Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from March, 2011

training day

Gosh that was a fun day. I already knew it was going to be fun because I would be spending it in Toronto -- a city that always reminds me of smashed Lite-Brite in a dirty parking lot, with orange construction cones placed around the pieces -- for training that I didn't want and that I really didn't need. Still, managers have to spend the entirety of their training budgets or they won't get as much next year, and everyone else in the department had already been tagged multiple times, and the barrel must be scraped, so to speak. But what made it an *extra* fun day was having my VIA train cancelled because of a freight derailment near Cobourg, and having that train replaced with a bus . The VIA guy at the other end of the the 1-800 line promised that this bus would leave on time and get to Toronto on time but I knew this was a lie. Still, what could I do but go? Try to have a good day anyway , my wife said when she dropped me off at the station. Another kind of lie. I will b

the coast with the most

Cigar-tin story #91. Cigar-tin story #90. Cigar-tin story #89. Cigar-tin story #88. * * * * * Sent some cigar-tin stories out to a gal on the east coast last week. She got them today, safe and sound. {Postscript: I keep forgetting to mention that some cigar-tin stories are available at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre gift shop on Queen's campus.}

sending out work

oh dear ; mixed media on cradled wood panel, 8 x 8 inches. * * * * * It happens in spasms: a twinged look at the calendar and I realize that I haven't sent anything out for awhile. Quite awhile. So I poke around on the internet, searching for magazines that have calls for submissions, or at journals that seem healthy, and at other ones that look wanting. And then I troll through my story files, thinking about what might fly with what, or what can be fixed up, or what I feel like trying to deal with. I'll do a bunch in a hurry -- some through the mail, some through online submission managers. I have a friend who loves submitting electronically, because it saves her the time and effort of a package, but I'm not entirely down with that. An easier submission process probably just means submissions by the bushel and rejections issued in whole robotic blocks. Besides, I actually *enjoy* making beautiful packages. An editor once phoned to tell me that my submission was the mos

quick question

Quick question: when multiple toddlers run up to you at daycare squealing, "Daddy!" ... is this considered evidence in a court of law? Briefly state your legal credentials in your answer, please.

giving orders

It's the straw man who worries me. Mixed media on canvas, 22 x 28 inches. From the string series . Donated this painting to charity last week. I would like to tell you all about their good works but honestly I don't know; C just came home and informed me that I was donating a painting to some charity auction. This seems to happen about once a month now, and it tastes a lot like the jellied sandwich meats they used to serve in the basement of the church after Sunday School, when I was a kid, with about the same amount of sweating and quivering. This time, however, I did ask her: Will I be getting a tax receipt? O, it's not that kind of charity, C said. It's not like charity charity. So I'm just giving things away, I said. Are you going to be in a bad mood all evening now? she asked.

this charming man

Some persons have complained that yesterday's post was alarmist, depressing. Fine . I'm more than willing to lighten things up. No more doomed-Japan talk for awhile. Instead let's talk about Hitler. Valkyrie by Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager The subtitle of this book reads THE STORY OF THE PLOT TO KILL HITLER BY ITS LAST MEMBER when it could just as well read THE STORY OF A GERMAN OFFICER OF GOOD BREEDING AND NOBLE INTENTIONS WHO HAPPENED TO JOIN SOME OTHER FINE GENTLEMEN IN THEIR EFFORTS TO RID GERMANY OF A DISHONOURABLE, RUINOUS TYRANT and you'd pretty much have the book. You're not going to find any blood or monsters here. Even Hitler is rather minor to the whole thing -- just the distant, shadowy essence of a menace which is losing the war and ruining Germany. Growing up on a Rhineland estate (canals, moats, corner towers, acres of wilderness), Von Boeselager's childhood is made up of enlightened Christianity, a classical but liberal education and hunt

cowboys

Received: a letter from my good friend Stella yesterday. It had photos and a lovely little watercolour that her mom must have scored in a trade with one of her artist friends. The picture on the front is from Hiroshige's Views of Mt. Fuji series. Of course I wish I knew who the artist was. But with Stella these things are always a bit of a mystery. One of the necessities of being a fashion cowboy is answering no questions. * * * * * Because I have this eccentric ken for all things strange and dystopian, the news out of Japan seems to be speaking to me on a special wavelength. And the news is appalling : more fires, bigger explosions, radioactive steam . The Emperor goes on television. Foreigners are fleeing even while the international airlines are staying away. Helicopters are dumping giant red buckets of water on the reactors. Really? Yesterday I walked to my dentist appointment in thin, shimmering March light. The world seemed cool and distant. I had that sensation that I g

fever

Actually: fevers. About a week ago. Running gorgeous all that weekend. Add some crushing congestion headaches and you've got some heartfelt prayers for death. Starved myself to turn any kind of corner. Then it seemed to boil down. Dripping away for a week. Still: popping noises in my head last night. And these headaches, a bit dizzy. Everything feels far away. A friend of mine says I have the immune system of a pet store parakeet but really I just need to stop kissing my baby -- all that wet sloppiness, tongue sticking out sideways ... and that's just on my end. Believe me, no one is more sick of writing posts about being sick than I am. It's like Groundhog Day littered with kleenex. Anyway: I've sweated and shivered and finished up some reading, even watched some dvds. So there'll be a lot of that here for awhile. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks I read this a very long time ago, and remembered most of the good bits, but not the ending and certainly not the sheer me

Magnificent Bird

Some nice Americans called Magnificent Bird are releasing an album this weekend. It's called Superdark Can Happen to Anyone . I can tell you that they mean it. What is superdark? Sliding things, I think. Then stuck. Slurred stoppages. Some remembered party, some glorified bonfire really, in the middle of nowhere, some field or clearing, with cars and trucks pulled up around, and to stand by the fire is to lean into curtains of heat, your face ablaze even while your back is freezing, and so you turn, and keep turning, bone coated, these twisty tower poses of standing and drinking, not looking at the girls who aren't there, not beer sick about that, again, so that when you finally step away it's into a flickering half-nothingness, and then the dark fills right in, just like that, twenty feet into the field and you might as well have stepped into space, so hellishly cold and black it is, with that reflected laughter behind you, somewhere blonde thin and ropey, ghosts from some

Dwell

I have five paintings in Dwell for the month of March. There will be an informal reception for myself and the artist Lisa McLaughlin LaRose on Thursday, March 10th, between 5 and 8 p.m. If you're downtown that afternoon, please drop by. On top of the artwork, Jenn's boutique is full of just lovely things.