Wednesday, March 31, 2010

It's been years since I was in in the near-north as it has come to be known. It is probably just as well because things were changing up there over 20 years ago, even as I was shifting priorities and spending less time in my favourite spots.

When no cabin or cottage rental was available or affordable, campgrounds had traditionally been a civilised easygoing alternative. As gas prices and inflation took off, and camping became more popular, this choice became a mad rush to grab a site every April. Once the 'reservation system' was installed to handle the demand for campsites, it was literally taken over by housewives from the GTA who knew how to shop, by gawd!

If you wanted to take your kids away in the summer you spent hours on the phone
on April 1 when the reservation office opened to obtain a campsite. Even then you had to compromise and take a site down the row or over across the point from your favourite location. Things got bad enough that people were doing the phone thing in April to reserve sites two summers away. I have to believe the government resolved that issue; I hope so.

Of course it was horrid when you arrived for your idyllic week or two in 'the bush.' From late June to late August camping meant facing the hordes who simply relocated from the suburbs in the south to Arrowhead, or Killbear, or Algonquin Park.

It meant stinking over-used privies, constant outages of hot water and a general state of pigginess in the once luxurious main bathroom which had showers. It meant trying to pick a time to sneak off to said bathroom to have a crap in peace and quiet because the privies made you gag that morning.

It meant rock concert-sized crowds out on Lighthouse Point every night to watch the sunset.

Worst of all, camping meant screaming kids and semi-vicious dogs; overweight, wine-sucking, self-despising housewives
(the grape makes a nasty drunk), and their equally unhappy, loutish, drunken husbands, bitching at the wives and snapping at the kids.

I knew things had changed forever when the rangers started appearing in the night. The tree fuzz crept in,
seeming to jump out from behind a tree, the way they had done with us when I was a teenager in the 70s. They were necessary now to quiet campsites full of noisy loaded parents blaring Alabama or the Eagles through the woods, .

In any event things were already different when I snapped these shots. They are scans of slides taken in the 80s.

I hope it is apparent that I am doing a little bit better with the scanner though the results are still far from perfect.


Two out of three of the first shots were taken at Oxtongue Lake, a post office and a gas station on Hyw.60 just west of Algonquin Park. There were a handful of family-run cabin settlements in the surrounding area. I rented a small cabin there for 4 or 5 years every autumn at one of several places.

It was still possible to rent a cabin at a very reasonable rate in the early 80s because there were off-season rates across the calendar. This was stopping later in the decade when the off-season was more-or-less eliminated up through this corridor. The off-season rate was completely gone everywhere up north by 1993 or 1994.


I surely loved it up there when I was younger. Until I stopped in the 90s I had been going north one way or another every year since I was a small child.


Snapshot from Killbear - Late 1980s


Snapshot from Oxtongue Lake Cottages I - Late 1980s


Snapshot from Oxtongue Lake II - Late 1980s


Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Blue Jesus

(For the woman who has the best bathroom in Southwestern Ontario)

Single most important cultural signifier in so-called
Western civilisation, the chachka.

I love chachkas. Probably not the way I am supposed to,
but what is the proper way?
I've never known.
How does one go about loving a chachka?
As far as Easter goes, take your pick,
bunnies and eggs, or the Saviour on his cross.

Both are screamingly popular at the moment, are they not?
No worries, saviour icon coming soon.

(I truly despise the manner in which cheep digital hardware resolves real edges.)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

As long as we're looking at downtown
landmarks let's have one that is not a bar.



Here is the Albion. Another landmark, though this one really is a landmark.


Jimmy Jazz.
This and Club Vinyl next door are oft photographed contemporary facades bolted on to very fine old buildings in downtown Guelph.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Kaleisha is drawing an audience this week, while Elvis' mom and a
drinking buddy look confused in the background.

Friday night in Guelph, it's all rock 'n' roll.



Jenny said, when she was just five years old
you know there's nothin' happening at all
Every time she put on the radio
there was nothin' goin' down at all
not at all

One fine mornin', she puts on a New York station
and she couldn't believe what she heard at all
She started dancin' to that fine fine music
you know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll
hey baby, rock 'n' roll
- Lou Reed -


Thursday, March 25, 2010

Nothing to say.

010-04-20 06:22 AM, Irving wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/books/20100321-JAZZLOFT-AUDIOSS/index.html?hp



Clayton Wrote:

Fuck.


Irving wrote:

Fuck good, or fuck bad?


Clayton wrote:

Incredible. Sometimes I wish . . .

C

(Just as well, I would have ended up dead in an alley of an overdose back then, but the music, the scene).




Irving wrote:

Yeah, I'm not sure my quasi-addictive personality would have let me survive something like that. Ah hell, I probably would have been living in the suburbs, cutting the lawn and bbqing, oblivious to all that was happening....


Clayton Wrote:
LOL!
Naw, I believe all the 'burbs and bbq shit but you could not have been oblivious, not you--too curious George.
My guess is you would have flipped on a faintly seditious Chet Baker or Gerry Mulligan record on the weekend to wow the neighbours when you were all a little squiffy. Maybe none of that negro music just yet, but definitely something with a little attitude on the backburner (betcher grinning).
The only reason you would not have had any of those Julie London torch song records around would be out of deference to your fine wife's sensibilities.
Prolly would have picked up on it all when you breezed through the post highschool experience somewhere in the upper third though maybe not one of the heavy hitters (i.e. not yer Yale, Duke, Harvard lawyer, doctor stuff), which would be where you met S etc etc etc. You were not members of the Communist Club but as socially conscious as it was possible for am emerging white middle-class couple to be in those times.
You would have missed Newport by a few years, already into growing a family, but you would have been aware of its existence.
:-P
C


Irving wrote:
ROTFLM-FUCKING-AO!
Jesus - you got me pegged, don't you?
You just made my day - thank you, my friend!
You know, Baker/Mulligan always put me to sleep after about the third track, but Mulligan's big bands - tasty, tasty, tasty!
Clayton Wrote:
Oh good. That's terrific. I rather thought it was pretty good, but I would. Glad it made you laugh. Heh heh.
I have to be honest, I still struggle with Baker. Good mood music if you were of an age and looking to get laid I suppose. Pretty background music and his bio is a genuine tragedy. No one would believe it if were written etc.
I always assumed he would not have garnered much critical acclaim at all were it not for the need of the mainstream music industry to produce a 'great white hope' in response to Miles. That may be a little harsh but who knows?
As far as Mulligan goes, don't forget he was as responsible as Gil Evans or John Lewis, maybe more so, for the nonet arrangements on Birth of the Cool.I expect Miles and Gil made a large band/orchestral living on those classic 50s titles (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spanish) out of what they learned on BotC.
C


Clayton Wrote:
From another spot on the Jazz Loft site:
http://www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/general/anecdotal-musings-on-the-economics-of-jazzWhen Joel went to Japan last year he went with two big name fusion guys to fill the clubs I am sure. The Japanese know their music and would love the fusion-blues band, but they really love the big names, past or present.
When home these guys really only play an occasional show at a local club called The Baked Potato in LA. It's where all 'the boys' on the LA scene gig when they want to run some new material past a live audience or just to get in some live time. I have some really good fusion bootlegs from that place.
All of this stuff fits nicely into the article above I think.
Then there's this short one out of that article:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780375708442-0

Fascinating. American culture and couth, or lack thereof, is absolutely fascinating for me.

C

Irving wrote: I'll have to check these links out tomorrow - just online for a brief moment in time....


Monday, March 22, 2010

Infidel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article incorporates text from the entry Infidel in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

Infidel (literally "one without faith") is an English word meaning "a person who does not believe in religion or who adheres to a religion other than one's own". Infidel is an ecclesiastical term in Christianity. It was used by the Roman Catholic Church to refer any person who did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, knowingly held beliefs that contradicted Catholic dogma, or had not been baptized. It was also used by Christians to describe non-Christians or those perceived as enemies of Christianity. Current usage distinguishes between non-Christians and non-believers (persons without religious affiliations or beliefs).

Etymology

Infidel was first used in Middle English circa 1460 (adjective, noun), from the Middle French infidèle, and from Latin infidelis "unfaithful". Later meanings in the 15th century include "unbelieving", "a non-Christian" (especially a Saracen), and "one who does not believe in religion."


Colonization of the Americas

During the Age of discovery, the Papal Bulls such as Romanus Pontifex and more importantly inter caetera (1493), implicitly removed dominium from infidels and granted them to the Spanish Empire and Portugal with the charter of guaranteeing the safety of missionaries. Subsequent English and French rejections of the bull refuted the Popes authority to exclude other Christian princes. As independent authorities such as the Head of the Church of England, they drew up charters for their own colonial missions based on the temporal right for care of infidel souls in language echoing the inter caetera. The charters and papal bulls would form the legal basis of future negotiations and consideration of claims as title deeds in the emerging Law of nations in the European colonization of the Americas.

The rights bestowed by Romanus Pontifex and inter caetera have never fallen from use, serving as the basis for legal arguments over the centuries. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1823 case Johnson v. M'Intosh that as a result of European discovery and assumption of ultimate dominion, Native Americans had only a right to occupancy of native lands, not the right of title. This decision was upheld in the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, giving Georgia authority to extend state laws over Cherokees within the state, and famously describing Native American tribes as "domestic dependent nations." This decision was modified in Worcester v. Georgia, which stated that the U.S. federal government, and not individual states, had authority in Indian affairs, but it maintained the loss of right to title upon discovery by Europeans.

In recent years, Native American groups including the Taíno and Onondaga have called on the Vatican to revoke the bulls of 1452, 1453, and 1493.

Marriage

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the church views Marriage as forbidden and null when conducted between the faithful (Christians) and infidels, unless a dispensation has been granted. This is because marriage is a sacrament of the Catholic Church, which infidels are deemed incapable of receiving.

Influence Upon Medieval Civil Law

Laws passed by the Catholic Church governed not just the laws between Christians and Infidels in matters of religious affairs, but also civil affairs. They were prohibited from participating or aiding in infidel religious rites, such as circumcisions or wearing images of non-Christian religious significance.

In the Early Middle Ages, based on the idea of the superiority of Christians to infidels, regulations came into place such as those forbidding Jews from possessing Christian slaves; the laws of the decretals further forbade Christians from entering the service of Jews, for Christian women to act as their nurses or midwives; forbidding Christians from employing Jewish physicians when ill; restricting Jews to definite quarters of the towns into which they were admitted and to wear a dress by which they might be recognized.

These rules have now given way to modern legislation and Catholics, in civil life, are no longer governed by ecclesiastical law.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWjZlVzSE0Q

Saturday, March 20, 2010

I will post this shot and a couple of others on The Moment as well. I wanted to throw this one up in here to illustrate how much things have truly changed in 20 years.



I stood right next to a Streetsville parade to celebrate some kind of anniversary (I think) and shot anything and everything without thinking about what I was doing. I just enjoyed the experience of shooting the way I still think I ought to be able to do.

Not only that, but I got this wonderful shot of Mayor Hazel McCallion who just 'hit it' for me. I was able to make this picture crouching 10 feet away from the mayor of Mississauga while her security guy is clearly smiling just a little bit as he looks on. My, my, imagine that happening under any circumstances in today's world.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I am gradually learning how things work here in google land. F'rinstance, Picasa is hooked up to my blog. This means there are folders with slide shows of the images available. I haven't gotten to music yet. For now there is a link at the top of The Moment that will take you to the folders should you wish to go and see everything in one place.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I made no new images today. Somewhat unusual but not a first for me.

Rather I spent the afternoon listening to a new TV station I found while I worked on the latest mask. I have purposely not given anything away regarding this current offering. Should be completed in a day or two.


The new TV station (for me) is AUX TV. It's great. It seems to be a Canadian station devoted to independent music with an emphasis on exposing new/er Canadian acts.

http://www.aux.tv/

They have a play list of sorts. Who doesn't do it that way nowadays? Kinda reminds of CHUM 1050 when I was a kid. My current favourite video/tune amongst several is called 'The Northern' by a band name Alexisonfire, that's 'Alexis,' not 'Alex is.' Damned if this is not a garage band originally from St. Catherines.

Reading their wee bio tells me they have paid their dues over the past 7-8 years. They've done the 'living out of a van traipsing back and forth across North America playing every lousy shit-hole in existence humping their own equipment in and out' routine. This is a band that has matured musically the way they should during all this time together. They will break big soon. No shred of a garage band left in this well tempered carefully produced recording.


The sound is a combo of different influences. Death metal, punk, neo-prog, there are even some classic rock influences in there, especially the overloaded Hammond, a la Jon Lord, seeping in and out of the tune ('classic' is what the corporations have been calling my music for a while now, whatever). Doesn't hurt that the video rawks too.

Most people my age would likely find this stuff abhorrent. When I am 'in the zone' working on something I like this kind of loud, edgy, in your face music a great deal. It's about the energy I think.

Anyhow, new mask coming and check out AUX TV if you are at all into indie music and don't already know about this station. Of course anyone under 35 who is even moderately hip will be thinking "DU-UH!!"

I have the secret though; I know we really do grow wiser with age. It takes a little longer to get places but we don't waste energy landing on the wrong address two or three times before we get there. Does that make any sense in this context?

Who cares? Never mind. If you like loud music once in a while AUX is great. They have other quieter saner programming too but I like the loud stuff when I am working on projects. That is all.





(Stole that last from a young friend of mine who sez 'o' instead of 'oh.' At least she used to do).

Monday, March 15, 2010

I love the Red Brick. Who doesn't? Well, there may actually be one or two people who don't care for it. Perhaps they had a mildly reasonable complaint when the café was only the tiny front room. Got a little crowded in there at mid-winter. I still loved it though. That was part of the charm and DAMN! the coffee was good (and still is).



Today I finally remembered to go 'round the corner and see the new room. There were no seats, of course, but the most wonderful woman was just finishing and graciously offered me her spot. Here is the view out into the street from my stool.


It's a lovely airy place is the new room made quieter by its large size and by people who inhabit it I think. Things seemed a little more laid-back in this room. As you can see my view also included some poor soul's notebook. Someone is always banging away at a notebook in The Red Brick.

I tucked in into my coffee and, past the shots you see on this page, I did not pull my camera out once during my little break. It was great.

Friday, March 12, 2010

'Twas a damp, grey drizzly kind of day today. We'll be paying for the sunshine now for a few days I would imagine. Nonetheless I had errands to do up at the corner so off I went.

Lesson for the day learned through years of experience butting my head up against this particular wall.
I know, now, that if you are patient and wait anywhere long enough, be it in a forest or on a city street, an image will come to you. You don't have to go searching for pictures, they will find you if you are listening and watching carefully.

I stood outside Zellers today for a good five minutes staring down the sidewalk towards the entrance to Zehrs. I have always liked such symmetry so I watched, even though I knew I would not photograph the scene just for its own sake. The sequence below took place as I was about to move along into Zehrs. I am glad I waited that extra minute or two.

Young lad comes out of Zehrs, grabs a piece of wall, and sparks a cigarette. I assumed he was waiting for someone to come out of Zehrs after him. This happens quite often, I see young husbands and boyfriends come out for a cigarette when they can't stand being in the grocery store a minute longer.

I admit that I did it myself when I was young and impatient with the world. I hated shopping for anything in those days. Ironic because I love shopping for food nowadays. I still cannot stand the malls like Stone Road but I love shopping for food.

This young guy was not what I really wanted as a subject in this setting, He was too far away and planted along the wall; I wanted some motion or energy. I snapped off a frame of him in my scene anyhow. It was a good thing I did.



Because directly afterwards, the sort of subject I had envisoned came rolling along behind me, moving briskly past my right shoulder. I was ready and I grabbed my shot. Even as I was taking the first picture I realised the lad was giving the young woman a good long look. Hell who am I kidding? He was gawking.


It's just obvious here, but he has his hand in his jeans pocket. He is fishing for his cell phone but he can't take his eyes off the girl. Once the young woman realised she had his full attention, she absolutely swung and switched as she moved on by. It was a terrific sequence to watch, the silent exchange between the two was like a dance (again, I seem to be seeing a lot of dancing lately). Ahhh spring, hormones, nature at its best.


I changed my mind completely at this point. I don't have a fourth image but it became obvious that he was talking to a friend on the phone. The gestures and body language made this plain. I have no idea who he might have been waiting on in Zehrs, but I doubt that it was his wife or girlfriend. I lay even money on the possibility that he was talking to either of them on the phone . . .

Road trip! Weather was gorgeous yesterday (again) so it was just terrific.

I snapped an image of yon poor driver with the old polaroid stock. Didn't warn him. The flash nearly landed us in the ditch. Oops!


We stopped at Burlington Camera on the return leg of the journey. I was very good. I grabbed the winder I had planned on purchasing and only bought one other item, a nifty little 28-80mm FA series zoom. The new/old Pentax rig is complete for now. It looks like this.


Ahhhh. Makes my heart skip a beat.
I expect the Pentax cogniscenti amongst you (Mikey) will be smiling and having 'a moment' as well. I know I really did have a tiny heart-skipping surge when we got the whole thing assembled and I put it up to my eye. Ba-ching! Ba-ching! Ba-ching! I lerv these old winders (Lerv? Woody Allen to Diane Keaton in Annie Hall).

A winder has an entirely different sound and sensation than the self-contained motor drive in our modern DSLRs. The hand feel and balance of this rig is also what I remember from my younger days. It has four AA batteries in it so there is no doubt that the bottom-weighted centre has a lot to do with that feeling of balance.

The ME/Program body suddenly becomes less fraught, less tiny, when you hang a winder on the bottom. That small body has never been an issue for me. I have slender long fingers. People with big mitts and stubby fingers never cared for any of these cameras, Pentax, Olympus, whatever else came out during this era. The winder definitely makes this camera a little easier to handle for those with big hands.

This camera with an FA generation 28-80mm zoomer thrown in is a tidy package. Admittedly the FA comes a little later on the Pentax time-line but it pairs up nicely. The only lenses I would really enjoy more on this body would be a 40mm pancake or a pure 24mm wide angle. Both of those options make a very nice camera.

Still, the glass in the 28-80 is quite good for such a modestly priced lens. I have a 35-70mm that I have never complained about. This black FA series is good value for the money. Not at all like the awful crap offered in the FA-J line which I believe followed the FA (I have warn out and broken one of those infamous plastic 28-80mm lenses).

And of course 28mm means a little more on a full-frame camera.

All in all, two great little acquisitions on a fun day out.

Thursday, March 11, 2010



I just threw this shot up on The Moment with the caption 'Chair Love (if you have to ask . . . ).'
It's true, if you have to ask why the shot is there and why it would appear that I love crappy looking old chairs (really old chairs), the chances are good that you won't understand even when I attempt to explain the love affair.

When you do a bit of farting around in the studio taking pictures of peeps, you need stuff to sit on. I prefer almost everything I use in the studio to have a little character, whatever that entails and however it is come by.

I am still looking for a stool that has character but I have found a couple of chairs. This is the best by far. Got it for a buck at the local St. Vincent's shop. The red leatherette card table I use in some of my portraits was also purchased at St. Vincent's. What would I do without that place?

I find it interesting that I am not the only local photographer who pops in on a regular basis. There are others who appreciate old stuff with character too. Not just shooters of course, but such a discerning soul is your average photographer. Comes with the territory.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I went downtown with the intent of making photographs today. People who know my story will understand how significant this is for me.

It was a beautiful warm sunny spring day, the first one of the season. I am sure we will see more unpleasant weather but it was really, really great to be out in the the sunshine. It was soooo good to bask in that warmth. Too many grey days blending into grey weeks this winter for too many people.

The images started at the bus stop on Eramosa across the street from Ross and continued downtown. It was a nice way to pass an hour or so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCx_agNtSNQ




People were out in numbers, especially the kids.
There were a few familiar faces in the Square,
some new ones as well.




Don't even want to know what the holy, young,
and hip were up to.
Okay, I know what they were up to
but I don't need to hear about it.

"Please don't spoil my lazy day."






Paper maché and drywaller's mud. Acrylic paint with gloss medium.

A KNIGHT there was, and what a gentleman,
Who, from the moment that he first began
To ride about the world, loved chivalry,
Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy.

Monday, March 8, 2010



I briefly mentioned speaking to one of the on-site workers below. I still struggle with the panels of bright orange grill fencing which surround the project. I suppose this is an improvement over the wooden walls (with tiny viewing holes cut in them) that surround the large projects in Toronto. I can understand that restriction though. There is generally a huge hole in the ground followed by building construction on a large and potentially deadly scale, even to those who work on the site.


Nonetheless there is something about fencing and gateways of access and speaking to people through a grill that is still alien to me. I make the images below by pressing my camera lens up against the grill. There is just enough space between each strand to allow for my image. I cannot avoid the grill if/when I want to speak with someone working on the building. I cannot avoid the grill if I wish to make a broader image of the site.



Consider this: the notion of the gated community, the posted security guard, areas that are restricted from public access, all of these have emerged and become commonplace in the past generation. These restrictions have only become accepted in the past twenty-five years.


I will not burden the reader with a long, dry sidebar illustrating my detailed understanding of the correlation between the two, but, I relate the decrease in public access to increasing restrictions on personal freedoms and liberties. My simple little orange grill safety fence has become a personal metaphor for much of what is wrong with the world we live in. How did I make that jump?


Say what you will regarding the suburban, cookie-cutter neighbourhoods I grew up in, one thing was true, they were wide open. Everything from the property our homes were built on, to the public parks, to the commercial and industrial malls all over North York were free of fencing (made short cuts on foot really great).

There were no private fences till our homes had been up for several years. When the fences did go in a pair of neighbours would put up their own choice and style. Different fencing here butted up against different fencing there. There was no conformity. It was great.

There was very little restricted access of any kind to public, commercial, and industrial spaces for many years. For the most part the world I grew up in was wide open.

More to the point there was no good reason to waste money forcing people to 'walk this way' or move in that direction in public like sheep.
It was also apparently unnecessary to prevent access to semi-sensitive areas in order to satisfy requirements of insurance companies.

It is no surprise to me that I feel alienated by the little orange grill 'safety fences and absolute lack of access to a small construction site such as this new SDM. Everywhere I turn I see similarly manufactured borders and restrictions. In my lifetime we have evolved from an open society into one where anything interesting at all is surrounded by Frost fence, metaphorically or otherwise.

Ultimately, who is the prisoner here and why?

Thursday, March 4, 2010



Edit: The long red arm and the white pipe are being used to pour concrete in an area that the trucks cannot access. One of the workers on site explained that there is a 300 foot cement conduit ringing the building.

The new big box store continues apace in my neighbourhood. I am continually fascinated by the construction activities, still very much the little boy standing and watching with a mixture of curiousity and awe while the different workers move about in a dance of sorts, slowly raising a new building out of a hole in the ground.

Although I initially wondered why these huge stores have gone in everywhere without a fuss I decided the SDM corporation must be shrewd in this regard. Even though these stores are humongous when compared to the local neighbourhood store they replace, they are miniscule beside a WalMart, a new Canadian Tire store, or a Home Depot hardware centre. I suppose the SDM stores must come in under the local zoning by-laws wherever they pop up. I also believe they are located in such a way as to create as little fuss as possible.


The people in my current SDM across the street in Bullfrog Mall assure me that they are all promised jobs in the new store, and that the pharmacy function will not change. We'll see. When the SDM was built on Stone Rd. it was not great. SDM was previously close by on Stone Rd. and in Stone Road Mall. Neither store was ever that great but the new box store which replaced them was horrid. The pharmacist was a young tyrant who seemed to take pleasure in berating his customers over their prescriptions. The remainder of the staff were cold and inefficient.

To anyone who does not understand what the fuss is about, wait till you reach a point in your life where you must interact with the pharmacy (not the rest of the drug store) on a regular basis. It becomes
very important that pharmacy staff are good folks. It becomes paramount that the asshole count remains low so that your own stress levels do not rise.

I have watched many seniors suffer at the hands of bad staff in other stores (like the Stone Rd. box store). The people in my store are saints. They are patient with those who require patience and cheerful with everyone at all times. They are also quite efficient in almost every instance when I have dealt with them.

It is common to receive miscounts of regular prescriptions at other drug stores. I have also received incorrect drugs on two separate occasions; this is an outrage. When you return the bad scrip for exchange you are generally received defensively, then with indifference if it becomes evident you will not make a fuss.

I have learned to check my meds closely every month. No one is responsible but me for what I receive. Incorrectly prescribed drugs can be a serious matter. Save for one instance when there was a small miscount at the Bullfrog Mall store, they make no mistakes. When the small error was made the staff was very apologetic and owned the error. It's very reassuring.

I hope head office has the good sense to keep this team together.


Wednesday, March 3, 2010


Changed my mind again as I forge on with the mask. It is neither a Templar, nor a particularly oblique and outrageous statement on these 'modern times.' The helmet is somewhat Norman so I suppose I could end up making an indirect observation of our times. The Norman invasion was all about cultural markers and the like being arse over tea kettle for a century or three was it not? Whatever. I expect it is going to be nifty looking by the time it is done.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Ecce Agnus Dei
(See 'The Moment' for definitive version)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11106668@N03/4346858353/

Polaroid and digital manipulation

There are libraries full of information about 'John the Revelator,' 'John the Baptist,' 'John of Patmos,' or 'John the Apostle.' I willingly own the fascination of a novice with the many faces of the man.

How much of anything in any version of the Christian bible regarding John is truth and how much is legend, myth, effective publicity, or the 'Word of God?'

No one knows.

A shifting
undercurrent of primeval darkness reaches out from many accounts of John's story. The raucous joyful gospel version of 'John the Revelator' is a fine celebration, but the old-time delta men like Blind Willie Johnson, and youngsters with old souls like Nick Cave, convey the utter despair and uncertainty of another John through the same song.

This man seems at odds with gospel John the Baptist, biblical parables, and made to order miracles. He implies existence spinning out of control, a "centre" which "cannot hold" indeed.


No one knows.

There is no room for myth and the inexplicably primal in any teachings used by the church
to succour and control its flock.

There is no black heart or soul in the
deepest recesses of any human that Christ cannot illuminate. So we are assured. The church provides the guarantees we need to believe this version of the truth.

But no one knows.

Uncertainty surrounding existence and the possibilities of other less benevolent or forgiving gods is reflected in myth of Iokaan. Here is John the mystic seer, a raw and unforgiving 'revelator' come to prophesy in the Book of the Seven Seals.

D
own through the ages of the common era it appears that some have sought this version of John, sought this version of the truth. Few were/are allowed to really understand him in this context though.

Still no one knows.