please pooder, don't hurt 'em...

finally feeling the special tingle of the season. family and friends all coming together like bears to a trough of honey. who cares, really, about the rampant commercialization? is that still happening? i thought we all learned our lesson in the past couple of years....

my memories of childhood christmases do include the ecstatic joy of ripping open wrapping paper to get at the treasures beneath...but my best one is sitting alone by the tree in the dark, staring at the lights for what seemed like hours.

it is too bad that we've managed to turn what should be a relaxed, fun, and reflective time of year (regardless of one's creed or colour) into something that inspires stress and worry. and obviously, the coming together of family without any friction at all is a blessing indeed...but so what. this is one of the few times of the year our current culture gives up to celebration.

c'mon pooder, let's do this.

what price, gatekeepah?

a new year coming, new sensations...impossible to refuse?

an ending and a beginning: a death and a birth.

micheal hutchence dead all those years ago from autoerotic asphyxiation, and recently the unfortunate young MI5 employee found dead locked in a duffel bag, supposedly a victim of a sex act gone wrong. convergence of sex and death.

the yearly ritual of waving goodbye to the old, hello to the new. at midnight, la petite mort--and then we begin again...

up and in, in the u.k. and saskatchewan

Finally, finally! My two homes have met, and in my lifetime! Who could have guessed that this would happen?

On this side of the pond, she's young and large and gregarious, though a little bit chilly eight months of the year...she makes up for that in prepar-ed-ness. Heavy equipment stored and waiting to clear the snowy byways and highways, granular salt galore to nibble at the toes of crusty ice. Her happy inhabitants traversing her noble expanse in a dizzying array of four by fours and half-ton trucks, speedy snowmobiles and cross-country skis, snow shoes and intricately treaded boots.

Over there, he has been known as the green and pleasant land, small yet varied, blessed albion. On all sides surrounded by rocking waters, populated by shopkeepers and their customers, chippy and defiant, proud rulers once of an empire that even the sun could not ignore. But what's this? O yuletide of 2010, what have ye wrought? What blistering blizzards roar through ancient roads of village, of town, of bustling city? The wheezy slumbering breath of Merlin barely heard now--his magick cannot save you! You need graders and three ton trucks! Tankers full of grit, snow tires and supplies, thermal underwear! The price of arctic peace is paid in knitted caps and colourful fleece!

And how! And now...

...United by the white crystalline magnificence which falls slow and relentless, and yes, covering the living and the dead in insulating layers; the sky itself has deigned to tuck these two under seasonal blankets of snow.

We must retire discreetly, and let these two become intimate friends. They have so much to teach each other!

but i digress...

A swift shift into the small hours. Eyes bare to the moonlight. Feel free to find your strength here. Pay no heed to the mockers. Their lifelines are short.

What's that you say? It's 23:23? It's TIME.

Fall apart, already. We're all doing it.

Come on in, the water's

stormin'.

VITAMIN D

i can remember every misstep, every regrettable word, every pigheaded manoeuvre, with an astonishing clarity, as if my cells were programmed to record shame in all its wonderful iterations.

and yet it happens again and again; my brain-mouth-body composes its own organism, separate from my better inclinations...before i've even finished disgorging the words, somewhere inside me a little spirit grimaces.

i've long known i cover up insecurity with an ineffectual bravado. not very original, i know...and also--this insecurity, or better put, lack of self-knowledge becomes an omnipresent taint in all of my relationships...in moments of clarity, i question the nature and value of my relations with people, past and present.

but but and BUT--there's a viscous circularity built into this type of thinking--once entrapped, its a big old beyotch to get out of. genetically disposed to see only the shadow and not the light that casts it?

to the manor-

we walk. are you blessed, or do you work your blessings?

younger and hearing my grandmother speak the word 'london' like an incantation; world centre, a hub of the universe.

a concrete maze of graft.

is it the end of the world? no. just the end of the night...and you're waiting for the bus.

believe in the ways of magick?

are you beginning to wonder why?

is this it?

yes it is.

to your heath!

Back in the U.K. Serge Gainsbourg and wine from M&S. Hospitality provided by an old school Saskatchewan treeplanting buddy, the best kind. Trying to work my way through an intro to literary theory by Terry Eagleton while I wait for some family papers to wind their way through the bureaucracy. Hunkered down hobbit-like in a flat in Belsize Park, London. Hampsted Heath less than a minute away...walking Maddox, a beautiful big black lab, every afternoon.

My gran used to live in Barking, in the east of the city. Years ago I spent a summer with her--a hot summer in the city, mid nineties...sticky doc martens, drum and bass (goldie!), trainspotting, big black t-shirt with RAF symbol...etc--riding the District line to Tower Hill, then walk into the city.... Quite a few years of coming to the UK, the past three working up north in the Kielder forest...

This time here for a funeral. The first one I've organized, with much help from my father. I went to the graveyard last week, took flowers to the grave. Stood in front of the stone, finally realized there's no need to summon token emotions. My love for her is natural and ever present.

Saskatchewan, Fuck Yeah!

home is where the heart is?

home is where your good friends is.

fo'shizz.

Reference Point

well...yep, long time no post...i've been chasing a ghost, a chap i haven't seen for a long, long time...related to a close friend of mine--he's been hiding out. won't tell me what he's been up to, no matter how many questions i throw at him.

there's been a lot of commiseration, a lot of talking around the campfire.

we set our timetables by the next big mosquito outbreak.

just finished reading The Drought by J.G. Ballard. what did he see?-back in the sixties?

a water-free future for you and me?