Love Song No. 6

as some of you may know: ages ago i was in an amazing all native rock and roll band. we grew out of the drama team at the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre over there in Sudbury, Ontario. ah but those were some glorious and exciting times!

on stage at the Northern Lights Folk Festival (ages ago!)

the band was called No Reservations and gosh they were a wild bunch! some day we need to write a book about that one.

and so around that time, i bought a Fostex brand 4 track recorder which used basic cassette tapes. i’d plug a cassette in there and use those 4 tracks to try and make something song wise i could take to the band. of course we had that Fostex sitting around at the party house too and some mighty weird songs were recorded on there including the infamous: What to do with Sunday Afternoon… (also on my Youtube channel, warning: coarse language and sexual content in that song!)

anyway: the Fostex and all those original tapes lay buried in a plastic bin back home on the range, for who knows how long. about 5 years ago someone who knows how to transfer these old analog tapes to digital went to work on a few of them and we ended up with some snap shots of the past, which we still need to make videos for and post them to the twinravens youtube channel. for kicks you see!

recently though i was given a gizmo that connects a guitar into a computer to record on Garage Band. this thing is an Apogee brand “jam” connector. the line in is the 1/4 inch jack and the line out is this magic whatever it is that turns your guitar into a digital. but instead of plugging the quarter inch line in jack from the guitar i plugged the far end into this Fostex and boom: we can hear all these old tapes once again but this time on computer. super fun stuff especially as some of this “insane and abstract” music hasn’t seen the light of day since 1995. like: The Shadow of You. (yikes! what a song!)

anyway. i haven’t got the details sound wise figured out: how to mix these four tracks into the digital without a lot of back ground noise, buzz, and all that crap that goes with a jangle of wires all over the table top. and i’m no ACE when it comes to using Garage Band! i’m still trying to figure that one out!

but here is Love Song Number 6 for you! fussed with last night to the tune of a half a dozen beers, a lot of wiggling and waggling of wires and yes the mix is very muddy, but this is our first run at reviving these old tapes and putting them on the youtube air.

Fostex analog to Garage Band digital, first attempt.

i think i wrote and recorded this in 1994 when the band was starting up and really getting going. we were a rock and roll band so this song definitely didn’t make the set list.

i put this cheesy video together last night after fussing for several hours with the sound and those measly 4 tracks! (gosh the business of recording sound, songs and so on is time consuming! best not to be consuming a half dozen beers along the way… (we’ll try it again on the sober straight and narrow very soon!)) the drawings in the video come from that time! those are drawings of mine from a sketch book dated 1994/1995. you’ll even see the famed Stacie from Malibu in there! gosh she was a thunderbolt!

anyway! there it is! my first attempt to revive these old songs of mine that never made the No Rez set list or album list. i had a lot of fun trying to figure this out last night and yes, those tasty German beers can become a diversion in the process but you have to remember last night it was a blistering 30 C plus! up here on the 3rd floor it was smoking hot! we were down to our bikinis!

Me and Shag going to work in No Reservations

ah but the music business was fun and how i would love to get back into it. but a fella like me needs a band and right now my band is working other irons in other fires.

the glass ain’t half empty/full, its BONE DRY!

you see in the band i was never one of the vocalists. we had 3 good singers up front and that is where they’re supposed to be! a voice like mine just couldn’t run in that race but i was mighty happy to be in there on one of the guitars.

here is what the band really sounds like, with all the bells and whistles of a fancy studio production:

Nice work!

so i’ll go back to work on those old cassette tapes and see what we can scrounge up in the lost songs/Fostex dept. (might be best to start the project in the morning minus the German pilsners! ha!)

and that’s the story behind: Love Song Number 6. words and music by Mark Seabrook. artwork too, drawn over the fun times of 1994 and 1995. what art fun!

update: November 8, 2022: full moon is on the rise, very far north on the tree line to the east, out here on the open range. no wind on a night like this means sweet and wonderful beauty! the landscape is at peace which means we can be too! wonderful way to spend a Tuesday night! anyway: I wanted to re share this classic twinravens song with you. I hope you like it!

Rolling Up on Year End!

it started off looking good but things sure got weird fast on March 13th! ever since, this old boy’s art making tools got dusty.

cruising with the Kitty in Muskoka in November

it’s a good thing the book sales have been through the roof because the art sales have been in the gutter! that black Kitty doesn’t run on thank you notes or best wishes!

Book 5, Found poetry and Art Journal

in place of painting i’ve been fussing with the art journals and found poetry and coming up with some pretty weird poems and pictures. the above drawing is my version of Norval Morrisseau’s Thunderbird with Inner Spirit, 1978. (also watched the doc: There Are No Fakes, and actually made it through this time! over at the Bytowne 2 summers ago i tried sitting through it twice and fell asleep at both showings!)

Book 5, Found poetry and Art Journal

gosh yes, some days it would seem there truly is, but i’m certain i was just over tired when it came to pages 178 and 179. tired too of club being closed!

Book 5, Found poetry and Art Journal

book 5 has been in the works a long time! we started that bad boy way back in the good old days: February 24, 2020. mind you we do have book 6 and book 7 also on the go.

Book 5, Found poetry and Art Journal

and so i got to thinking about these one of a kind works of art and writing. what “other” book shelves might they go nicely with?

Chief Hurting Dude, Salvation Army, O Town

saw this weirdness over at the Sally one day while on the snoop. someone actually followed through with it! wowza!

A Self Portrait in 2009, acrylic on canvas, Private Collection

we’re at the very last of the Stevenson paint! the paint company, rest in peace, served me alright and i was happy to know them but i guess its time to switch brands. we’re going with Golden Heavy Body Acrylic starting in the new year. even though we only painted 4 pictures since March 13, with every brush stroke i was thinking about the last of my brand man! i was a Stevenson man!

Who has this?

i was thinking about a collector friend of mine the other day, she’s long gone now, and i was the last one to truly see her, and i wondered what happened to her collections. if it was just me at the very end, well then where did this 4 piece end up? who has it?

the rig. artwork by Peter Purdy, 36×48″, acrylic on canvas. twinravens collection!

xmas is rolling up too! what will become of our treasured gathering on xmas eve? just 5 participants allowed at the party? what kind of party is that?!!! sheesh. well anyway the gift giving is still on and so i got this rig for my old buddy Jasmine Moon. don’t tell her as i want it to be a surprise! she’s 18. i was 18 when i started playing guitar. stole an acoustic off my cousin! took it right out from under her bed! ha! i don’t think she ever missed it. so i hauled it off with me to art school and with a little book showing the chords i started out on my own. didn’t know how to tune the thing! no instruction! took me ten years but i finally fell in with the right bunch of fellows! and a gal!

NR: that’s my Band!

that band should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by now but nope! in the end we F’d it all up! one thing is for sure, it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that flipping valuable again.

but back to Jasmine Moon: 18 years old. time to pick it up. she didn’t take to the acoustic so maybe this Les Paul copy and a dirty amp will do the trick! bring on the power chords!

and what about xmas? i guess we’ll find out when we get there.

Summer Vacation (1)

i’ve been out here over a week now and we’re maxing it out time wise! and of course entertaining folks and friends! its been a perfect plan!

Early on a July Morning

those first seven days were a blaze of sunshine and smoking hot climes so i told the gang: i’ll chill with you until noon but after that, if you want to find me i’ll be out there on the river!

oh my goodness what a glorious way to spend a summer afternoon: out there on the Manitou River! we’re a long way from the war!

The Green and Blue in late July

and so for the most part we have been here, on the range, morning, noon and night. and what nights! the Milky Way is a beautiful thing out here!

A brand new stage for big game stage shows!

as an added bonus, the lads put a new deck up and gosh its been a long time coming but here it is now. they’ll be back sometime soon to put the rails on and the steps but in the meantime we’ve been out there and yes, what a view!

There is an eagle up there somewhere!

on one of those summer afternoons last week we were visited by an eagle. he flew in, landed in the trees down by the river and watched the lads taking the hay off the east field. he didn’t stay very long. he took to the skies, flapped his huge wings a few times and off he went, sailing upwards in big circles, up into the clouds. i asked the lads, how long did it take him to rise up there and disappear? one of them said 30 seconds.

Providence Bay

of course my early morning drives through the island country side are a must! one morning i found myself down at one of my fave destinations: Providence Bay! i had to see it for myself, this high water level folks have been going on about.

The Clear Waters of Lake Huron

oh my goodness what a grand way to start a summer day! and yes, that water is up high!

14×18 inches, acrylic on canvas

we sent this one off: it is an idea we’re still working and one day i hope to see it as a 36×48 inch canvas. (no more Neon Raven Art Gallery, up here on the West Bay Indian Reserve!)

well folks its taken me 10 days to sit down and write a journal entry! the plan was to keep a running journal through the time i’m here but after day 2 that idea went right out the window! i’ll hopefully snap more pictures as the adventures out here continue!

Thunder storms and comets!

Sunday morning, July 19th: sweet paradise!

Sunday morning at 8 a.m. and we’re in the midst of a beautiful thunder storm!  Lightning flashing in every direction, rain coming straight down, beautiful!  The rain is filled with the fragrance of the green and blue.  The skies are very dark, and filled with music!  That thunder is rumbling across the tree tops, over the fields, above us here at the house on the range.  We’re back home, back in Tehkummah and it is wonderful  What a treat to have this thunderstorm with us this morning!  And what colours!

Jazz and I split the city on Friday after the office and we rolled in here at 3 a.m.  What sky scenes at that hour!  The Milky Way was shining bright, going north north east to south south west.  After a drive like that I like to sit down with a splash and enjoy the view and gosh we had a doozie of a view at that hour.  Around 4 a.m. the moon rose up over the north east tree line, it was a bright orange, what there was of it.  

I didn’t know there was a comet up there but I saw it last night after the thunderstorm rolled past us. I used my jumbo Celestron 15×70 SkyMasters to get an up close and personal look at it: Wowza! That thing was hauling A going wherever it was off to.

Gosh time flies when you’re having fun! Soon it will be time to saddle up and head back to O Town, arriving around midnight if all goes well. Usually that trip starts with the blues but I have my darling Jasmine Moon coming with! How lucky am i!!!

Indigenous Writing

we’re still up here on the swanky 9th: Sunday morning in a blaze of sunshine, clock watching, and fussing with the re do of SUN INFINITY MOON.

Version 2

here is the new cover idea in basic. the artwork is “Feeding the Wolves”, acrylic on canvas, 36×48 inches. the painting is in a private collection on the other side of Canada, last i heard. we’re going to drop the warning on the cover and that will be the end of the “course language” fiasco!

Crossroad Cant, published way back in 1997

i wish i’d kept the review someone sent me of this little book of poems. the woman who reviewed us loved Mary and Ann but hated me and Shafiq. she called my poetry: “the whining and maligning of Mark Seabrook”. ha! i was whining about the 60’s Scoop Experience, racism directed at Indigenous People, culture genocide, the raping of the Canadian environment, the death of a close friend, sweet memory lane and old love stories. so yes, in her view: i was whining and maligning. in my view we were slightly ahead of the curve with said subjects.

the view from the 9th: Saturday afternoon, June 27th

you do not want to see what is below that frame: trust me on that one! inside the 9th we’re in AC and yeah man: we’re chilling.

Beautiful Markham, Ontario, Canada

the sky was filled with drama last night. too bad we had all this crap in the way of seeing such wonder. and don’t forget the roar, the noise and the exhaust that goes with a photo like this… (i’m going back to the range next weekend.)

the utmscribes bit i was going on about yesterday

fun stuff! many thanks to utmscribes!

i like how they didn’t call it whining and maligning! i guess you could say the world has come a long way since 1997.

darn rights!

every now and again i see something on instagram that is worth another look! i like that one.

hmmm…

60’s Scoop: we’ve been there and done that! and let me tell you, that kid, age 0 to 6: that was a nightmare!

Thanksgiving at the River

we shall get ourselves safely back to that river one of these days soon where we can spend the rest of our days in peace.

Paintings, Writings, Music and road tripping Native Style

Power Bird on the Range, acrylic on canvas board, 7×9″, Artist Collection.

in the spirit of Pride, the Power Bird on the Range, artwork by Mark Seabrook. ah yes was it the summer of 2013 when we walked out to what became “the Art Bridge” and re visited our landscape painting? the Art Bridge is part of the laneway into the range, back home on the island. and the “twinravens” landscape is something we were developing way back in art school: many moons ago. developing yes. unfortunately not connecting the dots, never following through. the idea was brewing alright and one day when i get home to the range i’ll snap a photo of one of the paintings from that era, where the brewing was beginning! in recent years, in full brew (ha!), we managed create paintings like this:

For Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women, Acrylic on canvas, 36×58 inches

i’m pretty happy with that one. many thanks of course to the good folks at Abstract Expressionism, c. 1950.

Body, Mind, Spirit. Acrylic on canvas board, 12×12 inches. Artist Collection.

we’re going to hang onto this one as we were almost there with the idea. what we need though is a block of time back at the bridge! maybe we can get back there in August, as i have been thinking about that one!

Clouds over Lake Mindemoya, acrylic on canvas, 16×20″. Artist Collection.

we want to remember too, that THIS was part of that landscape idea from art school. this one was painted during 3rd year and thank goodness we still have this sketch! the large painting of this idea is the first painting i sold! many thanks to those doctors from Toronto. (Doc: if you’re reading this please contact me as i’d love to see the big painting again.)

Anishnabe at Full Moon, acrylic on canvas board, 16×20″. Artist Collection.

we want to remember we still have this going on and its going to continue to go on!

The Lottery Ticket in Thunderbird Stories Edition One

i want to say Aanii and Boozhoo to any of you folks here from the UTM Scribes on Instagram! “The Lottery Ticket” is a part of the horror story: SUN INFINITY MOON which is my first attempt at a novella.

the famous: Moosonee Proof!

yes we kind of rushed through production last summer and what they gave us was a book full of howling errors! errors like cockroaches, i didn’t see all of them until i started paying attention last autumn. so if you come across one of these copies, what it is is the Artist Proof. sorry about that. it is being retooled and we are soon printing the cleaned up version with a brand new cover. example of howling errors: right there on the cover: the clown changed my “coarse” language to his “course” language…

you see this is what happens when…

yeesh.

anyway. we move forward.

Very much still active a full 25 years later!

the famed twinravens Summer Mission Statement. words we lived by up until just a short 4 years ago when this road trip started. we have had bits and pieces of this mission statement covered since but some that have not been covered are: “swim out beyond the confines of the cover, into the big water where the big fish like to go”, “spend a morning, afternoon and evening with your mom and dad and have them tell you about the times when they were your age”, and “design your own tattoos”. my tattoos have faded away, now long gone. (Meen Geezis translates to: Berry Moon, or July)

Page 178, from INFINITY

yes there is a lot of coarse language and mad capped high jinx going on within the pages of INFINITY but the same can be said about SUN and MOON. this ain’t no Indian Disneyland type story.

Refer to: this piece at cbc.ca

The Doc Project·Personal Essay

My adoptive parents tried to erase my Indigenous identity. They failed.

Kim Wheeler was adopted during the Sixties Scoop and fought to find her way back to her culture

Kim Wheeler · Posted: Jun 18, 2020 5:29 PM ET | Last Updated: June 18

well that is Kim Wheeler’s tale. mine is quite different. my parents did NOT try to erase my Indian identity. what they did instead was save my life.

but going through that adventure: The 60’s Scoop, for me, sure did open a lot of doors where a natural born artist like me can stand and see a great many things, people included. i was one of the lucky ones.

Words and music by Shag Shaganash

i didn’t write any part of that one. that’s all Shag and his work. but that’s my band and lets hope and pray one day we get that show back on the road. the world could use some NR.

Words by Mark Seabrook, Music by Shawn Corbiere, Vocal by Jen B.

i did write the words to this one and you can hear in the lyrics: that 60’s scoop experience… many thanks to Mr. S.C. for the music and the great Jen Brunelle for the vocal. Danny Boy on the drums! (Hey that record was nominated for a Juno Award! just saying.)

well we are here and it is now: we’re on the swanky 9th. the cook is working up something very nice for lunch and the afternoon is all ours: what to do with Saturday afternoon?!!! ha ha. i say that knowing the mad capped twinravens classic: “What to do with Sunday afternoon?” (on my youtube channel), some of you found offensive and accused me of being obtuse!

Summer in the city

what we have to do is make up our mind which is our best foot and put it forward! GO!

Love Song No. 6

as some of you may know: ages ago i was in an amazing all native rock and roll band. we grew out of the drama team at the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre over there in Sudbury, Ontario. ah but those were some glorious and exciting times!

on stage at the Northern Lights Folk Festival (ages ago!)

the band was called No Reservations and gosh they were a wild bunch! some day we need to write a book about that one.

and so around that time, i bought a Fostex brand 4 track recorder which used basic cassette tapes. i’d plug a cassette in there and use those 4 tracks to try and make something song wise i could take to the band. of course we had that Fostex sitting around at the party house too and some mighty weird songs were recorded on there including the infamous: What to do with Sunday Afternoon… (also on my Youtube channel, warning: coarse language and sexual content in that song!)

anyway: the Fostex and all those original tapes lay buried in a plastic bin back home on the range, for who knows how long. about 5 years ago someone who knows how to transfer these old analog tapes to digital went to work on a few of them and we ended up with some snap shots of the past, which we still need to make videos for and post them to the twinravens youtube channel. for kicks you see!

recently though i was given a gizmo that connects a guitar into a computer to record on Garage Band. this thing is an Apogee brand “jam” connector. the line in is the 1/4 inch jack and the line out is this magic whatever it is that turns your guitar into a digital. but instead of plugging the quarter inch line in jack from the guitar i plugged the far end into this Fostex and boom: we can hear all these old tapes once again but this time on computer. super fun stuff especially as some of this “insane and abstract” music hasn’t seen the light of day since 1995. like: The Shadow of You. (yikes! what a song!)

anyway. i haven’t got the details sound wise figured out: how to mix these four tracks into the digital without a lot of back ground noise, buzz, and all that crap that goes with a jangle of wires all over the table top. and i’m no ACE when it comes to using Garage Band! i’m still trying to figure that one out!

but here is Love Song Number 6 for you! fussed with last night to the tune of a half a dozen beers, a lot of wiggling and waggling of wires and yes the mix is very muddy, but this is our first run at reviving these old tapes and putting them on the youtube air.

Fostex analog to Garage Band digital, first attempt.

i think i wrote and recorded this in 1994 when the band was starting up and really getting going. we were a rock and roll band so this song definitely didn’t make the set list.

i put this cheesy video together last night after fussing for several hours with the sound and those measly 4 tracks! (gosh the business of recording sound, songs and so on is time consuming! best not to be consuming a half dozen beers along the way… (we’ll try it again on the sober straight and narrow very soon!)) the drawings in the video come from that time! those are drawings of mine from a sketch book dated 1994/1995. you’ll even see the famed Stacie from Malibu in there! gosh she was a thunderbolt!

anyway! there it is! my first attempt to revive these old songs of mine that never made the No Rez set list or album list. i had a lot of fun trying to figure this out last night and yes, those tasty German beers can become a diversion in the process but you have to remember last night it was a blistering 30 C plus! up here on the 3rd floor it was smoking hot! we were down to our bikinis!

Me and Shag going to work in No Reservations

ah but the music business was fun and how i would love to get back into it. but a fella like me needs a band and right now my band is working other irons in other fires.

the glass ain’t half empty/full, its BONE DRY!

you see in the band i was never one of the vocalists. we had 3 good singers up front and that is where they’re supposed to be! a voice like mine just couldn’t run in that race but i was mighty happy to be in there on one of the guitars.

ah for kicks here is another one of the Fostex tapes digitized by one of the lads who really knows how to make the sound proper and clean. well, as clean as it can be considering the tape is 25 years old! (this is what Love Song Number 6 is supposed to sound like, less the tasty German pilsners!)

WARNING: Coarse language and sexual content.

made up on the spot, Sunday morning, Suds, 1995

this is one of those songs made up on the spot: no lyrics written, just made up as the tape rolled. same with the guitar, i picked up Shag’s 12 string and hit the record button. you can hear Shag in the back at the beginning, he’s cooking up breakfast. that’s also Shag in the background vocal which is kooky as he is a LEAD vocal!

here is what the band really sounds like, with all the bells and whistles of a fancy studio production:

Nice work!

so i’ll go back to work on those old cassette tapes and see what we can scrounge up in the lost songs/Fostex dept. (might be best to start the project in the morning minus the German pilsners! ha!)

and that’s the story behind: Love Song Number 6. words and music by Mark Seabrook. artwork too, drawn over the fun times of 1994 and 1995. what art fun!

update: November 8, 2022: full moon is on the rise, very far north on the tree line to the east, out here on the open range. no wind on a night like this means sweet and wonderful beauty! the landscape is at peace which means we can be too! wonderful way to spend a Tuesday night! anyway: I wanted to re share this classic twinravens song with you. it is a cluster you know what, but still, after all these years, I believe in in a lot more than UFO’s. ha!

I hope you like it!

Early Summer 2020

the mad goings on over here in the slab are forever, 24 and 7, and in every direction. we’re in here thick and surrounded. but there is a place! and we have the good fortune of the ways and means of blasting our way out.

the front lawn in early June 2020

i know it’s a mess but this is what happens when my boots are not on that ground. that lawn, given my free hand, can look like this!

nice work: lawn care by yours truly, from a long ago August evening

Ten Mile Point at Sunrise

as usual on a Friday in June i hit the office from 9 to 5 and then started out on the road home around 8 p.m. i had to pull over and see the moon, the moonlight, the stars and smell the glorious things in the deep dark woods between Deep River and Mattawa, after midnight. AND hear the far away sounds: frog songs a thousand yards away. a bird at night. but on this trip, no far off train rattling through the wilderness. it was just me and things mentioned. absolutely everything i asked for. what glorious moments. i turn that 8 hour drive into 12 hours and so arrived at sunrise: Ten Mile Point, on Manitoulin Island, and saw this! wowza!

waiting for the full moon on June 6th

the grand lady of the house was having a party and so it was a busy scene up there in the crib: cooking, mostly. me doing most of the cooking of K but here is the scene after sunset: waiting for the full moon, the Strawberry Moon too! if you know the story there is real reason to go out there and celebrate. which of course is what we were doing! (by this point in time i was working on 2 hours of sleep in the past 2 days!)

good old blue eyes

this is one of the cats the folks rescued and old UE seems to be settling in, going on several years now. you might remember the story of when he/she first arrived on the range, autumn ages ago. i was sitting at my dining table around 6 p.m. in early September and saw something white at the very top of a far away tree to the east. there were ravens and crows circling the tree and i wondered what in the what the is up there? yup! it was UE up there, as a kitten, trying out his/her new jungle claws. the way i saw it: if you can find your way up there, you can find your way down, and so never called the local fire dept. (i’ll see if i can find that photo to share with you.)

UE is one of 4 cats on the range

they’re living the good life out there: lots of birds and mice to harvest and who knows what all else…

there she is: running with or without us…

i hope to get back to this again like i have in the past: 8 weeks of sun worship and thanksgiving. July and August on the range, how lucky i have been in the past to be there and see it for 60 days!

Shell with her new Eagle Feather

that’s her office up there on the hill and she’s got a brand new eagle feather in her hand. Sunday morning with the clock ticking: we had just a few hours to go before the bug out: back to the cities. a bit of a bluesy thought: we get home and like any sane person: why would you want to leave? truth is you don’t want to leave a paradise on earth but… that is the way of it for now.

found poetry, repurposed book 5: fun stuff!

That Weekend at the Cottage, No. 6. it is a run on poem in this repurposed book, turned into fun stuff, art journal, diary, mad house, spooksville, and general issue hub bub ranging from late December last year to now, and with a hundred pages to go, likely into somewheres in July. for more info on the repurposed book/art journal visit the twinravens youtube channel.

and so the world’s people have gone mad. or at least 50% of them. but the world goes along without us. i was down at South Baymouth on Sunday morning and the old drunken sailor we saw there at 7 a.m. said the water in Lake Huron hasn’t been that high in 20 years! well i’m an old sailor too and i said: 25…

(i was there to see it!)

yes this old world doesn’t need us crazy humans to get along. with that in mind, i have my acoustic guitar tuned to play Led Zep’s “That’s the Way” and since my sweet Jazzy Moon is out on her first sleep over in over 3 flipping months, it is just me here which means i can get that big old acoustic rumbling and see if my voice is wiggly enough for my best Robert Plant! one more Warsteiner should loosen the rig and get the wiggly we need to play such a thing.

i won’t share with you my version of “That’s the Way” so here is the real deal off LZ3.

Art school sound track

(better put the headphones on for this one!)

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.

Road Trip

my test came back negative so i made the drive with my old buddy Jasmine Moon, leaving the slab at 6 and gosh it was hot and slimy! it was so humid, deep in the slab, you’d break a sweat just by blinking your eyes! we managed and were soon blazing down the 416 with “Daddy’s oldies rock” playing:

if you can, put the head phones on for this one. its fun introducing a much younger generation to some music that made me stop and listen, all those years ago. as for me now: rolling down the highway, memory lane too, with this one… well lets just hey Tray! it’s been many a moon.

Variety on Saturday

we had a stash of refreshments and my thing is this: when in the swanky 9th, swank up the splash as well as you’re able.

Older photo of the drive, from before the Scotland trip?

the road into the swanky 9th: gosh it’s a flash address and we’re mighty happy to be invited to join the party. the AC is what we were dreaming about seeing how back in the other slab it was 40C on Wednesday. it was a mind boggling 30C at 1 a.m. Thursday morning! (that’s crazy.) when we arrived last night at midnight, it was a mighty cool and dry 12C. quite a change from a few short hours before!!! 2 slabs though, mighty diff!

Stacie from Malibu, Sharpie marker on 50 lb 8.5×11″ paper, artwork by Mark Seabrook.

oh my goodness Stace: if you could have seen what we saw, the sunset last night and the music along the way:

Classic Art School soundtrack

when we were pow wow dancers, remember how we pondered the idea of taking the outfits to mod music? what a dance that would have been! (of course i remember how you loved the sunsets and the open road.)

Art Journal: Moose, inspired by Norval M., artwork by Mark Seabrook

that would be Art Journal Book 5! wow! drawing on May 27th. what an art making adventure, perfect for switching gears as we’re away from painting big pictures while i sort out the differences between my old brand, Stevenson Professional, and my new brand, Golden Heavy Body. sadly, we’ve been away from painting big pictures going on 3 months now. lucky for me though the sharpie marker and repurposed book is always handy and who knows what fun things can be created on such small places.

and so we’re on the open road: it’s a beauty view from up here, the swanky 9th is a crib at the very least, and we’re happy to be here. the days, weeks, months and years flashing past, people too…

Flashing back to that summer on the farm, when she introduced me…

we need to do what we can to go in peace.

we have no idea what is going to happen over the next several days and weeks. one thing is for sure, lets hope and pray we, me in partic, don’t come across any “Karen” or “Ethel” cats either here in the city or back on our homelands, and who was that local guy at the Snore Bay Farmer’s Market who called me: a disgrace to my race… who was that guy?

5 minutes before show time: many moons ago

when you’re a person of colour, which i surely am, your steps… well let’s just say what an old man from Belarus once said to me: “to be human is difficult at times. so let god allow you to arrive safely.”

i say miigwetch to those good word.

chilling in December 2019, also many moons ago…