It's lunch-time and Coco is not here.

Which gives me no recourse except this bloody blog.
So.
Walking home yesterday i saw a man moping along with a giant blue snow-shovel. I thought this a rather clever thing, given the state of the sidewalks, althought he was swinging it around in a way that was also vaguely disconcerting, especially as I tromped by him.
Then this morning, on my way to work, i saw him again, still with the shovel, this time clearing away watery muck as he walked.
I wonder if he thinks that he has to clear a new path through his life every day, just so he can get through it all.

the name Pru.

I'm not allowed to blog about how this name came about, but Sweet Lord. PRU. A nickname. For someone who is not named Prudence, and who lives in Chichester, no less.

today's banal events of note.

I was told by an author I'm corresponding with for work that I have the most "pleasant emailside manner" ever.
Sigh. Emailside manner.
Such a modern and lovely compliment, and I'm citing it here that I might remember to use it in the future on like-mannered people.

Left my beloved bike and walked home (west-west end) today, 'coz I'm just not that hard-core, and wasn't in the mood to get trapped under something four-wheeled and menacing. PASSED ON FOOT AT DUFFERIN the streetcar that wouldn't pick up passengers at University Ave, where I started my meander. You'd think we know how to handle snow a bit better than all that by now.

And then, in the evening, drilled a hole into my thumb. By accident you understand. But noteable, nonetheless.

we now return to our regularly scheduled banalities.

Scanning down this blog, i realize i've been going on about cultural outings at great length of late, and sounding like a wanker. (well, to me at least. and i read this blog too, you know.)
So enough of that.
It's time to get back to Real Life, and post some daily banal events that make blogs so...bloggy.
so.

BANAL EVENT NUMBER ONE.
Today i saw a great big man wearing a white bella clava and a camouflage puff-daddy coat (okay, i don't know if it was a puff-daddy coat 'coz i don't know what puff-daddy looks like 'coz i live under a rock, but the coat looked like what i imagine someone named puff-daddy would wear).
Anyhow. Said man, in said bella-clava, with said "puff-daddy" coat, was tearing down the sidewalk in a little automized wheelchair vehicle, that was about half the size of him. He was downright RECKLESS and nearly took down an old lady and an OCAD student, all at once.

And I thought it was funny.

of little use, but so funny.

(as a clarification in hindsight, in light of this bad photo) the two matches =the twin towers.

the Overcoat and a lamentation.

Went to see the Overcoat tonight, second time (first time was in 2000). SO.GOOD. Like, Gratuitous Weeping Good.

In a nutshell. It's about a dishevelled old man who works relentlessly at an office full of gits, gets a new overcoat, gets drunk and cocky whilst wearing it, loses it to a whore, and finds himself coatless in an insane asylum, until they give him a straightjacket and the curtain falls.
But it's like a Kafka story incarnate, all dark and odd and haunted and bureaucratic and such. And the performers are FUCKING MAGIC.

Instead of attempting to explain its brilliance, I will content myself with a few notes about the production from the program:
• 22 actors play 64 characters in this interpretation of Gogol's bitter and comic tale.
• There are 85 costumes and a two-storey, 20-tonne set, which travels in two 53-foot tractor=trailers on land or in four massive, ocean-going containers across water.

And a few of my own crucial observations:
• The entire play is silent, there are no words, just selections of Shostakovich's Jazz Suites, Piano Concertos etc.
• Props include sewing dummies (!), many bowler hats,(!), one well-set dinner table (!!) wooden drafting tables on wheels (!!!), and a very old kermit-the-frog-like bicycle (thumpa thumpa!!).
• The pieces of furniture move by virtue of actors lurking underneath them and crawling around on stage.
• The main character is the only one who has a name, and his name is The Man.
• The backdrop is a huge wall of fogged out windows that open and close to form everything from a police station, an apartment building with a trollope leaning out the window, the offices, etc etc. And there is a huge rolling staircase. And rolls of blueprints. And ladies dressed dapperly.
• A man in a bowler hat cycles across the stage twice (twice!!!) during the production.

If i could ever make an illustrated book the way that play is constructed, I would consider myself a Very Clever Person Indeed. Actually i'd LOSEMYMIND.

Other than that, today I lamented the fact that I have no idea what it's like to be 60. And there is nothing I can do about it.

pursuant to the evening with the Shameless Dames

There was an act in Friday evening's burlesque show where the three ladies frittered around the man with leather pants, who was holding up a giant egg. A giant egg.
And Coco exclaimed, "Paris!" and I thought, sigh, no it isn't, would that it was, but the burlesque makes us feel that much closer, doesn't it.
And then she said "I'm sure of it, Paris!" and I turned, thinking the red wine had obviously gone to her head. And then she explained the story of the Judgement of Paris, which had obviously been modernized in this act with an egg for an apple.
Of Course! She confirmed it with a quick googling the next day, and the reminder that one really should never go to a burlesque show without a clever and literary sort in tow.

a quick addendum to the pastys situation: I was given a fuzzy white heart by a very handsome stranger last night, and when I got home and stuck it to the wall next to my door I suddenly remarked to myself that of course! it is sticky on the other side! And that, i think, qualifies most admirably.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now one pasty shy of being a Better person.

februarys.

Talking to 231079 last week, who was feeling blue about the passing of time, I pulled out a couple of old journals to try to divine what i was up to this time seven years ago. Given that most of my journals are a messy pile of unidentifiable meanderings and complaints, i was happy to discover that even though early 2000 was one of the most melancholic periods of my life, a short trip to nyc in february notes indicate an anomalous month of respite from the mire.
And also filled with the usual flippant ponderings:

Then, this morning, I happened upon another February snippit, this time from 1996, (good gods, i was alive in 1996!):

the place: Thornton's chocolate shop; Covent Garden; London (an establishment that had the wherewithal to employ me)
the time: approaching Valentine's Day

the characters: stef and Jasmine, purveyor of fine chocolates, busily preparing for the VD onslaught
a momple (not even googlable, alas, a momple was a strange fuzzy puppet on strings, very long legs, head and body fused, if i remember correctly, big googley eyes, constantly at the mercy of a puppeteer)
Jules, a remarkably humorous momple-seller actually in the employ of Hamley's to wander through Covent Garden endearing his fuzzy companions to the rabble.

Jules came into the shop today with his furry momple creatures....We were icing up Valentines Day hearts. I did some doozies: "I love you but you're boring*", "Oh, Mon Cheri", "now available (for a limited time only)", "thump thump", etc. Jules insisted we take a few of his own suggestions: "my wife got the house, car, and the kid, this is all I've got left" on an iced heart with a crack down the middle, and a heart with "for you" on one side and "for my wife" on the other. After wandering around trying to sell our shop and his momples to our customers, professing his true love for Jasmine and reading our hearts, he continued with his pithy suggestions, quoting Yeats and a few well chosen words in persian. He returned about 15 minutes later, betook himself to behind our counter and iced his own chocolate heart, "luv ya til the bomb drops, baby" and then took his momple creatures and left.

* (thank you, Beautiful South)

oh Burlesque.

We went to see the Shameless Dames last night, and it was SO great. I have hereby decided that if I owned a pair of pastys, or "booby tassles", as 562001 called them, I would very likely be a better person.
Given the weather these days and my occasional attacks of modesty, I would also very likely wear them on my ears.

Remarkably age-ed.

My cahoot Willow and I started an AGYU bookmaking workshop for teens yesterday. It went swimmingly. I had a moment when I realized that students will tell you what they want to learn if you ask enough questions, which i love. It must be all my montessori coming through, but I'm a huge fan of the open table/conversation method of teaching, or what little I know about it. Anyhow everyone seemed revved by the end of the class, so I have a feeling some great stuff is gonna come out of this course, all 'round.

My favourite moment in the class; Whilst showing the kids Shan's hipster bingo gameboard:

q: "So, what does the word hipster mean to you guys?"
(vacant stares and quiet)
q: "Hmm. Are you familiar with the term at all?"
a: "uh, yeah, like, BACK IN THE DAY!"

Time does move on, doesn't it.

"a season with the borrowers."

Today, looking for some sundry credit or other to assuage a concerned reader, I was referred to an old issue of Brick, dating Summer 2004.
Perched atop the table of contents was a reproduction of a sticky note with the handwriting of an 11 year old on it, and the following text: Dear Borrower, I have not seen you, but I want to meet you. if I do I will not tell anyone without your permission. Agreed or not agreed. Love, Sara
I was, (surprising ABSOLUTELY no one) Intrigued. I turned to the relevant section of the magazine, and was promptly and completely abducted into reading an interview between Ira Glass, Lawrence Weschler, and his seventeen-year old daughter, who wrote the note when she was eleven.
At the age of eleven, Sara was convinced that there exist a race of tiny people called the Borrowers (based on the books, of course), that "borrow" things around the house, trinkets and such. It seems that when her father (Lawrence Weschler) read stories to her at night, they would have imaginary conversations with the illustrations in the book, (father and daughter) and somehow, Sara got the idea that she might write the Borrowers a note as well.
This she did, on a postie left in a small corner of the house.
She waited expectantly for WEEKS, getting more and more devastated that there was no answer to her letter.
Finally, her father, seeing all of this and having NO idea what to do to remedy the situation, turned the postie over and wrote a reply.
The enthusiastic response was Unprecedented, and over the next couple of months turned into a Rampant correspondence, between this little girl and the imaginary "Borrowers". When she discovered they were moving house, both daughter and (as a result) father were traumatized. What was to be done? The only solution was to move the Borrowers along with them. Father carefully placed all the trinkets collected over the last couple of months, left for the Borrowers, at strategic places along the route to their new home, pointing out that since the Borrowers were so very tiny, it would take them several days to make the transition. Daughter thought this most rational, and approved wholeheartedly.
The situation snowballed, in a word, and then one day, completely unwarranted, Sara confronted her dad and asked: "Did you write those letters?!?" He was just mortified, had no idea what to do, said the answer wasn't that simple, to which Sara said, "Yes, the answer is that simple, did you write those letters?"
"Yes" he said, and both of them burst into tears.
There was a moment where no one knew how the problem would resolve itself.
Then Sara said "Daddy, don't you realize? You ruined everything! Because there are Borrowers, and you were taking the letters before they were able to get them!"

I am very very very lucky to work in a place where the occasional spontaneous tear of joy and overwhelmement is not greeted with horror and a letter terminating my employment.

the little old lady in woolie underthings

called our office again today. Poor old dear. Coco is sure it was her.
This time she was asking for sock stretchers.
When she hung up, we were quite flummoxed at how she managed to call the same wrong number twice. Someone had the clever idea that we should call the number she thought she was calling when she reached us, and before a second had passed, Coco had dialed the number, and most assertively and confidently asked the person on the other end if they sold wool underwear.
The gentleman said no.
But he seemed non-plussed by the question, like it was a matter of course, said Coco when queried. Who knew.

Intoxication

I do believe this poetry challenge a clever idea, and one much better suited to multiple participants, so I hope you will continue it Robert, and as a new blogger beware than many will lurk, few will comment, and then Many will comment (via blog or email), and then you will have a full-time job on your hands. But a noble one, as the endeavour has proven so far.
In honor of poetry in general, I will leave the subject with this, courtesy of Mister Baudelaire, mastermind of the craft.

One must be for ever drunken: that is the sole question of importance. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time that bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunken without cease. But how? With wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you please. But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass by a moat, or in the dull loneliness of your chamber, you should waken up, your intoxication already lessened or gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the timepiece; ask of all that flees, all that sighs, all that revolves, all that sings, all that speaks, ask of these the hour; and wind and wave and star and bird and time-piece will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! Lest you be the martyred slaves of Time, intoxicate yourselves, be drunken without cease! With wine, with poetry, with virtue, or with what you will.
--Charles Baudelaire (translated of course)

real life.

987056 and I took two dogs for a very long walk through High Park this evening. I wore three pairs of socks and a remarkably warm coat in anticipation of the pilgrimage (a kind of foresight I'm rarely in posession of).
We sat on the hill and watched the sun go down behind the trees and sipped spiced hot chocolate from very small cups.
It was all very quiet. And I've never been so content on a Sunday.

onwards.

poem #3: no. (cute edits, though)
poem #4: no.

And with that, I'm going to have to graciously bow out of the challenge.
So early, it's true. My attention span is a fickle thing, easily grasped and just as easily swayed.
Poetry evaluation just doesn't match my time-wasting mantra, where this blog is concerned.

It's a very clever idea though, and I do thank you for thinking of me, Robert.
I would propose that you continue posting your poetic discoveries on your blog and open up the challenge to all readers, many of whom will have much more entertaining criticism than I on the subject.

In light of all this and in conclusion, I do retract my statement of two years (or whenever) ago. It's not that I don't like poetry, i like the poetry that I like.
Thank you for an eye-opening experience.

with regards to poetry: an attempt to save face.

Resumé by Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

and some poetry.

So, I've been challenged by this gentleman, my stilt-walking teacher of years ago, to read 100 poems and see if they won't force me to retract some flip comment I made a blog ago about not liking poetry. In a nutshell, for the ones I do like, I give $1 to my favourite charity, for the ones I don't, he'll cough it up for the same. A philanthropic endeavour, to be sure!
Pondering it further though, I have to say I'm going to have to minimize the project. Any review I could give of the poems I have been sent so far would have me outed for an Absolute Wanker, given that I have Plath, Pound, Roald Dahl, Ginsberg sitting in my inbox to name but a few. All of whom I have read (and enjoyed) much prose by, so WHO ON EARTH would I be to decry their poetry!?!
I will, for those who have not read his comment in the initial posting, re-iterate what dear "clicclic" (072666) wrote, who has known me forever, and has put it both charmingly and accurately: "...I always thought of you more as someone who simply hates bad poets (which are epidemic!) rather than one who dislikes poetry. it seems in the 21st century that artists and poets have been largely trained by artists and poets; the new breed have learned how to 'affect' art and affect poetry just enough to get noticed (it looks & smells like a poem, therefore...). Previously it was people of very diverse backgrounds coming to the table and using common tools/mediums to unify and describe their experiences; suddenly one can understand the positions of both the WW II Field Marshall and the decadent Aesthete."

It's true. I'm going to add to it though. Us art sorts are a self-absorbed lot. I'm no exception. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without a bit of critical selectivity as to what touches me (ahem) and what leaves me cold. Lots of poetry leaves me cold. It's not bad because it does so. But to pledge allegiance to it all Just-because-it's-poetry-and-i'm-an-arty-sort-so-really-I-should-love-it seems just as silly.

Ok, enough. Here is the link to Robert's blog on the subject, since he is doing much research in coming up with these samples of the fairest art our language has to offer:http://bobsyblog.blogspot.com/
Funny bloggy world. How odd to read an acquaintance's account of my "communicativeness" (such a kind word for it), and I'm beginning to think I should be paying Darren O'Donnell royalties for all the traffic that seems to unwittingly end up in my small corner of blog world due to that infamous debate of so long ago.

ANYHOW.

The first poem. From what I understand, these poems will appear on Robert's blog, I am long-winded enough without posting them here. You can click on the title for the link, though.

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath.

Surprisingly, I wasn't that fond of this one. i Adore Sylvia Plath, that is no secret, I named a series of paintings after her oven, but I found this poem was too wordy. (shrug) SUBJECTIVE, remember. I'm NOT saying it's bad. I'm just saying, on the whole *I* didn't like it. There were a couple of stanzas that Struck me (the way I imagine the whole thing should, for me to quake in my boots and announce "I've just been poetically struck!", but it was only a few stanzas that did it.
...
I've just read it again to be sure. I just think it could have been alot shorter, and blown my mind with the gems, instead of nestling them in unnecessary wordy details.

Prose is for details.

The second poem: The River Merchant's Wife: a Letter by Ezra Pound.

(sigh) Now I have a feeling this is going to turn my blog into some sort of constant public apology, but this poem didn't appeal to me either. Again, I think it is well-written, for that I'll happily set my $1 aside, but I wasn't really drawn in by it. Sorry.

JUST TO BE ASOLUTELY SURE IT'S CLEAR: MY OPINION OF THESE POEMS IS NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, A STATEMENT OF THEIR QUALITY. I am not a poet or an expert on poetry, and I am in NO position to evaluate or judge critically. I am, however, as close as it gets to an expert on myself, and I seem these days to have some sort of grasp on what I like and don't like, which I'm assuming is what this is about, if I understand correctly.

Lest you think I'm utterly apathetic to the english language, see quote cited two posts down from Lullabyes for little criminals, one of the books I'm reading right now.
Now That threw me across the room (or the laundromat, rather) this morning.

gravely disturbed.

i'd like to say that i'm still rather traumatized from my viewing of Notes of a Scandal and it's four days later. At first I was disappointed that the film didn't have Patrick Marber's caustic wit and stripped dialogue from Closer, and I was trying to figure out why the producers bothered getting him to write this screenplay, if he wasn't going to write in his own style. Closer was DIALOGUE according to its strictest definition, while ...Scandal was characters talking for the sake of the audience, your run-of-the-mill "and then she said this so (the audience) would know about this" kind of deal.
As i've been thinking about it though, I realized that even without his trademark writing style, he's a master at re-creating this hollowed-out horror of what it's like to be a human being alone with one's own thoughts and misunderstandings, even when one is surrounded by others. Which is, of course, exactly what the film seems to be about.
That said, I get it, and I would like the film to go away now.

lullabyes for little criminals

If you want to get a child to love you, then you should just go and hide in the closet for three or four hours. They get down on their knees and pray for you to return. That child will turn you into God. Lonely children probably wrote the Bible.

--Heather O'Neill

of peripateticizing, popcorn, and theatre for the end of the world

This is a sub-headed post. Bear with me. It's been a Very Full Day.

PERIPATETICIZING.
So. Feeling lamentable about it, I left my beloved Dervish lurking in my hallway this morning, given the unsympathetic state of the roads, and set out toward the busstop on foot. I only felt a momentary lurch of horror at the pile of people waiting there before deciding I would at least walk to the next stop, given the absence of any sign of a streetcar.
And then, dear reader(s), I was at Dovercourt. (I live in the very west of the west end of town)
Given that Coco lives in proximity to where I was, I gave her a ring, and asked if she wouldn't like to accompany me, as I decided "why stop now?" was the developing order of the day. She, being suitably extravagant by nature, especially on overly snowy mornings, decided a bit of brekkie was in order before we continued our pilgrimage. And so it was. We then continued onwards, stopping in several glorious stores (including the Paper Place AND Type, OH TYPE) to warm our toes during the trek.

(OUR V-DAY DECISION IN FAVOUR OF LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION)
We did make one solid significant decision on our chatty meandering: that letters of introduction should be...erm...re-introduced into the societal norm. You know, those clever things that once allowed new citizens entry to a work post, a new circle of friends, introduction to otherwise strangers by an indirect acquaintance.
We decided, however, that this practise should be extended to relationships. When one is on the cusp of exiting a relationship, one should be able to procur a letter of introduction from the break-upee for bringing to the next relationship. The same of course for those beginning a relationship. (Of any sort, really.) This would give both parties in the next chapter some idea of what they should and can expect from the corresponding suitor.
It seems to me it would make the practise of suiting (sic), breaking-up, and moving on easier, more respectable, and force people to uphold their good character once the initial excitement has waned.

POPCORN.
Arriving at work, we decided it was lunchtime. And soon after that we decided it was movie-time (lest you think this happens regularly in my work-life, it DOES NOT, but it was V-day, afterall), and we went to see Notes of a Scandal (perfectly suited to the day, if in name only)
I was Extremely Excited because the screenplay is written by one Patrick Marber, who was the mastermind of stripped-bare genius writing in the film Closer (based on his play of the same name) Not since Mike Leigh's Naked(an all-time favourite) had I seen dialogue SO accurate, so simple, so clear, and so intense, and was looking forward to more of the same.
WELL.
It seems he was adapting someone else's book, so the minimalism I had anticipated writing-wise was not to be had, but Intensity, YIKES. For those of you who don't know, I apologize in advance for giving some of the plot away, but it is, in a nutshell, about an intensely lonely woman who thinks she has discovered a lover in one of her work colleagues, and spends the whole film fabricating their relationship inside her head, whilst basically blackmailing said woman with a secret that could lose her her job. And the object of her affections, who sees this woman's solitary life, has No idea how her own sympathies and kindness are being misconstrued, and is led through this bizarre series of manipulative relations with the woman to keep this one mistake of hers a secret. The key to it being so intense is that there is no taking sides with either character, they are both intensely human, they are both doing their best, and they are both causing each other immeasurable pain and/or difficulty.

Anyhow. The film had the solitary ponderer in me want to call everyone I know and double-check with them that everything is in order despite my occasionally overabundant enthusiasms. And conversely, to give every person i am indifferent to and/or not excited about in my life Whatfor.

Of course, I will probably do neither. I haven't the testicular fortitude for the latter, nor the inclination towards disappointment with the former.
But I ponder it, I do.

THEATRE FOR THE END OF THE WORLD.
Ended the evening at the opening for Mammalian Diving Reflex's "Diplomatic Immunities: The End", which is, as indicated, the last of this project, erm...I think. It was great and I recommend it, it's playing at Buddies 'til 25th February.
I feel like, given my thoughts on their last show (one blog removed from this), I should take a moment to string a few well-intentioned ones here. There were things I liked better about it than Suicide Site Guide to the City It had the usual Mammalian "audience participation factor" which is insightful and definitely thought provoking.
But. For those in the audience familiar with the shows (which was alot of the house tonight, I think), the strategy tends to result in a pre-theatre introspection for attendees, (that is, how daring do i feel today, am i up for being asked personal questions by the performers or would I rather hover in the back and just observe, and if so, will I be allowed to, or dragged into a spotlight to talk about my thoughts on anarchy, God, and/or my covert sexual preferences) It was kind of a relief to have Darren share the question periods with all the performers, who are less confrontational in demeanour, without being any less pointed. The video footage of all the strangers/street people they interviewed was AMAZING, Especially the kids, who were asked their thoughts on the end of the world, the best way to die, and what music they wanted to hear, (possibilities included We will rock you, We are the champions, and a couple of other gems I can't for the life of me think of right now.)
Anyhow. I'm no reviewer, but I do say "Go see it". Perhaps not on a day when you are feeling particularly jovial, as was I, since the subject matter is weighty, and there isn't much in the way of optimism. But it's thoughtful. And thoughtful is good.

And so, to bed, and a happy V day and anti-V-day to all!

the Absolute, Utterly, Very Best thing about snow

is having a bay window in which to perch and watch it fall. Honest to Gods GLEE. Double Plus Glee, even.

poetically challenged!

I received a phone call this evening from the gentleman who taught me to walk on stilts some years ago (of course I did. oh funny bloggy life.), saying that he has been successfully wasting his valuable time reading this blog for a bit now (well, thank Gods someone else is wasting their time, tho' I imagine it's nowhere near as much time as I have been wasting writing it.)
ANYHOW. He was re-directed the other day to my old blog of 2005, where I stated at some point my general dislike for poetry, (excepting, of course, some remarkable and life changing authors (ee cummings, Stephen Crane, Lewis Carroll, etc.).)
So why did he call, dear readers?
To propose a CHALLENGE.
He is going to send me 100 poems over the next while.
I am to read them.
For each one I like I am to donate $1 to my favourite charity, and for each one I dislike, he will donate $1 to my favourite charity.
Goodness. I'm not sure I even have a favourite charity.
I'm not very charitable.
(Except when I'm far too charitable, but that's a different issue altogether)
Small furry animals are of course the first things that pop to mind, but I think Volcano Theatre would well win out as the most apt choice, if for no other reason than their staging of Varieté so many years ago, which made me LOSE MY MIND. (Varieté being "a vaudeville show inspired by the music of Argentinian/German composer, Mauricio Kagel, featuring dance, acrobatics, contortion, burlesque, clowning, magic and the text of Griffin Award winning poet Heather McHugh. Conducted by Robin Engleman.")

So. We shall see how this unfurls.

For the moment, though, I feel a short explanation of my antagonism to the poetic medium is in order.
How is it possible that an artsy minion such as myself, who works at a literary journal and a poetry-publishing indie press, dislikes poetry?
sigh. well, i don't strictly speaking. I am an ardent fan of all things written, and poetry has its place there.
BUT. I have the same misgivings about poetry that I have for contemporary art; why, for the most part, I prefer (ahem) naked italian angels on ceilings, and creepy etchings of spanish wars and monsters (Dear Goya) to nails stuck in the wall with titles like the state of my soul and such.
I just feel like so much poetry (and so much contemporary art) doesn't allow their audience in. So many poets (and artists) get cheeky, thinking they can outwit their readers with their clever ambiguity. (NOT ALL, mind you, NOT ALL, and I hope you will understand I am NOT advocating the composition or publication of literary pablum)
I read poems from here and there that do throw me across the proverbial room, but I respect people who use language to clarify themselves, rather than hide themselves.
Unless they are playing about, which is rampantly obvious, and rampantly enjoyable to read as well.
Art, in my small mind, should be beautiful or useful, but not baffling. Unless baffling, to the individual experiencing it, is useful. In which case I am fully in favour of that too.

of shearing, archivism, and artsy nonsense.

I will attempt not to beleaguer my reader(s) over the next couple of months with tedious details of my book(let)-making process/fixation. If my last blog was any indication, it really did get taxing, re-reading this constant running tally of my navel-gazing progress.
But I will assail you with sundry discoveries along the way. That is, of course, the nature of blogs, chock-full of unimportant but (to me, anyhow) highly amusing drivel.

My next little book(let) begins with a haircut, and so I spent some of today searching for the photographic record of my historic shearing of almost a year(!) ago. Ah photos. Besides a feverish and only slightly regretful nostalgia for my old locks, I also found a few other photographic gems of times-gone-by sundry art ventures. (click on photos to see them full-size)

Reference photo (2006) taken by my fellow dreaded friend Shan, just before my shearing, for her slide viewer/book project Four Failed Proposals for a World that Won't Hurt

Mid-way through shearing (2006); "Possible use for severed dreadlock #12: an inpermiable disguise."

Film still from a fire movie (2002) shot on Toronto Island, where I came prepared with all manner of fire toys imaginable, two bottles of kerosene, and NO MATCHES. So Very Clever. (in the end, a stranger named Leo doing an artist residency at Gibraltar Point saved us with fire and an impromptu bottle of wine, bless him)

Photo project (2003? 2004?) involving many suitcases, old carbon copies, white face paint and lingerie. (Note dreadlocks from 1998,(the second incarnation), in baggie on bottom right. Sigh.)

Pillowman production still (1999), banana (ahem) cocked and ready.

And this, although not an "art" project perse, was taken only a few weeks ago, inside one of the opulent water closets at the Royal York Hotel. Graffitti. In the Royal York. It seems someone was tucked away in the loo, doing the math to figure out someone else's age. Or their own. This, my dears, is how the other half lives.

excerpted from Harper's Weekly

...Japanese Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa apologized for calling women "birth-giving machines," hospital staff in Yekaterinburg, Russia, were gagging crying babies, and in Cambodia a Briton named Bowel Anpaul was arrested on charges of pedophilia. Rubber genitals were stolen from the set of the new "Hannibal" movie, an Argentine soccer fan who asked for a tattoo of his team's logo received instead a tattoo of a large penis, and a Chinese man whose genitals were eaten by a dog when he was a child was said to be happy with a new penis built from his chest muscles and hip bones....

ah, news.

and at 3.30am

with dinner and dessert finished, wine bottle empty, teapot drained, knitting tucked away, and Coco heading off into the evening, i thought, Yes. Friends. The Most Lovely Invention EVER.
And then I found myself wondering, most selfishly, what would happen if Montreal went the same way as New Orleans, come June. (sigh)

(unwitting) courtesy of Stephen Crane, late at night.

if there is a witness to my little life
to my tiny throes and struggles
he sees a fool;
and it is not fine for gods to menace fools.

--The Black Riders

35 MINUTES.

Roncesvalles to Scarborough.
I'm Very pleased.
I thought to myself, yes, Victoria Park, I know where that is, that's easterly, isn't it. The beaches or something. No problem, it's a lovely evening.(cycle cycle cycle)
And then I reached a very large rather regal looking building with what seemed like Absolutely nothing beyond it, and the "Scarborough" sign, and I realized i'd reached THE VERY EDGE OF THE WORLD. And in 35 minutes no less. Who KNEW?!?

not that I'm procrastinating by posting COUNTLESS ridiculous stories or anything...

But my bog is busted. It happened about an hour ago. I heard the sound of running water, and went in to find the tank part wouldn't stop filling. An overly ambitious toilet. Who thought it possible.

(This reminds me, inconsequentially, of the tea bag 072666 and I found on our winter vacation in Cornwall in '99. To quote the dear fellow upon its discovery: "Look! It's the most ambitious tea bag in the world! And now, I shall BREW THE SEA!"

But back to my crapper. There was quite a kerfuffle. Javi came over and showed me how to turn off the tap, and told me I have a broken floater. Then Fred, my other upstairs neighbour and a notoriously handy sort, was trying to tell me how to fix it. I officially decided, though, that I will not extend my DIY aspirations to the arena of plumbing. I WILL not.
I finally managed to get ahold of my superintendent, who, bless her, told me the location of a secret key to her home that I might use her washroom, should there be any need, until it all gets fixed tomorrow.

I have to confess, I am feeling very coddled about the whole crisis, at the end of it all.
Glorious neighbours and blasted old buildings. (heheh) Honest to bog.

a bicycle christening.

Ok.
I have, over the last week, consulted acquaintances, loved ones, colleagues and strangers, both devout cyclists and the bikeless rabble, and have at last come to a decision.

DB Ampersand.

This moniker is not mine, alas, it is the brain child of one Scott Waters, fellow Reverent Cyclist, and a clever sort to boot.

(Actually, cyclist is a bit of an understatement. Cycling machine as I discovered earlier this year, when I foolishly thought I might match his speed on a pilgrimage up to York University. We were off to see the beloved Shannon Gerard deliver her masters thesis on autobiographical comics.) It was quite the journey. We ended up being a bit early, so took a shortcut through a park (or something) with a river. Though arriving at said river, it ended up the ruddy thing had flooded with the rains of the night before. Not wanting to backtrack, we ended up taking off our shoes and portaging the bikes across.
That's right. PORTAGED. BIKE PORTAGING. I had Totally forgotten about that 'til just now. Glee!!!

Of course, I can't throw to save my life, and one of my boots ended up IN the river before we made it across, and Gods only know what Shan's adjudicators thought, as I took it off upon our arrival so that my sock could dry while they determined the course of the rest of Shan's academic life.
But I digress.

DB Ampersand.
The Perfect name for my bicycle.

DB stands of course for Drop Bars, which are by far the most excitement my bicycle has had since getting stolen and then re-appropriated in 2005.

The D will serve a dual purpose though, standing also for Dervish, which refers (only modestly, you understand) to the constant state (so help me Gods) of my brain.

And the & part (as pointed out by Mister Waters) allows me to leave my options open.

Dervish B. Ampersand.
(slurp) christened with a cup of tea at 7.19pm, this Thursday eve in February, 2007.

i have Absolutely no idea who said this to me.

Found scribbled on the back of a bike tire tube box snippit, whilst going through sundry papers today:
I was very distressed when my grandmother named her cat "cukey"