Amplifying boobage.

My friend J (as yet unconfirmed on the privacy/blogging front, and therefore initialized for safety) invited me to come play in her wardrobe trailer, parked at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, last week. And THIS is what we found for my entertainment. Actually used to amplify actors' boobage.

Excellent.

Topographical Disorientation (take 2)

And I took down the first one, as I had to do the whole thing again. But I think this one turned out even better.

(and for those of you just joining us, the original post: I have just, with both excitement and trepidation, completed an illustration for Canadian Geographic magazine on the topic of topographical disorientation, a condition whereby people find themselves constantly disoriented in their very own lives. There is no physiological/neurological condition associated with this illness, the hypothesis is that people are somehow just not able to construct proverbial roadmaps of their personal lives, and so constantly feel lost.

A better assignment couldn't have dropped from the heavens. GLEE!

Kipple.

It's an endless struggle. In dealing with the Stuart Little incident now a few weeks past, I took the opportunity to oust all kipple from a closet and another little cranny that has become repository for all manner of junk. 

The worst habit comes out of environmental concern, believe it or not. I somehow acquire such things as I do not want to put in our landfills, and so hang on to them thinking, "at some point that will be useful".

Like this:

Sealed air.

I'm not sure who was kind enough to give this to me, but three bags of it were found. As my friend jrbi pointed out it might well be worth keeping. When armaggedon hits and the oxygen supply dries up, I'll be three breaths ahead of everyone. So as people die all around me, I can pull out my sealed air and live smug in the knowledge that I survived three breaths past civilization.

Be prepared, they said in Girl Guides. Always be prepared.

It is a new thing in my life

To be excited, nay, THIS excited about a politician. Particularly an american one. But WOW.

The most ambitious teabag in the world

Happened upon this photo today, taken with a REAL (read: pre-digital) camera, in Cornwall, England, in 1999.

This teabag was discovered by one stef lenk and one Scott Treleaven on a meander out to St. Michael's Mount. Upon sighting it, the latter exclaimed loudly (on behalf of the teabag)

"I'M GOING TO BREW THE SEA!"

which would make this, perhaps, the most ambitious writer in the world.

Especially given the wind, that November day. Cornwall, England, the second last month of the 20th century. (that partially obscured white object is a typewriter, by the way, complete with sheaf of papers)

Jaques Bossuet, who are you and why are you so insightful.

So I subscribe to a thing called bite-sized languages, as a part of my daily email procrastination. Every day I get a sentence (in german and in french)with which to whet my ill-adept linguistic mind.

Today's quote was this:

Man kann in einem einzelnen Leben sämtliche Extremitäten menschlicher Beziehungen erkennen. - Jaques Bossuet

(tr: You will see in a single life all the extremities of human affairs.)

Yes.

And on the topic of books: TEATIME 2; the launch at last.

I have finished it. The sequel/completion of TeaTime. I have sent it to the printers, looked at a proof, and am going in tomorrow morning to give press approval. And despite the hair-pulling frustration that some of those bloody pages gave me, I have to say, I'm excited. After a couple of hard months on a few fronts, things are LOOKING UP.

Which brings me to the launch.

On Wednesday the 3rd December I will be having a launch to set this little whim out into the world, generously (most most MOST generously) co-hosted by Brick Literary Journal, who will concurrently be launching issue 82 of their revered publication (and also the last issue that I have had any hand in making...sniffle)

SO.

WEDNESDAY 3 DECEMBER.

MITZI'S SISTER IN TORONTO.

Doors at 7.30.

FREE.

• There will be readings by Michael Helm and other significant personages that I can't remember at the moment, although many of those significant personages that edit dear Brick will be present for you to gawk at, should you be that way inclined. Actually it will be a lovely assortment of people, given the crowd that read Brick and, well, the crowd that know of my little books.

• There will also be clever lessons in paper-cutting (thank you, ghost of H.C.Andersen)

• And there will be...erm...my little book. For sale. Crying out for attention, and perchance offering some visual edification for those who give in.

Really I just want to get drunk with my friends and anyone else who might have a fondness for silent sequential drawing and literary journals too, so won't you please come out, if you know me, know my books, live in Toronto or are simply a functional and socially adept human being looking for something to do on the evening of the 3rd?

And won't you also look at page 81 of Brick and tell me how lovely it is too?

Lovely.

Brick 82.

I received my copy of Brick today, Blessed Brick, with Hans Christian Andersen papercuts on the front, a wealth of literary brilliance inside. And I thumbed through it, and tried not to feel sad and nostalgic and like it looks much better than when I was at production's helm (Damn you, MB!)...and then I got to the end and there in a 1/4 page corner of the ads section was this photo, (which, Vain as it is, is one of my Favourite photos on earth, that blessed linotype)

with the words "here's to stef lenk, master of hyperbole" beneath it.

I felt like I had won a bloody oscar. I really did. It was SO awesome. SO.SO.AWESOME. It was the best thing in Forever. I swear to God.

fiction or fact; or is fiction fact?

I was chatting with someone the other day who asked me, "you mean you don't have to be somewhere every morning?". 

I answered no, and she was both surprised and envious. 

The lyrics from an old James song came to mind "You can have/whatever you want/but are you disciplined enough to be free?"

This past week I have been wondering exactly that, noticing the distinct irony of someone else's jealousy that I am presently not involved in anything that is important to anyone but me. Which is in fact a very difficult undertaking, believe it or not. And not necessarily as blessed as it may seem.

But to be fair, stepping outside of myself, this does seem so great. People (frequently non-arts workers) have commented before to me on my exciting ubercool life, which I frequently seem quite inured to. And when I see other peoples' lives, I feel envy myself, without even stopping to realize I share much of the same advantages as they.

So which is the fiction, then? Peoples' thoughts on my life, or my own consternation over it?

320 to 141.

So far, but enough to know.

More than slightly overwhelming, in Every Way. Obama Obama Obama.

THANK.GOD(s).

and another one in the name of vanity and the circus.

Goodness, I FORGOT!

Shan! (and other possibly oblivious bloggers.)

Go to "settings", then "comments", then scroll down to the bottom. There is a "comment notification email" and if you put your address in there, blogger will faithfully notify you when someone has been kind enough to read and comment on your posted wisdom.

A thing that makes me happy.

After eight and a half hours of teaching my mum to use a mac, It's a wonder I'm standing. I have to say though, there is nothing like days like these to make one feel rather clever. Christ, we barely got through the ins and outs of the OS and iTunes.

However.

This picture (below) makes me happy.

And now, to bed.

more effective than I had intended

As forwarded to me this afternoon. I implore my friends not to turn me in, I never thought the anthrax leavings from my salt shaker would carry so far. Or with quite the odour of babies' bums as they did.

it's funny to realize

that the nights I go on like the most righteous gasbag are also the nights I feel (likely with reason) like the Biggest Loser. 

(shrug) Don't judge a book by its cover. No truer words were ever spoken.

Halloween antics

About half way through yesterday I decided that going out for Halloween really was becoming a necessary endeavour. But I had nary a costume. My first thought was to go as a schizophrenic, but didn't know if any apparatus I could think up could hold an extra head of mine, even if it was just a photo depiction. So I settled in the end on anthrax, which seemed ironically fitting for a Halloween costume, given the antics of the year. 

Not bad for a half-hour's work about 10 minutes before I ventured out for the evening.

I had a small salt shaker filled with anonymous white toxin, that smelled only slightly like baby powder. The funniest ("funniest") moment of the evening was when I was approached by a man dressed as a postman, who offered me a letter. I opened it up; written on the paper were the words "everyone needs a bosom for a pillow". 

Yes, thank you Cornershop, no truer words were ever spoken.