... the blog is in need of some shaking up anyway, in my opinion.
But, I mean, krikey... is it almost done? Has it run its course? Is it time to PUBLISH OR PERISH?
Anyway... last month, Disclaimer posted some comments re a letter someone had written to the FP about the subconscious city show at the WAG. I made some comments about the letter writer, who had emailed me back in the day when I was a big-time newspaper hotshot.
The comments I made here were fairly childish and unprofessional. I felt bad about them at the time. Now, I see that he's seen the comments, realized instantly who I was, and was kind of choked about it.
So, I sent him an email... but now I'm apologizing publicly.
But, uh, on another note... is the blog finished? Is this the last post?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Quite a Performance
A based-on-reality poem about a boy who blows-up—to the delight of his fellow students—on the last day of classes.
D— you came in wearing your colours
a bright yellow shirt representing Grade 11
at the end of Spirit Week
the last day of school before Spring Break.
The substitute teacher challenged you
big, quiet and awkward you
only to be hammered down with your Jamaican fury
a spicy mixture of wit, bombast and incredulity.
Completely unprecedented
and for no discernible reason whatsoever
you went straight to flaming hot
totally burning the tongue of that poor, hapless sub.
Then when it was over you said,
"You can mark me absent
I'm leaving right now, I can't take any more of this
My name is D— B— and I'm outta here!"
D— you came in wearing your colours
a bright yellow shirt representing Grade 11
at the end of Spirit Week
the last day of school before Spring Break.
The substitute teacher challenged you
big, quiet and awkward you
only to be hammered down with your Jamaican fury
a spicy mixture of wit, bombast and incredulity.
Completely unprecedented
and for no discernible reason whatsoever
you went straight to flaming hot
totally burning the tongue of that poor, hapless sub.
Then when it was over you said,
"You can mark me absent
I'm leaving right now, I can't take any more of this
My name is D— B— and I'm outta here!"
Friday, March 28, 2008
Book Re-Write, scene 2
Sorry--this book has no real title yet.
Here's the second part. I'm presently in the middle of writing part 10 out of 90 or so. More to come.
****************
Fourteen years earlier...
So, let's start this scene in the rain too, since that makes about as much sense as anything, and since they're tree planting, and anyone who's ever tree planted knows that it seems to rain a lot there.
Here's the second part. I'm presently in the middle of writing part 10 out of 90 or so. More to come.
****************
Fourteen years earlier...
So, let's start this scene in the rain too, since that makes about as much sense as anything, and since they're tree planting, and anyone who's ever tree planted knows that it seems to rain a lot there.
Right now, we just see a clear-cut. Get used to this scene, because this story is full of them:
Take a mountainside that's full of trees, and then cut all of them off--tens of thousands of them--in a few days. We know we're looking at a B.C. clear-cut in late spring or early summer. We can tell that because of the towering mountains all around them whose tops disappear into the clouds, and we know it's late spring or early summer because this clear-cut is turning green.
Now, you take a clear-cut in spring, and it's about the ugliest thing you can imagine. It looks like a graveyard. That got run over by a bulldozer. After a war.
Dead tree stumps everywhere, gouges in the earth made by the machines, piles of left-behind tree garbage--called "slash"--all of it grey, brown, and dead.
But once a bit of time had passed--six weeks, maybe, which would put this scene somewhere in late June--the clear-cut always turned green. Plants that hadn't grown there for eons suddenly did, because there was space, and sunlight, and no giant trees to compete with. So this whole clear-cut, despite being hammered right now by the wind and the rain, is a moving, shimmering ocean of green, rolling across the bulk of a whole nameless mountain.
A wolfish-looking dog appears, seemingly from out of the mist--he's wet, of course, and sniffing the air and the ground.
And now, from both sides of the scene, human figures come into view, in slow motion. A shovel, slamming down into the earth, spray flying everywhere, a heavy spiked boot, rain pants, an arm and glove, yellow rain coat, cut to real time--boom, their shovels drop, the tree slides along each of their hands into the holes, the boots kick them shut, then move on, slowly, slowly, repeating this same motion up the mountain and into the rain.
Pull our camera view back now and they're just three small specks, only Adam's yellow rain coat showing up at all, and all around them is mountains, clear-cuts, trees.
Far-below river valleys that vanish in the endless rain.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Book Re-write, chapter 1
Scene 1
Open in the rain, the darkness separating from the light, and Adam is splashing down the street yelling into a cell phone that Feral's alive, Feral's alive, Feral's alive... We're in the street of some big city, any big city will do, since they all look the same. Let's say it's Vancouver.
In the rain like this, nightrain, cityrain, the cars all seem to dissolve into the pavement, the pedestrians seem to move with the raindrops and puddles, the very traffic itself is water and blurry light, orange and glowing and blue. Mystic, and holy. Because, as Feral will tell us soon enough, everything is holy... but maybe it wasn't even him who said that, since he was known to be a bit of a bullshitter at times, and anyway, you don't even know who Feral is yet, do you? Or Adam, either. Let's start with that, then.
So, who was Feral, and why was he alive? And why wouldn't he have been alive? Was he supposed to have been dead at one time?
And right away that makes this whole thing preposterous.
I mean, how can you take a story seriously, how can you even believe in any of it at all, when ridiculous things are happening like the dead coming back to life? Because there is only one fact that we would all agree is for certain, both in life and in this story, and that fact is that once you're dead, you're dead, right?
And there's no coming back from that, right?
Right?
So I will attempt to tell you this story, as best as I remember it, though it's been so long now.
And what kind of way is that to begin, telling you right off the bat that maybe I'm not even getting all of the facts straight anymore--that maybe I've forgotten things, or added things, or confused them with some other stories I heard once?
Sigh... Sigh... I'm old now. I've forgotten things. You must allow the old certain luxuries, and this is one of them. We must be allowed to forget, all of us, or else we'd go crazy.
So I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure of that much. But here's the start of this story, or the end of it, I guess, and Adam is splashing down the street yelling into a cell phone that Feral's alive, Feral's alive, Feral's alive...
Nightrain, beauty of space on concrete and silence, everything blurs and becomes one.
Adam has put his phone away and is carrying his shoes, and the rain lets up just a little but the world holds its febrile glowing glow,
taxi turns through puddle,
Adam flags it down, gets in. The door closes with a thud.
End scene one.
Open in the rain, the darkness separating from the light, and Adam is splashing down the street yelling into a cell phone that Feral's alive, Feral's alive, Feral's alive... We're in the street of some big city, any big city will do, since they all look the same. Let's say it's Vancouver.
In the rain like this, nightrain, cityrain, the cars all seem to dissolve into the pavement, the pedestrians seem to move with the raindrops and puddles, the very traffic itself is water and blurry light, orange and glowing and blue. Mystic, and holy. Because, as Feral will tell us soon enough, everything is holy... but maybe it wasn't even him who said that, since he was known to be a bit of a bullshitter at times, and anyway, you don't even know who Feral is yet, do you? Or Adam, either. Let's start with that, then.
So, who was Feral, and why was he alive? And why wouldn't he have been alive? Was he supposed to have been dead at one time?
And right away that makes this whole thing preposterous.
I mean, how can you take a story seriously, how can you even believe in any of it at all, when ridiculous things are happening like the dead coming back to life? Because there is only one fact that we would all agree is for certain, both in life and in this story, and that fact is that once you're dead, you're dead, right?
And there's no coming back from that, right?
Right?
So I will attempt to tell you this story, as best as I remember it, though it's been so long now.
And what kind of way is that to begin, telling you right off the bat that maybe I'm not even getting all of the facts straight anymore--that maybe I've forgotten things, or added things, or confused them with some other stories I heard once?
Sigh... Sigh... I'm old now. I've forgotten things. You must allow the old certain luxuries, and this is one of them. We must be allowed to forget, all of us, or else we'd go crazy.
So I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure of that much. But here's the start of this story, or the end of it, I guess, and Adam is splashing down the street yelling into a cell phone that Feral's alive, Feral's alive, Feral's alive...
Nightrain, beauty of space on concrete and silence, everything blurs and becomes one.
Adam has put his phone away and is carrying his shoes, and the rain lets up just a little but the world holds its febrile glowing glow,
taxi turns through puddle,
Adam flags it down, gets in. The door closes with a thud.
End scene one.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Time, Moon, Space
This is something I wrote when I was 16. I think it pretty much encompasses the concept of "teenage angst"
As I've been thinking of you
time, moon, space
I've been dreaming of you
time, moon, space
And as I've been dreaming of you
I've been trying to gag
just to throw out
you
As I've been thinking of you
time, moon, space
I've been dreaming of you
time, moon, space
And as I've been dreaming of you
I've been trying to gag
just to throw out
you
The Easter Bunny Has Many Faces
What I am about to describe here is shocking, scary, some would even call it...offensive. It all starts with a simple enough event, Easter which of course is right around the corner and so we expect to be indulging in chocolate pleasures, have some ham and scalloped potatoes then call it a day. Of course, for the children we talk about that mysterious creature, that "thing", that gigantic big footed ghostly white entity that we call the Easter Bunny.
Seems innocent enough, sure, he (or she) loves children and showers them with all the sweet wonders they could ever hope for.
But how benign is this creature, I urge you all to be on the watch 24/7 because honestly people, the idea of this monstrous being sneaking into my bed at night is concerning me a little.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Riding the invisible rocket.
last night I closed my eyes
keeping very still, I climbed aboard the spaceship
soaring through all the colorful layers
carefully observing the textures and shape of sound
noticing that what I once beleived is inside
is actually out!
How foolish.
Everyone was there, dancing.
Even the devil and the all the angels.
I awoke, snarling like a giant serpant.
A hissing, spitting tiger.
lurking in my private night chamber.
the essence of all things,
held and sealed tight within
Jubilation, I have died and am now risen
the goal is accessing the space between
The realm of Lunatics, the spirits of the dead.
Here the trees themselves are alive and are listening.
My eyes are wide open, jaw cleched.
Staring at the space between.
Breathing open the gate
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Cat in Reflection
Apologies about those previous faulty posts.
Apparently there's a crises in Tibet. What do you think about that?
9-11 was a hoax
News Flash
1.The Greyhound station in Winnipeg is moving out to the airport. Canada Post is making the move as well, creating a travel/shipping hub for the city.
2. The Plug In Gallery wants to move into the bus station and turn it into an International Art Centre which would include their gallery as well as artist's apartments, student housing.
Interesting! Likelyhood of happening by my guestimation...23%
2. The Plug In Gallery wants to move into the bus station and turn it into an International Art Centre which would include their gallery as well as artist's apartments, student housing.
Interesting! Likelyhood of happening by my guestimation...23%
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Be at One with the bike-stealer
Last Wednesday on my way to work at 8:15 a.m. I innocently parked my bike outside the 7-11 at Arlington and Ellice went into the store, turned my back for a few seconds and .... I probably don’t need to finish that sentence, bike theft is so rampant in this town that almost everyone who’s had the pleasure of owning a bike has also had the unpleasant experience of having one stolen.I have nearly a dozen stolen bikes stolen in my life time, some from inside locked garages others that were chained up outside with a cable or a u-lock, this latest loss is the first one to be stolen for not having been secured in some way. Do I feel like a dolt for leaving my bike unguarded for a minute and a half on a Wednesday morning in the sometimes mean part of town I call home? Yes. Does it frustrate the hell out of me that some immoral punk stole my mode of transportation just so he could get from A to B a bit faster? Absolutely. But this time around I’m more philosophical about the whole affair. Perhaps there is some greater reason why my luck turned so sour for that brief instant last week when I made the fatal mistake of stopping for a lousy 7-11 sandwich because I hadn’t the groceries to make one at home.
By design I stopped buying expensive looking bikes after I lost a very nice Kona mountain-bike in record time (I think I had it for about four months) to someone who had mastered the art of cracking open a u-lock with a Bic pen. For my next bike I invested in a custom built one-speed on an older ten-speed frame thinking that it would be a great commuter bike and also less valuable to any potential bike-stealer. It’s certainly not the style of bike that yields much of a return at the pawn shop or on Craig’s List. However, one morning two springs ago I woke up to the unpleasant reality that any bike—regardless of the fact that it is chained up to an iron railing, regardless of the fact that it is loved the same way as a rider on the range loves his faithful horse—is considered fair game by the petty crooks of this fair city.
Much as I had grown to love that simple bike—the way it suited my riding style; its funky, modernist graphics; the speed we could achieve together when a sharp gust blew up behind us—I now had to live with the fact that someone who owned a pair of bolt-cutters decided he needed it more than I did. Losing that bike really hurt. It shook my faith in my city and destroyed my sense of security. And it made me so angry. I ogled every red bike that passed me for about a year always hoping that I would see someone riding it past a place where I had access to a large rock that I might use to smash in his head.
This time though I’m determined not to dwell on my misfortune. Despite the fact that I loved that bike like I loved that last one and have zero insurance to replace it with, my revenge fantasies are softened by the inner calm that comes with acceptance. In truth I care about my bike far more than anything else I own, but living in a neighborhood where constant vigilance is a primary directive is my choice, and having crimes perpetrated against me here in my ‘hood is simply a statistical matter of fate. It seems useless to take it too personally. I hate being ripped off as much as the next man, but in the end stuff is just stuff and it can, and will always be, replaced with more stuff.
No amount of grief or desire for justice will change the fact that my pretty blue one-speed, with the manufacturer’s cute inscription “WORLD’S FINEST BICYCLE BY SEKINE” affixed to the frame, has been rustled by some cowardly bike-stealer. I don’t hate this city and I don’t hate the dirty rat who stole my most prized possession without a whiff of conscience. As I am thoroughly aware of by now, bikes come and go and rotten stuff happens to good people all the time. There is nothing to be done but to try and find myself another bike to love. Nevertheless, if I happen to see someone riding that particular one-speed down the road, and there’s a big rock near by....
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Some interesting facts about this blog...
Average Per Day 176,
Average Visit Length 1:29,
Today 37
This Week 1,234
The last 20 visitors:
Canada
Steinbach, Manitoba
2
Italy
Latina, Lazio
3
Poland
Warsaw, Warszawa
4
Canada
Victoria, British Columbia
5
France
Voiron, Rhone-Alpes
6
Canada
Kitchener, Ontario
7
Ireland
Dublin
8
Nigeria
Lagos
9
Canada
Toronto, Ontario
10
Canada
Winnipeg, Manitoba
11
United States
Birmingham, Alabama
12
Canada
Montreal, Quebec
13
Canada
Steinbach, Manitoba
14
Norway
Drbak, Akershus
15
Canada
Toronto, Ontario
16
United Kingdom
Glasgow, Glasgow City
17
United States
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
18
United States
Andover, Massachusetts
19
Canada
Burnaby, British Columbia
20
Poland
Leszno
Average Visit Length 1:29,
Today 37
This Week 1,234
The last 20 visitors:
Canada
Steinbach, Manitoba
2
Italy
Latina, Lazio
3
Poland
Warsaw, Warszawa
4
Canada
Victoria, British Columbia
5
France
Voiron, Rhone-Alpes
6
Canada
Kitchener, Ontario
7
Ireland
Dublin
8
Nigeria
Lagos
9
Canada
Toronto, Ontario
10
Canada
Winnipeg, Manitoba
11
United States
Birmingham, Alabama
12
Canada
Montreal, Quebec
13
Canada
Steinbach, Manitoba
14
Norway
Drbak, Akershus
15
Canada
Toronto, Ontario
16
United Kingdom
Glasgow, Glasgow City
17
United States
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
18
United States
Andover, Massachusetts
19
Canada
Burnaby, British Columbia
20
Poland
Leszno
Falung Gong
These Falum Gong protesters were standing here like this for a long time in Toronto. Interesting movement.
Astrological Diagram
The most high can communicate to a few of the elect the faculty of raing themselves above natural things in order to perceive some of the radiance of supreme perfection, but these elect are unable to translate into words the immaterial vision that has made them tremble with delight,
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Friday, March 07, 2008
Perhaps I should mention....
Perhaps I should mention that I wrote this at school a couple days ago, when I was thinking about a dream I had that night.
Eyes tuned up the road
Past the sunset
Where the shadows stretch far down the road
“Hey little bunny what did you do?
She keeps crying looking up
At just the sun, me and you”
Maybe it’s just a flaw in my mind
As she spins out of control
Drunk at the wheel
The piggy’s bone dipped in blood
Scratched across the wall
To make her devil do her chores
And you’re writhing at the floor
At the mercy of more
What were you expecting
the boogie man to do
When you open the closet door?
Now you and her share a crib
With the devil staring at the fresh skin
Placed precisely on your head
And you wonder why the corpse
Screaming at you from under your bed
Never gets old
Always gleaming a fresh red
Get back in the car
And wipe that rabbit smile
Right off your face
It’s time for you crash the same car
Going everywhere on Empty
Trying to find that place to sleep
But you just come back to your guilty highway
As she lays on the pavement
And you keep asking
“Hey little bunny what did you do?
She keeps crying looking up
At just the sun, me and you”
E
Eyes tuned up the road
Past the sunset
Where the shadows stretch far down the road
“Hey little bunny what did you do?
She keeps crying looking up
At just the sun, me and you”
Maybe it’s just a flaw in my mind
As she spins out of control
Drunk at the wheel
The piggy’s bone dipped in blood
Scratched across the wall
To make her devil do her chores
And you’re writhing at the floor
At the mercy of more
What were you expecting
the boogie man to do
When you open the closet door?
Now you and her share a crib
With the devil staring at the fresh skin
Placed precisely on your head
And you wonder why the corpse
Screaming at you from under your bed
Never gets old
Always gleaming a fresh red
Get back in the car
And wipe that rabbit smile
Right off your face
It’s time for you crash the same car
Going everywhere on Empty
Trying to find that place to sleep
But you just come back to your guilty highway
As she lays on the pavement
And you keep asking
“Hey little bunny what did you do?
She keeps crying looking up
At just the sun, me and you”
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Giant Rabbits
Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids:
We will add a few words about mandragores and androids, which several writers on magic confound with the waxen image; serving the purposes of bewitchment. The natural mandragore is a filamentous root which, more or less, presents as a whole either the figure of a man, or that of the virile members. It is slightly narcotic, and an aphrodisiacal virtue was ascribed to it by the ancients, who represented it as being sought by Thessalian sorcerers for the composition of philtres. Is this root the umbilical vestige of our terrestrial origin ? We dare not seriously affirm it, but all the same it is certain that man came out of the slime of the earth, and his first appearance must have been in the form of a rough sketch. The analogies of nature make this notion necessarily admissible, at least as a possibility. The first men were, in this case, a family of gigantic, sensitive mandragores, animated by the sun, who rooted themselves up from the earth ; this assumption not only does not exclude, but, on the contrary, positively supposes, creative will and the providential co-operation of a first cause, which we have reason to call God.
Some alchemists, impressed by this idea, speculated on the culture of the mandragore, and experimented in the artificial reproduction of a soil sufficiently fruitful and a sun sufficiently active to humanise the said root, and thus create men without the concurrence of the female. (See: Homunculus) Others, who regarded humanity as the synthesis of animals, despaired about vitalising the mandragore, but they crossed monstrous pairs and projected human seed into animal earth, only for the production of shameful crimes and barren deformities. The third method of making the android was by galvanic machinery. One of these almost intelligent automata was attributed to Albertus Magnus, and it is said that St Thomas (Thomas Aquinas) destroyed it with one blow from a stick because he was perplexed by its answers. This story is an allegory; the android was primitive scholasticism, which was broken by the Summa of St Thomas, the daring innovator who first substituted the absolute law of reason for arbitrary divinity, by formulating that axiom which we cannot repeat too often, since it comes from such a master: " A thing is not just because God wills it, but God wills it because it is just.
The real and serious android of the ancients was a secret which they kept hidden from all eyes, and Mesmer was the first who dared to divulge it; it was the extension of the will of the magus into another body, organised and served by an elementary spirit; in more modern and intelligible terms, it was a magnetic subject.
It was Franz Mesmer who postulated the existence of a magnetic fluid or ethereal medium as a therapeutic agent.
The fifth Classical Element is known by various names: Aether
Plato's Timaeus posits the existence of a fifth element (corresponding to the fifth remaining Platonic solid, the dodecahedron) called quintessence, of which the cosmos itself is made.
Robert Fludd stated that the aether was of the character that it was "subtler than light". (In 1630, Fludd proposed many perpetual motion machines. Also, In 1618, Fludd wrote De Musica Mundana (Mundane Music) which described his theories of music, including his mundane (also known as "divine" or "celestial") monochord.
modern interpretation that algorithms, software, or other similar "cyberspace" processes be categorized as belonging to the fifth element.
Thus, for example, musical instruments that produce sound in cyberspace (whether by digital or analog electric circuits, and/or computation, whether mechanical computers, optical computing, or electrical) are said to be quintephones
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Triple Diamond CLeanser
"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."
As explained on an episode of Cheers by Cliff Clavin to his drinking buddy, Norm Peterson
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
William Shakespeare, Othello
"Acid is not for every brain... Only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous, high-velocity should seek these experiences. This elitism is totally self-determined. Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected, please abstain." -Timothy Leary
"Herb like fruit. Keep you healthy, mind clear." -Bob Marley
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." -Tom Waits
All know the Way, but few actually walk it.
Bodhidharma
These teachings are like a raft, to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood. Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings, how much more so should you abandon bad states of mind!
Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning? Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder?
Sunday, March 02, 2008
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