urb_banal

I've posted before about my fascination with the ways that any given tool that we use is embedded in and embeds us in a vast and seemingly endless web of interconnected effects. It's not a new idea and certainly not my idea, but there is something exceptionally awesome, in the more traditional sense of the word, about the ways that techne shapes us through and through, body and mind, time and space.

How do we define the boundaries of ourselves if we look at ourselves from this perspective? Is the object an effect of my intention or am I the effect of its form? The notion of the cyborg as Donna Haraway defines it raises just these questions. You don't have to have a machine inside you to be a cyborg; the machines around you shape you, define your landscapes of potential and the horizons of your limitation. The question of "inside" and "outside" becomes a very tricky one in cyborg space.


IF THE ONLY TOOL YOU HAVE IS A HAMMER, EVERY THING BECOMES A NAIL sort of thing?


There is a scene in Battlestar G. when Ellen  comes out of the resurrection goo (or whatever it is called) and there is a sentry all metallic and shiny that when asked to help her out, offers her a deadly hand with precision points.  When she recoils slightly it folds the tips back and offers a more "hand like" hand.

I loved the scene so much! In our rendering we can offer elegance to the machine, can the machine offer compassion in return?

(Humans make judgements faster than any machine ever will and yet we can fall victim to this very capacity when we miss an essential truth no matter how insignificant.  So we try to nail down ALL the facts, as many as possible because we are so good at it.  When we hold fast this accounting and refuse to let go of it, in the face of  realization it can cause un told suffering. It can cost us our lives.  This is never true for a machine.)

Going back to that wonderful scene, that gracious offering of aid to what formerly was a despicable character, (Ellen, she made me shudder with shame) a drunk, a whore, an ambitious clawing harpie,

and on the  other hand  a killing machine,  (whoa!)

it turns into an iconic picture of chivlry, the machine is the knight and the whore is lady, or the machine is the nurse, and whore is new born babe...

There are activities that are profoundly compassionate and beautiful and when released from our definitions of "self and other" we realise them even in our limited locations, our limited definitions of self. 

Met some friends for an amazing AMAZING chocolate croissant (she's from France and could attest to how good it was, "oh that crunch!  this is reminds me home!") from the members lounge.  While they were getting the tour of the install in the Grange building, I read the paper and looked out at cyclist napping on a bench, his bike leaning against the end of it, a cute little terrier playing fetch and squirrels galore in the pretty park that backs the building.  The mystery and imagination of the latest install mentioned in troyswann  's blog.

The Surrealists are at AGO http://www.ago.net/surrealthings and it is a favourite era for me!  I feel I lived a life in Europe during that time, tho perhaps not as an artist. I am swept up by the drama and courage of the art and the humour... politically the era was super charged.  Acts of violence were every day occurrences.  But acts of astounding optimism were also.  Questions of what it meant to be human were rampant and all against the turmoil of aftermath of the first ww. Surrealism was non political and yet disturbing to fascists, and did not serve socialism either.

Miro is still my favorite and I was excited to see he even had some textiles!  Break-throughs in biology and chemistry, understanding of molecular structure and "life" inspired him.  No matter how stupidly humans can behave nature and art always cheer me up!

We got separated and then had to find each other by going to the open Piazza area to call.  I had the surreal experience of Silvie saying, "look up on the balcony, we can see you!"

I even bought a tiny bottle of  Salvador Dali's eau de toilet called "itslove".  I usually hate scent but this is light and wonderful.  I think I will give it to my daughter on her b'day.  The perfumes follow the show.  When it goes, they go too!

A great time, the show is free with general admission and 12.50 on during the free general admin hours.

and that is GREAT!

one of my jobs (for trade) is doing the sandwich board for my old employer... on one side is the upcoming classes and on the other a quote appropriate for the business, it means I spend hours on the web reading quotes but this one made me laugh out loud and so i sent it to G.D. for the next time she sits down at the computer to check her emails:

At age 4 success is not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 success is having friends.
At age 16 success is having a drivers license.
At age 20 success is having sex.
At age 35 success is having money.
At age 50 success is having money.
At age 60 success is having sex.
At age 70 success is having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is having friends.
At age 80 success is not peeing in your pants.

fabricated nude not yet finished

with my recent wieght gain I have been been processing the nude once again, having no other model and all the sexy babes are now, well, OLD (I saw Cindy L. singing "true colours" and I thought, fuck she's like somebody's old eccentric auntie now...heh so am i!)

I meant to have this entirely patch work and no nude at all but all the great medium mixed into this colour that was just so well, fleshy (acryillics are really coming into a nice effect with all the extenders and medium you can mix with them now)...

have to make some decisions next, the part i hate about painting or not, i may never have the time or money for another show anyway.

I had great fun at least.

we got to sit near the front because of G.D.'s walker.


she was straining to smile at this point, feet sore from all the standing around, she graduated "Magnum cumvatae" (spelling)  we just called it "Magnum Come La La"  La La was her nickname as a baby.

Today we celebrate my oldest son turning 26!  o m g  

i would have like to have slept in a bit as i have a day of cooking ahead of me but Diva, princess of the house, demanded her 10 minute brushing followed by canned cat food at her usual time... hey, i live to serve.

So the house is quiet and I have the newspaper to myself. ( I go into my history with the sunday paper... )like so many things the Sunday paper is getting pared down further and further.  the  "Ideas" section is now the "insight" section which as I have said I resent the snobbery, and now the last four invented words as John Sakamoto bows out: 

Excessercize, Elevator circles, Cheerio-magitization, Gradmencement.  No more INvented words?  Come on!

There is an article on whether Shakespear should be translated into english that we can understand.(  It seems that once you bold the type you can not unbold it but gee whiz, !!! )it's like hearing mass in latin, what is the point if we can understand it without a lot of work? 

So I am typing up above this text and then will cut and paste it down there so I don't seem like I am really serious about what i am saying... (no bold and underlined italics) Jenlev types in Word and then pastes it in to livejournal as a way of avoiding losing text in the glitchy ness... but that means taking what I am saying seriously and that would be self affirming and would challenge the persistent depression that is where I live now... 

( I talk about being a caregiver, past and present )

I never thought I would see this day, not because of her, but because so many things were stacked against it!!!!

could a heart be more full than this?  I am standing in a torrent.  I am so lucky. 

We have a garbage strike going on right now so even our composting waste will not be picked up.  I'm not too worried because we compost in our yard composter everything except meat waste and there is not a lot of that because we don't eat a lot of meat...

But I discovered a handy marriage of the bag that holds bag milk and the large square tub that Granny D. buys ice cream in.  The milk bag is just the perfect size to fit in it and has to be thrown out anyway so it makes the best thing for putting in the green compost bin that the city (normally) picks up every week.

Also, this month, here in Toronto there is now a law that stores must charge five cents for every plastic bag offered and while this is not a particular problem as I rarely use them, I have been lining the compost  container with plastic bags.  I think it is a great law but I'm glad to have found a use for a bag I was going to have to throw out.  I am easily pleased, obviously.  I can't tell you how chuffed I am at this! 

I keep the meat compost, which is smelly, in the tub in the bottom of the fridge until the day the garbage gets picked up... I guess if it gets to be too much, the bags will be in the bottom of the deep freezer, until the strike is over that is...

Back bent like a "C"
a caregiver loves the one she cares for.
The river flows only one way.

dusty spaces under stairs...


That was it.  up above this typed line.  I think it was in answer to a question about what places are scary to you or something...

humm.

When you are a really small kid you don't separated fantasy, dreams and experience the way you do as an adult and I have a memory (?) of a dream (?) of hiding under the stairs next to the furnace (which was HUGE in those days) and seeing the high heel shoes through the spaces in the stairs coming down into the basement and being in such utter terror it woke me... but I still hate having to go under the stairs to retrieve xmas decorations and such.  the smell of dry dust and cobwebs and old wood ,  *shudder*

In other pleasant thoughts, going to meet daughter at AGO where I am now a member thanks to her and her boyfriends b'day gift!

( i complain about g.d. for a bit )

it has been a strange and exhausting week...  the strangest day was the day i went for my chiro adj... i am working out a deal that will mean i won't have to pay for adjustments EVER AGAIN...bwah ha ha... but i was in that fuzzy area that goes like this:

okay, so i have been in pain for a while now but i don't think i have a migraine so if i just don't move my eye balls i'll be fine it won't happen

and this means i am entering the TWILIGHT ZONE of brain thingies when i start to lose any and all ability to cess out WTF is going on and whether i am talking TOO LOUD or is it everybody else AND MY OWN VOICE SOUNDS TO ME LIKE A FIRE ENGINE SO I TRY NOT TO SOUND SO URGENT AND WIERD BUT PERHAPS I AM now whispering...

so i'm on the subway and there is a large ImMACULATELY COIfFURED woman with the LONG FANCY FINGERNAILS and the fake designer purse and adjacent to her a smallish man with too much gold shiney jewelery and she is talking LOUD (note i can't say for sure) and she is saying,

'SO SHE IS CHANGING HER NAME TO "REASON" FROM ALADENISHA, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?  'REASON?'  I DID NOT SMACK THAT GIRL ENOUGH, I SHOULD JUST SMACK HER; THAT SPOILED LITTLE BITCH, HA HA HA"  so the skinney smallish man is just sort of pretending that he is not part of the conversation so she slaps him on the thigh and laughs. 

In the state i was in i was unable to extrapolate the possibility that this was some sort of S&M role playing performance art or whatnot and instead i sat there fighting off the tears.  I had my sunglasses on which probably made me
look like the past her prime and no longer caring if she looks crazy, lady, so she wears sunglasses on the subway and looks at everyone like they are out to kill her...which is pretty much how it goes for me...but then she LOOKS RIGHT ATE ME AND SAYS,

"I SHOULD SLAP THAT SPOILED LITTLE BITCH SILLY." 

And I thought to myself, "I am so glad I am in so much pain I can't take her on right now."  So instead I just weeped a few tears for "Reason" behind my glasses and the told myself that the woman was not really telling us all she beat her daughter and thought it was funny, she just thought she was being funny and engaging and expressing in a very flamboyant way the usual frustrations of raising a bright teenage girl....so i could stop crying and forget about her.

Just a few days later i'm in a popular American chain restaurant "where family happens" with extended family (go figure) and i am laughing my head off about torture
so there you have it.  We are funnier. Our jokes are about torture not child abuse.

what i'm doing this Sunday!