The Secret Life of Plants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Plants

Big Bob

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outa you.

I rarely feel the urge to use a 4X5 rail camera anymore. There are times, however, when it would really be nice to have one and pull it out of a closet for a specific purpose.
The MacDonald Institute on this particular morning, in this particular light, was one of those instances.
It's just a beautiful old facade. I have a shot of the entire building but the little 35mm with a zoom lens does it no justice. I left it out for now. Alan, with his new shift lens would have a better chance of capturing the whole and not making it look like something out of a funhouse in Photoshop.

I have been meaning to write this post for several weeks. Emmy Loo died quietly in her person's arms only days after I made this image. She was a constant and faithful companion through good and bad times. The bond between human and animal was never more evident than it was here. I had the privilege of photographing Emmy Loo on this spring afternoon.

'There Is No Greater Love'

Another attempt at something creative with a favourite vehicle that I walk by every day. The poor old thing sits out in the Dettmer's lot slowly rotting. Yo Chris, rust never sleeps indeed.

There may be less store and what there is inside seems a little over-priced for my tastes, but Ray has lost none of his gift for window dressing and/or displaying his wares in very imaginative ways. I would wager that I am not the only shooter who misses those sidewalks full of neat junk up at the old location.

No mistaking his politics either.

Of course I have always loved the twist he puts on his jesus iconography, heathen that he is.

We were laughing and discussing various and sundry issues related to his handiwork this afternoon while I admired the display. As I was drifting off I smiled and pointed out that this stuff would have most likely guaranteed him some pretty unreasonable attention in Hogtown this week . . . .

Redux (way back . . .)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiSkyEyBczU

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large
rabbit-hole under the hedge.

Yer ebar

Two drunks on Woolwhich St. on a lovely summer night.
One for the City of Guelph Calendar, perhaps?

"meep meep"

I do not smoke any weed at all anymore. I smoked recreationally when I was younger the way a lot of kids did. I inhaled a whole lot. It was great.

Because I don't smoke I don't know anything about the local 'scene.' I don't know where to score street weed and until I encountered this rally, I had no idea how people obtained medical pot in Guelph.

I do know that medical marijuana provides a mighty relief to anyone who is forced to cope with a debilitating disease. I am quite sure that as he lay dying of bone cancer, my father's last days on 'this mortal coil' would have passed less painfully with a bit of quality marijuana.

Rade Kovacevic

The images included here, as well as a couple of others on The Moment, were taken at a protest staged several weeks ago in the downtown square. The local constabulary have lately swooped down on the medical pot outlet at 62 Baker St. claiming the group who run this licensed outlet are dealing the demon weed (and some pot oil, and some hash) on the side.

Are the details of the bust true, or was this very public raid simply a decent photo op? $100,000 (wow!) street value in marijuana was displayed by a local gendarme for the Mercury. Police everywhere in Canada continue to raid and charge medical marijuana outlets, in spite of, or perhaps because of existing law. The whole scene looks like easy pickin's to me, far less work than busting a complex and potentially dangerous street drug operation

The 'I Wonder' Mantra
I wonder how much it cost Guelph taxpayers for the police to net this incredible haul and charge four people with various possession and trafficking violations.
I wonder how much more money it will cost the taxpayer to put the case/s through the courts.
I wonder about the cost of surveillance, information gathering, and SWAT-style planning for the raid.
I wonder how the police came to know, unequivocally, that pot was being dealt here at the medical marijuana store front.
I wonder if there are not larger completely illegal drug-related crimes that local narcs should be surveilling and busting.
I wonder whether the Mayor's office condoned the raid, or whether the mayor and the head of police services even talk to one another about such issues.

I say to all anti-pot law enforcement officers and administrators, wait until you are deathy ill or quite sick in some other way, i.e. MS, glaucoma, anxiety- and stress-based emotional illness, and see whether your personal attitude towards weed changes. It certainly has for one retired corrections officer who spoke at the rally.

Alison Myrden

If government would would get off their asses and put through legitimate laws legalising recreational use of marijuana the raids would stop. The government also needs to make medical marijuana law clearer and stronger even if no law is written right away regarding recreational use.


Our police services should not have to be wasting time on penny-ante stuff like this.

New law would free up precious tax dollars for the city to be utilised where they are needed;. Law enforcement would have extra money in their budget every year to pursue legitimate crime.

Incidents like this police action, and the Hanlon Business Park fiasco last summer, strike me as attempts by a rotting power structure to shore up the stanchions, to maintain order in the 21st-century using 19th-century methods and attitudes.

Kind of cool that this month's theme on the GPG is 'Reflections.' Anyone who has been watching my stuff for a while knows that there are two themes which re-occur fairly often. One of those themes is shadows and shadow play, the other is reflections.
Given my oft stated aim to capture all things urban, decaying or wasting/ed, and out on the borderlands of the current Western malady (margins, margins people, those double-damned post- post- modern margins), my reflections are rarely pastoral in any 19th-century
Turner-esque sense,or Keatsian manner..

A rain puddle here and there reflecting the appropriately scummy surface reality of some vital socio-cultural marker will do quite nicely. (Yes, yes, of course I am taking the piss out of me, nothing more . . . please no cards, letters, or emails!).

This is old Vern's Chevy out in the back parking lot, by the way.

One advantage to this freakishly warm spring has been the number of summertime pursuits which have already begun in earnest.
As I noted back in March, the deck at The Albion opens for business as soon as the snows stops flying and there is a sunny day. Other places wait a little longer before they set out the patio furniture. A favourite past-time for me this spring has been to sit out on Douglas St. at the Red Brick Café with my camera, of course, and watch the world go by.

I just love it when people stop to chat. I don't know this fellow's name but I thank him, and I thank his pals, for providing some wonderful images.