It's been too long. Let's get back on this bike and ride.

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If growth is the only sign of life, and change the forerunner of growth, then I must be living. Lots of changes environmentally and internally. All for the better. I feel like a coiled spring of opportunity, waiting to unleash in a burst of creative kinetic energy.

Shot a roll of film recently. My first since last fall. Much too long a wait, but very telling in certain ways. Quite glad to see how many photos turned out.

Love the colours in this one. Vibrant vibrant technicolour.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings...

Yesterday, I went down to a beautiful photo studio that sits right across the street from the Princess Grill in a just decrepit enough building in the exchange district. Level 3 Studios (as it is called because it is on the 3rd level of the building, how clever) was a very impressive wide expanse with an ever changing style of wall and flooring to create a photographers playground. The reason I was there was not to gap at the grandeur of the place, though I did, but to be the first participant in my friend Jarrod's project, "Favorite Things". That may not be the exact name, but we will say that it is for the purposes of this post. The mode of the project is to have someone talk about their favorite thing and to have photos in conjunction of the subject, in this case myself, with their favorite thing. (This is where the photos about came from)

Here in laid the interesting thought process. When you are asked what is your favorite thing, out of all your objects or conceptions or whatever, what do you pick? Is it your most valuable thing? My most valuable thing is my computer. If my house was burning down it would be one of the things I would grab. It is probably one of my most used objects. I wouldn't even grab my favorite thing if my house was on fire. But, valued or frequency of use doesn't help that object to vibrate at the same frequency of the core of your being. That thing, that seems to articulate the pining of your heart, or make it vibrate with more strength and inspiration, that is it. That thing that makes your heart rate quicken and your tongue loosen at the mention of it. That is your favorite thing.

After much thought and musing I decided upon GK Chesterton's Manalive. I have been equally entertained by wit and prose in other books (though Chesterton seems to be able to deliver more frequently than others), but never have I been driven to live a better life by any other work of fiction. A life defying the mundane, a life of fairy tale.

For the shoot I was going to borrow Aaron's copy as it is much more interesting than my own. And this simple action made me realize why I wouldn't grab my copy if the house was on fire. It's not the book that I'm connected to, it's the story. As long as the story exists in some form somewhere, even if just the inspiration still remaining in my brain from reading it, I have my favorite thing. My favorite thing is in a sense immaterial, and it's avatar is the copies that exist.

Get some coffee in me and my mind can go many places.
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Here is a painting from Value Village that I got in a gift exchange. Miriam, Aaron and myself had a little fun with it.

click it so that you can see it in more detail.

Love Dancing Her Like Cake

These made my night. They are composed by the Avin, the 4 year old daughter of my friends Joel and Maribel. The magnetic letters that adorn their fridge are her creative word playground. Only a child could think up these smile inducing phrases.

sorry for the low quality. all i had was my cell phone.




There was one more that I couldn't photograph because of the limitations of my phone. It said, "She said to go plant a cat out in the sun".

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

This has been a test of Joel Schwab's testosterone and facial hair correlation capabilities.


After a month (and a few days, but whose counting) we now return to your regularly scheduled facial hair.

And don't think I didn't consider it. Oh, did I ever consider. But Aaron has that market covered.

Only that which is named is able to live in language...

Words are not what they signify. We confuse the signifier with the signified. Words are only words. They live in an atmosphere of their own.

Words are suitcases crammed with culture.

- from "The Prowler" by Kristjana Gunnars

Claude* strikes again!

The ever vigilant Claude made an appearance for the awareness of unlocked lockers. Such a worth and oft forgotten cause. It was an unprotected locker, two down from Melissa's, it's valuable textbooks left open to the grasps of would be thieves. Before securing the locker Claude left a note to both entertain and shock the owner into remembering how exposed their property could be. Fight the good fight Claude. Perhaps one day there will be a world where every locker is secured.

11-11

Soon the drone of voices died down as men in their blankets lay down to get the much need rest they would require in a few hours. I think that very few of them slept. They probably were trying to picture what they would be doing at dawn in the gloom that confronted them. I think a lot of them prayed for the first time in their lives. And most of all dreamed of their homeland, and ones dear to them. Some wondered if they would be afraid, others felt they wouldn’t return, others felt a guardian over them, others didn’t know, they were the victim of circumstances and confined their odds to fate.
...
Then came the familiar words. “Driver Advance!” My foot gradually released the clutch pedal and I knew we were rolling off the T.L.C. It was not my hand but one of invisibility that guided me as my fingers touched the tiller bar. “A little left! Steady! Driver right!” Something was making me calm and stealing my nerves. Perhaps after all it was the hand of Fate. I felt Bloody proudly sway to and fro as she mounted the ramp and then defiantly plunge down onto the beach. Over the wire came, “Driver halt, blow your cortex.” Calmly amidst the din of the already raging battle I grasped the plug that would blow the water tight sealing and open my vision hatches onto the scene of Hell.
What I saw I have not enough words to describe but I shall always remember.

-excerpts from my Grandfather's journal the night before and morning of Dieppe


WWII was my grandfather's war. I know nothing of war. Nothing of the fear of being shot, of capture, or heroism and squandered lives. Not even the wars that are fought today are my wars. The idea is too far beyond me to wrap my head around. The tragedies are to large for me to comprehend or encapsulate. The whole too much to understand. So in trying to mourn the whole war I feel almost nothing. I simply can not understand it enough to feel it all. So on these days, on Remembrance Day I think of my Grandfather. My Grandfather who I only know from his war time journal that he left behind and the words of his children. My Grandfather who I know was so mentally and emotionally destroyed by the war that the man who left for the war never really came home. I understand this grief better, this morsel of the full story. And maybe just remembering this small part of the whole is what I'm supposed to do anyway.