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Showing posts from October, 2011

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