Category Archives: Writing

Written articles with accompanying cartoon about various & sundry items of interest, ranging from philosophical & environmental issues to pure entertainment ‘value’.

Battle of the Space Hogs – A Not So Fictional Rant

Posted on by
4

January 13, 2014
Air Canada Flight 1183, with service to Toronto

Ah, there it was.  Row 14.   Middle row, aisle seat.  I parked myself comfortably.  Middle seat empty. Sweet!  Spared a short glance to my left at my row-mate.  Blonde lady.  Lots of stuff.  Should’ve been a sign.

While waiting for take off I amused myself with the usual accoutrements of Canadian air travel.  Flipped through En Route.  Looked at the laminated safety card.  Wondered where, exactly, does the yellow oxygen mask come from.  Surreptitiously studied the distance between me and the bathroom as well as the baby-yelling radius.  Looked at the safety card again.

“Hello?”

“Why, helloooooo!   How are you?  Yes I am fine.  Just sitting on the plane on the way to Toronto.”

Startled, the safety card fell out of my grasp and I looked over at blondie.  Who was chatting on her cell phone.  Loudly.

“Yes I know!  No business class for me this time.  I suppose it can’t be helped.”

I snorted and stuffed the safety card into the seat, having come to an immediate and unfavourable opinion about my new row-mate. Clearly it was important that we all learn she was an economy class newbie.

The engines thankfully rumbled, and shortly thereafter we were airborne.  Ah, modern flying.  A technological marvel, yet catalyst for air rage borne of claustrophobia, strong drinks, and seat design that pushes one’s head forward like a bulldog.  And, as I was to learn, catalyst for its lesser known yet highly irritating cousin, seat weaseling.

The steward came by.  “Globe?”  “Post?”

I declined, blondie didn’t.  Well, that’s nice she reads the paper, good for her I thought.  I followed my thoughts aimlessly and had almost drifted off when suddenly, with a great big rustle, the Arts & Life Section was tossed onto the middle seat.  This was shortly followed by Sports.  Investing.  And then, Business.  Suddenly I was annoyed – her little paper hobby was taking up the whole of “our” shared seat!  And I had not yet heard a query of polite entreaty – i.e. would you mind if I put my paper here?

Now, I wouldn’t minded so much had I been asked, but there is a most curious thing that happens when one isn’t.  This is known as the thin line between being graciously magnanimous (Why, of course not, please go right ahead – I don’t at all mind.  Oh, would you like a mint?) to being a ferocious and highly territorial shrew (Well!  Will you just look at what she did!  Took up the whole seat with na’ary a do you mind!  The gall!  And she has bad hair.)

I glared at the discarded paper in hopes that it would catch on fire.  The paper lay there blandly, mocking me with its passivity.  When nothing further happened, I sighed and picked up my book, telling myself I was being silly.  It was, after all, just a newspaper.  And it’s not like I needed the seat. I yawned, stretched, and began reading.

Hark, what was that?  Rats.  It was the sound of my bladder.  I could never refuse its clarion call.  I sighed and got up to travel the 37 rows to the bathroom at the back.

When I returned, just a few minutes later, I made the unpleasant discovery that blondie had seized the opportunity to annex the middle seat in its entirety.  The paper had been joined by a large plastic dossier, and insult of insults, an empty Starbucks coffee cup was indolently lolling about, spilling bits of coffee perilously close to my coat!   She couldn’t have staked her intentions more clearly unless she had peed on the seat.  My inner shrew roared!  It was time for affirmative action.

Think, think!  Saying something almost always backfires and I still had hours to go with this lady… what could I do?  Desperate, I reached down and grabbed my plastic lunch bag, and then spent several minutes erecting a barrier between me and the Starbucks coffee cup.  I fluffed out the bag to make it big like a badass poodle, and pushed some of her paper out of the way.  There.  That should do the trick.  I sat back, satisfied that my message was received loud and clear.  My new barricade should prevent any further annexing.

Yellow immediately flashed in the corner of my vision.  What was this?  I glanced up in time to witness a banana peel being tossed onto the seat!  This was war!  I ferociously rustled my barricade like a sabre, glaring at the peel and hissing.  A few minutes later she took the peel and put it into the cup.  I relaxed and stopped hissing.  She then tossed the cup back on the pile.  I tensed, but then eventually relaxed again.  A small victory I suppose.

The flight continued and I thought that was the end of it.  I had peacefully gotten into my book and had been reading for about an hour when I noticed some activity down near my left armrest.  There was a hand scrabbling about!  What the?  I looked over and noticed she had problems with her headphones so was trying out the middle seat armrest.. again without a comment, a question as to whether I would mind or possibly need it.. and then she cheekily also used the middle monitor and her own.  I started laughing – here was this lady, who was using two monitors, two headsets, three armrests, and had commandeered the middle seat for her garbage.

Heck, if this wasn’t business class travel, I don’t know what is.  Well played, blondie.

Voices Anthology published –

Posted on by
4

Pleased to announce the Toronto Writer’s Cooperative has its annual Anthology published on Kindle!  I have a few illustrations in there for John Warren‘s fabulous poem Standing Still Sun.  He’s kindly given me permission to post the entirety of the poem below – enjoy – 🙂

Standing Still Sun – by John Warren

Solstice1In ancient times, in ancient minds
They kept the watch from towers high.
Upon the floor the sky signs lay
To trace the sun’s path by day.
A moving blade of illumination
Was observed by magi in anticipation.
The time of the Mystics,
The time of the Magicks,
The time when the sun stands still.Solstice2

Where the Danu of the North Isles dwelt
Before the Druids, and before the Celt,
Seen in half buried remainders
Of dark, abandoned, old stone chambers
A shaft of light appears that day
Towards a point it makes its way.
The time of the Mystics,
The time of the Magicks,
The time when the sun stands still.Solstice3

In North and South the vigil’s kept,
The fires lit, the rituals met,
The offerings lay upon the stones
And all stand waiting, by hearth ‘n homes.
Will there come the lengthening days
Or darkness swallows the sun’s rays?
The time of the Mystics,
The time of the Magicks,
The time when the sun stands still.Solstice4

It is upon us, the time is now
When time exists not at all.
The point of light has come to rest
Upon a space mysterious.
Between two points brought into fusion
Where the spiral draws its conclusion.

The time of the Mystics,
The time of the Magicks,
The time when the sun stands still.
Where life joins death and east meets west,
When black is white and day is night,
Where good and evil cease upheaval,
When time and space give up their place.
And all that is, and ever shall be
Is yours to become if you could but see.

The time of the Mystics,
The time of the Magicks,
The time when the sun stands still.
Solstice5

~The Fall~

Posted on by
8

Ellerey was puzzled.  For weeks there had been strangeness afoot.  The air, normally flush with birdsong, was preternaturally quiet and there was a new coolness that felt unpleasant.

Ellerey shivered and looked at his comrades.  There was Lizabetha, aflutter in her usual grapevine gossip. And stalwart Tom, one of the biggest and briskest of the bunch, stiff and resplendent in his cloak of olive green.  And who could forget little Henrietta, the newest addition to the cluster, fresh and fie in her verdant spring colours.  Ellerey himself was proud of his beauty.  Even in this grey light his coat remained bright and clear as an emerald.

He contemplated their shared origins, the many moonless nights of rustling four-footed beings padding away in the dark.  The ululating shadows of winged creatures passing overhead. The gusts and groans of the wind, which would set them aquiver as they murmured and thrilled to its passage.  The heavy splashes of water, which would move and caress them lovingly.  Morning would always find them refreshed and wide-open with possibility, dappling the world with potential.

But that was then.  Lately things seemed – different – and that made Ellerey nervous.  He wondered if the others had the same foreboding, or perhaps he was simply jangly from too many late nights gossiping with Lizabetha.  Thinking back, the change had begun when he noticed the neighbouring colony wearing insipid yellow, and in some cases, faint orange.  Even now, as he peered across, he could see red spots crawling like crabs in their midst.

He shuddered and glanced over at Tom.  He froze. Surely..  Surely! that was not yellow he could see threading its way through Tom’s olive cloak?  As Ellerey stared, Tom stretched out, halting in disbelief as he beheld the traitorous yellow worming its way throughout him.  Their eyes met, uncertainty and shock reverberating sharp, guitar twang.  Lisabetha’s constant chatter stumbled – all were still, breathless as they looked at Tom.  A scream tore out as Henrietta crumpled, gibbering in fear.  Blood slowed, pumped thick, heavy through Ellerey’s veins.  Clotting.

And then it happened. Suddenly, gloriously, Lizabetha rose to her full height and posed, trembling, outstretched, exposed.  Ellerey could now see that her luxurious coat was marred with a red creeping flush, spreading wide.  Dying sun fade.  They gasped, and with a sudden sharp snap, Lisabetha was gone, spiraling down, gone.  Gone.  Tom howled and with an anguished lurch broke free, pinwheeling, tumbling after her.  Ellery could hear Herrietta crying, small bits of jagged pain.   He closed his eyes and gathered his cloak about him.  Opening his eyes, he knew what he would see.  The telltale signs had started.  The yellow had taken hold.

Gazing at Henrietta, he calmly and slowly unfurled.  Gathering her to him, they leapt from the only world they had ever known, and falling endlessly, coming at last to rest, and be, no more.

**

Jeremy stared glumly out the window.  He had just raked the yard last week, and thanks to last night’s cold spell, today it looked as though he hadn’t done a thing.  He could already hear Mildred squawking and nagging at him as he heard her key – tchk! tchk! – in the lock.  As he looked, two small leaves came fluttering down to land on top of a growing pile, adding further insult to injury. Jeremy sighed, and got up to get the rake.

I am Sock Monkey

Posted on by
4

I am Sock Monkey

-by sock monkey

sm2I was somebody once.  I had it all.  I was revered, honoured, top of the pile of a little girl’s toy box.  King Shit of Turd Mountain, so to speak.  Now here I lie – cast aside – but a pale wool shadow of my former munificence, an insipid ragtime reminder of days long gone.

I used to command thousands – sure-footed armies of shiny plastic soldiers, swarming hordes of red monkeys, block-headed lego warriors with painted smiles.  I created and destroyed empires, and the gods themselves trembled at my passage.  But slow, slow – that insidious worm!  That ostrogoth – that vile creature – wormed his way into my kingdom – my council – my trust.  I saw the danger, but too late!  Too late.

Forsooth.

I had been usurped, replaced!  By a roundfooted pink silliness of an affair, a long-lashed equine with the soul of a devil.  This, this “My Little Pony” pranced – nay, frolicked – into my affections.  Round hoofs, long lustrous mane, irritating nasally voice – I was bewitched!  Oh I should have known.  What evil resides in the hearts of horses.

mlpWhen my kingdom, my love, my little girl – when her eyes grew large in his presence and dulled in mine, I should have known!  When she would groom and braid his hydrocarbon mane and yet callously toss me on the odious spin cycle – I should have known!  When she used bits of my innards to make him a bed, I should have known!

Yes.. now you understand what it is that lies before you..  My name is Sockymandius, King of Kings…   and whoever said “A horse!  A horse!  My Kingdom for a horse!” was a blithering idiot.

-fin-

P.S.  This may have been a creative writing assignment that has loosed itself onto my blog.. Simon & Finn will return a little later :).  And, for some fun reading, look up the word brony…

Plato’s Beard and the Pegasus-Idea

Posted on by
2

Hey guys! I think I see Pegasus!

“On What There Is“, a brain-twisting piece by philosopher Willard Quine (1948), opines that when we say something doesn’t exist – for example Pegasus – this is not necessarily true.  This is because Pegasus must exist in some manner for us to even be able to take sides on its existential dilemma, poor thing.  That is, the material, breathing, hoof & wing Pegasus is not akin to the idea-Pegasus in our minds – and it this latter which offers us a common ground, an agreed semantic framework for discourse whose existence cannot be denied (that’s right, Pegasus will not be denied! Neigh!).

Quine happily explores the particulars of this ontological – or perhaps more appropriately semantic – puzzle by assuming various approaches to correctly expressing Pegasus’s material quandary.  For example, instead of saying Pegasus doesn’t exist, we could instead say: “Pegasus does not have the specialized attribute of actuality”.  Or, more succinctly, “Pegasus is an unactualized possible”. And by so doing, we multiply the number of potential Pegasi available to us all in the name of philosophical precision.  This “slum of the possibles” as Quine so puts it, is quite the breeding ground for disorderly elements, as it means a litany of existence-caveats would litter every avenue of discourse.

Going even further along his merry way, Quine indicates yet another approach may involve treating the noun Pegasus as a derivative, and instead have this be identified as “the thing that is-Pegasus” or even “the thing that pegasizes”.  Even Pegasus had to snort somewhat at the latter with its french conjugation overtones, as it’s a matter of time before nous pegasons is understood to mean collective flights of philosophical fancy.

P.S. This ontological ride has some origins in the Sophist, where Plato introduces the idea that what “is not” – in some sense – still “is”.  To wit, Quine nicknames this ontological puzzle Plato’s Beard, seeing as it’s been dulling Occam’s razor for centuries.

 

Simon & Finn in The Georgia Straight!

Posted on by
3

This week’s Simon & Finn is brought to you courtesy of The Georgia Strait. The accompanying article focuses on a rogue geoengineering experiment on Canada’s west coast, as reported by the UK Guardian this week.

The original article and cartoon can be accessed here.

Oilin’ the machine: Pipelines, politics & 1984

Posted on by
3

Where there’s a will, there’s a way..

In recent Canadian environmental news, one can’t help but notice a slight thread of subversive strategy and a smattering of the authoritarianism so brilliantly parodied in Orwell’s dystopian book 1984.

Below are three brief parallels for your consideration:

1. Doppelgänger Ministries

1984:  In the book 1984, the totalitarian ministries which govern the fictional land of Oceania could be considered doppelgängers, as they are are paradoxically named and represent the dark double of their namesakes.  For example, the Ministry of Love is largely responsible for the practice and infliction of misery, fear, and torture.  The Ministry of Truth, similarly, is the ministry responsible for propaganda and rewriting history to this effect.

Canada: In January, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver publicly equated Canadian environmental organizations to extreme radical groups, using further descriptive words as in “hijack”, “exploit”, “kill”, “undermine” in his open letter.  The letter’s main message is that processes that delay rapid resource development and exploitation (that is, the environmental assessment processes that would normally accompany oil pipeline development) are now an urgent matter of Canada’s national interest.

“National interest”…now there’s some fightin’ words.

Last I remember, Natural Resources Canada’s mandate included the words “enhance the responsible” development and use of Canada’s natural resources, but I must have been trumped up the verbs.  “Enforce the rapid” is more fitting.

2. The creative use of language to subvert public discourse

1984: In the book 1984, an individual’s use of doublethink is encouraged.  Doublethink enables one to believe that two contradictory ideas are both correct, i.e. to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient and yet to recall it again when required, etc.

Canada:  The platform Ethical Oil, brainchild of Ezra Levant, basically posits that Canadian tar sands oil – because it comes from a country that “respects the rights of women, workers, indigenous peoples and other minorities including gays and lesbians” – is more ethical than oil produced in conflict areas such as Nigeria, Iran, etc. and therefore should be considered a preferred energy source.  This bizarre platform has diverted debate about the environmental impacts of Canada’s oil sands extraction and transportation into a completely different arena, with “ethical oil” on one side and so-called “conflict oil” on the other.

But basically, as detractors say, this is a red herring as there is no such thing as ethical oil.  Like most fossil-based energy sources, all oil has its problems, and tar sands oil in particular.  By promulgating tar sands oil as ethical by nature of Canada’s human rights record, Ethical Oil is doing its very best to ensure we sidestep the real issue at hand, which is the significant environmental degradation associated with extracting and transporting tar sands oil.

Interestingly, it seems that Ethical Oil – while ostensibly a grassroots organization – has some convoluted ties that involve not only Sun Media but also the PMO, and moreover happily embarrasses itself on national television to avoid directly answering who funds its activities.

3.  Down with dissent

1984:  In this book, society is presided over by Big Brother who keeps a gimlet eye on all the doings and sayings of Orwellian society.  In such a land, talk is muted and dissent intolerated, to the point where ‘suspicious persons’ simply disappear into the bowels of the Ministry of Love, ne’er to be seen again.

Canada: Recently Canadian charities have come under increased scrutiny by the federal government to assess whether they are spending over 10% of their budget on advocacy based political activity.  Under Canadian law, organizations that exceed this allocation stand to lose their charitable status.

The possible result?  That charities run scared and pull back funding for research and other initiatives that might indicate dissenting viewpoint to government positions… for example, initiatives that would otherwise be exploring alternatives to the the rapid development of oil pipelines.

As charities are often major contributors to environmental organizations and initiatives, there are some that say this increased scrutiny is actually a strategic effort to muzzle the depth of environmental debate in Canada.

So there you have it.  A few ideas, for starters.  Agree?  Disagree?  Other ideas?

The immortal jellyfish, David Wilcox, and glow-in-the-dark cats

Posted on by
3

Source: BBC Nature

So there’s this jellyfish.  It’s tiny.  It’s global.  And it’s immortal.

You scoff but it’s true!  There’s this miniscule jellyfish that has supped from the fountain of youth and mocks us with its knowledge with its beady little.. um.. tentacles.  This jellyfish – or Turritopsis nutricula in elite circles – essentially grows to adulthood, decides it’s time for a change, and then converts all its cells to become a little jellyfish baby again – or a “blob-like cyst”.  Discovering it doesn’t like being a blob, it grows back to an adult again, and, evidently not liking the responsibilities of that, shrinks back to a polyp, and so on and so forth (I’m sure the whole time humming along to this sweet tune).

For this species, the process of converting cells, or transdifferentiation, means that the cells can be converted from specialized muscle cells (for example) back to nerve cells or even to inaugural sperm and eggs.  Essentially the jellyfish can convert its mature cells back into a younger state and vice-versa.  In theory this cycle can loop forever, which means that biological immortality does in fact exist here on Earth… as well as perpetual biological indecision.

And I thought I had trouble growing up.  🙂

P.S. On a tangential note, recently scientists have inserted jellyfish genes into cats as part of research into Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (and ultimately, HIV).  As these genes make fluorescent proteins, this has the effect of actually making the cats glow in the dark and the result is visible with the naked eye.

While the aims of the related research are incredibly promising, there’s something really strange about making green cats, don’t you think?

The mostly harmless Higgs boson (or so long, and thanks for all the fonts)

Posted on by
4

“Ah I love this time of day, when the particles and waves hit me just right…”

It’s been an electrifying week for particle physics, what with the seeming discovery of the Higgs boson, otherwise known as the “God particle”.  The existence of this unassuming little sub-atomic particle was first conceived of in the 1970s, but only very recently have physicists found tangible evidence that it exists through the use of the gigantic CERN Large Hadron Collider.

Now, there’s lots of information out there clarifying what the Higgs boson is all about, and why it matters, but suffice it to say (for this light-hearted post) that H-B and its mechanisms is believed responsible for conferring mass to all matter, which equates to all the mass in the universe.  At 1052 to 1053 kg, that’s heavy stuff for a little boson!

Also trending though, is the fact that the physicists announced the discovery of the God particle using Comic Sans font in their Powerpoint presentation, to the chagrin and ridicule of aesthetes the world over and causing a cosmic firestorm on Twitter (i.e. “few people know that the original set of tablets were smashed not because of the golden calf, but because they were in Comic Sans” @spiritofMoses).

It’s a pretty quarky – yet funny – world when one of the biggest scientific discoveries in the last fifty years is vying with font type for attention.  Sigh… if only Douglas Adams were still around, he would have had a field day with this one!

P.S. Why is Higgs boson called the God particle you ask?  This title was apparently popularized by a book on particle physics: The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?.  The author indicated he chose the name because “the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing”.

Part II: Flow, meaning, and a state of grace

Posted on by
10

Woah!! Whaddaya mean you’re not clear on the plot line?

Earlier this month, this blog posted on the idea of optimal experience in life, a state of mind that some have referred to as flow. The concept refers to those times when one is completely absorbed in the moment, whether that occurs when scaling a mountain, drawing a picture, or figuring out an Excel formula (=SUM(no_way!)).

Now, probably the most comprehensive and shared flow experiences occur during childhood, as during play we are completely immersed in the moment and that moment becomes our whole reality.  I mean, what kid is thinking about past or future homework when being chased by a rabid sibling channeling Cujo?

The researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi has taken quite an interest in this subject, and his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is a fine read for those wanting to know more.  This post however, concerns itself less with the entirety of the book as opposed to the ending sections, where Csíkszentmihályi touches on the intriguing thought of having an overall architecture or purpose that extends over one’s lifetime.  He argues that the potential for quality moments expand when we identify a consistent purpose to our time here, whatever that purpose may be.

To give a tangible example, in 2005 a documentary was released called “The Real Dirt on Farmer John“.  The great thing about this doc was that the filmmaker (at first by accident and increasingly on purpose) had captured nearly thirty years of footage on his friend John Peterson, an eccentric individual with a single-minded conviction to be a successful farmer.  The film – shot in formats ranging from home video to Super 8 – thus affords a rare vantage point of seeing a story arc unfold over the course of one lifetime.  And because this particular person had a particular purpose he kept coming back to, we could see in technicolour hindsight the multitude of actions, good and bad, light and dark, that contributed to his overall life’s meaning (whether he realized it at the time or not).  And thus, through the highs and lows and the wins and the losses, Farmer John’s life was rich in quality and he lived in a greater state of flow.

In the longer term, defining purpose, whether it’s for part of one’s life or the whole of it, in essence allows us to bootstrap many of our supposed incidental moments.  And these moments, given enough time and knit into a coherent whole, can thereby make up much more than the sum of their parts… much like the coloured bits of glass that, stepping back, make up the stained glass window of our lives.

P.S.  Another take on this phenomena was recently covered by Colby Cosh in his sophisticated piece Artisan chocolate and social revolution, where he muses on the future of work in the context of hipster chocolate and strangely long beards.  Although Cosh’s piece is primarily focused on the revival of artisan goods and craftsmanship as a counter to mass mechanization, i.e. “You had better be prepared to be a distinct individual, to treat your particular line of work as a craft rather than a job, to seek out the style or the method or the niche that no one else is in; nobody’s going to need you to knock out pyramid-style copy on deadline or take trite photos from accident scenes…“, one could argue a byproduct of mastering a craft is actually increased opportunities for a flow state.  Why?  Because mastery of anything fulfills several preconditions for flow (i.e. energized focus, deep involvement, clear goals, etc.).  Given that craftsmanship can take a lifetime to master, this sets up a solid framework for a richly fulfilling occupation… gathering Paradise, so to speak.