nEon heResy

OUT

2011-01-18T16:46:00.001-05:00

I read an article today about people quitting blogging and although nothing in it was new to me it resonated with its unavoidable truths. There's a real imbalance if you think of this whole enterprise in an effort to benefit ratio kind of scenario. There were some interesting things that happened in the first year of this blog. I met a few people. I probably even got an opportunity or two. But, nothing since the beginning.

For someone like me who just isn't interested in sharing more personal details of my life and bombarding readers with photo documentation I can't expect much of a following. I came to terms with that a long time ago. That's also when the blog slipped and never really returned. I put much less into it because I knew that it wasn't going to be seen anyway. Catch-22? Probably not. There's just no source of traffic. I'm not associated with any company or large publication. There's no nudity. I hate whoring around the internet commenting and trying to drum up followers.

I can't justify putting fiction up here like I once did both because nobody likes to interact with that (in my case) and because it's throwing away or at least devaluing work that could be put together more formally and thoughtfully. So, I can advertise my photo projects a little bit (which has been of zero help I'm here to tell you), not post fiction and not say much about my real life, and perhaps provide some tongue-in-cheek commentary now and then about some topic that piqued my interest that day. That's no better than a personal scrap-book.

I've kept this alive for a long time because of a strange emotional attachment that stretches back to what was going on when I started it and what it did for me. But, it's only been a drain since those days. I'm not deleting anything. And I'll leave this sitting here for the time being. But, if you're interested you can find me elsewhere in the universe.

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Dear Rob Ford: I Don't Want More Subways

2011-01-10T00:57:00.001-05:00

It's Sunday night, which statistically, over the past year, is my biggest blogging night. My well-rested self can never get to sleep with all the thoughts of the upcoming week crowding my brain. I can't complain, really, that right now I'm just thinking about the route to work. It could be worse.

The dilemma is this: I live in a great neighbourhood in a great apartment now that happens to stand across a good part of the city. In between lies not much that I want to visit daily. It takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes to and/or from work every day. That doesn't pose a huge problem for me in itself. But, compared to every single place I've lived (this is the sixth in as many years) this is the worst pedestrian commute possible. There is no other viable option; just this desolate, boring, monotonous, congested stretch.

The map above shows my trip to work. The straight purple lines are provided by Google. It has correctly identified the most logical pedestrian route to my office. I've taken the liberty of adding some detail to that route with numbered segments. Working FROM my office, segment one (1) is intolerable after a day sitting still at a desk all day. Approximately 25 minutes of the beginning of my walk is taken up by crowded sidewalks full of people heading to restaurants or shopping in the area and it's impossible to maintain a particular pace. The only people who seem to want to move at a speed that would make sense to me (a person who is trying to travel a fair number of kilometers after work) are (gross, yet startlingly accurate generalization) smokers. Smokers are always tooling right along right in front of me right at the same speed as me thereby providing me a second-hand stream of smoke for the entire duration of their cigarette. Don't ask me to explain this phenomenon. I'm only reporting on it.

I usually am breathing a little easier by the time I get to Bathurst Street (2). The crowd on the sidewalk thins out a little bit and I know that by Christie it will be a guaranteed lane set aside just for me. So, a bit of frustration with meandering pedestrians in Little Korea will usually end up with a quiet, dark walk up the hill to Ossington. From here (3), I don't have to worry too much about weaving in and out of shoppers. Now, I have to worry about how loud my headphones are turned up because I want to be able to hear people around me. I hate to tell all those who say that this area is the next big culture neighbourhood, who've even gone to the trouble of dubbing it "Bloorcourt Village", but I wouldn't want my girlfriend walking through there on her own. I'll leave it at that.

The view in this stretch is the worst. It consists entirely of wind tunnels, dilapidated discount shops, and cheque-cashing outlets. There's even a strip club attached to an evangelical Christian church across the parking lot from a Value Village. Nice, right? This takes about half an hour to get through. Then I'm in the home stretch, basically in my own neighbourhood, and all is good with the world.

I took the liberty of creating alternate routes to show you the extent of my dilemma. The red line snaking its way through the city represents my ideal walk into work in the morning taking into consideration the sun in my eyes, traffic, smells, trees, residential streets and parks. The pink line represents my ideal walk home. This takes into consideration: time, view, sun in my eyes, residential streets and quiet. You'll notice that the walk into work in the morning would take me approximately 2 and a half hours and the trip home would probably be an hour and a half or so.

This city really has no intention of letting me avoid the TTC.

junction

2011-01-04T01:34:00.000-05:00

Even getting out of the house for a couple of hours and taking some snapshots while walking around a dog trail at -20 was fun this time last week. I haven't shot anything significant for a couple of months and I was glad to feel the surge of excitement still there even though I couldn't feel my legs.

I have my hands full editing projects still but I'm thinking I'm going to try to shoot a creative studio project in the next little while. I've never done anything beyond fiddling around in a studio and I want to see what I can make! Anybody have an interest in collaborating or lending a hand?

south of repose

2011-01-03T01:05:00.000-05:00

I used to know a lot better what I was thinking. You know when something specific is on your mind and you can't shake it for days or weeks? It might have been heartache. It might have been the bleakness of money worries. It might have been the excitement that spring was coming. Whatever it was I knew what it was. I was unavoidably aware of what was carving deep grooves in my synapses hour after hour. Somehow now if I try for a quick pause to take stock I'm all static. Priorities disintegrate and only a numbness is left where creativity and thought once were.

Can I blame this on Twitter?

There's a lot to face this year and I think this mental time-out situation is the first thing. I'm a little bit tired of tracking my progress and rehashing old periods of my life and comparing them to the present. I'd like maybe to sit here for a moment and collect myself and recognize that this is what's become of me as a result of everything that's ever happened and, once that's clicked, move on.

One of the main reasons I want to load myself down with reading (see previous post) is to make a lot less time for other things that just tend to painlessly distract me. I haven't let go of any of my many aspirations of the past decade and, if anything, the list is growing. The lack of progress is really eating at me and holding me down. Although I've been busy enough chipping away at things I'm realizing that this speed just isn't fast enough. I really don't know why creative work is so hard for some and comes so much more naturally for others. I should stop asking the question.

2011-01-01T22:45:00.004-05:00

On this first day of the year two thousand and eleven I resolutely absolve myself of all need for resolutions. Revolution, maybe.

Instead, because I can't pass up the offer of new beginnings and, more importantly, a binding cultural contract to ignore everything in my past, I opted for a year-long "to-do" list which includes a voluminous reading list. While the things I want to see or accomplish this year are banal and more suited for declarations in an old-fashioned 'dear diary' entry, the list of books I have so far might be good for something.

Story (halfway through)
Infinite Jest (starting over; gave up on it about a hundred pages in last year)
The World As I Found It
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Bluebeard (mission to read all Vonnegut by the end of the year)
Cat's Cradle (mission to read all Vonnegut by the end of the year)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (mission to read all Vonnegut by the end of the year)
The Architects Are Here
Happiness: A History (i'm sure this will inspire some blogging)
The Art Instinct (this one too)
The Gone-Away World (sci-fi craving)
Counting Heads (sci-fi craving)
We (sci-fi craving)
Stunt
Ficciones (finally, Borges)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (re-reading; first time was in 1990)

I think I have room for a few more. Recommendations anyone? Anybody have any experience with graphic novels?

Happy New Year!

do they want you to shit or do they want you to get off the pot?

2010-11-29T01:02:00.002-05:00

Robin

Less than exploding out of the gate, I've uploaded the part of the ongoing portrait project I'm working on that I have available to me. That means that I intend to keep shooting but that I didn't want to wait any longer (I started shooting this almost 2 years ago!) to find a subject before putting the work I've already done up on my site. So, here is Robin, who was my last subject and who went on to have a bad-ass showing of her work.

See the rest of it on my photography site: http://chapman.carbonmade.com.

I'm constantly on the lookout for people who could fit into this project so please still let me know if you have ideas. In the meantime, I'm starting work on a new project that I will shoot in the spring and hopefully I'll have the film from my summer trip developed soon so can spend the winter putting that project together.

Comments welcome!

6 Years Old

2010-11-12T23:21:00.003-05:00

My first post was six years ago today.

I think I might have forgotten this milestone, like most other years, if not for the fact that Raymi celebrated her 10 year anniversary yesterday and it was promoted all up and down the internets. Congrats to her. She's a blogging machine. I've never really become a blogger. I do it once in awhile and have never thought it would be a great idea to attract a large following. I've been content, mostly, to toss my ideas into the void to simply know a place where they're together.

In 2004 I was a live wire. I wanted to write and the life I had for myself in Ottawa was holding me back. I felt desperate and my move to Toronto was the most visceral change I've ever made in my life. I had to swallow a lot of pride and accept a lot of help to get out of there and to plant myself here with my dream and nothing else. I started this blog because I had no social life and I liked that I could talk about what I wanted and still get a response. I was worried that cultivating a comfortable close-knit social life like I had just left would ensure that I would never get to writing. Well, it turns out that I did focus with a sickening determination for a couple of years on making something of myself. But, then I "lost the plot" as they say. Who says that, you ask? I don't know. British journalists maybe?

I was living too much in my head and I was running out of experiences to fuel my imagination. Plus, living the monk life for so long was starting to make me strange, I think. Anyway, the pace dropped, I found a few friends & I enjoyed a bit of my time here. Now here we are looking at a stale old blog and and stale old guy. Welcome!

I've somehow managed to find myself in a stable and happy relationship with Shannon. I've gotten pretty interested in food, gardening and cooking. I don't show up at work hungover more than once every six months. Not everything feels like a compromise or sacrifice. After six years of roommates, booze and prostitutes living upstairs I am happily living in a great place in a great area with a fantastic girl. Surprisingly, I find myself still wanting to write. I haven't talked about that very much since jumping on the photography bandwagon but it was always a backburner thing for me. I'm glad it's lasted through all of this and that I'm not just totally spent and willing to give in and let the malaise of middle-age settle over me.

All this is just to say that I feel like this change will be good for my writing as well as my photography. I'm less the rabid dog and more the wily sheriff. Yup.

I have to say that my playlist has gotten exponentially better since November 2004. Listening to Damien Rice and Norah Jones on repeat for hours on end really had an impact on what words sprung forth from my overwrought fingertips. On deck today: Broken Bells, Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Sarah Blasko, Holy Fuck, John Coltrane, Sarah Harmer, Arcade Fire, Bill Evans, Balmorhea, John Legend & The Roots, Cee-Lo Green and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

P.S. - Here are some of my favourite posts, from that time mostly.

shrinking field of view

2010-10-29T11:52:00.000-04:00

This scene is kinda in my new neighbourhood. Movin' on Sunday!

I'm looking forward to things being a little more fluid. I'm tired of all the planning I've done in 2010. But, the next couple of days are basically all laid out, hour by hour, to get everything over to the new house with minimal effort and confusion.

I do not want to move again for a long time.

i make it so damn easy

2010-10-16T11:54:00.000-04:00

This was a week ago today down at the St. Lawrence Market. We went down there to pick up whatever we could for a sorta-Thanksgiving feast. It was a gorgeous day. We enjoyed the simplicity of peameal bacon on a bun. And I got some seriously good lamb and sausage. The vegetables were all good too, but it's hard to beat a rack of lamb.

The menu for Sunday was as follows:
roasted rack of lamb crusted in panko, garlic and parsley
roasted sausage "pinwheel" brushed with rosemary, olive oil and nutmeg on a bed of onions
sauce from above dish
"bubble and squeak" autumn vegetable mash
baked potatoes stuffed with sage, anchovy, garlic and bacon
raw beet, feta and pear salad
baked onion gratin
from Shannon, apple pie and peach pie from scratch

It was well received with the exception of the timing. Can't win'em all.

Today Shannon's at work and I'm guiltily listening to Beyonce very loud while typing this. I can't believe I still fall for her. I'm impervious to Gaga, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera and whatever other pop ladies are out there but here I go listening to "Why Don't You Love Me" for the 4th time in a row! I'm so ashamed (not really).

The video is pretty enjoyable, non?

now that that's out of the way

2010-10-05T00:11:00.009-04:00

Well, it's a sad day when my blogging comrade in arms falls. The (s)wine has closed up shop. He's been with me since we both started in 2004. I think it was only a month into it when he started commenting and encouraging me. At the time I posted mostly fiction, like him, and I was in awe of his style and command of dialogue. I was pumped when he liked a piece. I might have even written a few things that would have been considered experimental for me at the time to see if I could impress him. As time went on, I drifted away from posting fiction because nobody else knew what to do with it and I felt like I was working to throw honest effort into the ether. But, since then my blog has been lacking anything original. He's kept it up all this time, give or take a few name changes and site re-starts, and I'm pretty amazed by the level of commitment and sheer output he's managed. You'll be missed around here, my friend!

On a barely related note, I had a bit of an epiphany reading a New Yorker article at lunch today. Thinking both about my slow progress towards finishing a writing project or a substantial photography essay I all but shut down today at the prospect of another "plan" to get organized and motivated and structured and disciplined.

Nothing works. I was describing my inability to wake up on time to Shannon on the weekend and the closest I could come to making sense of it was that I was actually two different people. The person I was late at night who wanted better things for my future self was NOT the person who awoke angrily at 6am who told the phone to fuck itself. There was no doubt in that second person's mind that he was being wronged and that getting out of bed was just foolish and without purpose. I read an article today that was interestingly in line with this theory. It was about procrastination and it reached far and wide to find the wisdom of the ancients on the topic. The point, made by Thomas Schelling describing "the divided self", is that we all tend to want something for ourselves one moment yet fail to manage it when the time comes. Psychologists postulated that we have a long-term self that wants the best for us and visualizes largely challenge-free scenarios that will lead to success and comfort. Then we have the immediate self that is concerned solely with pleasure and satisfaction. So, with my selves, I plan to sit down and write for a couple of hours after work and instead I sit in front of the TV for 3 hours until I'm too tired to string a sentence together. Their thoughts make a lot of sense and describe me to a tee.

I think I have exhausted all reasonable approaches whose end result is effortless productivity and output. There is nothing left now but to sit down, messy, disorganized and full of distractions and work. I don't know why I'm so afraid to work. I want to want to work. But, at this point I think it's clear that I've failed to convince my other self that work is the answer. I don't want to wake up and run in the morning. I'll want to even less when the morning comes. I don't want to sit in front of this screen for hours and hours with the knowledge that I can't say anything original. But, I will. Split personality disorder stigma be damned.

when i say things and see things

2010-09-22T23:51:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to get to the place where I've been aiming for some time. I am producing some work that I am happy to show. The picture above, a daytime visit to an Owen Sound drive-in, is part of my roadtrip project. I'm not sure what to call it anymore because the intent and the end results did not match up at all. In the meantime, though, I make my way through and find the best of what I can and try to turn it into something else.

Making the best of things is all I really know how to do with any expertise. Despite any well-meaning protestations to the contrary I do wonder if this is all coming just a little bit too late. Having never gone to school for anything even resembling visual arts (1 university art history class which, to my memory at this point, focused solely on the religious allegorical nature of the paintings of the Group of Seven) I don't know where to place myself. Every time I read about another "up and coming" photographer at least a decade younger than I, who usually boasts publication in at least 3 major US news or culture magazines, it becomes apparent that I'm working completely in the dark. No connections. No guidance. No supportive community of peers.

When it REALLY comes down to it I do this because I love it and there is personal reward in the effort. But, the chance that I'll always be doing this in my spare time and trudging off to a passionless office to sit and atrophy every day looms ever more ominously. At the very least, I can find solace in the apparent truth that I will never relax enough to be happy with that existence! So, a 50% chance that I fail and grow old in an ergonomic chair and a 95% chance that I will be miserable doing it actually makes for some compelling odds for arguing to keep my nose the grindstone and maybe get a cool hat to disguise my advanced years.

a parade of nobility seen from above

2010-09-08T00:31:00.000-04:00

I'll give you the bottom line first. I can't undo it all and I can't try again.

It seems so much more important to know where you're going than to know what you're doing. In a time and place that should be crackling with creative support, inspiration and just depth there is mostly fear. Cynicism, once a prudent survival tool, has infiltrated the minds of the young and unproven to such an extent that a new idea actually making it from start to finish and ending up with the appropriate audience requires such astronomical timing and blind luck that one might have similar odds of hitting it big by sitting on a lawnchair in a suburban basement scratching keno tickets.

There are too many untrained curators. Opinions fly on the Internet without consequences. In person, people have learned to be guarded and will only step onto the limb they live on. They'll talk and advise and vastly overindulge in industry-specific soothsaying because while they hold court there they are the last word. And with so many people desperately afraid to be pulled out of their tiny comfort zones we end up with a whole lot of aggressive and negative commentary. We read negative as realistic so the most worst-case-scenario the diatribe the more unstoppable the message. It's killing our culture.

This is the world I see when I wake up in the morning to contemplate my direction anew. Then I wish I could have understood earlier how urgent the situation would become.

unwarranted comparison

2010-09-03T11:17:00.001-04:00

It occurred to me, just now, that Australia's Sarah Blasko and Canada's Jenn Grant have a very similar feel to their music. Then I found a similar feel to a couple of their recent videos. So, I posted them both here. True story.

of two minds

2010-09-01T00:08:00.000-04:00

The weather has a marked effect on my blogging. I was doing pretty good for a bit there last week. The difference between this week and last week chiefly being that at 11:47 p.m. it is still so hot in my office that just sitting at my desk has caused me to sweat through my shirt, off the tip of my nose and down my back and I'm not even wearing pants.

I just made the final cuts to a project that I finished shooting over a year ago. At the time I didn't know what I was shooting was to be the finale and I think that's for the best. I didn't want it to have a feel of a story being wrapped up. I wanted a straight documentary of a year in the life of a director. I've put the photos up on two different sites. Since I couldn't decide between two different yet similar sites that do most of the work of hosting portfolios for you I am putting two together at the same time. One of them (virb) is slicker and I think more elegant looking but the navigation is terrible. The other (carbonmade) looks simple to the point of being absolutely without style but the navigation is fast and simple and direct. Take a look if you want and let me know if you have a preference. The project that I uploaded was called "The Effort".

I was going to add something to this little entry but the fans on my computer are about to propel it into the living room so I'll cut my losses and leave this at that.

let's not celebrate just yet

2010-08-27T16:38:00.003-04:00

It's time for Friday "Let's be honest". I have a general sense that I've been pushing along and making a bit of progress lately but I'm going to stop myself right there and say "let's be honest" because there's no denying the levels of better than I'm not reaching.

Even though I finished editing a job that involved colour correcting and light adjustment on 700ish photos in the space of about 4 hours, and was a little more disciplined with my strategic routine of early rising, writing and walking to work, and even though I cooked at home most days this week and worked on some commercial-style photo editing techniques I could have done more. It's nice to lay out all the things you've done and pat yourself on the back. That's a given. But, all this just ends up with my treading water and needing a walker before I finish some work I am proud of.

So, I offer up the following recent details that did not contribute anything and perhaps even took away momentum from my cause. I dusted off GTA San Andreas and rolled through the L.A. Streets, cheatcodes in hand, for most of Tuesday evening. I got up early on Monday to write and had a coffee and sat at my desk for a full hour going through my twitter and tumblr feeds and generally just clicking away on links and buttons until I had to leave to go to work. Instead of reading on my lunch break this week I have done the following instead: met my girlfriend to eat a sandwich and look at potential couch upholstery, played an online monster truck flash game for 40 minutes, wandered around aimlessly unable to decide what to eat for lunch, and spent an hour browsing craigslist for apartments that are not available for me to move into yet.

Lots of time wasting. And this was a GOOD week! Next week I hope I have less to be honest about. Or at least something more worthy of keeping me away from good work!

Happy Honest Friday!

pulling the horse back behind the cart

2010-08-26T17:26:00.000-04:00

Since the first day I decided I was going to actually make a go of it as a writer, and later on as a photographer, I put off the problem of promotion and distribution. Blogs and social networking were not nearly as ubiquitous and I honestly just figured I would write until I thought I was good enough and then try my luck at sending manuscripts to publishers. Even when I started to see blogs get noticed and book deals start to pop up I never put myself in the place of those bloggers. First off, because I couldn't come up with as much content as they all seemed to be able and second, because they were all selling memoir or humour or lifestyle writing and I just wanted to write stories.

In the past few years my views on promotion for writing haven't changed with the times. Once I'm satisfied with something I'm just going to try to get it in front of people in the industry the old fashioned way and if it doesn't work out that will be that. As far as photography goes, I'm much more scattered. I still don't like the idea of blasting my name out there on social networks and email campaigns or even contact cards. But, because of the nature and variety of photography I think I'm going to have to step up. There's either toiling in obscurity or there is spending more than half your time on promoting what you did during the other half.

I've absolutely accepted the reality that I need to pull my best together and get it seen by an audience. I'm not convinced, though, that anything that happens through social networking updates and links and shares and follows really makes a meaningful dent. I've seen a ton of photographers adopt Twitter full on and it's pretty obvious that they take it seriously and devote a lot of each day to making sure nobody forgets about them. I've unfollowed every single one of them. It's annoying. And even though self-promotion doesn't need to be a secret, when it's so constant and one-sided it just gives the impression that the whole "social" aspect of the network has been co-opted by a crazy end-of-the-world-sign-carrying dude with a megaphone on the street corner. I'm intent on getting my official website together in the next couple of months. I'll have a website to show. I don't think I want to print a typical "book" simply because of the cost and the variations that I'd need for the different audiences I could be attracting. But, something printed on a smaller scale and adeptly designed is definitely going to happen.

I don't think that constant chatter in any medium is going to pay off with real work. The world of artistic commodities is changing quickly and there is a lot to keep up with but I think that it's too easy to forget that the substance of the thing is the point, not necessarily how many random sets of eyes you can attract to it. Rather than driving myself a little crazy comparing and contrasting different methods of showcasing and networking and promoting my work I am going to take a step backward and let a little of the next new thing wave pass me by. If the work doesn't stand on its own there's no future in it.

church and solid state

2010-08-24T23:50:00.009-04:00

Gimli, MB

Loosely continuing with the theme of the past few days (because obviously, the conversation in the comments has really been heating up!) I had a thought about our pattern of information consumption. It is this: insecurity drives us to seek out information, productivity tips, news, distractions, advice, commentary, stories, beauty and generally anything of which you might report a deficit.

I'm not necessarily saying that this insecurity is a debilitating emotional affliction that requires therapy and journalling and make-overs, but it might suggest that we need to slow down and think. In the admittedly limited circle of friends and acquaintances I move around in religion is not a common source of direction or guidance as far as daily life goes. Anti-heroes are much more popular than typical heroes because we've learned to suspect anyone not copping to at least a few familiar flaws. Things never really stop. The weekend is usually a hurried blur of meals and errands and anything that doesn't fit into the framework of a regular workday. So, we don't respect anybody enough to seek out real advice, we don't go to church anymore, we're really busy with the pace of life and the lack of downtime and we feel guilty about whatever it is we're not getting to.

On top of all the really literal reasons people take in so much information (like looking up an address or research for work) I think that we are using the flow to guide ourselves. There's the reassurance of the crowd from status updates and there is expert guidance from articles and lists of tips to make life easier and more efficient and satisfying. There are manic and energetic gossipers that are more than willing to spew a relentless stream of "news" and opinions that make them beacons for advertising and the momentarily vapid. Not everything, though, is so easily dismissed. Some jobs have become very demanding and require a lot of time and energy. Anything that helps make things easier is obviously welcome. But, for the most part the influx is passive. There's just an unthinking, nagging itch to check for messages, updates or feeds because in the vague recesses of your mind you think it will be the thing that makes it all make a little more sense, finally.

All this is just buildup to properly weigh my one thought down and provide it the gravitas I'm sure it deserves. There is a sense of unease that I feel because I don't know if I'm doing all I can to get to where I'd like to be. I don't know if I even have the ability to get to where I want. Sometimes, I even question what it is that I want and hope that I'm not clinging to some romanticized fallacy. The bottom line is that there is no expert to approach with this problem. There is no certainty to be gained that I'm doing the right thing. Really, there is no right thing. I definitely feel better about things when I'm a little bit more unplugged. Since there isn't any outside source that I can use to guide me and no one person whose experience is especially relevant to me the best way to keep my head screwed on is simply to ignore the demanding party guest that is modern communication.

Update: Thanks (S)wine for letting me know about the NYT article today that talks a little more about this stuff.

speed is of the essence

2010-08-23T17:35:00.017-04:00

What is the thing to do these days?

Being a musician, for money, seems to be getting pretty difficult. Labels don’t know how to make money anymore. Independent artists can get by if they’re willing to spend a ton of time and effort on their own promotion and of course if they are good.

Writing for profit doesn’t look very promising either. Journalism is in a pretty depressing state. Scrambling for an audience and pandering to the lower-middle, they sensationalize much and analyze little. Novelists and poets seem to be fading into the past altogether. E-readers aren’t the problem. The drivel people are willing to dedicate their attention to is the problem.

Photography is much like music. It’s getting really difficult to monetize. People don’t want to pay for it anymore and so many are willing to do it for free to get a bit of exposure. Very few papers and magazines employ staff photographers who are out for months at a time on assignment anymore. There are fewer big shots to pay for giant advertising and fashion shoots.

They’re just making up jobs now. Social media experts and marketing gurus and hundreds of copycat web start-ups. The funny thing is that all the popular career paths for people who would have worked in journalism or publishing or music fifteen years ago are just working as frameworks for content now. They can either point you to the content because they’re the taste-makers or they can point you to the people who supply the content. They might also build web sites and social networking sites to house all the content and invite everybody to join in and hope to make a name for themselves.

The problem is that nobody is willing to pay for or wait for the content anymore. It’s all about hype and recycling and remixing. The span for this trend is necessarily finite. After a decade or so of declining content and a huge influx of confused yet energetic promoters and hangers-on we will have a culture in infinite regress.

The Internet is not to blame. That’s like blaming the living room for the murder that just happened.

time + sequence = thing

2010-08-20T13:43:00.004-04:00

from Drumheller, AB

Focus, damn it!

That's been the broken record in my head for weeks now. It's been hot and that's no small impact on my physiology. I have some kind of sweat trigger threshold and once it's been breached it's full on soak through the shirt until the temperature is reduced by at least 10 degrees and my body has remained motionless for at least 30 minutes. Without something life-threatening motivating me, there is no concentrating in that state. Just mouth-open, vacant stare Food Network re-runs with a wet towel around my neck.

I've also taken solace in the apparent camaraderie of my scattered, surface-dwelling peers. I've managed to read through 2 or 3 articles in the past month all based on research indicating that the way we now use the Internet is re-wiring our brains and that attention is at a premium. I've paid some attention to what I do at the computer and it would seem that I am a mild version of their attention-deprived subjects. There's a lot of skimming and cursory input and not a lot of digestion and output. Real-time feeds create a sort of addiction that people might remember earlier on with email and then with Blackberry messages and texts. Regardless of the personal importance or impact the brain is set to retrieve more updates simply because there will be more updates. Even though I enjoy scrolling through posts on Tumblr and RSS feeds and keeping track of the people I follow on Twitter I have to admit that I wouldn't be any worse off if I didn't get these updates, let alone in real-time. I'm going to exert a little control over how I receive input because, obviously, there's a natural limit that my brain is willing or able to process and by the time I get home that limit's usually been reached. Since the heat has broken for approximately one day and I am already able to put this down in words I'm distancing myself somewhat from the most devastatingly affected. I'm not one of them yet, but the clock is ticking too loudly to ignore how close I am to slipping.

Somehow I associate focus with stress and I'd rather not be stressed. So, I have a tendency to focus in short bursts and then retreat for relief in mindlessness. I'm not sure where I picked this up but it has definitely been there lurking for a long time. There's something about focusing on a task or an issue and then hitting a block that you don't know how to overcome that transitions pretty naturally to avoidance. Since I don't expect to have all the answers anytime soon I suppose I had better get used to the discomfort of sporadic gaps in ability or judgment.

there's always a hitch

2010-08-09T23:58:00.003-04:00

It could be the heat talking here but a couple of words come to mind and then just plant themselves there: burnt out. "Desperate" also pops in there as a thought process alternate allowing me to carry on with the perception that my thoughts are moving.

Mere weeks after the longest vacation of my life I find myself without energy, motivation, inspiration or any kind of hopeful disposition in regard to my career as a photographer. It could be as simple as the relentless heat and humidity coupled with the unmitigated monotony that is my daily treadmill (job) but either way it's enough to draw a dreary picture of an unsatisfied life with a morbid focus on the inevitability of death. Sisyphus takes many forms.

Whenever the slog feels particularly thick I think of my dad. I was always in awe of how hard he worked. 6 or 7 days a week for as long as he could stand it he'd commute an hour or more each way and because very few peoples' work met his standards he would do most of it himself. That's drive. He wanted something for himself. Then things got particularly tough and he was hanging on by a thread and he had no control over the new direction his life would take. Not very coincidentally, to me, he found god again right around that time. He spent the rest of his days quietly and smugly pointing to his "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" for his recovery from that rough patch and really all that came before it.

The scary thing is that I know I'll never let myself bend to accomodate a fanciful belief system that takes my burden from me in exchange for a declaration of faith. It seems like a fair deal for such an uneven trade and part of me wishes that I could hand it all over, right along with all critical thought, and be done with the worry. But, it's never going to happen so I'll have the pleasure of being that much more miserable than the unenlightened in our midst, permanently.

As it stands, I'll have to rely on the transition of the seasons to catapult me up and out of this malaise. I am going to need about a hundred times the energy to dedicate to talking and convincing and networking so hopefully cool air and shorter daylight hours are enough!

If it wasn't obvious, this struggle of mine is the very reason for my portrait project with people trying to work as artists while supporting themselves with 9-5 jobs. So far I haven't photographed anyone as far gone as me and that's excellent. Please help me out if you know anybody that fits the description. They'll be in good company.

i am whatever you say i am

2010-07-26T00:23:00.001-04:00

It's been a week since getting home from my cross-country driving odyssey and I'm still not really back. There was so much energy leading up to the trip. The anticipation and the stress of planning and hoping that I get my project right dominated my thoughts for months and months. The strange thing is that after all that the project seems secondary to the simple experience. The lasting impact is more about family and friends and learning patience and trusting myself.

When I've been asked how the trip was I think I've given disappointing answers. There isn't an all-encompassing feeling that dominates the trip as a whole that I can just describe in one emphatic sentence. I mean, it wasn't a month in Hawaii in a hut on a beach, it was early mornings and long days and frustration and disappointments and arguments. It was also beautiful surprises and long talks and quiet satisfaction at nailing a great shot. The trip was amazing, really. I haven't been the same since returning because I got a taste of what I'd choose as a life for myself. It was challenging every day to get up and go and talk to people and try to get a quick grasp of a situation and do my best to capture it. But, the attempt was what I needed.

I don't think I'll be able to patch together the project I set out to do. It just wasn't feasible in the time allotted but I have great stuff to work with based on the framework I was working in so a brand new project will come out of it and that's progress.

It was funny going across these great expanses and reminding myself that we were in Canada the whole time. I didn't really feel homesick but I definitely felt my Toronto-ness more acutely in every place that wasn't Toronto. And as much as I hate the cliche Canadian culture bag of tricks I actually felt happy driving for hours on end listening to the new Gord Downey and Sarah Harmer albums. It was comforting.

After a bit of a rocky transition into the headspace of being on the road I feel like Sarah Harmer bridged a gap that was forming in the car. Not that she was exactly straddling common musical ground between my friend and I but she just fit the format of the experience. It was a great Canadian road album. I posted a song that I particularly like, and just tonight, I noticed how the title suited the overall feeling. "New Loneliness" sort of describes the sensation of hurtling out into the open without any real guide to tell me what to do or how to do it. It was a little isolating but it was also perfect and helped me maintain a bit of weight to what I was doing to keep me on track.

Anyway, I'll try to come up with new photos this week so I can stop boring you with the prairies until the actual project is figured out and completed. I guess I need to find a web designer now.

never trust a prairie dog

2010-07-19T23:38:00.001-04:00

I made it home. I made it all the way out there and back. Well, to be precise I altered the plan en route to exclude Tofino in order to maintain sanity. It also allowed for a bit of a longer and more relaxed visit with my family in Kelowna. I was pretty ok with that since I haven't been out there since 1990. Things changed a bit since I was there last!

We fast-tracked a little bit on the way home and got in a day early. For me, I arrived on Saturday evening and my trusty compantion, Eric, arrived hours later in Ottawa. Everything in between is a blur of dotted lines on a highway and unfortunate chain restaurants.

I had the back seat packed with camera gear and it was a pretty sweet set-up for speedy access for emergency shoulder stops to capture whatever caught my eye. The photo above is a fine example of an impulse that could not be denied. It wasn't specifically something I was travelling to seek out - a small shack in the middle of a canola field - but as I drove past and the soundtrack of the moment was laying out a mood I had to have it.

The days were long but they also ended up giving me something I was missing. I loved the expansive and moody prairies and the ridiculous, deadly mountains. Each stop in each town was a sort of scavenger hunt and I got what I could on the timetable I had available. By the second half of the trip I felt a definite shift in my pace. Probably more internally than externally but it made things easier. The abstract ideas I'd been struggling with for months gave way to experience and simple enjoyment. I can't say that what I gathered on this trip is worthy of an award but it was both an enormous learning experience and a much needed dive into a lot that is important to me.

No doubt I'll have more to post on this blog and my other more issues-based blog in the next little while that has to do with this trip but I just wanted to get the feeling of the trip out there. I'm still not fully back. It was really an amazing ride and the photo below is of my friend Eric who I owe a lot for agreeing to the whole thing in the first place knowing that I'd be a traffic menace, constantly screeching onto the shoulder to take a picture of a view I'd never seen before, and that his vacation time would be a little more active than maybe he'd have chosen on his own.

The photo below illustrates Eric's role in my obsessive search for beautiful pictures.

that led to this

2010-06-29T22:55:00.000-04:00

This is what the wedding job on the weekend looked like much of the time. Witness the primary shooter. But, he brought me on board and I got some gas money for my trip so I can't complain.

So, I set sail for the open road with Shannon and Eric the day after tomorrow. Canada Day. Alex's birthday. Big day all around! I don't know that I've done something like this before because it feels like no matter how much preparation I go through there is just not enough. I spent a good hour tonight looking through census data for Marathon and Thunder Bay Ontario. I guarantee that whatever it is that you did, including sleeping, was more exciting. I have a very confused sense of being a photographer. The bottom line is that I don't want to screw this up so I'm doing a lot of mental fidgeting.

Sidenote: I heard this weekend that saying "so..." at the beginning of a sentence is actually some kind of cultural norm now, like saying "like". The above paragraph is dedicated to cultural norms. The one above that is dedicated to cultural Norms.

I'm making my music selections for the drive. Thanks to @thelightgetsin for being the lone responder to my call for road music. Bruce Springsteen will make the cut. I can't stop listening to Sarah Harmer's new album so that's going for sure. I'm strangely excited about driving through the prairies, despite all warnings that it is the most boring stretch of road imaginable, simply because I want to pair it with Cinematic Orchestra, Balmorhea, Eluvium and Explosions In The Sky. It sucks that I'm going to be in Winnipeg at the start of the Folk Festival but will have to take off before I get to see anything. Maybe next year.

I hope I can get a few people to read along on the trip. A little bit of interaction will go a long way. Spread the word!

2010-06-25T14:55:00.000-04:00

The photo in the last post actually answered my question about how to pull in a bit more money before hitting the road. I showed it to a few people and then I guess it jarred my friend's memory (that i exist and have a camera) so he asked if I'd be up for being a second shooter at a wedding this weekend. The money is just right for what I was hoping to (realistically) pull together so I'm pretty happy.

So, it’s all working out and it’s down to picking CDs to take in the car. Call me crazy but 20 years ago when I drove through the mountains last I had Midnight Oil on repeat until the cassette got too hot to play properly so I’m thinking of getting Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mine and just letting the nostalgia carry us.

you can't fight city hall (because of all the barriers they've erected all around it)

2010-06-20T23:07:00.003-04:00

I spent the majority of the weekend at this very desk experimenting on photos. Above you'll find an example that I like quite a bit.

In the months leading up to my trip I've been planning more than I've been shooting. As I get more and more solid ideas for projects I get less and less interested in the weekend wandering I managed in the past. There was almost no shooting this past winter that wasn't attached to a defined project. So, this weekend, with an urge to refine my post-work skills I trolled through my archives and experimented with colour and exposure treatments. I mean, I'm planning to take thousands of photos in a couple of weeks when I leave at the end of the month; I don't want to bring the results home and subject them to the lazy hand of mediocrity!

On the trip front, I'm starting to get excited. We'll call what I was up to this point, "anticipatory". I bought all my film for the trip and I've nailed down all the equipment I'll need for the digital side of things as well. I spent a few hours this afternoon rooting through all my camping gear to make sure the tents don't leak and the stove(s) work and the cooler doesn't have any dead animals in it. Open road and campfires and many hours of CD listening ahead.

As much as possible I'm going to update my progress on this here blog. At the very least, you'll find my more immediate concerns on twitter. Look over to the sidebar if you've never done that. If I'm lucky, I'll get in another post before I go. But, really, I don't know what else would be able to pound its way into my consciousness at this point.

lost in the woods

2010-05-25T14:11:00.001-04:00

On top of planting this season's vegetables in the hot sun this weekend I got to test out some gear that I'm taking on my trip.This is one of the shots from yesterday. I think this bodes well.

I'd also like to point out that I was pretty annoying and vocal yesterday about my disdain for LOST. Regardless of the details of my particular dissatisfactions I just want the makers of the show to know that I will not trust you and your hijinx again. Very often, with a book, you have to struggle through a dry or confusing section and you won't really know what it's all about until you have the full picture (ie. you finish the book). To all the dinks who tell me that I should have stopped watching if I didn't like it I say this: I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that EVENTUALLY it would all come to something! Obviously, there was some compelling stuff and good characters or nobody would have cared in the first place.

If you are a storyteller and you decide that hiding behind ambiguity and artistic licence is your right and that I should trust your instincts I am here to tell you that I don't.

Happy Day After a Canadian Long Weekend

dirt therapy

2010-05-21T19:24:00.000-04:00

This was a photo that I pulled out of the past and re-edited to suit my current mindset. That means, simply, that I thought this represented the truth of the moment better than what I originally did to it (if you're curious, click on it. you'll find a link to the original on flickr). There wasn't anything in mind when choosing this one other than the fact that I thought it was an old one that I've passed over and might deserve a little attention.

Every time I look at the photos from Argentina I get all antsy and disgruntled. Nothing about my brief visit there matches my experience of living in Toronto. And, needless to say, living in Toronto is a bit of a bitch sometimes. But, today I was done work at noon and took care of a couple of errands and came home to attack the garden. I spent a few hours back there rifling through clumps of dirt trying to separate the roots of the weeds and the rocks from the surrounding roots. No music. No distractions at all. Just painfully bending over and digging and pulling.

At first I was daydreaming and planning out the weekend. I had a bunch of ideas and I thought I should call Shannon and let her know. Eventually, though, my mind just emptied out. The crap buzzing around my head wore itself out and it was just me in a bed of dirt and a grey sky.

It's so rare that I get to have that sensation of just paying loose attention to what I'm doing and coasting. Most of my time in Argentina was like that and it's likely why I want to go back. So, I'm just saying that today was a better day than most without all the usual accompanying expenditures of money and social credit.

if you can't beat'em, keep trying

2010-05-18T00:06:00.001-04:00

Once more, the photo here has nothing much to do with anything. I was using it as a test image to compare with ones taken by newer and more expensive cameras. As the time to my road-trip project approaches it's become clear that I won't be able to purchase outright or rent a digital camera for almost 3 weeks. And it's a little bit unwieldy and uncomfortable for me to shoot exclusively on film when that's not my usual practice. I think I'd have nightmares that all of my negatives would end up ruined when I finally took them for processing (read: that actually happened to me when I took 15 rolls of film on a trip to England years ago). So, it's going to be my ol' trusty Nikon and a variety of film cameras I can get my hands on.

The funny thing about a project like this is that it seems like it never begins. I've been thinking and planning for months and I can't truly start until the first day of the trip. So, I find myself going over the subject in my head and it shifts and morphs and meanings drift down and land on the tops of the intended ideas. I'd love to just head out and do this now so that it doesn't dodge me again before I get a chance.

It occurred to me recently that this project, along with the other two I'm at various stages of completion with, the seed came from anger. Loosely, the anger is directed at conservatives (small c) and more directly it's at the leadership of this country. I have always found nationalism and patriotism tough concepts to digest. I don't know or understand how to process these ideas on a personal level. But, if I were to give it a shot I can definitely say that what this country seems to stand for right now evokes more an internal uprising of disgust than pride.

Everything that I personally care about and might be inclined to encourage a bit of nationalistic pride in me is under attack by Stephen Harper. The environment is of no concern because it seems that he can only frame it as the enemy of capitalism in his tiny wooden brain. The arts in general have absorbed huge funding losses while he's been in power. He's so brazenly unapologetic about his disregard for arts and culture that I can say that I'm very close to simply switching off completely as far as political involvement goes. The diversion of cultural and social federal funding toward the Vancouver Olympics this year really pushed me over the edge. Plus, having to sit through all those thousands of commercials propagandizing the Canadian landscape and population actually drove me to drink. We're apparently these Tim Horton's coffee swilling, complacently moronic hockey players and we all work in blue collar jobs and have an unquenchable thirst for outdoor adventure! Really? That's who we are?

That's where this project was locked in. I want to document the people and places that don't show up in the tourism and beer commercials. There are Canadians who don't play hockey; who don't drink alcohol; who don't speak English; who practice customs and religions from far flung locations. That freedom to be who you are is what I have always loved about Canada. It's an enormous place that can hardly hope to have one common thread running through its population. But, the beauty is that we can live peacefully together here without agreeing and participating in the same rituals.We're independent.

Let's hope that Harper never gets elected again or I'm going to have one long and tedious career attacking his every move.

fewer tourists on the sidewalks

2010-05-10T00:31:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if anybody even visits the actual Twitter site anymore but just in case, I applied a little "less is more" design to the background for your viewing pleasure. I used this here photo.

I did a quick run through my neighbourhood about a month ago to capture just how strange and desolate it is but I haven't gotten the photos together yet. I don't know what I'm ever going to do with these little side-projects. I'm certain enough that nobody particularly wants to pay for a series of photos taken for the sheer incredulity regarding the lack of planning or architecture of an area.

Such is my life.

no more f-word

2010-05-04T00:02:00.003-04:00

I pulled the plug.

First, I looked for some kind of web app that might allow me to extract the contact information from my profile so that I don't lose the one marginally good thing about Facebook. But, no. They've apparently nudged everybody out of that business. The fact that I couldn't even do THAT with my own information only served to steel my resolve. So, I went to their deeply hidden basement and deleted my account.

I suppose I'll have to send out some kind of newsletter next year to let people know when it's my birthday. And I'll have to rely on word of mouth as to how everybody is doing in Farmville. And, I'll have to roam the streets looking for action now that I won't be invited to 8 or 10 random contacts' events every week.

Oh, the freedom! I won't lie. It feels a little like angsty around here. But, it's that kind of feeling where its existence alone tells you that there was something wrong and you must have done the right thing in stopping. It was empty and addictive and ultimately nothing more than an incredibly elaborate data collection scheme from another snotty genius.

pay attention or you won't know the answer

2010-04-26T00:13:00.002-04:00

It's true. He does drink tea. He loves it.

I dabbled in the logistic arts today. Sun up till sun down I was here shifting windows between Google Earth, municipal government websites, iTunes, twitter and then actually a few books on national parks of Canada. The last time I went anywhere I did sweet nothing before stepping onto a plane and heading south on a 17 hour flight. That was bliss. But, too much can go wrong on this one so I'm figuring out where I should be each and every day. As long as I can figure out some kind of gear solution, this is going to be one of those times that makes it harder to go back to regular life again.

In the meantime, I will continue with that same inevitably short-lived life.

As for other people, I have a friend or two in an excellent musical outfit called That's The Spirit. Ben recently tweeted that they'll be opening for Metric and the Flaming Lips at Ottawa Bluesfest this year. If you're in Ottawa, go see them. It's impossible for you to dislike their sound. As well, Ben seems to be integral to a new film and music festival in Ottawa that will take place on May 1st - May Whee! I'd check out both these things if I could. Since I can't, it's up to you. See the poster below for more details.

everybody wants a tv show

2010-04-21T13:31:00.001-04:00

The volunteers are not exactly pouring in for my 9 to 5 working artists project, but I managed to get one more last weekend. Here's a sample from my afternoon with Robin. The more people I find the more I want to include. Strange how that works.

I'm pretty excited about my roadtrip this summer and I'm all over the place trying to figure out locations and find gear. Having to know all the stops in advance and have enough storage space for the hundreds or thousands of photos I'll take over the course of 17 or 18 days is a little tough but figuring it all out is still a lot more fun than just heading to a hotel somewhere and tanning on the beach.

If anybody knows anything about Saskatchewan, let me know. Right now that's a big ol' empty rectangle on the trip map.

Birthday: Jazz + Loft = Yes.

2010-04-07T16:12:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was my birthday. Shannon got me this fantastic book and today I found that there is a radio show that goes along with the project so I'm sharing that with you. Thanks WNYC! Public radio in the US is so cool.

I hope you enjoy.

Episode 1: Introduction

Episode 2: Images Of The Loft

Episode 3: The Tapes

Episode 4: Hall Overton

Episode 5: Before The Loft

Episode 6: Ron Free

Episode 7: Flower District

Episode 8: Monk Town Hall Concert

Episode 9: More Tapes

Episode 10: Times Change

down with people

2010-03-30T00:26:00.004-04:00

This photo was taken when I was along to help shoot a wedding last summer. I've always liked this shot for its in-your-face quality. As we came down to the beach with the wedding party, random beachgoers started just getting up and wandering over to take pictures. It was difficult to get the shots at the right times because there would invariably be some bathing suit bitty trying to line up a shot in her viewfinder right smack in the middle of what would have been my shot. So, here's one of those impulsive, oblivious old sweethearts.

Today's theme was nonsense it seems.

I won't go into detail about the drivel my co-workers subjected me to, mostly out of concern for my own self-preservation, but it's amazing how much like a day care this place can sound sometimes. I'll say no more. Nobody wants to be dooced, right? Suffice to say it was enough to get my eye twitching.

Then I stumbled on this video of a debate that was televised on ABC last week that was supposed to be how to reconcile science and religion. The panel consisted of two atheists (one of whom I know - Sam Harris) and two others who made it difficult to tell really where they stood on anything. They were Deepak Chopra and a woman I'm not familiar with who seemed to think that she was giving a high school commencement address rather than responding to specific points in the debate that was taking place. She did accents and talked about her childhood. Her debate style was basically Sarah Palin - no relation at all to what was actually going on in front of her.

I was particularly surprised at the level of nonsense because there was a time when I respected Dr. Chopra. It's been a long time since the time that he could say something that would sound anything but trite but I suppose I held onto the impression that he was a well-meaning and educated man and I respected his composure.

In this debate, though, he interrupted all of the panelists constantly. He talked over them. He was petty and personally attacked the editor of Skeptic magazine. Sam Harris was quiet and logical and eminently sensible. He tried to make some sense out of the things that were coming out of Dr. Chopra's mouth. "Field of infinite possibilities. Non-local consciousness. Creativity, inspiration, love, compassion and intuition are all proof of God because no system, no matter how complex, can attain these qualities". There were theoretical physicists in the audience who told him that his understanding of the workings of the universe was patently false and he dismissed them. Every time Sam Harris tried to narrow the scope of the grand, nonsensical diatribes, it would end up with Deepak Chopra and a louder and unstoppable speech about how science with "all its graphs and statistics" would seek to remove our souls, our creativity and uniqueness. False and misleading, it really did a disservice especially to people who might not have a college education and rely on figures like him to get a sense of the world.

Intolerable. The pursuit of spirituality in his neo-religious way has eroded his capacity to think clearly. If someone as worldly and apparently open to information as Dr. Chopra can fall prey to backwards logic and baseless hypothesizing then how are we to expect anything but the worst from the people of Huntington WV (from Jamie Oliver's new Food Revolution) who loudly invoke their freedom of choice to kill themselves and their children with idiotic amounts of nutritionless junk food?

One thing I am not feeling is tolerant of others. Why should stupidity be tolerated? If people are too stupid to act in their own interest perhaps they forfeit responsibilities, freedoms and rights?

Introducing The Tempfolio!

2010-03-17T18:13:00.003-04:00

I've finally put something up that serves as a photography portfolio. It's all still a bit temporary but at least the photos can be viewed at a decent size and there isn't a whole lot of noise everywhere. The idea is to have a website dedicated mostly to stories/essays rather than individual "best of" galleries. None of the projects that are up currently are completed. I just wanted to start something now.

By the time the fall comes around I will have 3 quite nice projects finished and those will be the bulk of the site. The top two projects on this temporary site are going to make it to the final. Please have a look.

And I'd still like to put it out there that I'm looking for artists who make their living at a day job. I'm now also researching locations for my newest project that will have me making a road trip from Ontario to BC where I will be stopping in communities made up of any number of concentrated populations (French speaking communities, Mormon communities, mining communities etc). You get the drift. Any place where the population is bound together economically, socially or otherwise. Please let me know if you are aware of one of these places and think it will be of interest.

And here's the new site:

your whiny plea for attention is noted

2010-03-08T23:36:00.008-05:00

Ok, unless I get this out I don't think I can move on to something else. Anything else. It's driving me crazy. First, the personal connection: in the past two years I've sort of shifted gears in my approach to working and decided not to post content related to my personal projects online. This was just your run of the mill decision that came out of a surge of artistic conservation. I didn't want to just throw all my work out into the blog world where it gets ignored by the next post AND I didn't want to spend as much time fiddling with my blog content instead of doing work directly related to the projects.

I'm not sure if I'm still in that headspace anymore. I think I'd like to post more about progress and ideas here. But, the point is that I "get" the impetus behind the updates that have been driving me crazy over the past long while. Other peoples' updates, that is. They seem to start with the same kind of thought process I've had and they don't want to put a project up for all to see, either based on simple workflow decisions or perhaps a more looming legal penalty. But, instead of just leaving it at that, they go ahead and point to it anyway.

It goes something like, "I'm excited about this new project. I won't be able to tell you anything about it, but woo hoo!"

Like I said, I get the conflict. You're excited and you want to share. You want to show people this cool new thing you've involved with. Obviously. But, you're NOT sharing. You're simply announcing that there is something that you are not sharing. Nobody wants to be teased about somebody's random life details. Well, I can tell you I don't!

There's another variation that is usually a Facebook status update, or maybe even Twitter, that goes something like, "I can't believe it. I've never felt like this before."

Now, why the EFF are you even updating if you're just going to pussyfoot around it? Inevitably, a bunch of people jump on the bait with: "oh honey, are you ok?", "Is that good or bad?", "Don't worry, kiddo. Time heals all wounds."

Is there a reason that you are making a contextless (not a word) statement about your internal state rather than simply updating the REASON that the world outside your body can understand and witness? Something like, "I'm sad. My cat died."

On the positive side of things, might I suggest, "Yay! My husband bought me an expensive spa treatment for my birthday. I'm quite excited to make use of it!"

Not that I really care about either of those updates mind you. They're simply better than the ones put together with some kind of flawed personal need to manipulate and create melodrama.

All this being said, the reason it's all bugging me so much is that I've wanted to talk about ideas I'm working on or considering but have kept it all offline. Even my photography has taken on a sort of simplicity or focus where I'm only shooting for specific projects so it's difficult to even throw up some random snapshots. I might open things up a little bit more. In the case of this blog I don't think it's a problem. My tiny readership of 11(on a good day) I'm trusting won't run off and sell my material to the highest bidder before I get there.

Thank you for listening.

godot

2010-02-16T23:47:00.002-05:00

I suppose if I ever host this blog myself I can just post music when I feel the need, but for now, I've put up a song here. Good mid-February mood to go with this photo.

Carry on, everyone.

the writing('s) on the wall

2010-02-10T23:23:00.002-05:00

The following graphical side-by-side comparison of tonight's most recent updates on Facebook and Twitter is provided to you out of exasperation, humour and the increasingly real threat that Google's new Buzz poses to all of us. These updates are taken directly from my own accounts around 11pm this evening. No names have been provided for either service, although in the case of Twitter, that would have illustrated a little more the interest level (celebrities, writers, politicians) as opposed to people you haven't seen in 15 or 20 years who are worried about the child-porn threat of posting pics on Facebook.

I'm getting a little tired of the comparisons between these two purveyors of information. There really is none. There's a bit of crossover* as you can see by my examples but for the most part you are guaranteed more important, useful, interesting, fresh and varied updates from Twitter than you could ever hope for from your sorry list of people you've bumped into over the past 3 years (otherwise known as Facebook).

I've been considering dropping off Facebook lately and I log in and prove to myself over and over again that I would miss exactly nothing if I did that. I don't want to be invited to a dozen events a week from people I don't even know. I will probably survive if I miss finding out that somebody ate too much at lunch. My only remaining thread is that there are people on there that I have no other link to and I probably wouldn't have any link to were it not for Facebook. I used to find value in that. But, nothing has ever come of it besides a brief satisfaction of morbid curiosity around who got fat and who's turned into an automaton.

Let me know if there's something I've forgotten about and everybody get on Twitter!

rule of middles

2010-02-09T00:09:00.003-05:00

I haven't had as much in the way of photos to post lately. One of the reasons is that I've been getting back into film a little bit and haven't gotten around to paying for all of it to be developed. Another reason is that I'm working on projects I don't want to leak out in bits to the internet vacuum. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I like prints so much more than just viewing an image on a screen. Except on professionally calibrated monitors, the image I see when I'm posting something on the blog isn't the image you see when logging on from your work computer. It's hotter or more contrasty or a weird shade of green and you attribute that to me. Well, a print is exactly what it is at all times. It doesn't change colours from day to day and person to person.

Anyway, here is a photo and I've utilized the best trick for avoiding colour variation.

i'm ok with coyotes

2010-02-05T00:15:00.003-05:00

No matter how many blogs I scour and feeds I attach myself to I never find anybody with the simple and evocative music of Brian Borcherdt. I've been a big fan for 7 or 8 years. That doesn't really include his pop synth band Holy Fuck. I like that too but everything that I find great about him is sort of electrified out in the band.

My busy friend Norm is now friends with Brian, I'm told. Toronto is not as big as it looks! I've sort of avoided ever meeting him through Norm because I think I'd just like to keep the magic where it is. Who wants a human hero?

Brian Borcherdt - Scout Leader from Scott Cudmore on Vimeo.

one begets another

2010-02-03T23:39:00.002-05:00

The shit some people can manage with an algorithm.

Metamorphosis from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

Metamorphosis is a generative, algorithmic animation programmed entirely in Processing (www.processing.org) Music is by Boards of Canada.
The same animation system is now available as 'Zio' - an interactive iPhone app - www.itunes.com/apps/zio
my website-www.butterfly.ie

i don't look good in cubicle grey

2010-01-31T23:09:00.002-05:00

Back in May of 2002 I had just turned thirty and I had just been dumped and I was absolutely tired of my life. I decided that I should stop avoiding the future and figure out what I wanted over the next decade and go out and get it - no excuses. Wrenching myself out of the hold my old life had on me was painful and ugly. But, I had a desperation for change that drove me forward and I told myself that I just need to focus and everything will fall into place.

In the fall of 2004 I blindly removed myself from Ottawa to Toronto and set about getting my ducks in a row. I wanted to be published by the time I turned 35. I wanted to have a photography show by the Fall of 2006. I planned to be playing trumpet again and have a regular jazz gig somewhere in the city by the time I reached 40.

So, it’s 2010. I’m 37 and I’ve actually done none of these things. I’ve done DIFFERENT things while still keeping those goals in mind but as time has gone on and I’ve worked toward something I realized that my goals were just rocks skipping across a pond. There was no basis for my timelines. I don’t really care about having a show in a little café somewhere around the city now. My steady attention to my photography and to the business of photography has led me somewhere else. I know better now that I wouldn’t get much out of a small crowd shaking my hand and telling me they enjoy this or that photo. When a project is ready I can decide on the best way to communicate that particular effort and I imagine a show at a gallery is possible if my work ever warrants public attention.

I never planned on working on music videos or going back to retail just to get an infusion of youth and energy. But, I ended up doing those things and they both altered my course in ways I didn’t predict.
I’ve worked at the same job since I came here in 2004 and I usually credit that with both my current stability and my current failure as an artist. But, even after 5 years, the fear of dropping to the desperate and horribly broke state I was in before I moved keeps me there. Conquering fear is what it’s all about. That’s the soundbite, right? There are the stories of actors or musicians being homeless, living out of their cars and then making it big at the last conceivable minute. That’s a big motivation for sacrifice.

I still want to write something great. Lots of things. I don’t think I’m going to find any more “balance” than I already have now. There are some things that make sense to adjust as you go. You get smarter and what you really want comes into focus. Then there are the things that don’t change. They force the issue. I want to write. What now?

out of place

2010-01-26T23:30:00.004-05:00

I think this was taken about 2 years ago. Of course I saw a shopping cart shoved into a derelict bus shelter and I knew I had to capture it before the moment passed! Ha. Whatever you. It looks kinda cool.

narrow

2010-01-17T17:37:00.007-05:00

I'm coming back from Ottawa on the train right now. It was a great weekend and I packed a lot in relatively effortlessly. I mention this because on the way up I read about a third of the book "The 4 Hour Work Week" and it is very much about maximizing your time. Ultimately, like all books if its kind that I've read (so far), it is far more narrow in scope and usefulness than it pretends.

I agreed to read it based on a recommendation from the friend I was going to see. He wanted me to be able to use the model as he would be in working on the project we were discussing. It didn't hurt that I've been very much of the mind that I need to do more than I have been imagining possible in the last while. Anyway, he (the author) seems wholly stuck on the salesperson model of existing and completely leaves out any kind of occupation related to the arts. Beyond a few soundbytes of obvious folk wisdom, it is useless to my cause.

There was an interesting after-effect, though: I took on his personality a little. I didn't worry too much about planning out the specifics of my days with all the people I was there to see. I just went from one thing to the next without messing around much and everything fell pretty smoothly into place. Trying to forecast and budget for time usually would have taken up a big part of the day. I just cut out imagining the future and the likely results and concentrated on what was right in front of me.

I have a lot going on this year; most of it self-imposed. It's exciting to think that I might be able to just enjoy the things I have planned instead of weighing them down in unnecessay overplanning. A little dose of flying by the seat of my pants is in order.

But Not For Me

2010-01-12T23:11:00.010-05:00

This was from a couple of years ago. I think I posted a few others from this trip to Montreal but somehow this gem got lost in the shuffle.

First real post of 2010!

What have I gotten myself into? This is the general form of the question asked over and over and over to myself, thus defining my internal state. My progress can be likened to that of ketchup from a typical upside down bottle. Things started going and then led to other things and so on until a great critical mass of potential built up and somehow completely plugged my path to the good life. Before this, I was lost. I was searching but hadn’t found anything yet and there’s a certain panic to that way of being but somehow a little camaraderie and alcohol usually did the trick. From the point that I started to discover what I really wanted to do I have never been the same. There is a manic quality to my thoughts. I want to do so much. Not only do my old buds not really want to entertain my flights of fancy during a night out but even when they do that escape is gone. What I am NOT doing is always on my mind. Even drunk. So, over time all the things I’ve built up for myself have ended up crushing me to a halt.

There are no more resolutions in me. No more promises. No more patience, either. I’m going with a more utilitarian approach. Actions and all that. You know.

no thing left behind

2009-12-28T22:03:00.003-05:00

I had the most old-school Christmas this year. Again, up in Owen Sound with the family I never seem to get over the wide open spaces. After all the food and gift fury died down I was happy to be out in the back fields tromping through the snow with Shannon. If that lottery thing ever comes through I think my days would look more like this than the short, grubby buildings and party-hungry faces of Queen West.

A new year has started and I'm still trying to get my head around my whole online experience. It's time consuming but also rewarding. The usual impulse to cut things free is being squelched by a desire to build on what I already have. I love the history of this blog. I really like the straight-forward issues talk of my other blog (thisiswhatis.wordpress.com). I like the immediacy of posting to tumblr and posterous as sort of notebooks to my main blogs. I'm wishing I had more of a mind for design because I can never fully decide on a photography site and I never have the money to hire a decent pro. But, that is something I have to get up and going as well.

I suppose I've been on autopilot for a full couple of years now. I think I was hoping for a "recharge" period but it looks like that's not going to happen in this city, and working at the job I have now. This year, I will be more tired. Decades are dropping like flies and my to-do list just keeps growing. So, here's to another year of funny and interesting and challenging!

Happy New Year, dudes.

trigger #347

2009-12-09T23:44:00.002-05:00

For some reason or other this lot reminds me of the car lot Dwayne Hoover owns in Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions.

blue euro car cures existential listlessness

2009-12-08T23:11:00.002-05:00

This is a picture of exactly what it does NOT look like today, so far. At 7 am. I would like to take this strange and beautiful car on a trip through Europe.

I'm up early and it's dark. It's early for me. And dark. But hey, I can post this photo before I head into work. Look at the accomplishment with which I get to start my day before you chide. Really though, I'm not made to be this early-rising person. My stomach is a screaming nightmare at this time of day so trying to enjoy some home-pressed coffee or a reasonable breakfast is fruitless. And it just doesn't work. Ba dum dum!

Today is but one in an insidious string of inconsequential hump days. But today is today. Maybe that's the benefit of this farmerly hour. I'll go through the day with the uncomfortable knowledge that this is my life now. Today is not merely a staging ground for tomorrow. It is also this whatever it is and tomorrow will probably not be what I studied for. I never took note of the chapters the professor put on the blackboard.

on to something

2009-12-01T00:09:00.004-05:00

It occurred to me yesterday that there was another way to look at the current position in which I find myself. Rather than the cycling drone of my internal voice reminding me that I'm 37 and really, who breaks into anything after that age, something else made itself known. A little factoid. Well, it turns out that although I may not be lounging on a beach chair with a laptop in Portugal as I imagine my peers to be doing, there is some cause for celebration. If not celebration then at least a slow and knowing nod.

This is it: Never in my life have I stayed on the same track for longer than a few years (with the noted exception of my largely uncontested pre-teen, pre-veterinary years). This is likely not in any way impressive to you. But, you knew this was really all about me, didn't you? I think it's relevant that I haven't drifted into something else since 2002. Allow me to demonstrate below my long and varied past when it came to vocational direction. My slow progress and tenacious editorial instinct to destroy all that I create are suddenly much more demonstrative.

You are the wind beneath my wings.

right around the corner

2009-11-28T20:06:00.002-05:00

This is just a reminder, in case you are of the opinion that I don't entertain you nearly enough, that I post fairly regularly on my Tumblr site. Good stuff, too!

death-ray drone

2009-11-25T12:33:00.005-05:00

***

My days have effectively been cut from approximately 14 to 16 hours of usable time to maybe 7 hours. It’s dark all the time. Even during daylight, the past few days barely even register outside the tinted windows of this office. No matter how my mind argues, my body is convinced that it is perpetually 11:30pm. I don’t really want to think. I don’t really want to do the dishes or laundry or head on down to get a haircut and go see my friend DJ for perhaps the first time.

At least there’s new Brian Borcherdt to listen to on the dark walk home.

So, I’ll attempt to dodge the inevitable inertia, that would grip me when I got home and hamper (pun intended) my laundry progress, by actually hauling it all across the street and sitting with it in the depressingly 70’s décor until it realizes its true clean potential. Look for more frequent twitter updates and perhaps a phone pic from the unadorned fluorescence.

smoke'em

2009-11-20T00:52:00.002-05:00

Friday afternoon and no steam left. Winter isn't really here and I'm already nostalgic for summer. If I'm going to be positive about it I could say that I'll use that stuck mindset to lay down some concrete plans for the roadtrip to end all roadtrips next summer. It probably wouldn't end your road trips. It'll probably just cure me of ever wanting to spend that much time in a car again.

It's a bit of a strange goal for someone concerned with CO2 emissions. But, the dream to go across Canada far outdates my ecological awareness. Maybe I could justify it with the fact that I got rid of my car altogether and instead of adding 30 or 40 thousand kilometers a year, have spent 5 years accumulating maybe 6 thousand. Plus, I'd absolutely need to complete a photo essay of the trip and I'm sure some subset of that could function as raising awareness of the plight of the Boreal or the state of mining in Northern Ontario.

Anyway, yeah. Anywhere but here right now.

i want to go to there

2009-11-18T22:58:00.002-05:00

Where is this place?

Seasons, but mild winter.
Sunny all year round.
Rural but less than an hour from a city.
No suburbs.
People concerned with the world outside their house.

NO religion.

Low cost of living.
High quality of life.
Lakes.
Few committees.
No bureaucracy.
Minimal gang shootings on public transit.
Privacy.
Green initiatives and incentives.
People who can spell and talk quietly.
And finally, a complete lack of advertising.

brisk walks and fibre cereal

2009-11-15T22:20:00.005-05:00

I just got up from the couch and saw a mouse run across the room. Gah. Really doesn't help my ongoing fight with the thought that this city is nothing but a decrepit cesspool.

Today was my first day back at work after a week off in the lap of the swine. I almost got a nosebleed from the boredom. I had to go to the library at lunch time to squeeze out an original thought.

Podcasts are almost as good as home schooling.

Ring The Bell

2009-11-13T02:38:00.009-05:00

Looks to me like somebody's hit a milestone. The little blog that could, or might have been able to but didn't, turned 5 years old yesterday. I'm a day late in my celebrations but I've made up for it with a festive new banner! So, happy birthday, Neon Heresy. I've been at home all week with the flu. So, in the more coherent moments I thought about the span of time since I moved to Toronto. The blog and this particular span of my life are one in the same. It's good to see a sort of trail behind me. I like this blog journal idea.

So, on it goes. After being put on my ass for a week, I'm returning to health with a bigger appreciation for normal energy levels and the ability to think straight. As well, an appreciation for Bobby Flay and his endless losing throwdowns. I've been bored and tired lately but, for now, that's over. I'm happy to say I have a lot of shit to do.

Since I haven't posted in a month, I suppose it doesn't really matter but these photos are just a few more from (Canadian) Thanksgiving up in Owen Sound. I suppose open spaces and sky still are feeling pretty exotic to me right now.

Shooting through windows is always so perfect. Always carry a window.

I was a little bit obsessed with photos of this trailer. I'm not sure what the story is but it's just out the back of my Mom's place and its Orange and Brown racing stripes just jump out. So much space!

My sister is playing gameboy or something after dinner. Does gameboy have Whack-a-Mole? Maybe it's not a gameboy.

And we finish with the next generation of woodsy photogs in the family. This is my nephew exploring the fields with us with Grandma's new camera. He was a natural.

in Canada, we almost never say rutabaga

2009-10-13T23:49:00.002-04:00

I hitched a ride with my sister up to Owen Sound for Thanksgiving at Mom's. Shannon and I took a lot of pictures. We ate a bunch of turkey and sat on chairs. Please enjoy one of those things below.

Alls about MTL

2009-09-30T22:54:00.004-04:00

I had an amazing time in Montreal a few weeks ago. This photo is proof, obviously.

Good luck to my friends in Artist Bloc right now while they curate the Happiness Project for Pop Montreal.

More photos here.

Roy Was The Bridge

2009-09-22T00:18:00.003-04:00

Not a virtuoso and not a dullard. Both would be better.

Travel-worn, he sank to the edge of his suitcase and balanced, breathing in the diesel fumes of the coaches pulling in from their queues. A woman introduced herself as Helen and asked him if he was going to Mendoza. She was scooping polenta out of a tube and moving it around in her mouth while she waited for him to answer. He understood that either she, herself, was Helen or that somebody named Helen was of some interest to her but really had no way of knowing because she wasn't speaking English. He hated admitting that he didn't understand. It didn't look particularly important. He thought that she might just go away if he didn't talk back.

Helen was curious about this man. She had a long ride in front of her and she was in the habit of finding a suitable companion for these trips, if not for company, then just for the appearance of safety. Her name wasn't actually Helen. She had to start somewhere, though. She might tell him her real name if he doesn't turn out to be unstable.

He had slept badly for a week now. He didn't want for much more than to be horizontal and not creaking upright on and off the wheels of his luggage. He watched Helen without curiosity. She was attractive, he noted. After a couple of minutes he wondered if he hadn't better say something to her. Her intent proximity was starting to unnerve him.

"Helen?"

"Si? Helen."

"Hi Helen. You should know: I don't speak Spanish. I'm sorry."

"You should be."

"Well...I am."

day in the junkshun

2009-09-14T01:21:00.001-04:00

not talkin bout pogey

2009-09-03T00:07:00.005-04:00

Sometimes it's just something pretty.

It's coming up on this blog's 5 year anniversary. "Life In Toronto" quickly turned into just "life" so I had to change the name. Plus, that name sucked. There wasn't much forethought. I imagined I'd write a few entries here and some people back home might get a kick out of knowing how I was doing.

A lot of things have changed and the great majority of people are content to read status updates on Facebook rather than raking through individual blogs anymore. I suppose I'm ok with that. There were times when I was neurotically concerned with who was reading here and I'd check for comments the way I now check my Twitter feed. These days I'm just glad I still have it around. It's the only record of its kind for any major period in my life. To me, even the gaps in posting are important. Times away from the computer screen.

I miss the thrill of the early days. Meeting people. Arguing, fighting, talking about ideas. It was pretty great and pretty hard to explain to people who didn't have blogs of their own. Strangely, the conclusion I came to last night when I was trying to pin down how I had so much more to say back then was that I was unemployed for the first 3 months, and for another 4 or 5 after that I still didn't have many friends in the city or have an actual social life.

Having a job to go to every day really dominates a person. That thought led neatly into my concerns about my photo portrait project I'm working on so I decided I'd use Facebook to troll for potential subjects. It sounds obvious and plain and ultimately pretty useless to note what working 9-5 does for/to us. But, having to work with the scraps of time left over after "work" is done and all the responsibilities of normal life have been attended makes for a pretty serious handicap when going up against other artists who don't. It's a bigger issue than taking up a block of time that could otherwise be used for personal fulfillment. It separates us from those who don't have to do it. It bonds us together with all those who do. It instills a patience, if not an all out sense of fatalism about our ability to live out the dreams we had when we were younger, that those who don't have to split their existence up don't develop.

Maybe it's just my way of justifying my choices but I am thinking that there is some intangible something common and strong among the people who live these dual lives.

If you come across this post and you are one of these people then drop me a line.

Dan Pink on Motivation OR Try ignoring THIS you soulless jackals!

2009-08-25T22:06:00.002-04:00

So, it turns out that science is behind me! Yes!

All the typical crap of the day in day out 9-5 existence, with managers and more managers and meetings and incentives? WRONG. Not the way to be doing it, folks.

This guy is a bit of a cheeseball, but I definitely am on board with what he's saying. Where I work, we had a big group bonding day about a month ago and we had to come up with ideas that would make it a better place. One of the many ignored suggestions I made was to have more relaxed hours so that it's more about the task completion than the hours I am anchored to my desk. It got a big laugh and they moved on. No joke, you idiots!

Anyway, enjoy. Use it to promote your own mini-uprisings.

all around

2009-08-20T13:38:00.001-04:00

I read two articles this morning about wasps in the city. Slow news
day, I guess. In retrospect, I have noticed a lot in my backyard this
year but since I have so much going on back there I assumed that was
just normal.

I got edged out of the food court again at lunch so I ended up at my
favourite alternate spot. Wasps everywhere. Like they were trying to
make the point that I must not have gotten from the snoozey articles.
I didn't get stung but I thought I would show you how many were
clustered around me. Didn't manage to capture much with my phone.

Anyway, looks like there are more bugs in the city than there are in
the woods. Like I needed another reason to get off the grid.

I'll be throwing up some photos of my brief weekend road trip to Elora
very soon. Pictures without purpose. Water and sunlight and shadows.

Road trip

2009-08-10T23:14:00.001-04:00

Road trip, originally uploaded by NeonHeretic.

This is the only picture, so far, of my trip up to Killarney. It was an awesome day to start out on the hike. Getting to that stage of highway where there are only rocks and trees on either side was satisfying. Very satisfying.

The rest of the pictures are on film and not yet developed. I didn't get to complete the whole week. It turned out to be too much for us but it was still great to get out of the city and stomp around in the forest.

I'm all primed up for more road trips. Getting there is almost ALL of the fun!

blue light is the best light

2009-07-29T00:09:00.002-04:00

Parallels - Ultralight (Official Music Video)

My friends in Middleschool (Aaron, Norm and Dan) got their work featured on NOW weekly today. The above video for Parallels was shot about a month ago. I was fortunate enough to be on hand with a camera that day and I figured now would be decent timing to show a bit of the behind the scenes...scenes.

Slideshow (small) Slideshow (big)

Will There Be Enough Water?

2009-07-21T23:33:00.002-04:00

Against her better judgment, she became a milestone in his life. He didn't ask her permission. He simply went about his day as if he wasn't stealing the idea of her and co-opting it for the betterment of his own story. People still do that here. It's important to be specific when passing on the details of one's life to another.

"Please be specific." They'd say. Especially on surveys.

If you're unfamiliar with this practice because you come from a place that is free and unexamined then I will let you in on a secret: the story is important but the facts are not. In this case, she was there with him eating and enjoying herself, to be sure, but she was not about to fall in love. She was noting the jagged edges in the space between conversation but not enough to distract from the delightful heat of the channa bhatura. You see, this shared meal had no more significance to her than the disappointment of the empty tray of naan.

If she'd known that the awkward pauses were brimming with his willful re-imagining of that very moment she might have made it harder to misinterpret. Her focus was elsewhere, though. She was filing through her liveliest stories for one to shock and rattle; she needed to test him.

He locked her huge blue eyes and sweet smile in time. Some days he would remember falling for her irresistible attention and he would know how compelling he had been. And others he'd remember that her expression belied her menacing intent to ensnare and involve him. He would see through her vanity and he'd refuse to participate in assuaging her boredom.

Depending on the needs of the conversation he would tell the story one way or the other, but it would always point to an important transition in his life. There was no truth to his meagre claims. Ultimately, he wanted to be allowed to remember this dinner with a beautiful woman. But, what's the point? As long as there's a story, he thought, people listen.

He wasn't wrong.

Nightflight to Venus

2009-07-11T09:54:00.001-04:00

Deeply satisfying thunderstorm. Cool, damp breeze. Heavy rain coming
down so straight the walls don't get wet. House-shaking bass and a
spectacular light show. I might build an ark.

11 minutes

2009-06-29T07:49:00.005-04:00

Unable to face the lip-injected throngs of lunchers with their tiny rodent dogs in bags and hapless senses of entitlement, I find myself hiding during my one hour midday respite. I don't have to hide for their sake. They're not looking for me. I have to remove myself because even watching them amble and chatter for five minutes a day has already had a cumulative effect on me and it takes very little to ruin my day.

Last week I ran across the street to grab a coffee. A brewed coffee. They don't have to do anything but pour. But, I was there for awhile because somehow my barista didn't have change for a ten and was waiting for the girl beside her to finish her transaction so she could get some change. The man, and barrier to my escape, who the other girl was helping was gesticulating calmly and looking all around. He was asking about other employees he'd seen in there previously. He wanted to know their names based on his descriptions: "the shorter one" and "I think he had glasses".

Then he said hello to the shift supervisor by name. I couldn't tell if he knew her or if he had simply read her name tag as she walked past. She quickly said hello and ducked into the back. He wanted to buy a case of caffeinated drinks in cans that I didn't know were possible to buy there. They had the case but then he wanted a larger one than the one they had and asked that they look in their storage area for more because it would be convenient to contained all be in once case rather than having to take two with him.

Anyway, payment was also an event. He wanted to pay with his credit card which wasn't helping me out since they don't need to open their cash tray. By the time I left, I had worked for a little over an hour that day, and the rest of it was tainted with a low burn of rage for all those who breathe my air.

The picture above is the closest thing to a sanctuary and it is in a ridiculous little patch of land with intersecting roads defining its boundaries. I can sit there and be largely unnoticed for an hour even though not 20 feet away a constant stream of cars creep by. A couple of trees and a bench.

This helps.

BAT FIGHT with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

uninvited guests (outtro)

2009-06-25T13:03:00.004-04:00

I’ve been going back and forth on the idea of documenting the current city workers (read: garbage strike) strike. It’s obviously topical, easy to access and has the potential to produce interesting results. As with most things, the rub is that every Flickrazzi in the city thinks the same thing for the same reasons. I’m not into unions or contracts or really much to do with the workings of city infrastructure so it’s ultimately a story I can leave telling up to Torontoist and the Toronto Star. If I manage to find an angle more related to health or environmental concerns, then I guess I’ll put it back on the table.

For now, you lose out on pictures of mildly overstuffed city garbage-bot receptacles and instead can enjoy this harmless shot from my iphone. This just in: dark and stormy is cool.

Slow This Bird Down

2009-06-24T00:43:00.003-04:00

Hey kids.

I've been doing lots of organizing of things and ideas lately. That doesn't necessarily make for great internet conversation so be thankful I've spared you the absurdities of Lightroom archive migration. But, what all this organizing has done is to shake all the old photos out onto the floor and I'm rediscovering things that I'd forgotten about, didn't get around to or simply had a different opinion of at the time.

This photo is from last summer during Toronto Open Doors weekend. Or Open Doors Toronto. Both seem accurate but only one is right and I'm not interested in looking it up right now. Anyway, this douche in the truck is apparently glowering at me for daring to take a picture of his truck. Shannon went up and bought some frozen thing and on her return she let me know that he told her to tell me that I have to stop photographing. On a sidewalk by an empty parking lot at the CNE? Nervy cranky ice cream schlepping bastard!

Anyway, I'd already taken the few I wanted so I let him think he scared me off. I did hold my camera up and just zoom in and out a few times for good measure. He didn't say a word.

Witness protection program?

In present day news, I'm excited about the prospect of shooting film for my weeklong hiking trip to Killarney this year. After weighing my options (one of them being that I don't shoot at all because equipment is heavy and I already have many pictures of that area) I decided on a very simple approach. Shoot on film on my 67 Nikkormat manual camera. No batteries. No memory cards. No huge replacement cost. Just a small tank of a camera and some rolls of film. It's gonna be sweet.

Until I leave at the beginning of August, most of what I say here will likely be in daydream format.

P.S. - On a completely serious note, my friend Megan just had her book launch last night for She's Shameless - a book she co-edited with someone I don't know named Stacey May Fowles - and it is getting rave reviews. You should likely buy it for the teen or otherwise aged girl in your life.

i grow my own habanero

2009-06-08T22:37:00.007-04:00

I'm willing myself to be energetic lately. I've started running again, I have a bunch of projects on the go and I just booked a "vacation" that requires me to slog 100 kms or so through rugged Canadian Shield country. I'm not convinced that any of this is a good idea or will do anything to boost my endurance but the evidence for self-actualization through Grand Theft Auto 3 has convinced me even less.

Oh right, and I've started a decent sized garden. Getting dirty is important.

Anyway, I've thrown together a few shots from various projects I'm working on now. I shot this of Aaron just yesterday while I followed him through his day of co-directing a music video. I probably had the easiest job on set. But, I have to say, those film guys and their 14-hour workdays (or easily more) really outlast me. The video actually looks pretty amazing and I'm excited to see it finished. I'll likely post it here when it's done, if I can.

This guy was one of the big stars of the day. Much ado about RED everywhere. Big score on a tight budget.

This is for a different project that I'm very excited about shooting. So far, Sandi has been the only person I've been able to track down and shoot for this documentary/portrait project. Chasing people is really not my thing. Progress is slow. I'm fussing with schedules for one or two others but I still have room for around 4 more people. If you know any cool kids who pay their bills with a soul-sucking 9-5 job and explode creatively once they step outside that door then let me know. Please. It will be good.

This is the very first shot taken with a new project in mind. Don't worry. It's not another photo essay about the homeless. It's a more abstract co-production with my girlfriend Shannon. Perhaps a bit too early to divulge the deets; this is just the most miniscule of hints.

not gonzo

2009-06-03T23:09:00.006-04:00

I listened to a Hearing Voices Podcast on the walk into work this morning. It was made up of two segments. I only had enough time to hear the first one before I actually GOT to work. It was a Memorial Day special. The story was about a soldier who brought a tape recorder to Viet Nam with him and made tapes to send home to his family. Besides the producer of the piece the narration is largely from a combat buddy of his who is now in possession of the tapes. They play some of them. It's a little disturbing to know that he's talking and reporting so assuredly and calmly while the war is happening within earshot. Especially knowing, as we do, that he was killed over there.

Although I like to plug a good show where I can, that's not why I bring it up. About halfway through the segment the old soldier was recounting a particular taping he took part in and he mentioned that the two of them were kindred spirits and although they were soldiers and there were real casualties all around them they never really thought of the possibility that one of them might not make it. At the time (around 8:41 am) I remember thinking that that was typically naive of the guys who enlist.

It's stuck with me all day, though, and the weight of it rests away from where I thought it did this morning. The whole process of conscious thought plays a part. The narrative we all live our lives by is different in each case but is common to all of us. The fact that we are the central character in our story colours our outlook on the world. It can make things easier, harder, better or far worse but it's hard to escape. For those who see adventure and feel loved in the world, they are the hero and the hero comes home at the end of the war. The sad sidekick who gets killed in some senseless accident is some other guy. Emotionally, we know this is true.

I know that the objective truth is that there are a lot of factors in play in any given situation and that the outcomes are often hard to predict. I know that one of these factors is not that my character has to carry on because the story isn't finished. I know this, of course. But, I find it almost impossible to really believe at a basic level.

Who wants to be a secondary character? In the film or the novel there will be the good-hearted friend who takes a bullet for his comrade and there he ends. Sometimes, when it's really good, you'll get into the head of that character for a few seconds beforehand while he comes to the dismal realization that he is secondary and that his best hope of immortality is martyrdom. I think, at best, we can only admit to ourselves that we're expendable or on the periphery at the very end. With a bit of courage at the right moment you can decide, and in that moment you lessen your self for the task.

When the idea occurred to me I entertained the perspective that I was more of a secondary character to some of the more directed people in my life. The possibility that the only thing I do here is make a nostalgic dent on the life of a character central to some other story shocked and terrified me. That's not something I can live with. It's all all fiction, either way, but my ego jumped out and made itself known to me today and I think that will temper my decisions for awhile.

That's all.

what's your sign (idiot)?

2009-05-07T11:54:00.003-04:00

Might you be filled with righteous intentions but not quite delivering them to the correct location? If so, this is an excellent time to make adjustments.

Thanks astrology. Very much on the right track now.

like the songs i like

2009-05-05T23:25:00.005-04:00

It's been a month. Ha. But, seriously, what have I to say after 4 years or so?

With twitter and now tumblr diverting some of what I could have previously called blog fodder, I just haven't had much else left to say. All the filler goes to the other two which leaves this spot for something "meaningful". The long silence can speak for itself.

That's not to say that what I post on the other sites isn't worth checking out. I hope you do. I'm excited that I can finally post music properly! But, those other posts don't require much thought. Quick content - for both of us. Basically, they're scraps to keep you alive until I can feed you something substantial.

Bad segue.

It's bad because I'm now going to show you some photos; not any of the projects I've been losing sleep over. These are just pretty pictures of a Sunday afternoon and the rare bloom of the cherry blossom trees. After all the planning, coordinating, cancelling and rescheduling, shooting and pacifying, it was exactly what I needed. To be able to just wander and stop and shoot whatever and whoever happened to be in front of me was perfect.

***

~Slideshow~

My Time with Torch

2009-04-04T13:27:00.004-04:00

I have a new neighbour!

Every time I go to do a load of laundry, he pops out of his basement apartment to talk to me (twice - he moved in a week ago).

The first time I met him he randomly asked if I was a musician and then ignored my answer and proceeded to tell me he is a sound engineer. I think that was supposed to be impressive. Based on the price of his basement apartment it only left me puzzled. He also told me he was divorced and introduced me to his 3 huge cats and asked that if I find them around meowing could I please throw them through the sliding basement window. Oh, and he suggested that all of us in the house switch to space heaters now that it is spring, instead of the usual radiators that work in every room. I didn't even answer him. Didn't seem like he was waiting for a response anyway.

Throughout the week I have been startled, to the point of releasing significant adrenaline, by forceful screams from below. In all cases he was explosively and suddenly enraged by one of his cats jumping on the counter or scratching on something. With each intrusive outburst I was left wanting to fight him. I assume that has a little to do with the adrenaline and something more to do with the fact that he is an intolerable mongoloid dope. Did I mention he looks and sounds like Kyle from Tenacious D?

Last night, as I got ready for bed I noticed the dreaded noises of energetic and very vocal coitus. I figured he's a dumpy little slob - it'll be over soon enough. I put a CD on and tried to focus on that. There were two CDs in the changer and after both played out, the woman was still shrieking at full volume. I guess I fell asleep anyway but happened to startle awake around 7 and to my astonishment,they were STILL going! I just lay there and filled with rage. I was mostly angry that he insisted on being so loud that I had to visualize (I can't help it!) this unseemly coupling in all its glory. I had thoughts of breaking his door down and impaling him with my laundry rack. But, instead, I got up and caught up on some early news stories.

Now, Saturday afternoon I go down to throw in a load of laundry so I have towels when my out of town guest arrives and out he pops again! He's wearing what looks to be a 20 year old t-shirt with the neck hole ravaged to the point of surrender and wet sweat circles absorbing their way onto his chest.

He wanted to ask me if I can hook him up with my internet connection. I hemmed and hawed, not wanting any connection to him, and he offered up the news that he was unhappy with the place and he'll be moving out in June anyway. Boom. Perfect. So, I gave him the info needed to log on. It'll only be a short time.
He then asked if I "smoke"? I told him not really and he said, "Oh, well I'm a smoke a day man, myself. Couldn't live without it. My nickname is Torch."

Seriously. I just stared at him and reiterated: "Yeah, well. That's interesting. I'll see you later, man."

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. Thanks for being you, Torch.

Democracy?? Try Democrazy!

2009-04-01T17:10:00.003-04:00

Little story: I never talk about work here and this will only be slightly different. I feel safe enough mentioning this because I've already ranted and raved about it for 3 months in person.

So, our office is broken into two separate suites as we've grown and been unable to obtain anything that joins directly. This has created a physical and mental separation between the inhabitants of each suite. Around holiday time somebody came up with a great "team building" activity. We have a Christmas decorating contest - suite against suite - with a prize to be announced later.

We all know how highly I regard both "the holidays" and decorating things. But, I happened to be in the company of many people who wanted to put some time into making sure our office won the contest. I put my effort in. We won overwhelmingly and it turns out that our prize was to be an extra vacation day. Meh. Not bad.

The official decision was to be given to us by a board member in a group ceremony. During this ceremony she hummed and hawed and I shook my head. They were actually going to insert office politics as usual into this simple and idiotic contest. She told us a limp story about her small children and let us in on her parenting style. You see, she can simply NOT give one of her children a birthday present without giving the other child a present too! It wouldn't be fair! Um, what? Yes it would.

I was pissed before she even told us what she had in mind. I kept my eyes down on the shoes around me because I expected that certain people would be looking for my reaction. In all the grandiosity and cheerfulness that only a professional bureaucrat could manage she told us that our suite had indeed won the contest and congratulated us on our hours of effort. The hitch, as she neglected to call it, was that we would now be required to HOME bake something of our choosing and bring it in for the other side of the office to enjoy. You know, because we so cruelly decorated our office space while they just didn't. We owed them.

For the most part, everybody agreed that this was stupid. But, that did nothing to prevent us from actually being pushed to spend our own money and free time in order to bake for our co-workers. It was hard to be terribly angry since the people we had to bake for were not the ones forcing us to do it. I'm friendly with most of them.

So, choking the whole thing down as yet another example of the insult to the intelligent citizen the workings of our society have become I decided I would do more than the bare minimum.

Not that anyone would have divined my logic but I had to find some reason somewhere, didn't I? I made something that required quite a bit of work and was not cheap in time or ingredients. Something in me just wanted them to know that I'm good (better than average) at something outside of the shallow pool of mediocrity we wade in every day.

The photo above is from my counter on Sunday afternoon. I made triple chocolate biscotti, then made a caramel sauce from scratch which I drizzled over the cooled biscotti and which I then sprinkled with sea salt. The results were pretty good. More than anything else, I imagine people were just relieved I didn't bring in dog shit souffle since they'd heard me complain so often. Nobody suspected a thing. That's best.

this day is different

2009-03-20T00:06:00.003-04:00

So, we've all probably heard the term "cognitive dissonance" by now. Yes? Well, just in case I am the only one who listens to public radio or reads science articles on my "breaks" it is this: a discomfort caused by having two (or more) conflicting ideas about a particular thing.

I've recently come to realize that this term goes a long way to summing up my entire experience. Almost nothing comes to me free and clear, unencumbered by its opposite. Nothing has the impact it might, good or bad, and no motivation is quite enough. Everything is tempered by an inability to cease analysis.

It's been hard for me to blog almost the whole time I've been doing it not just because it takes creative effort to come up with stuff to talk about but because really there's always a counter to whatever idea I touch upon and the resulting fight tends to end in the void. I decide I want to write a little something fictional to clear my head and I'm immediately hit with the argument that if I'm going to spend time writing fiction it would be a better use of my time to actually work on one of my many ongoing/abandoned writing projects that exist outside of the Internet. I could then decide that I want to go have a couple of drinks down the road at one of the many excellent bars that have popped up over the past year or two and just forget about the whole blog thing. But, as I go about deciding which bar I like best for my mood I visualize multitudes of scene-seeking fashionistas crowding me off my stool and out onto the street.

It happens to a greater or lesser degree with everything. Lunch. Getting dressed. Route to work. Saturday mornings. Ad nauseum. Everything. So, the context in which I heard about this concept was a study of people with brain damage who can no longer make decisions. It was explained that these people would get caught up in the simplest of tasks especially if the choice of possible outcomes was increased. They had no ability to "go with their gut" and finally make a decision. All they could do is endlessly compare. In the world of people with functioning brains we tend to make a decision and then justify it in order to quell the unease caused by the relentless dissonance. Sometimes people get really good at justifying their behaviour.

The bottom line, I'm figuring out on so many levels is that there is no auto-pilot. Life is not to be solved. I used to be excellent at justifying my myriad catastrophically bad decisions. That's where my creativity really developed. At at certain point I decided that I had to stop "defending myself" when I made a decision. The idea was that everything would stand on its own merit and eventually my life would be true and unobstructed. I should have consulted the man on the mount. People avoid cognitive dissonance for a reason. It's hard to operate in that haze.

This must be why artificial intelligence is so hard to get right. They should map my progress in reverse as I regress to a rudimentary fuzzy logic. Seriously, man! All this developmental back-and-forth is fucking time consuming!

Anyhow. There's a little something for you to chew on if you read past the fascinating photo of train tracks and sky. I encourage comments.

old inspiration comes round again

2009-03-11T18:41:00.002-04:00

The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division have the archive of photographs taken in the 30's and 40's by the Farm Security Administration. The photos are pretty amazing considering their utilitarian commissions. If I had a larger following than I do I probably wouldn't put this out there but this strangely coincides with a seed of an idea that I had recently about a proposal to the government to document the current state of things with the economy.

With the state of photography and publishing right now it is the only idea that I could think of as an interesting employment opportunity for photographers. I'll do some poking around.

A thoughtful sampling from the editors at PDN.

it's all in the rehash

2009-03-04T01:18:00.003-05:00

I just wrote a post over on Artist Bloc that seems like a big enough personal revelation to necessitate a similar one here. I won't rehash what I wrote there. That site, at least from where I sit, is all about talking about the hurdles to be overcome in the creative process. If I know anything, I know hurdles. What I just wrote there is meaningful to me.

The idea that there is a point at which you become good, if not expert, at what you do and can then expect all that life has to offer to be delivered to you without fail or delay has made me what I am. I admit that I have been taken in by this notion which was presented to me by precisely nobody. Other than admitting that I have fallen victim to film fantasies, I'm not sure what I can say to justify such unrealistic expectations.

In the past few months I've been working on projects of my own creation rather than hacking away piecemeal at jobs that make up the work of others. Trial and error over the past couple of years has done its job in defining for me who I am as a photographer and that knowledge has informed my decisions on personal projects. I've been slow to market myself. If I learned anything at all in my twenties it was that I am not very good at being a team player in a corporate environment. So, rather than risking the inevitable self-sabotage of a career at a newspaper or stock agency or wedding photography business I've stayed away. I knew that if I was forced to shoot things that I didn't want to be shooting that it would be as tedious as any meaningless job, and I have that already.

So, taking for granted that writing is fucking hard and will continue to be so, I have only recently come to understand that everything will continue to be a struggle. I will either have to struggle with the daily life of a 9 to 5 worker trapped during daylight hours in the climate controlled glass cage of an office building for the majority of my productive years, or I will somehow find a way to make my living with pictures and words. What I thought of more clearly before as an anticipated relief or even happy ending to a life of meaningless drudge, is more of a rocky path now. Even if/when I manage to extract myself from the nameless monotony of the rat race I will have to spend most of my time selling myself and convincing people of the legitimacy of my ideas. Deplorable, both.

I hadn't been realistic before. There is still no better path for me. It's just a little less rosy and a little more grimy than I'd imagined. That probably means I'm getting close. Ha. This is why I'll be known as an ingrate no matter what happens.

dissonance

2009-02-20T08:49:00.004-05:00

Everywhere he was, he was not.

After a day and a half, he was only a kilometre or so off from the unoriginally named Pine Lake. The planning wasn't so complicated. That took parts of a single weekend. But, all that time leading up to departure day was called "planning". The plan to head up north for a month in the spring started in the fall and didn't change in any meaningful way from the October afternoon it first was concocted. There was something about saying he was "planning", rather than just "looking forward to" or "excited about", that gave his trip a heavier import than if he just wanted to get out of the city for awhile. It was important to him so he wanted it to seem that way to everybody else.

He'd never gone this way on his own, and not at this time of year. The dangerous surfaces made it hard to keep his footing most of the time. Ice was still melting in shady crags on rock faces. There was still snow on the banks of the shallow streams that also served as trails from the old logging days. The earth was impregnated with melt-water so his boots sunk in with each step making him feel much larger than he looked to the moose he passed. He'd imagined this trek as leisurely and grounding, but the struggle to yank his feet out of the pocket his boot created with each landing created a controlled frenzy to his pace. He looked down at the trail while he walked. He assessed depth and density of possible steps yet to be taken.

His mind wandered. It would be good to drop into that highway burger spot just outside of Barrie on the way back. All the dehydrated rations and dry bagels would lead to such a carnivorous excitement at the end of the trip! The smell of the charcoal smoke and beef wafted through his imagination as the work of moving himself became more rote.

-TBC

Sunday Morning on Wednesday

2009-02-11T00:19:00.002-05:00

I took these on a walk Sunday morning. I quite like them. Strangely, and maybe with these kind in particular, I don't think the internet does them justice. They would be better suited to a larger format, perhaps even some texture. But, you're not reading this in a gallery or a magazine, are you? So, just try to imagine.

you know you let facebook make chain-letters cool, right?

2009-02-06T12:30:00.001-05:00

It’s making the news now that the recent rage – Facebook’s Top 25 Things About You meme – is both insanely popular and inanely unnecessary. I’ll leave it to what’s already been said and not make the obvious complaint that TMI is becoming a thing of the past and blind mob acquiescence is the ruling tenet of our privileged lot.

I want to note with some wonder that I have avoided being “tagged” for participation in this exercise. As each new note showed itself in my main FB Newsfeed I imagined I’d be next. I read through or partway through a couple of them. These types of things weren’t interesting ten years ago when they were sent around as impossibly long email forwards. They’re maybe even less interesting now. But, I’ve been spared! How did that happen?

I would not have made a list if I had been tagged. That’s not even a question. The question is whether all of my legendarily close FB friends already knew that about me and decided it was not worth the check-box, OR if I so epitomize disdain for social frivolity and open exchange that people have forgotten me from their stables of willing participants?

It IS the question at hand. I won’t find out the answer. And even though I’m connected to the hive mind enough to have the itch to ask, I’m disconnected enough to forget it without blinking. Both situations are equally possible and I’m ok with either. I now resent the whole “social networking” phenomenon for requiring me to lend thought to this dynamic.

It’s driving us in and out of ourselves at the same time. We look inward but look outward just as soon as we might have seen something. It’s a frenzy of neurotic addiction. We all willingly participate which makes it MORE possible to keep participating and more likely to collect others. We’re not saying anything.

These facts do not help you to know another person better. Getting included on the assignment doesn’t make you more interesting. And whatever happened to comfortable silence?

Diatribe finis.

somebody out there is doing something

2009-01-28T23:48:00.008-05:00

Simon Hoegsberg's work stunned me a few days back. I'm just now getting around to sharing it with you. This particular project comes with the title "We are All Gonna Die" which I'm sure you'll agree is just the right amount of charming.

On the surface, this isn't an astonishing work. What got my attention was that the printed version is 100 metres long! Regardless of merit, I'd love to see a photograph of mine wrapped around a square gallery space someday. As is usually the case with my appreciation, it resides within and I didn't delve any deeper into what he wanted to say. Personally, I think it's simple and commands attention and it says something that might be obvious but that nags at all of us underneath the surface. Sometimes you just have to put that out there.

While we're talking about scale as success, I offer you this. I'm not sure how much longer this photo will be hosted at this site so go and take a close look right away while you can. Freelance photographer David Bergman shot a 1,474 megapixel panoramic photo of the inauguration of Barack Obama. Again, on first look, it doesn't seem like much. But, zoom in. You'll be amazed at the detail. All over the crowd you can see peoples' faces and point and shoot cameras, and purses and hats and cranky kids. I was looking around as if it were a real-life "Where's Waldo" picture and bumped right into Denzel Washington standing there. And check out Yo Yo Ma taking a photo of the crowd with his iPhone!

i sat and blatantly watched on my computer at work

2009-01-20T16:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not a fan of Canadians' reputation for reservedness and apathy right now. We need one of these inspiring characters. We need some sweeping, generalized rhetoric to get us off our asses, too!

Twitter in Plain English

2009-01-14T12:32:00.001-05:00

I've recently decided to, once and for all, figure out the point of this Twitter thing. You'll notice a new gadget over on the sidebar that shows my twitter feed. I figured that I could at least make this blog a smidgen more current by showing more recent updates between full blog posts.

Most people, myself included, cannot really see a reason to "tweet". As it stands, I don't have many people that I follow who I actually know. And there are only a couple of those who actually use the service as it is supposed to be used - ie. constantly. To fill the feed a bit, I'm following a couple of celebrities and some magazines and photography news sources. So, it basically works as a secondary RSS feed reader at this point and I wasn't really looking for that.

I'll keep using it for a bit to see if its usefulness/interestingness fleshes itself out with prolonged exposure. If not, I'll drop it unceremoniously.

the macbook wheel

2009-01-05T22:22:00.002-05:00

I said I'd put an end to posting funny videos, but this is very good. It's just so true!

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Oh yes I can (and I will).

2009-01-02T16:59:00.005-05:00

Happy Friggin January 2nd!

In the interest of squeezing the most from my holidays, this being the last day off that I could have expected to work, I didn't do much today. Since the weather is just hovering around zero and there's been no rain or snow, I decided to go out for a little walk and get a coffee. Maybe I'd wander around and check out the newish market in the old streetcar barn.

I checked, because I'm just that way, and the weather didn't forecast anything interesting at all this afternoon. So, I walk half an hour to pick up a coffee and the minute I step outside the air erupts and is clogged with sticky flakes.
The frequency of snowfall lately has robbed the occurrence of all romance. I was instantly incensed. It had been warm enough to walk with my winter coat open. Within 30 seconds my shirt was coated in packing snow so I hid under an awning and pulled the hood over my headphones and zipped up after shaking the snow off. From that point, all the way home, the snow blew diagonally directly into my face and onto my coffee. Super interesting story, isn't it?

Well, this is me when I got home. And, to confirm my complex that the entire world is only in place to test my will to abstain from its destruction, the snow immediately stopped when I walked in the door. See below for clear, albeit grey, skies through my window just as I got my coat off.

I will be moving to South America.

it doesn't even sound real

2008-12-30T22:34:00.008-05:00

Last post of 2008.

The blog is 4 now. It should be entering kindergarten soon, no?

The year it got real. I couldn't look away anymore this year. The state of the world demanded our attention like no other time in my life. I always wanted to live in a tumultuous and energized time. But, as is usually the case, things don't emerge as you'd have preferred. I have almost zero hope that we can get ourselves out of all this. The last few months have just lambasted us with news of insurmountable problems. It's been hard to interact and be normal. Acting like things are normal is acting in its truest sense.

Well, it's not all doom and gloom. It sort of is, I guess, but I'm still curious. There's a sense that you might as well make what you can with what you've got, while there's time, while you can. It's been playing havoc with my goals and aspirations. It's hard to find purpose, especially artistically, when flailing helplessly in great pools of nihilism. So, a freedom has emerged. Interestingly, my mindset has retreated to a time when I took pictures because I simply enjoyed the process.

Here are a few pictures I took after finally getting my first pair of winter boots in 20 years. I couldn't feel my fingers, and there wasn't anything in particular going on, but I just felt like capturing the park as it was that day.

Oh, and I still have it in me to be thankful at the end of 2008. There isn't much, but iPhone apps and slow cookers definitely make my life better.

Happy New Year and welcome to the new world order everybody!

why should craig get all the attention?

2008-12-04T00:22:00.003-05:00

I'm working on projects right now so my photography has been less random happenstance and more predetermined. This blur is the understanding and patient subject of one of these projects. He stars in his own so there is a lot of annoyance - his, not mine - to put up with as I follow him around and make comfortable situations uncomfortable with a camera! I have high hopes for the end result.

I have another project that I'm working on where I'm focusing on people who necessarily split their lives/selves up for their creative endeavours and to keep a roof over their heads. I need six or so people to volunteer to be portrait subjects in a studio for a day. So far, I have one person who fits the bill. If you are or know of someone I don't who has to wear different hats in order to make it all happen, please let me know. To be clear, I want somebody who has a completely unrelated 'day' job that they use to pay the bills, and at least one artistic pursuit that they spend their off-hours working on. This doesn't apply to those multitudes who wish they had time for other pursuits; the people who actually do make the time already are the ones I'm seeking.

And, as long as I'm on this wavelength, if you have any knowledge of local stories that would make a good environmental or social impact photo essay please send it my way. I'm keen. I'm keen.

the endless fog of the tarnished mind

2008-11-25T22:13:00.003-05:00

Dick Annegarn "Soleil du soir" (par Michel Gondry)
by totoutard

This is apparently Michel Gondry's work. It's pretty amazing considering the daylight changes from shot to shot, indicating that the shots were taken from the same positions, on multiple days. Or, at least, multiple times throughout the day. I found this today and I really enjoyed it not only for its technical enthusiasm but the idea of doing the same thing in the same order every day, sun up to sundown, really struck a chord.

I need to watch Eternal Sunshine again.

the paint flakes of my ambitions

2008-11-24T23:02:00.002-05:00

This is all I have for you today. I took a bunch of pictures yesterday on a really ugly stretch nearby. I'm feeling, creatively, like a squeezed out tube of toothpaste. With all the doom and gloom with the state of the world added on to the usual struggle to make something of myself I am maxed out. I can not think of a reason to keep trying.

All this means is that I feel like this picture looks. I need to recharge somehow. This treadmill is doing me no good.

the singular return of fiction fridays OR the obnoxious narrator who was convinced that he was more interesting than the characters he narrates

2008-11-21T07:18:00.001-05:00

“Tiny, high-up windows.”

That’s what he thought. He forgets that even those thoughts barely reasoned are available to me for scrutiny. He hated when I did that. I’d just go right ahead in there without any notice and pull out whatever I found. He worried that people would think he was stupid if they knew what he thought. Well, taken out of context they probably would, I’d confirm. But, they would probably be more understanding if they knew I could just as easily pluck their secrets or detail their emotional landscapes on a similar whim. This rarely pacifies him. He knows people think they are special and in even the most obvious cases of equality imagine themselves slightly more holy than thou. He knows because this is what he thinks.

I should be clear that he doesn’t actually know that I exist. I just know what he’d say about it if he did know - was aware - because I am his narrator. Really, I’m your narrator as well, but don’t try to drink that in all in one gulp. It’s a little too nihilistic to process while you’re still here.

But, that’s what I found that day.

“Tiny, high-up windows.”

Since I was also watching Jeopardy while absent-mindedly mining Kern’s consciousness for party fodder I didn’t register whether he meant that as an observation or some kind of more tethered emotional realization. Normally, you might stop your companion/lover/boss mid-sentence with,

“Sorry, what? Were you saying something?”

Sometimes you’re just not listening. Well, all I could do was to keep paying attention and wait for something else. He just stood there, though. I can only do one thing at a time, so even though it’s possible for me just to replay that section of his life later, I was intent on figuring this out from the point I had entered. Maybe you’d understand, if you happened to have the ability to know everything, why I would take a little pleasure in this simple puzzle. But you don’t. You’ll have to accept the fact that I went about it this way.

So, there he stood. Of course then it came to me that this is just what he used to do when his mother would call him “Kernel” in front of the other kids. The kids always figured she was calling him ‘Colonel’, and really, addressing her son as a high-ranking military officer was enough for them to figure she was off her nut, so to speak. He’d just freeze because his humiliation wouldn’t allow him the usual whiny plea to his mother that other kids took for granted. He was terrified of upsetting her. She was fragile and he couldn’t figure out what was going to trigger a collapse. As it happens, what she suffered from is known as Bipolar Schizoaffective Disorder and she remained undiagnosed for her entire life. Their state of worldly affairs might be described as fiscally anaemic so she was not one to invite bad news, therefore, no doctors.

Knowing all this, except of course for the diagnosis part, he could only think to stop dead in his tracks and do as close to nothing as his living, breathing body would allow. His mother had named him Kernel as a result of a conversation she’d had during her pregnancy. She had gone to the local pharmacist for a pregnancy test. When she returned for the results she had it explained to her that she was indeed pregnant and that her baby was, at that stage, about the size of a kernel of corn. She never did go to a doctor. From that point on, not knowing whether he was a boy or a girl, he was Kernel to her, and eventually to the county registrar.

He was and still is deeply embarrassed by his lineage.

He was so practiced at this invisible maelstrom that he had created for his mother that by the time I turned my attention I almost missed him. I hardly recognized him as my own! He was a blank slate, as they say. Nothing about his past or present affected him. He had plunged into the present and left me behind to comment on absolutely nothing.

Exactly one eternity passed.

One eternity – eternity being subjective in literary terms – is equivalent, in this case, to 39 seconds. I can tell that you’re not impressed by that almost universally insignificant period of time. As spans go, I suppose you’d tell me that you could do almost anything for that long. Of course you’d say that. But, let me assure you that for an active all-knowing, ever-present entity, 39 seconds is intolerable!

CONT’D ON NEXT PAGE

a look at Annie Leibovitz

2008-11-20T08:18:00.003-05:00

Annie Leibovitz was definitely one of the first photographers that I was aware of. Thinking about photographs as anything more than instant collectors of information might have been around the time my mother got the John Lennon and Yoko Ono album that they shot right before he was murdered. My father was a painter when I was young and he used to go out with his 35mm Pentax and take photos of scenes that he wanted to paint. Instead of sitting "on location" he'd pin the print next to his easel and paint it in the comfort of our home. So, my idea of photographs was that that they were secondary to real art.

She's promoting a book now and granting interviews. Whatever you might feel about the validity of her work, you'll have to admit she's had a pretty interesting career. She's photographed everyone. The link above is to a short NPR audio interview where she talks about Whoopi Goldberg and Ike Turner and Keith Richards.

She said something that probably only someone in her position would say to her critics. Speaking to criticism that she's "all surface" in her work and doesn't get deeper into her subjects she simply agrees with them and says that she finds the surface interesting. She also says that it would be quite difficult to go after souls day after day. Very interesting indeed. The perfectionist in me wants to condemn her for being lazy and compare her to the kind of photographers who are known to take more meaningful photos. But, the photographer in me is grateful that one of the icons admitted that it's pretty rare to be able to get that kind of shot.

on the table

2008-11-18T16:14:00.003-05:00

This is the view from my new home office. Well, specifically, it's the view from my desk where I sit in front of my computer. Although the view is just across a busy street to an old Portuguese church I'm thankful I have it. I'm on vacation this week so this sitting at my own desk during the day is a whole new thing. It's definitely a kick in the butt to work for myself sooner than later. Not that I really needed a kick.

As per usual, I have a bunch of time to use, and I'm completely overwhelmed with worthy consumers of that time. I suppose it takes awhile to shift gears from the daily grind. I haven't had a week off work since last Christmas. I'm getting projects that have been long delayed as well as new household projects all done this week. All of it. Clean slate.

While timing is everything, I'm noticing with the recent influx of newer and better camera gear, that I'm already a generation behind. So, before I've even gotten to the stage of being paid regularly for my work I have to worry that kids with infinitely more versatile cameras can push past me and get the shot. So, I've effectively eliminated the rest of my social life so that I can get some work done before it all passes me by!

The website that I've been contemplating for two years (maybe more) is going to be ready in a few months with any luck. I've decided that I am going to shoot all new material for the website. Once I have a minimum of 3 or 4 essays/projects completed I will launch the site and hopefully be able to approach paying clients. So, I'll be working out and working on projects for the foreseeable future. I might even call out to all who visit for help or time or opinions depending on the project. Please stay tuned and please participate.

On top of those, I'm sharpening my knowledge of all things political, environmental and just generally important with two blogs. In case you've missed it when I've mentioned it before, I started this is what is about a year ago. I originally thought I'd just put up photo essays related to local issues. But, it's turned into more of an information hub for issues I think people should know about. Please take the time to visit. If you've already visited here, I know you have some time on your hands! And to push those ideas just a little bit further, I'm contributing the same sort of content, to The Savvy, The Extreme and The Idealist, hopefully in the interest of making Americans more aware of issues that touch both our countries.

So, I'm busy with things. Drop me a comment when you come by, though. If I know somebody's hovering out there, I'm more likely to post.

oh, the damned bank owns the giller now?

2008-11-11T23:53:00.011-05:00

The winner of the Giller Prize for fiction was announced this evening. I refuse to add the bank sponsor to its name. Why is this one particular bank sponsoring and buying up all the cultural commodities anyway? Is it a roll of the dice?

It doesn't matter. Joseph Boyden won $50000 dollars and a lot of attention for this book. Like almost all the books that I remember winning this prize and especially the Governor General's Award this one seems to be steeped in melancholy and loss. The fact that he won this prize with only his second book looks good for a literary career. Or, at least as good as a literary career can look these days (especially in Canada).

I'm going to read this, though, and decide if the guidelines for judging have changed any in the past couple of years. I have an opinion already but I will reserve it until after. The proof of my generalizing fury is in the sloggingly metaphorical pudding!

In the meantime, you read it too. We'll compare notes.

News

Review

In Memory

2008-11-11T14:14:00.004-05:00

Robert Capa

The sombre tone of Remembrance Day (Canada) has always been a little abstract to me. Of course I understand the reason for honouring those who died in battle for their country. I didn't have a personal connection to the wars, though, as both of my grandfathers were in their teens when the Second World War ended. I've always put my personal feelings about the military or governments aside and spent the day thinking about the individuals who went off to fight and didn't come back.

I'm sure that most soldiers have their own reasons for joining up and going to war. High ideas like freedom and evil sometimes energize people to bold action. Sometimes a family tradition is so strong that people take their place in line with pride. There are a million reasons, I'm sure, why people chose to go off and stand for something unrelated to their own personal lives. It's especially meaningful considering the the reasons behind wars are not always apparent to those on the ground. They are trusting that they are risking their lives for what is right.

It is for this trust and bravery, in the face of death, that I remember them.

It won't be long before all of the soldiers from either of the World Wars will be gone. I think that it would be a good idea, for anyone who is like me and who doesn't have a personal relationship with a survivor of those wars, to take the time to watch Band of Brothers. Not necessarily for its historical importance, but because it is the only thing I've seen that carries the emotional weight of the losses these men experienced. Aside from the great character development, the actual interviews with the surviving men of Easy Company, provide a real tangible sense of what we're honouring on days like today.

remember me?

2008-11-10T00:14:00.003-05:00

I don't usually remember blog birthdays (if there really is such a thing). But, this blog turns 4 in a few days. I've been feeling some nostalgia about the raw and ready early months when I'd excitedly press the "publish post" button and then drive myself nuts wondering if anybody was going to read or understand the intended humour in what I had just CREATED! The nostalgia comes from a place of defense. The whole existence of this little forum has been up in the air for most of the time it's been alive. I feel sorry for it. It deserves better. I've showed it such neglect. The tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas special comes to mind. Utterly pathetic but curiously large in spirit. It's almost a person to me now.

The name has changed and with that the purpose. Since the broadening of its scope I have had a terrible time deciding what exactly I should be talking about here. There was only so long I could compare and contrast Ottawa and Toronto. It only felt like a new place for a short while. So, instead of being "Life in Toronto" it just became "Life" because the Toronto part just faded as I was absorbed into the city. Then I decided that it would be great to share my creative experiments here and that was a lot of fun. I got interesting and unexpected feedback on bits of writing that stood alone. But, that became harder and harder to generate as life got busier and the idea that one day's fantastic new piece would shortly become yesterday's ignored entry ,bounced that much closer to going right off the page of the blog, encouraged a certain disdain for posting work.

I've always realized that the most highly attended blogs are the ones where the bloggers give of themselves to their hungry readerships. It seems, to my detriment, that I'm not wired that way. My naturally self-deprecating and cynical persona would not be shaped into a self-aggrandizing, attention-seeking cretin for a higher technorati rating. And, as such, I've watched my readership drop off and stagnate for years now.

When I write here, I no longer worry about what people are going to see it and what those people might think. I've always avoided talking about work or roommates or relationships. Those topics fill up a large portion of my life, though, obviously. So, with what I'm left with to write about I don't care as much as I once did because only a half dozen people, tops, will even read it. With the advent of Myspace, then Facebook, in the years since blogging was the latest obsession, people aren't nearly as curious about what I might say or show. How do I compete with constant status updates and tagged photos and pokes and secret messages?

A year or so ago, I almost dropped this thing altogether to go for a more serious project. I started thisiswhatis.wordpress.com because I started to combine my direction in photography with my daily findings in the news. That site isn't much with the traffic, either, but it's much much easier to define and update. This site has largely been fluff since then. And, how can you compete with Facebook in the fluff department? Rhetorical. Shh.

So now this, my original blog, is ready to turn 4 and it is at quite a low-point. Because I find that there's some kind of connection to an integral part of what energized me to change my life 4 years ago and move to Toronto from a very stable life in Ottawa I am going to allow this to keep going. I'm going to move away from posting funny videos and random photos because you can find those anywhere. Probably, you'll see them on Facebook. So, just go there when you're bored. Here, I'm going to try to reclaim a certain excitement I had at expressing myself and I think there will be a real-world impact. I want that deep feeling of possibility back and now seems as good a time as any to make that happen.

I'm going to be trolling for new readers. I might even solicit interaction. Basically, I'm saying I'm back.

no idea what this means

2008-10-30T00:51:00.003-04:00

A week or two ago I was just walking along Dundas and I noticed a lot of people stopped and looking up. There were thousands of birds circling and landing together on the hydro wires above the street. They'd sit, all noisily waiting to jump, and then off they'd go wildly flapping around in circles together, only to land back on the wires. I'm not sure what kind of birds these are but I've seen the behaviour before and I've always marvelled at the synchronization. But, I've never seen this many at once. It was just very unusual so I took some pictures.

from sunday

2008-10-26T23:46:00.002-04:00

Listen to Brian Borcherdt.

embrace the spectacle

2008-10-22T00:32:00.005-04:00

I took this shot while I was waiting near Dundas Square to go to a movie. I could have gone across the street to capture this showboater a little more dramatically. I didn't though, obviously. People get really nervous when guys like this one are around. You can't tell what he's going to do. He was hopping around on the sidewalk and yelling about something. Then he burst out onto Yonge Street and came back on his hands and feet, ass high in the air. He looked around, quickly, and when he thought the policeman on horseback on the corner wasn't watching, he leapt onto the garbage/recycling container and raised his arms in appeal to his people.

I'm fairly certain he would have enjoyed the attention of a photographer snapping away at his antics so I wasn't particularly nervous about him. The other thing to consider is that there were probably 200 people in the vicinity who were actively avoiding eye contact with this man and all of those eyes would be turned on me if I were to move to centre stage, so to speak, to get a better shot. I'd be seen as an instigator. At least, that's what I was telling myself. I've really got to drop that barrier.

On that note, I made it to the World Press Photo Awards Exhibition twice this year. The photos weren't particularly excellent. I just made a point of going when I could, and that made twice. The exhibition has a sort of prologue on the front panel of the display, generally written by the chair of the jury for the prize that year, and I wish I had it written down at this point. I remember last year's being interesting in that the chair, who I don't remember, spoke about that subjective problem of judging a good photograph and what it is that he looks for. That was interesting for me as an outsider who generally refuses to ask questions like that. This year, however, Gary Knight of the VII agency set a different tone. It was both refreshing and discouraging. Because I can't find the text anywhere online I'll have to horribly paraphrase, but in broad terms he expressed his disappointment in a lot of the entries and judged them unoriginal and even derivative of previous winners. He wanted to push photographers to be original and strive to tell a story in a different way.

Of course anyone would agree with the sentiment but in practice, the idea of shooting something original, let alone something traditional in an original way is quite daunting nowadays with thousands of photographers running around shooting the same subject matter and even more in the amateur vein with equipment that gets closer and closer to pro-level quality without the price. There's just so much shooting happening! It stopped me in my tracks to try and imagine shooting something that would truly stand out as never been having done that way before. But, after a week of deep breaths I've come closer to his side of things and realised that, really, if you're not going to strive to do something new then you might as well sit back down and make room for those that will.

more of the same: day 487398

2008-10-15T00:45:00.002-04:00

That is what is.

I can't talk about it any more. Go look over there today.

Comment too. The meaningful blog is lonely.