| Greed: | Very Low | |
| Gluttony: | Very Low | |
| Wrath: | Very Low | |
| Sloth: | Low | |
| Envy: | Very Low | |
| Lust: | Very Low | |
| Pride: | Very Low |
Discover Your Sins - Click Here
From Tweetey's blog. I guess I better go out and sin tonight...
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Boring Lazy Me
Discover Your Sins - Click Here
From Tweetey's blog. I guess I better go out and sin tonight...
The Don River and Earth Day
Ever since I moved to Toronto I dreamed of skating and canoeing on the Don River. It is almost inconceivable to imagine that people used to skate on our fine river. This archival photo from 1920 shows how recently we were able to skate on the Don River Valley. The river no longer freezes due to all the pollution. There are three main challenges facing the river clean up. These are a large population, sewage overflow and lack of forest and wetlands around the river area. Every winter chloride and salt form the cars and roads drains and travels to the river. Diversity of fish is compromised except for the white sucker, fathead minnow and blacknose dace who all have adapted to low oxygen in order to survive in the river.
Watercolour of Curling Competition on the Don River 1836. (possibly by John Howard)
Somethings never change. This is a house, on the riverside in 1930, of one of my peeps formerly called "hobos" now commonly called "the homeless". Today on the Don River you will see all kinds of shanty houses and camps where people are living and trying not to be caught and kicked out. I feel so much for these people...they are true revolutionaries, knowingly or not!
Another hobo house, 1930.
Statue of Hermes in front of Hart House, by Staples.
Farmers by Staples.
Convocation Hall by Staples.
One of Toronto's leading artists of the early twentieth century, Owen Staples emigrated to Canada at the age of four. Showing an early inclination for art, Staples completed studies under both Horatio Walker and George Reid at the Art Students' League of Toronto before reaching the age of twenty. He then completed his artistic education under the famous American painter, Thomas Eakins, in Philadelphia (1887-1888). Staples first gained employment as an illustrator for the Toronto Evening Telegram, working there from 1885 to 1908. Thereafter he was appointed the historical painter for the John Ross Robertson Collection, as well as illustrating a number of books, executing commissioned murals, and producing a fine oeuvre of paintings, watercolours and etchings.
Owen Staples painting on the bank of the Don River, 1900.
Prince Edward viaduct under construction, 1918. I took video of this area and it will help put these photos into context, but I won't post the video until later today.
Prisoner of war camp, near the top of the photo, 1944.
Todmorden Mills, 1915.
Todmorden Mills today, started out as a lumber mill in the late 18th century. It grew into a small industrial complex and village before becoming part of East York in the 20th century. Currently the valley site is occupied by a heritage museum, an art gallery, a theatre and a wildflower preserve.
Finally, the rivers of Toronto flow into our majestic lake. For decades many of us lobbied and protested the Gardiner Expressway. It was a highway foolishly built between the city core and the lake, both physically and psychologically separating beach culture from the urban centre. The Gardiner has been at last dismantled and now some out-of-touch business investors want to build a mall and Wal-Mart at the lake near where the Don River ends and the lake begins.
If the design of Wal-Mart stores wasn't bad enough: they take up massive space without the traditional top being designed for apartments and housing of older urban buildings...the store wants 1900 parking spots! Studies show that urban people do not usually shop in these complexes, instead suburban people drive to shop. Do we want to encourage more driving while consuming lakefront property?
Not only do large stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot not provide living spaces on top of their real estate. A parking lot would compromise wetland and natural meadows and grass specifically on this Toronto lakeshore proposal.
When will people just start enjoying the simple world around them and walk?
In fact...walk away.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Why You Crying- George Lopez
My family must have had some Mexican.......
I love George Lopez's stand-up. Sometimes Stagg and I have had tears running down our faces laughing. If you ever get a chance, check out or rent...America's Mexican or Why You Crying
I distinctly remember lowering my head as a kid and muttering"I can never do nuthin'"
I also remember our family saying "Is he got a collar?"
Olympics of Therapy
Some names have been changed not to protect anybody-Volume 1.
Recently, Stagg and I found ourselves laying low on a Saturday evening and with a bottle of wine. We wondered whatshould we do tonight, go out, work in the sutdio, watch a movie? We kind of just said, let's sit here and talk. Okay. We opened the wine and I don't know...both of us talk a lot. MIster Anchovy's dad used to say to me, "Candy, you could talk to a tombstone." It's true and same for Stagg. Anyhow, we found ourselves covering many topics. Sometimes, when I get going and am having trouble figuring out what I what to express I have been known to employ a diagram. I once drew a diagram of where the spirit, khrishna, humans, buddha, the earth were in an intricate diagram. Maybe I'll post it here sometime. Not now. Instead take note of the above diagram produced one Saturday evening with a bottle of wine. Good thing I went to art school, huh?
Stagg and I have both been in group therapy at various times in our life and occassionally we compare notes so to speak. Well, this one Saturday we started discussing the dynamics and weird peculiar special feeling of being in a room with several other people who are sharing their emotions and/or life stories.
You know, there is the stereotype lesson one gets from group therapy. Someone else always has a much worse story or childhood or problem. The realization that someone else had it way worse than you is humbling and sometimes it can even shake off a depression or a bad negative self-attitude. It really can. There is always someone else out there with a worse history than yours so shut the fuck up with your self pity.
You get it, right?
Well, there is also somethign else than one might learn in group therapy. And I decided to draw Stagg a diagram. It's that...It's Not A Fucking Olympics Of Therapy. No one gets a gold star for having the worse end of childhood.
I drew a diagram of one such group therapy perspective. There were about ten of us in this therapy session and we had to write notes and recall our end of childhood. The end of childhood can be different for different people, it can happen at different ages...maybe it was someone's first prom, maybe they were ten, maybe they were 14 or 16. Maybe it was when someone moved out of the house and went to college.
The end of childhood is recognizable asbeing that very first time you realized "the party is over".
The purpose of our individual and group realization of when our end of childhood occurred was so that we could analyse what events surrounded the situation and what adults or ourselves did and to see if we have any residue habits of behaviour that we are using as devices as adults to "cope" that may be counter productive. For example if a person's end of childhood was at college and they were lonely and they made friends with party kids and were able to reconcile their loneliness...but now are addicted to alcohol and drugs as a way to feel connected...well stuff like that.
What I wanted to share with Stagg was that not only can one be humbled by finding out someone's story is more tragic than one's own...is that another story is much more seemingly mundane than one's own.
In this one sessions several people had decribed their end of childhood and some of these memories could tear your heart out. Childhood family rape. Bullies in the schoolyard. Verbally abusive parents.
Then one woman described how she had really wanted this one special favourite bike. and her parents didn't give it to her. She was crying like a baby. She even blurted out how embarrassed she was that her story wasn't as tragic or violent as others in the group and she felt guilty about this but this memory was her end of childhood and her parents had acted cruel over this one particular bike.
I'm not doing a good job of describing this story at all, I know. But the point was...there isn't a scale of suffering. Yes, someone had been raped, someone else had been beaten...and they were as upset with the memory as this woman whose parents had betrayed her with a bike. To every child...pain and especially emotional pain is all the same. I remember seeing and feeling this realization with a huge passion in group that day.
No one is getting a gold star. It's not the fucking Olympics of Therapy.
No one here gets out alive.
When we feel sorry for ourselves above compassion for others we are preventing ourselves from healing and from having a good life...and it is in our hands how we approach living. It is up to us if we are happy people...if we are sore losers or good sports in the game of life.
And the ego even wants there to be a status bestowed upon suffering and tragedy...but that is not how it works. From the most tragic story, to the most seemingly mundane memory...the end of childhood is as painful for every individual as is any trama or challenge and they are not an excuse to not feel sorry for ourselves or use our history as an excuse to be depressed.
You know, actually, later during that "end of childhood" session that day...we all ended up having an incredible laugh. Even though we had all been terribly sad during moments in the therapy and discussions...it all of a sudden seemed humbling to have had someone with a so-called mundane end of childhood memory teach us all humility. Humility in the idea of ranking suffering.
You know, I think most of life's greatest pleasures are in sharing feelings and ideas with other people.
Here's a toast to spending time talking with our loved ones, neighbours and others in our towns and cities...we always have much to learn from each other....
And remember, don't get on your high horse about how hard done by or suffering your life has been...help someone else...
Recently, Stagg and I found ourselves laying low on a Saturday evening and with a bottle of wine. We wondered whatshould we do tonight, go out, work in the sutdio, watch a movie? We kind of just said, let's sit here and talk. Okay. We opened the wine and I don't know...both of us talk a lot. MIster Anchovy's dad used to say to me, "Candy, you could talk to a tombstone." It's true and same for Stagg. Anyhow, we found ourselves covering many topics. Sometimes, when I get going and am having trouble figuring out what I what to express I have been known to employ a diagram. I once drew a diagram of where the spirit, khrishna, humans, buddha, the earth were in an intricate diagram. Maybe I'll post it here sometime. Not now. Instead take note of the above diagram produced one Saturday evening with a bottle of wine. Good thing I went to art school, huh?
Stagg and I have both been in group therapy at various times in our life and occassionally we compare notes so to speak. Well, this one Saturday we started discussing the dynamics and weird peculiar special feeling of being in a room with several other people who are sharing their emotions and/or life stories.
You know, there is the stereotype lesson one gets from group therapy. Someone else always has a much worse story or childhood or problem. The realization that someone else had it way worse than you is humbling and sometimes it can even shake off a depression or a bad negative self-attitude. It really can. There is always someone else out there with a worse history than yours so shut the fuck up with your self pity.
You get it, right?
Well, there is also somethign else than one might learn in group therapy. And I decided to draw Stagg a diagram. It's that...It's Not A Fucking Olympics Of Therapy. No one gets a gold star for having the worse end of childhood.
I drew a diagram of one such group therapy perspective. There were about ten of us in this therapy session and we had to write notes and recall our end of childhood. The end of childhood can be different for different people, it can happen at different ages...maybe it was someone's first prom, maybe they were ten, maybe they were 14 or 16. Maybe it was when someone moved out of the house and went to college.
The end of childhood is recognizable asbeing that very first time you realized "the party is over".
The purpose of our individual and group realization of when our end of childhood occurred was so that we could analyse what events surrounded the situation and what adults or ourselves did and to see if we have any residue habits of behaviour that we are using as devices as adults to "cope" that may be counter productive. For example if a person's end of childhood was at college and they were lonely and they made friends with party kids and were able to reconcile their loneliness...but now are addicted to alcohol and drugs as a way to feel connected...well stuff like that.
What I wanted to share with Stagg was that not only can one be humbled by finding out someone's story is more tragic than one's own...is that another story is much more seemingly mundane than one's own.
In this one sessions several people had decribed their end of childhood and some of these memories could tear your heart out. Childhood family rape. Bullies in the schoolyard. Verbally abusive parents.
Then one woman described how she had really wanted this one special favourite bike. and her parents didn't give it to her. She was crying like a baby. She even blurted out how embarrassed she was that her story wasn't as tragic or violent as others in the group and she felt guilty about this but this memory was her end of childhood and her parents had acted cruel over this one particular bike.
I'm not doing a good job of describing this story at all, I know. But the point was...there isn't a scale of suffering. Yes, someone had been raped, someone else had been beaten...and they were as upset with the memory as this woman whose parents had betrayed her with a bike. To every child...pain and especially emotional pain is all the same. I remember seeing and feeling this realization with a huge passion in group that day.
No one is getting a gold star. It's not the fucking Olympics of Therapy.
No one here gets out alive.
When we feel sorry for ourselves above compassion for others we are preventing ourselves from healing and from having a good life...and it is in our hands how we approach living. It is up to us if we are happy people...if we are sore losers or good sports in the game of life.
And the ego even wants there to be a status bestowed upon suffering and tragedy...but that is not how it works. From the most tragic story, to the most seemingly mundane memory...the end of childhood is as painful for every individual as is any trama or challenge and they are not an excuse to not feel sorry for ourselves or use our history as an excuse to be depressed.
You know, actually, later during that "end of childhood" session that day...we all ended up having an incredible laugh. Even though we had all been terribly sad during moments in the therapy and discussions...it all of a sudden seemed humbling to have had someone with a so-called mundane end of childhood memory teach us all humility. Humility in the idea of ranking suffering.
You know, I think most of life's greatest pleasures are in sharing feelings and ideas with other people.
Here's a toast to spending time talking with our loved ones, neighbours and others in our towns and cities...we always have much to learn from each other....
And remember, don't get on your high horse about how hard done by or suffering your life has been...help someone else...
Sunday, April 20, 2008
I Might Be Crazy...But I'm No Longer Alone!
The Green Pirate has written a review about the documentary King Korn. Check it out!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Making The New Album, , Philly Soul, Working With Other Divas,The Percolator, B More Beat
And...finally the Wu Tang Dance...
Return of The Underground Baker!
She is back...my sister has finished her last exam and last paper for this years semester at Simon Frazer University. The Underground Baker has her first post since November.
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