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Showing posts from June, 2011

more Oona art

Why am I not referred to by name here? Why am I only "Oona's Daddy"? I AM NOT A NUMBER. I AM A PERSON. These are the kinds of pictures we are going to get whenever mommy attempts to cook. High. Obviously: high. I do not understand. Where is she getting the drugs from? She's not even two!

Canada Day

True story.

w i n n e r s

And the first name for the draw is ... ... oh no, wait, that's the Christmas draw. Sorry. Okay the real winners of the draw are ... ... and ... So ... yeah. Thank you to all who entered! Including those on Facebook, I had about 25 people. For the winners: the mail is *supposed* to start working again today but I probably won't brave the lines until tomorrow.

G I V E A W A Y

I'm having a wee giveaway: a set (4) of transparent seasonal mini-calendars and a set (4) of accordion story cards. Leave a comment below and I'll make the draw for each over the weekend (Sunday), then chase down the winners. The transparent seasonal mini-calendars are see-through film strips that you can stick on a fridge or magnet board. • 2.5 inches wide by 10.25 inches high • printed on clear transparency film, gloss side • pack of four: spring, summer, winter and fall • each with artwork • works well as a fridge calendar (with magnet), bookmark, on a magnet board • comes in a durable card stock envelope The accordion story cards are • 15 inches long by 4 inches high • six panels, double-sided • coloured card stock, with matching envelope • each card contains an original story or essay, with artwork • plus a blank back panel for your own message • these are über cards! This is me, just trying different ways of disseminating my writing and artwork, like what I do with my cig

after all these years we're still watching movies on disks? where are the holograms I was promised? where are my cities of light?

This postal strike/lockout has certainly slowed down our cinematic education at the hands of Zip (at least that's the way C uses it, trying to indoctrinate me into the ways of French New Wave), but here's two decent picks we've seen lately ... Let the Right One In This movie has such good bones, and is really quite charming in all the important ways. If only the extra stuff, the supporting stuff -- like all the adult roles -- weren't so godawful, and didn't make me think of a National Film Board production from about 1983. Still, the movie is really about a pair of alienated kids, and how compassion can cross any territory, even beyond the human, and down those main arteries it succeeds very nicely. A Serious Man I had some idea but really I had no idea -- that Jews could be so wan and bleak and unsparing and helpless and fatalistic all at once. Oy. And this movie really gets into it. It's all very dispassionate but strangely compelling, with an ending that s

quiet over there ... too quiet

Say ... what's going on in Japan these days? Is it fit for humans again? Or is some atomic Godzilla running a blitz play through millions of fleeing Japanese even as I write this? All this sour-smelling hoo-ha lately -- about elections and ugly hockey and burning coastal cities and blaming anarchists for all our bad behaviour, and hell, I've just completely lost track of what's going on over there in the land of the rising sun. In the meantime, however, I did get this wonderful Mogu Takahashi poster, which was sold as a fundraiser for the Red Cross. Hope it helped. Go Nippon!

extended hours

I guess those new store hours just got extended. (Mike Carlson/Reuters) Postscript: For those of you who think my negativity is misplaced, I wasn't the only one who thought like this (or this ).

soon will never be soon enough

stinky here is on the cover of a travel cd case. * * * * * Finally, for Christ's sake, it will be over tonight: no more hockey. No more bullshit on the radio, hearing it as the lead news story. No more Cross Country Check Up opening up its phone lines to the question, Are the Canucks Canada's team? , an episode akin to asking skinheads who their favourite dictator is ("Mussolini, man. Definitely Mussolini!") {1} . This is our national broadcaster? Sonofabitch! I understand why people in Vancouver (and sure, the rest of Lotus Land ) are invested -- it's their fucking team -- but the rest of us have other concerns besides an assembled collection of millionaires playing sports for money {2} . In a stupefying little chokefest, Vancouver's starting goalie {3} has let in 18 goals in the last four games. Despite this, amazingly, his team can *still* win the Stanley Cup tonight. This will probably happen. If it does, I'll have to bear a little bit more (the

educating christina

Queen's gave C a Master's degree on Friday, and her dad came out from New Brunswick to see it with his own eyes. Way to go, C! And here's the real-time hand-off, when they laid the paper on her ...

some kind of ringing in my ear

A wee profile of cigar-tin stories in the latest issue of Broken Pencil magazine. Which is nice.

wisdom, not teeth

I was reading something mindless and fun called "500 Essential Cult Books" and C said, Oh, I've read most of those but you won't know any of them. Really? I said. Well, how about this one ... "What It Takes to Be #1 : Vince Lombardi on Leadership". Do you know who Vince Lombardi is? Of course I do, she said. He's a famous band leader. * * * * * Some other gems from my wife, lately ... ~ (doing the crossword) I need a four-letter word for a Biblical place, starting with 'e' and ending with 'n'. ~ I didn't know Hank Aaron was black! Are you sure? Because that doesn't sound right. ~ What's 60 divided by 4 again? ~ (filling out the census) When's Oona's birthday again? * * * * * Her dad is coming out for a visit this week so – thinking ahead – I got a whack of Oona pictures developed for C to put together in a little photo album for him to take back. That's too fussy, she said. He won't like that. Too ba

cathy cullis

Ordered this sweet, sweet little art book from Cathy Cullis , who has a wee shop on Etsy. My plan is to build up a little cache of gifts, so that when Christmas comes I don't have to go anywhere near a store, and I can try to pretend the whole thing doesn't exist. * * * * * In other news, I threw out my back making red potato salad last night. Yep, that's right: compared to my life, the guys from Hammer of the Gods look like school children.

under this electric cloud

This racketing, tinned-wind noise: why am I being bombarded with *gleeful* news stories about how quickly the denizens of Winnipeg coughed up the cash for 13 000 season tickets for the new (or merely new again ) professional hockey franchise in Winnipeg? Why is this a leading news story? And why is it GLEEFUL? Why is this something TO BE CHEERED? Did I miss something? Because the last time I looked, this was a private business concern, owned by private businessmen, and the thing about business guys is that they conduct business , and this business is almost always concerned solely with the idea of MAKING MONEY. So why is this idea of a group of private businessmen operating a professional hockey franchise all mixed up with ideas about Canadian self-esteem? This is all very flimsy and, again, quite sad . The CBC, in particular, should be ashamed of itself. Since when is honey-mouthing over millionaires part of its mandate? When I turn on the news I want to hear stories about the economy

an anniversary, in nine parts

anniversary tiger number 1 ; India ink on Esselte Letraset paper; 8.5 x 12 inches. * * * * * 1} Men are so false, so insidious, so deceitful and cunning in their wiles, so avid in their own interest, and so oblivious to others' interests, that you cannot go wrong if you believe little and trust less. -- Guicciardini 2} On the CBC morning show, they were talking about valedictorians, about the importance of their awarded position, and the voice they have. Did you know that I was valedictorian of my own high school graduating class? Yup; no one else would do it. I didn't want to do it either, but that hardly seemed to matter. I have no memory, no idea what I said. 3} I won a little contest -- a print giveaway from colour + sound . Since I never win anything, this was nearly confusing. But it's sharp artwork and she's a lovely person. 4} Of course, I might not get this artwork for awhile because we're set to have a postal strike soon. I have many minds about this