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Showing posts from January, 2010

on dishonesty

cigar-tin story #56 ; one of the illustrations for the stories mentioned here. * * * * * Yes, I'm still pissed off. Or perhaps just *more* pissed off. It was just a few days ago that I posted a major bitch parade -- in the form of an open letter -- about a literary journal called The Antigonish Review . Now it seems I'm forced to stomp all over the same old ground, only this time it's about a literary journal called Grain . Like The Antigonish Review (or TAR, as it's coloured in my mind), it really doesn't matter what I send to Grain. They are never going to publish it. Full stop. Stories about growing up on the prairies, about small towns and their characters, stories about youth and arrogance, about doomed relationships, coming-of-age age stories, life-affirming stories, dark-hole stories of nihilism and despair, magical fucking realism ... all of this is just inconvenient noise to the editors at Grain. Christ how I've tried. I could send them bubble e

grey and blue and black and white

untitled ; pen and ink on math paper, illo for a story. Reading The Polysyllabic Spree , by Nick Hornby . Books about reading other books are a bit like finishing a bottle of multivitamins before it expires -- good for you in a generalized, who-gives-a-shit kind of way. I wanted to get Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith or Lowboy by John Wray, and of course the library's computer told me they were IN before I experienced the usual double-psyche of finding them nowhere on the shelves. Or the to-be-shelved carts. Or at the desk. Psyche! Psyche! Anyway, the Hornby book isn't so bad. At least he isn't precious about literature ... in fact, he spends a great deal of time explaining why other things -- like televised football, for example -- get in the way, or just move him more. * * * * * Came home from the studio last night, gave Oona a late feed at 11 and for once I think we all had a decent sleep. The payback, naturally, came when I found myself taking

groove is in the heart (and the mail)

Sometimes, these things just write themselves: this is a hand-drawn card from my good friend Susan , which I got in the mail along with many American stamps, as part of a wee swap we did. I needed American stamps (for the self-addressed, stamped envelopes that accompany manuscripts I send to the States) and she wanted a new journal/deskplanner. I sent her one with a fox on it. A detail. The whole image. Mixed media, no more than 5x3 inches. The image on the journal, one of those purse-sized numbers (although I don't know if Susan is a purse kinda gal). She wondered how I got the canvas to stick so well ... the answer is, I didn't; I just painted the picture right on the book. The little white bleed is from the texture of the cover. Thanks, Susan! * * * * * It seems like I'm always writing about my friend Kristal M these days, but when she's having a show I'm not going to resist. Here's wishing I was in Singapore on February 20th! {Kristal Melson's first

An Open Letter to The Antigonish Review

leopard girl ; pen and ink on a page from an old math textbook; drawing for an illustrated novella. Dear TAR, Got your rejection letter yesterday. Same as all the other ones. Yep, I'm starting to get the picture. To be honest, it doesn't sting so much anymore. I know I'll find my true love, in some other magazine or collection, some fine fall day. There are so many shiny fish in the sea. We're simply two kids at the same small-town dance, eyeing each other from across the Legion Hall. Or perhaps just me eyeing you. And you're never, ever going to say yes, no matter how many times I ask you, or how good the band is. I get that. There's just something about my face, my hair, my stupid shoes that you will never, ever accept. I get it (and don't worry: I'm not going to start circling your house in my pickup truck, waiting for the upstairs light to come on). What I *don't* get is why you have to send back my manuscript with the first page ripped off . W

rain ... rain will tear me apart (again)

untitled ; 6 x 9.25 inches, pen and ink on pages from an old math text book. Big big rain today so the parka was pointless. Darker than hell, too. The wind was manageable until the causeway but then it was either me or the umbrella. C rather caustically remarked that it would be a fine day to own rubber boots. Yes it would, but the world just doesn't care about the few size fifteen bears out there. Reached into the pocket of my rain jacket and found this. It's either a butterfly or a nattily-hatted woman opening her coat. * * * * * Little article in the NYT about the fine citizens of New Hampshire and their growing resentment over the healthcare bill. Hoping that new senator in Massachusetts will just kill the thing. Because they don't like the government making them buy health insurance, and all the small businesses will go broke picking up their end, and the government is getting too big, and the whole damn thing is just un-American. I'm only starting to understa

KM

Got a lovely surprise in the mail the other day, all the way from Singapore (how great are their stamps?), sent by my fabulous friend Kristal M . Two XL t-shirts for a guy who needs all the layers he can get. The original artwork is KM's, and besides being an infinitely talented illustrator , she pulled the silkscreens herself! I've written about Kristal M before, usually when she's hanging out with the stars ... or drawing her own universe ... or publishing her fabulous work ... I love having KM as a friend. And Oona thinks she stellar, too!

winter

Supposedly, Monday (or Blue Monday ) was the nadir of winter, the most depressing day of the year. And while January-February is never a walk in the park (mostly because all the trees are frozen and barren and the ground is choked with snow), it really hasn't been that bad this year. I *thought* it was going to be awful, back in November, when it came on like a drunk looking for a fight, but since then it's more or less gone down for a nap. No massive snow banks, no face-freezing, no storms of wind. So now it's just the everyday sort of drudgery, with slippery sidewalks and weak sun and darkness wanting to rush in.

bathtime

Before bathtime ... ... and after. If only warm soapy water could make me so content (actually, it sometimes does).

More Bear Than Brains

Carried a dining table (yes: carried , as in by hand ) from our house to my studio on Sunday morning, a distance of 1.2 kilometres. A big thank you to the low, wrought-iron fence on Cherry Street, the cement front steps at the corner of Division and Main, and the several fire hydrants which allowed me to set down a corner and take the weight off, if only momentarily. And *why* was I hauling a table across the Sunday morning cityscape like some kind of apocalypse-shocked peasant? Because C finally found her new dining room set, on Saturday afternoon, at a store downtown. Not only that but, on the way home from Oona's swimming time, C bought some orchids that she'd been (apparently) thinking about all week. Banner day! Screw you Christmas! Needless to say, however, that the old dining room table, which must have most egregiously slandered *someone* at *some* point to earn so much malice, had to go. Immediately. Ah, the things I've schlepped this past year. Like the six-foot C

Oona Balloona (doesn't care about new tables)

Well, it's Friday, and since I'm pretty depleted in the chit-chat department, I might as well put up some pictures of Ol' Giggles At Ghosts before Grandma starts sending me hate mail. Man, what a goofball. At this rate it's going to be, like, eighteen years before she has gainful employment and moves out of the house. I mean, come on . * * * * * C is especially crazy and frantic today. About two months ago she decided that she no longer liked our dining room table (take that, dining room table! no more BFF for you!). Since then she's switched the dining room and kitchen table (and all the rest of the furniture in the house -- about thirty times, but that's another story) as a provisional solution while she scoured area stores for an upgrade. And she thought she had found one, on Wednesday, at JYSK ( Whatever , I said). But when she ordered it, JYSK called back to say that they were really low on stock, and that the stock they did have was damaged, and

undead, shopping

Trojans ; mixed media on a journal cover, 5.5 x 2.5 inches. Not a lot of sleep for this bear last night ... didn't feel well going to bed and then every time I'd start to drift off, C would start snoring or Oona would wake up. I wouldn't have minded except for the whole utterly-exhausted thing. Utterly exhausted after spending all afternoon shopping in the burbs, culminating in a stop at Zellers. Yes, I said Zellers. Zellers is where merchandise goes to die but instead lives on in some kind of relentless and everlasting gloom, some kind of weird zombie kingdom where actors like Rob Estes and Lisa Rinna seem like actual movie stars because their horrible horrible videos float near the top of the bargain bin, where an entire wall is given over to beige plastic bins to hide the fact that the store is low on stock, where the mattress for the display futon has completely slid off and sits like a folded poop on the filthy muddy floor, where the chairs for the display table set

Sarah Sands Phillips

Numb ; 2006; 
33” x 24 inches; oil and mixed media on canvas; 
*sold*
. This painting -- by Sarah Sands Phillips -- is in our living room. It's dark, lovely, fits perfectly into our small, understated space. I meant to blog about Sarah's work before Christmas but I simply ran out of time. I don't have any more time now but she sits there, rather accusingly, on a list and, like the Primo Levi title asks, If Not Now, When? . I rather like these two as well ... Wounds
 ; 2006
; 48” x 48”
; oil and mixed media on wood; 
$500 Being Back Together
 ; 2007; 
48” x 48”; 
oil on Canvas; 
*sold*

run resolution run

C did the Resolution Run at the Y on the weekend ... thought I'd better put these up before all those resolutions ran away ... {above} C and her friend Tabitha before the race (and no, they didn't run with the stroller, I stayed behind with Napster doing my own laps around the block) ... ... and the girls after the race. Then Tabitha ate all my cereal bars. * * * * * C *so* wanted the cat in the picture. * * * * * And now, for no particular reason ... BAD NAMES FOR A NEW DAYCARE Miss Dropsalots We Play Crying Games Flava Flav's Cave of Babes Ciao, Baby The Playlatariate Ice, Ice Babies Edges Dante's In-fun-no Little Boy Blues Kid Naps

give that girl a ladder and a cause

Ahh ... Joan Jett, you irrepressibly androgynous rascal. * * * * * Almost flagged down a passing cop car this morning while walking to work. There's a house in our neighbourhood (about three blocks away) that's a bit of a crazy house. Not *really* crazy, as in some old lady who comes out to throw cats at you, but crazy in a slow-mayhem kind of way. Two years to finish shingling the other half of the roof. Multiple ladders that seem permanently tied to the gutters. An uncovered motorcycle in the driveway. In winter. Various large and new-looking children's toys and equipment, scattered around the yard. A plywood addition. Tarp. Tools. A boot. Some wood. Only vague ideas about who lives there. This morning a very angry and rough-looking girl (thin jacket, no hat, no gloves, tight black jeans over rooster legs) was circling the house and shouting. Jackie! Jack-ie! Jackie, are in you in there! Answer me! Let me in! Just tell me yes or no! Just tell me! YES OR NO, YES OR NO!

the rules 'til now

And there you have it: the entire sum of my knowledge. Too much for a t-shirt, not enough for a pizza flyer.