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so long

    Well,  I went away and then I came back, which isn't really fair. Or the right way to do things. So I'm going to go for good this time. Blogging has kind of crumpled in on itself, hasn't it? These things happen so quickly now. It also falls (generally, obliquely?) into the category of Free Work, which I talk about here . Thank you to everyone who has read me along the way, and please take care. ~ djb

Basquiat at the AGO

Oona and I took in the Basquiat exhibit at the AGO this weekend. We even managed to maintain normal, art-going behaviour for a few minutes, before all the this-is-boring 's and why-are-we-doing-what-you-want-to-do? 's set in. To be honest, it was a bit boring. Or at least underwhelming. I kept looking at the dates, reminding myself why this stuff would have been so hot with the New York art market.   And I do get it –– the time and the place and the historical significance. And all that. Plus the kid had a good story.    Still, for me, his iconography is better than his painting. "They look like skeletons playing basketball," Oona said of Basquiat's paintings, but his eye for symbolism, for the bewitching graphic element, is bang on. And in that way he's the first graphic artist superstar.    Anyway –– Oona got some chocolate milk and cantaloupe out of it, in the end, so we made out okay. Other Oona/Toronto stuff here (password is s

Parker

So I've been on a bit of a Parker kick –– two books in four days, Flashfire and The Sour Lemon Score . I have Butcher's Moon on my bedside table. That will leave twenty one left to go. I came at these from the graphic novels –– The Hunter, The Outfit, The Score and Slayground –– which are worth it for the artwork alone. But with the novels you get the full blood pudding. Parker is an anti-hero but for me he's more anti-hope. Things will never get better but better things can always be stolen, at least for awhile. And while there is no magic in the world, there is plenty of misdirection. The rest: professional thief, ruthless operator, sociopath with a deep read on human weakness, heartless pragmatist who nonetheless follows a code, a kind of ethic, which includes wreaking havoc on other criminals who cross him, and never trusting a power beyond his own. To draw him in black ink is almost perfect. I've also drawn some Japanese ghosts lately. Postscript:

the spin for this

Easter Monday and I don't have that much to say; after a four-day weekend, any remaining spin feels internalized and sluggish like the slow swirl at the gaping-mouth end of a drain. And I still don't know what it was all about (please don't say 'family' or 'chocolate –– you might as well say 'bears' and 'ray guns'). The house will be dirtier, then cleaner; Oona will have had fun finding chocolate eggs (maybe a third of which she'll get to eat, eventually), then enjoy a few epic meltdowns when not allowed to win every game of Snakes & Ladders ("... but I want to win all the games!"), or when served toast in the wrong manner for optimal butter melting (and when that butter doesn't melt fast enough); we will have blown a small packet of money on ... something ?; several inside headaches (the headache you get after spending too much time inside) will have been had; I will have lost a day of work; and time will have been spen

the bunny is hollow at the bottom

I was about to write something about it being a long week when I realized it was only Thursday. Tomorrow being Good Friday. Blink twice for the weekend, then Oona's home for Monday (Easter Monday?) as well. I've gone off on Easter before so I won't bother. Needless to say that a four-day weekend so quick on the heels of March Break feels a bit bloody, even gratuitous. And it was a tough week. Too much design work lately, which means not doing any actual design at all, which means too much sitting in front of a computer, which means playing detective work with other people's problems. We do these things for money, yes. Listened to a BBC podcast which asked, does money make people mean? The answer, of course, is yes –– with notable exceptions (otherwise the word philanthropy wouldn't exist). The BBC could have stayed home on this one.  But at least they're asking the question.  And while it's not a problem that I'll ever need

And then I looked out the window and it was snowing again.

Last Friday, late afternoon: first I noticed the room getting colder. Then I heard the rain. O rain , I said out loud. Like weather was something you could roll your eyes at. At least I wore my boots today.  When I looked again it had turned to snow. And it's been like that through to this evening –– some snow, some rain, some wind, a little sun, then some cold. Every corner giving you a different treatment.  This might be the first year I've thought about March being tough; usually it's February that breaks your heart, in its relentless psychic concussions, beating you down with rawness and darkness. Most years February is the Frankenstein that just won't die. But this March has been the worst of all worlds –– not winter but not spring, still freezing and lifeless, no snow and all garbage. Last week, tidying things up before the girls came home from Florida(!), I scooped up a dead bird from the sodden backyard path. The corpse was immaculate, like the

this morning was like butter

It's almost eleven and I'm still in my bathrobe –– never a good look unless people are calling you Hawkeye. In fairness, I spent the morning working on the following ... a new tinyletter, cigar-tin stories number 22 a post about ugly daikon (a poster about a poem, inserted into a magazine) listing my secret sharer listing new library card art and some more things, but now I need to jump (hop? prance? ) into the shower. I still need to do corrections on a book (design/production stuff) and then cough up something for writing group tonight. What do you think –– murder? vampires? a meditation on suburban ennui ?

because the magic kingdom is magically exhausting

Guess who is down in Disneyland with her mom and auntie and cousins? Day Two and she can hardly open her eyes for a picture with SNOW WHITE –– if this was happening at home she'd be hemorrhaging sparkles. And me, back in Kingston? I just put a blanket in the wash, after scraping off about a quarter cup of half-digested cat puke. why great novels don't get noticed now // why every day is dark all day

march break your spirit

... so really it should be called March Crush. And what exactly does my five year-old (or any school-aged kid) need a break from? Getting nothing but A's? Being told how awesome they are? Handheld devices with more computational power than the moon missions? Hundred dollar hoodies? Attack on Titan ? Organic bananas? Illiteracy? It's funny, these moments you have as you get older, when you stop for a second to consider things like holidays, and how batshit crazy they are. -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - doesn't want to see // the book was a failure

whenever they play jive talkin' too early on a saturday morning the room seems to shimmer and my right leg goes numb

  C going through closets and clothes today, a process I fear and abominate, because attending it is whole armloads of what-doesn't-fit-me-anymore, which is in the same shattered neighbourhood of Aging and Other Ruinous Effects of Time. Yes, you can keep your head down but blame, like drones, has always played fast and loose with the truth, and sometimes you'll get it in the neck for just being in the vicinity. ––––––––––––––––––– Another fun sign of spring in our neighbourhood: people sticking bags of dog poop between slats of fences, or hanging them off trees. So in a fit of human being-ness you took your (giant, untrained, probably half-insane) dog out to poop and you brought a bag and you scooped the poop into the bag and you tied it nicely and then suddenly you remembered where you lived and who you were so you hung it off a tree like some kind of inverted version of decorating or perhaps even making a statement like, Look at this, you pricks, this is what I&#

good weed

I think spring is here. Suddenly, dramatically. Came out of the studio today with my boots banging off the dry sidewalk. And then waiting for Oona's bus, the sun hot on the back of my neck. So I thought a new shirt for a certain five year-old was in order. etsy // tinyletter // facebook // redbubble // supermarket

sightseers

C went upstairs when I pressed 'play' on this , afraid that it would turn gruesome or grotesque in that victimized-vacationers- Hostel way. But of course it didn't, because it's British, where characters knit jumpers and go to the train museum. That said, they do reveal themselves to be lethal and damaged and generally unhinged, with the mayhem coming on slow, then jagged and almost casual, and all of it undermined by a kind of hopelessness, an adventure story of the doomed (and probably always doomed).  On Netflix. Just press 'play'. etsy // tinyletter // facebook // redbubble // supermarket

and then my eyes turned black, because i'd filled them with ink

Reading the New York Times Book Review for February 22nd, 2015  * ––Did you know that you can go on a transatlantic cruise with acclaimed actress, artist and philanthropist Jane Seymour? WELL YOU CAN. The Queen Mary 2 leaves port on June 3rd! Just contact your travel agent by clapping your hands and blinking –– very hard –– to the tune of Live and Let Die .  ––Jeffrey Archer is out of jail? That seems quick. ––Stewart O'Nan is one of those good writers that will never, ever be famous. Sorry, Stuart!  ––Someone wrote a book about all the corruption in the Afghan government. Shocker. Don't tell me that war was a total waste of time/treasure/lives! ––For some reason, looking at the Best Seller Lists makes me close my eyes and imagine Eddie Murphy singing 'Party All the Time'. ––The 'Bookends' section –– a page of opposing views between two writers –– asks, "Does fiction have the power to sway politics?" To which I could only

little books, big fates

Oona likes to make little books. Fine, fine. I'll even bring home blank accordion booklets for her, and show her the magic of folding. Of course, for Oona there is only really one story, and that story only ends one way. To be fair, that rain of giant black swirls does look pretty deadly.

boy sad

If all my experiences at the dentist were made into a movie, and that movie had a soundtrack, then that soundtrack would lean heavily on The Moody Blues.  If you're like me, and your teeth have all the stability of an archaelogical dig run by Sid Vicious, then it's quite easy to start feeling sorry for yourself when the dental hygienist looks at your x-rays and exclaims, I can't even understand what's going on here, you've had so much work done since your last imaging!  At one point I even told her not to look so worried. And it's always been this way. I remember talking politics with visiting dental nurses (they set up in the kindergarten trailer, just off the school yard) when I was in Grade 4. They laughed and laughed, their best little customer.  A million years ago, in a downtown Winnipeg apartment that literally shook from the bus traffic below, I wrote the following story, which ended up in a 2001 issue of the Queen Street Quarterly (the

little minds, closed for business

About twice a month –– almost always on a Sunday –– Oona and I walk to the library. We make an afternoon of it. She's always excited to go.  Today we did the same, bundled up under the dazzling winter sun. But the library was closed. Closed, the sign read, for both Sunday and Monday (Family Day). I wanted to leave my own note:  Dear Library, You can be closed for Sunday.  You can be closed for Monday. You cannot be closed for both. Try to be fucking relevant,  For the people who still love you. Postscript: The story had a happy ending for Oona, who got to go to Menchie's.

what have i done to deserve this?

jenny hunger / mixed media on cradled wood panel / 8 x 10 inches –   –   – The (lovely) weather today, here in (lovely) Kingston, Ontario ... Temperature: -25.0°C Humidity: 70% Wind: NW 9 km/h Wind Chill: -33 So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

i thought they were joking

Or rather, I thought *I* was joking, making comments on random Facebook posts I'd see in my feed, someone talking about, say, their favourite Eagles song and there I'd be, writing, I heard that listening to Don Henley complain about not getting respect can give your kids autism (and self-confidence issues) . Because, you know –– I thought this whole vaccination business had run its course, like the Birthers or Flat Earthers. When in reality it was just me coating my own ignorance with a sparkling level of stupidity.  Because it's back! Take that, Black Mirror . Whatever dystopia you can dream up, real people will raise and re-raise you with even more paranoid, irrational, selfish behaviour. I mean, if we let measles come back? Fucking measles ? Well, I think we should just cash it all in at that point. Give every person an acre of natural habitat to destroy (fire? laser-robot dinosaurs? nuclear bombs the size of iPads?) and call it a day.

still in the labyrinth

Just a reminder: I still have work at Labyrinth , including this lovelorn owl. Will he ever find closeness? I guess that's up to you , owl-love denier.  –––––––––––––––––––––– Fittingly, in the deep end of winter, I am now about halfway through my leave-without-pay. I wish I had something insightful or even just clever to say about the first five months, but they had a kind of heavy speed that I'm still trying to process. There's been a lot more design work than I anticipated, which says something about creativity needing to be special-purposed or concrete in order for people to pay for it, or feel justified in paying for it, but I'm still figuring that one out, too. There will come a point where I'll just stop hustling as I prepare to go on a back-to-work hiatus (hello, laziness), but in the meantime I've got so much left to do. More owls !

As we strolled back to the terrace, the Duchess called me over.

All this cold lately, this cold you feel while walking, burning itself into your thighs. Even my gloves are not quite up to it (the trouble with heavier gloves being that you clumsy around like some kind of moon mission astronaut, knocking down the curtains over the door window).  Anyway: the new math is much like the old math, and the new spelling is missing all its e's .

many of us will die, and the rest will get a holiday

See any differences in these (well, the third is a detail)? It all depends on the light in the room. there he is, do you see him? (we should never have gone to that party)  ///  mixed media on masonite panel  ///  9 x 12 inches  // etsy † † † † † † † †  † † † † † † † †   † † † † † † † †   I guess I'm tired. Or maybe I have SAD. Which I've always found a bit weak. I mean, it's winter, it's supposed to be depressing, it's not supposed to be mediated .  The story I'm taking into group tonight is about a bus that doesn't stop, no matter how hard you ring the bell. C had an unpleasant experience bus ride the other day, with a driver losing her shit on a pair of (young, male, seemingly quiet) passengers. I remember those days, I remember that point where the driver can hold the entire bus hostage. 

open the window

open the window // an original ink drawing on Japanese paper // original ink drawing on Japanese Sumi-E paper // 9.5 x 10.5 inches // an art monster also monstrous: I cut my left index finger with an x-acto knife today (it went in, rather x-actly). later, I managed to flip a can of beer off my bedside table... it was if I'd flicked teaspoons of beer in every direction. also, it snowed again.