Graminaceous Bicycle

follow up visit

2012-01-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

who stepped on you and cut you with poison

hungry cry baby nurses on the last pocket of gland

wetting itself

gushing heart held high

eat it

coo

nurse your autonomy

but nurse nurse nurse

drink all cuddle glass in the mouth broken pins

to watch

watch it then strychnine coma

fur and noise under magnifying glass curls up shrink, poof, gone,

sun another!

I handed you

re edit, paste, bake, cough, hate

what a lovely kitty

and they're all like you

shell hard reptile roses

sweet pretty roses spit

each and every one identical in empty eyes

reptile brain hose

all must eat

each other not

crusty plankton by the ton does not fill

touching it now withers

I want for you

is what happened when she was 12

but never will

want for you shmuffin

off road wet blueberry dough still burning ash

it must be time

shit I'm late

in order

2012-01-14T08:06:00.001-08:00

what can it come to mean?

who is not really it and the face is lost

it can't be true if when he was who he was,

then was not who he was, was who she did so not see,

and she so did not, and she said it and insisted so, on and on,

look away and she did it again, said it to a stranger

why must they be right -when due- looked best?

arrivaled, luggaged, smile on time

the rhyming sweating metal text

it hurts my teeth

fungal tell, body language lying cream enbombed

all fastenered, buckles, wrinkle leather straps and visa

I waited for my dream

in line with others

in order

prick pointy kissing

it's on baby

fish smellish green and muscle chemicals togethered

not fuck

and then a drop of blood

welcome a doily wrapped in soiled piss

or welcome

dragon

2012-01-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Last week I moved my work space out of the living room and into a small room on the 2nd floor of our house. Today I'm clearing stuff out and setting it all up so I can work up here. I'm very happy to have a private space again. I was in the living room and could never do any work because of needing to keep things tidy and hidden too, I draw boobs and stuff, for some privacy. It wasn't working at all. Now it's better and I'm looking forward to getting going again more on my own terms. It's necessary but, I didn't see it. It's a good change. Need to find a job too. It cost us a lot for me to focus on art so long.

Paula loves the new living room. She hangs out there with her laptop, writing and surfing, and she smiles a lot more.

what drawings!

2011-12-28T22:47:00.000-08:00

We walked to the AGO today, Paula and I in -9. We saw Gillray and Goya and Oh it was wonderful. A show of prints titled 'Humor That Bites'. I guess you can call drawings that made people want to imprison and kill them something like that. Although now it's more like 'Not So Funny Anymore Art That Once Bit'. But really it was such wildly wonderful work! And I'll be going back again a few more times just to sit surrounded in every direction by this fantastic stuff. I'm going to draw there like I'm in a coffee shop with them.

a swallow

2011-12-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted here in a long time. For the last year I've mostly been drawing with a brush pen. Mostly in coffee shops. Pentel makes the best brush pen. It's an exquisitely sweet tool. Doesn't leak and the flow is perfectly predictable. The Toronto Coffee Company on Lansdowne makes a great coconut latte. It's thick and has some vanilla. They're new in our neighborhood. Very nice people too.

Mostly I go with Paula. We're doing quite badly right now. With love evaporating and leaving stains, like salty sweat marks on old baseball caps. I wish I knew what the connection was between the work I do and the life I live. I can't really find it. Maybe if I can try to write and draw on the same days, for many days, maybe I'll find the link. I draw in very different ways without any understanding of why. These different styles.

I know that when I turn to drawing I'm usually trying to find my way back to a state of grace, because I'm in pain. I don't think I approach the work with something to say. I just want to feel connected again. To anything. Even to paper. Once I get there I feel safe.

collaborators

2010-01-31T13:12:00.000-08:00

Me and Mark Connery went out together drawing on Thursday. I thought we were just going to lurk and sketch. I love drawing people doing anything. Mark had a whole other idea and it was really fun. He's a pro at this. We just passed the drawings back and forth and got to know each other chatting away and making marks.

The waitress was really sweet at this University pub we settled in at. She left us alone for long periods of time and was delighted we were doing something interesting. I told her these were plans for a bank heist and we needed some input. The place was practically empty when we arrived about 7:30 pm, but it slowly filled up. And got shrieky noisy, due to an adjacent co-ed. The cell phone reception was bad in this place for some strange reason. The closer you got to the urinals the worse it got. Mark's long distance East Coast romance and he had a long distance call date to connect their long distance hearts. The bad reception ruined it.

It was bitter cold that Thursday. Mark said that when he went out to smoke the pub's music changed outside. Like there were 2 mixes. I wondered if one was to attract you in, and another was for when you were in. Like a secret society shunning unwanted patrons. Mark does mixing so he's really aware of the ambient noise in a way I'm kind of oblivious. When we left the pub he tried to demonstrate the differences. But it didn't reoccur. We shook hands and parted. Now I have 3 of the 6 drawings we did together. We flipped a coin and picked like kids making teams. I got all the ones with lots of Mark's work and I think he sort of did the opposite with his 3. We like each others styles.

words by paula drawing by larry

2009-06-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

Larry said let’s go to Starbucks and you’ll write about someone we see and I’ll draw them. And I said, yeah like that loud guy we always see there talking to someone new every time, we can do him. Then we got there and sure enough he was there. But I don’t think he’s a bum.

One time we were sitting down with him and talking to him and our twelve year old son Jacob was with us and he was warning Jacob to always listen to his parents, us, because he knew. And Jacob was buying a new cell phone from earning money from shovelling snow and he was telling Jacob which guy to talk to in the Rogers for any problems he might have. And then he noticed my cell phone and said, oh yeah, the little chocolate bar, which is a good way to describe it, it’s very thin, and that he used to have the same one. Then he showed us the cell phone he has now and then the other cell phone he also has now.

So I was ordering Larry and me our coffees and he left his chair and was beside me telling me how there’s e-bay cards on the internet for seven hundred dollars, how he couldn’t believe they were for seven hundred dollars, then he showed me his Paul McCartney Starbucks card and said he looked it up and it was only worth one dollar. Which didn’t seem right to him.

I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. But I had to agree his Paul McCartney Starbucks card did look very nice. It was much more unique-looking than my Starbucks card. And feel sorry for Paul McCartney that his value was so low in whatever internet assessing plastic card world he was talking about.

But I didn’t ask him what he was talking about because I didn’t want to talk to him even though one time we had been sitting down together and the audiences of each other.

For once the pair of comfy soft purple chairs had become available – people were getting up and leaving them - and Larry grabbed them. What I said about their availability he responded to with more commentary.

I sneezed hard two times and he said bless you, you could tell it was bless you, but in a language I don’t know, it sounded like Yiddish, in his same loud voice that cut through the coffee shop and reverberated, two times too.

iggy and lilu

2009-05-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Our 2 kittens wished Paula a Happy Mothers Day.

i submit

2009-04-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

So I've done a lot of drawings over the last 10 months since I lost my job as a teacher when the Art Institute of Toronto expired. This month I've put together a portfolio site and I'm going to send e-mails to galleries here in Toronto by way of submitting my work. I've never had representation before as an artist except as an illustrator and that had some positive aspects. Wish me luck please. Cheers all. The site address is www.larryeisenstein.com

baby kittens

2009-03-13T13:48:00.001-07:00

We have 2 new kittens. Iggy and Lilu. Everything looks cute to me now. I've got cute colored lenses affixed to my glasses and am blinded to the truth that they're just big hairy cockroaches, scuffling in my dinner, sniffing for food everywhere, what mooches. Roachmoochies.

7 of 22

2009-03-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

That's how many pages I've got drawn in my accordion book. It's from China and I bought it at Gwartzman's Art Supplies. It's got thick tough paper and took a beating. I've been going downtown to this art supply store since I was 15. That's 40 years. The same guy still owns and runs it. He's as crotchety and imperious as ever. His build is wiry, his features handsome, his speech laconic and he still scares me. Now I go to his son the dentist with my whole family. He makes cracks about his dad while he drills in my cavities.

wrinkle

2009-03-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

I use the cheapest paper to work on. I hate to waste good paper. Since I always start every drawing believing it's destiny is abject failure only the crappiest . So my crappy paper goes gnarly and rippled the longer I paint. After 4 weeks of stroking this one has the geography of dessicated parchment. It aged with me so it's not Dorian Gray.

what you feed your mind

2009-01-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

So now I understand that I've spent most of my life asking terrible questions. And that the answers my mind has come up with are only appropriate to the negative inquiry.

Now when i go to bed I feed a fresh batch of hopeful, happy questions into my brain and I wake up with excellent answers. Today I feel sure that everything is going to turn out well.
It's a great feeling.

love understands

2009-01-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

My eldest son Eli is in northern Israel where he's volunteered to help out in the rear as the war with with Hamas widens. I hope he'll be safe. Eli's mother, my ex-wife, doesn't understand him and rejects his decision to participate in the operation.

He was just at the end of a vacation/tour when the war broke out. He decided to stay. A couple of months ago he met a young Israeli woman traveling here in Toronto. She had just finished her mandatory service in the Israeli Army. I think they're in love. Eli and Nofair are going to rendezvous in Israel in February. The ongoing conflict will be the backdrop. I guess there's a very romantic story there. I'm worried for him, but it's his time to be a young man in the world now.

happy sad

2009-01-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

I must cry for 2008 though. It was the best year of my life. I'm a capricorn. We start out old and get younger. Each year of my life seems to be getting better lately. This last one was my favorite. So I grieve because it's over and I'm worried it will never be as good again. But so far 2009 is even better!

happy new year

2009-01-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

2009 spurts of splorching gobs of joyous creamy love to you!

I've been away, in a depression. Now I'm feeling better. I'm sorry I dissappeared. I miss being here. Be safe and happy and healthy for the next 12 months and then we'll ask for the exact same thing again.

what?

2008-11-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

flic

2008-11-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

more visitors campaign

2008-11-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

Over the next little while I am shamelessly going to introduce more sex and violence to my postings in an effort to solicit more visits and (especially) comments. We hope our regular visitors (Pennies, Orange and Sinister - I love you) will not be disappointed.

on the beach

2008-11-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

They studied their grandchildren, a little boy and a little girl, playing in the surf. The parents of these toddlers walked hand in hand along the beach, their dog took refuge from the sun under a giant driftwood log. as they lay on a blanket in the sand, laughing and cuddling. The grandparents pointed at and chatted about every aspect of the behavior of the little ones. Proud and vigilant they watched over their treasure. The young mother of the children told me she loved my portrait of her parents.

They all walked off up and over the dunes to their campsite. We stayed till the end of the day. We love it at the Pinery. We love the beach. Jacob rode the waves to the sunset.

lotsa coffee

2008-11-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

Paula and I are really into drinking coffee this year. We never drank it before. It always messed me up. Now we love it. It's kind of crazy.

kidney bean head and baby bean head

2008-11-07T19:55:00.000-08:00

Pulled a proof of my first soft ground etching on Tuesday. I'm going to aquatint some portions next class. I hope I don't ruin it. Paula said my sometimes verbose writing style does not appeal to her tastes. She likes my dense visual textures though.

pose

2008-11-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

This girl, Sierra, was such a sweetheart. Her parents watched in smiles as she fawned over the drawings in my sketch journal. They beamed as she and I spent time chatting.

dots and spots

2008-11-02T19:11:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 5 am and tossed and turned for 20 minutes. I couldn't stop thinking about drawing. About adding more color to all my black and white drawings. This one had a weenie bit of color
from some watercolor pencils. I couldn't stop thinking about adding some water to a brush and liquefying the dry watercolor marks. So I got up and did this for about 4 hours. It was nice to crawl back into bed and spoon with Paula knowing I had done it.

turqoise intestine clouds

2008-10-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

Finished this yesterday. What the hell is it? It's not agrophobia, the horror of empty spaces. I believe I'm kind of compelled by horror vacui Horror_vacui , a theory initially proposed by Aristotle stating that nature “fears” empty space. Therefore empty space would always be trying to suck in gas or liquids to avoid being empty.

In visual art, horror vacui ( also known as cenophobia) is the filling of the entire surface of an artwork with ornamental details, figures, shapes, lines and anything else the artist might envision. I'm always coming back to my work and finding more to do.

raymond

2008-10-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

Raymond sat down across from me at the Second Cup near Dufferin and Wilson. He had warm innocent eyes. When I saw him enter the coffee shop he was bent way over and one hand fumbled with the change in the other. It was a long process. The first thing I noticed when he sat with me was the arthritic disfigurement of his left hand. I smiled and began to chat with him as I drew another guy, in a dress shirt and yarmulke, working on a laptop.

I bought Raymond a French Vanilla latte and asked if I could draw him the next time we meet here. He was good with that. He looked excited. Raymond told me how he lost 50 pounds since coming to Toronto from Windsor and taking therapy at a new facility with great machines. Before leaving he worked on the strap of his fanny pack for about 20 minutes to tighten it one notch because of his new improved girth. He was fighting the limitations of a claw hand without ever complaining. He handles his disability amazingly, I admire his will. He is the Olympian god of cerebral palsy sufferers. I'll buy him coffee, in homage, whenever we meet. He walks a long way for his coffee, for the exercise and the treat.

little drawing journal

2008-10-27T16:11:00.001-07:00

I have a new little sketch book made by Fabriano. It's from Italy and has textured tinted paper. The pages are divided into sections of color. 16 pages of cream yellow paper followed by 16 of grey, repeated 5 more times. I bought it in New York and I think it's grand.

etching class

2008-10-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm taking etching at the Open Studio, a printmaking studio in Toronto. My teacher is Emma Nishimura. She's an excellent instructor. There are 8 students taking the course and they are all really into it. I'm finding it tremendously exciting. I love the actual etching of course. It's just drawing with new tools. But all the many physical aspects of the process right down to the elaborate clean up rituals are very satisfying as well. It's nice to come out of my head and get down and dirty with all the mess involved!

I'm pleased with the results so far. I can't wait to get more plates to etch, and try lithography and screen printing next. I love this stuff and it's so nice to be in a room full of other artists. I like the feedback. I like watching them create. It's not so lonely. Paula's been very encouraging. She likes the textures in the prints. She said she likes them better than my abstract ink drawings on paper. I can see why. The textures are incredibly sensual and exotic in the prints, compared to the flatter high contrast black on white of the drawings.

today I have a cold

2008-10-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

I hate being sick. I blame myself for taking such poor care of myself. I took some Sudafed, which I never do and then I got high in a wierd way and got scared I'd suffocate in my sleep because my nostrils are plugged. I took it because my Mom demanded I suck it up and come to the Sukkot dinner at Leon's. I took it and practically passed out at the table.

Paula is teaching me self-pity. How getting sick is the right time to slow down and feel sorry for your self. Not to beat yourself up some more. So, I'm buying in. Poor me! WAhhhh.

That felt good. WAaaaHhhhhhhh!

bad coffee

2008-10-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Paula and I went to a coffee shop in the art district on Queen St West. T.A.N. Coffee. They sell Fair Trade organic coffee in biodegradable cups. The woman who owns it is awesome. It was great coffee and guilt free, important to us in the wake of Yom Kippur. Now we can't go to Starbucks without feeling like cowards and traitors.

Everything's political. Even the dozen bagels we bought on the way home. Twister or regular? Paula fought North American excess by chosing regular size poppy seed and sesame seed over the big fat honking Twisters.

big fat ego envy

2008-10-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

Yom Kippur is over. I had an atonement thought, walking with Paula from the Yummy Market as the sun went down, carrying bags of breaking the fast goodies like lox and pomegranate, as the high holy day was about to end. That's all I could muster. A short swift musing. I apologized for being a jerk. I can be mean when I'm hurt and mad. And I do have some hubris. But I actually need more, so I didn't apologize for that.

art mall

2008-10-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the 2008 Toronto International Art Fair at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. There was so much art it made me dizzy. I'm going to submit my new work to some of the galleries I thought were right for me. I don't really believe I'll get picked up but I have to try again. I've never had my art represented by a private gallery, or been accepted to show at a public space. I once rented a gallery. In 2003.

I often have this feeling that when anyone sees my name on a proposal that they will receive a some subliminal command to deny me any access or recognition, this on pain of a terrifying horrible death to the violator. I really believe it sometimes. I guess that's part an emotional and mental sickness that possesses part of me.

after knowing you

2008-10-05T05:12:00.000-07:00

We watched Aftermath: Life After People, about what would happen to everything man-made if humans disappeared. In the movie, nature takes back everything. So Jacob saw me doing this drawing in my studio and said that it looked like the world in the movie after the people were gone, because he saw the column in the right corner.

I'd like to go to where it's after relationships. They're gone, and all traces of them have been taken back. If I could survive there, I'd live there.

Now I'm worried it might happen.

sparkle

2008-10-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

Went through a month of not blogging. But I kept drawing. Lots of drawing. When I get depressed I can still draw. That's new for me. I hope it's forever, because I can handle some depression and anxiety if I can still draw.

obsessive

2008-09-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

I don't really know what obsessive means as it pertains to drawing. It can't be about my art. Drawing or not drawing doesn't fundamentally interfere with my family life. I can do and think about many other things besides draw. I do function fairly well. But I wonder if maybe that would change if I stopped drawing completely. As it is I spend a lot of time on these small sheets of paper. It seems to keep me calm and feeling secure.

I don't ever feel they're finished and I am full of anxiety while they're in process. My practice is nervous self loathing and hallucinatory paranoia. And I'm always driving towards spiritual and emotional catharsis plus I like exploring intellectual paradigms with bite. When the tally is in I've spent a lot of hours on them. Does that qualify as obsessive?

I wonder if I can live without doing them. It's not like I go into an autistic freak out or anything clinical if deprived of pencil. But I collect them obsessively, like pennies on the ground that mustn't be passed by but be pocketed. I feel that way about pencils. I imagine the concentration camps of my family and wonder what I would give for a pencil. Probably my bread.

The drawing does relax me and I'd love to have a career making them. Make some money. But I can't find a gallery in Toronto to take on my work. That's what I obsess on. Am I any good? Why does no one want my work? What's wrong with me as a person. Why am I cursed? What did I do? How can I survive as an artist and hide from criticism. That's when I need help. My anxiety always eventually leads to feeling depressed.

I'm confused. I've been told to get out of Toronto and find a mentor by one of the most respected curators in North America. That Toronto will never work for me. Maybe it's true. I feel lost here.

And very alone. But now that I'm healing from the wounds of my early childhood and youth, I've finally found the love of drawing again so I know that even if no one ever finds my work I have this, I love to make it.

squinchy faced in new york city

2008-08-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

After much online price comparing, we booked the hotel reservations for our trip to NYC on Hotwire.com. Then we got ready. We drove up to Huntsville Ontario and picked up Jacob at his summer sports camp. He had done lots of sailing, windsurfing, canoing and kayaking and looked very handsome and strong when we found him in the crowd of parents and departing campers. We wisked him home for a night in his own bed and then drove 5 1/2 hours to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY. What a lovely drive through the farmland and mountains. Cooperstown is a pleasant and quaint, expensive though.

We ate breakfast in this little diner was the cheapest and the friendliest. It was packed with locals. The Hall of Fame was crowded. The exhibits of old stuff are the best. My favorite were the antique games. In the museum shop we bought hats and t-shirts and tank tops and a cell phone holder with the Hall's logo for Jacob .

We bought a fitted minor league team hat for Eli but it was small on him when he tried it on back in Toronto, so Jacob inherited that one too! Jacob is a clothes horse of the first order. The store had tons of hats. Jacob wanted a Japanese club hat but that was the only thing they did not stock.

I love to draw Paula when she snoozes, here she is doing it again at our Holiday Inn Midtown Manhattan. I think she's so beautiful. Jacob is sick. As soon as we arrived he got sick. We were really mad at him when he wasn't looking or listening. Maybe we should have gone alone. But he loves to travel.

We had an outdoor pool on the rooftop of our hotel. It was a nice size and and full of people. Almost no one spoke English. Lots of northern Europeans. It was a refreshing dip but gave Jacob ear troubles for the rest of the trip. He was such a trooper when I pushed him to walk to Chelsea and then the Empire State Building, only about 90 blocks, then Paula got him to stand in 1 1/2 hours of lineups to get to the observation deck level of the Empire State Building. We sound like crazy parents no? It was a great view though. The city at night all lit up. Needless to say we took the subway back to the hotel. We flopped on the beds, our legs and feet were aching. Jacob woke up hallucinating and sleepwalking. We heard this thumping sound. He was trying to open the door to the hallway but it was catching on the night latch. Thump! bang. Thump! bang.

Paula tried to comfort him but it wasn't working. I held him and shouted at him, then shook him a bit but it escalated and then he was screaming. I covered his mouth. I was worried that the neighbours would call security or worse the cops might show up. I plopped him in the shower and tried to calm him down and wake him up. It worked and he came out of it. He calmed down and we all went to bed. He barely remembered any of it the next morning.

I had fevered hallucinations as a kid. I hated it worst than anything. I wish someone could have snapped me out of them. My mom just comforted me too as I went slowly crazy in my fever. Sooner or later a doctor would show up at the house and give me a shot. My older son Eli had something similar. I remember when he peed in the oven. We found out when we tried to bake something. What a smell.

We went underground to ride the Manhattan Subway system to Yankee Stadium too. It's hard to draw when you have your family with you. I didn't want to shut them out but I managed to sneak a few sketches in. It helped that I bought a small Fabriano drawing book at Lee's after we visited the New York Artist's League. It was much easier to whip that baby out and bang away with the pencil and eraser. Ok that sounds silly but I'm trying to invent some inspiring drawing speak to give me bigger public journaling balls.

This guy and his wife studied their bibles intently on our ride on the D train to the B train. Another rider, a middle aged black woman, loved my drawing of this man. She just loved it.

We scalped tickets to the Yankees Game. It was the 18th last game before they tear down the historic stadium. There were no tickets anywhere except upper deck at 150 per ticket from the scalpers. Every scalper I met I said "bleachers" to. They turned up their noses and walked away. Until finally one guy said OK at 50 bucks a piece. I stalled a bit and he came back with 40 a pop.

Behind our seats were a couple from north of Denver who paid 90 bucks in advance. We got a nice deal! The scalper walked us right through the ticket turnstile and then practically to our seats where I flipped him the $120. Sweet!

But it was raining and there was a major chance the postponement could turn into an outright rainout. We all waited for about an hour and then hurray! They rolled off the tarp and soon it was 'play ball'. We knew when we bought the tickets that if it rained the money was down the toilet. We were leaving the next day and couldn't use a rain check. I chatted with everyone. It was an alcohol free zone and almost everyone behaved civilly. There were lots of Yankee fans making the pilgrimage to see the hollowed ground of their baseball idols.

On the way back to the hotel on the subway I tried to draw again. The trains move so fast and rock so bad that it's practically impossible to get anything looking right. Plus these New Yorkers, man, they are way too alert and hard to get a long look at. Everyone's eyes are darting around like something bad's going to happen, but maybe I'd get used to it and hey, maybe they don't mean anything by it. It's a very tolerant place and artists are pretty harmless right? Plus they see them all the time. Maybe it was just me.

We wandered through Central Park and listened to a band under a platform. They were fantastic and made me cry. It was magical. This guy sat and listened too. It was the best moment of the trip. Jacob gave them some money as they packed up to go. I wish they played longer.

On our last day we went back to the lower east side. We ate at Kampuchea and everyone shared their food, passing forkfuls and spoonfuls to each other like we were feeding babies. Jacob bought an electric guitar, a cheap knockoff of a stratocaster. It had a classy English name, Washburn, made somewhere in China. He played it on the drive all the way home to Toronto.

We got him a book from which he taught himself chords. We stopped at Economy Candy, a giant candy store and loaded up on chocolate and gum, plus we had to get cupcakes for the road at Sugar Sweet Sunshine. We drove home in 8 1/2 hours. It was liking driving down the street. We floated back to Toronto.

abstracty personalties

2008-08-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Paula and I go up to Huntsville to pick up number 2 son Jacob at camp. He's finished his week of waterfront sports. He sailed. Number 1 son Eli is up near Ottawa, infantry training. 2 months of learning to be a leader. But he injured his back carrying a machine gun and a belt of ammo through a swamp at night in the rain. He fell. Now he's on pain killers and muscle relaxants hoping to heal up, not get drummed out of the course. There's lots of poison ivy cases, some severe enough for hospitalization. He calls a lot to talk. It's nice. Paula and I are here in Toronto. I''m doing abstract drawings and falling in love with her all over again.

a beautiful young girl on the train

2008-08-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

The winter in Toronto has it's share of despair. People appear defeated, resigned to zombie apathy, a behavior they despise in others. You have to work hard to feel good here. You don't wake up December through March with the gift of feeling good because of the glorious weather or environment. You have to earn it. And it doesn't come cheap.

The morning faces wear dread and the evening ones appear pummeled. It's not what I'm trying to depict. But what I remember looking through my subway drawing journals. Mostly I feel joy as I draw standing in the crowds of commuters. fighting for balance and elbow room . I'm smiling like crazy inside. But what I see when I look at these pages a half year later just seems lonely and sad.

finished at the art institute of toronto

2008-08-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

My tenure as an instructor at the Art Institute of Toronto is over. They've closed the doors of the Graphic Design department and the rest of the school is soon to follow. I've had some wonderful students during the 4 and a half years there. So many really great young men and women. I wish I had done drawings of them all. I really do.

I learned a lot about teaching and I'd like to continue to teach, but with less classes, and focused more on drawing and creativity. I like web design and graphic design but I don't love them. I want to draw as much as possible for the rest of my life.

tear

2008-08-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

I started this a little while ago. Now it's finished. The center is a tear drop. Some grief, some joy, some irritated eye.

women sleep less

2008-07-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

Men sleep on subway trains. They sprawl and snore. Women catnap with an eye open because it's a dangerous place for females to drop their guard. That's true of any public place isn't it?

Big fat women sleep on subways, they're invulnerable and generally undesirable to the average predatory male. Old women sleep too, they're just overwhelmed and exhausted by the trial and effort of commuting. But most young girls and women are targets, and there are lots of bad men.

paula's hands

2008-07-29T20:01:00.001-07:00

My wife has beautiful hands and feet. I love looking at them and caressing them. This is a constant source of pleasure for me.

art practice

2008-07-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

What about my studio? The space. The music. The light. No one told me I'd make more art surrounded by strangers in strange places. My teachers never mentioned it. No one said that alone there'd be so much noise inside me, and out in the din of the city there'd be this safe quiet. It's hard to accept.

spider

2008-07-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

I still hate them. I don't kill them but I don't want to look too closely.

kind of like cuddling

2008-07-22T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what I'm stealing from these people. I know it's not their souls. But I am taking liberties. I feel like I do when I look at my wife and children as they sleep, it's safe to be very very close.

a cool new school

2008-07-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

This year, his grade six year, we enrolled our son Jacob at Avondale Alternative School. He loves it and so do we. They combine grades 6, 7 and 8 into one classroom and now he's got lots of older friends. The kids are all really sweet. Avondale likes parents to be involved so I did a 5 visit workshop teaching Jacob's class how to make a zine. It went well. They liked the project.

Jacob was in the school play the Music Man. He was part of the barbershop quartet. Jacob was offered a bigger role by the drama teacher but his home room teacher insisted that his participation be limited. This way he'd concentrate better on his studies. I thought it was a lame decision and I was disappointed Paula and I were not consulted. Nevertheless he has thrived this year like no other year before. To see your child eager to face homework, it stunned us. We never imagined that would ever happen.

sleepers and readers

2008-07-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's easy to draw sleepers and readers. Everyone else is jittery as hell. The nicest people I meet on public transit are the ones sitting near or beside me when I draw. I get a lot of smiles and warm words of encouragement. Never had any outright hostility. It seems I don't offend much when I stare. Maybe that's because I find people so beautiful to look at, they're OK with my attitude.

The whole process of drawing in public is fun because my likenesses are so close that in a few minutes I can nail facial features while the train is moving and I'm standing even. People like seeing the accuracy. It's nice how time spent drawing turns into skills. Now I just wish I had a style. Something unique.

The baby in the stroller was from Israel. His Dad and Bubie were a little uptight with me staring at their child/grandchild. Until I smiled and showed them the drawing. Then they relaxed and the father chatted away with me about his long journey to Canada via Austria and England. He plans to move to San Diego to the warmer weather.

apology

2008-07-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

This guy actually apologized for waking up and getting off the train at his stop. I didn't know he was aware I had been staring at him and sketching from the time I got on the train and his nap.

on the subway and at work

2008-07-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

When I ride the subway I'm not distracted and I draw alot. When I get home there so much to do and fun stuff to get into. A good friend of mine said that maybe outside will be my studio. That it's the way it might work for me.

three heads

2008-07-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

I can't think and I can't talk, but I can run. I used to be fast. I had a chance to get away. Now I'm trapped and forced to tell.

i want to be max ernst

2008-07-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not making abstract art. But this kind of drawing is making me dizzy because of pretending to be a bit Max Ernst. I am going to emulate my pretend mentor. I'm trying this out personally. It's supposed to be a good idea. He'd laugh.

His dad painted. And he lived in a mysterious forest. And the thing I had like him was fevered hallucinations as a kid. I got pukey and disoriented. The doctor gave me shots in bed at home to make them stop.

Does anyone not think Max Ernst was the greatest ever, ever? Are they nuts? Is their head off?

Who can have that much talent and not be murdered by it. Be completely killed by it. It would kill me. It could. Right? How could you survive it?

I can't believe he existed. It's like the bible. It's got to be made up. A team of fabricator's lying and lying. If not then I have to kill myself for being pathetic. Or go on a long fast to be purer. No food until I'm skin.

Why I ask you. Why? Why? Why? Why? I think he inspired artists too much. Now there's too many of us. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Do you think he liked knowing how it would make me feel, looking at his art, wanting to tear out my nervous system and convulse like a spastic colon, just spewing. What a prick!

Where is a pillow. I want to hug my pillow and snuggle. And die. But also I want to have one of those long artist lives like Hokusai, Matisse and George Grosz and all those other great art guys.

See my art Balls! They have potent flowers that are coming!

I've been broken into little pieces by being silly and by wishing. Boo. Look out for my little pieces.

Max Ernst lived in Sedona and I did too. He liked rich women who were into art. Apparently they adored him. I like any women into art but I like to be the richer one even when I'm actually very poor which has happened often. And I don't know if any of them loved me very much.

Miro was cool too. I'd like to have some of him too. My wife was happy to find something new on my blog today. Then she came home and fought with me. I added this and now I'm sad plus there's an echo in here.

I like this drawing. I am starting to enjoy doing drawings again. I've been really hating it for about 49 years. It started in Kindergarten when I noticed how pretty everyone else's paintings looked on their easels. Mine looked like poopy mud and my classmates wore there smocks like artists instead of like a diaper like me, for being so sloppy. They mixed colors better and also knew how to use them alone, like green only as green without other colors piled on. Everything I did turned into a shit looking mess. That's what happens when you use all the colors. Not white light. It just turns poopy.

paula's dad died

2008-03-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Roland is dead. English Roland at 75. He checked into Victoria Hospital with abdominal pain and and exited10 days later a corpse. Pancreatitus was the official cause of death. I watched him go with Paula, her brother Mark and her sister Amanda. Their mother, Roland's long estranged ex-wife, vacationed in Arizona.

The first day we visited Roland in London there was a 50/50 chance he'd pull through, fight back from his coma like state. The waiting room was pleasant. A volunteer shepherded us kindly. Jacob jumped online the courtesy computer station. I drew as Paula commiserated with her siblings.

After visiting Roland for a 1/2 hour we all took a break and headed to the cafeteria. We caught up on family news and Paula and her brother and sister swapped sentimental Dad stories. I pulled out my sketchbook and scanned the room. It was hard to draw Mark. Impossible really. He's like a jittery ghost.

Amanda was easier. Perhaps because her features are so similar to Paula, that and her vanity. The food was horrible. Jacob scarfed up his plastic fries and colored fructose liquid.

My brother Mike has a new house in London. We visited him after the hospital and I coughed all over everything. His wife Ann got sick soon after. We agreed it was the worst flu of our lives.

A huge crowd attended the wake. Roland was very popular and highly respected for his union activism and lifelong devotion to the liberal left New Democratic Party. He had been repeatedy invited to run for office over the years but always declined because of closet skeletons. Instead he became a mentor, much beloved, and a behind the scenes political power broker of significance, largely benign.

Paula's eulogy moved both friends and family. Some close to Roland, intimately familiar with the Parris's tragic family history, privately shared with Paula their sympathies and respect.

After the union hall emptied the family drove in 3 cars to the Thames river, which briskly snakes through London. We scuttled over the icy ground carrying Roland's ashes onto a bridge. We dropped him into the cold rushing water. Some of Roland landed on the foundation of the bridge, most flowed northwestward. Goodbye. I think I liked him, but I wish he had taken better care of Paula, protected her. But it seems he could barely take care of himself.

art institute of toronto grad show

2008-03-26T06:01:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday the Art Institute of Toronto, where I've taught for the last 4 years, graduated the 2nd last class of graphic design students that will come out of the school before corporate offices in Pittsburgh shut down our program forever. This was the best body of young designers we've graduated and the second largest group I've had to teach at AIT. Great kids.

James did a great job. Best grad show yet.

Stacey from corporate was the lowlight of the night. The highlight was my wife and son coming to the show! This executive bureaucratic marinated us in 10 minutes of canned cliche fulmination. I guess we were supposed to feel honored that she had flown in from the USA, but it was hard to overcome a nagging gag reflex throughout her, what can I call it, orientation lecture? When never-worked-in-the-industry types drag out old saws like 'the easy part is over dear student, now comes the hard part, the real world', it's the biggest crock. There's nothing harder in my opinion than being young, responsible for your own time, studying your brains out and for some, also going into debt for 36k. Excuse me, I'll take the real world over my student days.

I wish one of our graphic design grads had given the valedictorian speech. We have some really fun and witty personalities in the group who could have really roused the crowd. This gal officially kick started a snore fest. Which only lasted until our gang rose to receive their diplomas.

Your a nice man Steve.

Funny guy. I like his laid back approach to teaching. He's earnest and knows his shit.

Dapper elder statesman. His shirts are a little wacky sometimes, but I dig this guy's style.

Appears to have been the big sister to everyone in her program. Way too much hugging for GD. We're hardcore!

My buddy Anson. Very good illustrator. Hard working sonofagun. We play hockey together. He's a pit bull out there at the rink. Probably a little crazy from elbows to the head!

Well, what can I say, was this the comic relief? He should have opened the show right off the get to, to warm up the crowd as it fidgeted into comfortable seating and gossip. Sorry, not really ready for prime time as a speaker. Very sincere guy with lots of ego. Yawn.

Afterwards Paula, Jacob and I went out for dinner in Kensington Market. A cool little place where you custom put together everything in your dinner. The Rice Bar I think. It was really delicious and the waitress was super helpful when we bugged her about the myriad of choices we had to wrestle. Its got tiny chairs, tables that wobble and when the door gets opened you get icicles on your nose. Not nice. Jacob has some good rock star hair no? He's always swooshing it around and recompiling it.

drawing sucked

2008-03-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

We camped at the Pinery Provincial Park on Lake Huron in August last year. I had a rough night the day before we left for home. On the morning of our last day at our trip I got up early. Jacob and Paula were sleeping in. I made a fire and later after we had eaten breakfast, I got out my sketchbook and sketched the last sticks of firewood burning on a mound of embers and ash, in the fire pit.

Paula and I were behaving badly towards each other, we were wary of each other and distant. We had had a fight while strolling together on a long sandy beach. Paula used to visit this park oa lot as a child. I think she was seeing ghosts. We were holding hands and enjoying the beautiful warm sunny weather and everything was good, this is what we had come here for. The closeness turned upside with a few words and a few overreactions and we were deep into another cold wars.

We exchanged accusations and expressions of shock and hurt we retreated to enclaves within ourselves. Jacob read on a big beach blanket while Paula and I stewed in suffering. He looked up and reconnoitering our faces looking for a resolved dispute, hoping that these 2 big angry babies, dumped on his vacation, were immediately replaced by his nice parents. Every 1\2 hour or so he'd stop playing or swimming in the water and see if he could broker a peace, giving us individualized quality-time love injections. Compelled to nurse us off our misery, the impasse confused Jacob. He looked a little bored and terrified at the same time.

As they slept, I stoked a huge fire, drank Sauza's Tequila and played songs on my MP3 player. I cried into the bottle. Sitting in one of those folding chairs that you can stuff in a trunk, I looked at the stars, stared long into the fire and stumbled into the woods to pee. The area was speckled with moonlight filtering through the canopy of leaves. I wandered back and repeated this whole deal 5 or 6 more time. The air was cold damp, the campground silent.

It was difficult to draw that morning, my anger and despair over another stupid estranged night. But I do hate drawing mostly anyways. It's part of hating myself for nothing in particular. My parents have a lot to do with it. But I'm working on that.

This whole emotional scenario is a regular fixture of our relationship, a sunken sofa cushion of funk, but not as bad as it used to be. Drawing couldn't make me feel better though. If you know me you probably think drawing might be my eye of the hurricane, where I probably feel peaceful and somewhere I can process trauma and anxiety, but actually when I'm feeling this kind of sick inside, it's practically useless.

But if I had let these events drift away one more time in a helpless stupor it would have made me unbearably sadder. Having so much distance between Paula and I, our hearts, it's the worst feeling I know.

me and me

2007-07-15T16:09:00.001-07:00

I’m working on 2 graphic novels at the same time. I can’t stay with one style or one story. The 2 stories are different but really they’re the same story. They're about this boy, drawn 2 ways. One boy lives in our world but everything is exaggerated, like as I remember it when I was a kid, especially the emotional part. Crazy emotions. Every feeling all at once and no way to hide it.

The other boy lives in another world, a limbo world from a bad dream. Everything that’s part of the first boy, the boy who lives in the real world, that this real boy feels but doesn't want to experience, feelings of guilt, shame and terror, goes to the limbo world. All the denied stuff goes there. And it waits.

The limbo world boy wanders in a kind of wasteland full of dumped people parts, everyone's. He drifts around not understanding that he himself is just a fragment of the real world boy.

It would happen like this. In the real world a piece of you breaks off, like a quarter dropping out of a short pant pocket. Where does it go? It could find a receptacle in some retarded person in a home somewhere, maybe in the country. You wouldn't realize that you had lost something and the retarded person would have no idea he’s now actually part of someone else. He's sit waiting for dough nut day, hoping to got a jelly filling and that there’s a whole box of them. That's what's on his mind. That's what's on his mind all the time.

The person who lost part of their essence, might not feel right anymore and wouldn't be the first time this has hoccured. They've been breaking up into these fragments and losing bits and pieces of themself all their life. In fact there's not much left of this person. Look around you, at the people on public transit, in malls and waiting rooms.

I think romantic love is the searching for these lost parts. We dope out how if only we could connect with our true soul mate, the person created just for us, to make us complete, that would make our life sweet as honey. This emptiness, which just got compounded onto our regular emptiness, because a new fragment just busted off us, would through true love turn us into something beautiful and whole. And together with the perfect partner we just discovered, we'd be happy and fulfilled. Like forever.

But with or without that special someone you one day, let's say in the middle of the day, and for no apparent reason, you suddenly feel this ecstatic delight and calm, peace even. You guess that you've somehow figured out something important about this life, by constantly worrying and strategic thinking. Now you see how smart and wonderful you are and how good life actually is, you just had forgotten.

But your wrong, your actually feeling the joy of the developmentally handicapped kid who just got some rainbow colored candy sprinkles on his butterscotch dough nut, plus a hot creamy coffee with real sugar, not the diet stuff he's restricted to because of he's 240 pounds fat and blobby.

It's the crazy tongue ecstasy of retard boy squishing and mulching gooey flour confection through the sieves of his missing teeth. This is what would be making you feel so fucking good. Because the fixations and fullfillment of retard's taste buds is what you were really feeling in the place you thought it was all about the sadness, despair, alienation and anxiety of your life.

He's licking powdered pastry sugar off the waxed paper bottom of the dough nut box and his eyes are rolling up into the back of his head, the TV has got a lady talking about a stabbing, she’s round and brunette like the woman who gives him the enema. Up his bum. And that’s tomorrow. The crothc of his jeans have a drool puddle building near his zipper. And my Graphic Novels are about how what you really need is to reacquire these fragments of yourself, relocate them back inside you. That would be for real happiness and might last if you were a real entire person in the first place, which is highly unlikely. So both stories are about that stuff.

i'd rather blog

2007-07-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'd rather blog. I hate my career. I hate everything about it. I hate it. I'd rather live in a blog cave and be a little blog light in a constellation of blog blips in a blog sky. I want to be a blog ant in a blog colony. I'm just another blog dirt bit in a stupid blog dirt ditch anyways. Hey look at me, I'm a totally unique blog snowflake falling and melting on your forehead...blapp! Leave me alone, don't anything me. Attention is a stupid big joke, here and then goodbye. Way too much work, the getting of it. Just crap. I think I'll give up. So I quit. Watch stuff and make my basically useless notes and scribbles and bury them behind a wall on this blog. If you want to look, you can go ahead. It's ok but fuck you. What's the difference?

a few lyrics from a song about war

2006-11-16T20:20:00.000-08:00

War! huh good God
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me?

War has caused unrest in the younger generation
Induction then destruction-
Who wants to die?

War! It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War! It's got one friend, that's the undertaker
War has shattered many a young mans dreams
Made him disabled bitter and mean
Life is much to precious to spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life, it can only take it away

made me do it

2006-11-15T16:11:00.000-08:00

This is my film noir drawing, without the darkness. Borat told us to dump the jew in the well. So I did it.

assassinate

2006-11-14T17:29:00.001-08:00

Toronto thinks it's a multi-cultural mecca, but it's a babel of boobs. I guess when shoppers are being shot downtown for shopping you know you've arrived as world class metropolis . Our community centers and recreation facilities are pretty decrepit. A new hockey rink hasn't been built 30 years, in Toronto, ground zero of the hockey universe. Kids can't find ice time. Our schools get no new books, the old ones are decrepit, so who needs to hire librarians, which the City school board doesn't, art supplies surface via parent generated fund raisers. What a stupid place. Kill the mayor.

bombs and come

2006-11-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

What a funny dance. He's practically being assaulted. He's getting a procedure done. It's me all sheepish and begging. Our lovers find us all so silly and charming. We're comical. And they're so masterful.

I think about bombs alot. Where will I hide? Why did they kill me? Where's the door?

Jacob

2006-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Jacob is my son. He's 10. When Paula talked to her mother about our considering of having more children her mother said "Stop!" She said couples try many times over sometimes to get one like our Jacob. She said we hit the jackpot on the first try. She adores him. She's right that he's wonderful. He's made of our love. We wanted him. But why did Paula's mother think that we couldn't do it again. Make another amazing child. Our loving each other has grown and we've still got good organs. I don't think Paula's mom gets the love part of the equation. She probably feels it's all just a big crapshoot. After all I'm sure she believes she got one bad seed, one emotional cripple and one stone cold killer on her three tries.

I'm sure she believes it was just her bad luck. Her dead poor bad luck. And also that it's because of the father. Men. I think Paula's mom was incapable of staying inside the love, to make happy children who become happy adults. I hope we can stay with the program. The love program. Staying inside the love.

Guess what Jacob is doing in these drawings. Did you guess playing playstation? He is.

wisdom teeth

2006-10-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

Paula went for her extraction today. Mine is on Monday. Our dentist's dad has an art supply store downtown. I started going there 36 years ago. Before art college. Dr. Gwarztman looks and acts like his dad. Sardonic but humourous. Theye both have the same lean body. Paula's molar x-ray reveals that her roots are too long for the doctor to make the extractio. They are really long. We took the x-ray home. She has a new appointment with an oral surgeon tomorrow. I can't be there with her because I'm teaching in the morning. I wish I could take her. To comfort her. She might be woozy after the procedure. Her tooth is still paining her. Our decayed wisdom teeth are both severely fragmented. Mine is almost gone. Hers is smarting. Well, it's a wisdom tooth right? Mine is torpid. Defunct really. Paula is on the verge of tears all the time. It's really hurting her. Mine is just plain dead.

love of my life

2006-10-18T02:01:00.000-07:00

I met Paula at a hockey party. I played for a few years with this particular gang of guys. We partied together a couple of times a year. Ours was a game of pickup. In Canada we call it shinny. It's played without referees or visiting opponents. We choose sides and just go at it. The group was full of highly educated men who fancied themselves the perfect blend of intellect and machismo (that would be the Greath White North kind of manliness). Many in the group were actors, writers and artists. Conceits were rampant.

Having women at one of our hockey parties was unusual. The guys called a girl who called some girls. Paula tagged along with her mates. I fell in love with her there. She and I sat in the living room sipped drinks and chatted about art and astrology. She was from London Ontario. New to Toronto and alone. Totally single. No boyfriend baggage. I was in the middle of a plot to leave my wife and abscond with my son. I kept that story and its sordid details to myself. We parted with a slow kiss and a tight warm hug. I liked the feel of her in my arms. An athelete, 5' 10". I didn't speak to her for another 7 months. I waited till I was separated, situated and sane again. It was an honorable courtship. That was almost 20 years ago. We started well and now we're beautiful.

I took my son that summer. I consulted a medium after the marriage meltdown. He explained to me that Paula had been my brother during Biblical times. Interesting endorsement. I was hoping for something more like my Queen, from our days of Atlantean rule. But we do fracas like siblings.

the forensic artist

2006-10-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

Friday, the subway driver tells me a story about a family member who is a forensic artist. This when I ask to sketch him as we drive north to Downsview Station. Our last stop. His door is open. I'm out of models. The train emptied at Wilson Station. I'm sitting at the front of the car and we're heading home. The person he talks about, the family member, drew his children. She aged them. It was many years ago. She ages photos of abducted children for police departments across North America, in pencil. So we can spot them years after they've dissappeared. Today the drawings look exactly like his grown up children. I'm sure it must have been fun for the family, this exercise in time travel. The thought of my children disappearing is numbing.

Have you ever wondered if someone you saw had once been abducted at an early age, had their identity obliterated through attrition and terror. Their lives destroyed, their personhood violated and shattered forever. Some pedestrians and transit riders have that look. Like they've been crushed. My father was such a ghost. Concentration camp vaporized his will. I wish that when I drew people that I could see something about them they've lost, something still hovering nearby, and by drawing it, it returned..

the moore sculptures

2006-10-16T13:00:00.001-07:00

We have a room full of Henry Moore sculptures on permanent display at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. I tried to seduce a girl in this room when I was 18. It was my first year at the Ontario College of Art, just next door. She was more experienced than me. At love. She lived with 2 guys. I wanted her. She enjoyed teasing me. We went to her place after making out behind a giant Moore. Her boyfriends were there. It was uncomfortable for me. She enjoyed my squirming and confusion. I left.

The sculptures are magnificent. I can't imagine that they had cared about my frustrated adolescent lust. But they watched. I wonder if they remember. I visited the room again this summer with my son Jacob and one of my students. Jacob was sitting in on my teaching that day. The rest of the class remained at school completing a project. We drew for 2 hours. Jacob turned 10 this summer. I loved the enjoyment he took in the sketching. The pleasure. His focus. His pride the work he had done. We sketched people all the way home on the subway. I never pushed this on him. Art. It just captured his imagination. Now he's an artist. He carries a sketchbook to events and family functions. To draw.

Moore's sculptures, all boney, washed in acid, holding time, tears and loss, fix me in space with their textured fleshy architecture. His drawings are marvelous too. I wish he had been my teacher. Someone like him. With his passion for work. I wish I could believe in making art. I just don't.

jacobs moore's

mom's car

2006-10-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

My mother was attacked. By her car. She's in the hospital lying on a gurney in the hall when I draw this. Just after her x-rays were taken. She needs to pee. I ask an intern to help her. Mom's too proud to ask for assistance. She's been holding it in for 5 hours. The pee. She deceides to hold it in a little longer because they won't allow her go alone. She's too proud to be undressed by a stranger. To use a bedpan.

She parked her car on an incline. She left the car in drive, parking brake disengaged. The car begin to roll when she reached in for the keys she had forgotten in the ignition. She tried to hold the Honda Accord back so it wouldn't roll into the cars parked behind her. But it kept rolling. The open door probably knocked her down when she lost the strength to continue the fight with gravity. Instead of rolling into cars it rolled over her leg. Her knee is swollen like a ruby red grapefruit turned inside out. It's covered in dark bruises. Her calf has crimson tread marks.

When I arrived at the hospital she was lying on a wooden board in her own room in the emergency ward. In agony. Alone. Her only arm holding a lukewarm ice pack to her contused scalp. The arm with the concentration camp tatoo. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was short and frustrated. I paused and created a good face before disturbing her. She didn't want to call me when the accident occurred. Nor anyone else. She had tried to limp to her car and drive home. But passersby stopped her and called for the ambulance. The hospital staff had forced her call me. She didn't want to bother us. I laugh. She calls us incessantly about nothing. Cajoling us, guilting us, charming us into myriad acts of self-betrayal. To live the life of good Jews. That's her dream. To show up to all the funerals, the ceremonies, the religious services, to buy the right kind of home improvements, to embrace the extended family, to raise our children right. It never stops. It's an endless assault. She wants us to better. We're no good.

Mom begged me to stop drawing her, she was ashamed of her appearance. Fatigue relieved her of self-consciousness. The Paramedic who had attended Mom came by. She admired my drawing. She talked about art as she watched me sketch Mom. Mom's doctor came by. She is going to be OK. I can take her home. She smiles. She clasps the doctors hand and with tears in her eye she shares her gratitude and relief. She limps to the car on my arm. But first we stop at the bathroom. Another victory. She is tougher than tough. She is Auschwitz tough. Indefatigable is the word I'm looking for. You've never seen anything like it. She's almost 80. People think she's in her mid-60's. She sings Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs. Her voice is silken schmaltz. She's sung in many countries. She's a passionate performer. Her charm is hypnotic. Her heart is an iron anvil of bitter hardness. You come out as dust.

I picked up her car. It was raining out. Some of Mom's papers lay out on the hood of the car, rainsoaked, the ink running. I don't know why but I lectured the car. "Bad car. Don't ever do anything like that again." I got in and took it home. I parked it in front of our house. Locked it. Beep.

visiting dave and lisa

2006-10-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

We don't have many friends. Real friends, the not online kind. Touch them, hug them friends. We have many virtual friends. People we've never met. Some are archived in our Microsoft Outlook backup files. Conversation fossilized in binary code. Posts, chats, transcripts, flirtations crys for help. Most long ago deleted forever. Gone and never were. I always wanted a pen pal when I was a boy. Someone from Africa. Someone who could help relieve my perpetual loneliness. Today I have too many writing mates. They are from everywhere. The responsibilities that go with this kind of connectivity piles up fast. Mountain of posts unreplied to. For me, an aspiring children’s book writer/illustrator, it's wonderful having communities of peers to consult and commiserate with. My kidlit critique group plus my other mailing lists and message boards, for illustrators, writers, designers, and on, they're a help. I' share personal things with online friends, characters, tippy-tapped out on keyboard. But Dave and Lisa are real. We hung out with them last week during Nuit Blanche, the all night art festival, imported from a Paris event, held for the first time in Toronto. Which was spectacular.

We've known the Dave and Lisa since Paula and Lisa met at YTV's daycare where Liam and Jacob were stored during the day. We all worked. It was a good daycare. The boys love each other, they're sympathetic soul brothers. Rarely argue. We visit Dave and Lisa often. Often for us. We visit only my mother more. They don't realize how much they mean to us. They have many visitors. They're life is full of transiting friends and family. Their home is homey. They make friends everywhere. Their tenants are their friends. They realize how much they mean to us. Sometimes it hurts, but we also know it can be tough to be around us. We're tough in our heads on them. Not in words, but in our thoughts we're hard on the way they relate to each other and to their child. We talk about them on our way home after visiting them. The whole way home. We're critical. As much as we love them. We're not liking some of their interpersonal stuff. We invite them to our place regularly but they don't come. They always throw out the red carpet for us when we visit their beautiful downtown home . They cook for us and treat us with welcoming kindness and respect. I spend lots of my time drawing when I'm there. They don't mind. They love art.

David is a great sculptor but he has a troubled artistic persona. I believe it's basically a self-worth issue. He suffered deep and damaging emotional wounds as a child. It's sad seeing him struggle year after year to surface creatively. It's painful. He's working hard to unravel the mess in is psyche. We all love him. He's a kind and gentle man. He's lost career momentum, it frustrates and upsets him profoundly, and he's trying to reinvent his purpose along personally meaningful and sustainable lines. I'd love to see his plethora of wax models cast in metal. But he's down on the return on invest aspect of the process, and faithless about his prospects for critical acceptance. Lisa is not in his corner in this area. Not at all. We wish she was. I also wish we were closer friends. Paula and I wish we had more friends. But we don't . We have each other in it's working really good.

catching up

2006-10-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I felt when I did a lot of these drawings. Not until I've looked at them for a while, later. They take me right back, and I can feel myself, who I was, then, and being able to do this allows me to experience the rush of emotions and thoughts that flowed through me in those moments, that are gone now, as I sat there, maybe worrying about arriving on time to teach, or what to do about my teeth, or feeling warm in side from making love, or coming home excited to get back to work on one of my projects, or maybe numb from anxiety about resolving a fight with my son, or depressed about my age, stuff like that.

In this way I get to catch up to myself, and deal with things that came up then that maybe I didn't deal with yet. Things that are over but not really part of me yet. They happened but in many ways I wasn't there. There's always stuff to catch up to. To ground.

Paula had to go pay off a traffic ticket the 31st of August, the night I did the drawing above . It was a hundred bucks or something. We hung out together with Jacob, waiting for Paula's number to be called. I drew people. It was kind of a festive scene, with a holiday weekend hours away from kicking off and lots of jokes about driving under the influence being kicked around. It was that kind of crowd. Her license had been suspended for not paying the ticket off within a few months. Just slipped our minds and boom. No driving allowed. People are so beautiful when you draw them. You can love their appearance, their body language, their sadness, their life force. You can just love them quietly from within yourself. It's easy this way. To know them is to find their needs and your needs poking, crying and colliding and making a mess of everything. Then it's hard to love.

the subway

2006-10-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

I take the subway to work. And then home. 1/2 hour down, 1/2 hour up. I used to read. Now I sketch. I pull out a sketch book and just go at it. I have different sizes of sketch books. The size I pick for the trip depends on how brave I feel about being seen drawing. Drawing them. It makes a lot of people nervous. When you keep staring at them. I have some nice little sketch books. They have black hardcovers on them.

I'm thinking of pasting fake book covers on them so they look more like novels. People barely notice I'm working in one of these little books. But still many commuters can tell somethings up. There's a lot of skritching and scratching going on. Plus I keep looking up and down and around like a worm hunting robin. There could be a cat around or something. That kind of nervous busy.

But I prefer bigger books so I can stretch out the lines and get into some nice scale. There's so little room for error. The little books offer very little space. You have to be spot on considering the people are always moving, getting off and being obscured by new riders.

But the little drawing part is like being in early grade school again, drawing tiny pictures in the margins, so tiny that when my teachers walked by they couldn't tell I was in the middle of these huge, epic battle scenes with tons of killing and bloody carnage. I'm really really good at small, but I have lots of big in me too. so I need the space on the paper. Anyways, I'm the teacher now, so, go Larry go.

Lately though I'm using a big pad. And everyone is noticing me and I'm just loving all the smiles. People wanting to look at what I'm doing and talk to me. I look in their eyes and see curousity and respect. I didn't see that before. Maybe It was always there before. Probably. but I couldn't see it. I could only see how bad my drawings were. I was ashamed of my work. I believed I was terrible at it. But they weren't and I'm not. Now it's fun again. Like it's supposed to be. Because drawing really is. Fun. That's why kids do it. They enjoy it. I lost that. Sleeping people are the best models.

the coffee table conundrum

2006-10-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

We haven't been able to find the right coffee table. In almost 2 decades together Paula and I have yet to spend a cent on a coffee table. But we always put our feet up on one. Or the facsimile of one. We find them in the garbage, we inherit crappy old ones, we snap up something at a garage sale or substitute chairs with cushions on them or just plain make them out of box crates. Paula has this thing about the perfect affordable coffee table but we've never encountered it yet. One day we'll find it and then we can luxuriantly rest our long legs on something nice. I'm 6' 2" and Paula is 5' 10". We plop in front of the couch a lot. To eat, to talk, to watch DVD's, to fight, and to watch stuff on TV. We like sports and 24 and I like the news. And we get tired legs alot because we've always played a lot of sports. And played hard too. Like all weekend at tournaments.

Flopping somewhere comfortably is a big deal here. Sometimes Paula will see a beautiful dais and drool over it's loveliness. Something really expensive. But she doesn't like to spend lots of money on us in that way. So I'm starting to realize that I'll just have to take charge here and solve this one. You know sometimes a guy has just got to step up to the plate and take a viscious pitch off his ass. He has to be willing to eat some risky tartar sauce and run through a bricked wall on gut instinct. Even though sneers and farts greet your wanting to take the initiative, finally. And battle those little inner voices calling you a pussy for looking at something called a dais, or a chaise lounge. Ok well, none of that really happens to me, I just didn't get that I could get involved in the making it happen part. Just because I can sleep on gravel doesn't mean I can't try to make nice things a little nicer. For us. I guess. So I'm going to hunt down the perfect object to put our feet up on. To rest and relax on. This is my quest. To follow her dream. To wrong the ugliness of endless hours of torture on our makeshift furniture. Then I'll be a hero. And we'll be at peace

she's the one

2006-10-10T10:24:00.001-07:00

Paula is my wife. She's mine. Paula writes. She's an astrologer too. She has so much talent. Eveyone has talent, but Paula is one of those people born with speical talent. My life is very different since I met Paula. I'm much more me. She's my best friend. We're very happy together. We like to be together. I'm inspired by her work. She wrote a novel and it's fantastic. Just so wonderful and poignant. The way she writes is wonderous to me. Her writing voice is so unique and startling in its brilliance.

I discovered something about Paula this weekend that I didn't see that clearly before. About her intelligence and sensitivity. How sensitive she is about what people think about how smart she is. what I think about that. She feels bad sometimes about her thinking. I feel the same way about myself alot. But we're all kind of dumb. So what's the big deal. I think she's very smart. But I don't always act like I do. While I read her book the lyracism of her prose got me crying many times. That and how the story is so sad in many places. We're really excited about her quest to land an agent or find an editor who wants to work with her to sell this book. She's my hero. I love her madly, though sometimes I'm just really mad at her. It's always interesting with Paula.

roshashona at my mom's

2006-10-10T07:18:00.003-07:00

This is the cup I got on my Bar Mitzvah from Rabbi Kellman at the Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue. My mom has it in her china cabinet. She pulls all our little ceremonial cups out on holidays. She distributes them randomly to the guests. They're like party favorites at a birthday. "Hey look what I got, Michael's cup!" (my brother Michael) "This ones filled with his pink ulcerated Crones diseased intestines." Michael internalized our Holocaust Survivor parents miserable grief and guilt to the point of almost killing himself. He still doesn't know how to get angry without wanting to destroy people. So he stays emotionally dead. The wine in my cup looks like the bloody scabbed diarreah of all my rottenest childhood memories, not the sweet concord wine from Israel that I poured in the cup. The liquid hisses as it glistens with pain.

Mom is the best jew. Jenny wins hands down. She has an excellent jew rating. She balances her cheating on all major orthodox values and practices with her wildly extensive jew charilty and jew cultural contributions to the jew community locally and internationally. She's a player. And a keeper of the gate. The one I'm always pissing on. Well that's how she sees it. What with my convert wife. And by default half jew son. My rejection of her extended jew family, her jew community of friends and her racist jew synagogue. And disrespect for her rank. She has a 5 star general ranking tatooed by the Nazi's on her forearm. She has the Auschwitz card, I've got the Joker. My kind of jew life works for me. My new jew wife has a sweet abiding love for jew life and culture. And jews like me. We do lots of jew stuff in our quiet undisciplined way. It's our business how we jew. My mom's judgement is a dark arbiter. We stay away.

on our new couch

2006-10-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

She doesn't ask me to touch her feet. She doesn't ask for massages. She just knows that if she lays her legs across my thighs with her beautful soft skin near my talkative hands I'll touch them. I'll caress her beautiful feet all night. They are beautiful. They're perfect really. And I love to touch them. She's mine. There are many places on her feet that make nice sounds. If I touch them right. I talk to her through those feet. I say, I love you, I love you, I love you and your feet are cute.