Dreaming Man

mama's mansion

2012-02-12T22:07:00.001-05:00

Early February, drowsiness sets in, the mind becomes transparent, Lohbado thought about his dear old mother who died in 1981. She used to say, in her mother's mansion there are many rooms. While having coffee, Lohbado gazed out the window at the old textile factory and its many windows.

Saturday Lunch

2012-02-04T11:15:00.003-05:00

A well balanced lunch, following the principles of Club Morono, might include grass jelly, instant natural jellyfish, curry gravy and a pot of coffee.

groundhog day

2012-02-02T16:11:00.002-05:00

Lohbado ventured out of his basement apartment on February 2. First, he took a picture of himself in the bathroom mirror, thus creating a separation between the immediate determination of Lohbado and Lohbado as reflected for himself. He saw and photographed his reflection in a neighbor's door, a reflection of Lohbado for others. That means Lohbado will go back to his apartment and mediate another six weeks of winter into a negation of winter as the affirmative presence of spring.

More important, February 2 was the birthday of James Joyce.

decay

2012-01-30T22:36:00.001-05:00

This broken bike is likely under a layer of ice and snow right now. I took the photo a few years ago, on the edge of Payne River.

midwinter breakfast

2012-01-26T23:13:00.001-05:00

Midwinter grogginess, happens every year, the end of January, it got cold for a few weeks in Montreal. I got out the arctic parka and ordered a large coffee to stay awake. I eat porridge and yoghurt every morning for breakfast. I wonder what the cat is contemplating.

my day with a friend

2012-01-16T22:03:00.004-05:00

We hadn't seen each other in a while. It was a perfect day for a rendezvous at a cafe, then lunch down the street, a visit to the dollar store and a drink at a local bar.

back to the grindstone

2012-01-09T17:18:00.001-05:00


Payne River as it approaches Ungava Bay, Nunavik

I took the above photo a few years ago, when working in the arctic. It was the view out my living room window.

January 2012, the holidays are over. Get used to the long haul until spring break. Time to get serious. Settle down to a discipline. Let Lohbado speak. Lohbado took notes, automatic handwriting, from the spirit of Lohbado and wrote new stories for Club Morono.

white cat

2012-01-06T13:35:00.001-05:00

This white cat is a sociable creature, with thick, soft fur. The cat likes to be coddled and massaged.

holiday relaxation at the Plaza

2011-12-29T18:19:00.004-05:00

Plaza Cote des Neiges is within walking distance of where I live. People often go there to shop and relax.

holiday season

2011-12-24T14:09:00.000-05:00

Holiday season is happening again, last week of December. Relax, have a cup of coffee. Eat bowl of soup. Visit friends. Do a self-portrait, using an old Canon powershot and the soap-spattered bathroom mirror.

Randy's Birthday

2011-12-23T05:00:00.002-05:00

Wednesday a group of friends gathered at an Irish pub downtown to celebrate Randy's birthday. The fabulous woman who served our table was friendly and provided good service. Happy birthday Randy!

do the laundry

2011-12-19T12:15:00.003-05:00

I do the laundry down at lavoir on Rue Victoria, not far from Van Horne in Montreal. I enjoy looking at the buildings and signs across the street. A thin layer of snow made the sidewalks slippery. My clothes have been washed in the soap suds of the machine.

Open Sore

2011-12-17T08:19:00.002-05:00

{This is a work of fiction, but such things do happen.}

The old man got up in the night, fell down, tore the skin on his forearm. Joe leaped out of bed and ran to the rescue. His father Bob, ninety years old, lay on the floor. Joe called an ambulance. They sat five hours in emergency. The old man was fine. They put dressing on his arm. Three days later, the dressings came loose and tore away skin, under his pajama, leaving an exposed open sore.

The skin of an old person is sensitive, dry, brittle and easily torn. A nurse came to replace the dressing and cover up the exposed wound. It looked scary but actually wasn't worse than a skinned knee or arm that a kid would get after falling off a bicycle. The freaky part was removing the adhesive from the fragile skin, without tearing off the skin. The nurse soaked the dressing with alcohol and was angry that anyone would apply such adhesive directly to the skin of an old man. It hurt when she removed the old dressing. She patched him up. Bob felt OK was the dressing was changed.

horsey ride at the Plaza Cote des Neiges

2011-12-05T12:29:00.001-05:00

If you're looking for a horsey or piggy ride, Plaza Cote des Neiges is the place to go. There's the piggy near Meuble Cite and the horses in the food court.

bathroom light to kitchen sink

2011-12-03T10:23:00.001-05:00

A bright light beside the mirror provided a way out of darkness. Lohbado went to the kitchen and gazed at fluids in the kitchen sink. He washed his hands and then washed the dishes.

body

2011-12-01T10:05:00.001-05:00

Image from a painted book, by John Higham.

One day Lohbado stumbled over a rock and fell head first on the ground. He was about fifteen years old. That was the first time he could remember contemplating the nature of the body. Of course, there are bio-psychological explanations. You could rattle off some scientific information, but that begs the question: what exactly is going on? You could specify what is going on, but it still doesn't answer the question. Lohbado lay on the ground a few minutes to feel the nature of body. There appeared to be a separation between body and mind. Consciousness created duality of us and them, self and other.

Rather than attempt to reply to the questions, Lohbado sat up and contemplated his body and tried to look at his mind.

unborn chickens

2011-11-21T19:41:00.001-05:00

Homage to unborn chickens, aborted eggs, pause a minute to contemplate the mysteries of life. Where did the chicken lay the egg?

tomato truth

2011-11-15T15:15:00.001-05:00

A tomato mandala showed up on the kitchen table. The four petals fold back to reveal a wheel within a wheel. Squeeze the tomato to sauce, juice or paste. Slice it. Leave it alone. Look at it. Gaze deeply into the brown circle, protected by four copper green leaves. This tomato, in all its redness, doesn't lie still. It easily rolls. The truth of the tomato is something extra, like balsamic vinegar, or mayonnaise. You gotta eat it to believe it.

uncouth

2011-11-14T09:18:00.001-05:00

Lohbado had the ability to fall asleep within seconds. A few times, he fell asleep instantly after deciding to take a nap. Sleep began in mid air, before his head hit the pillow and his body flopped on the sofa.
He dreamed a friend invited him to the bar. The woman behind the counter went into a long explanation about the various drink specials. Lohbado ordered the too good to be true deal: four drinks for four dollars. That could include, beer, wine or spirits. Lohbado ordered the drink and then waited. Instead of bringing him a drink, the waitress told him that she was being fired. The manager said she was uncouth. Suddenly, her face became emaciated like a skull. Lohbado realized he was face to face with a medieval style personification of death. Lohbado's dance of death, a contemplation of mortality.

Nobody lives forever. Things get old and wear out. Each instant vanishes as it occurs. One could play mental games and create conceptual models to explain continuity. No mental gymnastics can alter the fact that what is happening right now will soon be forgotten, or distorted. In fact, only a small portion of what is going on is actually perceived. It will be as though this moment never even happened. Lohbado woke up, had breakfast and then wrote down the dream.

D for Desperado

2011-10-26T13:35:00.003-04:00

Today's feature at the theater of life, D for Desperado. Yes, it actually happened, I never thought I'd live to see the day when in Montreal, someone would try to rob me. Monday, about 3 PM, down by Champ de Mars, a man, about thirty-five, in a leather jacket demanded I hand over my back pack. I told him to leave me alone. While talking, I walked away. The man followed. I ran into lanes of busy traffic. If he was really intent on violence, I'd just stand there among cars racing off the freeway.

He was a bit confused by my lack of cooperation. I guess he figured I'd be easy. I slipped through the traffic and walked quickly to a corner store. The thief followed me inside. Even the man behind the counter was afraid when he saw the thug enter the store. I then told the thief that if he would leave me alone, I'd show him the contents of my pack. It contained a sketchpad, a copy of Wise Blood and a bottle of Advil. He wasn't interested in reading Wise Blood. I told him I wouldn't call the police, that all I wanted was peace. He left the store and I walked quickly to Rue Renee Levesque, where there were lots of people. The creep gave up trying to rob me.

This experience reminded me about aclass of people who deliberately stalk and prey upon other humans. Thugs roamdesolate areas of the city. They survive by feeding on others. Pounce on a person,go for the jugular and suck blood. Enjoy a belly full of blood until it getsdigested and the thug craves more blood.

The thug treatshimself as a thing and views others as things. The objective is to eat or beeaten, to survive because one is biologically driven to survive. A thug’sparadise would be a place where servants would serve and pleasure the thug, sothe thug could feel good, get high and feel powerful and then go to sleep.After sleeping a while, the thug would wake up. Slaves would continue toservice him.

This repulsivescenario is also an expression of death. Death lurks in the moment. I stilldon’t understand this situation, this body and mind scenario, a little egoinside, running the show, a speck of sand. Death, a gust of air blows away thewhole little routine of one’s life, the hopes and fears, so much fuss fornothing.

Sneeze! It’sgone, over and out. A few tears and life continues, no big deal. Everyone willdie. New people are born. One ego wiped out, another ego swells up. A hugeriver of life and death, each ego wants to ensure its own survival. Ego mightsqueal and try to get attention, vanity. Good old vanity.

window dream

2011-10-21T09:50:00.004-04:00

Basic everyday nothing fancy windows, monumental, millions of windows and brick can be seen. Pattern, shadows on the blinds, sometimes the blinds appear blue, other times pink, green, beige. Each window goes with a room. Each room provides space for activity. The buildings and windows get old. New buildings and windows are built.

music for urinals

2011-10-19T11:32:00.002-04:00

Restauranturinal, strong smell, a love song blasted from an overhead speaker, a woman singing about love asLohbado took a pee. It felt absurd. One couldn’t even pee without having tolisten to music that was not one’s choice. One never got to choose thebackground music. One was expected to get used to it. Most people seemed tolike it or to tune it out. To not like the background music was consideredabnormal. The problem lay in Lohbado’s not liking it.

Thisstruck Lohbado as intensely absurd as he peed and listened to a woman describe the pressures and responsibilities of her life and how she was hopinglove would make it all bearable. As Lohbado washed his hands, a man squealed ina falsetto voice about how the woman made him feel like a man and how he neededher and therefore, she should love him in return. Lohbado gazed up at the ceilingspeaker and marveled at the miracle of technology and how, in spite of theintelligence that went into creating such marvels, the content was so nerve gratingand shallow.

The problem layin Lohbado. Lohbado was abnormal for not liking the narrow range of music,deliberately selected to proclaim a way of life, the reality people weresupposed to agree upon, consensus reality. He was expected to like, or to tuneout the music played in the background of cafes, shopping malls, stores, hotellobbies and public spaces.

jar of peas

2011-10-13T17:25:00.001-04:00

I bought this jar of peas three years ago. It sits on top of the fridge. One day I plan to open the jar and photograph the contents. For now, I enjoy the beauty of soft, green peas in juice, inside a glass jar, the mystery of the container, kept under a tight lid. OK, it's no mystery on the scientific level. However, I challenge you to look at the jar of peas for five minutes and then write down what you feel.

relax in the park

2011-10-07T12:09:00.002-04:00

Beginning of a long weekend, sunny morning, Lohbado walked to the park and relaxed at a picnic table for half an hour. The photos were taken with an 8 pixel Canon Powershot and then processed with a few filters in Photoshop. It felt good to sit in the middle of a huge lawn, after several cool and dark days.

coffee, tea and martini

2011-10-02T16:35:00.003-04:00

The coffee pot second from the top and the tea pot were in a Vietnamese Restaurant down the street. The other two pictures were in Mike's kitchen, an empty coffee cup at the top and a martini at the bottom.

blushing tomatoes and bursting bananas

2011-09-29T15:32:00.002-04:00

Autumn is a time of blushing tomatoes and bursting bananas, a cornucopia worthy of giving thanks.

vivid good morning

2011-09-22T12:32:00.002-04:00

The dreaming man challenge is how to put vivid into words. It's from the feeling family, perhaps flaky, lumpy, oozing, gooey. It is, nonetheless, an experience, similar to the sudden squeeze and downward pulsation in the abdomen after eating a bowl of moldy noodles. Maybe it would be best captured in sound, for example, the sound of front end loaders digging up the street to do some sort of repair. I'll go out later and have a look. A hydro van is parked down from the front end loader. A stream of brown fluid flows along the curb.

The indifference of a moaning motor outside this building, vibrations, enjoy the warning beep as a big truck backs up. I walked to the plaza and approached it from behind. In the sunken parking lot, about the size of a football field, a man operated a remove controlled hot rod, about the size of a beagle hound. Such a small toy made a loud noise, it made me laugh. A few men stopped to watch. A woman shook her head and kept on walking. After he was done racing the car, the man climbed the grassy embankment and then had the car race up the hill. The tires spun and a lot of smoke came out the exhaust, but the toy hot rod did it.

I was too shy to take a picture of the hot rod. After, I took photos, with a Canon Powershot, of the ass end of the plaza.

history of silence

2011-09-18T13:11:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading L’innommable,
a novel by Samuel Beckett. The text
pokes holesin what one might be likely to assume about everyday life.
For example, theparadox of listening to silence, if you could hear silence,
it wouldn’t besilence. Silence can’t be heard. Another major theme is the
paradox of tryingto locate a consciousness, narrator, character or group of
charactersresponsible for or related to the voices or murmurs that break the
silence ofsomeone in the dark.

The act of listening and understanding involves the voice. Thoughts
occur as words without images or images without words, words
with images. How dothoughts occur? Do thoughts originate in
the body of an author, narrator orcharacter? What is such a body?
Maybe such a body is nothing more than a headin a jar,
unseen, except perhaps by the owner of the eatery,
who feeds the headand changes the sawdust and
sometimes covers the jar against bad weather.

The book isfilled with repetition, reiteration, summary, lists of possibilities andcomplex reasoning about what may or may not be happening. Does one see? Isthere anything to be seen, or maybe he has no eyes?1Who is the narrator or the characters and who speaks the voices? Where do theycome from? Where is this happening? Is it in a room, a cell, a prison, onecharacter, with a whole people, in a cathedral-like structure?2 Of course that’s not it. Then it must besomething else, endless speculation. What does he see, other than glimmers oflight and then darkness? Is it day or night? What is the season?

Whatintrigues me most about the book is the hypnotic style. Open the book anywhereand get swept along by plain, although sometimes complex, eloquent prose. In one sentence, spanning nearly two pages, he tells amelodramatic love story. A woman’s husband goes to war and doesn’t hearfrom him. She falls in love with another man. Her husband comes back and diesin expectation as he arrives at the station. The woman, heartbroken over theloss of her husband arrives home to find her lover has hung himself by theneck, because he fears she will dump him in order to reunite with her long lost husband. The woman is doubly heartbroken after losing two mates. The sentence ends in adiscussion about a detail, which interests the narrator more than the story of love and loss: a door. The door ismade of wood. Who closed the door and why was the door closed? Wow, there’s areal story!3 In the next sentence, he returns totalking about silence.

The narratormakes an effort to pay attention, to listen, to understand, but he’s unable.Immediate experience breaks down endlessly into detailed components capable offurther division and analysis. It leads back to the starting point of a voicethat comes to one alone, or maybe with a whole people, in the dark, withglimmers of light, and not being able to exactly know the voice or voices. It’sa tormented experience. “One” has a sense of being punished and not knowing themisdeed. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything. Don’t think.4 He’s attempting to say everything inorder to not have to say anything.

I found itinspiring to read a book that takes an unsentimental and unflinching gaze atthe act of being alive, the strange mystery of daily life, death and dream,“l’histoire du silence”5, “ce sontdes mensonges”6; “c’est peut-être un rêve”7.

I read the book from the point ofview of a dreaming man. While reading, I contemplated how theknowable is contained within the brackets of the knowable. One knows enough toknow how much one doesn’t know. Intense scrutiny of one’s stream ofconsciousness, to closely observe how thoughts come and go, moments of silencebroken by voices, which can’t be clearly identified, all this calls reality, orthe tissue of lies, into question. In the last pages, the word lies occursfrequently as words attempt to find clarity, to say what seems to have to besaid in order to not have to say anymore.

1 page 206. L’Innommable. Samuel Beckett. Paris: LesEditions de Minuit. 1953/2004.

2 Beckett. p.204.

3 pages 199 –200.

4 page 83.

5 page 211.

6 page 212.

7 page 212.

the pear essentials

2011-09-10T16:26:00.001-04:00

Pear naked pared down to pear essentials, the coming of autumn after the heat of summer, time to face what appearantly may or may not have to be done, this all happened in a lonely dream. The more a pear ripens, the sweeter it gets. Eat before rotten. Wipe the juice and dry your hands. Toss the core, or plant a pear tree in the garden.

moldy bread

2011-09-05T12:42:00.003-04:00

Twice in the past two weeks I've purchased moldy bread. I checked the expiry date stamped on the price tag. The bread was supposed to be good for another two weeks. I told somebody and he said I should freeze the bread and then thaw or toast slices from the freezer. I bought the loaf in the photo one day before taking the picture.

Maybe its the fridge. No, the fridge keeps the chicken legs cool, as you can see above. Then someone suggested: let them eat cookies.

Bad Dinner

2011-09-03T14:12:00.000-04:00

It happens once in a while, a person insists that you come for dinner and then serves challenging food. The host looks on, almost with subconscious sadistic delight as you poke the cold, or room temperature food with the fork and then shove it in your mouth. It sent shivers up my spine as I ate the dinner in the picture, heavily-salted Chicken-pile Dinner, with French fries and toast, served on a microwave-safe plate on a kitten place mat.

Is this a good picture?

2011-08-24T11:11:00.001-04:00

Someone showed me a picture and asked: "Is it a good picture?"

What is the definition of a good picture? Why do you want to know? Are you interested in investment value? Did you want to know its aesthetic value? What is aesthetic value? I'll leave it at that. For fun, one could read Critique of Judgement by Kant, to get an idea of how such questions could lead to complex discussions.

Often what one means by "good picture" is based on an assumed agreement about what constitutes a good picture. What if not everyone agrees? In my opinion, there's no need to say a picture is good or bad, other than to state preference within a context. Do you want to buy the picture, or to hang it on your wall? Maybe you can't decide whether or not you like the picture.

You might decide it doesn't interest you. That it doesn't interest you doesn't mean it's no good. Maybe the picture in question doesn't meet your personal guidelines about art. One could reflect on the nature of one's personal guidelines. Often a person doesn't reflect or question one's assumptions or judgements. One might state a feeling and then turn it into a dogmatic generalization regarding the worth of the picture.

Everyone has an "uptight horizon". The uptight horizon is the point at which one becomes uncomfortable and adopts a negative, aggressive reaction. One might ridicule and verbally abuse the picture. Such aesthetic statements are little more than the expression of emotion, mood or state of digestion, rather than reason. When pressed for explanation, the hostile critic might react with anger, as if to say: "I think, therefore it's true. I have spoken. Let no one disagree." Such a statement perhaps assumes the existence of an objective reality where all inhabitants on earth agree, or some place where truth is carved in stone, leaving no room for discussion.

colorful dream

2011-08-19T16:40:00.001-04:00

Just before waking up this morning I dreamed about bright objects coming out of the computer screen. The images turned into actual things, such as a gaudy multicolored palm tree, a bright toy Jesus on a donkey, a small plastic rose and numerous similar objects. The image lasted a few seconds and then I woke up, excited, as if today would be the day of a carnival, or a holiday celebration.

Gall Bladder

2011-08-05T06:35:00.001-04:00

Sometimes it happens without warning, one feels pain and then has to see a doctor. In this case, it was gall stones. The gall bladder had to be removed. The people at the hospital were friendly and provided excellent treatment. The operation was done with minimal incision and was painless. Soon the person is back in daily life again, after a couple nights in the hospital.

It started as a pain in the stomach a few months ago, a cramping sensation. A few weeks ago, it hurt enough to make it difficult to eat. Then the pain seemed to ease off, only to come back a week later, with a vengeance. First they put a thing down the throat to remove the stones. Then the doctors make four small incisions in the belly to remove the gall bladder.

Patience

2011-07-22T23:37:00.001-04:00

Patience is good for bicycle riders and motorists alike, especially during a heatwave in July. Lohbado rode his bicycle down a freeway service road, full exposure to blast heat of noon sun. Stay focused. Don't run into a pot hole or get caught in a deep rut and fall off the bicycle. Don't ride through red lights. Beware of motorists who cut too close. They have the power to knock down and kill a cyclist. Be patient. Don't lose your cool. Getting too intense only makes confusion worse. Ride towards cream puff clouds. Soft white shapes cool the mind. Read the pattern of tar lines, bumps and craters in the pavement. Lohbado laughed himself silly at the sheer silliness of his silly thoughts. Imagine a sailboat, floating across the sky.

109 Years Old, Montreal

2011-07-07T11:48:00.001-04:00

One of the oldest people in Montreal lives within walking distance of where I live. David is now 109 years old. I went over yesterday for a visit and to see old friends.

Monumental Building

2011-07-04T23:15:00.000-04:00

Buildings pop up like monuments right before the very eye of the beholder. Lohbado wandered in a daze down the sidewalk and then looked across the street at a four story building, a solid, plain monument to habitation, a veritable symphony in stone and brick and containing windows. So many human dramas continue to be enacted behind closed doors, in quiet rooms overlooking a noisy street. Whoever can identify the building will receive a one year free membership to Club Morono.

Reverend Woodlot Stumps

2011-07-01T12:49:00.003-04:00

Sometimes identity confusion scrambled Lohbado's brains and he had flashbacks to another era, when he was Peter Stumps, a sexually repressed, spiritual drone, serving in his grandfather Woodlot's church, the Church of the Living Monument. Woodlot made his fortune as a lumber baron, but after a severe bout of alcohol psychosis, had a series of visions that made him sell the business and build a church. That took place back in the 1920ies, in a remote Canadian village on an escarpment overlooking a vast body of water. After the Reverend Woodlot Stumps had a mental breakdown and killed himself, his son, Peter's father, the Reverend Stonehenge Stumps took over. The sect church died a slow, lingering death in the hands of Stonehenge. The sect church existed as an extension of Woodlot's ego. Once Woodlot was gone, the wooden church in the forest was doomed.

Lohbado found this picture in a box of mementos left behind after the death of his mother, Rosemary Stumps. Mother Rosemary died when her pink 1966 Studebaker Lark slid into a cast iron beam on a trestle bridge across Moon River, one winter evening as she drove home from a meeting of the Busy Bee Bridge Club at Dorthy's house.

Somebody took a photo of the car accident and showed it to Lohbado. Steering wheel mangled, Rosemary's body flopped sideways and hung limp, head out the door and dangling towards the pavement, legs crushed, feet twisted up in brake and gas pedals, face veiled in a fountain of blood, Christ and the crown of thorns. There was a loud, exploding sound and a flash of light as she died.
They rushed her body to the hospital and experimented to see if they could bring her back to life. I wish they had left her alone. It doesn’t feel right to cut up a corpse. What if her consciousness was still conscious? Lohbado had a dream of her death and in the dream she was terrified and couldn’t understand what the doctors were doing to her body. Lohbado dreamed she was tied down to the autopsy table and writhed in panic and tried to get up and walk away.

They put her on machines to get the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe. They could have left her alone and nobody would have sued the doctors. Her husband Stonehenge said, after he went to visit her in intensive care, she was clearly dead. The doctors were playing with a corpse and then sent her off to pathology.

Lohbado couldn’t look at her corpse, in the funeral parlor, for more than a few seconds. Her face was totally distorted from the head injury and the plastic thing they put in her mouth. Lohbado approached the coffin. A cold chill stabbed his heart. He looked for two seconds and then ran away. He felt the confusion and panic. He felt her desire to be free, to be released from technology. She wanted somebody to close the coffin lid so she could be dead in privacy.

self portrait with jar of juice

2011-06-25T17:47:00.002-04:00

Lucid liquid tungsten temple pickle picture melted butter and sugar mix on warm dough. That's a Moronovian dialect used to order coffee and a muffin. The juice gave off a golden glow and bathed the bathroom in jaundice yellow, which disappeared the moment Lohbado turned off the light and entered the kitchen. The top of the toilet tank made a handy table for the water closet picnic. A priest of Nomroh instructed me to take a picture of my face reflected in the yellow light of a bathroom mirror. It's a sober reminder about the strangeness of being in a body, without understanding why there even is such a thing as a body. Pretty freaky.

moisturology

2011-06-20T11:16:00.000-04:00

Ever since encountering the moisturologist in the last chapter of Finnegans Wake, page 608, Lohbado frequently ended up in murky, moist situations, for example, when counting coins over morning coffee, while attempting to read a notebook discussion about eggs, digestion and how the human body ages.

tell-tale eggs and stain

2011-06-19T15:35:00.001-04:00

As repetitive as heartbeat and breathing, boiled eggs and coffee were followed with a plate of spaghetti in Lohbado's kitchen. According to Morono Cuisine, preparation is as important as eating. When cooking becomes spectacle, a hungry guest eats not only food, but also the appearance, or visual appearance of food. Stain, spill, moisture and ooze are integral to the Club Morono dining experience. Playing with a hackneyed metaphor, Lohbado opened a notebook and spilled coffee and ink on to the page and then used a paper napkin to sponge away excess fluid.

cat and flower

2011-06-12T22:36:00.000-04:00

This is the cat that looks in my front window quite often. The bottom of the window is at the level of the lawn. The cat could gaze down into the apartment while I sat there imagining flowers in the sky, huge puff clouds.

The middle of the flower turns into an eye if you look at it long enough and the head of the cat turns into a flower. The flower soothes the right eye and the cat the left, before going to sleep, to ensure pleasant dreaming.

renovation season Cote des Neiges

2011-06-07T13:17:00.000-04:00

I watched over coffee this morning as renovation began on the basement suite across the street. It was impressive to see the equipment move into position along a busy street. Lots of people got close to have a look. Even a group of children from the daycare stopped to enjoy the spectacle.

Windy Day, Montreal

2011-06-02T13:07:00.000-04:00

June 1 came into Montreal in a blast of strong, hot wind. A few branches blew down. Dirt got flung in the face and stung the eyes. The temperature went from 32 C to 14 C the next day. I sat opposite Metro Cote des Neiges, in a little park to relax. I took a photo, using a pocket camera, of the flag blowing in the wind and of windows across the street. I often wonder what kind of activity goes on behind those windows. It drives my imagination wild. It could be the set for a post apocalyptic movie, or a story from Club Morono.

reach for the sky

2011-05-27T20:25:00.000-04:00

Tornadoes, forest fires, flooding, earthquake, what's going on! All day it was so dark in Montreal, it felt like a dream. I live on a tall tree-lined street, which attracts a lot of birds, especially crows. The other day when I felt down, a crow squawked from an overhead branch. I looked up and the crow looked at me and I looked at the crow. Gazing into the crow's eyes immediately made me relax and feel spacious. Even in a big city, it's possible to connect with nature.

lunch time

2011-05-14T12:23:00.000-04:00

For years, Lohbado has been eating spaghetti, with a little olive oil and cheese, plus sometimes a pickle, for lunch. Today is no exception. Lohbado-style spaghetti has a subtle, unspectacular flavor, similar to the taste of the inside of one's cheeks. Lohbado spaghetti is a low stress food, leaving few surprises for the palate.

For the second night in a row, Lohbado dreamed about having to be at the airport in thirty minutes. He'd barely started packing the suitcase. He was caught uprepared. He had thirty minutes to pack the suitcase, get to the airport, check in the luggage, go through security clearance and get on the plane. Lohbado told his dream to a Nomroh Counselor at the local Club Morono Tabernacle.

The Nomroh said it was a dream about death. Getting ready to die is similar to going to the departure lounge at the airport. One receives a ticket to a final destination, or rather, the destination occurs in the lounge, as the body is about to become a corpse. This dream has nothing to do with the dangers of flying, or about security pat downs and the danger of fluids. The flying dream is filled with symbolism. During adolescence, a flying dream could be about sexuality. During middle age, it's more likely about death.

Lohbado was glad to be a speck of dust dissolving in space and time, for lack of better words. A whole lifetime, nothing special, would soon come to an end. He noticed how ego tricked him into believing he was a big deal, or somehow unique, when really, ego is more like an optical illusion cast on a wall, like when light passes through a prism.

Enjoy the colors and forms. Smile while it lasts. Such a realization could be refreshing and spacious, if one could get over opinions, beliefs and strong emotions. From the point of view of ego, death could be depressing. Ego really wants things to last and to change as little as possible. That's why ego is in so much pain. Ego is too small to accommodate reality, which is vast and profound, like the sky. Each attempt of ego to assert itself is about as futile as trying to sign one's name on the surface of water.

Christina and Pokey

2011-05-09T14:28:00.000-04:00

A sunny afternoon on a back balcony in Little Italy, Montreal, Christina and Pokey let me take their picture. After a long winter, followed by a stormy, rainy spring, a sunny afternoon creates euphoria.

smells

2011-05-01T15:14:00.002-04:00

Lohbado's apartment smelled like digestion. Clothes absorbed the damp compost odor. Steamy Lohbado went outside to dry. He visited Lohbada. Her apartment smelled like stomach and intestines, a little gall bladder and spleen, not to mention pancreas, adding to the stuffed, swollen ooze putrefaction. Lohbado and Lohbado hugged each other in a putrefactory apartment containing mold on mildew walls. After, they walked to the plaza. Food for ants, turkey, crab, rabbits by the dozen, sleeping dogs and kittens were down at the plaza during the sunny weekend, oozing and frisky.

First Drink

2011-04-26T16:11:00.001-04:00

Brother Kenneth has his first drink after lent ritual abstinence. From Ash Wednesday to Easter, no alcohol, until 8 PM, we counted the seconds, bottle of brandy raised and then that first hot flash of hard liquor. It's both practical and religious. It's practical to save money. It costs a lot to drink every day. It's cheaper to drink only during special occasions. It's religious to take spirits into the blood stream and to bathe the brain in distilled liquor. Hallelujah! This is something I can believe.

cremation

2011-04-17T21:23:00.003-04:00

Lohbado wandered down a sidewalk, which sloped downwards, outside the hospital. Years ago, he worked in a hospital. One of his jobs was to burn things from pathology. When the freezer got full, he'd wheel a cart loaded with black plastic bags to the incinerator and burn them. One time he and his buddy Edgar tore open some bags to have a peek at what was inside. They saw livers, brains, a stomach and stuff like that, body parts from autopsies or operations. Edgar opened the metal door. They threw in the garbage bags and pulled a lever.

Everything would turn to ash. Eventually his body would be a corpse. Lohbado wanted to be cremated. Sometimes, as a body burns, it has to be raked with a poker, to make sure all the bones get burned. Little chunks of bones sometimes remained in the ashes. The ashes would be put in metal boxes and then given to someone who knew the deceased. If nobody claimed the ashes, they would be stored for a few years before being buried along with the contents of other unclaimed urns.

Windows 2011

2011-04-13T08:32:00.000-04:00

Windows may be enjoyed in 2011 and for the forseeable future in the large Jewish General Hospital complex on Cote des Neiges in Montreal. One of my children was born in that hospital. I often pause, while walking up the hill, to contemplate the windows and to imagine what sort of activity is going on inside. Unlike electronic gadgets and software, the hospital bricks survive decades, without yearly updates. There's no need for plugins or addons. It's refreshing to see something so solid, sitting there on the edge of a hill, a place of birth, death, accident and sickness. I often hear ambulances racing along that street, heartache, sorrow and pain. I hope the patients in there soon recover and have peace of mind.

traffic accident Cote des Neiges

2011-04-10T18:24:00.004-04:00

On the way to Plaza Cote des Neiges, I saw an accident, a triple collision, crumpled car and mashed minivan. The transit bus emerged without a scratch. Both car and van plowed into the side of the bus. Those buses are built like tanks. I arrived as the paramedics were putting the victims on stretcher. Fortunately, the injuries didn't appear too serious, at least, not at a glance.

(Actually, I just saw in Journal de Montreal that fortunately, nobody was hurt.)

A crowd of people gathered around. It was across from Plaza Cote des Neiges. People were orderly and calm. On the way back from buying groceries at Marche Fu Tai, I took a few photos with a pocket camera, since other people were taking pictures and filming it with cell phones and gadgets.

It's sad to see people get hurt and to have their motor vehicles smashed. The urge to look at accidents is something shared by a lot of people. It made sense to pause a moment and contemplate the sudden disruption of everyday life. One moment, you're hurrying from here to there, mind abuzz. Suddenly, accident! Everything grinds to a halt for a minute or two as one gazes on in surprise and disbelief.

Accidents are a good reminder to slow down and pay attention, instead of being distracted and impatient. It's also a reminder about the fragility of life. You never know when something might happen. Better enjoy the instant in case the next moment is an unpleasant surprise.

up against the wall

2011-04-09T17:59:00.000-04:00

Clothes made a stink about needing to be washed, carrots asked to be cut before boiling, microwave rice and lentils, throw in a little curry, Lohbado was about to sit down and eat when Keith Chambers phoned and demanded to be seen. Lohbado said he could not visit Chambers room, but Keith Chambers could visit Lohbado. (Is there a difference between the man considered as Keith independent of the Chamber, or do the two go together like a pot and its lid under the bed? Such dreamlike considerations, quite typical of the moronic mumbling that goes on at Club Morono, nearly caused his soup to get cold.) Entschlossenheit!

Lohbado hung up the phone and returned to the meal. Life problems, unpleasant surprises, accident, loss, misfortune knock a person down. Just as others may have at one time appeared silly to you, just so, you appear silly to others. Be kind to one another. You know how painful it feels to be judged, ridiculed and scorned. There's no shame in having met misfortune. No need to be embarrassed. As long as Lohbado can stand up and gaze at the sky, he'll be alright. Reconciliation feels better than conflict. If one can't be reconciled, then at least one could respect difference.

chalk

2011-04-06T07:09:00.000-04:00

White dustless chalk, sans poussiere, twelve of them, non-toxic, good for school, house or outdoors, if someone gave you a piece of chalk and pointed to a surface, what would you write or draw? The writing is on the wall. What kind of marks do you leave on the sidewalk as you walk down the street from one milieu to another? White as a ghost dustless chalk could be rubbed out with a sleeve, chalkboard brush, rag or even the back of the hand.

The Beauty of Difference

2011-03-26T12:57:00.000-04:00

Moralistic spasms defend psychic tissue from difference. Shivers run up ego's spine when someone disagrees or presents a different concept, idea, hypothesis or way of looking at things. Look what happened to Galileo, who promoted the view that earth is not the center of the universe. Look at what happens when people of different religions collide. Read holy scripture about how Jesus brought peace with a sword and those who refused to worship and obey would be cast into the lake of eternal fire. On a mundane level, fear of difference occurs as one person pressures another into agreement. Discussions are not possible when participants are intimidated into going along with the dominant discourse. We're expected to sit quietly, like round bubblegum inside the glass bubble of consensus reality.

Communication is reduced to an exchange of tissue. One makes mental tissue out of habits, opinions, beliefs, reactions, strong emotions and naive views about reality. In creating tissue, one doesn't pause to reflect, or to examine one's assumptions. "I think therefore it's true" is the slogan. One defends personal tissue with anger, paranoia and outbursts of moralistic fervor.

Difference is a knife that cuts holes in the tissue of self-deception, or unquestioning acceptance of the dominant discourse. The lie: you can be who you are, as long as you do as we say. You're free, as long as you obey. You can differ, as long as you fit within pre-defined boundaries.

beauty treatment

2011-03-20T19:42:00.000-04:00

If I were a young and sporty, I'd definitely want to go to the above place for beauty treatment. The sign has all the elements of mystery and style, such as a yellow star in the bottom left corner, the elegant red lettering on yellow stroke and of course, standard male and female model posters. However, I'm a balding, middle-aged man. I get my hair done at the Club Morono School of Beauty, where one approaches the finished look in terms of tonal families, for example, the browns, blacks, whites, reds, not to mention the blues and sometimes yellow. Each color has a particular color, famous for the qualities of that color. Each color reveals personality traits, which could be used to influence one's trajectory into the future. No one has yet become a millionaire using Club Morono principles, however, there's nothing wrong with dreaming. In the world of dreaming men and women, anything is possible.

lost sheep

2011-03-08T18:58:00.001-05:00

This sheep doesn't look too worried. For twenty-five cents, they give you a bag of feed. The sheep will eat it right out of your hand and then you get to pet it. That's how it worked at the petting zoo in the camp ground. As for the lost sheep, I had a flash back to a situation that took place thirty years ago. I'll write it down below and organize later.

It took place when Lohbado turned twenty-one, in a back yard, a crab apple tree over by a fence, a mountain ash, a plum tree, some flowers and a lawn. Lohbado walked into the middle of the yard, gazed at the sky. The sky spun around and he collapsed, into a deep sleep. He awoke to find himself in the bedroom of the woman next door. She tied him to a chair, while he slept and pulled the blinds. The woman wore a deer mask and told Lohbado he too would have to choose a mask. She got upset when he asked her what kind of animals were available and told him to choose. He chose giraffe. The woman had to go down stairs and take care of dinner guests. After the guests went home, she would return upstairs and ask if he made any discoveries while tied to the chair.

The giraffe mask was fine, except it stretched his neck. He could sit there like a giraffe while a dozen people in the living room ate roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes in gravy and peas. During the time it took for them to eat a turkey dinner, Lohbado was supposed to discover something. She would enter the bedroom and want to know. He would be required to enact his discovery. She wouldn't elaborate as to what she meant by discovery. He had a few hours to ponder her cryptic comments and eccentric behavior. The silk cords didn't hurt. In fact, the chair was surprisingly comfortable. Once he got used to the giraffe mask, he felt waves of deep relaxation. Of course, he would have preferred to be lying in the queen sized bed, but then he would probably have fallen asleep. He wanted to stay awake, to be ready for whatever might happen. He could smell perfume and hear voices from the guests below. The voices came in waves, a kind of clucking sound, with interspersed laughter.

Suddenly, he realized what was going on. It was a job interview. He sat at the head of a board room table, while twelve men and women interrogated him. Why did Lohbado feel he was the best candidate for the job? What were his flaws? Where did he see himself in five years? What did he know about the company? Lohbado gazed at the interviewers, who wore animal costumes. The main interviewer was dressed as a big horned water buffalo. His assistant wore a grizzly mask. There were a couple rabbits, a wolf, a fox and a sheep. To keep himself from falling apart, Lohbado stared at the sheep, as he stammered barely audible replies to the steady stream of questions. The sheep was the only animal that gave off friendly vibes. The buffalo was terrifying. The grizzly wasn't much better. The rabbits made him feel like he was on the verge of a psychotic episode. But the sheep actually turned him on, even though he knew it was not appropriate for a young man to be turned on by a sheep during a job interview.

As the interview progressed, the animals became agitated and started smashing up the place. They kicked over the table and smashed the chairs in a fury as they explained that Lohbado was not suited for the job. They had better candidates. But they told him to not be discouraged. Keep trying.

Lohbado kept on trying.

death dream

2011-03-07T19:12:00.001-05:00

Ever since childhood, I've had dreams about death. Such dreams aren't morbid. They merely underline the strangeness of existence. It's hard to believe that one is a breathing, digesting, thinking organism, for no apparent purpose other than to survive until corpsehood. Last night I dreamed about being a seasoned superhero, like Morono Man, approaching the scene of a shootout. I got out of the 1967 Chevrolet Biscayne and was about to let the gangsters know their time was up when a bullet went into my chest, spiraled around inside the rib cage and knocked me backwards, against the car door. A second bullet went in and similarly spiraled around, without hitting vital organs. I began blacking out as a third bullet went in. With the fourth bullet, it felt like falling down a well.

The whole thing was quite peaceful, like having a heavy burden lifted off one's shoulders. It was pleasant to sink into darkness, to be finally freed from the human condition. Then I woke up with pain in the shoulder.

sausage horizon

2011-03-06T12:12:00.001-05:00

Saintly sausages grilled a la Saint Lawerence, for the curious, the gridiron used to roast the saint is on display in Rome. Roasted on a spit, burned at the stake, be careful not to char the sausages. Wait until sweaty fat drops ooze from the intestine casings, then apply mustard and eat with a pickle.

Excommunicated from the hive, Lohbado set off into a new world of bleak desolation, but with spacious calm and serene waves. He stumbled into the wilderness of heartache, sorrow and pain to discover the beauty of truth. On Rock Hill, he found a plate of sausages and a can of beer. He ate them, drank the beer and immediately felt better.

Lohbado remembered this experience, years later, as he sat in Lord Food Court at the Palace Plaza, after walking through the mall, past discount socks and underwear, past corner cafe, sugar tea, candy counter, beads and bangles, past the cinemas, bagel shop, past furniture city and then down the escalator. He sat at a table to read and relax, before walking home, heavy boots, heavy coat, down slush coated sidewalks. The soft, squishy snow provided a good workout for the legs.

Lohbado went into a thrift store, musty books, newsprint pages, 99 cents, $ 2 for large. Lohbado picked up the memoir of a man who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, became tough as nails and overcame adversity to become an overnight sensation. Lohbado returned the book to the shelf. The prose style was too much like a newspaper report.

Lohbado recorded his adventure. The adventure was to go out for fresh air, to walk down soft, mushy, snow-covered sidewalks to the Plaza. Look at books in the thrift shop and then go down the escalator to the food court. Look at the people there, from all over the world. After, walk home, eat supper and work on pictures.

Life Cycle of the Apple

2011-02-23T15:50:00.001-05:00

A fully ripe apple, red as sin, in the forbidden fruit bin at the local Fruiterie, take the apple home and let it be the apple of your eye. Keep an eye on it and after several weeks, the apple will decay, shrivel and dry up. I have a collection of aged apples. They make great decorations and give off a pleasant, slightly acidic, perfume. As a middle-aged man, I see a similar progress of decay in my body, starting with hair loss, wrinkles, skin growths and discoloration, sagging flesh, sunken eyes, decorated with crow feet and so on. I started out fresh as a daisy and now am like Roquefort cheese. Nobody lasts forever. Even if you make it to old age, your body will eventually become a corpse. Each step along the way feels like a big deal, at the time, but eventually it's all forgotten, as if it had never even happened. Nobody could care less about your little hopes and fears, all those sleepless nights and moments of panic and anxiety. It happens to everyone. Might as well relax and cheer up. Take time to enjoy the apples along the way.

Woman Walking the Freeway

2011-02-22T20:34:00.001-05:00

What kind of desperation, or could it be euphoria, a new sense of freedom, led this woman to walk the freeway? There's a song about a man walking the railroad line, but no song about the woman walking the endless freeway of life. What is she looking for? Or maybe she gave up looking. It could be nothing more than the human condition, experienced by every man, woman and child. Next time I meet her in a dream, I'll ask for directions.

Walking in Toronto

2011-02-16T13:23:00.002-05:00

Leather shoes, half price, back packs, handbags, brief case, plenty of good deals, hurry while supplies still last. It was a pleasant day to walk around and enjoy the beauty of the city, over a year ago. Without the pictures, I might have totally forgotten.

Hear the Street Car Coming

2011-02-09T09:48:00.002-05:00

I hear the streetcar coming. It's rushing down the track. I wonder if I'm ever going to get my money back. I invested so much money, since I can't remember when. I'm stuck in this here phone booth and Jane keeps chattering on.

Mama told me to be a good boy, to not play with guns. But boys will be boys. I couldn't leave it alone. There's a lot of rich people out there who wouldn't bother to take a street car. I'm soon going to get in my comfy car and cruise on home, once I get freed from this phone booth. I got the phone booth blues. But it's not as bad as Folsom Prison.

magic shoes walking tour

2011-02-08T14:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a collage from a walking tour through Kensington, Toronto, in November 2009, a lot of interesting signs.

food for thought

2011-02-04T11:51:00.000-05:00

Remember, if you're not happy to order curried fish balls, green onion E tea bread, tofu goring, fried chicken with salty pepper, mala mee, hot pot special, fried squid, satay, breast strips, spring rolls or stir fried rice, there are more choices inside.

variety

2011-02-02T12:24:00.000-05:00

Variety of shapes, sizes, sensations, twenty-eight flavors of ice cream and lottery tickets, it popped out at me like red letters on yellow panel. It shouted: stop! I stopped, took a picture to commemorate and appreciate the variety of ____________ (fill in the blank).

fishing at the fish store

2011-02-01T16:41:00.000-05:00

Fishing at the fish market, come up with a couple of fish heads, Arctic char. Am I seeing double? Where's he going with fish head sticking out of red bags? What kind of dream is this? Is there some sort of interpretation that's supposed to open the dreamer to five new ways of preparing live lobsters, crabs or what if the shop closed and is no longer there? If I go back to Kensington in Toronto, will I be able to walk into that market and buy fish?

Mysteries of the Over Ripe Banana

2011-01-30T13:20:00.001-05:00

Anything could act as a catalyst and mediator between consciousness and repressed material one knows is there but tries to deny, ignore, rationalize, minimize, distract or avoid. Over ripe bananas did it for me, plus reading Sartre over coffee. Anxiety increases as the lies wear thin and one becomes increasingly conscious of that which one wishes would stay unconscious.

What exactly is it that one wishes to avoid? Maybe it’s the fear of peeling blackened peel to find rotten banana underneath. However, the bananas in the picture were fine. Another day and they would have been mushy. The white fruit was easy to swallow.

A case study: Abel Crane, twenty-five years old, perpetual student in a doctoral program of religious studies at Lumpkins University, rented the basement of a large, old brick house owned by Dr. Sylph Gondora, philosophy professor and Dr. Ann Shackleton, professor of psychology.

In the buried world of the basement, Able Crane projected meaning on to objects, such as empty bottles, candles, little boxes that once contained sardine cans, some shot glasses he found in a recyclables bucket and so on. He cut up, sanded and painted little pieces of wood, muttered prayers and then placed them in significant locations throughout the kitchen, to mark dimensions, or to create diagrams of an expanding psychic cosmos.

Setting up a kind of temple was his way of peeling away the tissue of lies that separated, or disguised himself from himself. What does “himself” mean? He means a multi-directional, infinite investigation. One never arrives at locating a single, fixed entity that could be pin pointed as being the self. Of course, there’s much disagreement on this subject. These are merely a few oversimplified suggestions as to what was going on when Able Crane placed three over ripe bananas on the shrine in his kitchen.

God and Coffee

2011-01-24T12:30:00.000-05:00

Along life's highway, I discovered a perfect visual marriage of commerce and religion, nothing new. There's even a movie about it, called The Bible and Gun Club. OK, forget about religion for a moment. Let's not belabor the obvious, or maybe what I have to say is obvious. What is implied in the concept of God? That's a huge question I won't even attempt to answer, except to stutter a few words on behalf of Dreaming Man.

While gazing into a cup of Tim Horton's coffee, while being aware of the church next door, the black coffee began to swirl in the paper cup. A round, black portal appeared, like the pupil in a large third eye. Looking deeply into the third eye that appeared in the cup of black coffee, I fell into the cosmos, upwards into the sky, beyond the atmosphere, into space, punctuated with billions of stars, planets and all sorts of stuff an astronomer might attempt to explain.

I had a strong feeling that something was happening. It was as if maybe the riddle of the universe was about to be answered. Things would become clear. A state of rapture and blissful streaming, a sense of being at one with the cosmos would follow. The moment I sighed and leaned back in anticipation of good vibrations, the experience ended. My mind completely blanked out. I was at a loss of what to say. Maybe there was nothing to say. It was a bit disappointing. I hoped, at the very least, to have had a mystical experience. I finished the cup of coffee, got back in the car, with my brother and we went back out on the freeway.

Get a Handle on the Situation

2011-01-15T15:04:00.003-05:00

Pull yourself together, get a grip on the handle, don't panic, it's only January 2011. Eventually this month will vanish, never to return. Most of what happens now will be forgotten, except for the shocking events taking place at this moment, flooding in Australia, mudslides in Brazil. It's in the news, a spectrum of human suffering ranging from total trauma to minor irritation. Whatever the situation, one has no choice but to deal with oneself.

Of course, it's easy to sit back in the armchair and offer opinions and useless suggestions, based on incomplete understanding of what's going on. I'm learning to keep quiet. There's nothing worse than telling someone you don't feel good and then listening to the person give condescending advice. The person's advice betrays a lack of compassion and understanding. In fact, compassion and understanding are linked. In order to open your heart to someone, you have to be able to listen and be willing to at least make an effort to understand how the other person feels. There's a reason, or set of circumstances, behind a person's behavior or situation. Instead of judging, why not take a moment and connect with the humanity of the person involved?

I was once told that when you don't feel good, you should talk to somebody. That approach often backfires, as you see the person become alarmed. Then you end up having to reassure the person that you're ok, everything is fine and that you don't really have a problem. It's important to be careful to not talk to people when you feel bad, or at least, to be very careful about who you choose. Make sure it's ok with the person. I'm no expert.

It boils down to the fact that one has to keep going, even though it feels like one can't take another step. One falls down in the snow. One has to get up and keep walking, in order to get to a warm place. Each person is responsible for his or her state of mind. In order to make life bearable, I use negative states of mind as a reminder to not forget the wider perspective. Whenever nagging thoughts start happening I shout: stop! Pay attention to sight and sound. Of course, I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here. I do have a bad habit of grumbling. Sometimes, probably like most people, I do need to talk to somebody. Talking about problems often makes them appear much less threatening. Once I calm down, it's easier to figure out how to proceed.

There's a bright side to this post. I've been blessed with a few wonderful friends and would like to extend what I've learned from them by saying: ladies and gentlemen of the dreaming universe, if you need somebody to talk to, Dreaming Man will listen.

The Life of Pie

2011-01-04T17:18:00.000-05:00

As Canadian as a slice of apple pie, Styrofoam textured, cinnamon-flavored sugar stuff, a chip off the old menu, did you hear about what to do if you run out of apples? Use crackers and cinnamon in the pie. Nobody will be able to tell the difference. "Pie-eyed" is an expression for somebody who had too much to drink. Get pie eyed and dream about pie in the sky. What is the average life-span of a slice of pie served to a customer in a diner along the highway from one city to the next?

Good Luck, Best Wishes For You

2010-12-24T12:39:00.003-05:00

On behalf of all the good little dreaming girls and boys on the other side of the mountain, as they wait for toy train to bring "an assortment of numerous and species assorts with the popular vogue syncronous...", read the rest in the picture above. Good luck and happiness to everyone from the dreaming people of dreamland.

The picture is from a label of wrapping paper I bought yesterday at one of the many dollar stores in Cote des Neiges. It's a major step, to actually get it together with wrapping presents, as opposed to just stuffing them in a plastic bag. I'm now a Christmas Wrapper.

The label is also a beautiful specimen of inventive English. There must be a term for when someone not sure of another language recreates it in a novel fashion. One could start a blog about the wonderful, poetic language presentations, in both French and English, not to mention the amount of Yiddish, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Portugese, Hindi, Filipino and vast array of oriental languages and so on, in this multi-ethnic neighborhood.

Lotus Flower

2010-12-17T02:26:00.002-05:00

After tossing and turning a while, I rose from the bed and started looking at pictures from an autumn visit to Les Jardins Botanique in Montreal. The lotuses were past their prime, but still packed a wallop of psychedelic beauty. No wonder the lotus ranks up there with the rose, as a powerful symbol. The lotus grows in swampy soil. The idea of something so beautiful coming out of the mud suggests how a someone could be floundering about in confusion, but then, with a little patience, effort, discipline and intelligence, flower into a wise and decent person. During difficult moments, after wandering waist high into the weeds, or stumbling into brambles, I scramble back on the Mornovian Path. I will soon close my eyes and visualize these flowers and hopefully, fall asleep, to join the billions of people dreaming right now.

Sight for Sore Eyes

2010-12-10T14:32:00.001-05:00

I made an appointment for an eye exam next week, to find out why the eyes are so sore. Meanwhile, I close the eyes and visualize a flower. Imagine the moment of dying. What would be the last thing a person sees or thinks as the body becomes a corpse? Before falling asleep, I find it relaxing to fill the mind's eye with pleasant colors and forms.

vegetable

2010-12-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

An aerial view of a cage patch happened as I bent forward to rub my right eye. I suffer chronic pain in the right eye. Even pain killers won't stop the pain. So what can you do about it? Live with it. Don't complain. Rub the eye until cabbages explode under the eyelid.

golden countryside

2010-11-29T09:43:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, when waking up Monday morning to the prospect of another week, it helps to visualize something pleasant. I thought of this landscape, of Prince Edward Island, where one doesn't hear noisy neighbors, or breathe vehicle exhaust. The landscape is not cluttered with signs. In the morning, one could wake up to the beauty of nature. Of course, one could find nature in the city. That requires a bit of creativity.

Here's a photo of the property next door.

To find nature in the city means observing details, for example, the crows or sea gulls, who hang out and feed on garbage. One could find nature through observing unspectacular trees lining the street. If all else fails, look at the sky and how the light changes, morning, noon and night. It's soothing to gaze into the vast space of the sky.

Sometimes I relax by looking at patterns, for example, to sit near a brick wall and observe how each brick fits into the larger picture, or to gaze at the perspective lines of the sidewalk as it stretches to the perpendicular line of a traffic artery on the horizon.

chocoate Easter bunnies on parade

2010-11-21T11:03:00.001-05:00

Protection of the Easter Bunny, milk chocolate in gold-colored foil, unwrap the bunny, break off a piece and hold in in the hand. Close the hand over the chocolate and let it melt. Open the hand. Observe the dark-brown, sweet substance in the palm of the hand. Lick it off. Chocolate coats mouth and teeth. Milk bunny softens and collapses in the mouth.

The Easter eggs provide more resistance, due to dense cream filling. Some eggs are hollow like Christmas tree ornaments. Hollow eggs quickly collapse between upper and lower teeth and liquify on the tongue. Solid melts into moisture and then travels down the esophagus to begin its pilgrimage through stomach and intestines.

Proffered protection of bunnies begins even before the removal of foil reveals naked bunny underneath. Chocolate, so sweet, you can smell it. Was there supposed to be some sort of metaphysical significance? Such funny questions echo through my mind. Picture the brain in a boudoir skull, red velvet, puffy sofa and easy chairs, wine-red cushions and moist wall paper peeling back. In the middle of the room a brain rests in a puddle of warm salt water. If one looks closely enough to locate the pineal gland, one might find the seat of the soul.

Of course, what good is a soul separated from a body, assuming such separation possible? Without a body, how would the familiar thoughts, attitudes and opinions stick together? Once liberated from the reference point of a body, the mind would dissolve into increasingly random and disconnected thoughts. Is it possible for thought to occur without a bodily apparatus to house or generate thought?

The immaterial is inconceivable. Even the abstraction or concept of number exists as a result of having observed quantities and dimensions of material things. It's all in the Easter bunny, a group of them on parade, to guard and distribute Easter eggs and muffins. Even ghosts and spirits could not exist without referencing the material world. Thoughts, memories, fantasy, the supernatural-- don't forget to brush your teeth after eating the bunny.

The biggest mystery is the riddle of existence, so amazingly strange. My mind blanks out when I try to understand what life is all about. It might be embarrassing to connect with naked reality, after undressing the bunny. It's easier to cover it up under the gold foil of habit and the chatter of emotion and belief.

Existentialist Dummy

2010-11-16T16:46:00.000-05:00

A manikin or dummy having an existentialist or Lohbado moment, bearing the full burden of freedom as he stands in an old barn and gazes out at potato fields stretching to the horizon, notice the contrast of light and dark, to emphasize the tension of inner and outer. Maybe he should move to Prince Edward Island, home of Ann of Green Gables and relax by the ocean.

By coincidence, I stumbled across two Sartre books at the local library, Les mots and Le mur. Le mur (the wall) opens with the scenario of three men sent to a dark, damp and cold room in the hospital basement where they wait to be executed at the crack of dawn. The narrator describes the mental torment of being in such a situation and by a strange twist of fate, is spared, while his comrades die. The story, among other things, offers a contemplation of mortality and the strangeness of being in a body.

Meanwhile, I'm listening to a student of music practice French horn, while the rice simmers in a basement apartment.

SMILE

2010-11-12T18:47:00.002-05:00

I never gave much thought to smiling, until Thich Nhat Hanh described how one could draw in peaceful vibes and breathe out peace with a smile. It's been years since I read Miracle of Mindfulness, so I forget the details. The general idea is how a smile and awareness of breathing could flip a person into a state of mindfulness and relax body and soul. The other discussion of smiling occurred in 1975, the summer I worked in northern Manitoba on a track repair crew. I took a photo of a Saulteaux man and he didn't smile. He said it's foolish to smile into the camera, but didn't elaborate. The way he said it made the meaning clear.

Both views rounded out my understanding of the word smile. The smile could easily be used as a superficial, ingratiating or aggressive manner of steering a situation in a self-serving direction. The smile could also be frivolous. It could be an expression of ignorance or indifference about the state of the world.

Smiling is a huge topic, which I'm not interested in discussing, other than in the context of the dream lamp in the picture above and some thoughts that went through my mind while making the picture. The Mona Lisa's famous smile is part of the picture, as well as the smile of the Buddha.

Compost Zombies in Love

2010-11-03T10:58:00.001-04:00

Halloween, time to dig out those zombie pictures. Fruits and vegetables don't last very long. They have to be eaten before they get over-ripe and then begin to rot. I thought about this while lying in bed last night and felt bloated, a sense of putrefaction going on in my belly, not to mention bad breath and a film of sweat.

Sometimes I allow fruits to decay on the kitchen counter. It's enjoyable to watch the process of an apple sinking in to its own juice, becoming soft, a sweet vinegar aroma before it begins shriveling. I enjoy the art of death. People used to decorate skeletons in lace and pearls. It's in Buddhist and Christian art. Nobody lives forever. Eventually the body becomes a corpse, memento mori.

meaning

2010-10-25T22:01:00.001-04:00

May your wine-filled sardine cans overflow with Cheerios. I found some bottles of home made wine in a closet after moving into this apartment. Apparently, the wine is about ten years old. There was also half a box of cereal in the cupboard. It made the perfect photo op. For a comment on meaning, read below.

Everything is an expression of meaning. Each letter, word or sentence makes up, or exists in a world of symbol and signification. To say life has no meaning is to make a statement containing meaning, which contradicts the concept of no meaning.

A feeling of being trapped, overwhelmed or in mental or physical pain might cause a person to say life is absurd or meaningless. In this case, to say it is meaningless is to say one doesn’t understand why it’s happening. Why does one have to experience pain and suffering? Why couldn’t life be a bowl of cherries? These are meaningful questions, based on the assumption that one could engage with others in a meaningful discussion. If there were no meaning, there would be no speech or communication of any kind, not even grunts, groans or gestures. OK, I won’t belabor the obvious, except to note how sometimes I’ve been in a state of mind when life feels oppressive and unbearable. However, even such a state of mind is meaningful.

Even if it’s not possible to understand why there is existence as opposed to not existence, such bewilderment is meaningful. The point of this realization is to note that even during moments of distress or pain, one’s mind is free to go beyond immediate, agonizing details. If the pain gets bad enough, one goes unconscious. The mind plunges into a bardo-like state. When the dentist drilled into my teeth, I closed my eyes and imagined myself wandering through a beautiful landscape and so was able to relax. There are plenty of ways to work with the mind in order to come to terms with suffering. Rich traditions of wisdom exist in every culture.

Through realizing meaning and how meaning is enmeshed with culture, tradition and other people, one might find a way to move beyond confusion. One could pursue the truth and engage in a discussion. The idea of no meaning is based on being blinded by one's situation. In stead of closing down, one could notice the billions of other people on planet earth. One could have compassion and understanding for what others are experiencing, as a way of going beyond one's suffering.

One’s momentary pain and suffering is a dot in a giant seething ocean of humanity going through various ups and downs on the wheel of life. One’s sand grain identity could be used as a starting point to journey outwards, should one wish to set opinions and self-centered judgments aside, to relax for a moment to look at what’s going on in one’s mind and to explore. Usually, one cringes, closes down, retreats behind thick walls of ego, clenches the jaw, stiffens up and gets stressed, anxious or angry when things become unbearable. It’s more relaxing to let go of opinions and feelings for a moment in order to observe one’s mind and to contemplate existence and to extend compassion to others. Doing so is like leaving a crowded, smelly room in order to step outside into fresh air.

we got divorced

2010-10-21T17:20:00.004-04:00

Well, it happens to a lot of people. Don't feel bad. Change is part of existence. Maybe they could remain friends.

"Is love worse living?" is a line from Finnegans Wake. I have nothing to add on the subject of divorce. From personal experience, marriage seems like a joke. However, I won't go into that. There's no blame and no bad feelings. So far I've made it through life without hating anyone and hopefully it will stay that way. Of course, some situations are worth leaving, that's obvious. A lot of couples have been together a long time. They work hard at the relationship and find it rewarding.

This picture was inspired by a billboard in Toronto, which presented a man and a woman. I'm not sure what was the point. By looking at the people on the billboard, maybe the viewer would feel inspired to try harder. The hidden messages in the picture made me laugh, so I drew in imaginary faces and changed the text and voila, you have it, divorce.

Grandmother and Stonehenge

2010-10-15T14:05:00.001-04:00

Reverend Stonehenge Stumps waited until Peter Stumps reached the age of sixteen before introducing him to the Mysteries of Isabella and the secrets of lonely, northern highway through muskeg, beaver, heavy stands of spruce, fir, pine and birch, moose and bear country.

Isabella Stumps was born in the seventeenth century from a drop of Oogah and a drip of Oorsis combined on a pink granite slab, crossed with black rippling veins of lava and quartz and decorated with green coin lichen rings.

Oogah and Oorsis said: "You are the beginning of a long and pointless lineage of those who go out and preach mythology to render the unfamiliar less familiar, to make the unknown less threatening, to reduce fear of death through promises of the afterlife on Planet Blop. You are among those preachers who try to pluck thorns from roses, who ooze words of honey mixed with bitter juice at the bottom of a glass of cherries, who flatter to increase self-esteem and provide suggestions to prolong adolescent immaturity, who encourage stupor, distraction and mindless entertainment, background music, palm pilots, digital organizers, cell phones, various game gadgets and mobile devices."

Through attaining successful standardization on earth, by simplifying one's life into a set of behaviors and using carefully engineered forms and declarations streamlined for efficient data entry, one's progress could be measured and evaluated.

Peter and his father Rev. Stonehenge Stumps drove to the house of Grandmother Aida Stumps, a two-story wooden box of a house at the end of a rut road among a stand of birch, pine and spruce overlooking a small lake, which served as a sewage reservoir and source of drinking water. Grandmother appeared like an apparition on the other side of the screen door, after Stonehenge parked the 67 Chevrolet Biscayne in the meadow. Grandmother Aida's comical, syrupy voice, pleased at the arrival of son and grandson, could be heard.

"Come in, come in. Hi sugar."

She gave Peter some money. The idea was to spend it back in town. There's a hotel on the edge of town where decades ago, loggers would go in to get drunk and robbed of their hard earned pay. That was back in the days when the policy was to not leave one pine standing, for fear a competitor might come in and take it.

Grandmother cried out to her son in loneliness, creating fear of death in him. There's nothing more terrifying than to see one's mother fall apart and start screaming and hysterically sobbing about the pain of existence, the chronic ache in her joints and how things were falling apart, because people had lost their senses and behaved in a degenerate fashion. Nothing was sacred anymore. People turned their backs on God and sold holy books at garage sales or in used bookstores.

It was because of this state of affairs that God decided to give it a break and go on Cosmic Vacation. He sent Oogah and Oorsis to try and find meaning in the aggression, chaos, greed and destruction on earth.

After the first wave of excitement subsided, Stonehenge asked in a timid voice if there was anything he could do to lessen mother's agony. She said, "Yes, make me a glass of warm brandy."

That evening, Stonehenge whispered to me a change in plan. Instead of staying with Aida a week, we would leave early the next morning. That was the last time I saw Grandmother Aida. They found her body frozen one February, on the kitchen floor. She died how she wanted to die, at the age of eighty, alone in her house in the bush.

Really Good Deal

2010-10-14T10:03:00.002-04:00

As a companion piece to the Bread Os posted on Club Morono, Dreaming Man decided to offer painted bread circles for as low as 79 cents, or the fresher ones at 99 cents. Hurry, while supplies still last. Take advantage of this time limited Dreaming Man Eye-Popper Deal.

In order to explore the significance of the situation, I'm going down to the local plaza and then will come back and write the missing manual. Before leaving, I'll quickly list a few key points.

Each 0 contains a sand-grained universal evocative mind-tickling detail. So much depends upon a red O on a sheet of waxed paper covering a stained aluminum pizza tray.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, there's more to the story of O than those keepers of the sacred circle led one to believe. Remember the connection between the letter O and the digit zero. And of course, the famous ancient, but still relevant and unresolved paradoxes of Zeno, who dove into an intricate examination of the nature of time and motion and point instants. The possibility of never arriving and so on looms over the discussion.

Anyone familiar with Club Morono philosophy will note how O is a button, which one could press to regulate chaos. An entire Department, The Department of Regulation, was set up in attempt to bring about standardization of heterogeneity, or to render the unfamiliar more familiar, by means of eliminating or silencing anything which could threaten central control.

O is the time-honored cry uttered just before pressing the panic button and its effect on various sphincters.

Zero zero zero served as code, 000, for the people of the Ooo. 000 erased incriminating evidence from hard drives before administrators took off to the protection of a glass dome in the Cha Region of the Poh Valley, a classified and uninhabitable region of the Sahara Desert.

Balopian Tubes

2010-10-05T12:28:00.001-04:00

The image and text are a preview of a graphic novel in progress entitled The Wheel of Lohbado.

Sometimes I would feel the hunger coming on, a force building inside, forcing me to act. Sometimes it's not good to be a man of action. Friends told me to slow down. Look before you leap. Take time to reflect.

I talk this way after going through the conditioning and getting booted off Planet Blop. On Planet Blop, sin is not tolerated. They have effective ways of dealing with radiation leak, which occurred after the two nuclear explosions. They came up with a special cream, utilizing ergot as the active ingredient, discovered on moldy rye bread and proven to be effective in neutralizing effects of radiation.

The side effect turned out beneficial. The cream, applied to the body, caused what at first appeared to be tumors. After a six month gestation period, the tumors swelled and elongated into tubes, or tentacles. These tubes had intelligent nerve pathways enabling them to follow commands, in the same way as other limbs.

You could wag the balopian tubes like a tail. Suction cups at the end of each tube provided tubes with a sucking reflex. With balopian tubes, people of Planet Blop could hold a pen, pick up fallen items, scratch, push, pull and suck in a variety of ways. These tubes enabled Balopians to fulfill their own needs, making them both physically and emotionally stronger.

I got kicked off Planet Blop for misusing, abusing or perverting the Balopian tubes for selfish ends. The tubes led me into temptation and I did not resist. They sent me to Planet Earth, where apparently it's OK to sin, because there's an elaborate system of paying for your sins. If you're not able to pay, you can beg forgiveness.

A Blop agent warned me to wear long loose gowns to hide the tubes, while on earth, so as not to attract attention. I recently ran out of ergot cream. The tubes are burning and itchy. Only extensive massage was able to relieve the inflammation. Massage costs an arm and a leg. I now make this appeal for donations to help me raise enough money to pay for my sin on earth and to obtain a certificate of good behavior with a gold star on it.

These were the conditions of return. They booted me off Planet Blop and said don't come back until you're received a gold star certificate of good behavior. I met a man from a human church where they worship God and he said for one thousand dollars he could produce the required certificate, which would enable me to return to Blop.

Once that is done, I need to find a butcher to hack me into pieces and then to be eaten. The digestive process separates gross from sublime. The sublime part goes back to Planet Blop.The gross part goes to a sewage plant where liquids are separated and released into the river and solids aerated and used as compost or fertilizer. Before this can be done, I need the certificate, which could be scanned and emailed as an attachment to authorities on Planet Blop.

Please, send in your donations, addressed to Good Man Blop, Montreal, Quebec. A gold star certificate of good behavior would prove that I tried really hard, am sorry for what I did wrong and will do my best not to do it again.

going to bed situation

2010-09-27T22:55:00.000-04:00

Are you one of those people who dread going to bed, how the body doesn't want to let go and sink into sleep and deep relaxation? The above image shows Oogah appearing in a graveyard in front of a hill, a modern day Golgotha, place of the skull. Oogah also had trouble sleeping at night and waking up in the morning.

Is your belly swollen like pickled cabbage; are your intestines dancing like slightly undercooked beans, your stomach bloated with bread; are you bent over with heart burn and yet you're still hungry? Do you have sore eyes, stiff neck, burning throat and pain in the lower back? If so, visualize Oogah, with the set of jaws on his head, growling at the unknown.

In a few minutes, I'll brush my teeth and climb into oily sheets, head on a musty pillow and hopefully sleep like a corpse. Tomorrow, do the laundry. Put an end to that pile of dirty clothes in front of the closet. Don't hide skeletons. Eliminate dirt and grime. Purify the mind of negative thinking. Imagine flowers in the sky. Smile and drift away into a fragrant dreamscape.

Finger Forward into the Future

2010-09-20T19:05:00.000-04:00

Press the right button. To press the right button could of course be the wrong thing to do when relating to a spouse, boss, colleague or some friend or stranger. To press a person’s buttons could lead to anger, or conflict.

To press the right buttons could be like asking and receiving. The Lord helps those who help themselves.

Keep those fingers poking the right cavity, tickling the keys into sequence of sentences, or to maybe win the game. Don’t press the panic button.

The Slough of Despond

2010-09-12T15:45:00.001-04:00

Coffee, most people know the taste of coffee. I'd describe black, sugarless coffee as woody, acrid and slightly pungent, like the way the tongue curls from smell of a bog. The slough of despond, resulting from loneliness, weighed me down this morning. It's a familiar demon.

The solution: realize loneliness is ephemeral. Follow a discipline. Don't wallow in misery. Open up to others in compassion, love, sympathy and equanimity. And have a cup or two of black coffee, that helps. Slow right down. Get comfortable. Chose a book.

I grabbed Aristotle, Metaphysics, from the shelf, book Beta, various puzzles. It's not an easy book to take in at a glance. It's slow reading, requiring one to pause and reflect on what he's saying. Some people speculate the book was like a collection of lecture notes. It helps to have read other books dealing with issues Aristotle raised, such as particulars and universals, the nature of causation and change and whether or not there's an underlying substrata to existence.

After a few pages, put the book down and contemplate existence. Ok, I won't go on with boring chatter, which ends up in coming to the place of bewilderment, pondering the unknowable, being aware that there must be some point to existence, but never being able to say once and for all just what that might be.

Male/Female Communion

2010-09-03T11:50:00.001-04:00

I drew a character, gray-haired, perhaps androgynous, neither male nor female. He exists in a state of male/female communion, free from desire and at peace with his nature. Desire de-stabilizes a person.

A hungry, desiring person reaches out, grasps, craves or yearns for another person. This makes the hungry person vulnerable to a fall. Nothing moral implied here, it's only a description, or investigation. It's neither good nor bad.

To be free is to learn to live with the pain of hunger, desire and loneliness. To learn to be alone, to be one's own company, strengthens the individual. Part of learning to be alone is opening up in compassion, or non-judgmental understanding. It involves realizing how one is not alone. Humans are interconnected. People exist interdependently, in constellations (of family, friends, colleagues, strangers and so on), molecules, little worlds of scattered people, exerting influence on each other.

Makefearsome's Ocean

2010-08-27T10:01:00.001-04:00

"Another grand discobely!" (Finnegans Wake p. 294.) Back, from the real ocean of salt water to the horizon, sand and red cliffs, to the unreal ocean of samsara, or dog eat dog, catty world of the daily grind after vacation ends, don't be afraid as you plunge into the fearsome ocean.

Don't be afraid of Mr. McPherson, the man with loud footsteps in the apartment above. Resent it or not, (and I know hard working tax payers resent those without an income), another summer slides into another autumn and along with it, unresolved issues that drag along, year after year.

A waitress at the local cafe welcomed me back. Once again I could sit and enjoy the spectacle of people requesting in a loud voice for someone to buzz and unlock the bathroom door. One could identify personality types based on how people ask for access to the toilets.

During the summer I noticed the contrast between being alone, quiet, with low stimulation and being among people. One could feel introspective and zombie-like after days and weeks alone and then feel excited, manic or a little chaotic inside when suddenly in a crowd. It takes an effort to maintain equilibrium while moving in and out of various worlds.

I also experienced the contrast of sleeping in a house, in a spacious bedroom and then back in a basement apartment, where one could hear shoes clomping back and forth above the ceiling. It's neither good nor bad. That's how it is, the ocean of city life.

Motel Highway

2010-08-24T09:58:00.000-04:00

A stretch of highway between the New Brunswick Border and Riviere de Loup featured many motels with vintage signs. I snapped pictures as the car cruised down the road. We drove from PEI to Montreal in one day, two drivers.
Prince Edward Island is a great place to relax, fantastic beaches, rolling green countryside and not crowded. I did nothing except gaze into space, read a book, do calligraphy, drawing and wander along the sea side. It's a bit of a shock to arrive back in Montreal, hustle and bustle after the slow pace of the island. However, I'm easing back in slowly. What's the rush?

prayer wall

2010-07-30T11:05:00.001-04:00

The elements of perfect prayer appeared against a red brick wall as the Via Rail train raced out of central station, Montreal, destination Toronto, Oakville and so on. At cruising speed, shapes and lines appeared, often in high contrast out the window, like frames in an old film projector.

Final destination, a cup of coffee in a lush back yard, among oak trees, deep green lawns, bird song, fresh morning breeze, clear sky. Join the dot of departure with the dot of arrival. Departure began with Lohbado barefoot in a back yard in Montreal, cat fragrance, loose hairs on the pillow, a white moth buzzing among wild flowers, spongy earth, microbes absorbed through pores in the bottom of the feet. A mosquito bites on the ankle. Microbes are necessary for a stable immune system, various bacterial cultures working together to ensure good health.

Go to the station. Order a large coffee. Lineup to board the train, Lohbado lineup of travelers pulling mid-sized suitcases on wheels, extended handles, perfect carry-on size for train travelers. Slow motion of polite travelers, patiently waiting as passengers find seats and stow luggage. No need to stampede.

Station in Toronto, a middle-aged woman in a red blazer nearly knocked me down as the conductor said it was time to go up the cement stairs to the boarding platform. I grabbed the suitcase quickly, afraid to be trampled under the weight of passengers in a hurry to get on the train. No need to stampede. The train follows a schedule and allows plenty of time for passengers to board and get settled. The coach was half empty. So much panic to get on. Coaches were reserved for passengers from various communities.

In my Lohbado brain, certain images made an impression and surface during a night of insomnia, for example, the young woman, doing a kind of yoga as she bent from the waist to rummage around in her backpack. She kept straightening up, squatting down, getting up and then bending from the waist in a kind of yoga dance. Her movements made me aware of pain in my lower back. Keep the vertebrae supple. Oil the rusty hinge so a door could swing silently back and forth, uninhibited movement. In contrast to the vivacious young woman was a young woman next to me in line, dressed in a matronly outfit, as if she was anxious to get old and fit in with the crowd of those who did well and made a lot of money, serious face, as if something happened in her past she would rather forget, or maybe she was anxious about what would happen when she reached final destination. A porous mind during travel readily accepted sense impressions and fluidly formed stories. In the snap of a finger, one could switch into imagination, fantasy and spiritual experience.

The next day, I got up early, made coffee and wandered into the back yard to commune with nature. A sidewalk near the horizon resembled the line of a freeway, a line of motion, a suburban couple, frozen from the waist up, did a fitness power walk, slightly bent, stiff neck, head not moving to right or to left, through a vision tunnel, blocking out everything into a blur, enabling one to multitask, review plans for the day or whatever.

Jagged dark lines of oak branches, deep furrowed bark, I felt a trapped spirit in the tree trunk, a whimsical middle-aged man, trapped in a dream-like experience, after catching a glimpse of old age and death for the first time. Don't lose your nerve. Don't listen to nagging voices convinced your whole existence is a flop. Gaze upwards, through breaks in the foliage, contrast of shadowed leaves and luminous sky, catch glimpses of cosmic images, flowers, golden-green hills, majestic trees.

The spirit of the oak tree talked about the wood church where Reverend Woodlot Stumps used to perform healing miracles, a wall of crutches, an oak coffin for funerals, a chapel with oak panels and hard wooden benches. Wood grain darkened with age, in a shadowy part of the room, a preacher received confession and spanked boys with a twelve inch wooden ruler, blind justice of a preacher welcoming little children into the peaceable kingdom, or heavenly paradise, where one would find relief from money worry, relationship troubles, and years of drudgery, slave to a low paying job. Carry the cross of affliction, broken with a sense of failure, mental and physical limitations.

Wander as a cloud in the back yard and look at the seagulls and pigeons eating crumbs under God's table. Commune with the almighty spirit of the oak tree. Any tree will do, even the fast-growing poplar. Lohbado grew up with small daily miracles in oak paneled chapels. He crossed cast iron bridges over rapids, picked up rusty nails and locked his jaw in order to not speak the sin that dares not be named.

Prayer.

Broccoli in Plastic

2010-07-25T12:19:00.001-04:00

Walk from fresh morning breeze after pounding the pavement, open the apartment door, surrender to a gust of musty damp warm air, cough a few times and then locate the source of the smell: a forgotten plastic bag of broccoli.

The juxtaposition of two worlds: the world of strolling down a quiet, cloister-like street and the low-ceiling world of a basement apartment, where loud, thumping footsteps wake one early each morning, pause to contemplate how worlds overlap like two intersecting circles. Each aspect of daily routine could be viewed as a mini-religious ritual. Walk down the street after drinking a large cup of coffee, unwashed hands, allowing a little culture of microbes to celebrate being spared cleansing of anti-bacterial soap and water. A brief petri-dish type world on the skin of my hands harmonizes in some sort of ecological balance to ensure the smooth flow of digestion and to enhance the immune system. An obsessive, hand washing friend had to undergo a fecal transplant in order to import helpful microbes into mashed turnip and potato world.

The bladder expands after ingesting a large coffee, one price for all sizes. It's the first time I ever attempted a large coffee, in a paper cup the size of a milkshake cup. I sat in the mezzanine, contemplated the huge container and wondered how anyone could drink so much coffee at one sitting. An hour later, the cup was empty. Fingers started wiggling, feet tapping, tongue wagging. Dance down the street, under broccoli-like tree canopies. Savor a cool stream of air slithering like a snake through the oppressive humidity, air currents doing weird things, scary clouds. Sometimes a down-burst happens, blinding rain, thunder, lightning, hail, flash floods on certain freeway access roads, where the road dips down and the sewer overflows every storm without fail.

Hillbilly gospel music, comforting sentiments about life after death, heaven, Jesus the great hero, no depression, no care, leave the world of suffering for the home in heaven. Take me to where there's no pain, only glory and peace of mind, a land of light, no hunger, no humans tormenting humans, no aggression, a veritable utopia, as promised in good old time religion.

As for that bag of broccoli, seal the bag tight, put it in the trash. Set the trash outside the apartment, so as not to suffer from plastic, stale blood and urine, tomato sauce and vinegar, hospital-decay smell and then put it out on the curb on garbage day. The smell of broccoli and plastic clings to the fingers. Some sort of invisible glue makes smell stick to skin.

not a vegetarian

2010-07-22T19:26:00.002-04:00

Today I went the whole hog and performed a culinary experiment in non-vegetarian cuisine, after twenty-five years of ... ______ (fill in the blank). Not only did I walk to the supermarket in the strip mall and purchase two pieces of pork for two dollars, I took it home and ate it. I've eaten raw seal liver, raw caribou heart, beluga whale, fish in various states of death and decay, but to bite into the lowly pink pig was something I hadn't done in years.

I'm going to celebrate by running out to buy a loaf of bread from a store that has the cheapest bread prices in town. I better go now before the store closes. Maybe continue this later. Oink oink... sure hope this doesn't lead to hog flu.

..........

Ok, I just got back from the store and bought a bundle of bananas for 39 cents a pound. If you break the bundle, they charge 79 cents a pound. Have a banana for desert, good old monkey food.

As for pork, maybe stick to beans. Pig has so many religious and social overtones. It's an insult to call somebody a pig. Swine is even worse. Moses said nobody should eat pig meat, maybe because of Trichinosis or something like that. Porking is also an expression sometimes used to describe human sexual intercourse. What would a pig say about all this, if it could speak?

Creative Process

2010-07-18T14:14:00.000-04:00

Here's a panel from a comic book in process, I won't give away details, except to say that I'm rushing to get it done soon. It's the first comic book I've done for print, so it won't be technically perfect. But, that's part of the process, learning curves every step of the way.

I'm using Adobe CS 2 indesign, making frames and popping in the pictures, but then each picture needs editing. I'm learning about making cleaner lines. Jagged, ragged looking lines usually happen with freehand, which is what I do. I end up living with them. It's a question of letting the project flow, as opposed getting locked in to a technical struggle. This is a totally do it yourself deal. Given time constraints, those funky lines will have to do, otherwise the thing will drag on for the rest of my life.

Creative process... trade secrets? No secrets. Do the best you can and have fun. Even a technically limited artist such as myself can slowly learn through sheer perseverance. Even technically clumsy stuff could be interesting. I mean, you're in the desert. One drinks whatever could be made drinkable.

Make something. Make it public. Have another look. Delete the trashy parts, add more, or ignore it and move on. Don't take it too seriously. Have a good time!

Apocalyptic Heat

2010-07-16T16:07:00.001-04:00

Apocalyptic Heat, a struggle between what people do to nature and what nature does back to people. Dump oil in the water, forcing hot damp air north, creating extreme heat and monsoon rain where such weather never happened before. Cities pounded by rain, dangerous, record-breaking temperatures, high winds, I remember the days when people denied global warming and argued that such a term was coined by a handful of fanatical ex-hippies to describe how nature sometimes goes through unusual weather cycles. Now global warming is a household word.

On a human level, the struggle with heat takes on dream-like proportions. Last night, going to bed in the heat and humidity was like entering the arena with a fierce opponent. The heat monster grabbed me by the throat and pressed down hard on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. For a few moments, the room spun around and I began to float out of my body. The roar of traffic dragged me back to earth. A freeway sunk into the earth, like a cavity; freeway noise, heat and suffocation spun me into a dance of death. Eventually I collapsed into a coma-like sleep and woke up the next morning, weak and groggy; nothing a strong cup of coffee couldn’t fix.

Walk into waist-high weeds, to a mountain ash tree as the sky darkens and wind creates the feeling that a storm is on the way. Dark inside the house, walk around without a shirt on. Fabric burns the skin. Moisture forms on the soles of the feet, causing a sticky contact with the floor. Extreme heat and humidity, even the walls appear to sweat and ooze. Air becomes like a tactile jelly. The body comes apart, ribs open, lungs fall out on to the floor and intestines trail behind.

Hot Heat

2010-07-03T13:35:00.000-04:00

Remember, it's not always the pretty picture that counts. Not even the lowly selling/buying pawn shop, gold-silver, beanie babies in any form escapes the control God spreads over the zone. The thing about the present heat wave, as I was saying to Joe over lunch, this heat is a hot heat, the direct opposite of moist or dry cold. Only a saddu would wander bare chested, no sunscreen, head exposed to the sun in an Oceanside Job Lot parking lot, or down the streets of a ville run by the mart.

Things were getting a little hot, so we caught a ride to Vermont in order to cool off with American friends at the beach and to soak in a little freeway community folk lore, which resembles a lot of the folklore along any freeway anywhere. I was struck by the slogans indicating that God is in control and could do anything. I asked why God didn't stop the oil gush from the well in the Gulf of Mexico and someone suggested it was God punishing humans for sin.

God has a track record of inflicting severe punishment. He wiped out all of humanity during Noah's flood. After words, he promised not to do it again and even sent a rainbow to backup his promise. However, a few chapters of Genesis later, God is at it again, wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah in an explosion of fire. The only reason he spared Lot is because Abraham pleaded for God to at least spare one family.

Anyway, bumper stickers and signs indicated that God and guns run the show, so non-sinful people could sit back and enjoy the ride. All you have to do is trust, obey and do it cause daddy said so, because daddy knows best.

In the Hot Seat

2010-06-28T05:07:00.003-04:00

I stumbled upon this scene of a burning truck seat several years ago at a dump in the Canadian Arctic, outside a small village, far north of tree line. I stopped to watch the orange ball of fire and black smoke and took a few photos.

The image seemed appropriate for Dreaming Man, especially since it appeared at 4 AM, on a hot steamy early morning, rain coming down, a cloud forming in this apartment, leaving a damp film on the walls. The birds are already chirping.

In fact, this is a present tense situation after waking up with tense burning eyes, tossing and turning on hot damp sheets. I immediately opened Finnegans Wake, which never fails to lift the spirits. It made me smile right away to read the following line:

"it's life that's all chokered by that batch of grim rushers" page 291. This was in a passage including a mention of a "foist edition" publication "utterly exhausted before publication, indiapepper edition shortly", which concludes "there is no use for your pastripreaching for to cheeseit either..." 291.

Funny this passage jumped from the book of dreaming scripture... I spent two hours working on a food shoot the previous afternoon, a set up of stale bread, five-day old tomato paste drying out in a pot in the fridge, a rotten pear and expired cream cheese, all on a torn, leather wallet, literally bursting with a rotten parsnip. To wake up at 4 AM, burning in damp heat, to find a photograph taken several years ago in the arctic of a burning chair at a dump in the middle of nowhere and then to read about the no need to pastry preach or cheese it either, all against a backdrop of grim reapers, the old dance of death reference, choking or checker pattern of life. I can imagine the first edition, with the marbled page, the decorative plates at the beginning of the book, India-pepper pattern, mostly likely a leather bound book.

Anyway, you'll have to read it for yourself, if you're "decontaminated enough to look discarnate..." 291.

Let It Speak

2010-06-24T10:12:00.002-04:00

Basement  moisture strangulation, food belly situation, it’s time to smile. Instead of grumbling about the situation, welcome the experience. Let it speak. Don’t turn away from  insistent sensations, muttering apparitions, weeping spirits, jealous demons,  hungry ghosts, you’re in one of those realms. 

I am in one of the many possible  or impossible indescribable or, someone might add, unidentifiable states of affairs. To silence  the stomach, I ate a peanut butter sandwich and drank water, clear fluid  from the river, to mix with saliva and moisturize the body, as any moisturologist  would recommend.

Don't turn away in moralistic indignation. This is not a time to be spiritual or religious. There's no avoiding the issue. Certain sensations and thoughts are happening. Deal with them. Focus inward or open outward, there's more than one way to cook an egg. Do not despise the lowly piece of bread, for it is the staff of life. Don't worry about lodging. Even the peanuts of the plantation are enclosed in openable shells.

Water flows freely. Let go.

Art as Catalyst

2010-06-20T14:44:00.004-04:00

Art could act as a catalyst to help one overcome deterministic imprisonment within one’s conditioned circumstances. Art, in so far as it involves opening of the heart and mind, embodies freedom. This type of art often presents unique or unusual images, which at first could baffle the viewer. Often the baffled viewer reacts with frustration and irritation, spurning the possibility to open up to something new.

An artist could snuggle securely under the blankets of tradition, where one could perpetuate the predictable. Such art is soothing to ignorance and ingratiating towards power. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the main thing is to have fun.