 12 people as it crossed the Caribbean. Most of the midsection of the United States were also recovering from deadly floods. At least 20 people were killed in separate storm systems across three states. More than a ten inches of rain fell on parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, causing flash floods and the evacuation of entire towns. Also, up to nine inches of rain fell around Oklahoma City over the weekend. Still no word on the Pestilence, although a man on a pale horse was seen crossing into the United States from Canada.
3) America, Mexico & Canada Meet: Roughly 60% of everything Canada makes, cuts down or extracts ends up being sold to America. But, going the other way, Canada purchases more American crap than any other country. Roughly 30-35% of everything made, cut down or extracted in America ends up here. In fact Canada is the largest trading partner for most of the individual states. I know next to nada aboot Mexico — other than it’s economy is barely above third world levels, but I know Canada is one of the largest economies on earth. No shit.
With a labour force of 17.2 million Canada’s GDP is US$1.178 trillion. Germany’s GDP, with a labour force 2.5 times greater, is US$2.63 trillion while France, with 27 million potential workers, sits at US$1.891 trillion. The United States, just to finish the comparison, could buy the top eight economies, including Japan, and still have enough change lying around to buy South America and South East Asia. I’m not joking. The American GDP sits at US$13.13 trillion.
All that to say North America has been in talks for aboot twelve years to create an economic and security zone similar to what the European Union has done, except without the Gallic attitude and single currency bullshit. This was the first serious meeting between the leaders of Mexico, America and Canada to that end.
1) The Montebello Summit: The summit was held at a resort just up the road from my little village. It’s basically the Quebec version of where I live. Lots of gardens; old mountains; old, but well maintained homes and a decent economy which supports a thriving arts scene. The resort itself, where the Summit was held, is one of the most beautiful in Canada. It’s basically a huge log cabin next to the Ottawa River which, on the Quebec side, is called the Gatineau River. President Bush, new Mexican President Calderon and our Prime Minister Stephen Harper hooked up for three days of talks. The eventual and current goal is to “harmonize” certain standards, like for car parts. All three countries have large auto manufacturing sectors and right now there are three different sizes for pretty much everything.
2) Hurricane Dean Hits: There were photos taken from the Space Station which made this storm look the size of Canada. They were then put on TV where news people who should know better commented on the humoungousness of the monster killer storm. Thing is… okay, the Space Station isn’t actually “in space”. It’s in a low earth orbit. It’s only a couple hundred miles over you and barely out of Earth’s atmosphere. So what happens when you draw a dot on a beach ball, then bring the beach ball to your nose? The dot looks massive. But it’s still just a dot. Dean was large and in charge, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the size of the planet.
3) Snowbird Accident Report: Okay… check this out. The Snowbirds are the elite flying team of the Canadian Air Force, but the planes they use are older than God… the Canadian built training aircraft, the CT-114 Tutor jet, has been in service since 1971. It was used by the Canadian Forces as its basic pilot training aircraft until 2000. In 2004 two of the planes collided during a high-risk maneuver during a practice run over Saskatchewan. One pilot, Captain Miles Selby, was killed. A few weeks ago the preliminary report, which it turns out was the ‘preliminary preliminary’ report, found that Captain Selby likely died due to his inexperienced and he had never performed the stunt before that day. But whoops… hold on a minute. Ends up Captain Selby wasn’t the pilot of his own demise, turns out the plane everyone believes should be turned into a monument and firmly encased in concrete had faulty seatbelts. When Captain Shelby rolled his plane during the maneuver his seatbelt broke and he couldn’t reach the pedals, and of course the ejector seat was useless because he wasn’t attached to the freaking seat. And it was a problem people knew aboot before hand. Everyone has known for a decade the CT-114 Tutor needs to be replaced, but someone was too busy balancing a budget by cutting defence spending to notice the equipment was falling apart.
1) Hurricane Dean: This is actually Eastern Canada’s hurricane season as well. The hurricanes that skirt along the Eastern United States always blow themselves out in the Atlantic Provinces, sometimes they’ll hit the Toronto-Montreal corridor. They’re never as bad, of course. Although Nova Scotia got hit pretty hard a few years ago. The worst I’ve ever seen it was on a canoe trip a few years ago and the swells were higher than the gunnels. That was fun.
2) America Experiences Weather: Every year reporters experience rain for the first time. Then snow, then ice, then cold, then flowers blooming… yadda yadda yadda. There were floods — probably due to rain, but no one’s talking — in the American Midwest.
3) Montebello Conference: Security was very tight for the conference, of course. The protests were pretty tiny. A few hundred people, maybe a couple of thousand. The Sûreté de Quebec, basically a paramilitary force, were protecting the Chateau. The SQ are, without a doubt, some of the roughest cops in Canada. But the really, really, really cool thing was the CF-18’s. Our village fair was going on at the same time, and during the fair some of the local dudes get in their little planes and fly overhead. On Saturday morning an orange Cessna-type plane was flying over our village when there was this loud WHOOSH and suddenly there was a slow moving CF-18 behind him. It was like the military jet was hovering. And it was so low you could almost count the rivets. Then came the popPOP-POP-POPCRASH and another CF-18 came screaming in from the Montreal area and dropped right in front of the orange plane. You could actually see the wings on the orange plane wobble. It was fuck.ing.in.sane. People at the fair, at least some of them, thought it was all a show. We’re right between two international airports and three military airports, so we get a lot of air traffic. But it’s always UP THERE at 30,000 feet. These two fighter jets were, maybe, 400 feet off the ground. Stunning.
If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
Click Here For More Canadian Music… do it kids, stick it to The Man.
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CSN:AFU Week Twenty-Seven
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I Can’t Write Textbooks.
I’ve been having a crisis of blogs recently… which has manifested itself into a new avatar and “WordPress nickname”. But I’ve also started two other blogs, one for photos and commentary, the other to excercise my humour muscles. In the meantime I’ve been letting CSN:AFU slide, and it just hit me yesterday why I’ve been having such an identity crisis…
CSN:AFU has been gradually turning into a textbook. And I don’t want to write a textbook. And I certainly want to avoid becoming a “Daily Reporter.” I’ve never had the stamina, or the discipline. As a daily reporter it takes a lot of energy to write 800-1000 words every day on specific topics. Done properly it’s ten phone interviews to get three to four sources. As a blogger I generally use ten to thirty websites for my “features”, plus a couple of books or magazines and maybe a PBS special. The “Monday News” things alone are six hour posts. Writing these things involves three or four drafts and — in general — it takes twice as many words in notes to find the ones worth printing. And there’s no paycheque at the end of my week. Plus there’s all the drinking, and the groupies and the coke associated with news blogging, and really, I just don’t have the energy for blow and hooker binges anymore.
So CSN:AFU, to me, was meant to be two or three stories a week, plus my little Monday News Recap. But I haven’t got the discipline right now to be writing serious pieces aboot abortion, native rights, inventions, books, people and general poltics every week, so CSN:AFU became this weird place to write news briefs… and only news briefs. So I’m taking my New, Improved Photo Blog, and smashing it into CSN:AFU. This will give me the opportunity to write short, simple and interesting posts aboot things that are somewhat more personal to me in between writing aboot Canadian stuff.
So RIP ‘Photo Graphic F.T.S’. The posts and comments will be moved from There to Here. I’m not sure aboot “Dumb Waiter… I think I’m still going to give it a shot. I want to keep CSN:AFU totally Canadian, and Salted completely aboot my recovery, so Dumb Waiter will probably stay seperate. Hopefully this will let me post here a lot more often… basically, I need something to do here between the energy bursts which lead to the Features. C’est ca.
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The Lists From Week Twenty-Seven:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) Africans screwing monkeys 4) “Dead Robot” AND gay 3) Muture sult fucking a donkey 2) alternative for youtube for porn 1) don’t need cock in movies
Honourable Mention: donkey fucking a sult; india neked sex free; all email address india man doctor livin; Vick is complete moron, and; movies you need to see high
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts For Week 27:
1) The First Ten Things You Need To Know Aboot Canada 2) CSN:AFU Week 26 In Review 3) Greatest Hits: Canadian Inventions — ‘The Wonderbra’ 4) Canada: Where Abortion Is So Legal It’s Retroactive OR
Why You Never Piss Off Your Canadian Mom 5) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 30/07
Honourable Mention: CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 02/07
I don’t know, this week seemed to blow by… pretty quickly. I spent so much time dicking around with my eighty-three blogs I forgot to get outside. I did start walking again, I’m going to take it slowly. I’ve been out three times for 1.5 miles each time. My knee was freaking sore. When I was 18 I dislocated my kneecap and tore my ACL almost entirely, and damaged my MCL playing midnight basketball in the playground. I walked with a cane for almost three years, and a brace for most of that as well. Surgery helped a little. Last year I was up to five miles a night, I figure by the end of the month I’ll be up there again.
I did finally get to a working scale, and it turns out I’ve lost 15 pounds since I started this new healthy diet thing. The Village Fair was this weekend, I took photos of the Parade, but didn’t go to the actual Event… and what else… of yeah, I helped my step-father get the trusses up for the roof on his new garage. He’s an architect, actually a VP with the second largest architectual firm on Earth. Right now he’s helping build a brand-spanking new city in Saudi Arabia. I’ve worked on a lot of projects around Ontario, but I’ve never seen anyone better with a hammer or with a better sense as to how things work than he does.
This garage project, and the other ones around town that he has done, are what he does on vacation. I helped — a little — but the Musuem Project was 80% entirely him… I’ll post the photos sometime this week. It’s an amazing renovation project. It took him aboot six years to get it done. The Garage Project will be done next spring. We should have the plywood done next weekend. Just to give you an idea… he put the first four trusses on himself. I’ve never seen anyone do that alone.
And that’s it. His mother, my step-granny, turns 73 tomorrow so we’re going out for brunch. I’ll probably have some of the local chedder and a bagel.
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Photo Of My Week:
I’m helping my step-father build his garage. Self-portrait on Saturday, August 18, 2007. Hello.
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This Weeks New Post:
Uhm… yeah. Well… nope. Nada. I did write three posts on Photo Graphic F.T.S., and another on Salted.
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Coming In Week Twenty-Eight:
Photos, A Movie And Maybe Something Else
Bananas in my All-Bran with a whole wheat bagel and
a big glass of orange juice… mmm.
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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
“Dis-moi, Dis-moi“; ‘Terres des hommes’ (1990)
A 17-year old Mitsou gets herself banned from MTV
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CSN:AFU Week Twenty-Six
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This Week Had Two Parts…
During the first part a dear friend came… for a visit. I hadn’t seen her in a few years as she lives in the darkest, coldest country on Earth. I spent the second part reworking some of my Blogs and dicking around with my avatar and WordPress nickname. Guess which one I’d pull an arm off to have more time with.
So I’ve got the avatars narrowed down to nine from six quadrillion. I’ve spent the past week trying each of them out. There are a couple of headshots in there… I guess someone might find them a little pretentious, but fuck them. If you’ve got a WordPress blog chances are one of these will be showing up on your site, so speak now or wait for the next change.
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I have to admit that right now I really, really like the tooth. I’ve also been changing my nickname… I still really like “[redacted]” (it’s not ‘[redacted]’), it’s the name of my first blog so I’m not really married to the idea of changing it. So far I’ve tried my nickname — “Johnny Metro”; “Gabriel…”, which is my real name minus the dotdotdot, and; several variations of FTS, including F.T.S. and a bunch of lower case stuff, you know, really dramatic shit.
“[redacted]” has always been a weird Rorschach test. People have gotten really defensive aboot it… like I was telling them to fear me, like I was “The Seeds” (I’m not). Other people, mostly women, see it as “[redacted]”. I’m not sold on using my real name, because having people use it when we get into discussions actually makes me a little more defensive… weird.
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The Lists From Week Twenty-Six:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) nice fucking environment 4) bullshit in canada 3) years from 1939 to 2007 2) prostitutes hull quebec 1) If you want to see a Helen Mirren beaver
Honourable Mention: fuck sex canadian; wives fucking little boys; canadian movies suck; gary oldman full frontal nude, and; walrus penis (x4)
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts For Week 26:
1) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 02/07 2) CSN:AFU Week 24 In Review 3) Canada: Land Of A Thousand Wives OR Instructions On
How To Become A Canadian Polygamist 4) [my other blog]: 5) CSN:AFU Week 25 In Review
Honourable Mention: Canada: Offering A Safe-Sex Environment Where Humanity Can Fuck Itself Back Together Again
The week started with some friends… bringing me out to a Pub — the Pub — for an Open Mike night. Even talented musicians, including music majors, should get their set down before getting up on stage. Just saying. Johnny Cash didn’t roll over in his grave that night so much as he stood up, grabbed his tombstone and beat the four corpses next to him back to death.
What else… oh yeah, one of the people who means more to me than almost anyone else came by for a visit. That was nice, but quick, much, much too quick. To be honest I can’t actually think of a time allotment that wouldn’t be too quick. That’s her red rental car in my humongous parking lot in my POTW.
We met in Toronto where she was a student and I was an unemployed writer researching a book aboot a specific period in Canadian politics, which was a mask for me writing aboot my family. It was a brutal time in my life and she talked me through it… walked me through it, sat me through it, hugged me through it, all while serving me strange drinks… she was standing next to me when I took this shot.
And that’s it. Nothing else happened this week. Not that I noticed anyway.
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Photo Of My Week:
This was taken from the new observation tower… that’s my apartment just above dead centre. Hello.
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This Weeks New Post:
CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories
— August 06/07 Yesterday’s News Sometime Later: Technically the idea behind this post was to compare the news cycles of Canadian, American and British national and local news… unfortunately I haven’t been able to give it as much attention as I think it requires. Hopefully over the next few weeks I can make it work again.
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Greatest Hits: Canadian Inventions — ‘The Wonderbra’ The original Canadian advertisement featured a fully dressed woman dancing on the beach to the jingle: “Wonderful Wonderbra… to be free and alive everywhere that you go, is to where what you dare anywhere and to travel with flare. We care about the shape you’re in, so does he… so does he. Wonderful, wonderful, Wonderbra.” In 1994, outdoor ads in American cities showed a model wearing only the bra with captions like “who cares if it’s a bad hair day” and “look me in the eyes and tell me that you love me.” Sometimes it can be a long way to get back to where you were. Just saying.
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Coming In Week Twenty-Seven:
More News, A Movie, And Smiley Faces For Everyone
Granny Smith Apples, All-Bran with a whole wheat bagel and
a big glass of milk… mmm.
Buck 65: Canadian “Wicked & Weird“; ‘Talkin’ Honky Blues’ (2003)
When does a piece of clothing become more about attracting attention than aboot personal convenience? About twenty minutes after you get out of the bathtub. And the one piece of clothing which has come to symbolize this more than any other would be the Wonderbra, the 1964 creation of Louise Poirier — a French-Canadian under contract to the Canadian lingerie company, Canadelle.
The information available online abootWonderbra’s inventor from Canadian encyclopedia’s is pretty sketchy at best. The two main ones, The Canadian Encyclopedia and Histor!ca, don’t even recognize Wonderbra as a search term (no, I did not mean “wonder”) and Louise Poirier may as well have been a time traveler because there’s no evidence online she has yet been born. I’m assuming she was part-engineer and part-super intelligent alien because the Wonderbra is not a design, it’s a feat of engineering. In fact the Wonderbra has 54 engineering elements all working together to lift and support the bust, which created the deep plunge and push-together effect now found so often on subways, Tranny-Bars and in British Parliament, all while using substantially less material and padding than other conventional bras.
Technically the first bra was created in 1914 in New York City by a woman who used two handkerchiefs and some pink ribbon, and for at least that evening was probably the most comfortable woman on the planet. I’m not going to lie, the first few times I took one of these marvels of engineering off my first thought was “hey… where the fuck did they go?” But, honestly, it’s a fleeting thought usually followed by “hey, boobies”.
There were three waves in the life of the Wonderbra, it’s initial release in Canada during the 1960’s, soon after which it was introduced into Europe and, during the 1990’s it was released into American stores.
The original Canadian advertisement never showed a woman wearing the bra, and featured the jingle: “Wonderful Wonderbra… to be free and alive everywhere that you go, is to where what you dare anywhere and to travel with flare. We care about the shape you’re in, so does he… so does he. Wonderful, wonderful, Wonderbra.” In 1994, outdoor ads in American cities showed the model wearing the bra with captions like “who cares if it’s a bad hair day” and “look me in the eyes and tell me that you love me.”
From 1972 to 1977, Canadelle doubled its wholesale revenue from $12.6 million to $24.9 million. By 1979 Canadelle dominated with 30% of the Canadian market and $27 Million in sales. Playtex (both companies were acquired by Sara Lee) was second. By 1980, Wonderbra’s sales were over $30 Million wholesale ($76 Million in 2006 dollars) in a country with only 10.3 million women and girls older than 13.
The introduction of the Wonderbra into the American market caused an explosion in the lingerie and undergarment market. According to research done at the University of Michigan “total sales of women’s clothing apparel increased 6% from 1994 to 1996, [while] intimate apparel jumped 14% over the same period. [snip] In 1989, worldwide bra sales totaled $2.2 billion, but rose close to $3.0 billion in 1995 and approximately $3.8 billion in 1997.”
0_o
cultural sn:afu 