Sunday, October 31, 2010

Natasha Thinking

My youngest daughter is all senses. Listening. Watching. She has her mother's kindness. And my laughter.

The Power of H: Church Street Is Burning

The Power of H: Church Street Is Burning: "A finalist in the 2003 Eppie Best Poetry Collection, Church Street Is Burning, in illust..."

Church Street Is Burning

A finalist in the 2003 Eppie Best Poetry Collection, Church Street Is Burning, in illustrations, short stories, and poems, tells the story of the poet as a young man. Lost. Abandoned by the woman he loved. Bewitched by the street he lives on. Forgotten by his God. Searching for some rational order in a world fallen on its side. And leaking.

Friday, October 29, 2010

the Saviors Electric Breakdown


Someone wrote that if Jesus appeared on the planet today, we'd crucify him all over again. I think we already have.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Death in good times


The first time I went to Paris I was warned not to go down to the Seine at night. I could be robbed and thrown in the river. The rivers in Toronto pose no such problem. For one they are not easily travelled at night. And if you're going to be robbed, it is more likely to happen in the street. So these kinds of robbery/murders have taken on a sort of iconic quality. Metaphor screams out at you.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

jammin' at the station


This began as an experiment. But I liked the colour and the surreal quality of the railroad station.

Saturday, October 23, 2010


Check out my book on the female jazz singers of the 20s to the 60s.
David Halliday's Smashwords Author Profile: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/powerOFh
Book page to sample or purchase The Saints of Jazz: http://smashwords.com/b/27189

And my old book gone new
David Halliday's Smashwords Author Profile: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/powerOFh
Book page to sample or purchase Crowd Noises: http://smashwords.com/b/27729

Katie on fire


My eldest daughter is a force in life. Restless, intelligent, curious, and delightfully impish, she is becoming a very interesting young woman.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

McGarvey


I hate the expression iconic. It's used to often. But there must be a mold somewhere for women who are charmingly dipsy.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Breakdown


Started a new book via blogg. Its called Crowd Noises and was the first book I got published. This piece is called Breakdown.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Higg's Silence


New story I was working on for my OPEN24HRS. It's called The Higg's Silence. The Higg's Ocean (it has other names) is an empty space in space or part of space or between everything, a kind of soup of emptiness where ??? come in and out of existence almost simultaneously. It's an interesting idea. It makes it appear that reality itself is a characteristic of things as much as colour, smell, etc.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Brueghel's House

I always thought that the Flemish painters in the middle ages had the pulse of the human psyche in turbulent times. And mostly the human being is tortured both by his own choices and by the circumstances of his own times. My generation was raised inside the egg. Most of us lived our lives in the suburbs, protected from the evils of the city and the horrors of the outside world. Except we weren't.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

A Period of Calm


I'm not sure what this piece means. Its both reflective into the past and foreseeing the future. I don't know if this view of the future is ominous. I suspect that the future will hold surprises that we don't expect. I wish I was young enough to be angry about them.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Something I'm not sure of...


Reminded of that Rollingstone song 'Something happened to me yesterday'. That is what this piece is like. I was messing around with some ideas and it popped out of my...

I hope my son doesn't read this


I hope my son doesn't read this. It would embarass him. I think. I'm real proud of him. In the last few years he's taken charge of his life. And he's performed several acts of kindness that overwhelm me. In the latest example he cut his hair, which was waist length, and donated it for whigs for women who are undergoing kemo. I thought my dad was the kindest man I ever met. But Michael would make his grandfather proud. And his dad.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

She showed up later that evening


This is an early collage that I worked on. Cut and paste. It was one of the first pieces that attempted to create a work that had no bottom. Or at least there were alternative bottoms. I also started using a lot of white out, it being too difficult to cut everything with scissors.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Girl in the alley


A good friend is having a serious operation tomorrow. Life goes on day after day. We slide through them we in a daze. Than slam. Your forced to stop. It all could be gone so quickly. And easily.

Monday, October 4, 2010

stella who slept with el


I don't know if this piece is about infidelity. Or about hot food. life in the city. but there are some lines in a Dylan song that i could write down here. 'Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ?'

Friday, October 1, 2010

Out for a walk


Some day young men will go for a jaunt through the highlands on some strange planet.

Apocalypse


I love the sense of atmosphere in this piece. There is something 'end of the world' about it. So many people both fear and are intriqued by the notion of life as we know it ending. Maybe they're just bored of being bored. You should read In Pursuit of the Millenium. A great book by Norman Cohen. It talks about the period around 900 AD to about 1200 AD. Fascinating stuff.