Hello my friends – here’s the latest episode of “Hard Truth and a Big Hug”. It’s a small part of a book that I haven’t yet got around to publishing – but I thought the big ideas and the final take-away were
The festival is officially called the taste of the Danforth – but I know I’m not the only one who looks forward most to the musical performances, big and small. This fellow really struck me beautifully – because he was playing to
I adore Miro, Klee, Mondrian, Kandinsky and a few others – but on the whole I am a very tough-sell on abstracts. Not because I’m grumpy (that’s a separate subject!) but only because I see so many different fascinations in the world
Here’s the best oil-painting I ever did with my old (Otto) camera. I’ve always had a fondness for industrial spaces – the rusted tumbledown ruins of the once great Massey Ferguson plant were my favourite for all night walking as a teen.
Whenever I have a regular gig, I like to find a nice spot to go for a lunch break nearby – no matter how much one might like one’s workmates, getting away for a bit is a huge mental-health booster for any
I’ve got three words for you, folks – Mapplethorpe Mapplethorpe Mapplethorpe – remember him? Back in the Reagan-weird eighties, there was a HUGE controversy about the absolutely horrible idea that “the government” was going to fun an exhibit of “pornography” at a
There are a few different reasons that about 50% of my reading list at any given time is out of print. One of them is that I figure anything insanely popular has already attracted it’s sustaining audience – which is to say
There’s just no arguing it – photographers are themselves one of the very best street-photography subjects one can come across – and the juxtapositions which occur in an uncontrolled but pro ‘street shoot’ are especially deluxe. The princess here is actually a
There’s something especially endearing about single-minded determination in cute toys. Reminds-us that our childhood selves didn’t often dream of being pleasant and relaxed, but rather fierce, focussed and action-packed – exciting stuff! Of course, single-minded does turn out to be a whole
I want to begin sketching out some important themes today, discussions which I’ve promised to myself, and to my friends and readers. To hear anyone declare that they are going after empirical “truth” outright is an instant alarm-bell for most sensibly-skeptical people
When people who are into sequential art, comics, and illustration history (an increasingly intersecting set on the venn-diagram, I am happy to report) talk about the science fiction and fantasy pulp of the seventies, ninety percent of the bandwidth usually gets taken
Another lovely thing about street festivals is all the nifty and eccentric characters one gets to see, some of them human, and some canine – but no less full of style, verve, and indeed, often hilarious achievements of attitude. It takes no
I’ve already gone-on at some length about the great evolutionary significance of the arrival of flowers – not only a crucial increase in energy concentration for nifty things like mammals, that prefer above room-temperature blood (in the form of the vast variety
This set of photographs contains a few lovely things at once. For one, it shows how the recent attention to rehabilitating the Don river away from it’s truly horrid state a few decades ago (open urban sewer) back to a more natural
Catherine and Nada will both tell you – I am a bit of an ornery old cuss. I don’t just go along with stuff because everyone else is doing it, I make my own call. No, I don’t want to be a
Here’s another one of my unexpectedly nifty hand-held nighttime rain-shots. This one took a bit of doing too – walked back and forth for about a block, to get the right sort of mix of odd little businesses set up in front
One of the most ridiculous modern beliefs is that we are smarter than people used to be. We aren’t – people have had this brain structure for much longer than culture has been making use of it – we just pack different
If you’re into music, you’re probably aware that the reason commercial radio suddenly began to suck a few years ago and has never recovered, has to do with Clear Channel and their approach of programming music based upon a mathematical analysis, rather
For some time now, the crack team of book-obsessives at Large Ess Small Press have been gearing-up to offer fine and original published works to you — and we are, at last, just about ready to announce our first of many planned
I’d rank Bumblebees as the second cutest insect after ladybugs, and they are far more cuddly-looking, thanks to their apparently soft and colourful fur But I have to say, I always thought the weird plastic wings that people wore for their bumblebee
I sure felt cool in that carpentry apron. Childhood is weird, and there’s no doubt that parenthood is challenging – but there’s one simple principle worth remembering – kids remember! Any experience they have of being able to create things which are