Month: August 2022

Take Me To Church, Lady

The only thing that happened last week was that last Tuesday, around two o’clock in the morning, Atlas woke up and started losing his sh*t, barking out the window. Ken and I woke up and Ken rushed to the window overlooking the church across the street that was recently sold and is being renovated:

Ken: It looks like someone’s trying to tip over the porta-potty from the construction site across the street!
Me: Tipping it over?! At this time of night? Are they drunk?!
Ken: I think they’re actually trying to steal it! They just loaded it onto their flatbed!
Me: Should we call the police? Wait—did you say ‘flatbed’? What kind of people drive around with a flatbed looking for porta-potties to steal?
Ken: They’re…driving it around the corner and unloading it. I think they’re just moving it.
Me: I should call the police on them just for being a-holes. Two o’clock in the morning—seriously? (to phone) Call 9-1-1.
Phone: Did you say Kenneth?
Me: Et tu, Brute?

The Things I’ve Seen

It’s been a quiet week, so today, I’ll simply be sharing with you the 4 weirdest things I’ve seen lately.

1) Wooden Armour For Sale

Apparently, this armour belonged to a medieval French knight who thought he was being very clever.

Knight 1: Ooh lala, I have invented zis new kind of armour for zee battle.
Knight 2: Zis new armour does not seem très practical, mon ami. ‘Ow does one get up on le cheval wearing zis gigantic wooden suit?
Knight 1: Non, non! C’est for le ground war. We line up in our wooden armour side by side, and the English cannot get through. Also, c’est parfait for ze castle invasions. If you are spotted, you simply pretend that you are le furniture, a cupboard in ze corner par exemple. No one will ever suspect that we are les chevalier!

At least not until someone needs to hang up their robes.

2) This is a statue that I saw for sale on Facebook Marketplace. But I have no idea what it’s a statue of. To me, it looks like the girl is being attacked by a ferocious lamb. She’s been bitten A LOT and now she’s about to faint. Although this scenario seems highly improbable, I googled “Do sheep attack?” and the answer was “a young sheep, called a lamb, is easily spooked and older sheep will attack without thought in order to protect them against a perceived threat.” There you go, Mary. You spooked the lamb and paid the price.

3) My new Facebook friend?

For some strange reason, I don’t think the person who contacted me and wants to be my friend on Facebook is REALLY Rich Bradley. I don’t know why—I just have a feeling. I mean, he LOOKS like a nice dude, but…don’t you think the heart and flowers is just a little too ‘try-hard’? Also, is he saying he’s a god? Like, a god who fears nice things? At any rate, those aren’t exactly key selling points if you’re trying to become my friend. Unless you actually are a god and can do something about all those lamb attacks.

4) At first glance, this doesn’t seem that weird. It’s a picture of a lovely little girl surrounded by pumpkins, posing for a fall photo. From a distance, (particularly the distance between the checkout counter at work and the booth across the aisle where it’s being sold as “portrait in vintage frame”) it seems like a really cute tribute to autumn. But then you zoom in on the little girl’s face and suddenly, it’s very disconcerting.

Is it just me, or does she look terrified, like she’s about to cry? And all I can think is, what did they do to this kid? Was she promised a special new doll if she posed nicely, and then they showed her the doll and it was Chucky? Was she about to be attacked by a lamb? (Seriously, this is my new fear. Sayonara, quicksand).

Who would frame a picture of their child looking like Michael Myers is the photographer? I mentioned it to the vendor who was selling it:

Vendor: Huh. You’re right. She does look unhappy. I thought it was one of those pictures that comes with the frame, but now that I see it up close, it’s not a stock photo. It’s a stalk photo. Get it? Like a pumpkin stalk. Maybe she was sitting on the pumpkin stalk.
Me: Or maybe she was being stalked. Either way, that’s one sad child.

And I have to look at her every day until someone buys that damn vintage frame.

Creative Wednesdays: Tiger Lily Book Launch!

A little while ago, I got an email from a good friend, the amazing poet Susan Richardson of Stories From The Edge Of Blindness. She had just completed a collaboration with Scottish artist Jane Cornwell, and had almost finalized a collection that featured her poetry and Jane’s art. And she wanted ME to write the foreword. I was honoured, and a little intimidated—I wanted to make sure I did justice to the book, because it’s beautiful and profound and exemplifies the highest caliber of the written word and the visual image. Fortunately, they both were happy with what I wrote, and the book was finally finalized and now the launch is only a couple of days away! So if you’d like, you can join us on Friday, August 19 at 2 pm EST, which is 7 pm GMT in the UK where they both live, and enjoy our company, participate in a Q and A about the collection, listen to Susan read some selected poems and see the artwork that Jane created, and have an opportunity to read your own poetry at the end if you’re so inclined. The link to register for the event is here: Tiger Lily Book Launch – Poetry Party Tickets, Fri 19 Aug 2022 at 19:00 | Eventbrite

I hope you can join us, no matter what time zone you’re in. (Here’s a link to a time zone converter if you’re not sure.)

I’m In The Movies

If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of the Alien/Predator franchise. I’ve seen all the movies, my favourite of which is Alien Vs. Predator and it’s my go-to film whenever I’m feeling down or bored. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to see a new addition to the series–the film Prey, starring Amber Midthunder. Ken and I decided to watch it on Wednesday night, and let me tell you, it was one of the most disappointing movies I’ve ever seen, for a variety of reasons. Never mind that it takes place in 1719 and in the first few minutes, the girl’s dog is caught by a metal legtrap, but instead of freaking out that there are strangers in the woods, she just calmly frees the dog and goes about her business. And I was like, is this an old school Predator using weirdly archaic weapons? But no, it was just the French. Luckily, I can read French really well, because despite the fact that the Comanches, most of whom were super-sexist, all spoke English, the French (who were also super-sexist) DID NOT, and there were no English subtitles so I was forced to translate all the French dialogue as quickly as I could for Ken. The only cool thing about the movie was that there was quicksand. Yes, quicksand. And because I grew up in the 70s, I knew exactly what the girl needed to do.

Me: Don’t struggle! Float on your back and make small movements!
Ken: I saw that on Gilligan’s Island once.
Me: I really thought based on my childhood TV viewing that I would have needed to know how to survive quicksand before now.

At any rate, the movie was dumb and if I’d been in it, I would have taken my dog and gotten the hell out of there–let all those misogynist dudes fend for themselves:

Sexist Guys: Oh save us from the alien, mydangblog!
Me: Maybe you should have thought of that before you made fun of me in front of the Chief. See ya, nerds!

I would have been great in that movie.

The Battle Of Upper Landing

Playing With Fire

As you might remember, I recently started my own online literary magazine called DarkWinter Lit. It’s going really well, and I’m getting some incredibly good submissions, but one of the things I’m really proud of is that 99% of the images that I use to accompany each piece are original, chosen for each unique story or poem—either taken by me or Ken. I’m fortunate that I work in an antique market, where I can easily find fur coats, weird statues, and driftwood horses. Sometimes though, I need to create a specific scene that I have in mind. And last week was one of those times:

Me: I need a picture of a gold coin covered in water, with a backdrop of fire.
Ken: I don’t have anything like that.
Me: I thought you were a PHOTOGRAPHER, KEN. Do you at least have a butterfly I can use for something else?
Ken: Ooh, yes, I have lots of those!

So it was up to me to create the photo that I needed, at least for that particular story. But then it struck me—we have a burn pit in the side yard surrounded by rocks and it was full of wood. I could prop a loonie (the golden Canadian equivalent of a dollar) on one of the rocks, start a small fire, then spray it all down with water before things got out of hand. It was a terrific plan…

I brought the loonie, some newspaper, and a bbq lighter out with me, and placed the loonie in what seemed like a great position. I crumpled up the newspaper and held the lighter to it. It immediately caught fire but then started to go out, so I tossed some dead grass in there for good measure. I sat back on the dry lawn (we hadn’t had rain for weeks) and contemplated the sad state of the gardens, suffering from lack of moisture as well. When did we last have rain? I thought to myself. It seemed like it was a while ago.

Suddenly, the grass, paper, and the dry wood in the fire pit all ignited at once and I quickly found myself seated next to a raging inferno. Where the f*ck is the hose??!! I screamed silently, berating myself for having forgotten an essential part of the plan. I ran to the porch, the flames getting higher and closer to the dry lawn, and I dragged the hose over to the burn pit.

Do you know what happens when you spray a large fire with a large amount of water? It creates an even larger cloud of thick smoke, a cloud that drifts over your entire neighbourhood, terrorizing your neighbours, at least one of whom belongs to the volunteer fire department. And at this point, Ken poked his head out the door:

Ken: What are you trying to do—set the neighbourhood on fire?
Me: I just wanted a photograph of a gold coin drenched in water in front of a backdrop of fire!
Ken: Did you at least get the shot?
Me: It’s a little smoky but yes.
Ken: Well, that’s one thing. I’m sure the fire department will take it into consideration when they hand you the fine.

I managed to extinguish everything eventually, thanking the universe for the fact that our burn pit is hidden by trees and the guy who kept driving by looking for the source of the smoke couldn’t see it. But imagine the conversation:

Firefighter: So let me get this straight. You set your lawn on fire because you were (checks notes) “trying to get a photograph of a wet coin in front of a large flame”?
Me (whispers): Yes.
Firefighter: And you thought this was a good idea in a month where we’ve had very little rain?
Me (whispers): Yes.
Firefighter: Wow. You’re dumb.
Me (hangs head and whispers): I know.

The things we do for our art.

How It Started
How It Ended
The Final Product

In other news, you may recall that recently, I got my license renewed and faced a barrage of disturbing questions about having my skin flayed off for science right before having my photograph taken. Well, the license arrived in the mail yesterday, and here’s the reaction on my face:

Now, you may think that’s just the way I always look in driver’s license photos, but here are other examples from 2007 and 2016:

I think it’s pretty clear that I won’t be getting any speeding tickets until 2027 when I no longer look like I’ve seen horrors that no sane person can contemplate … And the worst thing is that, along with the license, there was a questionnaire asking me the same questions that the woman at the license place had asked me PUBLICLY. I could have done all of that IN PRIVATE. And looked prettier in my photo.