The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

I really need to add this ’80s classic to my accordion repertoire.

My friend Dayv Mattt grew up in Toronto, but these days, he lives in Seoul. For a couple of years, he lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, thanks to his wife’s foreign service work. She had the work permit, he didn’t, so he did the sensible, creative thing and explored his bustling new city, the commercial and cultural heart of the country formerly known as Ceylon, on trishaw and on his own two feet (well, I assume he still has both his feet; it’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen him).

In his explorations, he ended up taking over 35,000 photos. These pictures are captured in a new book called High Street Low Street Colombo, a book that will see the light of day if his Kickstarter is successful.

The money raised will help cover the costs of printing and help Dayv pay back some friends who helped him out during some lean times. Both are very good causes.

Rather than go with the photos of the “places you must see”, he took photos of everyday life in Colombo. They’re of everyday life in Colombo, going about their day-to-day tasks, and they’re captured beautifully. Dayv’s pictures capture what I call the “Jetsons-Flintstones coexistence” — that hodgepodge mix of the very old and the very new — which seems a little more pronounced in big cities in Asia.

Twenty bucks (US) will get you a copy of High Street Low Street Colombo, help bring a beautiful project to life, and help get Dayv out of debt. Check out Dayv’s site, visit his Kickstarter, and get your hands on this book!

I decided to spend a little more money and in return get both High Street Low Street Colombo and his earlier book, High Street Low Street Seoul, which captures slices of everyday life in his present home, Seoul:

Take a gander at the updated-for-the-21st-century incarnation of the Scooby-Doo character “Shaggy”, pictured below on the left, and a real-life hipster, pictured below on the right:

He looks just like the guy I buy my artisanal fair trade cold-brew coffee from!

This is part of DC Comics’ revival of a number of classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, which includes Scooby-Doo. Here’s a pic of the rebooted Scooby Gang in action:

I’m sure a lot of Gen Xers will be crying foul at this development. I, however, don’t mind. There’s nothing wrong with updating a kids’ property like Scooby-Doo to make it relevant to today’s kids (who never knew a world without broadband internet and smartphones), as long as the underlying premise of Scooby-Doo remains intact:

Click the cover to see it at full size.

I thought I’d post an annotated version of the cover for those readers who are wondering who the funny faces watching Trump on TV are (given the number of Americans who went to school here who’d fail the citizenship test, there may be more than a few):

And in case that’s not enough, here’s a quick guide to the featured presidents: