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Showing posts from November, 2013

we just want good times

I would be smiling more, if they had given me the Wizard of Oz background that I requested. Sorry, I don't say 'cheese' – I find communal displays of cheer and/or cooperation highly distasteful. Also: something smells .  *   *   *   *   *   *   * Speaking of sadness: Mad Dog Vachon died.  I remember a news story about his recovery in hospital after losing a leg (car-pedestrian accident, followed by blood clot). All sorts of kids sent him hand-drawn pictures, and he held one up and smiled for the camera: in crayon lines it showed him lying on the road with his leg lying beside him. *   *   *   *   *   *   * Almost got myself crushed the other day. Or rather: someone else was near at hand to do the crushing. I like listening to podcasts as I walk to and from work. I understand it's a distraction, especially in the winter, when I have my hood up, but I consider myself a low-level offender compared to the innumerable smartphone zombies c

o, snail

My walk to work this morning. Not so much a problem for me (snow is fine; wind is fine; even cold is fine; it's rain that's a nightmare) but my four year-old companion struggled like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow (if the Imperial Guard kept whining about their socks slipping off).  The causeway. On my way to board the Ship of Fools. *   *   *   *   *   * My little table sign from the Fat Goose this past Sunday (crumpled during take-down). I enjoyed this event quite a bit (surprising myself, since I hate everybody) and learned a great deal about fairs and selling. Namely:  • You cannot sell books. Yes, these are "made" (written) by you, and even moreso when you illustrate them as well, but it's not what people want to see on your table.  • People only want to see handmade things (as in: completely handmade things) on your table.   • Things must be obvious. I spent a lot of time explaining what my cigar-tin stories are, wh

cooked

Cigar-tin stories I'll have at the Fat Goose Craft Fair this Sunday, 3-9 pm at the Renaissance Event Venue, 285 Queen Street. The last time, I think, that I sell these at this price point ($20 per); they are a great deal of work (a prepared tin, a painting, an accordion story booklet, the packaging) that is all original, one-of-a-kind. As far as I know, I am the only one who does these. I'll also have a boatload of affordable drawings – all wrapped and cellophaned and ready to go straight into a stocking stuffer, all between $20-$40. Plus books, small paintings, packets of prints and illustrated shirts. And I've been doing a lot of small watercolours lately, specifically with this sale in mind. And this one says it all – so tired. Hustling is exhausting. One last note: I don't have a smartphone(!), and only very recently (read: last week) became aware of their ability to read credit cards, so my table is cash only. Thanks.

crept

W I N D vast and roaring, last night, this morning. C even drove me to work, for fear that I'd be blown off the causeway. Concern = weird. Fittingly, last night we watched Take Shelter . Good but painful. Michael Shannon was terrific, but even better in this .  *   *   *   *   *   * Smashed fluorescent lights make a godawful mess.  *   *   *   *   *   * A town hall of CBC radio to discuss anxiety and mental illness in the student population, if it had reached the level of crisis. C being a college instructor, we talk about this kind of thing all the time. How it is real and not real. And Christ how there's a lot of disability going around. On the one hand the subject makes me wince, because it was no different when I was going through, a million years ago, except instead of anxiety we called it fucking up, and it wasn't so much anxiety as it was straight-up fear. And we fucked up in spades: O, *next* week I'll wake up for class, and get my ac

doped

Ah, the weekend... a chance to get groceries and unpack groceries and clean the fridge and clean the kitchen and clean the house and watch Oona go about the business of deliberately, incrementally, so carefully trashing the place. The apron only adds insult to injury. *   *   *   *   *   * Feeling trashed myself: I'm beat. I need a break. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually looking forward to December, and the way it all goes sideways in the middle, so I can just not do anything for a few weeks. Maybe think a little. But not too hard. My brain has soft spots. *   *   *   *   *   * The other night I took into writing group a story that was such unadulterated nonsense that I announced as much after reading it out loud. That was nonsense, I said, making everyone uncomfortable. So it was almost fun. And now it can sit in a drawer until I can whirl it into some kind of crumbly cake, or at least Camus it. *   *   *   *   *   * Baffled by

heylo, fat goose

These digital illustrations come by way of my younger brother Jon. I continue to find digital artwork a bit overwhelming, for both good and unsettling reasons – the textures here, for example, are deep, layered and alluring, and wonderfully tied together, as a scheme, but finding so much gloss on scratchy darkness always feels like a disconnect. Anyway, talent (and he certainly has it) doesn't care about mediums. *     *     *     *     * Fat Goose is approaching: ten days and counting. I'll have books, cigar-tin stories, painted shirts, drawings, prints and small paintings. This is my first time doing a craft fair so any tips are appreciated.

the rest can go to texas

Do you know what designers love the most? When they're dealing with multiple managers on the same project, when the importance of that project warrants exactly half a minute's attention from a junior secretary, *at best*, but these managers have pressed in anyway, all elbows, asserting their 100K salaries on correcting some minor logo or disposable poster, because they can't help themselves, and seven revisions into it these managers start making revisions like,  can you combine the middle aspect of version 3 with the colour scheme from version 6, I've attached an example but ignore the red, and I've also attached another poster with a tagline we need to add (near the bottom, I think), and remember that thing we talked about six months ago, the idea with the tower? yeah, if you could incorporate something along those lines, that would be great, I think we're almost there!  and you know you *know* you're not almost there because it feels distinctly like fu

let me tell you about the days of high adventure

Okay not really, Conan. In fact, November might just be the longest month, with its grey days slumping into raw nights twisting into bitter mornings sinking into the kind of windswept afternoons where you hang onto the rail, watching the choppy waters, and wonder, fondly, how long 'til the cruellest month again? I tell Oona that Lake Ontario is full of crocodiles, who snap and bite at me as I cross the causeway on the way to work, and it's only half a lie. Because it's hard to keep moving, isn't it? When the sky is the colour of silverware. But then: some hope in my mailbox. Can the dead really live again? the brochure asks. Would you say... • yes • no • maybe? Apparently, yes . The Bible says there will be a resurrection, because God is the creator of life, and has resurrected humans in the past, and is "eager to do it again" – which is a bit weird, and overreaching. Like he has a resurrection gun, and is itching to get zapping again. TO THI

the start of November end

A blustery wet Halloween but Dorothy went out anyway – high winds all part of the character. A lost blue sock that will probably surface in a toy bin, late December. We got about twenty-five kids. Later I watched  House on Haunted Hill , which is sort of scary not really. Helpful tip: if a certain room contains a vat of acid, then don't go into that room. November is going to be one long bitter ending, I can tell – Fall raging and spitting and sputtering itself out, either blustering or wasted, those twinkling, still, cold-hearted mornings. And already CBC needs to turn down the volume on the Olympics, Jesus. Aren't there any wars on? Meanwhile, I'm still getting books to people, and in the mail. Remember that every book from my shop comes with a drawing tucked inside. Take care.