7.23pm, 31 October, Coach House

drawings all scanned, DVD burning (attempts to control hyperventilating...)

3.49pm, 31 October.

status. Drawings wrapped up. In portfolio. Scanner booked for 5pm today. 

COULD IT BE FUCKING POSSIBLE THAT I'M NEARLY THERE?!?!

and at 4.30am....

I woke up. Third day of this insomnia, for god knows what reason, and I've finally decided that there is nothing for it but to get up and do useless things. Like make a masthead for my blog. See above. Pictures from the "likely-never-to-be-finished-but-maybe by-tomorrow?-TeaTime 2"

Vain AS.

I was just introduced to these lovely photos, taken by a guy named Derek (no last name yet, sorry!) on Toronto Island this summer, during the Burning Man fiesta held for those of us who couldn't swing the flight and the 300$ ticket to attend the real one.

And I love 'em. 

Of course.

And the footage.

New Model Circus Army, Clay and Paper theatre, Kensington Horns, Night of Dread.Here.

...

Oh, of course. Fascist facebook. If you log in and search for "Night of Dread", there's a video. (shrug)

Oh, and just one more.

It's hard for tiny animals, it's true. Facing imminent extermination from technological menaces everywhere.

and in the news...

...The British funeral-services industry faced a backlog of hundreds of corpses as undertakers, unable to obtain credit, refused to perform burials for the poor until the government guarantees reimbursements...and the big counter in New York City that tracks the national debt ran out of digits...Harpers Weekly

Given the nature of my previous posting

I will take this early morning to return to a more bloggy forray of sundry items.

Woke up at 5.30 this morning, (which I suppose is an improvement on yesterday's 5am rising, due to a dream ending with me opening my eyes in real life and trying to picture the view outside my window (which is right by my bed), and only coming up with the view outside the bedroom of the apartment I grew up in.)

I have, in the last week or so, aside from feverish drawing, battling ultimate evil in Dufferin Grove Park, frittering with the indie-eratii (sic) at Canzine, being dramatic as usual, eating cheese and reading the Economist, been migrating stuff to a nnnnniiooooooo computer. That's right. I have, after six long years, moved from the equivalent of a cardboard box into a digital palace. It is very exciting. Fieberhafterliche Aufgeregtheit, in fact. I no longer have to pedal to make my computer work, and my tea-drinking habits will obviously shift as well, now that I no longer have time to boil the kettle while files are opening and such.
One finds the most fascinating kipple at times like this though. Like this picture of a baby stingray, entitled "weeeeeeeee" (not by me), found obviously during some errant googling one day.


And then there are these, 'coz let's face it, nobody hates tiny bunnies.(Except serial killers.)




And just to round out the Too-Cute-For-Manson quota, there was this pic, of a tubby wee me, back when life seemed so much simpler.

Night of Dread.

So tonight, myself, the New Model Circus Army, and other variegated and lovely people fought Ultimate Evil, with fire of course. (photos pending, I hope) It was a remarkable feat. 

After that, the Night of Dread parade moved on, and after a short break for whisky and weehoos, we rejoined to watch people burn paper-box effigies of their fears.  Amongst my favourites were "mediocrity", "Sarah Palin", and "loneliness".  And bobbing up and down near the back of the crowd though was a paper-box with "a broken heart" written on it. 

This got me thinking, of course. We throw around the term "broken heart" so flippantly sometimes. It translates so easily to getting dumped, getting cheated on, time's up, a bad date, any number of mundane disappointments, etc etc. But here's my question.

What happens if you heart actually DOES get broken. I'm not talking about the aforementioned. I'm talking about the cirumstance where, for whatever reason, your heart ceases to work. This is not even necessarily related to a romantic relationship. What if, somehow, human relations (of all and any sort) involve so much misleading, so much taunting, so much selfishness on the part of others, so much negligence in self-caring (and therefore not SEEING the selfishness of others), so much egotism, so much lack of communication, that one day a person's heart just shuts down, 'coz it just no longer knows what to do or what it's looking for. Everything it knows is wrong. Everything it wanted has ended up being wrong. It just doesn't work anymore. 

The term "broken heart" should not be used for people who have been dumped, or whose relationships have reached the sell-by date, or who play at one relationship while they've got three other fuck-buddies or "other relationships" on the back burner. It should be used for people who are genuinely incapable of using an organ that must, at some point, have known how to work.

I know.

But what's a Night of Dread without a good old-fashioned serving of cynicism.

The Economist? The Economist.

You know something is SERIOUSLY up with the world when I purchase (PURCHASE) a copy of The Economist to fill my free moments with.

like I need ANY more reasons to go to Berlin.

Bringer of tears on a Thursday morning.

You'd think it had been long enough that it wouldn't feel like such a tragedy still...
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/22/video-of-big-bird-si.html

Peur(s) du Noir

In January, I saw this film at the Angoulême comic festival, and it was Stunning. It was SO SO SO amazing. Practically silent, six short films told almost completely in images, and STUNNING images to boot. I came back here feeling really melancholic that it was probably one of those jems that will never make it across the ocean. Then this morning, the above link was sent to me, the movie is opening in New York next week. GLEEEE!!!!! I recommend it (so help us when it ventures northward) so much, it hurts.

Blue and blublu.

Well, I'm still unwell. It's making me the shade of this posting's title. I've had it with being energyless and morose. Although, as I am finally at the point where my resolve is gone, and I don't have energy for much more than movies and internet links and such, I suppose the life lesson (um, relax already!) stands in stark enough contrast to my usual demeanour; perhaps I'll learn a thing or two. Anyhow.

Someone I haven't spoken with in years emailed this link to me the other day, and I finally sat down to check it out in detail. IT.IS.SO.COOL. AWE.SOME.

It's ironic. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with the amount of stupidity and bad taste I see all around me on an average day. Other days I'm overwhelmed with how many people are doing stuff that's Too Amazing. 

It's a shame they rarely coincide, and the Too Cool stuff frequently seems to be far away and unaccessible. Or so I see it, anyhow.

From Aberdeen to Anchorage

It's always an odd and unsettling moment for me when I have to acknowledge that I am just sick enough that everything actually has to slow down, that I'm just not functioning properly, and deadlines may have to shift; basically, that things aren't going precisely according to plan.
It's intensely depressing, truth be told. And that's been my last WEEK. What do i need to do, dammit, send out a petition? "Dear virus-of-unseeable-origin, cease and desist these activities immediately, under threat of a firm-talking-to and social duress from surrounding friends and colleagues."
sigh.
Anyhow. Waking up this morning to two book orders from my etsy store was a small Thrilling palliative, and further realizing that one was from Anchorage Alaska, and the other from Aberdeen, Scotland (!!!) was Beyond Awesome.
Every so often one needs evidence that the world keeps you in it, even when you are hiding in your house, dragging yourself desperately from task to task. SUPREME.

to the sea!

The other night, on my birthday in fact, some writer at a book launch I stopped in on was describing her past (?) year spent in England. And I quote: I lived one block from the prison and two blocks from the sea"
Sounds like my life, sometimes. And yet, two blocks isn't really that far, is it?

If I had money to waste.

I would buy this:

Discovered today when I was trying to find the formal name for the Doctor's sonic screwdriver (which is, erm, "sonic screwdriver") A more ridiculous USB hub I have never seen, and yet, it brings me Such glee, for some silly reason.
I must have been a video-game-sci-fi-excess-porn-watching-british teenage boy cooped up in a basement in a previous lifetime. And now I'm reliving it with excessively boyish looks, a whole lot of time to myself, and an odd taste in computer accoutrements. Sigh.

For some reason

the existence of this page and the fact that someone sees the need for it to exist, makes me remarkably giddy.

Ladies and gentlemen, a breather if you will.

So. I am, today, officially THIRTY.FIVE. Is this even possible? The rain is falling gently outside, the mailbot hums down the hallway, a freshly picked pear and a cup of tea and some squishy brownie by my side.
And, as I find myself here at the grand master Castle for the day anyhow, I am going to make good their broadcasting mandate (whatever it is) and regale my loyal reader(s) with a few clever words.
Alas, they will not be mine, as I have none to impart.
No, I am taking a moment to transcribe for you the beginning of one of the Best Books of ALL Time, entitled "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass", by Bruno Schulz. As it is my Favourite Book Ever, I feel it is only fitting to spend my birthday with it, at least in the quieter moments at this strange job that goes from being busy to not busy to busy again.
Think of this, dear reader(s), as a reverse birthday present, as the following cannot fail to evoke something most reverent and wonderful in even the least book-biased of all of you.
And now, Mister Bruno Schulz. Bless him.

"I AM SIMPLING CALLING it The Book without any epithets or qualifications, and in this sobriety there is a shade of helplessness, a silent capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental, for no word, no allusion, can adequately suggest the shiver of fear, the presenti....

(ring ring. and there was a happy birthday a la Coco! How Very Fitting. Now, where was I?)

...the presentiment of a thing without name that exceeds all our capacity for wonder. How could an accumulation of adjectives or a richness of epithets help when one is faced with that splendiferous thing? Besides, any true reader-and this story is only addressed to him-will understand me anyway when I look him straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning. A short sharp look or a light clasp of his hand will stir him into awareness, and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book. For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don't we secretly clasp each other's hands?
The Book...Somewhere in the dawn of childhood, at the first daybreak of life, the horizon had brightened with its gentle glow...the wind would rustle through its pages and the pictures would rise...page after page floated in the air and gently saturated the landscape with brightness...The Book...

Oh happy happy day. I LOVE birthdays. And since my entire life Revolves around the above, I Love them too!