Evil Bat

You know how fall days can be described as 'crisp'? Well, yesterday was very crispy indeed; the air was actually cold though the grass, still wearing its vibrant summer coat, smelled lush and wet and verdantly alive. The maple leaves were just starting to turn their distinctive Canadian red, the sky was that serious, back-to-school blue and I had to stop and check out the rumpus on the playground:



Watching these girls, I had powerful sense memories of trying my own headstands, outside, at school. Of how, despite its sprongy grass cover, the ground is still really really hard on the crown of your head. Of how the downward rushing of blood makes your sinuses ring. Of how that nauseous jar you feel when you overbalance the wrong way and slam onto your back somehow doesn't deter you from trying again because you WILL get up and balance on your head THIS time. Gosh darn it.



Whenever I've walked past this school (which is on the way to Kensington Market) and the main basketball courts are busy, there is always one girl who's either watching a game (hoping to play) or playing (though having to really hustle to get the ball). It's interesting to see the guys' reactions because they (the guys) don't stop these girls from playing (or watching) but they (the girls) aren't part of The Gang. Tolerated isn't the right word because that implies an effort the boys aren't making; it's weird, it's sort of like...okay, you know those pet videos where you see, like, a dog introduced to a deer? And both animals kind of look at each other but there's no animosity or curiosity or even a 'huh, how about that' moment? There's just an 'oh, another mammal' sort of vibe. You know what I mean? It's kind of like that. Also, I really feel for those girls.



I know these pictures aren't great and that is partly because of my amateur skillz but also because I took the pictures while I was trying not to look like I was taking pictures. E.g.: there were some great moments where the three girls were doing handstands at the same time but to get said photos I would've had to quite obviously stare and point the camera at them for a very long time. Which, 1. might make them self-conscious and 2. seemed (and still seems) intrusive and kind of vampirific.

Why is that? I mean, if I took photos of a bunch of adults mucking about I'd still feel like I was being intrusive and kind of vampirific but not as much. Is this because I've been so sensitized to people preying on kids that even turning a curious eye on them feels morally wrong? Like, kids should not be watched except in a protective way? Or is the ubiquity of the personal image (see facebook, twitter et al) making a weird division between personal and private where private means: people don't know what I look like? And if we want to give kids privacy do we keep them out of the camera's gaze?

And what is the difference anyway between me actually stopping to watch these kids with my own eyeballs -- and having the resultant sense memory/reflective states -- and me taking photos of these kids? I'm still having the sense memory/reflective states only the photos let me share more succinctly with another person (you) what was/is in my head and, at the same time, these photos allow me to recall with greater ease this crispy fall day where I stopped to watch kids playing outside. I mean, is the act of watching essentially like taking a picture? Also, also, is this what it's like to be old? Is this what old people do -- watch younger people with a sense of nostalgia for their own lost experiences and/or feelings?

Further on this fuddling moral topic: as I walked up the sidewalk that follows the school's fence, there was an old woman who I initially took for a grandmother telling her grandkid(s) that she loved them but, on further consideration -- i.e., the grimy, overlarge white trainers; black, oversized jacket/pants; large shopping basket covered entirely, but neatly, with black garbage bag; large grey pompadour that currently seems to be the hairstyle of choice amongst street-wandering older ladies -- I realized she was likely homeless and therefore (unfortunately) possibly an addict, and an addict is a person who is more likely than a non-addicted person to engage in morally unacceptable activities in exchange for drugs.

Once I turned off my iPod, I thought her way of yelling, a bit shrilly, across a rather wide expanse of field, was maybe a little strange. I stopped a ways up from her to take some more pictures (but not of her and the kids). I have (as some of you will know) already encountered suspicious characters loitering around playgrounds and so I was ready to expect the worst. Even so. Even so, I could not bring myself to believe that this old woman was actually trying to do something bad to the very little kids who were running, laughing, towards her. And, do you know, when they got to close to the fence I actually looked away, embarrassed, like you do when you see someone crying on the bus (and you don't have the balls to go and ask them if they're okay)? So maybe this woman passed something over the fence to them (i.e., gave them some drugs). Or maybe she just said 'hi' to them because she's a lonely old lady and she was compelled to watch them. Just like I was.

She moved on pretty soon after that and I followed along behind her, away from the school grounds and across the street -- I was going that way anyway -- where she stopped on the corner for a cigarette. And, I thought to myself, what do I do? Ask her what she was doing loitering around school grounds? (Et tu, Brute?) Ask her why she was bothering those kids? Ask her if she worked for a drug dealer? Yeah. Right.

The school corners a park and a community centre that's populated by people who aren't exactly affluent, let's say. Judging by the looks of things, loitering unfortunate types aren't uncommon and maybe (I say hopefully) the kids either don't make judgments on the grown ups around them and/or they just ignore these people who aren't really part of their world. I have to remember, though, that I am not a child, and when faced with unpleasantness I must have the courage to not look away. And what does this say about what is personal and what is private?

So I was totally procrastinating a.k.a. doing some research on the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health site and reading about menstruation in ancient Egypt, as you do, and I thought I'd share some of the highlights (or, rather, low-lights) with you.

But first, here's a picture of ringworm (courtesy the wikipedia):



Anyway, here's a quote from the Museum's page on ancient Egyptian medical papyri:

"Perhaps the text is talking about a vaginal ringworm which may cause an inflammatory skin rash."

Vaginal. Ringworm. Ringworm...of the "vag". I think this proves that fungus is evil (accept when it's good, like on pizza).

Moving on.

According to the "Papyrus Ebers" (written around 1550 BC) if you want to perk up saggy boobs, said boobs "should be covered with menstrual blood and the woman's belly and her thighs covered as well."

Now you know.

My personal favourite, from the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus (written 1600 BC) goes as follows:

"If you examine a woman suffering in her abdomen, so that the menstrual discharge cannot leave her; and you notice something in the upper part of her vulva: Then you should say: This is a blockage of blood in her womb.

Then you should make for her a laxative for the blood; pine oil, caraway; galena; sweet, aromatic myrrh resin; it should be cooked until a homogeneous consistency is achieved and then her pubic region should be repeatedly rubbed with it. ..."

You would think that 'repeated rubbing of the pubic region' would be just the kind of medicine to make you jump up and say, "Doctor, Doctor, give me the news!"; however:

"...additionally you should administer hyena-ear in oil/fat as follows: After it is rotten you should massage her pelvis region repeatedly with it."

What is the key word in that last sentence? Yes. You are correct. "Rotten." Here is a picture of a dead squirrel:



I just want to point out that you're lucky, photo-wise, because I just couldn't bring myself to get within camera range of the poor road-killed raccoon I saw about a week later. It was really big and I wasn't ready to see so much death because I am a complete wuss like that. So much for my ancient Egyptian medical career.

Speaking of photos, I've been taking snaps of this and that over the past while as I've been out and about. Because most of these photos totally suck I couldn't really figure out what to do with them -- until now...

Voila, the low-light (pun intended) reel of me-wandering-around-with-my-camera-over-the-last-long-while.

Exciting event No. 1: The British Isles Show.

Ms. P. and I went to look at cultured, British-type things like Coronation Street merchandise, Doctor Who merchandise, Benny Hill merchandise, small children in sequined leprechaun outfits performing cabaret-style riverdances with buxom milkmaids, and Prince Harry:


(Sorry for the blurriness, I was afraid to go too close to him.)

We also saw other traditional English things like novelty teapots and mountains of Cadbury's chocolate:



My personal favourite were the inspirational plastic eggs in brass holders. This is a modern take on a tradition that started during the Battle of Hastings when the English King, Harold II, got a rotten egg marked with a hedge-wizard's curse right in the eyeball (and not an arrow, as some historians would claim). He died, the Normans won the day and, as their ultimate prize, England.

Apparently the double-damned sulfurous projectile was actually meant for the Norman King, William the Conquerer, and it was William's idea to hand out eggs with more salutary sayings -- such as: "be ful of leonyn corage lyke mee" and "by goddes bones wal yon cese wepyng and waylyng" -- to the dejected leaders of the trounced English army because he was thoughtful like that. And the English, to show they weren't bothered, embraced the tradition and thus we see today:



Exciting event No. 2: Toronto, Open City.

Every year the city does this 'summer, whee!' thing where Josephine Q. Public can poke around in buildings that would typically be off-limits. Last summer there was kind of churchy theme happening so the intrepid Ms. P. and I ventured out yet again. The highlight of our travels, for me, was the Kiever Synagogue in Kensington Market:



The building has been in the process of ongoing restoration over the years and it is quite beautiful.



What that excellent photo, taken by Robert Burley, doesn't show is how the eyes of the guarding lions are full of holy fire!



How TOTALLY awesome is that? Ms. P. found out the burning leonyn eyeballs are LCD displays so they essentially never waver. Word. Or, should I say, The Word.

Anyway, when we came into the synagogue, it was chock full of people listening to a very charismatic rabbi narrating the history of the building, and explaining a little about the Jewish faith, and otherwise orating in very fine form.

It was so busy, in fact, that we didn't get to sit in the creaky polished pews but on some card chairs set in front of double doors through which a very anxious-looking fellow demanded passage because HE HAD TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.

Ms. P. and I, not wanting to block anyone so clearly desperate for THE BATHROOM, naturally parted our chairs to let him by. A few moments later a harried-looking volunteer came over to ask us if we'd seen a homeless guy who was always trying to sneak in to use the bathroom which he wasn't supposed to do. In the house of the Commandments we thought it best not to lie and were told that it was kind-of-not-good we let him through. But, since the injunction "Thou shall not let anxious homeless men use THE BATHROOM" wasn't actually posted in plain sight, the volunteer wasn't really cranky with us.

Go back to the nice photo of the inside of the synagogue, you see how (in the photo I didn't take) there's a brass square hung with lights sort of hovering above the floor? Well, the rabbi welcomed questions and so I asked "What's the significance of the square?"

The rabbi answered, first of all, that it was a good question (and I felt very chuffed with myself indeed) and then he said that when he was a young man, he and a bunch of his friends were invited to this dinner with an old and venerated rabbi. And all the young folk were super excited to meet this wise rabbi-dude (yes, I'm paraphrasing) and so they go to this house where there's a long table set up for dinner and everyone's sitting around and talking and there's this fantastic spread of wonderful-smelling food and someone's pouring out sweet wine and it's all convivial and so on. Then the old rabbi, without a word, picks up his cup and starts making obscure hand gestures over and into his wine as he's muttering to himself so everyone stops what they're doing to watch him.

When he puts his cup down one of the youngsters asks, "Rabbi, what was the significance of what you did with your wine, was it some kind of special blessing?"

And the rabbi answers, "No, there was a fly in my cup."

Exciting event No. 3: The Martial Arts Expo.

Here are some photos of a martial arts demonstration where Mr. Evil Bat was showing this nice young man the finer points of how to kill other people with samurai swords.



Aside from that one little pocket of old skoolery, the rest of the convention hall was more like this:





Which made me think of this:



And, like the British Show, there were many booths at this event too where you could buy! buy! buy! things like fighting pants and fighting pads and fighting energy drinks and fighting lessons and fighting t-shirts like this:



I think EMS drivers should wear these shirts because you know, if I were bleeding all over the road after a nasty accident, I think I would feel much better knowing that blood was only red sweat. "Boy, it's hot out today!", I'd say.

Maybe it's time to calm down a little with a few pictures from the Royal Ontario Museum (a.k.a. Exciting event No. 4 and 5, because I've been there twice).

Here is a bronze statue, from Northern China, of Buddha in the aspect of Vairocana or, the supreme or primordial Buddha. According to the website I just looked at, "he represents the wisdom of shunyata or 'emptiness'", but according to the plaque in the ROM he is the "Buddha of Light or the supreme manifestation of the Buddha principle". At any rate this representation is awesome and, really and truly, all kidding aside, that statue is very calming to be around.



Here are some ladies who've been using their menstrual blood to good effect:



Actually they are 10th century Surasundari, or Celestial Beauties, from Madhya Pradesh, India. (Because I didn't know what Madhya Pradesh, abbreviated as "MP", was -- a state? a province? -- I looked it up for me AND for you: currently, says the wikipedia, MP is one of the largest states in India. Also known as the 'Heart of India', its capital is Bhopal.)

Apparently, according to the ROM, "Surasundari are auspicious beings who signify devotion and veneration of the God. Poets and artists used metaphors drawn from nature to convey the idealized form -- breasts like cups of nectar, slender arms like lotus stalks, thighs like the trunk of an elephant, and long gazelle-like legs. This physical beauty symbolized spiritual purity, reminding viewers of the beauty of the eternal divine."

Speaking of beauty here's a vision from this year's Pride Parade:



to which you can do your own "poetical rhapsodizing" as you see fist. I mean fit. FIT.

And on that vibrating high note, I shall wrap up Part 1 of my low-light reel. Stay tuned part II...

That doesn't make any sense, does it? Stay linked? Stay RSSed? I see I shall have to work on my Internet metaphors...

I'm starting to go a bit feral. My hair is mangy. Various parts of me that shouldn't be furry, um. Are. I'm also back into an 11pm to 4 am working schedule -- and smoking cigars to help me do this -- so not only am I over-tired and jittery, I also smell like the kind of ashtray you'd find in an oak-paneled library with pictures of ships on the walls and pictures of naked ladies in the desk drawers. I don't think I've spent more than an hour in the sunshine in, like, a month.

And still this draft isn't finished!

Whee!

I decided I needed to take a leetle break. The light today made the winter colours look really, um, wintery. So I took my camera out when I went shopping and now I will inflict the results on you. Happy Belated New Year.

( Suffer, doods. )

Okay, so yesterday? When all the eardrum punishing D.I.Y. was happening? Why didn't I return my very overdue library books and do my Kensington Market shopping then? Why?

Answer: Because I am dumb.

But it was raining yesterday and today it was luverly. See?







See the almost full moon in the last one? Purty.

That is all. Berackenridge.

A haiku, by me.

Random hammering
Mightier than my ear plugs--
Fuck you guys, for real.

You guys, if there were ever a better representation of the -- or perhaps I should say, MY -- artistic process, I haven't seen it:


Minus the world-famous, of course.

I think every kid who grew up in Canada during the '70's probably had the same Sunday TV routine: waiting for "The Beachcombers" to end so that we could watch "The Wonderful World of Disney"...

Particularly when you knew that TWWoD was going to feature cartoons as they always did on holidays, like HALLOWE'EN!

You guys, I can still remember watching the "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and the opening shot to its whole 'cut-for-TV' sequence which shows clouds forming the shape of a hand that closes over the moon.



I can remember going to bed that night and not being able to sleep because -- as I said to my mom as I stood, all wigged out, in the kitchen in my pajamas -- I couldn't get that image out of my head.

(Which is a little weird since, really, it's not that scary compared to, say, a headless man swinging a sabre and holding a flaming pumpkin of death!)



(But then that last image of Ichabod's hat and the shattered pumpkin also scared the bejesus out of me. Perhaps this is why I have such a hard time with plot -- it's all about the ambience, baby.)



Anyways! Since today is Hallowe'en I, on a whim, sent my brother this in an email:

'when ghosts and goblins by the score
ring the bell at your front door
you'd better not be stingy or
your nightmares will come true!'

Because I knew he would TOTALLY get the reference to that particular Hallowe'en WWoD cartoon.

In response, he (being the house expert on animation) sent me links to all the Hallowe'en-y type Disney cartoons we used to watch as kids, both on TV and on VHS collections of Silly Symphonies which, I swear to God, we rented, like, every month for years.

As I was watching them today I decided that you guys REALLY NEED TO SEE THESE because they're such great examples of Disney at it's best: fantastic art (just look at those Sleepy Hollow stills again) and great characters. I mean, "The Mad Doctor" has an image like this:



I seriously don't think you'd see that in a Disney cartoon today and just imagine the kind of Mickey Mouse who would need to save his dog from such nefarious dealings! I bet you can't so just watch them, you guys. I mean, I know, I don't always watch youtube links when I get them either 'cause I'm all 'ah, I'll watch it later' but YOU MUST MAKE THE EFFORT TODAY.

For Hallowe'en!

Massive props to my brother (who does, for the record, a superb impression of the interchange between the "Ma'am" and Mickey in "Haunted House") for the linkage. If you have to be a loser because you, like, have a life then I'd watch "Trick or Treat", "The Mad Doctor" and, obviously, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" because maybe you've never seen it in its entirety?

"Trick or Treat"
"Donald Duck and the Gorilla"
"Duck Pimples"
"Haunted House"
"The Mad Doctor"
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I know it's been a while since I posted so here's an update before I slip back under the surface:

1. This morning I was looking out of our living room window at the view of the park (soon to be blocked by $2 million lofts) and I couldn't help noticing how the intense blue gaze of the summer sky has gone cooly distant, like it's bored now and isn't even pretending to be interested in our conversation anymore. Jerk.



2. My chicken stock looks milky. In all the times I've made chicken stock it's never been milky-looking. Naturally, I read this opacity as a jolly roger heralding liquid doom of the most toxic nature and was going to give the stock the old heave-ho.

Fortunately -- after a brief half hour consultation -- the interwebs assured me that milky chicken stock is the result of not rinsing the chicken carcass before putting it in the pot. Since I've only used a raw carcass once before -- usually it's the left-over roast chicken bones for us -- I suppose I got lucky the first time. (And I wonder how many ladies can say that?) (Ah, reverse sexism, how hilarious you are.)

While the interwebs didn't actually SAY the stock was fine, flickr (of all places) showed me enough people who make (and take pictures of) their cloudy chicken stock to reassure me that cloudy chicken stock is quite normal.

Yes, you did read that correctly -- people take photos of their stock (but probably not as often as they take stock of their photos).

I suspect people take pictures of all sorts of things you typically don't expect, cloudy chicken stock being one of the more banal -- rather like this post. For the record, I can't yet make myself type in 'booger' as a search term on flicker but I need to have something to look forward to now that summer's moved on.

For those of you still reading, I actually unearthed an unexpected treasure on the chicken stock page, this being a visual "how-to" guide for chicken and sausage gumbo! Yum!

( I forgot to put a cut tag in here with the initial post. Sorry guys! Read more! )

I am trying to get the current draft of my book finished before my Mom arrives on Saturday. For the past week, my most productive time has been from 11pm to 4am so I'm in a very strange state of being just now. (Just now, Evil Bat, you say?)

So I have nothing much to say at the moment (at the moment, Evil Bat, you say?) but this article by Matthew Syed was delightfully salacious -- and topical -- and I thought you guys would get off on it too:

"I am often asked if the Olympic village - the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hosts the world's top athletes for the duration of the Games - is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be. My answer is always the same: too right it is."

Read the rest of his Times Online piece "Sex and the Olympic City"...

I have been flattened for the last four days by a one-two combination of migraine-flu. Today I can actually sit up for more than than half an hour at a time so, naturally, I had to come to the interwebs...

These





are from an exhibition called "Nothing That Happens After We Are Twelve Matters Very Much" by photographer Andrew Burton. (link cribbed from wood s lot.)

I think Burton captures very well that powerful sense I had, as a child, of being at the centre of my imaginative universe. I suppose I was lucky because I grew up next to a provincial park where there were creeks and caves and wide stretches of long grasses where I could wander -- responsible to nobody -- and lose myself. Or perhaps find myself.

Of course kids don't need such bucolic largesse to have fun -- a backyard, a basement, that space under the bed will do -- just a place where they can engage in exploratory play. Maybe I'm just feeling a bit on the shmoopy side because I'm sick but I appreciated Burton's reminder of those times when the most stressful part of the day was your mom telling you to come inside...

So I'm rediscovering Radiohead (I know, I know, like 15 years after the fact) and I wanted to listen to "2+2=5" based on Rolling Stone's props towards Ed O'Brien and Jonny Greenwood (they're numbers 59 and 60, respectively, on RS's 100 greatest guitarists of all time) and so I went to youtube and found this:



I don't care if it takes nods from "The Wall", it's still pretty awesome and also, as far as I can tell, fan-created, which makes it even more awesome. Awesomer. XL Awesome. As for the guitar, it does kick some serious ass all over town but it doesn't egregiously stand out from the song and it never overpowers Yorke's vocals. Actually, now that I think about it, despite the song's hysteria, everything is awfully controlled (everything's in its right place, you might say) which is all very Radiohead, so it seems to me, but I'm still in early days yet on this whole Radiohead experience.

Before I wander off, I should mention that Pete Townshend wrote the bit for Rolling Stone's number one guitarist -- Jimi Hendrix -- and it's well-worth reading because it contains stuff like this:

"He was dusty — he had cobwebs and dust all over him. He was a very unremarkable-looking guy with an old military jacket on that was pretty dirty. It looked like he'd maybe slept in it a few nights running. When he would walk toward the stage, nobody would really take much notice of him. But when he walked off, I saw him walk up to some of the most covetable women in the world. Hendrix would snap his fingers, and they followed him. Onstage, he was very erotic as well. To a man watching, he was erotic like Mick Jagger is erotic. It wasn't "You know, I'd like to take that guy in the bathroom and fuck him." It was a high form of eroticism, almost spiritual in quality. There was a sense of wanting to possess him and wanting to be a part of him, to know how he did what he did because he was so powerfully affecting. Johnny Rotten did it, Kurt Cobain did it. As a man, you wanted to be a part of Johnny Rotten's gang, you wanted to be a part of Kurt Cobain's gang."

I always find it fascinating when men talk about other men that way, I don't know why. Maybe because ostensibly straight men don't often get so specific about their feelings towards other doods...

So the BSC came for a visit and it threw down (or, rather, up):



Do not mess with the S of the BC:



(Apologies for the graininess which I used to think was kind of cool viz. the pointillist Seurat but now not so much.)

Onto tangential matters: dragons make me think of the Barsoom reunion which Mr. Evil Bat is plotting plotting plotting...

And, in other news, our friend Steve of the Web has started a podcast and it is great so you should listen to it (if you want to and you do):

http://steveoftheweb.com/podcasts/sotw-01.mp3

If you go to his site, you can find a link to subscribe and be updated all regular-like.

Dirigibles! making a comeback!



You guys, how totally cool is that? While I'm not knocking speedy air travel (5 hours from Toronto to Vancouver makes me happy), perhaps being forced to slow down is not all spankings and silent treatment. Not when you can take your time in an effin dirigible!

Stolen from Lord Whimsy

The view from our building's rooftop where the communal BBQs are. May I add that BBQed chicken is very tasty. As are BBQed red peppers. And zucchini. And asparagus. Also, I'm fond of our view.

With the exception of Arvo Part (who is all old skool anywayz), I'm usually not a huge fan of contemporary choral music but Eric Whitacre's stuff is quite beautiful. This is 'Sleep' and it really is one of the better versions on youtube despite the cheap camcorder sound which kills one's ability to clearly hear the words.

At any rate, here's a taste:



I highly recommend the disc "Cloudburst" for more of the likewise...

In other news, I am just back from helping my brother



find an apartment in Montreal, land of certain types who were all "you can has relijun" to the Iroquois. See?



What I particularly like about the above bit of business (from the Basilique Notre-Dame) is how the image is 'supported' by the Pieta underneath, as if to say that sentiment of maternal comfort and grief and sorrow is the very same with which the nuns are administering to the soon-to-be-converted. That's some very solid iconography.

Actually, in all honesty, the Basilique Notre-Dame really knocked me on my ass (which is perhaps why I'm thinking of the church-y sounding choral music) and whether one is a believer or not, that building inspires a sense of awe.



Religious imagery was a theme of the trip as we spent a good deal of time in the medieval/early renaissance section of the Musee des Beaux Arts, much to my very great amusement.

One of the things I love about religious art of this period (14th/15th C. give or take) is how the unique perspectives of the artists are even more noticeable because they all have to paint the same thing (Mary, Jesus, angels and what have you) and it's great to see how people manage to assert their individuality through the cracks, so to speak.

So, check this out, four different versions of "The Annunciation" which is where the Angel Gabriel shows up and is all: Ave Maria! (which is Latin for 'What's shaking, Mary?') Guess what! You peed on the stick and it's blue! And Mary's all: But I haven't even gone past first base... And Gabriel's all: I know! But you will! And Mary's all: What? And Gabriel's all: The Holiest will be visiting your Holey and He'll be sticking around!

Anyway, in all of them Mary's eyes are downcast and she's got a hand raised for the 'Goodness me, I was just sitting here reading my book and suddenly the angel of the lord shows up!' reaction but each artist gives the scene a different vibe:

"Yo!"



by Antonio Llonye

"No."



by Bernat Martorell

"A baby? For me? You shouldn't have."



by the Master of Liesborn

"Well, I suppose it's long enough."



by Jan de Beer

And see how in the last one she doesn't even bother to get her hand fully up? That is one unperturbed Virgin.

And speaking of the Virgin, another example of this individuality slipping through the cracks can be seen with the theme "The Education of the Virgin" (which isn't quite as concupiscent as some of you may hope) depicting Mary's mother teaching her scripture:





The former is French and the latter is German. I don't know about you guys but if I were Mary? I'd prefer gesticulating conversation to what is obviously indoctrination of the 'read it or else' variety. I'm just saying.

This last one isn't for comparing thematically, I just liked it. It's called 'Virgin and Child in Majesty with God the Father, the Holy Ghost and Angels' by Giovanni del Biondo.



As my brother pointed out, the addition of the bird is an attempt to portray baby Jesus as a 'normal' baby, one who'd be curious about something small and flappy and colourful in that way babies are.

Personally, I think the artist makes Jesus look like he'd enjoy gnawing on that bird like an arrowroot cookie



but maybe that's just me.

And you thought religious art was boring.

"Uh oh."

How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And does n't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.

-- Emily Dickinson

(from the Modern Library Edition)

In my recent blog perambulations, I came across these posts --

http://docbrite.livejournal.com/2008/05/08/

http://louismaistros.livejournal.com/8916.html

-- which acted as a nice reminder (with helpful charity links) about giving to help people in Burma. We just did so maybe you will too.

I think one of the (many) reasons why Canada doesn't have a legacy of cinema like, say, that of America is because we didn't have the money and/or resources to make films until recently (comparatively speaking). But this doesn't mean we don't have a history of visual invention.

The animated shorts produced by Radio-Canada's animation department and The National Film Board of Canada -- particularly during the age of Norman McLaren -- are, I think, where our legacy of visual innovation can be (if you'll pardon the pun) seen. Unlike film, animation is cheap and not weather-dependent.

While McLaren (himself a Scot) attracted international artists to the NFB -- for example, Ishu Patel from India, American Caroline Leaf and Dutchman Co Hoedeman -- there were also born and bred types, such as Winnipeg's Richard Condie and Ottawa's Evelyn Lambart to name but two. And, really, it seems to me this assembling of different cultures in non-melting pot fashion is nothing if not Canadian. If I may be allowed a small exclamation, let just me say: geez, it's alright being a Canuck.

Here are a few more great films that aren't available on the NFB's website...

Cordell Barker's "The Cat Came Back":



Ryan Larkin's "Walking".

Paul Driessen's "Au Bout Du Fil" (this film freaks me right the fuck out):



Of all the above films, Condie's "The Big Snit" is my absolute favourite -- it's so funny and so human and yet kind of weird and bleak and unrelenting all at the same time. Kind of like Canadians, eh?

Frederic Back was (and is), in my very limited opinion, the big hitter of Radio-Canada's animation department. These films are amazing:

"The Man Who Planted Trees"


"Crac!"

From daily zen:

Kuei-Shan was asked: "Is there any further cultivation for people who have suddenly awakened?"
He replied: "If they awaken truly, realizing the fundamental, they know instinctively when it happens. The question of cultivation or not is two-sided. Suppose beginners have conditionally attained a moment of sudden awakening to the inherent truth but there are still longstanding habit energies that cannot yet be cleared all at once? They must be taught to clear away streams of consciousness manifesting habitual activity. That is cultivation but there cannot be a particular doctrine to have them practice or devote themselves to."
--Kuei-Shan (771-854)