Way up North

John, Sharon and the adorable Victor are coming to visit this weekend. Nice!

Rural Nostalgia

I woke up to a howling wind and rain and although the sun came out eventually it remains the flavour of an autumn day. Every fall I get the feeling that I want to move out to the country but my work is so sporadic that I couldn't count on maintaining a car which it would of course require. It also might get lonely out there. Then again I'm tired of the city. Dead tired. I'm nostalgic for my grandparents farm I think with all that space, the fields and distant horizon. I've never been a city person at heart even though I've lived in enough of them. Montreal never felt like the city it actually is so that was why I was able to live there happily. Toronto overwhelmed me as did Milan. New York was psychic war. Even though I enjoyed it I knew I was only visiting. I guess I do like some cities but in general I really want to live with Leslie and some animals out in the country.

Recycled Box People

I recall awhile back in the blogiverse how Killer Kane pointed out that there was this blonde woman with glasses who was appearing in various adds and how people were interested to know who she was.
The managemnet company that owns the building I live in recently sarted a new look advertising campaign that features a brunette woman in white. It was funny to see the exact same photo of her being used to advertise an off line blogging editor.


This seems more and more common as the economics of buying photos out of the box and incorporating them into your design is easier and cheaper than ever. One drawback is that once you see the clone sponsoring a distinctly different product it creates an odd impression. It kind of strips back the illusion of reality that the add is trying to tie itself to, to reveal the mechanical(and souless?) process that goes into marketing.

Beneath the Black Hawk

So often historical events are presented through Western (often American) eyes that the people who are most affected become incidental to the events. The tragedy of the Vietnam War for instance is often told in terms of being an American event when in fact it is also a Vietnamese story of even greater magnitude and scope. The loss of American lives in Iraq seems to always overshadow the realities of the lives of Iraqis. These are just two examples. That's why I find this story from Mogadishu of particular interest. It's a western reporter at work but still we get some glimpse into what is probably best known here as the "Black Hawk Down" story in which two US military helicopters were shot down by Somali's in 1993. We see a litle bit of how this event effected people who live there and interestingly how they responded to the Hollywood retelling of the events and to the fact that it has been turned into a game.
The image of an American soldier being dragged through the street is well known, but how many peole know what was going behind this reaction. What were the events that led up to that iconic moment? How many know that the Black Hawks slaughtered most of the respected elders of the community as they met "to discuss ways to peacefully resolve the conflict between Aidid and the multinational task force in Somalia,"? It was a bungled job that became the turning point which united Somali's in their hatred for Americans. As the reporter, Kevin Sites, puts it "from that day forward a kind of blind, raging anger built up in Somalis, culminating in the Battle of Mogadishu three months later in which 18 American soldiers and as many as 600 Somalis died."

Raining and Pouring

It's been a cool and clammy weekend. Last night a mist was in the air so that the streetlights took on a fuzzy edged glow. It was nice to walk around pick up the scent of wood burning in stoves and sour crab apples squished on the sidewalk and lying in the damp grass next door. It rained heavily all through the night and it's still raining into the mmorning and will continue through the day.
I got a new armchair reading lamp and sidetable and now have a cozy reading spot for the coming dark months. I put Luna's bed at the foot of the chair to complete the picture of domestic tranquility. Of course missing from this picture is my sweetheart, Leslie, but we are slowly but surely working on that.

It's the Inquistion 2005

Looks like the new Pope is ready to toss out anyone who even looks gay. I guess that means he's not going to wear that medieval gown anymore. Out of the cloister>>>

More here "New Vatican Rule" >>>

and here "Ban on Same-Sex Attraction" >>>

Update: In the spirit of Christ no doubt, a 14 year old girl has been expelled from her Christian School because her parents are two women. How is it that secular schools are more tolerant and accepting than this self proclaimed Christian school?

My New Socks

Leslie models the sock she knit me for the cold Ottawa winter ahead.

Superdickery

There's a site that laughing Leslie pointed me to that is dedicated to the fact that Superman wasn't always that nice a guy.In fact one might say he is a "dick". The funniest part about Superdickery.com is that these are actual comic book covers.

I Have a New Scanner

The Rats are First to Flee a Sinking Ship

Can it be that the good ship Bush's blind and drunken sailors have finally ripped its hull on the rocky reefs of reality? >>>

This is Your Brain With Kidney Stones

It all makes sense now >>>

Where Goes the Boss Slick Willy Shall Follow

First Mr. Bruce Springsteen broke tradition and spoke out on which side of the poltical chasm he stood (no surprises followed) and actively promoted presidential candidate John Kerry in last November's election. Now ex-President William Jefferson Clinton has come up to the plate to say Bush is a crap President. Ex-Presidents and populist rock stars aren't supposed to speak so directly. Have we entered a new age? Clinton's words:

"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq,
Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts, We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

I think I might be turning into

I think I might be turning into a bit of a film buff this season. I've rented 4 movies in the past two weeks and that's as many as I rented all of last year in total. In otherwords I don't watch a lot of movies. I'm not sure where the new habit is coming from. There is a video store right across the street so its very convenient but I only rented two movies from there all of last year so it's not just that.

last weekend I watched Mullholland Drive which really got into my head. This weekend I rented 28 Days Later and Sexy Beast two very different British movies. One of them I liked one I didn't. 28 Days Later was pretty disappointing. I think I went in with great expectations that it would be terrifying and I only found it mildly creepy in a few places. I also didn't find myself caring too much about the main character. Maybe if I had come across it blindly I would have liked it more who knows in any case it was just alright...but just.

Sexy Beast on the other hand had a lot of tension thanks to Ben Kingsley's performance as the far from stable Don. Not to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it but I was quiet surprised at the ending. I was sure things would pan out differently. It was actually quite a comical, even endearing in a twisted way.

I'm not sure how long this habit will last as the place that rents movies actually doesn't have a huge stock of DVD's and most of those I've either seen in the theatre or don't care to see. Any recommendations out there?

Autumn Prepares

Yesterday I saw my first formation of Canadian Geese as they left for the winter. The first red leaves have appeared in the trees and today a rowdy autumn wind rushes through the streets. My favourite season has begun. At this time of year this poem by Yeats always comes to mind

The Wild Swans At Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

Upside Down Monster

head by: penguin
body by: perdy
legs by: monstroso17

New Atheneum Link

Breeds of Livestock added by Leslie. Also added three new music links: Hasil Adkins, XTC, Tom Waits.

MPP Reply

Last week I wrote a letter to my MPP indicating my concerns about the Arbitration Act and it was nice to see that someone actually took the time to read it and reply however succinctly:

Dear Mr. MacDougall:

Thank you for your tenacity and for the quality of the arguments you put forth.

Madeleine Meilleur
Députée - MPP Ottawa-Vanier

Then again maybe that's a standard response. I wonder if I would have got the same reply if I had called them dumbasses. I like to think not.

Exquisite Corpses

More exquisite corpses by Grumble, Evil Genius, Perdy and myself (Monstroso17).

Gee I'm Sorry Miss McGillicuddy

I just heard Bush on the radio taking responsibility for the federal government's failures in response to the Katrina disaster. It was kind of shocking to realize what an anomaly it is to hear words of apology coming from him. That being said his voice had the tone of a bad little boy made to go up to the front of the class and apologize for dipping Suzies pigtails in the inkwell. In other words someone told him he had better do it even though it made him cringe. Given the falling bomb that is his popularity in the polls I guess it was time to try a new PR strategy.

The 1991 Arbitration Act of Ontario act governs how legal disputes between parties are resolved including divorce proceedings. Until today parties could agree to abide by Jewish or Roman Catholic religious rules which would then be enforceable by law according to the act.Under pressure from a number of lobbyistst the Ontario government has been debating sometime whether or not to include muslim law after a strong lobby from some muslin groups. However the government has found itself subject to even greater pressure to exclude sharia from the Ontario legal process. This came internationally and internally from women's groups and those with concern over human rights. Today the government decided to revoke the power to enforce religious rulings as law from the Arbitration Act.

Personally I think this was a good idea. I understand individuals who have religious beliefs should have the right to practice those beliefs, however I was extremely uncomfortable about the granting of religious rules the power of enforceable law. There are a number of problems with this as I see it. Among them being:

1) Process: Religious beliefs are not subject to the same process of scrutiny as the law nor the product of democratic system in which shared social rights and responsibilities are assumed, but also debated.

2) Fractionalism: Why include only two or three religions? What about Scientology, buddhism, rastafarianism and so forth. The multiplicity of legally binding laws is in theory equal to the number of religions.

3) Precedent: Why stop at giving religious beliefs the power of law in arbitration matters? What about in other legal realms as well. Criminal law?, property and so on.

4) Seat of Authority: What happens when religious law contradicts state law or human rights? How is the law enforced when one of the parties no longer belongs to the particular religion from which the rulings were derived?. Who interprets the religious law, who has the last and final word in a system of faith?

I am a strong believer in the separation of state and religion. Those who abide by the Koran or the Vatican may do so and should have the right to do so, but the only way to ensure that freedom is to make all religious practices equal in the eyes of the state and therefore not of the state themselves where the power of law recides.

I am certain that some of the protest against the inclusion of Sharia in the Arbitration Act was reactionary. I don't recall much mention or protest of the inclusion of Jewish or Christian practices at the time of their inclusion, however my personal belief is that religion should not have binding power via the state. All parties are still free to conform to the laws of their religion, they just don't have the state legal system backing them up.

I think the province made a sage choice today, and they didn't have to evoke the wisdom of Solomon to do it.

Mo' Better Monsta's

Ms Chabot Goes to Ottawa

Last weekend Sophie came up from Boston for a visit to the motherland. It had been a day of weather extremes starting off as a sunny end of summer morning followed by autumnal torrents and ending with brilliant mix of rain clouds, blue sky and the golden glow of a setting sun.

Conundream

Last night my head was full of dreams of dreams in the city of dreams. I've been playing the exquisite corpse game at Monsterland and have discovered some really great creative partners. We've even managed to create some of the weeks most popular monstrosities. Each piece here is the creation of three different artists riffing off of the other artists work.




Last night I also watched the David Lynch film Mulholland Drive. It is a puzzling film and it's only after you've seen it once that you can watch it with any sense of what things mean. In typical Lynch fashion it follows the logic of dreams so things that would never have a connection in actual life have deep links in the film, colours, haircuts, names of streets, seemingly trite dialogue. After I watched it I turned to the source of information on all things arcane, the internet, and of course found a trove of ponderings on the film.

What was really strange however was how in my dreams last night the exquisite corpse game and my attempts to piece together the puzzle of Mulholland Drive integrated. it seemed like allnight long I was isolating scenes from the movie and placed them in various orders and arrangements to try and unlock the mystery (a key is one of the "key" symbols in the film).

Anyway I woke up exhausted and fuzzyheaded and watched the film again. It still doesn't make sense except now I understand it in a different way. I won't go into that but for the curious there is this>>>

Standard Hollywood fare tends to slip through my mind as I find myself in resolved to a passive state for the 2 hours or so that it takes for the story to unfold. I often find myself bored and resenting being asked to hand over my brain when watching real people on the bus would be more intriguing. What I like about Mulholland Drive is that it asks you to figure it out and it while you can see that there are connections between things, very obvious connections, what they mean is open to interpretation. Mulholland Drive is probably a very frustrating movie for many people. I can imagine the reaction being "what was that?" and "who cares?" but what I enjoyed about is that it there is a story, not even a very new story at that, but that it's not told in the usual manner. It means I have to look at it in a different way.

Unlike Peter Greenaway films which arguably tell stories in a similiar richly symbolic way, Lynch's movie works on an emotional leve,l so that even if the narrative is buried there is still a connection made to what is happening to the characters. I suppose it comes down to a question of personal taste but I always found Greenaway films to be very cold in that regard.

Ben Marble quotes Cheney to Cheney

The Doctor who parroted Cheney's infamous words on the senate floor last year tells his story >>>

There's a New Kid in Town

This summer our dear old friend from the 80s, Pac-man, started popping up along with the goblins all over the neighbourhood. He seemed to be as insatitable as ever. The fall has come however and along with the cooler evenings and turning leaves there is a new crop of students roaming the streets. Leslie took the above photo to document the local pac-man craze, but now dear Pac-man you are transformed into a copyright symbol.Your summer of unbridled gobbling has come to an end as surely as the nights grow longer.

Go f**ck yourself Mr. Cheney .wmv file from CNN.>>>

New Link

John added the first new link to the Athenuem under the Music category. It's to the Dirty Linen Gig site which is described as "Touring schedule for folk artists (ie, acts which generally play acoustic music and draw a middle-aged crowd)".

Here There be Monsters

Here's an interesting web site, Monster Land, where you get to play that old game where one person draws a head folds the paper and passes it on to another person who draws the body who folds the paper again and passes it to a third person who finishes the legs. You do this all virtually of course right in the web page. You also get your own cave where you can hang your self-portrait as well as write in your diary which is a little book in the cave.

You can finish other peoples monsters, start your own, rate monsters, create stories. In other words have a bit of mindless but creative fun.

"What didn't go right?"

Congressional representative Nancy Pelosi asked Bush to fire, Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown, stating that he had "absolutely no credentials."
Bush then asked why he would do such a thing. Pelosi responded "'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' Bush's response 'What didn't go right?'" So in Bush's view everything went right last week; good to know for the next national crisis.

Link Library

I've added a section I call the atheneum (a pretentious word for library) where you can contribute links as I compile what I believe are quality resources on a variety of subjects. I only have Music, News, History and Religion at present but feel free to submit a new category if you want. Politics, Art etcetera. It would really be great to have a lot of input from a variety of people here to make a great resource that doesn't just reflect the interests of one person.

Strangers Faces

Like Mother Like Son

You can see where G. W. gets his brains from. His dear old mom Barbra Bush, ever the sensitive soul said the following about the now homeless survivors of hurricane Katrina:

"What I'm hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed with the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)--this is working very well for them."

Is this woman even from the same planet as the rest of us?

Animal Lover

Keep on Smiling

If this isn't typical of the Bush way I don't know what is. In the face of overwhelming anger and critcism over the government's callous lack of attention to the devestation caused by hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, a plan is finally made in Washington. Senior political advisers have gathered and concluded that the best way to deal with the crisis is to create photo ops, ignore all criticism and blame everyone else. Corpses in the street? What corpses in the street? Let the "reality based community" bury them.

Anna & Gigi

Spliced Spam

A few years back Korak and I did this odd little comic strip called Sliced Spam. Korak would carefully cut choice selections from the daily e-mail spam he recieved and pass them on to me for visual interpretation. The method I developed was to image google a phrase or word from the spam text, or a word that inspired me and then choose an image as the basis for the illustration. Other times I would just draw whatever I felt like. In either case the image and the text had to be a micro-story, a slice of what might be a much larger tale. It's all about imagination. Like a peek through a keyhole or finding a wallet.

New Features

THe photography section is open as is the intial stage of the art gallery, known simply as The Gallery for the time being. The Gallery will include links to est, secretion and Speech and Sliced Spam. The links in the menu at present are inactive until then.

Out There is another new feature that I will update form time to time. Essentially it is a blog in the spirit of the Big Book of Weirdos tradition in subject matter although it is not in comic form. A new comic is brewing however.

The Beasts of Pontiac County

Summer Scenes

When the Levee Breaks

Here's a thoughtful post concerning the devastation of New Orleans, from The Whiskey Bar



And maybe Mr. Bush should read Popular Mechanics more often. This article from 2001 assumed the worst was coming. Of course he has a good excuse for missing this article as you will note by the strange date it was published (go to it you conspiracy freaks out there).

Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. And, given the tremendous amount of coastal-area development, this watery "big one" will produce a staggering amount of damage. ...During a strong hurricane, the city could be inundated with water blocking all streets in and out for days, leaving people stranded without electricity and access to clean drinking water. Many also could die because the city has few buildings that could withstand the sustained 96- to 100-mph winds and 6- to 8-ft. storm surges of a Category 2 hurricane.

It's hard to believe that the President was sincere when he stated "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Perhaps he truly is that ignorant or perhaps he thinks most of his fellow citizens are and will swallow any hogslop he dishes out.

Summer Storm

Looking at the picture this morning of the summer storm on the Ottawa River that I posted last night it occured to me that perhaps the timing of that post was insensitive given the apocalyptic wake that hurricane Katrina left New Orleans to flounder in. My enjoyment of the relative calm beauty of a late afternoon gathering of clouds somehow seems trite next to what I've been reading in the papers. Events as depicted in the photographs and snippets of news that I por through on the internet seem to describe scenes from post-apocalyptic disaster movies like Mad Max, Escape from New York or Dawn of the Dead.Bands of armed looters, families living on roof-tops, fiery explosions, people firing shots at rescue helicopters, hospitals under seige.

So who are the villians in this drama? The government? Man's folly? The lawless mob? Mother nature? God's wrath? SUVs? It amazes me how the media turns events into narratives that follow the insipid plots of hollywood blockbusters. One exception that I came across in the mainstream media was an article in the Washington Post by Linton Weeks called Carried Away that questioned the way we simplify chaos. It actually brought up the notions of class warfare and racial economic segragation into the equation. It dares to ask the question "Is trying to survive criminal?" Where do we draw the line between those trying to survive and those who take advantage for personal gain in the midst of societal collapse? What does this say about the way we think about ownership, economy, disenfranchisement and entrepeneurship in everyday life?

Summer Storm

Experimenting