lambsamongwolves

On the possibilities of generating our realities

2011-12-25T16:04:00.004-05:00

I've been reading some books lately about how managing people is mostly about designing processes. Design and processes. Edgar Schein, one of the organizational consultants I admire the most, speaks of this, and of how the structures we create have a profound impact on how we in turn behave.

Lately I've been wondering if in fact these structures don't inherently dictate the way we behave.

I have been feeling this acutely in regards to the frameworks I live in and their fusion with consumerism. I recently travelled to Europe and was struck by how airports are nothing more than large international shopping malls. And as someone who goes home for (and celebrates) Christmas, I have felt the intense crush of consumer madness all around me since stepping outside my door last week.

Travelling often accentuates, in stark tones and shades, what we struggle with during the rest of the year (see the post below on belonging for instance) - it is a steroid-esque picture of how our culture operates. It shows me what my culture values, what I hold dear, and how I express this to others (strangers and loved ones).

And this is where the structural elements come into play. How can I not be shaped by consumerism when I live in a small town built around strip malls and big box stores? When the entertainment offered comes from huge movie cinemas jam-packed with people watching the "pre-show" which consists of 30 minutes of commercials? When a holiday of togetherness is marked by that sense of panic trying to find the "perfect" gift that expresses the value I place on my relationships?

Every space seems to be turning into advertising for products - sites like the Fancy are virtual display cases for friends to share and exhibit the items that they want to buy, own, or just appreciate. It is overwhelming (to me, anyhow...) And I admit that I am a highly sensitive person with a difficulty ingesting so much....stuff. But I wonder how many other people feel similarly?

In saying this, I am not suggesting that championing well-made, interesting and local (or international) products is wrong. It is not a black and white issue - and I am not outside of the structures that reinforce how we think. But in this way of being, we miss out on much - how might we become generators as opposed to consumers of our realities, if we got into the habit?

There are some really great articles about teacher education and how teachers come to the class expecting to "get" taught, not create their own learnings together. Same with service-based populations - I come into situations thinking, "I am paying you x to offer me y" - We are accustomed to transactions as opposed to interactions. And not that every moment should be an interaction - at times, transactions make good sense, keep us from being overwhelmed and help us when we have little energy to give.

But what might it look like if we embraced structures that encouraged more interactions? An airport with a room where people from all over the world could go and exchange stories about what it's like to live where they do...and hear stories direct from someone with lived experience (think a mobile, living Wikipedia). Movie theatres that ran pre-shows of local videos and animations, governmental regulations on the % of space that can be commercial...

We have the capacity to create (and indeed constantly do create) these spaces in more ad-hoc, improvisational ways. I have had the blessing of experiencing shimmering moments full of connectivity and beauty without a designated anything or anyone. Yet without structural support, they take much more energy. These counter-cultural moments and spaces typically scrape by on little resources while facing the challenge of a system that attempts to co-opt or destroy their purposes and energy. This places a huge amount of stress on what I call interactional community experiences. I am grateful for, adore and profoundly admire each and every movement and person that risks being more-than, that risks being outside-of. Yet I want to live in a world where the structures that influence so much offer nourishment and become these very movements themselves.

I know, I know. I sound like an extremist (maybe) and definitely a ridiculous idealist - but it boggles my mind that dreaming up how we want to live together, being more mindful of the choices we make and the ways which we can create and play with one another - might be considered extremist. Well, if so, then I am an extremist, and happily so. The moments in my life that have felt the most precious have never come from the transactional side of things anyhow.

Maybe home can be found in that warm sense of disconnect.

2011-12-23T13:14:00.009-05:00

Over the past four and a half days, I have slowly made my way south to the land of deep strip mall and gothic eyeliner, to box stores and massive cineplex, to Starbucks at every corner and mini marts named "Hi-Ya"...

I am officially home for the holidays.

I wish I could say I was at a point in my adult life where I felt a connection or a capacity to relate to the people surrounding me here. But I don't. I sit at a local market in London and look around, feeling somewhat - disgusted (honestly) - by the small town, urban hillbilly mentality. Or what I assume is so. I am frightened by my own close-mindedness, in disguise as open-minded metropolitan disdain for their apparent small-mindedness - but I know better. What's going on here is really my own need to feel included. And the fact that I never did - always the artsy, overly-aesthetic creature, without an Opera house or art gallery to call my own. I grew up a fish on a cement sidewalk- and that's one of the reasons why I still like it that way - I have been living in Québec now for 10 years and counting, complaining and equally loving the fact that I remain, and always will, an outsider, a stranger in a (most certainly) strange land.

Myy lived experience, of never having felt connected to my home or the people here growing up, of having always felt different and at odds with my first environments, has led to now assuming that everyone still living here has nothing of interest to say or to contribute to the social fabric. Seriously. It's intense. I am being honest because it's important for me to understand my own biases and judgements - that although I can travel to the middle of nowhere somewhere else and find a heap of gorgeousness in the people there (and I know there is gorgeousness in people everywhere) there is something about this sense of HOME, of THIS IS ME here that is unsettling. Perhaps what is most unsettling of all is my own humanness in it all.

The Otherness of Love

2011-09-07T13:39:00.003-04:00

Has been on my mind so often lately - this past year, truly, a ripping or moulding or breaking open into this vast otherness.

I just now did a search online to see what "the otherness of love" would produce, and surprisingly, got very few relevant hits.

Does this mean that I am supposed to write about it? Perhaps. It seems to keep coming up.

For now it's just good to know that it is a focus, a marker, not on the journey but THE journey.

Of all the hours

2011-08-14T14:55:00.004-04:00

There's this one, then, one to go.
Before arrivals.
And attempted departures of excess weight.

Could a passing truck
Three-storeys below
Carry it away
If it was thrown carefully enough

With consideration for timing, mostly?
All the bags
and tick-tock
of the internal clock

Which beats out but does not beat out
What goes on underneath

Feeling the Weight.

2011-08-14T00:06:00.002-04:00

And so much goodness, hats on Bach and the like.

Orange glow of fish lamp.

Time to retire. Re: tired.

Eyes and feet, but mostly heart.

Primate Behaviour

2011-08-02T14:57:00.005-04:00

Kortlandt, who studied chimpanzees in the wild, concealed
within his blind, would sometimes see them find
his eyes, and stare in thought and wander off.
Contemplation and doubt were what he saw
or thought he saw, behind their searching eyes
these times and others, as if they tried
to make sense of an always, or often, puzzling world.

It seems a sad as well as a wondrous thing.

He doesn't say, but he leaves the thought to occur
that our primate nature could be, not as we think
it is: to know, but only to be disturbed,
as these simpler beasts are disturbed, in their simpler world,
that all the unknown should strike us, even though
it stops at that. No more. We stare in thought.

-William Bronk, (from The Empty Hands)

It's been so long...

2011-01-30T12:11:00.005-05:00

I am not sure why words here have been so slow in coming. It might have to do with this Master's I am doing currently (which indeed takes up much time). It might have to do with the vast transformations I have been experiencing this past year. Their magnitude and depth leave little-ole' me feeling quiet like in awe. Perhaps the intimacy created in the face of genuine awesome has left my voice hushed or flat-out silent. At least in this form.

For now I am going to simply blame winter. Not that anything needs blaming, really. The hibernation of creature and sound and thought and body is so necessary. Yet I avoid it. We all do. Well, most of us. A cultural disdain for hidin' out and restin' up, I think. A fear of stayin' put...

It sure does run through these veins, that anxiety of being-not-doing. But what happens when the being part starts to take over anyhow out of necessity?

This Beloved Thing

2010-12-29T14:31:00.002-05:00

The loving person is one who grasps non-relatively each thing they grasp. They do not think of inserting the experienced thing into relations to other things; at the moment of experience nothing else exists, nothing save this beloved thing, filling out the world and indistinguishably coinciding with it. Where you with agile fingers draw out the qualities common to all things and distribute them in ready-made categories, the loving person's dream-powerful and primally-awake heart beholds the non-common. This, the unique, is the bestowing shape, the self of the thing, that cannot be contained within the pure circle of world comprehensibility. What you extract and combine is always only the passivity of things. But their activity, their effective reality, reveals itself only to the loving person who knows them. And thus they know the world.
In the features of the beloved, whose self they realize, they discern the enigmatic countenance of the universe.

-Martin Buber

On Democracy, part II

2010-11-09T17:43:00.004-05:00

I have recently started a Masters in something called Human Systems Intervention, which is too complicated to get into here (in this space, which is not really a physical space, but still represents and therefore IS space....uh....yeah....)

Anyhow, point being (for this moment, for the now-time) that I at first had no idea what the difference was between this program and say, Human Relations. Or psychology. And while they do indeed have much crossover, there are major differences between them all. Important differences. Differences which make the reason why I am studying what I am studying all the more obvious.....(to me....)

To highlight this, a website here devoted to Open Systems Theory, (OST) which was developed by Fred and Merreyln Emery. It is founded on the notion of creating environments that are democratic in nature. I will dive into more details soon. In the meanwhile, I find myself fascinated that my current interest in democracy (a reawakening in many ways) comes at the same time as my introduction to theories that not only talk about how people behave together in contexts, but how the contexts & structures themselves dictate in part, or guide, how that behaviour might look.

That democracy, or the notion of democracy as I understand it currently (and have been averse to for some time now) is somewhat paradoxical in the sense that the structures through which we try to achieve democratic realities in Western culture (parliament, representation by riding, etc) are not actually very democratic themselves. Which poses many questions that OST grapples with and offers some interesting solutions to....or at least, beginnings.....

But I am just starting out now, on my horse into the realm of this whole muck of a subject, so I know not much nor do I profess to be able to re-tell the tale in a fashion that speaks to its hearts and bones. With that disclaimer in mind, stay tuned....

On Democracy...

2010-10-25T12:23:00.005-04:00

This is a new, old topic for me. I am agog and aghast at how I have kept the word at bay for years, similar to some of the other words in existence that I have held at more than an arm's distance. That I HAVE indeed, been pushing back on it, that as opposed to embracing and allowing democracy to integrate into my system, I have instead chosen to actively fight against what I thought would be a "small l", liberal suffocation. The radical bones in my body shook at the thought. And still, I admit, shake.

Meaning that while it's been such an integral part of how I feel about things, (this notion of democracy and what it means for myself as well as the other humans and beasts that populate this world), I have filtered it through a system of cynicism and paralysis that has rendered its fundamental heart helpless in offering the circulatory movement needed to keep it alive within me.

While these words need some distillation and clarity, perhaps, I want to simply begin vocalizing my coming home to a place I feared for quite a long time. And not without reason. As Malcolm X once said, democracy could be described as, "white nationalism"...and while he was referring to it (I believe) in relationship to his specific time and culture, to the way in which democracy was playing out around him (and I don't really feel like much has changed) I don't believe he was talking about its POTENTIAL, or what its heart-before-it-gets-cut-off pumps out.

The heart of democracy is something much more complex, inclusive, sustainable, difficult, tense. Hence the reason why it is so hard to even conceive of, let alone remotely begin to entangle myself in actively.

But it's starting to look like that's what I am indeed, supposed to do.....

More to follow.

Friends will arrive, friends will disappear...

2010-09-21T21:20:00.003-04:00

If you want me, honey-baby I'll be near.

Out of the mouths of a thousand birds...

2010-08-12T22:26:00.001-04:00

Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds

Listen -
Listen more carefully to what is around you
Right now.

In my world
There are the bells from the clanks
Of the morning milk drums,

And a wagon wheel outside my window
Just hit a bump

Which turned into an ecstatic chorus
Of the Beloved's Name.

There is the Prayer Call
Rising up like the sun
Out of the mouths of a thousand birds.

There is an astonishing vastness
Of movement and Life

Emanating sound and light
From my folded hands

And my even quieter simple being and heart.

My dear,
Is it true that your mind
Is sometimes like a battering
Ram

Running all through the city,
Shouting so madly inside and out

About the ten thousand things
That do not matter?

Hafiz, too,
For many years beat his head in youth

And thought himself at a great distance,
Far from an armistice
With God.

But that is why this scarred old pilgrim
Has now become such a sweet rare vintage
Who weeps and sings for you.

O listen -
Listen more carefully
To what is inside of you right now.

In my world
All that remains is the wondrous call to
Dance and prayer

Rising up like a thousand suns
Out of the mouth of a
Single bird.

Hafiz

Bees in Brooklyn, NYC

2010-07-09T14:03:00.004-04:00

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is pretty unbee-lievable.

Okay, I actually can't believe I just wrote that, but....I was there recently and maybe went a little camera crazy over the amazing bees I encountered.

It was also a good time to reflect upon the importance of bees to our food chain systems and the global ecosystem on so many levels.

Click on the link above to listen to an interesting podcast about just how essential bees are.

It's been some time....

2010-07-07T11:18:00.001-04:00

And then some more. But here I am again, and to start the ball rolling in this part of my world once more, a quote about leadership that I am reflecting on today from the amazing blog of Eve Poole:

The Archbishop of York has a lovely story about camels. There once was a Bedouin who had three sons and 17 camels. In his will he left half of his 17 camels to his elder son, one-third to his second son and one-ninth to his youngest son. When the father died, the children attempted to divide the camels according to their father’s will, and struggled to divide 17 camels into one-half, one-third and one-ninth. They went to consult a very wise old man, who said: ‘Simple. I will lend you my camel. It will be the 18th, and you can get what your father wanted you to have.’ Eureka! Half of 18 is nine, a third of 18 is six, and a ninth of 18 is two, making a total of 17. The sons divided up the camels, then the wise old man took his camel home. I think that a good way of describing the job of a leader is to use this 18th camel as an analogy, whereby the leader is essentially a catalyst to help complex things work out smoothly.

The ones beautifully, left behind

2010-04-13T11:44:00.004-04:00

Just before all of it explodes...

2010-04-13T11:39:00.001-04:00

When some of it is, but not all.

Of late...(willow-wispe'd)

2010-03-27T23:28:00.002-04:00

Of late....(ice-tippe'd)

2010-03-27T23:25:00.002-04:00

Of late...(tulip'ed)

2010-03-27T23:15:00.002-04:00

Remember that romance runs deeper than I think

2010-03-27T01:16:00.003-04:00

It's beyond rational, and certainly beyond the narrow things I place in its infinite category.

As Chesterton said:

Romance is the deepest thing in life, romance is deeper even than reality.

Pratt for strength

2010-03-13T01:22:00.003-05:00

A friend and I were recently discussing whether art offers a service to others or not - specifically visual art, that is. For her, music has an inherent value that she takes for granted. Art, on the other hand, is something she hasn't been able to connect to nor see the necessity of in the same way.

I find it interesting that this seems to be true for many people I talk to. While I don't deny them their experience, it's so counter intuitive for me to imagine that art is anything but an extremely healing and consuming experience. What it offers to me is something so deep and meaningful. When it speaks to me, of course.

On that note, a painting by an artist who has done me a huge service through her body of work - Mary Pratt. For spring and light and calm and time alone.

2010-03-07T23:00:00.001-05:00

Moon city transforms into moon plain

2010-03-05T02:12:00.004-05:00

My walk home is against the backdrop of a clear sky with stars that lay across the moon like pearls. The air is cold, biting almost, and smacks me awake at this late hour.

It is now, with this moon and clear starry sky that I want to be in the country, trudging home to my cabin and fire. Amidst howl and rock and glint and steam.

So often I love the city and its diverse sentiments/sensations. So often I long for thee, wide plain'd landscape that beckons in the chill, crisp midnight air.

5 things

2010-03-02T19:12:00.006-05:00

The jasmine tree is blooming subtly. There is coffee to drink and the weather outside beckons me into its warm, comforting winds. Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou is playing the piano often of late, and Arthur Russell sings me to sleep. Candlelight always makes everything look so beautiful.

A billion and one reminders that need to play as little songs throughout my day reminding me of just how blessed I am.

Someone very dear to me once said to make sure to write down 5 wondrous things that happened at the end of each day, no matter how miserable and frustrated I might feel at the time. I have often been surprised since following his advice that the days where I have sensed the greatest unbalance have usually been the ones most ripe with offerings of joy.

More flowers for wintery days

2010-02-25T13:13:00.002-05:00

Maybe they're praying to open their eyes on a new place...

2010-02-17T21:50:00.004-05:00

Or a new day....?
Or just being thankful for the miracles all around them.

The inhabitants of Bug-City

2010-02-16T11:26:00.001-05:00

Art of well, insanity....

2010-02-16T11:21:00.004-05:00

This van not only gets noticed in its native Toronto, but provides joy for countless tourists coming through the city as well....

Plastered with animals, princesses, clowns and toy figurines of all shapes and sizes, this toy-mobile drives through the streets of Toronto by day and straight into our hearts at night.

While I was taking photos of its splendor, (like countless folks before and after me no doubt) I imagined its owner coming out of a shop nearby to yell at me. How awesome would that be? You glue-gun millions of little creatures to your van and then get mad at anyone trying to share the spectacle of it all?

"Hey, buddy....what you think you're doing?"

Of course, this would only really work if said person was a carbon copy of Mark Mckinney's crazy cab driver from KITH....

Of late...

2010-02-05T13:16:00.003-05:00

A good reminder, part III

2010-01-25T13:01:00.002-05:00

Not always able to FEEL this, but having done so in the past is a good enough, great enough, best enough reminder that I will indeed again or perhaps, even more-so, will myself to in the present:

...great joy, overflowing joy, as if the land and woods and spring were all praising God through me. The sense of angelic transparency of everything, and of pure, simple, and total light. The word that comes closest to pointing to it is simple. It was all simple. But a simplicity to which one seems to aspire, only seldom to attain. A simplicity, that is, that has and says everything just because it is simple.

-Thomas Merton, January 6th, 1965

These gentle words

2010-01-23T01:36:00.002-05:00

Found surrounded by a cluster of phrases less-than-so, but still. 12 together discovered today amidst the clatter of the external world, newspaper-surrounded-by-bodies-and-coffee-shop, reminding me of the deep excitement felt within that comes from engaging with all things quiet:

The animals humans fear are the ones that need love the most.

Presenting my spirit animal...

2010-01-20T23:47:00.001-05:00

ha ha. yes. yes, the title I know. But actually true. I give you the nudibranch....

On grieving

2010-01-20T11:38:00.001-05:00

and not sure how to do it
or who to do it with and how to even articulate needing to,
how to do it
or who to do it with (repeat)

And of things that happen on trains...

2010-01-19T19:01:00.005-05:00

My friend Miriam who is awesome-awesome-awesome and I happily found ourselves on the same train recently, and also happily found ourselves wanting to play a game of cards. We had none, so we happily made them from very thin sheets of paper. This may or may not have been unbelievably frustrating to the folks around us who wanted a bit of peace and quiet....

The gem of the pack in my mind is her Queen of Hearts who I re-named the CakeMan and gave special powers to during our games, as really, CakeMan would definitely have abilities that go beyond what a typical Queen of Hearts would have, no?

Here then, are photos of her dearness and our insane excuse for a deck of cards.

Visuals, of late. Winter space.

2010-01-19T18:55:00.002-05:00

2010-01-19T11:26:00.000-05:00

Beginnings

2010-01-16T21:35:00.004-05:00

I've recently been asked by a fascinating acquaintance to facilitate the upcoming discussion of the
University of the Streets Cafe around Beginnings.

For those who are interested and don't know what the University of the Streets program is all about, it's basically a classroom-away-from-a-classroom, minus the teacher and (potentially) all things academic. So maybe not so much like a classroom at all, actually. Picture an informal gathering of people who are all interested in jammin' on a certain topic together, and you have a fairly concrete idea of what I am talking about here.

When I was first approached to engage with the notion of beginnings, I felt a little pitter patter in my rib-cage, and yet didn't know quite why. Said friend who had initially contacted me mentioned how hard he finds beginnings to be. He touched on grappling with the slothfulness and inaction within to get into 'doing stuff'. Questions arose around how we find stuff to do, or why trips away from home feel so gut-wrenchingly overwhelming? Why do we feel weird about telling someone we have a crush on them? Etc...

And at first, these were the questions I found myself interested in too, and they certainly are worthwhile to think about. How do inertia, fear, indecisiveness all play into my ability to take risks and keep going? I thought about focusing on this active component of beginnings, the part where the train starts getting pushed down the tracks, the pen bleeds onto paper, the dreaded but exciting phone call is made.

Because in a way, I feel like that's where many people I know are stuck. Myself included in heaps of ways. The overwhelming concern around being rejected, or of looking foolish, or of being wrong equals resting on the laurels of the places-I'm-comfortable-but-don't-really-want-to-be.

Yet at the same time, this is also one arena that I have had plenty of experience in. For better or worse, I am someone who tends to be risky in certain ways - be it by making the first move, emailing a stranger, asking for a job I am completely unqualified for, chipping away at the stone wall first.

So my relationship to beginnings is very particular to this component of my little narrative over here. And while I am electrified at the ways these impulses and actions have made me feel alive and truly, truly humble at times, through years of initiation I have begun to look at beginnings as more of a serious responsibility towards my own desires, expectations and needs in relation to the creatures that surround me.

This perhaps is slightly unclear. What I mean is that what we often see as beginnings are often more a middle-piece, or end, to a process of deliberation and decision making concerning a beginning. Consider TS Eliot's musings on the subject:

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

Or, a visual analogy - when a seed is planted, it is not evident as a THING persay, or anything at all except to the person who did the planting. After a certain amount of necessary care-taking (watering, monitoring, patience) the seed pushes through soil to appear as a plant, a living creature, a being. Suddenly its existence is known not only to its gardener but also to anyone else who should happen to run into it. Due to this physical manifestation it achieves a type of validity of existence that it couldn't possibly have appreciated prior to this time.

In many ways, beginnings are very similar to this plant. If asked when a plant becomes a living thing, it would be very understandable to consider it as such when it breaks ground. But, in reality, in its gestation period, it is as much alive as it is when 2 feet tall, surrounded by wild birds. Beginnings aren't really manifested when I-ask-you-out or on the first-day-of-the-job, but when they first appear in my mind as possibilities, and then I choose to care for them or not.

Phew. This is getting really wordy. I could go on, but perhaps I will save the rest for the discussion. Needless to say, I am not suggesting that the breaking-through-soil is easy, or that it's not a truly important action to collectively muse upon. But I do allude to the point that perhaps a deeper challenge is to know what beginnings to give water and time to, and what ones to let go. That's where a responsibility for mindfulness of self and others comes into play. More on the subject live in a month's time!

One good thing about getting older

2010-01-12T01:46:00.005-05:00

Not that there's only one. Many, many, many, birds in the sky doing that sweeping motion together for some mysterious reason, maybe mid-afternoon group exercises, maybe a strange hommage to their god with the big beak.

That said, there's one in particular that I am thinking of now (great thing about getting older, not bird). When I was younger and milk spilt and heart ached I recall feeling totally confused and angry about how things around me just kept on keeping on. It was unbelievable to me that the world could keep on turning despite my frustration and pain. Things should indeed slow down or altogether stop, cars run out of gas, cats run out of me-ow....

Now as I am getting older, I feel this reaction completely shifting. Suddenly what I found dishearteningly cold as a youth, (the ability for things to keep going) I find ravishingly comforting as a slightly-older individual.

That the heart can pang in one but the sun still rise for all. It reminds me of not only a responsibility of the earth to keep behaving in ways I can relate to and appreciate, but also of my responsibility to it to respond in turn by remembering the sun really and truly doesn't revolve around me. I do not experience the bumps and bruises I live through in a vacuum, but amidst others with their own pains and joys and ducks and tree-tops and fountain heads.

And oh the joyous awareness of other-than-self in this way. To the magic of the mundane then, this is dedicated, that despite the fact that I might constantly overlook it I shall never truly forget it nevertheless.

What Arthur Russell meant to tell me

2010-01-09T12:37:00.002-05:00

was that I think right now is a time to be fallow, to a degree. This is very, very hard for me even though I'd be the first to suggest the same for you, if needed.

The discomfort of waiting or of being open and aware without action. I suppose for some, like anything (hand-gliding, nose-putting, returning-to-sender) this is easier-accomplished than for others. Yet buzzing, foraging, rummaging has been, for eons now, as much a part of my natural instinct (perhaps) as it has been a solidified component of my concept of self by the culture I am surrounded by.

There are so many quiet voices within that I know I need to listen to, and don't. Watch your field and wait for it to regenerate. Don't think too much but ask it whispered questions, about what it wants to be next. The health of a greater balance is held within these types of actions, or un-actions. Non-actions.

The same for the body - what does it really need, what do I offer it? So often, although I dread admitting this, my brain ignores what so many other areas of my whole-self say in order to do what is immediately pleasing.

The same, too, then for the spirit, in terms of being still. Waiting. Or observing. Being open to the world in order for the things that aren't necessarily immediately pleasing, but that are most definitely necessary, to present themselves.

A visual metaphor - sometimes I am expected to act in the play, or stage manage, be part of the direct action and therefore focus on the specifics contained within. At other times, best to sit in the audience (as an active member, mind you) and really take everything in. Watch. Listen. At the end, stay behind instead of getting up to go to the next immediacy. Maybe fall asleep in the aisle.

Time Away

2010-01-08T15:27:00.001-05:00

I'm taking time away to dream
I'm taking time out to clean up my room
and when I clean up, my room will gleam
because dreams aren't as unreal as they seem.

I'm taking time away to dream, I'm taking time out.

Put my records in their covers and then
I'll put the albums back into their place
and I'll sweep up this morning and when
I look at the clock, I see it says ten.

I'm taking time away to dream, I'm taking time out.

Well I just can't be sure any more, I just can't be sure.
No, I just can't be sure any more, I just can't be sure.

I'll pick up my pants even though
I might wear them, wear them today;
smooth out my covers on my bed so,
after I wash them I've got some place to go.

I'm taking time away to dream, I'm taking time out.

Well I just can't be sure any more,
I just can't be sure.
No, I just can't be sure any more,
I just can't be sure.

I'm taking time away to dream,
I'm taking time out to clean up my room,
and when I clean up, my room will gleam,
because dreams aren't as unreal as they sweem.

I'm taking time away to dream, I'm taking time out

Arthur Russell

Anxiousness and anticipation...

2010-01-07T14:50:00.002-05:00

Of the things/people that go up stairs in the evenings.

If only it were that simple.

2010-01-06T19:04:00.003-05:00

I saw a fairly ironic or at least somewhat puzzling site today in the metro. As I haven't taken public transport or been near any University campuses for some time, I had all-but-forgotten the folks who stand with literature and signs lambasting the evil American government for this, that and the other atrocity. They are always, always extroverted and usually quite grouchy. I am sure I am related to them somehow.

Now, most of the time on a basic level I agree with what they shout about. I don't exactly have fond memories of George Bush, and I don't think that the majority of actions democratic nations take on a governmental level make sense for just about anyone. If I sound simplistic here, well, perhaps that's part of the point I am trying to make. The generalizations strewn about in that sentence I just penned look like nuanced, ambiguous references in comparison to the wholly black-and-white accusations the folks with these slogans muster up.

Which brings me to today. A sign blasting the periphery of my left eye showing Obama with a Hitler moustache with the words, "Obama's Changed" across the top. I only assumed this was in direct reference to his new 14-countries (and counting) screening agenda currently available at all American airports. While I totally agree with the fundamentals of what they're saying, (that the policy is hugely racist and highly, offensively problematic) I am so bewildered at their delivery of said state-of-mind.

Has Obama actually changed? Is he now effectively Hitler, a ridiculous and rather insulting comparison (and not just to Obama)? Or is he someone who perhaps is a bit more nuanced than folks had dared to imagine? Could he be in fact, human, and not the perfect solution to all of North America's (and the globe's) woes around the ludicrous actions and ideas coming out of our parlimentary systems?

In saying this, I do not take the anti-responsibility shampoo in my bathroom and give the man a good washing. People need to be human and this means being in part, imperfect, yet also accountable. I just think that we all saw this coming from a mile away and tried to fight it. I know I did. There is something so wondrous in believing that change can come from an almost mythical hero. Hopeful or wishful thinking is not necessarily a bad thing. We had a type of hope at the time he came into office, however, that was likely inflated and bound to disappoint. Barack Obama, the pefect president, best friend, man to marry, woman to date, child to rear.

To hope is in some ways to plough on, so good on everyone for having a bit of that magic left in the heart. But when heartache comes, don't go running to blame the image you've created in your mind of a person or place or life that doesn't actually exist.

What I mean to say is that more often than not the external world doesn't change, but we (be it our bodies, thoughts, viewpoints, or understandings of) do.

The song remains the same...but somehow sounds different

2010-01-04T20:41:00.006-05:00

I just finished a really amazing and somehow expansive, (at least for my little noggin') book on ancient egypt. Aptly titled The Egyptian, by Finnish writer Mika Waltari, it's a fictionalized story of the incredible journeys of a doctor during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten at the end-(ish) of the New Kingdom. What that means in terms of timeline is that Ancient Egypt still had hundreds of years to go as a hugely influential and powerful realm, but was on its way out.

The book itself was written at the tail end of the second world word, an interesting fact in and of itself due to the history of Finland in relation to its surroundings at the time. Both the writer and his subject matter were wrapped up in distinctively intense and turbulent environments. Perhaps this is why Waltari chose Ancient Egypt to study - the difference between a civilization that endured for 3,000 years and the strange global village? entity? smear? that is experienced now is so vast that maybe he was able to find a much-needed escape penning the tale he did.

And the tale is one worth paying attention to, not only because Pharaoh Akhenaten was a fascinating character who pushed gender boundaries and spiritual concerns further than we might ever comprehend standing on this side of history. For me, it was the position I had on the other bank of the creek of time, the crack that opens into another world, that was the most enriching.

For years I have waited to become passionate about the history of things from a broader perspective than a basic understanding of art and music in Western Europe. Here, then, in this book, is my gateway. I have always been overwhelmed by the shape of things, and how despite thousands and thousands of years, so much remains the same. Suddenly, simultaneously, I want to know more of the details of the sameness of things. It's clear that ego and lust and greed and joy and love and pain and oxen and shovels and sheep and your brother all effect the outcome of each day, year, group of folks. But the Egyptian brought me sensually closer to the specifics of these generalizations for certain people - the linen, the smell of myrrh, the difficulties of practicing medicine during wars with chariots...

And similar to how I might respond to a slap in the face by a mostly-friendly stranger, I feel awoken. The trickle of human history and how it trails to the life I understand. A deeper sense of where the spill is coming in and in turn how to describe it to those around me, or just my own lone-some self. Collections of stories for the basins of water surrounding us.

Oh Durer, you little romancer you...

2009-12-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

I can't stop. Or get enough. Apparently.

2009-12-21T00:05:00.001-05:00

2009-12-19T21:24:00.001-05:00

Zurbaran for mid-afternoons....

2009-12-19T14:52:00.006-05:00

Why didn't I know about this painter earlier? A friend, a dear, dear friend, is studying in London back and brought me a postcard with one of his images on it. Francisco de Zurbaran proves yet again that the Spanish knew what they were doing during this time period in Western art.

Maybe it's too cliche that someone brought up as Roman Catholic as I loves this kind of intense iconography. In some ways though, you might think I would shy away from it, actually, due to strange memories or trauma from going to mass...

Perhaps it's the fact that most of the saints he painted are ones I can get behind. Francis, who spoke with birds and fish and generally ran around the countryside, seemed like one cool dude. Saint Serapion, the fellow with his arms in chains, is a wee more confusing in terms of likability points. On the one hand, he looks really intense and awesome in this painting. On the other one, it seems like he was likely wrapped up in the Crusades, a very, very hard thing to want to go back in time and give the man a hi-5 for.....

At any and all rates, the beauty of Zurbaran's compositions and emotional energy make his subjects highly appealing to at least look at due to his skilled brush. I gotta thank him for that. Pretty gorgeous stuff.

New species

2009-12-16T10:45:00.002-05:00

Seen in an apartment window, yesterday. Next to a snowman and a bear. What is this animal??????

Dog Palace!

2009-12-16T10:41:00.004-05:00

This one is dedicated to Alphie Primeau.

Someone needs to tell them

2009-12-16T10:23:00.004-05:00

I went on an extremely long and odd walk today, and was greeted (in part) by not-as-long but definitely-odd reminders of the strange cultural space that is my city. One such reminder came in the form of a real estate sign that brought rushing back to my mind an old pet peeve about promotion and advertising.

Admittedly, I AM one of those humans who is generally pretty offended by advertising, even the very creative stuff that spills out from that industry on a regular basis. At best, it has always seemed a tragic waste that minds able to spin such highly unusual angles on the way at which the world can be seen are doing so to sell a product. At worst, advertising is object porn that has absolutely nothing interesting about it at all.

Promotion of oneself can fall into the pits of despair advertising is born in, and stay there, or it can be an effective tool if done with the integrity and the honesty that seem to be almost embarrassing to talk about currently. However, just remember that if you're promoting yourself, for better or for worse, please please please don't use a crazy picture to do so.

This image came from a real estate agent's sign, which I chose to crop in order to keep the person's anonymity secure, even though I can assure you that's the last thing the sign was initially intended for. Why the crazy face? It's kind of amazing, as it reminds me of those insane cheerleader smiles that we're taught entices folks (this time around potential homeowners) into our clutches.

It reminds me of another crazy advertising trend, that of labelling products with key words that don't actually make any sense in relation to what they're talking about. Fresh. Hip. Electric. If you see them on the metro, you won't bat an eye, but if you THINK about them, they actually sound completely insane.

Which, I gotta admit, is what our friend here looks like. Taken out of the context of her real estate sign, would you look at her and think, "this person can competently sell me a house?"

Time to stop with the crazy smile, peeps. Time to get a few friends to be brutally honest about your photos. Time to maybe admit that the botox is doing less for your overall image than you thought.

Or not. I mean, it is highly entertaining to see signs like this everywhere. What would I do if suddenly everyone on real estate billboards started looking genuine and relaxed? That might be far more de-stabilizing than not. So forget it, actually. Carry on.

I haven't been this obsessed with a song in about a billion years.

2009-12-15T13:48:00.003-05:00

Yes, yes, I AM immortal. I will live for another billion years + a few.

2 new favourites, together.

2009-12-14T09:25:00.000-05:00

The ghost in the bottle.

2009-12-12T14:06:00.003-05:00

My friend Mike who's in an amazing band, (or who IS an amazing band, Snailhouse) will be playing this week coming up (Wednesday the 16th of December) at the Casa del Popolo with another amazing singer, (gorgeous, other-worldy voice) Old Believer. They asked me to give them some image or another for their poster, and here's the results (after Mike tinkered with the design)....

It feels good, the image, the page, the music. Space, room to breathe, sun-on-face. All these things that winter can bring.

another great thing about vinyl...

2009-12-10T13:13:00.003-05:00

Not to go on and on and on about the merits of this medium (gosh, I've never done, nor will do such a thing! shocking!) but when playing vinyl you get to SEE how long a song is.

Listening to some Gould-bach right now and each side is a tiny cluster of songs, rather like the counterpunctal chaos of Bach's music itself. If this was cd or mp3 or youandme, I wouldn't be remotely aware of the geographies of time in this way. How certain records smatter, cacophony of birds-hovering-above and others slink into docks, freight ships hauling a large and steady load.

Oh sensual record how you pull me in with a myriad of traits equal parts unique and baffling.

And remember...

2009-12-10T12:47:00.000-05:00

Kitchen at night, with bread.

2009-12-07T00:16:00.000-05:00

Last little while (transitions)

2009-12-07T00:11:00.001-05:00

The haunting, through odours

2009-12-06T23:13:00.005-05:00

There is a woman who used to live in my apartment who is haunting it through smells. I never really thought this possible before, (but then again, I also have never heard of cargo cults until tonight) but for the last few weeks, I have been absorbed by scents inexplicable save their potential connections to the people who lived here before.

In some ways, this form of haunting makes the most sense, as it is through smell that the memory of people resides most strongly. Once as a young-ish version of myself I opened my mother's closet after a long absence from the family nook and was hit with the nostalgic aroma of all things her. To this day whenever I open strawberry shampoo bottles it makes me think of jazz camp, as I brought that specific product with me there 2 summers in a row on purpose, to reinforce the memory of the place and the people that surrounded it.

If the olfactory system is one of the strongest ways in which the brain associates with the past, it is only logical that some haunts would be of the scented kind. Why pickles, I am not sure. And this is not something only I have noticed. Some have commented on it without me so much as whispering suggestions, whereas others have been prompted to mention perhaps there's a smoky smell to the place to boot.

I like pickles. Of the dill sort, anyhow, which is what permeates these walls currently. So perhaps this is a reassuring situation, one to obtain a certain amount of solace in. It reaffirms the fact that I do have an apartment, as I recognize the tactile-ness of its scent immediately, the dill proclaiming a sort of homecoming amidst a certain amount of turbulence-as-of-late.

To see even uncomfortable scenarios as ones with the potential to bring comfort. As long as this doesn't become the excuse to stay somewhere for too long, or sit in one position until you get a numb ass. Circulation is crucial in all situations, and good circulation at that.

Still, I am choosing for now to see this as a positive rather than negative. Here she was, and then gone, somehow, but the traces left behind are ones I can get behind in a way. Her cigarette unfurling off a sharp tongue full of witty small talk, while the pickles she offered on chipped plates left a tang in the air as pointed.

Just got back from Fantastic Mr Fox

2009-12-01T23:02:00.001-05:00

And it was so good I almost barfed.

Best cover of best song ever.

2009-11-28T02:30:00.002-05:00

Oh! The glory of a witty tongue

2009-11-27T21:58:00.002-05:00

Seems to be the only cheer-me-up at times.

A member of Parliament to Disraeli:
"Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." -George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." -Winston Churchill, in response.

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -Groucho Marx

White as the snow (before the city gets to it)

2009-11-27T15:11:00.001-05:00

Not much in the mood lately...

2009-11-27T12:07:00.004-05:00

So it seems I haven't been particularly in the mood to spin any tales or work bits of story from under floorboard and over cupboard lately. Having the swine flu is of no help, nor is the gray weather and having to deal with so, so much change in such a short window of space and time.

But there are still church bells, all around me it seems, and my favourite water tower in the distance, and mist. And these eyes of Rembrant's that I somehow want to feel sadder, at least right now. His gaze looks at me inquisitively, intelligently and with just a faint hint of melancholy. But not enough.

For in his sadness I could forgo some of mine. But such is the way of things at times. To bring an even richer experience of joy, to let go of the need for the room to not smell like pickles, and for my heart to feel less bruised.

Sofy's Kitchen

2009-11-20T22:35:00.003-05:00

Lullaby of Georges de la Tour

2009-11-17T01:00:00.000-05:00

Courbet must have known the three mousquetaires

2009-11-17T00:57:00.001-05:00

some kind of internal struggle (as seen in public)

2009-11-17T00:52:00.001-05:00

My favourite nocturne.

2009-11-17T00:50:00.000-05:00

This, in black and gold, Whistler's falling rocket.

The sadness in the morning winter sun

2009-11-17T00:41:00.000-05:00

Valerius de Saedeleer knew it.

Naima

2009-11-07T18:38:00.001-05:00

John Coltrane was so gifted and truly struggled through life to come to a deep understanding with God before his death. An incredible inspiration to me both spiritually and artistically.

creepy_youbet470098@yahoo.com

2009-11-06T12:56:00.003-05:00

Ok, just saying it's WEIRD when you have 14 numbers in your email address. If you can't get an email with your name cause someone else has already gotten on that train, may I suggest that you legally change your name to something a) more interesting and b) with a higher chance of getting an email address all your own?

If you won't commit to doing that, perhaps you could still put a hyphen, or dash or something, anything but an insanely long set of digits. If you still after this warning do so, trust me, you are officially creepy.

At least you know now.

This is the perfect song for the weather.

2009-11-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

Awwww.....

2009-11-04T00:45:00.001-05:00

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

2009-11-03T15:57:00.001-05:00

20 minutes and 11 seconds of inspiration

2009-11-03T13:49:00.000-05:00

When confusion strikes...

2009-10-26T09:54:00.003-04:00

It was a funny day yesterday, much waiting, reminding me of Teching Hsieh's performance works that are directly in relation to waiting and duration. More on him later, surely.

Although I am fully aware that life throws you curveballs all the time and that things almost never work out how you want them to, or smoothly, (and thank God for that!) it is still somehow surprising to have moments or entire days that seem to be comprised of mishaps, bumbles and directionless paths.

Even amidst so much activity and buzz. Yesterday reminded me of when I used to stand on large transfer-point metro platforms and just watch people rush past me in all directions. A certain motionless appears or transforms from within even in mid-flight when the destination becomes impossible to get to, or otherwise.

And this is where things become confusing. If I have so much to do in one place, why wander to another, especially when I doubt in its ability to fully procur its positioning to me upon arrival, if I ever make it? Why not just-stay-put-in-that-case.

I do think there IS something to days where nothing happens and you accept it, and days where the chase is somehow still on. A sense of futility is an important challenge to engage with, and treat with a certain type of adventurous curiosity despite the frustration. When stuck in a labyrinth without much chance of escape, may as well enjoy the foliage and look for bugs and edible flowers while you're in there, as the old saying goes...

Salon Du Barbier

2009-10-23T16:18:00.004-04:00

He's just beautiful.

2009-10-19T19:28:00.000-04:00

Look at that smile. Amazing.

Mbonisi Zikhali

2009-10-19T15:55:00.003-04:00

The poem below is written by a pretty amazing human being and extremely talented writer Mbonisi Zikhali, who I recently had the pleasure to meet and get to know over this Thanksgiving weekend. Hailing from Zimbabwe, he's been in Canada for the last several months.

He's currently a journalism student at the University of Carleton in Ottawa, and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression have started a campaign, with the help of Emily Wilson, a fund for Mbonisi's monetary needs over the next several years while he's studying.

To see more about his life and the ways in which you can help contribute to his studies click on this link.

He's also left-handed, which makes him superior. Sorry to say this to all you right-handed folks, but it's true.

Flying Backwards

2009-10-19T15:52:00.000-04:00

I disregarded my wings
until that day I flew backwards
The wind caressed me,
and whispered secrets of flight
unknown to eagles.
I blushed from the ariel view,
wishing I understood God
from the ground up,
but seeing his/her face
from the sky down.

I fought the wind
feeling its sting with every breast stroke
I stung back with unspoken words,
and, silence was my weapon of choice,
No. My weapon of noise.
So loud it punctured my eardrum
and I sought rest upon a tree's branch,
and its leaves welcomed me.
Saying softly,
"This is us before the snow."

Mbonisi Zikhali

On those days.

2009-10-19T14:39:00.002-04:00

Where everything is about as appealing as lightly coating yourself in the dog poo you just stepped in.

Kind-of hilarious, when none of the buses come on time and the seats are uncomfortable and everyone is wearing ugly sweaters or drawing stupid pictures. The sound of the fan in this café or the other one is sending little jabs of frustration all through the body. Everything is visceral and raw and extremely unnerving.

Why indeed are some days like this? Perhaps to promote the richness of contentment received through experiencs a little less jarring, moments and seconds that pass far more easily through the system and its functioning.

And probably a good thing, too, to feel severely annoyed about life and all the little beasts that inhabit this world, to be reminded of just how human and imperfect things are.

Now go f-off. Alright.

3 friends to end the evening

2009-10-18T00:08:00.003-04:00

To be thankful for

2009-10-13T10:19:00.002-04:00

Putting things to rest

2009-10-13T10:02:00.003-04:00

The garden must get arranged, laid out, pulled and moved in certain directions, and put finally to sleep for a long slumber of the next 6 months.

It's going to be interesting and likely somewhat difficult to say goodbye (for now) to the plants and their companions I have grown to love over the last season. Well, grown to love is a stretch, they grew and I loved, a kind of kinship seldom seen in the realm of the human. We fare better with that type of arrangement when there is plant or some such on the receiving end.

At any and all rates, it's been beyond lovely and I have learned so much from the green ( and yellow and red and purple) suckers and I can't wait to have another go. In the meanwhile, sleep! and garlic.

Objects.

2009-10-08T13:52:00.002-04:00

In the process of slowly getting rid-of. Not an easy thing to do, although I do believe it is helpful in innumerable ways, having less and letting go of things.

To deny the self the pleasure of sensual engagement with the bits of the world would be overly strict I think, at least for me. But there is a balance somewhere that I sense needs fine tuning and some listening to.

My Favourite Building in all of Montreal.

2009-10-06T21:11:00.002-04:00

It's a secret (it must be) but this is it.

Of the magic of things when you get out and do

2009-10-03T11:41:00.003-04:00

Fuck procrastination, basically. Mind-blowing work from Blu and David Ellis.

Of the performances of a lifetime...

2009-09-26T12:33:00.005-04:00

This week, a good friend and truly brilliant individual sent me an email that completely blew me away, days before the news contained within made an impact with my physical environment. As one of my only classical music loving friends, she's always on the lookout for things with strings and my implication in that world, and vice versa.

So imagine my astonishment when she dropped word that she had received two gratis tickets for the Leon Fleisher concert that happened last night as part of the new eXcentris music programming, a show that was like, $100 a pop otherwise.

A bit of background on Fleisher: He is one of the world's most renowned pianists, and has an incredible presence both musically and physically. He also had a neurological accident that has left his right hand unable to play for the last 30 years (I think). Very recently, new treatments allowed the use of both hands to come back to him. Until then, he had been playing left-handed repertoire only. Pretty crazy stuff.

The program itself was what initially got me excited, however. German romantics everywhere! (Who would have thought?) Schumann & Brahams & Bach. While Bach isn't a romantic himself, (well, at least not in terms of what we call his music) the piece Fleisher played was Bach's Chaccone de Partita No. 2 in D minor, arranged by Brahams for the left hand.

The story goes (and charmingly so, from Fleisher's direct account) that Clara Schumann, Robert Schummann's wife and ridiculously famous pianist in her own right, who happened to be Brahams' long-time love (who was a good friend of their family) had something happen to her right hand for awhile which made it unable for her to play with it, so as a gift, Brahams arranged this favoured piece of music for her left hand only.

Yeah. Now THAT'S pretty friggin' romantic. Imagine you are a gifted musician and are all bored in the house wondering what to do while the one hand heals up, when your life-long companion and family friend shows up with your favourite music arranged so you can actually play.....And this ain't just any music, it's BACH. Not an easy feat, and a truly creative and beautiful gift, gesture.

To her, at the time, and for all of us, now. Fleisher played extraordinarily, and I swear when you closed your eyes it sounded like two hands had to be playing, the interplay of notes being so richly intricate and woven together. It was unbelievable. And so poignant, I thought, on the part of Fleisher. What must he have gone through those 30 years? To not be able to fully play the instrument that you love must have been such a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, or I can imagine it would have been so. To have the faith and the courage to keep going and then to still embrace the left-hand only pieces after the recovery of the right hand movement is such as sign of his wisdom and his ability to develop within his particular set of circumstances. It was deeply, deeply moving.

Equally as moving, from a completely different vantage point, was the final piece of the evening, a Quintet by Brahams (op. 34) in F minor. Fleisher was joined by Michael Tree on Viola, Andy Simionescu & Pamela Frank on violin, and Matt Haimovitz on Cello.

The composition itself is staggering, a fiery source of heat, dragon coming back from a long journey looking behind itself to flare a few last puffs into the night air. Its intensity and richness added a certain kind of mellow complicity to the notes, and the combination between fire and snuff was truly marvelous to be present with. And the musicians played the shit out of it and had a joyous time doing so.

What miracles can happen within music. And in turn, within the self.

And the dudes playing are just these regular humans that have had these lives of heartache and difficulty and excitement and and and. Fleisher himself is testament to that, in terms of his struggles and situations. And to play anyway, or because of. The real connection comes from the human heart that carries the music deep inside, alongside all the other factors that make up who we are - our loneliness, our daily challenges, our desires, our letting-goes....

Truly unforgettable as you take it all with you, or at least the traces of.

I've been thinking often lately of breathing...

2009-09-22T00:03:00.003-04:00

...and I think there's some pretty essential stuff going down with the whole respiring (is that the right word? can I just make it so anyhow?) process, more on my thoughts on it later. But for now, check out Rainer Maria Rilke's take on the matter, or one of his takes, potentially: (translated, incidentally, by Karl H. Siegler which definitely makes some type of difference in the matter)

II-I

Breath, you invisible poem!
Recurrent about what is its own
being pure exchange of spaces. Counterweight,
in which rhythm I appear as the event of myself.

Singular wave, whose
gradual sea I am;
most frugal of all possible seas, -
attainment of space.

How many of these snares of the spaces are a place
surrendered from where it was within me. At times the winds
are like my son.

Do you know me again, air, full still of what were once my sites?
You, at once smooth rind,
curve and leaf of my words.

(from Sonnets to Orpheus)

Ginger is the new black

2009-09-19T21:02:00.004-04:00

Tonight I was cooking with, amongst other things, one of my favourite objects/plants/tastes in the world, (that I know so far) namely ginger, which somehow got me thinking about where it actually comes from and what it looks like.

Turns out ginger is the root of the plant (or, most acurately, its rhizome) which likely everyone knows but me. I also believed (until a few years ago) that the moon glowed from within, and was shocked to find out its light comes from the reflection of the sun, so you'll have to bear with me.

The plant itself is beautiful, and there are like a billion natural remedies you can party with when spending quality time with ginger, which include its being useful for fighting seasickness, various cancers, diarrhea, colds and a whackload of other annoying and just plain nasty conditions.

Basically, I knew ginger rocked, but it actually rocks way harder than I ever could have imagined. It's like Led Zeppelin in the early years or something. Thank god for ginger!

Viva Viva!

2009-09-18T13:00:00.001-04:00

So last night I THINK I maybe saw the best piece of art I will potentially see all year. Or at least, the best performance. But maybe art. But maybe performance….oh dear me. You see, the person responsible for the piece actually blew up my mind, so thinking has been a wee difficult since.

Picture it - Viva! Art Action’s second installation (installation being second time the festival’s been crafted together) and we’re all at Bain Saint Michel (5300 St Dominique) where the majority of the festival is going on. People are waiting for the first performance, from Belgium’s Gwendoline Robin, and I am thinking again about how much I dislike performance art in general.

Which is funny, because almost all of the papers I have ever written have been about performance, just by chance, and I find myself here at a performance festival, just by chance, and maybe I was on one of the selection committees, just by chance. But performance art is soooo annoying, and boring, and self-indulgent.

It also really isn’t. It also has this uber-potential, of the sort that Katamari has when it has gathered many objects, to reconfigure my sense of self or at least self-in-relation (which is likely what self is to a large degree) and make me stop breathing and change the ways in which or add to those that I spend time thinking of this and and and.

That said, a medium with such gobs of powerful responsibility and consideration is often one that suffers from too many people engaging with it, and engaging with it in shallow or less-than-thoughtful ways. I gotta say it, I think it’s true. And I think that, as an audience member, my role is one of active participant in a way that truly goes beyond what that mundane majority do when encountering art, which more-than-often includes myself. This requires a certain attentiveness that is at the best of times pretty draining and hard to find within oneself. Especially in my look-there-no-here-bam-bam-change-the-flickr-time-to-go-elsewhere culture.

But the stuff of the likes that Robin creates, executes, exhudes, helps surpass all of my issues of presence and of pretention or thinking-while-I-watch. She cuts through that dissonance like a knife, like the shards she broke off her rod of glass that she started her piece with. And let me say here and now that while I will describe her actions, that’s nothing in comparison to her actions themselves. Not one bit, not a whit, barely similar, almost opposite.

Imagine trying to describe a performance by your favourite musician. They played a bunch and they didn’t play a bunch. If you only use actions, you’re really not getting to the heart of the matter. Which you can’t really do, not just in words. Or else Gwendoline (I suppose) would have just written a little essay about her work and stayed in.

Basically, long and short, she came, she lit paper on fire, in her hands, and then a helmet, BOOM, on her head, after putting on coats and taping her neck (balaclava eyes staring out) and the coil on the helmet looking like a stove, spiralling round and round who would have thought that upon impact, the fuse wouldn’t just slowy weave its way to the centre of her skull no it didn’t there was nothing slow about it, she offered us no time to watch or ponder or panic she just

blew off her head.

And in doing so, she blew everyone’s head off as well. Trust me on this. I can attest, I have a mirror, what more can I say.

Gwendoline Robin knows about phrasing, and pace. The rhythm in her performance was of the kind that allows for momentum, breath, and a dissolving of outside concerns. One thing that makes much durational work seem overly this-or-that I think might be a lack of attention to phrasing. In this way, the body in performance, like the body in so much (music, physical comedy, dance) responds to space as much as it responds to mass.

There were 2 other performances that night, and you can read about some of it on the Viva! Blog, but to be honest, I needed to go home straight away after she had blown our collective minds. I would explain, but I doubt I need to. What else could you do? So much power, adrenaline and intention would have been enough in and of itself, but then I had to tend to my physical meltdown as well. Anything else would have been rash and impudent.

Of special note, Viva! has a 6:30 pm supper call every day during the fest, and last night it was beef stew (vegetarian options) and it looked seriously really good. Only $5, and a great way to hang out with folks/support the festival. Go go go! I will eat the stuff off your plate you don’t want.

1-12

2009-09-16T12:14:00.001-04:00

Hail the spirit, that may unite us;

for verily in images we live.

And with small steps the clocks do pace

beside our actual day.

Without knowing our true place,

we proceed from working alignments.

The antennae feel the antennae,

and the empty distance spanned...

Pure tension. Oh music of the powers!

Do not our venial transactions

turn all interference from you?

Though the farmer toil and trouble,

there where the seed turns into summer,

he will never reach. The earth bestows.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Sonnets to Orpheus

Of the architectural micro and macrocosmos, for to sleep on.

2009-09-16T00:50:00.006-04:00

I am about to be fascinated (I can sense it) by this man's life work, one Christopher Alexander, who co-wrote the groundbreaking book(s) A Pattern Language which argues, in a non-argumentative way, that users know enough about buildings that they should be given a text from which to create and adapt structures from. An architectural bible, torah, koran, what-have-you.

Far too tired to write more about it, I would rather be in bed having dreams of the nameless qualities of fireplaces and living spaces, but I am sure to rattle on his chain in the days to come. A most marvelous enchantment to have been introduced to courtesy of one ever-knowledgeable and affable dear, dear friend of mine.

Faster comes the fall.

2009-09-15T17:19:00.003-04:00

So perhaps it is due to having my own garden for the first time (photos of its splendor to come as soon as I can find my battery charger) or the rains that torrentially scared away potential beiges and yellows this summer, but I feel as if I have never seen such unfurling of green as I did this year.

Which is one of the reasons why the typical excitement I get from fall tumblings and autumnal rumbles has been replaced by heart-string pangs of wondering-where-this-death-came-from and how-can-the-trees-be-turning-colour-already. It was such a mild and lush summer this year that I find myself upset by the onslaught of hibernating, instead of growing, things and beasties.

At the same time, everything to its season, and all things must have a chance to rest. As well, if there was constant growth and constant green, maybe its magic would be less potent. I guess the surprise I have over my melancholic perspective on my traditionally favourite season's arrival will have to be mulched through like the last of the compost, to turn it into a finer understanding of the beauty behind everything in moderation.

It was still a pretty amazing and awe-inspiring season of growing bits though. Just saying...

On Being and Doing

2009-09-12T13:14:00.002-04:00

1. We are warmed by fire, not by the smoke of the fire. We are carried over the sea by a ship, not by the wake of a ship. So too, what we are is to be sought in the invisible depths of our own being, not in our outward reflection in our own acts. We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul which is the principle of all our acts.

But my soul is hidden and invisible. I cannot see it directly, for it is hidden even from myself. Nor can I see my own eyes. They are too close to me for me to see them. They are not meant to see themselves. I know I have eyes when I see other things with them.

I can see my eyes in a mirror. My soul can also reflect itself in the mirror of its own activity. But what is seen in the mirror is only the reflection of who I am, not my true being. The mirror of words and actions only partly manifests my being.

The words and acts that proceed from myself and are accomplished outside myself are dead things compared with the hidden life from which they spring. These acts are transient and superficial. They are quickly gone, even though their effects may persist for a little while. But the soul itself remains. Much depends on how the soul sees itself in the mirror of its own activity.

Thomas Merton, from the essay Being and Doing

Nothing like watching a really old dude play beautiful music.

2009-09-11T13:56:00.001-04:00

When the going gets rough, eat.

2009-09-10T00:23:00.006-04:00

While at a friend's home tonight I was blessed by the chance to see a rare and beautiful sight, which is always a treat. His roommate, a lovely and (I suspect) ridiculously wise human being admitted to me upon my arrival that he was in a bad mood, and had turned to cooking in order to calm down somewhat. I admired the notion and related that this kind of activity always seems to help me out too, and then left him in peace as I felt perhaps he needed some space.

When I walked through the kitchen sometime later, I saw a veritable feast laid out on the table, lovingly and carefully, with only said cook at the head, no one else. With a little steak all for himself and a huge array of dishes beautifully presented. I had no camera so had to take a picture in my mind, one of self-care and gorgeous affirmation of sensual time away from the rattles and hums.

It's so precious to be able to even have a sense of what makes you feel better when low, and another gift wrapped by an entirely-different-sort-of-creature to be able to have the chutzpah to go ahead and do things that bring you joy in those moments. And how amazing is it that so many people I know, including (often) myself, have the resources to do so and deny ourselves small but important, healing moments.

Hats off to this friend, and his swirling leaves of cale and plate of beet. To leave stains on the hands as a reminder the next day.

Wood and tiger, together, finally.

2009-09-08T16:07:00.002-04:00

Days where it truly IS better to just stay in bed (or, alternatively, go to sea)

2009-09-07T00:28:00.005-04:00

You know the kind, where each and every single person, stranger and lover and in-between(er) completely confounds, confuses and annoys at turns. And there is absolutely no way that you won't do the same, smacking the emotional weak parts of every living thing under the sun with the slightest glance in their direction.

Not that this kind of day isn't important in its own right, a good, humble reminder of the feeling of frustration on the hands (and the weight of it against the heart). Indeed, sometimes I find these days downright comical in their never-ending spew of ridiculous miscommunications and live wire activitives.

Today in particular I felt at least a kindred tug-of-spirit from across a century and an oceanous mass of water, if not moreso, in the words of Ishmael from the opening chapter of Melville's Moby Dick. Seems like he can very much relate to the kind of day I had:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

I suppose I need to take this alignment of sentiment literally and run away to the sea, even if I get rather cross at being too far away from my nut-bread and kitchen chair. Perhaps the Tookish part of me will win out and I shall lash out with the waves instead of at the waitresses.

On why things just aren't the same as they used to be....

2009-09-02T17:30:00.002-04:00

Apparently, the early 70s and I are having a wee love affair at the moment, as the vinyls that I got my grubby little hands on yesterday will attest to. The first, a remastered edition of Neil Young's monumental 1971 concert at Massey Hall. The second, a 1972 recording, again remastered, of the unparalleled Nick Drake's Pink Moon album.

Listening to this stuff is like listening to pure magic, or walking through places long ago abandoned that have rooms and decay and wafts of things-that-were and and and.

Neil Young has always sounded like coming home to me, even if I didn't start listening to him until later on in life. And Nick Drake is somehow the same, but a different home, one that instead of actively living in, you visit after being away for a long time. Young is the homestead, Drake is the hearth-of-times-gone-by. Hard to describe, really.

All this to say I had no idea these albums were put out so close in time to one another, as the two have some similarities but ultimately seem to live in totally different realms. But how blessed I am that I can go traipsing through both, and settle down and watch the clouds, making patterns with each that are parts sentimental and fleeting, equally.