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Showing posts from 2011

well thank christ that's over with

Santa: just one more guy who likes to sneak around my house. * * * * * Ah, Christmas. It was wet and it was green. I wore my t-shirt inside-out (which C said was very 80's), went for a run, nearly died (see: run), got called a grinch because I wanted Oona to actually *look* at each toy she was given, yet the mad wrapping-paper-ripping continued, watched Oona's eyes quickly empty of all meaning and comprehension, presided over her (completely expected) consecutive meltdowns, ignored C's attempts to make me look at the IKEA catalogue, planned supper, made supper, we had stuffed turkey breast and baked butternut squash and peas (for C, these must be from Quebec) and extra stuffing and cranberry sauce and gravy, and it all came out fine and lovely and we sat down to eat, and Oona melted down again, and refused to eat any supper, and C and I tried to ignore her, and we talked about how awful Christmas music is, and I said I didn't understand why most of it is made, becau

sneak attack trickery style

Sneaky? Manipulative? I don't care. Because sometimes, if you *really* want your niece to write to you, you have to provide your own self-addressed, stamped postcard.

the myth of bad daddy

Due to some rather unfortunate *disinformation* that has proliferated lately, I've been forced to post this video in order to set the record straight. Watch and weep, good-daddy naysayers.

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why i like this

Because it's nearly flawless. Because it's the perfect coalescence between the classic and the modern, between the organic and the mechanical. Because that gorgeous yellow has real vibrancy, and actual shades within it, and that red 'x' has just the right gestural quality. Because there are just a few elements at work here, and they're all working together. Because it's simple. Because it's Bette Davis, and that look is so iconic.

what I watch when the person I'm watching the movie with doesn't want to watch (the movie)

Watched District 9 the other night. Thought C might half-like it because she has half-liked other science fiction stuff before (albeit randomly). Boy was I wrong. When C isn't interested in a movie you're watching, several things will happen, often all at the same time: ++ letting the cats in, then out, then in again, then out ++ talking to cats ++ anecdote time! with this movie, it was all sorts of information about the giant slag heaps of Johannesburg ++ getting up to go get snacks ++ eating snacks ++ complaining that I bought the wrong kind of dip ++ asking if there's anything (else) to drink in the house, and does it taste any good? ++ going to check on (snoring) Oona every five minutes ++ sleeping ++ snoring I'd like to tell you if the movie was any good, or even what it was about (aliens? ghostbusters?) but there was too much going on around me to really pay attention.

early theories of the universe

acrylic inks on old textbook (astronomy) paper * * * * * There's a member of our writing group who is always bringing in poems about stars. Whenever she hands me a copy of her work, I ask, "Is this about stars?", and she usually laughs and says yes . Sometimes I'm even looking for the poem to be about something else, and I'm not quite getting it, and she'll say, "Nope, it's just about stars." I guess if you're going to get lost in a subject, the cosmos is as good as anything. It has a certain ... vastness . And the language, while viscous in that blackly scientific way, is at the same time enigmatic and quite beautiful: supernova remnant, accretion disk, event horizon, cepheld variable, chasma, faculae, gamma-ray, lunation, penumbra, right ascension. So while the meaning sometimes escapes me (in poems the metaphors seem to come spinning at you in whole clusters), I'm learning to appreciate the musicality of the words themselves, and

some thoughts on shopping

Have you ever gone to the food court before the rest of the mall opens? There are two types of people around: (a) people who obviously work there and (b) people who obviously don't work anywhere (old people, disabled people, strange people) * * * * * Is the Sears business model entirely predicated on sales? I can't remember the last time I was in there when there wasn't a sale going on. Heaps and heaps of pressed polyester pants, all 40% off. * * * * * O look, Orange Julius still exists. Huh. * * * * * And HMV. How the fuck are they still viable? * * * * * In line in EBGames and I could not hack it, had to abort. It wasn't even a line, really. But the geek quotient was absolutely off the scale -- coughers, mumblers, gigglers, stinky boy-men in dirty sweats and facial hair that made me think of insincere rounds of chemo. * * * * * Jesus, only 10:30 and it's already getting busy. * * * * * Why are these old ladies carrying their own little ch

when the getting is good

C had Toastmasters this morning (a particular kind of crazy, which is getting up early to get ready and get out the door and then driving to a meeting to deliver a speech ... before work ... there was a time last week when she three Toastmaster meetings in the space of 24 hours ) so it was just Oona and I, which is always extra fun, because it means getting her up and getting her changed and getting her dressed and getting her fed and getting her in her boots and parka and snowpants (!) and toque and scarf and mitts and getting her into the stroller and getting her not to whine about the mitten clips on her parka and getting her to daycare and getting her out of her toque and scarf and mitts and parka and snowpants (!) and filling her cubby with extra diapers and pants and underwear and signing her in and then trying to get away without her throwing a fit and then putting away the stroller in the outside locker and then walking to work. Wait eight hours, then repeat in reverse. And I

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GUY WHO FARTED (SO EGREGIOUSLY) IN THE HISTORY STACKS AT THE DOWNTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY YESTERDAY

Sir (and I use that term loosely), Why history? Sincerely, DJB p.s. Please stay out of the graphic novels section. p.s. Also, you smell like you're dying.

last call

How nice it was, to see Ian Colford's review of my book in the current issue of The Fiddlehead . I have a special fondness for this New Brunswick magazine; it was the first outfit I ever sent my writing to -- a wee poem, called "The 7 of Cups" -- and it was, somehow, wondrously, accepted for publication. This is easy! I thought, for about five minutes, or until I sent the next thing out. (I've had poets tell me that they *hate* me for that anecdote, but then I tell them that I very quickly got out of the verse business, when I realized I didn't possess the necessary brain voltage.) Anyway: it's a very kind review, packaged with two other collections (R.W Gray's Crisp and Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod) and the general premise that there is hope yet for the short-story form. Some excerpts ... Quirky does not even begin to describe these stories, which, though they take place in a world recognizably our own, depict that world through a series of skew

is that a haiku in your pocket?

hearing the silence by Philomene Kocher; King's Road Press It's amazing to me that quiet little books like this even get made anymore. the sun enters my room tulip by tulip Or that the haiku form still exists in this restless, noise-diffused world. I catch him watching me watch someone else

why i like this

Flickr is fairly groaning under the volume of naked girls, a great many of whom are submerged within the notion that they are creating 'art' (the rest are just sharing straight-up pornography, for whatever reasons). But mostly what you get is a lot of naked girls wearing antlers , naked girls in the cemetery , naked girls on the beach , naked girls in wheat fields , in the forest , in their bedroom, with a mirror, in an old car, smoking too much, etcetera, etcetera. So to see something original in the naked-girl genre is rather arresting. And this photograph does that with light and perspective. That's it. And with just those two elements, this girl becomes a tower of sinister mystery. * * * * * By the photographer April-Lea . You can see her flickr stream here , but I'll warn you that the content is adult.

not with a bang but a whimper

A friend of mine blew up last week. Worse yet, she blew up all over Facebook. People don't deal well with anger/anguish anymore. It makes them deeply uncomfortable. Anger, especially, is bad . It's so negative! And being negative is about the worst thing you can be these days. Being explosive or enraged or negative on Facebook -- the great flattener, our new social amplifier and distiller -- is like performing Arthur Kirkland's opening statement for a children's birthday party. On a cancer ward. In an orphanage. Facebook is 'liking' things. Facebook is pictures of cats being hopelessly (read: charmingly) fat or destroying things. Facebook is inspirational sayings like, "What matters most is how you see yourself" (I think Kim Jong-il has that one taped to his bathroom mirror). Facebook is 'funny' quips like, "When life feeds you lemons, smile as you are having to pucker up!" (motivating and almost literate). Facebook is everyone tell

the fountain

A million years ago, someone told me that I should rent The Fountain . So, the other night, when I needed a third rental (our video store has a three-for-five-bucks deal), I retrieved this slow-acting command like some kind of entertainment sleeper agent and checked the thing out. We watched it tonight. Well, *I* watched it, because I doubt that even C can take in a movie and snore at the same time. And um ... yeah. A very beautiful, slow motion rock video, only with dialogue instead of music. Death is life, love is eternal and there you go. Oh, and don't ever drink the sap from the Tree of Life.

remembrance day

There's a small poppy below the Google Search button this morning, to remind us that it's Remembrance Day. Also, I get the day off work. Most people will not. The library is closed. The colleges and universities are not. There will be many grand ceremonies, and everyone will wear that bit of red plastic, and the public consciousness will be improved very slightly, on the level of a manicure. I always thought we would be better off with a day of education, where the emphasis is less on the fallen-heroes business and more on taking a hard look at how awful the whole business actually is, complete with pictures of cities that look like graveyards and fellows with their faces blown off. Show us what it takes to make and deliver a proper bomb, and what happens when you drop it on someone's house. Tell us what's it's like to get shot through the neck. Yes, the poems and trumpets are fine, and that should all be part of it, but we should also know what it means to be on a

Come along, Dorothy. You don't want any of *those* apples.

I had a woman come up to me in the supermarket the other day. In fact, she came right up to me and said, "Gosh you're tall. You're so tall." I looked down at her and smiled, and then waited for the inevitable request to get something off the top shelf. But she just turned and walked away. I think she was carrying a box of beans. * * * * * I see my home-province brethren voted in droves for the Saskatchewan Party on Monday. Oh dear. The last time they went at it blindly like this, for Grant Devine's Progressive Conservatives in 1982, it eventually led to 13 Conservative MLAs and staffers being charged with expense account fraud, and the party imploded ... to reinvent itself as the Saskatchewan Party. * * * * * I didn't see the election results in real time because I was too busy watching Mel Gibson's The Edge of Darkness . I had to watch it alone; on a personality chart, C places Mel Gibson somewhere between Idi Amin and John Gotti. Personally, I c

smokin' joe

Joe Frazier died. "Smokin' Joe" was one of the great heavyweight boxing champions (back in the day when those kind of things were undisputed, or even mattered). In the ring, he was a stalking monster with loaded doom in his left hand. You'll hear a lot of nice things about Joe today, but what you won't hear a lot about is how much he hated Muhammad Ali. *Hated*. He could just as easily have hated George Foreman, who both took away his title and ended his career (and was a bit of beast himself back then, instead of the genial George we have today), but no -- Joe saved up all his venom for Ali. Frazier fought Ali three times, beating him once (with a trip to the hospital for good measure). In real terms, they beat each other senseless -- Ali called their Thrilla in Manilla "the closest you can be to death". Why all the hard feelings? Ali liked to describe Frazier with words like ignorant , gorilla and Uncle Tom . So Frazier went into the ring trying to k

the rules for werewolves

So: today I had to go to the post office. The proper downtown post office. And because I love to learn, I came away from the experience with a few rules. Rule #1 Going to the downtown post office is a terrible idea . Never go to the main post office. The clerks at the main post office are werewolves, and they hate you. They want to destroy you. Consequently, the clerks at the main post office will always figure out the slowest and most expensive way to send your mail. Yesterday, for example, I had two small padded envelopes to mail, and because these envelopes were *slightly* thicker than the ones I normally use, the clerk gave me a price that was three times what I normally pay. We're talking less than a centimetre here. Maybe four or five millimetres. But she did that thing where she half-heartedly tries to fit it through the mail slot (who the fuck has a mail slot anymore, anyway? and what does this magical slot signify?) and it caught at the edges and all of a sudden it'

free like greek

Well!!! Those Greeks. Balking at the idea of decades of indentured servitude. To the banks! The good-natured, well-wishing, let's-have-a-hug banks. Ah, the banks. Don't they understand that bankers need love (read: all your money), too? Don't they understand that nothing (read: slavery, dreams, etc) is free? Unless, of course, it's money for the banks. Then it's totally free. Wheeeeee!!! Also free is this 2012 laminated fridge-magnet calendar. Leave a comment below and I'll toss your name into a draw . Plus, for all November and December, this calendar is included with every purchase from my shop . Wheeeeee!!!

I don't get it.

I've been working with a friend of mine on a branding project, and along the way we've been talking about digital things, like websites and social media. And at one point my friend -- who knows me and my work quite well, and has a lot of it in her house -- said, "And you use a flickr site too, right?" And this got me thinking. Because to me, my flickr site is as obvious as my right arm. And then this weekend, while C and I (and Oona) were driving up to Ottawa to attend her sister's pumpkin-carving party (and no, I did not disrupt the proceedings by pouring gasoline over my head and setting myself on fire, so perhaps I am growing up), and the two of us were just chatting, rather happily, or so I thought, I happened to ask her if she saw the little tumblr site I put together to catalogue the work I currently have for sale. And her reaction went like this I don't know. I don't know if I saw it. I don't understand. I don't get tumblr. I don't get

all painted up and no place to go

cigar-tin story #124; gifted to a friend * * * * * O God sometimes I wish we had a serious radio service in this country. Right now, if I want to hear Dead or Alive sing You Spin Me Round , I have a number of venues to get that. Including, sometimes, our national broadcaster. The other day I even heard it play a cover version of a LOVERBOY SONG. A LOVERBOY SONG. It was the "Kid is Hot Tonight" and it was "redone" by a band called Chixdiggit, and it was karaoke fucking awful. And this is frustrating, because while you do get some coverage of important things like the recent earthquake in Turkey (albeit, abbreviated all to fuck), it's often mashed in with stories about Beavis and Butt-head, what Halloween costumes are popular this year, and some charity trying to raise money for a cat's brain transplant. Okay, I made that last one up. But it's still bullshit. I know, I know -- I've banged this drum before. But instead of this general-format, a-lit

Aron Wiesenfeld

Snowbed; oil on canvas, 27 x 33 inches, Aron Wiesenfeld 2011 (detail). I don't know this fellow from Adam but I stumbled across his work and rather liked it. You can see more of it here .

Saturday

Oona needs clothes. She's *supposed* to need 2T clothes but sometimes the size is 18-24 months because this kid never eats and therefore has no hips and little more than a chicken bum. So we all go out to the stores on Saturday morning. This is about buying clothes for Oona , I remind C. BIG SALE (it's nearly always a big sale, everywhere these days) at Old Navy. For about $150, we get five pairs of pants, four pairs of socks, two pairs of pyjamas, a hat, a parka, some gloves, and some long-sleeved shirts. At Winners, Oona and I wander around the toy section while mommy tries on coats. We test a championship wrestling belt that plays old-school red-dot animations on the buckle. At the Sears furniture outlet (see how we're getting off target here?), I wonder about their choice of soft-rap jazz for the ambient music. No, I am not buying a new couch today. Yes, I will think about it. Thank you. At the mall, C wanders around wide-eyed in the new H&M store. The entire world

and how will i know which one is me?

Two days off last week. Sick anyway but really more a case of being psychically exhausted. Did say no to a few people, which felt good, and helped somewhat. Working a couple of jobs and playing several roles for quite awhile now and this constant switching between kitchens, all of which demand at least smoke coming out of the chimney, is spiritually pauperizing. You have your lists but the cupboards are bare. * * * * * Knew I'd get sick. The week before the office was regularly twelve, thirteen, fourteen degrees Celsius. Then they got the heat on, and within an hour it was thirty-two. At one point, a co-worker in the next cubicle coughed for two minutes straight . I've avoided going that low, with sleep and massive doses of zinc, apple cider vinegar and ginseng, but by eight at night my eyes have more soft focus than a dream sequence from Dallas . * * * * * My wife washed my notes journal for me (yes, I am that kind of nerd). It was in the front pocket of a shirt hangi

wondering, cold water

I wake Oona every morning with a bottle -- first I pick her up for a cuddle and then set her back in her crib propped against a pillow, and she waves me off and I say drink your bottle and then I go back downstairs to make my lunch. But the last few days she's been doing this thing where she wants cold wa-der, cold wa-der run over the bottle -- because it's hot, hot -- cold wa-der, cold wa-der and I'm wondering where the fuck did this come from? and I find out C's been doing this thing where she either runs water over it for about three seconds or pretends to run water over it for about three seconds and then it's fine ... if there's one thing C loves to do is build up pathologies, yesterday it was the Smurfs on dvd but then she had to run out to the liquor store and Oona showed no interest in Papa Smurf or Hefty Smurf or not even Vanity Smurf so we just turned it off and went back to playing and roughhousing. So I told Oona her bottle was fine and said dri

Well, there's always the sciences.

thanksgiving my youth away

Friday afternoon and out of work early. What could this mean but the library, Cambodiana for a late lunch and then the studio? The sun fairly shone over the garbage in the streets. * * * * * In fact the weather, all weekend, was startling -- like summer, only better. Not until late afternoon would a chill creep in, and even then it was only of the double-layer kind. * * * * * Saturday morning, grocery shopping. The store is pretty much empty. This is the optimum time to go, really, with only one drawback: there is a certain kind of mental defective who gets up early to go to Loblaws and buy two large bottles of pop with his gold Visa card, and he is not to be confused with the guy who likes to talk to himself about all the shopping baskets at the check out ("Baskets baskets baskets baskets BASKETS BASKETS ..."). Of course, I was in line with them both. * * * * * Later we (me, C and Oona -- not the deviants from the grocery store) walked down to the outdoor market.

I scream for artstream

I drove down to Rochester, New Hampshire this weekend, where my friend Susan and I put on an exhibit called "O Canada, O New England" at her lovely gallery there -- artstream studios . * * * * * Canada -- a vast, dreamladen landscape ... full of sweet darkness , haunted psyches and femme fatales . While New England is famous for its loneliness, fishermen and Whoopie Pie. It's a fact! * * * * * The scene of the crime, taken early Saturday morning, before we'd even hung anything. * * * * * My half of the show was five very new pieces (which you can see in previous posts below or here ), a good handful of ink drawings and then five older paintings which still fit my (arbitrary, fictitious) themes. * * * * * Like this painting, called The Whole Morning -- a wonderful painting whose story speaks to darkness, dreaming and being blue ... all at once! (FYI: the second photo was taken by Susan's husband, Rainer. Good perspective!) * * * * * And these