Monday, September 24, 2007
To the Lighthouse
The lighthouse of the cousin who once dubbed me a 'Long Tall Drink of Silence' is out of commission now.
He left it soon after our visit of 1982. The job was supposed to give him time to paint, but its isolation and grave responsibility c
ame with too much pay, which translated into entertainment unit technology (EUT), which ate his painting hours. So he moved South and started an art gallery instead. This according to Big Brother, who has clear memories of the early 80's.
ame with too much pay, which translated into entertainment unit technology (EUT), which ate his painting hours. So he moved South and started an art gallery instead. This according to Big Brother, who has clear memories of the early 80's.Back at the lighthouse there is a giftshop in the lobby. The lobby itself didn't exist in '82, but Big Bro and I recognized the landscape instantly.
"Just imagine us running down these red cliffs and shores with the dogs. They loved the B-E-A-C-H as much as we did."
The girl in the giftshop said it was added about 11 years ago.
"Yeah, we were here 25 years ago," I said, disbelieving my own mouth. It's hard to believe I was anywhere 25 years ago, that I could have a memory that old.
We paid our $3 each and climbed 5 sets of stairs to the top, stopping at each floor to read the random posters collected by the various keepers over the years, from milk ads to almanac pages.
BB grumbled about the fee because we used to go up there for free, and back then we got to blast the foghorn. It was automated soon after our cousin left, and decommissioned a few years after that.
With GPS and other sensory equipment ships don't need lighthouses anymore. I figured if it wasn't for the revenue from nostalgic tourists the lighthouse would have been toppled years ago.
From the top we could see families on the beach, playing with t
heir dogs.
heir dogs.
Labels: 2007, Canada, non-fiction, photography, Travel
Monday, July 23, 2007
Poets in Their Natural Habitat: A field trip
Poetologist's Wisdom
the white-eyed poets hide stealthily in their urban habitats, cooing awkward mating rituals before a slack-jawed public applauding like imitating babies. in pin-striped flannel and broken-framed four-eyes they tilt and poke and twitter, laugh and scorn, drink and smoke, mostly hide from the light of the sun. they scratch in pen but the fittest adapt to modern-day technology, the only sub-species erectus to evolve in an age of mass mediated idiocy, they tap-type and multi-mediate, cut paste print and design. it's society's loss they're too blitzed out on hyper realistic chemical bliss to make it to work in the morning, or organize anything more complex than a printing press or an archaic coffee decanter, or they'd surely charm the pants off world peace and let us all have a turn of the pacifist orgies. but why the whiteness of this crowd? is maya angelou too good for these folk? are they too good for her? or is the ninnering of the poets about recipricol embraciture a mere orwellspeak ruse for the segregation of the intelligentia? regardless, the token of chinatown rouses the crowd with the longest and arguably best rendition of a heart luckless story that you gotta hear as it rings across the lonely dead-end libraries across the land of the literate ignoramuses. what seems most likely is that this timid species has failed from fear to look underneath the grotesque pain of creative preaching to the geniuses hidden underneath the grease-soaked throwaways of consumer culture. it takes a bold kind of mouse to bellow from a shit-ditch, so that kind of poet lives communally unheralded in the gutters of the shit of the white lab mice, singing about survival. We raise a toast to the wisdom of the poetologist, who knows where to look for winding words of wisdom recited by beautiful losers (TM L. Cohen) who have risen ever so slightly from the muck, in some cases found like mates, and are close enough to power to pan its appraisals. I salute you poets and poetologists, I'm so glad I found you. Now go forth, multiply, and realize that there are like-talented minds in all different bodies, equally toxic and afraid of the sun, yet willingly able to weave magic with words. share in their wisdom and your own, they can only make you stronger.
the white-eyed poets hide stealthily in their urban habitats, cooing awkward mating rituals before a slack-jawed public applauding like imitating babies. in pin-striped flannel and broken-framed four-eyes they tilt and poke and twitter, laugh and scorn, drink and smoke, mostly hide from the light of the sun. they scratch in pen but the fittest adapt to modern-day technology, the only sub-species erectus to evolve in an age of mass mediated idiocy, they tap-type and multi-mediate, cut paste print and design. it's society's loss they're too blitzed out on hyper realistic chemical bliss to make it to work in the morning, or organize anything more complex than a printing press or an archaic coffee decanter, or they'd surely charm the pants off world peace and let us all have a turn of the pacifist orgies. but why the whiteness of this crowd? is maya angelou too good for these folk? are they too good for her? or is the ninnering of the poets about recipricol embraciture a mere orwellspeak ruse for the segregation of the intelligentia? regardless, the token of chinatown rouses the crowd with the longest and arguably best rendition of a heart luckless story that you gotta hear as it rings across the lonely dead-end libraries across the land of the literate ignoramuses. what seems most likely is that this timid species has failed from fear to look underneath the grotesque pain of creative preaching to the geniuses hidden underneath the grease-soaked throwaways of consumer culture. it takes a bold kind of mouse to bellow from a shit-ditch, so that kind of poet lives communally unheralded in the gutters of the shit of the white lab mice, singing about survival. We raise a toast to the wisdom of the poetologist, who knows where to look for winding words of wisdom recited by beautiful losers (TM L. Cohen) who have risen ever so slightly from the muck, in some cases found like mates, and are close enough to power to pan its appraisals. I salute you poets and poetologists, I'm so glad I found you. Now go forth, multiply, and realize that there are like-talented minds in all different bodies, equally toxic and afraid of the sun, yet willingly able to weave magic with words. share in their wisdom and your own, they can only make you stronger.
Labels: non-fiction, photography, Poetry
Sunday, July 22, 2007
A Multi-Dimensional Poet
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Images
1. northern ontario rock
2. paper in fire
3. northern ontario falls
4 condo cats
6. lake ontario canada goose
7. chutes
8. lake ontario gull
9. selves
10. Jazz singer
Labels: 2007, Canada, doodles, photography
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Birds of Toronto
Saturday, June 09, 2007
In Montreal far from the Rain (with anecdotes)
It was one of those great still crazy after all...weekends, lots of reminiscances, digging up the dirt, catching up, bringing out all the old stories, laughing like old times. And, experimenting with the new camera:
Along the pier, in front of all these rusted out factories, we saw this beautiful little community garden, my wife and I did, as we strolled along, buzzing on coffee, on our way to meet my best buddy GB and his new old flame.
Next to those rusted out factories we saw this tugboat, the second oldest in the world, now out of commission.
Here we see the power of zoom. We spent a couple hours just soaking in the sun along the canal, me reading Tolstoy and M reading Canadian social policy. Nearby is a little market where we bought some sake to go with the evening's sushi. In Japan M fell in love witht the sake.
The midwife in the middle is a good friend who drove us to Montreal - she was headed to a midwifery conference there, and to her right is her friend, a trained psychologist who wants to work with the 'criminally insane' in med-security prisons.
Just a little waterfall along the canal.
Allergies were on overdrive - this is ragweed in the canal. Imagine what our lungs look like.
Pretty water.
GB and his new old flame (NOF) with the merry intrepids, a few coronas and a bunch of sushi in. NOF also made a fantastic Asian noodle salad for the occasion. In return she wanted dirt on GB and I didn't disappoint.
This is the family of a woman who my wife met at a course on refugee issues. They live in Montreal; we rang in 2006 with them and they are enormous fun; the little boy made it all the way to midnight for the first time in his life.
GB took us to his favourite Vietnamese joint, where I had a fantastic chicken noodle soup.
GB also gave us a little tour of the town. Here we see an underwater wishing plant counting its money.
There was a fire in Chinatown that left this burnt out beauty.
Back along the pier, lots of action in sunny weather, kids playing football (soccer), rich couples sipping martinis in their boats, tourists like us strolling along in the sunlight.
Along the pier, in front of all these rusted out factories, we saw this beautiful little community garden, my wife and I did, as we strolled along, buzzing on coffee, on our way to meet my best buddy GB and his new old flame.
Next to those rusted out factories we saw this tugboat, the second oldest in the world, now out of commission.
Here we see the power of zoom. We spent a couple hours just soaking in the sun along the canal, me reading Tolstoy and M reading Canadian social policy. Nearby is a little market where we bought some sake to go with the evening's sushi. In Japan M fell in love witht the sake.
The midwife in the middle is a good friend who drove us to Montreal - she was headed to a midwifery conference there, and to her right is her friend, a trained psychologist who wants to work with the 'criminally insane' in med-security prisons.
Just a little waterfall along the canal.
Allergies were on overdrive - this is ragweed in the canal. Imagine what our lungs look like.
Pretty water.
GB and his new old flame (NOF) with the merry intrepids, a few coronas and a bunch of sushi in. NOF also made a fantastic Asian noodle salad for the occasion. In return she wanted dirt on GB and I didn't disappoint.
This is the family of a woman who my wife met at a course on refugee issues. They live in Montreal; we rang in 2006 with them and they are enormous fun; the little boy made it all the way to midnight for the first time in his life.
GB took us to his favourite Vietnamese joint, where I had a fantastic chicken noodle soup.
GB also gave us a little tour of the town. Here we see an underwater wishing plant counting its money.
There was a fire in Chinatown that left this burnt out beauty.
Back along the pier, lots of action in sunny weather, kids playing football (soccer), rich couples sipping martinis in their boats, tourists like us strolling along in the sunlight.
Labels: 2007, Canada, non-fiction, photography, Travel
Thursday, October 27, 2005
The Justin Rutledge Show
So we took in Justin Rutledge and Serena Ryder at the Mod Club in Toronto last night, which is a 5-minute walk from the house. (Bosh, the more adventurous of our two kitties, decided to join us for the walk - I've never known a cat to follow his humans around like that.)
Serena Ryder has this insanely powerful voice, which is sadly misused in the wrong genre. It's a jazz voice and hearing it belt out kitchy love sap is just a little off.
Justin Rutledge continues to rock my world - my favourite musical discovery this year, and in fact since Danny Michel (who I first heard in 2001 with In the Belly of a Whale).
Serena Ryder has this insanely powerful voice, which is sadly misused in the wrong genre. It's a jazz voice and hearing it belt out kitchy love sap is just a little off.
Justin Rutledge continues to rock my world - my favourite musical discovery this year, and in fact since Danny Michel (who I first heard in 2001 with In the Belly of a Whale).
Labels: best of, photography
Monday, October 24, 2005
suck it, Renoir!
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
MZ + PP 4evr
On the left is MikeyZ, a great great friend, with Ana, our friends' baby girl.
On the right is PP, also with Ana.
This weekend they're getting married, unifying. I'm the MC. I'm nervous as hell - if only I was as cute as Ana.
They are wonderfully sweet, earnest, kind, and funny people with big beautiful hearts, and I wish only the best for them.
On the right is PP, also with Ana.
This weekend they're getting married, unifying. I'm the MC. I'm nervous as hell - if only I was as cute as Ana.
They are wonderfully sweet, earnest, kind, and funny people with big beautiful hearts, and I wish only the best for them.
Labels: photography
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Funkyass Wedding Pics
Eventually I'm going to put all those wedding pics in one blog location. In the meantime, they continue trickling in from friends, which is great. Here are some taken by John from Anaheim, Whoop Whoop!
Labels: photography
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Synchronous Vibration
So we inspired Martyn to inspire me to inspire him, in that he saw a pic of M and I (taken by brother K, so I guess he started it) on our wedding day, and wrote "you look like you vibrate at the same speed." And I said, 'synchronous vibration, cool way to describe it.' And then I went on his web site and suggested 'synchronous vibration' as a title for a photoglyph, and he came up with this:
Which he describes thusly:
"There’s a sculptor named Mark Prent who did a piece once that was a human figure doing a handstand on parallel bars. The figure was normal up to the waist but his legs withered and turned into flippers. It had something to do with stress or pressure on the body. This is my clumsy attempt to replicate that. The idea is to represent the energy the man is putting out visually. All his energy is focused on the end of the shovel, but it’s dissipated our his shoulders and biceps and pectorals and quads. Success is a judgement."
And event though I'd never heard of Mark Prent before or seen his flipper-man sculpture, I'd kind of already gotten that about the energy already, which shows Martyn must have done something right.
Anyway I love his concept of joint creation, where he feeds off the words of others and you get a kind of co-creation, so untalented clowns like me can claim a piece of the process at least.
--Bopper
Which he describes thusly:
"There’s a sculptor named Mark Prent who did a piece once that was a human figure doing a handstand on parallel bars. The figure was normal up to the waist but his legs withered and turned into flippers. It had something to do with stress or pressure on the body. This is my clumsy attempt to replicate that. The idea is to represent the energy the man is putting out visually. All his energy is focused on the end of the shovel, but it’s dissipated our his shoulders and biceps and pectorals and quads. Success is a judgement."
And event though I'd never heard of Mark Prent before or seen his flipper-man sculpture, I'd kind of already gotten that about the energy already, which shows Martyn must have done something right.
Anyway I love his concept of joint creation, where he feeds off the words of others and you get a kind of co-creation, so untalented clowns like me can claim a piece of the process at least.
--Bopper
Labels: photography
Hallowe'en's Coming!
at the risk of disturbing my fans:
ahh hallowe'en, just the needed excuse for cross (species) dressing.
--Bopper
ahh hallowe'en, just the needed excuse for cross (species) dressing.
--Bopper
Labels: photography
Friday, September 16, 2005
at the risk of boring my fans...
I present you some pics from the tdot wedding party! all of these pics include me, because i'm the best looking man i know. i hope my 5-6 loyal readers aren't getting bored of all this wedding jazz. just in case, here's some political filler: bush sucks! oi, that was pathetic, I'll do better next time. every since i got married i've been in too good a mood for political rants:
Labels: photography
Monday, August 29, 2005
Gone Hitchin'
We're headed back to tdot tomorrow am. Much to say about wedding but no time now; in short: success! Pic's worth thousand words:
Labels: photography
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Wedding Planning Weekend
