aemWORKS
word.art.design
from episode 1 8, 11, 27, 34, 40, 63, 91, 106, 109, 128, 139 142
I bike because I am lazy. I get used to walking over the winter, and enjoy it of an evening in the summer, and of a winter’s day. But I am lazy, and when the roads are clear of snow I would far rather have my wheels under me so I can coast along effortlessly. When I had new brakes put on my bike this spring, at the whopping cost of $40, the fellow asked if he wanted him to carry the bike to my vehicle. “That is my vehicle”. Cheap to keep, carries the groceries in the basket, and coasts. I do not understand Calvin, or his inspiration for this scene, peddling madly and going nowhere fast. When I get my heart rate up I like to be mov’in.
I took Theatre History in the late 1980’s from a prof whose name rests in my mind as Bingo Maver. He was a tall, elderly man with white hair, tweet coat, that sort of thing. A delight. I am sure I was told at some point the story of why Professor Maver was called Bingo, but it is lost to me now. What is not lost is the memory of his picture lectures. He would start at one side of the black board at the beginning of class and draw his way to the other as he told us stories about plays and playwrights and the history of the times in which they lived. He went off on the most amazing tangents through a playwright’s life and off into the life of his friends, or his lovers, but he always came back to the original point. It was the most enjoyable lecture class of my university career.
This summer on my vacation I went back to the house I grew up in. I had been there in my twenties, but it was not until this visit that I saw how small the house was. The new owners were very kind and let me step in and it was shocking to see how tiny the rooms were, how narrow the staircase to the second floor. The only thing that had not changed was the height of the ceilings. The pine tree my mother had planted in the front yard was the only thing that was larger. When I was a child it did indeed not seem to grow. She did go out with an axe to take it down. My eldest brother stopped her. He had been been eating the buds off the poor thing, a strange habit I have never understood. Mind you, I used to eat caragana hedge flowers, so who is more strange?
This is based on the exit of Toby, who was with us for fourteen and a half years, and on whom Tinker is based. His vet did not come to the house, and the peas were eaten by Ned, who left many years before, but Toby had been ill and thought to die, but survived. He did one night nearly a year after his recovery ask to be released just as Tinker did in the story. The vet met my mother at the clinic, in considerably less than 45 minutes. He died in the arms of his Goddess.
Two true stories actually. There really is a chicken somewhere around here whose name is Izzie and who produces enormous eggs. At least she was still at it two years ago when I had the honour of receiving one of her eggs. I was sick at home and a friend kindly brought over some groceries, including one dozen farm eggs. She opened the carton and said, “This one is from Izzie.” I have kept the shell with the oddments in my book case ever since. The other true part of this episode is that yes, I did once enter a drinking establishment at the illegally tender age of 18 and, whatever else I go up to, I danced with a good looking young fellow, who it turned out was fresh from the PA Penn. Which even then proved to me the truism that though there are more fish in the sea, you will be hard pressed to find one that is not taken, gay, or fresh out of prison.
When I first started drawing again in 2005 I did an exercise of scribbling to music. I began with my right hand, as I am right handed. But part way through the second or third drawing (they were very fast) my left hand literally took over of its own accord. It grabbed the crayon, demanding: ‘give me that’. It was an amazing sensation and experience. I continue to be right handed. But whenever I feel quite away from my art, or just to get the opposite side of my brain going I will do work with my left hand.
I was brought up in a rectory. Not answering the phone was not an option and to this day a ringing phone will bring me from what ever I am doing. Learning to simply say “Hello” once I left home took time and not a few embarrassing moments. When I was a little kid, on the night it was my turn to start grace, the phone rang just as I opened my mouth. I got up, picked up the phone and sang, “God is great and God is good…” Luckily it was my uncle. He knew he had the right place.
As far as I know none of my co-workers have ever thought I was wrong for doing my shelf reading* from Z to A (infinity to 0). Mostly they have said "cool!" It took me a while to discover my dyslexic brain finds going 'backwards' easier. When I first started shelf reading it was like beating my head with a hammer while running backwards up an ice slope. Reading the opposite way is like riding a toboggan down hill.
*for those who don't know what shelf reading is: books in libraries are put on the shelves in call number order (nope, not colour, not author, not title, and strangely, not size). To make sure a person looking for the book in its proper place we go into the stacks (lots of bookcases holding lots of books), and go along making sure the numbers are all in the correct order. Clare, like me, works in a University Library, so she is shelf reading Library of Congress, which is a mixture of letters a numbers. Hence SL 3201. S2 etc. Did you know that snakes are in a 666 section? And that many religious books fall under BS?
Okay, I don't smoke, but I do like to lay in the dark on warm evenings listening to CBC Ideas. The particular episode Dot is listening to is Living on Oxford Time. I was first consciously interested in time when I was in high school. Of course like Dot I don't bother with the mathematics. I have always interested been in stories in which people moved through time. I have experienced the slowing down of time and connected with other moments in time. As a teenager on a camp trip I was riding in the back of a van. In those days we loaded in like luggage. I was sitting against the back doors. I thought, what would I do if these doors suddenly came open? Well, fling yourself forward fool. Two seconds later the doors flew open, I flung myself forward, hands grabbed me, and the car behind us slammed on its brakes.
Buddha is taken whole cloth from real life from his character to his markings. Except I changed his name. The real Buddha was named Rainbow. He was named by the little girl at the farm where he was born and when my friend came to take him home she asked what his name was. The boy on the farm said 'Chub". The little girl said 'I always thought he should be called Rainbow, because rainbows are the most beautiful things I 've ever seen and so is he'. A more suited name to an amazing dog I can not image.
Once when I drove down to visit my friend in Weyburn. I parked and went directly into the house, headed, in great need, for the Head. Rainbow rose up off the couch and came to greet me. My friend entered from the kitchen and gave a great start. Rainbow had not barked, or made any notification at all of my arrival. He knew who I was and that I was perfectly welcome to walk right in even though he had not seen me in months.
This painting is called Still Point. It is Rainbow's memorial painting. He died in 2007 at the age of 13.
Penelope and Dot are inspired by my great aunt Helen and her long time friend Dorothy. They were friends (as the phrase was) from their teens until Helen's death in 1964. Their story was not always happy, but they were most decidedly a pair.
This is part of a poem I wrote about Dot.
M. Dorothy
Hard dot in the centre of your life
cigarette in each nostril
boobs on your belt
hair cropped so short that the store clerk in 1944 berated you
for not going to war
hard Dot you knew everything
but what to do with Helen when she was sick
or how to remain loyal during life
not take the wedding ring and men
to hotels
leaving Helen alone
hard Dot I saw you there only once
alone at eighty-three
but for your butt dragging dog
in that large hot house
your sanctuary in New Jersey
terrifying in density
brushed up
and hidden in civilization
irrevocable with your opinions
still
when we dissected the house of Helen's growing up
no less keen than my grandmother to find a rightful heir
before you died
Hard Dot
and the strange dark house that swallowed you
in childhood
the only hard dot
to survive the nursery floor
becoming the son unable
to follow father as a doctor
but doctoring in quackish ways
until Helen became too ill and my grandmother
was summoned to come and take her sister away
top
Some time before 1958, my mother came across a recipe in...well I don't know, and neither does she. But it was for a chocolate cake called Blue Monday. I have recently found similar recipes under the name Crazy Cake, but this one, the one Margaret's daughter-in-law is making, is Blue Monday and has been the family birthday cake in my family for 50 years (because my brother doesn't turn 51 until September).
As Margaret would say: slop it all into a bowl, or make directly in the pan, and bake it at 350 F for 30-40 mins. As my mother would say: don't eat all the dough before you bake it or there will be nothing for the children after school (see 'My Deprived Childhood' the unwritten memoir). And as my friend who has kids with milk and egg allergies says, thank God for it.
Blue Monday
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon vinegar
5 tablespoon melted marg
1 cup cold water
If anyone has ever heard of it as a Blue Monday cake, I'd love to know the history. (The cake does just fine with 3/4 cup sugar and a bit less salt.)
In 2005 I rediscovered I could draw. For six months I was producing up to seven drawings a day. Not too long after that a group I belong to: The Saskatoon Writer's Coop, was celebrating its 5th anniversary and decided to have a logo contest. Having been around since the Coop (as in chicken) began and having been on the board for a couple years, I was keen to try for the life time membership prize. I so hate having to remember to send in my ten bucks every year. And thus and so I did. And here is the result.
Hector, the real winning chicken.
For Hector's full story, go to the