kliban's Cattitude

This picture, the last on our 2011 calendar, has always been one of my favorites. Cat is alone but content skating figure eights under a clear nighttime sky with the promise of light and warmth in the near distance. You can call me sentimental but that was in truth a rarity for Kliban during his life.

The Cat illustrations were for him doodles he made when he was attempting to realize one of the more bizarre and ironic images that appeared most often in Playboy magazine. (Don't worry, we didn't read it, just looked at the pictures.) He routinely savaged sacred cows, apparently staying up nights on end to see just how far he could force an idea that would still be interpretable to the rest of us. The results, as he incited philosophers to loot small towns and pretty women to fix their makeup in the mirror of a blind man's dark glasses were always fascinating, darkly funny and never comforting.

It seems to me that such a gifted artist, one who struggled with the perceptions coming from the dark side of his psyche, was very involved in uncovering essential truths about our plight as human beings. Another favorite of his cartoons shows a fakir settling down on a bed of nails while saying, 'It only hurts when I exist.' When Kliban died in 1990, a great many people never realized the world had lost a twisted and irreplaceable visionary.

Perhaps you're already familiar with his 'other than Cat' cartoons and you may even own a copy of 'Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head' or 'The Biggest Tongue In Tunisia'. They are wonderfully irreverent and well worth your attention if you haven't seen them for a while. Yet I still get the feeling that even though he dismissed the Cat drawings, refusing to be interviewed about them even after they became wildly popular, that in them he'd found a universal truth. There's a poignant and transcendent quality to them that speaks of finding light even in the deepest dark.



I was relieved to get our 2012 Kliban cat calendar in the mail a few days ago. Yes, there are many other calendars out there - probably too many - but if you need to have a selection of rambling, playful, hedonistic, and somewhat sadistic cat images on your kitchen wall to make the place seem like home then nothing else will do.

Happy Solstice.
♡

lost and found

It turns out there's an urban art form I'd never heard about until very recently. Next time I go for a walk I'm definitely taking a few posters with me. 

Lost: Elephant
Color - Greyish
Size - Largeish
Looks - Like an elephant
Last seen - Halifax area
When - Not for a bit
Answers to - this

(**)

traveling slow with Crow

So where has Susan been lately you may wonder, or probably not. What happened is that some time ago I decided I should come up with a picture of my own for every new post and more often than not whatever interesting subject I'd considered important enough or silly enough to write about got lost while I was in the process of coming up with a suitable drawing. Frequently the drawings got lost as well. Thank goodness whether or not the world continues to revolve doesn't count on me for its impetus.

This time I'd been thinking about trains and how much more sense they make as the most civilized mode of overland travel left. Once the United States had the world's biggest and best rail system, and Canada's wasn't far behind. Quite a few people still alive today remember the days when fast, efficient rail service connected all but the very smallest towns in America. This is still true for many other countries in the world and we hope they may return. Goodness knows the opportunity to experience beauty and relaxation should trump speed in a better world.

Crow loves to travel in comfort and style so I thought you'd like to see a picture of him as he departed from the Halifax Train Station on his way to visit some old friends before the northern winter takes hold. He'll be back before Christmas and asked me to wish all of you well while he's away.

As for me, I promise to try posting a bit more often even if it's necessary to back off on my idea of completing a drawing for every post. Now I'd better go and make sure Crow's stock of brandy and fruitcake are sufficient for his return.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
 ~Lao Tzu

sharing lunch

Some things you just have to show because if simply described there's no way you'd believe the sight. Ever since it began to get cold around here I've been carrying a little sack of peanuts with me whenever we take our walk in Point Pleasant Park. A mile or two along the wooded pathways we have a favorite spot where there's a bench near a rocky outcrop that overlooks the water and the south shore. Usually, well before we reach the spot, a local crow or two will have noted our presence and will start cawing to alert his friends to our arrival. I toss peanuts around the area and then we sit to watch what happens.

Generally, one crow will stay on a branch of a nearby tree while several others land to grab the nuts. For some reason there's always one among them, invariably the biggest one, who takes the first turn and picks up as many as he can find all at once. Often he'll have such a load in his beak that the last ones will fall out but he remains persistent and won't fly away with his hoard until he's sure he can hold no more. I can't tell you how hilarious it looks to see a crow looking like he has a mouthful of big yellowish teeth so I drew a picture. The other crows never seem to mind and just let him get on with his business.

Meanwhile, a little squirrel who lives nearby patiently waits his turn. Squirrels around here are the smallest I've ever seen and this one is always careful about not getting too close to the larger birds. I always save a few nuts for him just in case he misses out on the first feast. A few days ago he came all the way over to the bench where he stood up on his hind legs to ask for his share.

Life is good.
♡

december

                                         If Spring is a season of rebirth,
                                         Summer a time of happiness,
                                         And Autumn a time of abundance,
                                         Then Winter is a season of reflection and memory.
                                         Winter is a season of the mind.

                                         In skeletal trees and frozen earth,
                                         We visualize leaves, grass and flowers,
                                         And remember birds and bright winged butterflies.
                                         In Winter we recollect things we've lost and hope to find.
                                         Winter concentrates the mind.

♡

sunday with Crow

I thought you might enjoy seeing a picture of Crow relaxing in his sanctum earlier today when I carried in our tea and a package of dark chocolate digestive biscuits to share. Such small luxuries can make grand occasions of life and we enjoyed some conversation about the world as it is and as it used to be. It seems to both of us that although the past is gone and much about it is best forgotten there are still many things to learn and carry into the future.

Crow likes to surround himself with some of the artifacts he's collected over the course of a very long life. Naturally, some of them he left in place because even though they were originally dedicated to him and his friends moving them would have been impossible as well as rude.

You'll probably laugh as I did when he told me that Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun weren't such bad guys to hang around with once you got to know them. He made a good point when he mentioned that at least they did their massacring, raping and pillaging right up front rather than being sneaky and dishonest about their activities and real motives.

Some of his happiest memories are of the times he spent in company with William Morris who was worried about English society for similar reasons we worry about our own culture now. He said that, in a "true society", where neither luxuries nor cheap trash were made, machinery could be improved and used to reduce the hours of labour.  Rather than the clamor made by futurists for faster machines, progress, capitalism, competition and the creation of wealth Morris thought the function of the machine should be to free workers from drudgery rather than displace them. His aim was to create as much beauty as he and his associates could for as many people as they could. It's strange to think that in our own times there's no designer, politician or industrialist who would dare to make concrete proposals for improving the lives of ordinary people.

After a happy autumn spent watching and participating in OWS events we were saddened about the feeding frenzy we heard about this past Black Friday. People get confused and desperate, all the more so when they're being told the only hope for the economy to rise, and perhaps for their jobs to return, is that they max out their credit cards. Crow mentioned it wasn't unlike the peasants rushing to the bakeries to buy cake just before the French Revolution. I have a feeling Occupy will return with the spring flowers..

It wouldn't be a surprise to any of us to see a world economy based on the false premise of infinite supplies of fossil fuel grind to a serious slowdown in the near future and there's no doubt there'll be trouble. It's more than likely we'll see a near future where 2012 is just another date on the calendar, the Singularity is forgotten as people figure out how to grow vegetables on their balconies and keep chickens in the extra bathroom, and the Rapture leaves everyone behind. Then again, as Crow said today there's always the possibility that in the longterm a larger world will be more comfortable for everyone.

We'll just have to wait and see - or at least Crow will.

dream(drēm)n

dream(drēm)n. from Mary Lai on Vimeo.

It's unlikely I'll ever make a video myself but I'm very impressed with the wonderful effects that can be made to happen using only the simplest of materials - and a good knowledge of computer arts. I found this one very recently and rather than leave it where it was I thought I'd post it here for you to see.

This is a story about a blackbird who lives quite a miserable life whether awake or asleep. How he deals with his situation is what the movie is about.

I'm sure Crow would approve.

it's that time again

Between bites of dinner this evening I ventured out onto our cold 7th floor balcony to snap a few pictures of the Festival of Lights, Halifax's annual holiday parade. Even though my camera complained about being confused, the pictures it captured were considerably more exciting than the event itself. It's the kind of parade that nobody would go out to see if it happened in daylight. Trucks, buses, the Harbor Hopper, and even the Purolator delivery van covered in Christmas lights drove by in slow procession, each and every one playing 1950's holiday music at the loudest possible volumes their freshly installed sound systems would allow.

If you can imagine Brenda Lee singing 'Rockin Around the Christmas Tree' bumper to bumper with Gene Autry's version of 'Frosty the Snowman' closely followed by Chubby Checker doing 'The Jingle Bell Rock' I'm sure you'll get the gist. I can hardly bear to mention listening to the combination of Burl Ives 'Holly Jolly Christmas' and Bing's 'White Christmas' when a traffic jam stranded them out front for ten minutes. Do you ever wonder why it is that popular Christmas music seems frozen in an earlier time?

Anyway, the pictures are kind of neat in a weird way. Between my shivering and the moving vehicles it actually looks like a high tech art event. Who knows? Maybe they'll convince tons of tourists to stop by next late November. But probably not you.

Did I capture a little bokeh?

lucky to be water born

During the three hours this morning it took me to wake, drink coffee, eat breakfast, read the news, shower and get ready for a walk, humanity had extracted another 378 million barrels of crude oil, 56 million tons of coal, and 36 billion cubic feet of natural gas out of the planet’s steadily depleting reserves. I'll admit right up front the way I spent those three hours contributed to the depletion. Considering the way things are set up in the western world it's very difficult to know how to live in such a way as to not stress the environment. I hate going to big box stores or shopping malls but the fact is I've been engineered to negotiate those spaces whereas, being left to myself in the woods, I couldn't tell one mushroom from another and neither could I find my way out of a good sized park without a map and the help of a kind hearted park ranger. It's pitiful.

It was only a little more than a century ago people pretty much lived in harmony with nature's ability to resupply our natural resources; essentially, work was done by human labor in concert with animals when extra strength was required and power for grinding grain was done by water and wind mills. I wouldn't last a month in that world. Nevertheless, what did happen was the discovery of the planet's non-renewable resources and the serious mistake that was made was to treat them like they were infinite.

Even if I had the inclination I couldn't afford to buy land, tools, seeds, or any of the other multitude of things required to start a farm. If you're interested in the adventures of someone who actually did make a serious try at it please go over to Gfid's blog North of Sanity where she's been describing a time more than 30 years ago when Canada still had some free land on offer. Her experience provides a very entertaining story about what most of us city bred types could hardly imagine doing.

What I am good for is doing all the things we're able to do with the support of modern conveniences. I can cook, clean, read, write, drive, draw, and even ride a bicycle. What I can't do is figure out how to save the world for future generations to enjoy, but if anything is ever going to change for the better, I think alienation is a good place to start. There's a lot worth being alienated from. You don't have to be ashamed of feeling alienated by a world filled with evil, stupidity,  greed,  and injustice. We've all fallen into the world as it is but if our children's children are to be free,  maybe imagining a different world - a world in which we would feel at home - is a good place to start.

Keep smiling.
♡

little distractions

Before I say another thing I want to tell you just how grateful I have been for your wonderful and heartfelt reactions to my sad announcement that my friend had died. There are some people we encounter who actually define our lives by their presence in the world. Inger was and is one of those very rare individuals.

I finished this painting a couple of weeks ago and had been planning to show it to you in a new post at the time. Now it's the first and only thing I have available to show you at all so that's what I'll do. It's far from one of my best efforts but, even though the message isn't clear (even to me), it at least changed in mood from the drawing done in late summer when I was thinking about reflections. This one is more about the distractions that appear just as we're on the cusp of some momentous understanding. It seems to me that our lives are often more about the little things that distract us while we imagine we're making our way to larger goals.

There have been many interesting developments these past weeks in the world at large and I'm sure Crow will have a few things to say when he returns. Meanwhile, I'll gather my thoughts and my pencils and will make an effort to be verbal again.

Much love to you all.

♡