for illustration friday: the theme is 'spring'

Another plate from Keitha's failed book; in this one, Mother Earth speaks gently to a very nervous seed.

for illustration friday: the theme is 'spring'

Here's another one from that never-realized children's book (see illustration number 25), the new flower blooming in spring's breath.

for illustration friday: the theme is 'monster'

woods // I was drawing this little one today, for the cover of a mixed cd I made for my sister (I'm driving to Montreal to see her this weekend; well, delivering Barbie boots to my niece is the 'official' explanation), when I checked the Illustration Friday site and saw it was looking for 'monsters' ...

for illustration friday: the theme is 'monster'

futuremonster // For years this canvas hung next to a window in my tiny, downtown apartment in Winnipeg. I saw it everytime I looked outside, everytime I looked outside expecting an answer for why my building was shaking. And there it was, bus after bus hurtling past below, and the picture – speed-incensed, nightmarish, mechanical, futuristic – seemed appropriate.

for illustration friday: the theme is 'monster'

macbeth // This guy goes all the way back to design school: a faked-out poster for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Dark and demented and hopeless: my favourite play.

illustration number 35

snake // Another editorial illustration, for another darker-than-life story that will probably never see the light of day. Still, they're fun to write.

illustration number 34

This is some kind of officer, suspiciously Russian, as he appeared on yet another journal cover from long ago. And again, I can't remember who I gave him to. (Sadly, I could probably put on an entire exhibit called Art Destroyed by Former Girlfriends.) Mixed media, 5x7 inches.

illustration number 33

This is some lazy, Peter Rabbit-type character; I drew him on a journal cover for my friend Steph. Years ago. I've resurrected him now with some hopeful thoughts on spring.

a story

This is a version of a wee story that I put up on my last website, and it seemed a good a place to start as any with this one.

Freon

Comeoncomeoncomeonfrustratedstuck, you could say the word 'wrath' then it's not so ordinary and petty when the knife slips – it’s an accident, I swear to God – and out comes that escaping air noise whsssshh I can see it feel it mushrooming like the instant regret in my hands to my face oh no. Phone mom but situations like this are so difficult to describe to moms, I’m being evasive and full of excuses and of course she’s willing to lie for me, just wait and see how it is in the morning, then you’ll know what damage you’ve done.

But already I know it’s Death. Lukewarm to the touch and I can hear the dying part, sharp collapsing chunkchunk noises, the corpse collapsing from the inside out all through the night, maybe it's just in my head but I don't think so, anything is possible when you listen hard enough. And now Jesus there will be hard questions with no answers never mind how I explain it to myself, never mind nothing ever goes the right way and naturally I have no luck, nothing can ever be easy. How much will I have to suffer for this?

The next morning is the liquid evidence all over my kitchen floor, death decay smells stinking in my nostrils. Even though there is no point in denying the obvious it is against every natural instinct when I phone the proper authorities to confess. Blurting it out, hoping for understanding, straight ahead, no meandering. Well, she says, that’s not the right way to defrost a freezer, you can't take a knife to it like that, even if it is just a butter knife, once you’ve punctured it and the freon’s out it’s game over, you’re going to have to pay for that. And then there’s that anger again, right there in the handle of the knife.

some recent mentalist behaviour, at random

* The Canadian Olympic Men’s Hockey Team … Talk about putting a mental whammy on yourself. Wow. Usually this is an individual thing, where a particular brain's chemistry goes into full-scale breakdown (think Greg Norman at the 1996 Masters) but here we have a truly collective effort ... from a roster choking with multimillionaires and 'superstars'. And then we had to watch Gretzky in those truck commercials, talking shit about attitude. Oh, and good move on bringing Bertuzzi along; he looked great in the penalty box.

* My local union ... First, they placed it into 'trusteeship' (suspend the executive, parachute a new guy in). Now some of them (?) have been found 'guilty' (?) of some kind of 'fraud' (I don't know for sure, because none of this information is being disseminated, and all I have is hearsay). And now they're holding elections for a new executive? Could you at least tell us who's running, please?

* My nephew Landon ... Specifically, his twin obsessions with (a) panda's and (b) 'Skull Island'; apparently, the two are mutually exclusive (I think the last one is a King Kong thing). Anyway, don't try to casually talk about the two together, or he'll lose it.

illustration number 32

fivewives // This is an illustration I did for a story called Five Wives. It (the story) is a rather dark little work, obviously, and I'll probably never get it published. Pen on paper, 4x5 inches.

open letter reject #4

Guess what? McSweeney's Open Letters (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/) has rejected me ... again!

Again!

4)

Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:56:06 -0500
To:
Subject: OPEN LETTER TO LUCKY

AN OPEN LETTER TO LUCKY, MY GIRLFRIEND'S CAT, WHO LIKES TO RUB HIS ASS IN MY FACE WHILE I'M SLEEPING

Dear Luckster,

Don't be fooled by the IV bag hanging off the lamp: you are not going to live forever. Still, to make it interesting, I'm advising you to run, hide or pray whenever mamma leaves the room.

Think fast,
The New Boyfriend

P.S. The balcony? That's like daring me.

----------

From: openletters@mcsweeneys.net
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:04:04 -0600
Subject: RE: OPEN LETTER TO LUCKY

Darryl:

We've decided to pass on this, but thanks for giving us a chance to consider it for the site.

Ed Page
Assistant Website Editor

open letter reject #3

I have an on-going grudge-match thing going on (see 'open letter rejects'). Or maybe I'm just trying to make myself dizzy. Whatever it is, here's rejection number trois.

3)

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MEXICAN WORRY DOLL MY SISTER GAVE ME

Dear Mexican Worry Doll,

Sorry for breaking your arms off.

Really, I feel bad,
Colin Chinaski

P.S. Ironically, it was my sister who caused the very rage that precipitated your dismemberment. Crazy, eh?

----------

From: openletters@mcsweeneys.net
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:40
Subject: RE: OPEN LETTER ... TO MY MEXICAN WORRY DOLL

Darryl:

We've decided to pass on this, but thanks for giving us a chance to consider it for the site.

Ed Page
Assistant Website Editor

illustration number 31

driving // This one I keep at work, to remind myself that I had to drive four days around the Great Lakes to get here. Pencil crayon and acrylic, 6x4 inches, paper.

illustration number 30

another red-head ... glaring away: this one I gave to Brenda (thanks for reminding me, darling), so long ago that she deserves a companion (piece) ... mixed media, 5x7 inches, journal cover.

poker, sickness

So: sick like the end of everything (with men we are always dying), I stayed home Tuesday to scare my neighbours with my cough. It certainly scared me; it sounded like gravel rattling around, only the stones were covered with goo. Bubbles came out of my mouth. So I stayed home to lay around and groan and cough and wheeze and moan, to stuff kleenex up my nostrils and ask myself how it all came to this. There's never a good answer. Still, sometime in the afternoon, perhaps seeing me miserable and huddled over my humidifier, God sent along some European Poker Tour for me to watch on tv.

Serious business. There were very few bluffs. Extremely aggressive play would sometimes seemingly flare up out of nowhere (like Xuyen 'Bad Girl' Pham going all-in with an A-4 under the gun) but if you looked again there was usually some spark behind the fire (usually, the desperation that attends the short stack, or the fear of being blinded down to nothing). Rarely did these attempts amount to more than a flame-out (Pham, for example, ran into A-K, and was unceremoniously extinguished). Questionable hands and/or loose plays were almost always punished. By and large, and at least until the table shrunk to four and less, the play was very conservative. Players played good hands, full stop. Everything seemed -- as you would expect -- very calculated. Very sober.

It got me thinking about our own little Thursday-night game hosted by Sebastien. Poor Sebastien: usually a good finisher, he really fell down in the gate last week, thanks to a few mediocre hands and a lot of hard liquor. But at least he didn't cry and moan about it like Chico. Really, I think he just wanted to be held. Chico's friend Marcel tried to find his feet, and did manage a few runs by the end of the evening. But it was the ladies, again, who dominated the table. In Fannie's case she did so physically, that is with her voice, this droninghectoringrepetitivesingsong thing, she was like an auctioneer with Tourette's. Seeming to play every hand, making silly, impossible raises. Jaunna got a lot of good cards, played them loosely and was rewarded whenever she was brave. Flo, who complained bitterly about her cards for the first half of the evening, got some rather good ones for the second half. I think she won the most. And me? I played many crappy cards, and managed to win with them more often than I should have. One hand I played -- 3-5 on the button -- made Flo particularly crazy. She had raised from the middle of the table and I still called. Then I flopped a straight. Flo folded and I, unfortunately, proceeded to raise against Jaunna ... who was holding a flush. After I turned them over, Flo would only look at me to give me the stink-eye. And no matter how I tried to explain it (I just had a hunch, I needed to play something, I was trying to mix it up, etcetera), she continued to find my behaviour inexplicable. 'You were supposed to fold that hand,' she grumbled.

I gave her a hug.

Every so often someone complains that we don't play 'by the rules' enough, that we don't follow the accepted mantras of poker play. You know, playing by pot-odds, position, protection, all that jazz. And it's true. Alex, for example, is well-known for defending a pair of 5's to oblivion. Or playing 8-3s because he's in the small blind. Martine is even more famous for going all-in without even looking at her cards. It's a lively table, to say the least. Yes, the card-play is often suspect. Yes, there is a certain wildness and randomness to events. But really, if you're a good player, this shouldn't matter. You should be able to compensate. And then, really, the most important calculation is this: if we have to sacrifice a little professionalism for the sake of fun, then so be it. As far as the more sober version of the game goes, you can always catch it on tv. Just don't yell at the screen when Bad Girl goes all-in.

(Speaking of bad girls; to Tracey and Mary Beth: we missed you.)

open letter rejects

McSweeney's has an OPEN LETTERS TO PEOPLE OR ENTITIES WHO ARE UNLIKELY TO RESPOND department. People write squirrels, saran-wrap, Louis XIV, God. It's rather funny. Since I can be rather funny (sometimes, in a casual way, never when pressed or when it matters) I decided to try to get in on the action.

Well, the first rejection seemed a tad quick (one hour, twenty-five minutes: in fact, a new record) and sounded a wee bit mechanical (no spelling mistakes; always a red flag), but when the second rejection letter had exactly the same wording as the first, I knew I was getting the old form-letter never-read treatment.

So: what started out as an honest ambition has now become a grudge match. How many times can I get the shaft? Let's find out.

1)

Date: Friday, March 3, 2006 9:44 AM
To: openletters@mcsweeneys.net
Subject: OPEN LETTER ... HOVERCRAFT, SEA MONKEYS AND X-RAY GLASSES

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAIL-ORDER VENDORS OF THE HOVERCRAFT, SEA MONKEYS AND X-RAY GLASSES ADVERTISED IN THE BACK OF MY CHILDHOOD COMIC BOOKS

Hey,

Check it out: I just looked up the word 'sucker' in my new illustrated dictionary, and there was a picture of myself as a ten year-old boy. Crying.

Hoping your hell is extra hot,
Jimmy Kling

-----------------

From: openletters@mcsweeneys.net
Date: Friday, March 3, 2006 11:09 AM
Subject: RE: OPEN LETTER ... HOVERCRAFT, SEA MONKEYS AND X-RAY GLASSES

Darryl:

We've decided to pass on this, but thanks for giving us a chance to consider it for the site.

Ed Page
Assistant Website Editor


2)

Date: Monday, March 6, 2006 12:36 PM
To: openletters@mcsweeneys.net
Subject: OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIAN BALE

AN OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIAN BALE, STAR OF THE MACHINIST

Hey Christian,

Rented The Machinist last night. Yeah! Man, you must have really wanted to do that part to lose so much weight for it!

Too bad it wasn't very funny.

Of course, you're gonna blame the material. See, I don't think that's the problem. To be honest, I don't think you're very funny even at the best of times. Okay, sure, the ax scene in American Psycho was pure you-kids-gotta-wake-up-and-see-this comedy, I mean real laugh-in-your-five-year-old's-face kind of stuff, but even you would have to admit that it's pretty hard to fuck up the inherent humour in any murder of a Jared Leto character. I mean, as soon as that guy appears on-screen my kids are thinking, 'Oh no, not Jared Leto! I knew I recognized that fucking guy! But wait, maybe we'll get to see him murdered!' Even Fight Club was smart enough just to use that guy as a punching bag. And Requiem for a Dream? Hilarious scene at the end, Jared sans arm. Not as funny as Ellen Burstyn's role, but still. So maybe you needed some kind of Jared Leto-type character to kill. Even just torture a little bit. Or something. Not just you being all skinny and freaky. Skeletor isn't funny. Neither is ruining Friday movie night with my kids. They couldn't wait to get back to their mom's on Sunday.

Thanks again,
Willie Neff

-----------------

From: openletters@mcsweeneys.net
Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2006 6:43 AM
Subject: RE: OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIAN BALE

Darryl:

We've decided to pass on this, but thanks for giving us a chance to consider it for the site.

Ed Page
Assistant Website Editor

old card

Because of the quirky way this Blogger-thing works, I had to upload this here before I could use it as a profile icon. This is not my image.

illustration number 29

This head has been hanging in my various living rooms for many years now. Amazingly, I painted this one strictly for myself. It's mixed media, mostly acrylic, 17x20 inches.

illustration number 28

Sloth, again // This is a very old piece, back to a time when I was doing all of these simplified, stylized pen and ink works. Don't ask me why; trying to channel some Aubrey Beardsley, I guess. This is from a series about the seven deadly sins. Great idea, until the movie Seven came out. Pen and ink on paper, 4x3 inches.