the old new year

New Year's, Eve; mixed media on canvas, 22 x 28 inches, the second half of a commission. The string series continues. *Sold*.

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Another year, more abject terror in the skies. No, I'm not talking about the lunatic who immolated himself on Christmas Day. I'm talking about the new security measures, which reduce air travellers to the status of inmates during a lockdown. No coats or blankets on your lap. No going to the bathroom during the last hour of the flight. Body searches, body scans. Bring out the sniffing dogs. Bring out the Ukrainian guards and the German officers, the long march to the gate.

Okay, maybe not the last one. But the effect amounts to just as much theatre.

I have never been to the bathroom on an airplane. Never. It's a personal record. Like I've said here before, they could have lions in there for all I know.

But people do go. It seems like they have to, because if it's anything like other public facilities, I'm guessing it's not much of a recreational thing.

No longer. Take that, ye old and/or incontinent.

It just goes on and on, doesn't it? Since 2001. Longer than either world war. I'm sure Orwell is spinning in his grave.

Even *I* wrote about this back in 2007 with my story Scissors, and when *I* get in on the act, you know it's really done.

Here's hoping that 2010 starts a growing trend of sense.

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And now, for all you baby-crazers out there, some holiday pictures of Oona.

In this one I've just told her that there's a moratorium on spanking for Christmas Day.

But only if she can spell moratorium.

First attempt.

Second attempt (not even close).

Getting worried.

* * * * *

Happy New Year!

Weathering Christmas

*Of course* ... the day that looked the most like Christmas came three days later, by way of dawn snow like shredded pillows, wafting its way down. Cleaning things up nicely. Even Division, which most mornings is more of a scar than a street, looked like it was populated by human beings.

The day before had been mild but ugly, all the city's garbage with nowhere to hide, wet and glaring, and even the old drunk who I surprised pissing against the downstairs door to the studio seemed mildly embarrassed by the contradiction of mild sunshine in the sky and the styrofoam takeaway containers in the gutter, spilling over with half-chewed vomit.

The day before *that* -- Boxing Day -- had been filled with rain, almost literally, so that when me and C and Oona ventured out to return library books and get videos and maybe even a "fancy" coffee, our navigations were constantly thwarted by spreading pools and devolving ice. At the video store I almost went silently insane because they only had one of the movies that I wanted and the baby in my Baby Björn was revealing herself to be a very effective furnace, and suddenly I was a big hot guy in a small frustrating place. C is on a mission right now (you can never tell which missions will stick and which won't) to find me some sort of size fifteen winter/spring footwear so I'm not always coming home with wet feet.

Christmas Day we stayed indoors and that was fine.

*The above is a painting on the front of the deskplanner I made for C, as part of her Christmas present.

Christmas traditions

Last night I listened to a CBC radio story trying to sell the frenzy of last-minute shopping as "a Canadian Christmas tradition". Really? They even tacked on the mad scramble for airplanes, buses and trains. "It wouldn't be Christmas if I wasn't sleeping in an airport," some clueless traveller said. Well, CBC radio, I have been on a packed Greyhound bus in the days before Christmas and I can tell you that the only tradition is mindless suffering, ruinous indignity and the rolling smell of old, cold farts. If you're at the back of the bus then you get the bonus stink of chemically-treated piss, not to mention the cheery company of the miscreants and lunatics who congregate there (indeed, the back of the Greyhound bus past midnight just might be the 20th century's cathedral for aspiring criminals).

Anyone who would be caught dead in a store this time of year is either hapless or mad. And if *that's* your tradition, so be it. I'll stick with practiced alcoholism and the casual death of my dreams, but that's only because I'm more civilized.

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There was a guy, this time last year, who complained to CBC radio that all the bad news about the financial crisis was ruining his Christmas. Which seemed, to me at least, like complaining about the sight of round turds at the horse races. I wondered too, if he'd have more sympathy if he was one of those bankrupted or downsized. Instead he sounded like a middle-aged guy in an all-season cottage -- tastefully decorated -- who made bird houses all year just so he could give them away to (read: inflict upon) his family and friends at Christmas.

I wonder how he is now? On fire, I hope. But I never get what I ask Santa for.

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Yesterday I had someone express complete dismay at the revelation that C already knows exactly what she's getting for Christmas. Because she asked for it. Why it is shocking that an adult woman would speak her mind, that she would be specific about what she wanted, is beyond me. "But where's the magic in that?" my crazed interlocutor asked.

I think it might be at the mall. Or in the cavity-search room at the airport.

Thank Christ I am not travelling at Christmas!

the Christmas form letter

Rachel, me, Jaime, about a million years ago. I have a Steve Austin doll and some kind of bionic GI Joe. Obviously, Steve Austin is taller.

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Why, exactly, do people send out those Merry-Christmas, family-update, form-type, end-of-year letters? We've already received a few this season and they seem to distinguish themselves in only two ways:

a) a grinning, ham-fisted attempt at bragging and
b) grammar and spelling so awful that it comes as a shock.

I can swallow the 'friendly' typeface they've chosen (Comic Sans, anyone?), the opening remarks about the arrival of winter (what, did you think it might not come this year?), the reminder of what grades the kids are in (oh yeah, that's Mr. Mugs territory), who died and who's in ill health (a couple of lines, tossed in at the end), but what I don't understand is the renovation news, the holiday-cruise news, the too-wholehearted retirement news (is it *really* that awesome to be old?), the my-son-in-law-school news. Okay, you got a new garage and you talked to Mickey at Disneyland. Now what? Is next year's letter going to be about your favourite ice-cream? (Actually, that might be more interesting.)

Of course, the superficiality of the exercise and the atrociously stunted language are usually mutually supportive.

And yes, I know this is all very disdainful. But then don't send me a computer-generated form letter with a signature at the bottom (and then only sometimes) in the mail. You are not a business and I am not a client.

Just send me an email and tweak it to make it sound like you wrote it just for me. That way we can keep all the balls of magical thinking whirling in the Christmas air.

the war against napping ...

... is currently being won by the little guy gal. We'll be setting up our own version of Guantanamo Happy Land upstairs.

on the best gift ever

The best Christmas gift I ever gave was a video game called Godzilla : Destroy All Monsters - Melee. I gave it to my nephews Ryer and Landon for their Nintendo GameCube. It seems like a lifetime ago but I'd have to guess it was when they were eight and five years old.

Ohmygod they loved that game.

And how could they not? Even as a guy in his thirties I could see the throaty charm of controlling a vintage, out-sized monster in an utterly destructible cityscape. This is a old-school rampage. This is a some kind of Japanese-nerd version of Götterdämmerung. This is better than ultra-violence Alex imagining his part in the good book (in the novel, I seem to remember the sequence escalating to the point of him slicing open the entire world with a knife).

I mean, there's a monster who's actually named Destoroyah. He is King Kong's ultimate foe!

Of course, Ryer and Landon -- being mentalists of the first order even at that age -- became hopelessly enmeshed and fascinated and obsessed with this game, to the point where their parents routinely had to take it out of circulation, and then use it as a regular part of the carrot-and-stick routine.

And what did I get in return for my most awesome of gifts? Some slanderous artwork ...

... if you look in the top right corner of the bulletin board, you'll see a drawing with the inscription (partly cropped -- sorry), Der Darryl, you probably suck at King Kong.

Another Christmas miracle!

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In other news, C has decided to take on a new publishing venture, this one for our long-running (and very accomplished) writing group. Who has two thumbs and does graphic design work for free? This guy! Just kidding, it'll actually be a fun project for a change.

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And lastly, today's word is surprise.

the invincibility of christmas

untitled; mixed media on canvas, 8 x 10 inches.

A friend of mine has been having a hard time lately. Of course, the hard time has been compounded by near-German levels of perfectionism and self-pity. But you don't say these things, do you? So when the phone rings and my friend orders/demands (her calls are often like shotgun blasts) some artwork to give to her boss for Christmas, and instructs me that the work has to be (a) for $50 and (b) *specifically* of a woman battling a baleful dragon, I can hardly refuse (there is also, unfortunately, something very small-town or prairie in me that makes it almost shameful to turn my nose up at any work). Still, the whole thing smells a little bit like this.

But I do it, in the few days (read: actually just a few hours I can get at my studio) I have left before her 'deadline' (read: her going away on vacation). And I duly send her an email with a scan of the image telling her it's ready. When she picks it up, she makes a comment about how it "looks better in real life ... and if she [the boss] doesn't like the colours, that's okay."

I don't say anything.

Halfway down the hall (always in a hurry -- I'm a girl and I have projects!), she calls, "I owe you money!"

Ah yes, if I had a nickel for every time it was the last time I heard *those* words.

(p.s. And how can I post this without any fear of penalty? Because I know -- despite my friend's many, many other admirable qualities -- that she never looks at my blog.)

* * * * *

Still, when I showed the painting to C, she liked it. She said it reminded her of the paintings of St. George slaying the dragon with Una praying in the background ...



Of course, a modern version would have Oona playing in the background.

Crazy kid. Merry Christmas!

my studio mate(s)

Already done a whack of work in the new studio, four paintings and a bundle of new cigar-tin stories, this on only one morning and one night a week. The trick? Deadlines. Nothing inspires like insistent need.


The right studio mates help. I'm sharing this space with my friend Phileen, a painter and watercolourist who will do great things if she only gives herself the time. An example of her work ...



And sometimes my pal Oona drops by, to do some snoring and hang with dad while mom goes for a run.

first snowstorm of the season

cigar-tin story #53. Cigar-tin stories are available at Novel Idea through the month of December.

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First snowstorm of the season last night. Or for me: this morning. Not really sure what I was dealing with at first, this piled darkness on the other side of the window. Difficult to judge a storm from your bedroom, and the weatherman had already been talking shit on the radio all week.

Still, taking a tentative step out the front door seemed to indicate it was the real deal. It also seemed as good a time as any to break in the new parka (yes, I can be positive ... sometimes).

So I set out. And what did I learn?

Being forced to walk down the middle of the street feels very day-after-ish, doesn't it? Like zombies are right around the corner.

It is also slightly dangerous, as the giant trucks with the blue strobe lights always have the right of way during snowstorms. Even if they don't.

The few people you see will say hello during snowstorms.

Cities can be quite pretty during snowstorms. Like they've been renovated with icing sugar.

Nothing looks more forboding than giant lakes in winter.

Watch out for that metal plate on the bridge, it's as slippery as fuck.

Toques are great for keeping your head warm, but they're little relief from sideways-driving ice pellets.

After a couple of kilometres in a snowstorm, the indoors are like another world.

How strange it is, to find ice in your pocket.

And handle wet keys.

Always keep a spare set of socks in your desk.

Snowstorms make you appallingly sleepy.

so you know what i look like

New Year's Eve, while I waited; mixed media on canvas, 24 x 24 inches. The string series continues.

First painting I've done in the new studio, first half of a very fun commission.

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In lieu of posting much this month, here's some notes of note from the last year. No, it's not a Best-of, but it would give a stranger a pretty good idea of what I'm carrying inside (fiery pits, leaden skies, black stuff).

* about the flawed, precarious nature of painting

* not playing nicely with others

* the basics of math

* red jacket

* hierarchy

* just an awful movie

* coming home

* heat

* craziness

* peanut

* an open letter to my former studio studio