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Showing posts from May, 2011

go jets go

The glory days. * * * * * Well, it happened: NHL hockey is returning to Winnipeg. How sad. I remember when 'it happened' in reverse, in 1996 -- when they took the team away. I was living in Winnipeg then, and the sweeping feeling was that this was a very bad thing, this thing that was happening. Happening to Winnipeg. Poor Winnipeg! Like a tornado or a hurricane or a flood or a plague. Like Delilah and the Philistines, that kind of Biblical betrayal. And so all sorts of guys threw together all sorts of rescue plans, and held all sorts of rallies, and little kids offered up their piggy banks, and wept tears they could not possibly understand. And the team moved anyway. And all this was sad on a number of levels. Not least of which was its passive quality. Because it really was happening to them : some business guys (those philistines!) making a business decision and moving the team to Phoenix. Because professional sports is a business. Because professional hockey players --

fun running

Oona and I (and Catherine, Evi, and Mei Mei, above) did the Family Fun Run in Ottawa this Saturday, as part of Ottawa Race Weekend. C ran the 5K with her brother-in-law. Oona and I did not run. Oona did, however, walk the last 100 metres of the race, past the finish line. And she did very much like her medal. I, on the other hand, did not accept a medal. Which C found confusing. C (far left, waving like a maniac) ran her race in decent time. Her goal was to beat her brother-in-law, which she did. Easily. I advised this brother-in-law to keep some aspirin in his pocket, so that someone could crush them on his tongue immediately after the heart attack. And yet: he did *not* have a heart attack, despite looking like a beaver dipped in Castor oil by the end of the race. C gets very up for all this, says the power of the crowd is intoxicating. I understand that, but I feel it's something else, too -- how often do average people get to cross any kind of cheering finish line? How often do

run

Frenzied, Shutter-Island -type rainstorm last night, some kind of all-out assault of pellets on tin. Tin wins. Even at two in the morning, I do enjoy it when weather goes raging berserk and I'm nicely tucked out of harm's way. Have you seen Shutter Island ? My reaction to C (who wouldn't watch it) went like this: I don't think Martin Scorsese should be doing movies based on CGI and dream sequences. I think that's a colossal waste of time. And talent. It reminded me of a movie called The Ninth Gate -- all this heavy-handed playing at being creepy and disturbing when really it was about as scary as a birthday cake (Frank Langella being no more threatening than Ben Kingsley). * * * * * Surreally compelling interview on CBC radio yesterday morning, the host doing her saccharine, sunshine-y best with a university economics (and environmental studies) professor who talked in straight, dashed lines about how modern economics was junk, was completely inverted from rea

what is this 'progress' you speak of?

Who knew you could still get published without knowing any of the right people (or having none of them wanting to know you)? The top one is a prairie story, in a very nice American journal , while the one above is a two-page creepfest about love and loss in Japan (and published here in Canada). * * * * * Weirdly busy right now. Where is this easing into summer that I was promised? Did it go the way of the rapture? Anyway, I've been adding some new things to my Etsy shop when I can find the time, things like cigar-tin stories and magnetic art and ink drawings, and I'll be adding more over the next few weeks.

we got a time bomb

What!? What happened to the Rapture? Instead all we had was bad weather, and even that trundled past and past like one of those stop-motion films, sped up spluttering, the clouds twitch boiling with something like silent film menace, and then the brite-white sun, and much wondering, before sudden shadows and storm. No one knew what it would do, and we all asked the same question over and over all weekend. You get the sense that much more of this is owing, that it would not be a shock if it started to go like this all the time. Don't even look at David Suzuki's doom mouth –– your head might pop off. I did see an obviously deranged woman in hightops and full-length fur coat, hopping on and off the curb, and some fat teenage mothers laughing at her as they pushed baby strollers and smoke up Princess Street, and all I could think was, Well, crazy is still better than stupid ... or doomed.

maskerade

Maskerade ; inks on paper (page from an old math text book), 5.5 x 8.5 inches. * * * * * Some things sound better in German, don't they? * * * * * Well, it's the Victoria Day long weekend, because in Canada, if it has anything to do with crowns or holidays, we're all over it. Some day we might grow up, and start our own articles of faith, but in the meantime ... enjoy! (Or, if the rapture really does arrive ... Auf wiedersehen! )

maybe now my mom will return my calls

Look who made their university alumni magazine ! And it wasn't for arson or tax fraud! Oh sure, Dr. Carolyn Shields, class of '91, I suppose they gave you a *lovely* corner office as new dean of education at Wayne State. And I'm sure it feels very nice for you as well, Ms. Janice Michael (class of '92), to hand out your shiny new business cards with your CGA designation. And maybe it is gratifying for you, Mr. Paul Dutton ('93), to receive an Academy Award nomination for your work on a major Hollywood movie. But please -- you haven't really made it until you've published a collection of crazy, crazy short stories that make people either laugh or wince. Finally I can burn my Sunday School certificates for perfect attendance !

things i hate about summer

sour ; india inks on paper (page from an old math text book), 7 x 4.5 inches. * * * * * Things I Hate About Summer {x} Rain. On its own, rain is lovely and heartening -- a grey-infused melancholy, yet million-seeded with life-affirming blue. But summer rain arrives only when you least want it, during your walk home from work, or at the drive-in, or on Saturday mornings, when a certain seventeen-month old desperately needs to release some dark energy at the park. Summer rain is that friend who won't shut up, and only calls when you don't feel like talking. {x} Skeevies. The kind of person who mostly lives inside during the winter -- criminal, half-dead, shiftless or deranged -- now lives outside, on the sidewalk, every warm night. During the day he rests so he can come by my house -- and my open window -- at around 3 a.m., screaming profanities at astral attackers. {x} The expectation of fun. Why aren't you having fun? Summer is wonderful! I *must* try harder to ha

magnetic art

I have a few new things in my wee Etsy shop , like this original ink drawing that I've made into (what I call) magnetic art -- laminated (so it will never age or fade or otherwise come to harm) with magnet strips on the back (to add character to your fridge door or filing cabinet or magnet board). Because people need more indestructible art in their kitchens, I think.

stamp collecting is fun! ... or evil

Every so often I'll send my niece Stella a card. Some things that I've been putting in these cards, over the last year or so, are old stamps and coins, taken from a box that C was determined to throw out in one of her infamous purges. So I took it away. As far as I can tell, the coins were collected by her uncles and the stamp collection books were assembled by her and her sister, with a lot of help from their grandfather, who was a postmaster. Sending these things to Stella, bit by bit, is just my way of adding some fun to our somewhat limited exchanges ( How are you? How is school? I heard you like Bruce Lee , and so on), with the idea that she's starting her own collection, this special thing that might be valuable some day (and in a way it *is* special, because how many kids collect stamps or coins these days?). And then I came across *this* page in the stamp book. Whoops. I think I'll keep these ones back. Maybe C has some other childhood things, for a new collecti

virtual skies

cigar-tin story #105; now in my Etsy shop . * * * * * Someone recently asked me about Etsy -- How are you finding it? they asked, but what they meant was, Should I put my stuff on there? Will it help me sell my stuff? And this is difficult to answer, because while I think it's a good place to put your work -- because it shows well and the interface is functional and quite smart, and it really does approximate an actual 'shop' -- I don't know that it will actually help you sell your work. I mean, it *is* a community, and Etsy offers all sorts of workshops to help you make the most of that community, but I've never had the time to go through them. You have to be committed, I think. Otherwise, you need a clientele going in, something you can expand on as you build and perfect your shop. If you don't have that, and you just throw up a shop and hope for the best (of which I've been guilty in the past), then things will go very quiet very quickly. One of the

like the mob, only with buttoned sweaters

So ... I have to go by the library after work. Drop off some books. It's good, somehow even noble that I'm a regular patron of the library these days (patron is such a lovely word, isn't it?). I look things up ahead of time, go in with my little list, hunt things down then do some browsing of the new titles, plus a final sweep of my favourite sections (graphic novels, history, illustrated erotica). Yes fine, fine. But the library's got a dark side, too. A pusher side. A side that's always sending me notes, these ominous little reminders, like this ... DARRYL J. BERGER This reminder has been sent to you because our records indicate that the items listed below HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED. A second e-mail notice will be sent in approximately four days if the materials ARE NOT RETURNED. We look forward to serving you again soon. ... and there's fines (read: vigorish, or simply the vig, or the juice, or the take) accumulating, all the time, every day I'm late, and if

before it was me

before it was me ; mixed media on cradled wood panel, 30 x 30 x 1 inches. The string series continues . * * * * * Election Day today, on this grey and windless day. I knew something was up from the cluster of headaches I've been having lately – all these public ambitions so maimed or self-wounded is always distressing to the psyche. * * * * * Did you hear they got bin Laden? They got bin Laden. I told Oona this morning: This is what happens, when you're bad – the Americans will get you. She giggled and ran away. * * * * * The whole 'burial at sea' business is curious. Did the bugler play Taps? * * * * * Having walked so many miles, and followed so many obviously insane people over the years, I've noticed that they often have a rather loping walk, as if slightly stuttering, slightly lifting away from the ground. As if they could just take off and fly at any moment. The fellow this morning was quite concerned with things on the sidewalk that were not