Marie, Reine du Monde, Wolfboy, and the Ghost Dance

So, here I sit in La Basilique du Marie, Reine du Monde, a church so beautiful it's almost ridiculous, Latin script lining the cieling around me, statues of the saints looking down blindly, and a woman reading La Lettre du St. Paul a les Romans, about how par la peche d'un seul, la mort est entree la monde, (how, by the sin of one man, death entered the world).

Outside, in the park next door, in the morning shadows of skyscrapers and banks, is the statue of John A. Macdonald that became famous when, in 1964, the FLQ used it as the site of their first public act, spraypainting "JE SUIS SEPERATISTE!" on the base of it. (They blew up a mailbox in the suburbs the next day.)

Since I can't become Jewish in any real or meaningful way (though I'd certainly love to), I've decided that perhaps I shall become French-Catholic, since at least that's a genuine part of my heritage (moreso than the 1/16 Jewish bit, in any case).

The woman sitting a few rows in front of me looks so much like my friend Claire that I keep looking over to make sure it's really not her, and I keep forgetting to think about my sins.

My new roomate Pascale has taken to calling one of my cats "La Reine du Monde"-- the queen of the world. It's sort of like calling her "The Madonna". Pascale's blood boils whenever I mention that good hockey players have played on teams other than Les Canadiens, although she has a soft spot for the Jets.

The Cardinal is sitting up front in his velvet robes, on a giant purple couch. He seems like he's about 90 years old, and possibly falling asleep.

I can't take communion here, since I was never confirmed and am therefore not part of the club (two years of seminary doesn't count). I got my cheeky revenge by listening to Robbie Roberston's "Ghost Dance" on my way to church--exactly the kind of song and dance that this very church would have banned not so long ago.

(p.s. In the end, I took communion anyway, having confessed my sins only to God and Carlos, and not to a priest as I'm supposed to, and I didn't feel badly about it at all. In fact, I felt pretty good, and I suspect that God and Marie, Reine du Monde, were probably happy that I went ahead with it.)

Biomimetric

This is the era of biology
Where sin becomes measure
and your genes the song
of your enemy

The science of being
statistically squared
and economically
living

This is the era of
beauty antipathy
singing thing that
we all are one

Gregarious moments
mean nothing in
simples but listen
to reach you
and levels of
glorious
timpani

The Flower

Extension on poetry homework?

When your feet
are dragging on the pavement
and your rattling kettle
whistles
boils over
with hot
harrowed
liquid
steam

Jump on the mole-skin saddle
of your red haired steed
and ride the mother ship west
up to the gossamer sinewy yonder
wheels turning
dinner's burning

Oh please murmur
sweet nothings
to me

Righteous Ike @ The Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club

Possible Election

To stay or not to stay?

In Harrow, MB

Poetry Activity:

Here in the farmer’s field just off the highway,
the path of the harrow
is filled with liquid
red as Egypt’s Nile after Moses.

the slave's desire to return has always made sense to me
that story of liberation
laid out
in a dank church basement
filled with little moles and holy lessons
there, where I first
heard the
the low murmurs
of a mother and her children
wincing at the sound of a 1000 feet and the chariot’s wheel
trembling on sea shore.

a lack faith or so sister Vivian said,
as she passed around stale cookies and Tang,
the whole class agreed and
although I nodded, I secretly wanted them to go back .
we played the parting of the sea together later, in front
and used the pavement
as the path that God made.

Here in this farmer’s field just off the highway
the gossamer threads pull
and I am reminded of the truth about kettles and devils

Nice to meet your Flaccid Acquaintance

Welcome to My Menagerie

Flaccid Aphasia
(Diamond Mirth Mix)

Between the slender locks
Within our eyes
Lashed out so brightly coiled
Craving a quaint drop of translucent milk
The bosom in which they draw from
The bosom in which they blossom

The cerulean waters so clear and lonesome
Cold as the mirror imitates
Mimicking as shadows do
Like a dog without a home or virtue

She holds the same notes
Condemned to play the same melody
Within an elated prism
Like a polyphonic requiem
For she cannot recall or fathom
What else I taught her to execute

I hold the notes dear
As my euphoria resides in the dew
Laid out like a surrendered honeysuckle
On the same placid keys
Coveted like a rhythmic redemption
I seize and swallow it like a supplicant

The skinny tiny dogs devour
The apples left along the path
Of the ever onward trees
Like an incantation of howls and whimpers
They blissfully run to their lush confides

It’s a mere fantastic note to add
To a dry symphony
Immersed in the pools
We have all once drowned within
Pools of oil, water, and fire
Staring at a blank gaze

And still the melody never gets old
It still satisfies our flaccid tongue
With our fingers we easily cast into hell
And the melody has truly
never been heard this well.

------------------------------------------> Spawn of thebluemask

Poetry/Contest/Life

I accept the harrow(ing)
challenge of the
mole of
mortality
swimming in her
red gossamer (a
word i'd never
use)
kettle of
liquid like
blood,

of poetry and language,
life,
mother of us all,
the meat-wheel turns
slowly, a
murmur of
regret as it
eases us
into the
pavement.

A Very Light Sleeper

Rolling the gossamer threshold
of waking light and dream

The wheel's blissful murmur
halts with a kettle-scream

What harrows me this evening
while I'm laying in my bed

I turn my gaze upon it
liquid blurred and red

There outside my window
between the pavement and the grass

A mother mole is sitting
and licking her own ass!

The gossamer mole

I am the gossamer mole
pavement and harrow
kettle of the red mother
and liquid wheel
I am the gossamer mole

2nd Person, Singular

Dual typewriter, two holes in a desk
And the liquid that spills down your throat
Alone in a room with sixteen chairs
Like a mole in the pavement fearing the turn of the wheels

Voice on the phone speaking of dreams
Retreats to a murmur and violent scenes
And you wish that you could disappear
For just a moment
But the kettle calls

You

Haggard and harrowed
And blessed
To be of a mother
To be of this earth
To be among
To have the gossamer, red in your veins

Kettle Drum

a gossamer of thought

floats on the rythym

of a kettle drum

red liquid stains on the pavement leave

rusted watermarks

on the wheel

a mole of sorrow a harrow hole

in the heart of the mother son

a murmur of life floats away

to the rythym of a kettle drum

Poetry Activity

3 day poetry contest.

You have the next three days to create the best poem you can with the following words

1. harrow 2. mole 3. red 4. gossamer 5. kettle 6. liquid 7. mother 8. wheel
9. murmur 10. pavement


If you accept this challenge please post your poem on February, 6 by midnight.

Upon arrival...

...imagine my surprise to discover everyone spoke French in this city.

Heh. Just kidding.

I'm one hour into Montreal living. My apt is long and skinny, old and quaint in a really neat area (near Barri-UQAM on the map above), and my room needs painting, but i like the place and i like my new roomates. The cats have already begun to adjust--they have a new cat friend here, too, which complicates things a little. I'm expecting the fur to fly at least once.

It's a crazy sleet-blizzard right now, and as of yet I have no idea what Montreal looks like.

I barely slept in the 72 hrs preceding my arrival here--quite literally, I ended up working around the clock, between writing, teaching, and youth sheltering... Not to mention packing and cleaning.

My last 36 hours in Wpg was a coffee-fuelled food and sleep deprivation binge, culminating with a trip to the airport in which I was still packing on my way out the door. I am exhuasted.

I have no phone, but will soon, i expect.


Further dispatches to follow.

p.s. URGENT UPDATE: No sightings of Leonard Cohen to report as of yet.

Midnight Special II

Okay, I just found these two and they can't go un-posted.
first one is of the spinners. Check out the Rubberband dance at the end.
Man, I want a suit like that.
Second is Billy Preston who passed away last year. Great Musician.

Midnight Special

Lately, there is an infomercial late at night for the whole Midnight Special series, and I have been so tempted to get it, but can't afford the gazillion easy payments of way-too-much$$, so I checked them out on youtube. Here are two that I quite enjoy. The first one with Sly Stone and Tom Jones is so weird, cause Tom Jones is a weird dude. And the second shows the beautiful Stevie Nicks.

Earth, Wind and Fire

The other night, late into the Label Jam, Earth Wind and Fire came up and I expressed that they are, in my opinion, one of the tightest bands of all time. Chic Gamine's drummer Sacha loves them so much and made us all watch the documentary while on the road. His favorite song of theirs is "After the Love is Gone" which is a true gem. I wanted to post it, but some of the videos aren't embedded. I recommend you check it out though. This is "September", a party favorite and one of the hits. The video is quite trippy too, but i chose it because it has got all of the glam that EWF dished out.

Javex

600px-SriYantra_construct.svg, originally uploaded by babajiwotan.

This temple requires cleansing.

Tubes, drains, papers, and pills

This is more than words
or four chords

it is not a rock song

it is not a dream

it is not a whisper
but an endless chatter

a hissing
of needles
smoke
and air

So tell me

is it
blood, sweat, tears
shit
or water

is it
tubes, drains, papers
pills
or blankets

that brought you here?

No

it is a machine beeping
clock ticking
heels sticking
to the floor
as you try to walk faster

it is more
than me
or you
or him

it is not beautiful

there were

there were
so many
things i wanted to
tell you
that i didn't and
maybe we just
ran out of
time
or i forgot
your number
(though you'd
always had
mine, we
both admitted
later)

there were
so many
times taken
for granted
things i
tried to
hang on to
the shadows of
forgotten
moments or
an illusion of
before the fact
memory

long gone
before we'd ever
even
conceived it.

Charitable Decline

I'm sludging thru my first "block". This is new, but not new. I've dabbled in this imagery before, but it's all that came out.

Winnipeg, March 2006

Take the photo...quick! This hurts!

Oranges are not the only Fruit

"History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing. A cat's cradle...there is a certain seductiveness about dead things. You can ill treat, alter and recolour what's dead. It won't complain"
Jeanette Winterson.

Charles Mingus

image from http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/owlive/img/jul02/mingus071402_big.jpg

*******************************


So, Charles Mingus' album "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion" has been totally blowing me away lately.

Click here for a video of a rehersal for the LEGENDARY performance in Stockholm, 1964:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsNpHpLnO4M

redyellow morning

i'm not sure why
i'm typing this except that
the worlds feels so
achingly beautiful now
(your phrase, not mine)
and i guess i had
thought, suddenly, of
our mutual friend
singing
"If You Could Read My Mind, love"
on the rooftop of the WAG on a
bluesky summer day,
redyellow
sirens in the
streets below,
you were crying and
someone's hand was
on my back,

and just now,
i thought of you,
in far away montreal,
drunk in the redyellow sun
of grassy hospital yard and i
wanted to protect you
from all of this, and to
protect myself
but i can't

life has dealt us all
its hands i'm
glassy eyed now with
sunlight and
whoever believes in
this,
though he were
dead yet shall
he live with
this knowledge
of
the aching
diamond lotus
beauty of
youth and

old age and
the grave,

time
drifting down
on us now

like
St. Theresa's
redyellow
rosepetal compassions

time
falling

like
so much
bright blue day,

like deepwinter
sparkle of
snow.

Victim of the City

Searching For Uranium

uranium, originally uploaded by babajiwotan.

Howdy. Im in Ontario clearing trails through the bush for a prospection Uranium mine. There's a strong force of people in the area native and non-native who are oposed to the mine. On the 28th they say that they'll put up a blockade (ipperwash) so that we can't go to work. I signed a three month contract. If work stops I still get payed!

Uranium is a highly radioactive material. If you bought a uranium care charged with a peice of uranium the size of a double A battery. That Uranium car would keep going without needing a new battery for 50+ years. Uranium is weird.

Watch the news for this story. On the 28th of january it should be national news.

(Ill be in my balaclava trying to stir the pot)

Nice Backdrop!

Check out the article from the free press here

I believe that's a portrait of Joanna Miller by David Macri in the background.

The photo is of Keri Latimer, a local singer/songwriter from Nathan

nice!

Lew Dite on the Flute

Hyperactive

Labyrinth & Geodesic Dome Design

Chris Pancoe and I are proposing this design for the 2008 Winnipeg Folk Festival....

Knackerson, is this because of you?

LOS ANGELES — The estate of actor Marlon Brando has filed suit against Palliser, claiming one of the company’s home theater chairs is illegally using the name of the late actor.
The Los Angeles County Superior Court suit says Palliser, which introduced the Brando home theater chair in 2004, has “callously and willfully” disregarded the family’s rights to Brando’s name and likeness. It specifically accuses the company of misappropriation of the name of a deceased celebrity, which is a violation of the state’s civil code.
The Brando estate is seeking an injunction prohibiting Palliser from selling the Brando chair, as well as other unspecified damages and legal fees.
The suit includes a copy of a letter Palliser sent to representatives of the estate in January. In the letter, the company denied the chair was named for the late actor. It said Brando was chosen because it is the name of a popular tourist area on the island of Corsica.

That part about naming the chair after a tourist area would probably fly better if they didn't also have an "Eastwood" chair. Or was that Eastwood Tourist Lodge in Niagra Falls?

Waiting for the Moment

Oh Jazmin!

'Member that?

The sun. *sigh*

Easy like Sunday mo-oh-oh-oh-rning

Fog ii

No demons left to escape
here in the darkness awake
but what spark of light is this
draws burning venomous kiss

formless shadows play to dance
as distant peaks begin to ring
see there red spot on hands
reawaken ruin they can bring

distance banish thee from sight
cast the very stars from the night
speak none. hear none. see no.
No, not what i have done

Fear is not beyond thee imagination
but precision exacted on the reality

Zephyrus and Chloris

one last goddamn poem...

on the day you
left the sky
was perfectly grey and the
streets seemed
a bit surprised
and even the weathermen were
sad and predicted
a 90% chance
of this city being
far more boring
than it used to be,

and for once
the bastards were right.

They came from yonder

Tornado

Tornado, by Cliff Eyland.

c. 2007.

Heavy Hoarfrost on Grassie Boulevard, Don't Walk.

No really, I can see.

Hearth

There's a bird!

Goofballs

BEAUTIFUL (AND NOT-SO-BEAUTIFUL) WORDS

Cellar door is a combination of words in the English language once characterized by J. R. R. Tolkien to have an especially beautiful sound (In his 1955 essay "English and Welsh").

Wilfred Funk's list of the most beautiful words in English: ASPHODEL, FAWN, DAWN, CHALICE, ANEMONE, TRANQUIL, HUSH, GOLDEN, HALCYON, CAMELLIA, BOBOLINK, THRUSH, CHIMES, MURMURING, LULLABY, LUMINOUS, DAMASK, CERULEAN, MELODY, MARIGOLD, JONQUIL, ORIOLE, TENDRIL, MYRRH, MIGNONETTE, GOSSAMER, ALYSSEUM, MIST, OLEANDER, AMARYLLIS, ROSEMARY. [Alysseum may be a misspelling of alyssum, but this is how the word appears in Paul Dickson's Words.]

In the same poll, other American writers, poets, and critics responded with these selections: HOME (Lowell Thomas), CHATTANOOGA (Irvin S. Cobb), MELODY (Charles Swain Thomas), NOBILITY (Stephen D. Wise), VERMILION (Lew Sarett), GRACIOUS (Bess Streeter Aldrich), PAVEMENT (Arnold Bennett), LOVELY (George Balch Nevin), HARBORS OF MEMORY (William McFee), and NEVERMORE (Elias Lieberman). Louis Untermeyer responded, "The most musical words seem to be those containing the letter 'l'. I think, offhand, of such words as VIOLET, LAKE, LAUGHTER, WILLOW, LOVELY, and other such limpid and liquid syllables" [Charles Turner].

According to James Joyce, CUSPIDOR is the most beautiful word in English [Dickson].

In A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (page 86), Annie Dillard writes: "My friend Rosanne Coggeshall, the poet, says that 'sycamore' is the most intrinsically beautiful word in English" [Sarah Gossett].

A survey conducted in 2004 by the British Council which asked more than 40,000 people around the world to rank the most beautiful words among a list of 70 words found MOTHER first, followed by PASSION, SMILE, LOVE, and ETERNITY [Charles Turner].

The ten worst-sounding words in English, according to a poll by the National Association of Teachers of Speech in August, 1946: CACOPHONY, CRUNCH, FLATULENT, GRIPE, JAZZ, PHLEGMATIC, PLUMP, PLUTOCRAT, SAP, and TREACHERY.

According to reporter, editor, writer, and author Willard R. Espy, the ten most beautiful words in the English language are GONORRHEA, GOSSAMER, LULLABY, MEANDERING, MELLIFLUOUS, MURMURING, ONOMATOPOEIA, SHENANDOAH, SUMMER AFTERNOON, WISTERIA [The Book of Lists 2 (1980)].

In a 2005 column in the New York Times, James Gorman wrote that he was infatuated with the word AMYGDALA. "I like its sound, you might say its musicality" [Robert Brown].

According to Espy, the ten ugliest-sounding words in English, excluding indecent words, are FRUCTIFY, KUMQUAT, QUAHOG, CREPUSCULAR, KAKKAK, GARGOYLE, CACOPHONOUS, AASVOGEL, BROBDINGNAGIAN, JUKEBOX [The Book of Lists: The '90s Edition].

VICTUALS (pronounced "vittles") is the ugliest word in the language according to Harry Golden [Dickson].

NYNEX was deemed to be the worst name of any company in America by the publisher of Advertising Age [Dickson].

Fog i

I'm sorry, it was you.
what was said behind the words
could not be stopped.
live by thee, die by thee

A carcass whole, sinew
and bone at the crossroads
pools of blood full of swords
come here to be reborn

persevere Pegasus
carry truth into the light
hide not in the darkness
cast by your own night

It is not just dreaming minds that lie
Beyond swimming lost horizons

Pollock/Jean Genie/A Day in the Life/Pollock

I know I've already posted this on BookFace. What can I say? I'm just a VPW junkie

found art

Golden City

Lipopette Bar, live

This is the band I rave about below-- Oxmo Punccino and the Jazzbastards. Click here to see how f'ing cool they are.

Yeah, kitty-cats, I mean cool.

Like a cucumber, daddy-o, as in "cool as a".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUHOJlS8kUk

C'etait bon, tres bon...

These guys (and a couple gals, too) are amazing.

Oxmo Puccino and the Jazzbastards. Sort of 70's Afro-Euro funk-jazz meets Massive Attack meets Portishead meets American hip-hop.

In French.

Note the synchronicity with the pic below.

The boy wants in....

Dylan has requested to become an ALFA blogger for outside opinions on his words. Who's running the ship now? Knick, or Mac?
How can this happen...? How can this have happened...?

The land of the walking marriage

I read this article today.
I was most interested in the Mosuo's mores and rules associated with love, marriage and commerce.


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_9_109/ai_67410989

IT IS OFFICIALLY TIME FOR THE WORLD TO LEAVE THIS POOR GIRL ALONE!

Britney, Interrupted

(from www.msn.ca)

04/01/2008 9:15:00 AM

The pop star is going to stay with her nice friends at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for awhile.

Related Video: Watch Britney's hospital drama caught on tape | Britney's Piece Of Me video

It was a pretty quiet day yesterday, except for when Britney Spears, practically frothing, was strapped to a gurney and carted off to a hospital. A spokesperson for the L.A. police said the sexy schoolgirl turned python-wrangler turned wig enthusiast was on drugs at the time. Her mansion in L.A. became a standoff zone around 7 pm, when Kevin Federline's bodyguard rolled in to pick up the kids for daddy time. While the bodyguard managed to get two-year-old Sean, Britney wouldn't hand over one-year-old Jayden. Making matters worse, Britney locked her court-ordered parenting supervisor out of the house while she hid inside with her assistant Carla, pal Alli Sims and Jayden. After 90 minutes, the bodyguard called the police.

After getting paperwork from K-Fed's lawyer, the police busted into Britney's house and strapped her to a gurney. As she was being loaded into an ambulance, pictures on TMZ show her with a dopey smile on her face, although Ok! reports she was in tears when she was being taken out of her home. The 26-year-old was taken to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 11:50 pm, where she was held overnight. Britney's one-year-old son Jayden was also taken to the hospital in an ambulance, TMZ reports, while Sean was staying with his dad. So far Britney's visitors have included her father Jamie, le K-Fed, and her pal Sam Lutfi, oh, and Us Weekly and TMZ. Ok! reports that she will be held under observation for 24 hours, and then will likely be slapped with a charge or two.

It was a Daniel Powter-style bad day for Britney all around. The day started with her showing up to a two-hour deposition with Kevin Federline's lawyer an hour and 45 minutes late. She had missed the previous day's deposition and had skipped out of one in December, blaming anxiety.

We're kind of grateful this meltdown happened. The court should be able to make some moves now to put her kids in a less meth-y, er, messy, environment. And, as always, we're grateful she didn't die.

Union Station

Dear Fellow Bloggers

Better Late Than Never ?

New Year's Eve-- Ghost and Cat

Fun Mirrors

Did we already talk about Andy Goldsworthy?

Cool eh? And he didn't even use paint!

"I'm for an art..." By Claes Oldenburg

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.I am for art that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.I am for the art out of a doggy’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof.I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.I am for art that is smoked, like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.I am for art that flaps like a flag or helps blow noses, like a hand-kerchief.I am for art that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, like socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit.I am for art covered with bandages. I am for art that limps and rolls and runs and jumps. I am for art comes in a can or washes up on the shore.I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that sheds hair.I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on.I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from theedge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist.I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches.I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind mans metal stick.I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetys arm, or kiss, like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks, like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on, like an old tablecloth.I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with.I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is.I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a govern-ment check. I am for the art of last wars raincoat.I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer-holes in winter. I am for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worms art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs.I am for the art of neck-hair and caked tea-cups, for the art between the tines of restaurant forks, for the odor of boiling dishwater.I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red and white gasoline pumps.I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the art of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art of dead birds.I am for the art of scratchings in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids’ smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beerdrinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a barstool.I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog-turds, rising like cathedrals.I am for the blinking arts, lighting up the night. I am for art falling, splashing, wiggling, jumping, going on and off.I am for the art of fat truck-tires and black eyes.I am for Kool-art, 7-UP art, Pepsi-art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol Art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L & M art, Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New art, How art, Fire sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art.I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rats’ dance between floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples.I am for the art of meowls and clatter of cats and for the art of their dumb electric eyes.I am for the white art of refrigerators and their muscular openings and closing.I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn meat-hooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue and yellow meat.I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for the art of crayons and weak grey pencil-lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.I am for the art of teddy-bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, ex-ploded umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burn-ing trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums & tambourines, and plastic phono-graphs.I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for an art of watertanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.I am for U.S. Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-eat art, Best-for-less art, Ready-to-cook art, Fully cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, pork art, chicken art, tomato art, banana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art.

Art, Intimacy, and Meaning

These are some quotes from an interview with Luis Jacob (at www.livewithculture.ca), an artist who I'm writing about this week. He has an installation piece at Plug In that he made in collaboration w/ Noam Gonick.

Your work as an artist spans a variety of media. Is there a particular medium that best conveys your messages?

--I don't define my work by medium. Being an artist is a life choice that encompasses all aspects of one's life--not only the moments when one is "making art".

Being an artist involves living one's life meaningfully --that is, as a meaning-generating act.
It also involves making one's life public, making it into something shared and open to others' judgement and influence.

Of course, what I have just said applies to all of us, not only to artists. As a result, many artists in the modern period have asserted that everyone is an artist!

If I were pressed to define my medium of interest, it would be "society".


When people view your installations or participate in your performances, what you do want them to learn, to take away with them?

--Here is my ideal scenario: that my work makes people feel engaged enough and free enough to give something of themselves to the project. There is a place within each of us that is our source of meaning, our power, our gift to the world.

Through my work, I would like to touch that place in other people, and in this way to create situations of contact and intimacy with others. Art withers without this intimacy, and so do individuals.

Soapstone Chess Set Design

I know it's not really 2008 New Years related, but it was created in 2008 =)
It will take me 10 years to get around to actually carving it, but this design was inspired by a recent fascination with chess, and my interest in Northern culture (as well as Carlos's).

2008

New Year's Intentions