I’ll Admit it…

My favourite conductor of all time is:

What a performance!

Of course I’m a fan of Ravel’s Bolero (page 36 in the Artist Proof of SUN INFINITY MOON) but I love seeing the conductor in action. This guy is AWESOME as far as my books go. You might want the headphones on for this one.

Otherwise there is not much to report in this uncivilized place: the capital city: O Town. (Refer to the descriptions leading off page 36 in said novel!)(ha!)

Back home in Mindemoya, in my mom’s writing room.

What a mess of papers there on the left but it was a glorious room to write in. This was back in or around that insane summer of 1995: flipping WILD! In the photo I’m using a manual typewriter to work on SUN, time is around dusk, the last of the day light it out there to the west, above us: the island night. Beautiful. How grand it would be to go back to that point in time, with what we know now…

alone at Carter’s Bay in a long ago summer time

Sweet summer is rolling up on us fast and I’m still here, in the slab. Full moon of June is rolling up on us too, I hope I don’t miss that one! Not sure where Shell was on the day I snapped this one but I know I was on the east side of Carter’s Bay, zipping a shiraz from south east Australia and gosh the mighty Lake Huron was quite loverly.

Nice work if you can get it!

And you can get if you try! Acrylic on canvas board, 16×20 inches, from a long ago summer… Who has this? Write me!

That August day back in 2016…

It was an hour after our summer guests departed and left me there on the range very much alone. Alone after 4 weeks of hosting. It was worth it! And I managed to get a pretty decent tan along the way but gosh I was tired. But it was worth it!

The Great Jasmine Moon

The clock is ticking like never before. My walking papers are imminent. The empty nest looms gigantically. She is getting ready and I’ll soon be let go. Word around the camp fire is I’m off to the master bedroom over at the mansion which sounds wonderful but my days of cooking and clearing for my old buddy Jazz will soon be at their end.

At Providence Bay on Labour Day Weekend, Monday night, everyone has gone home.

I’m not sure when that was, year wise, possibly the night before the start of grade 6? I wrote it all down but I don’t have the stuff handy here. (We’re on the road.)

Well Bolero is over with. Can’t go back and play that one again. Maybe it’s time for Bruckner’s 7th Symphony.

Wednesday night in the slab: some folks out there are having a good time! You can hear them! Whooping it up. Good for them!

And in closing: with the mad goings on in this world these days:

Nice work.

Us real Indians deal too! I would know.

Snow on May 9th!

what the flipping flip is up with the snowflakes flying at this time of the year?  yeesh.  its like the whole world has gone bonkers.  this virus crapola has us pinned down 9 weeks now, going on 10, snow is flying, can’t get home, the walls are moving in closer by the minute.

better put the headphones on for this one…

okay so things haven’t gotten quite that artsy around here but if this snow doesn’t stop, i can’t guarantee you any further stories will be true!  but i can guarantee that they will be stories!

last Sunday morning:  east of Ottawa.  it’s the best we can do for now.  i’d rather be driving the backroads between Tehkummah and Snowville this time of year but we’re a long way from that!

i haven’t picked up a paint brush in 9 weeks.  holy mackinaw!  out where we are: the spirit just isn’t here, to do what is needed.  and so the stack of canvas, canvas boards, jars of paint, brushes too, sit.  waiting…

the mighty raven watches but i’m sure doesn’t wonder.  this boy wonders!  when is the all clear going to be given?

we ran this photo a few weeks ago:  since we have no painting going on we’re switching gears and picking up the guitar.  later today i’m going to give this Garage Band thing a turn.  its the onboard computer home studio and today we’re going to see if we can record the twinravens actual “classic”:  No Smoking.  that song goes back way before there was a twinravens actual!

here are the lyrics:  (i don’t know how to fix the double spacing thing so here it is in one block of text)

no smoking.  no unloading.  of your trash.  on my trash.  in the city: an indian’s day is never done!  if this weren’t the city: there’d be no shoes on my feet.  no ugly sounds in my ears.  no ugly sights in my eyes.  the only ones left: are my brother the raven.  brother raccoon.  andek esban anishnabe…  the three of us shunned (x3).  in a white man’s world.  police aint here to serve and protect.  police are here to racially profile.  guys like me in a white man’s world…

the stupid auto correct always wants to change “esban” to “lesbian”!

so yes those are the mod lyrics to No Smoking.  i wrote and recorded the song at the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre back in the summer of 1994, in the youth lounge, using a Fostex 4 track recorder which, ha!, used cassette tapes!  i sat myself down and played track one: acoustic rhythm.  track two and three:  lead guitars.  track four:  vocal.  and in the background, it being the youth lounge over at the FC, you could hear some cats playing billiards and so the pool balls were cracking around in an off timed way which i thought really added to the kookiness of the recording.  we were in the city.  it was a song about urban indio reality.  back then it was true and more so today.  i recently added the bit about the cops.  back then i was innocent and believed in things.  today it is different.

No Smoking, just saying, has only been performed live: 3 times!  (the best reading took place at the Rivoli, Queen St. W., July 1995.)

and so we have an acoustic guitar from the pawn shop, we have this Garage Band program, the flashy microphone, and the afternoon off, with snow flying as i write.  we’ll give it all a spin and see if we can make something of it.  time is noon!  the guitar playing  might wake up my old buddy Jazz, she’s still in the bunk.  her hours have gone strange now that the schools have been closed for 9 weeks and will remain closed for another 3 at the least…  the poor kids.  what a rip off it has been for them.

Jasmine Moon is supposed to be in grade 12, graduation coming up, but will there be a party?  yes these poor kids have been ripped off.

here is some super heavy duty:

my beautiful daughter.  and a proud father i am.  and the empty nest is looming like never before…  she talks about her own apt. and a room mate and being closer to the post secondary institution…  which leaves this old boy, i guess, free to go.

who knows.  maybe by next winter i’ll be back to this, back home on the range, back down by the river, back in the old country, far away from the war.