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Showing posts from April, 2012

the rings of saturn

A man goes for a walk along the Suffolk coast. And then over the entire county. Across several days -- along beaches, through fields and forests and marsh land, up hills and following nearly forgotten tracks -- the narrator describes a landscape blighted by neglect, disappearance, and loss, and the accumulated weight of better days, as if the remaining population was paying the price of having history. The beaches are deserted, the fields ghostly, the forests either menacing or underpopulated by stumps and cinders. Every town and inn and manor house is a kind of haunted place. Weaved into all this is anything and everything: the imaginary dictionary of Sir Thomas Browne, a dissection of Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson , the herring fishery, the Battle of Sole Bay, Ustasha, the Congo, Roger Casement, the Dowager Empress Tz'u-hsi, the poet Charles Swinburne, the writer Edward FitzGerald, European efforts at silk production, and so on. And so on and so on, all of it covered in a

cigar-tin story #130

Cigar-tin story #130 contains the short story "Christopher City". Cigar-tin stories are tchotchkes . In the shop .

not discarded

My friend Fern has started a fun art-sharing project (or experiment even) called discard , where you swap out artwork from pockets (like the kind that used to be in the back of library books, about a million years ago) that have been put up in public places. She sent me two such pockets; one I placed at the street-level entrance to my studio (good shelter in the doorway, on a busy street, access to other artists) and the other one I'm sending to a thoughtful girl in Norway. These things are going all over the world!

drawing fire

Twenty above Friday after work, walked home in a t-shirt, drank beer with C and "Uncle Nicky" on the back deck. Then Saturday went wet and sideways, cold rain in sprays. One, two, three degrees. Of course Oona skipped her nap and opted for afternoon mentalism, so I took her walking to my studio, where we warmed up and stretched the acceptable limits of art. Sunday was even colder, in a slightly deader and drier way. This then this morning we have snow, and the wind a riot. Speaking of riots, and cities that make me wince, there must have been plenty of sticky tears in Vancouver last night, as a small team with no guts (and an ill-timed scoring drought) went down in five games. To Los Angeles. Never "Canada's team", and glad to see them go. And a pleasant surprise to see the Penguins vaporized as well, even to such an unlikeable team as Philadelphia (the hockey equivalent of your retarded cousin), because now I don't have to hear endless reports

not neko case (i never drew the hat)

lies

One thing you learn, she thought, perhaps the most valuable thing, is that it makes no sense to try to make sense of most people. Most people are just the flimsiest kind of weather. You cannot talk to them, you cannot explain yourself to them in any meaningful way. So many people like this! It is simply not worth it. Stupid or willfully stupid. If you could see the thought bubbles over their heads, they would be full of stars and exclamation marks: Be positive! Communication is the key! They might have no real idea about the subject you're talking about, no real understanding of it at all, but something they saw in a PowerPoint presentation (or a lifetime of PowerPoint presentations) and an online MBA compels them to speak. Mouth moving not listening. Never listening. In fact, they're just waiting for you to shut-up, waiting for your negative spells to float away, so they can say whatever they were going to say before you even came into the room. What they always say. Still, o

Wednesday

On the radio this morning they were talking about corporate earning reports, how these days they almost always surpass the forecasts, and how this has rendered them nearly meaningless because the executives have gamed the system, because they've learned to shoot low in order to create the illusion of success when they land high -- or what seems like high, but is in fact only medium. Seems like, is like. Complaining about this is like complaining about pirates wearing funny hats. Gaming things seems to be the norm for everything these days, right from the government and corporations on down. Say what you have to say. The theme is cleverness, not work. If you asked boys in high school what their idea of success looked like, I'm sure you'd hear many stories about creating an app for iTunes, or a game for Facebook, and making a million dollars. Or being a professional skateboarder, and making even more millions. Or playing poker for a living. When I was in high school these kin

this computer is my future

As part of my annual spring clean-up, I've decided to be more honest with my labeling and filing ...

getting to know you

getting to know you ; mixed media on canvas, 8 x 8 x 1.5 inches. In the shop . * * * * * Oona and I have started walking to 'school' (read: daycare) in the morning, trying it on a few times a week to start. It's good for her (there is no stroller in her three or four year-old future anyway, full stop), good for both of us and I have to admit to being melted a bit by that little hand in mine. And then we talk about what we see, about scurrying cats and scrambling squirrels and biker guys out walking their giant dogs. As we cross the street I get her to look out for cars as well and this morning there was one sitting way off down the way, with its lights on but not moving, and Oona thought it was thinking and then maybe sad and could possibly use a blanket. * * * * * The clouds of midges (at least I call them midges) have arrived, seemingly early this year, but in their clouds and sticking and dying in my eyes and hair and ears nonetheless. I have to shake my coat out

You're not smarter, Walter ... you're just a little taller.

Doesn't it hurt, even just a little bit, when Phyllis tells Neff that she doesn't really love him, that No, I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I'm rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That's all you ever meant to me. Sure, she's got that sour puss, but didn't you kind of like her anyway? Or maybe it's just the bangs. Or the lipstick evil.

little chaps

C and I were talking about chapbooks the other day, about how bookstore owners are reluctant to stock them. Because chapbooks are a hard sell. For the buying public, they live in some kind of strange, in-between space -- not something just printed off at home, but not quite a proper 'book' either. People don't react well to strange, in-between things. People are conditioned to want their books processed. Packaged. Perfect-bound. As if the mechanized is its own kind of stamp. As if legitimacy depended on plastic laminate. (This is why chapbooks often go in the other direction, with hand-stitching and special papers, to reach for another kind of domain.) * * * * * Yet here I sit with a whole handful of chapbooks that make me think of new candy. Clean, bright, inviting. And I know they've been 'processed' just as much as any book -- labours of care, and imagination, often done over extended lengths of time (just try it yourself, to write a poem in a hurry). And

the songs we hear and how we hear them

I'll admit it: I've always been a bit confused by the Titanic thing. Never even seen the movie. And then lately all this stuff about the band, how incredibly brave they were, playing 'til the end. I have no doubt. But I still don't understand why this particular disaster, with 1 523 fatalities, is the standard for maritime tragedy. There were 9 343 men, women, and children who died on the Wilhelm Gustloff . Yes, some of these people were bad guys (read: guys wearing German uniforms) but the vast majority were civilians/refugees (including about four thousand children) fleeing from the advancing Red Army. If you're being objective, and you just want straight-up tragedy, then this one has sorrow all to hell: a crammed vessel torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, people trampled and crushed in the panic, freezing waters, thousands trapped inside the sinking ship. At night. Still, I guess some stories just have better background music.

but my mouth was full of blood

They shot me in front of everyone. God, it was so embarrassing. The paper heart they pinned to my chest was shredded at the edges. I wanted to ask for a new one, but my mouth was full of blood.

half the known world

Berrien County, Michigan July 1940; John Vachon, 1914-1975, photographer; Part of Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) The uniform changes, the posturing doesn't. And in this case there were two guys. These two guys, two older guys, walking along at seven in the morning, they both have takeaway coffees and they both have that look that has become a kind of deplorable uniform for the margin crawlers these days, undone shoes and baggy pants and layers of coats and (most importantly) the hooded sweatshirt, or hoody (in Saskachewan in the 80's we called it a bunny hug ), with the hood worn up and, if you're really hard, then a ball cap underneath that. And these two guys are talking loudly, half shouting over each other, the one says, No way, every time she's with me she's all dolled up , saying *dolled* like it's just *grand*, and it is, because these guys are somewhere between forty and four thousand,

an open letter from the last person in the world who has not read The Hunger Games

First of all: I'm sorry. I didn't know. In fact, it didn't even cross my mind until I overheard two yoga moms talking about it in Chapters the other day ... Oh, I really enjoyed the whole series. Even Jordan read them! Fuck. Even Jordan. That little bastard. Then a friend of ours explained the whole concept to me, all District 12-this and ultra violence-that. I said that I was always impressed by any writer who can successfully pull off a working dystopia. And I meant it; I spend at least half my time in writing group listening to people say, I don't get it. I think you need to explain this more. It was also nice to see my friend so enthusiastic about a book, to see her so happy to have found a readable book for her book club. So I nodded to that as well (fuck you Can Lit). Later on, however, her baby coughed directly into my mouth, as if to say, Fraud! Nod all you want, but you didn't read those Stieg Larsson or Harry Potter books either! 'Tis true, I choked,

two toonies two

I found two toonies on my way to the studio this morning. Right beside each other, like discarded eyes. I found them as I crossed the parking lot behind Shopper's. They were next to something orange and exploded (vomit? poutine with cheese? a butternut squash dropped from space?) so they got a wash in soap and warm water before being pocketed. While I was at it I washed my keys, which is an old habit from my days working at a mental hospital. I once found a crisp twenty-dollar bill at the bottom of an otherwise empty dryer. I once found another twenty at the back of a bus -- I had to clamp my foot over it until everyone else looked away. I once even found an entire wallet full of money but I was a stupid (well, more stupid) kid at the time and I turned it over to my parents -- who promptly returned it to its owner. Who did not give me a reward. Lesson learned! Speaking of ingesting failure, I have a little essay on the subject here .