Splash du Jour: Wednesday

I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system.
Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.
-- Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary --

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

I’m a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me because of the image they’ve made of me – and that I’ve made of myself as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whisper, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman’s and I can’t live up to it.
-- Marilyn Monroe, c.1962 --

Have a great Tuesday!

The Epitome of Sarcasm...

Well, as my faithful readers know, I really love great music.
If you had asked me yesterday if any musical group could ever rival Pink Floyd in my estimation of musical perfection I would have said, “No way, Jose!”
But tonight I think I have found a new favorite group.
Pink Floyd Pink SHMOYD!
These guys are incredible. I think they are all one family. Incredible musicians, really. Meaningful, touching lyrics. The keyboardist alone is simply amazing.
And the bass solo. Roger Waters eat your heart out!
My God, I nearly started crying.
Check them out for yourself.

Oh, to touch the hem of their garment!

Like me, you will be running to the nearest HMV to nab their new CD!

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Splash du Jour: Monday

This above all — to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
-- Hamlet Act I, scene iii --

Have a great Monday!

On The Unpredictable Merits of Overpacking

A few weeks ago I listened to a CBC radio interview with novelist Sandra Gulland [author of the Josephine B. trilogy et al] and one of the final questions was, “What do you fear?”
I will never forget her answer → “I fear being trapped in an elevator – without a book.”
I thought that last part was so neat. Trapped in an elevator is bad enough. But eegads! Without a book?
No kidding! I would much rather be shot!
Trapped anywhere without reading material would be dreadful.
[Fast forward to the events of today!]
I have been ALL DAY at airports and/or in airplanes.
Trying to get home after my holidays!
I started in Saskatoon, everything seemed to be going well. I arrived for the first leg of my journey at 10:30 in the morning and my flight was right on time. We boarded, and then sat on the tarmac for a hundred years. The pilot announced that the Toronto airport was shut down and hence, we returned to the gate. We had been on the runway, ready for take-off! We de-planed, a herd of grumbling cattle.
Hours and hours and hours passed, during which I consumed the world’s most expensive roast beef and provolone sandwich, purchased from the little kiosk in the terminal.
Also, I finished reading the old children’s classic The Enchanted Castle, by E. Nesbit.

Here is where the entire concept of forethought and overpacking come in, folks!
A true booklover always exaggerates his or her possibilities. Always presupposes Murphy’s Law is going to kick in somewhere! And today I am so thankful I was positively exaggerant. Because see, I packed along an extra book, in my carry-on luggage. This one, shown in the photo above [I am writing this from the Starbucks in the Toronto airport] July, July – by Tim O’Brien.
And I am so thankful because I have just been told that my connector flight to Ottawa is not going to leave until one o'clock a.m.
I will have spent an entire day in transitory limbo!
See, friends?
ALWAYS pack that extra book!

Now, admittedly, let’s say I had not had the appropriate forethought today… of course, I could just go to one of the many bookstores here in the airport and purchase a brand new one!
However, if the price of airport sandwiches is proportional to the cost of airport books, any new book around here is liable to cost a cool hundred smackers!
And financially speaking, I am a poor man.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some reading to do. Plus, I am about to tie into my second ten-dollar sandwich of the day, this time a roast turkey / provolone.
Oops.
I spoke too soon.
An announcement just played overhead. All flights to Ottawa for the entire night are fully cancelled altogether.
I am absolutely stranded here.
Wow!
Anyone in the Toronto vicinity able to take me in for the night?
[As you can see in the photo below, I am a very low-maintenance sleeper!]
Dammit!
Some things…. no matter how well you overpack, are just insurmountably bad.

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Visions of Sugarplums...

I had no idea I was ever this cute!
I had inklings, but no real concrete evidence, until now.
Yes folks, these photos are of ME!
Me me me me me! Look at how cute I am. Was.
With my family, Christmas is a time when many old photo albums come off the shelf and are casually flipped through as we chatter and eat [more than we should] and drink coffee or egg nog. This afternoon, as I was leafing through an album or two, I happened upon these old old photos of yours truly here!
Wow, what a somewhat half-decently cute kid I was. I had entirely forgotten!
In that first photo I am obviously dreaming of sugarplums. Or maybe a new BMX-bike, or something.
In this other one [below] I am casually sitting out in our back yard on Argyle Street.
As you can see, in neither instance did I seem to have any qualms about upper-nudity!
So long ago… so long ago…

Wishing you all a very very Merry Christmas!
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Splash du Jour: Thursday

When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness.
-- Bob Hope –

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!
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Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart -- filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. 

-- Bess Streeter Aldrich (1881-1954) --

Have a great Wednesday!
-- CLICK –
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Effigy

“Your people got any wolf stories?”

-- Erastus Hammer –
Effigy, by Alissa York.
← Believe it or not, a real wolf and an imaginary crow figure prominently in the impressive array of essential characters in this novel. Not that it is lacking in plot, but clearly, it is more of a character-driven, imagistic work. Richly poetic, or as I have previously described it, lyrical.
I love this book, present-tense. I read its final page last night, but the story stays with me, a reverberating echo.
Erastus Hammer is a four-wived Mormon horse-rancher in 1860’s Utah. Because of his failing eyesight he is forced to pursue his greatest passion [the shooting of animals] by relying on his Native American guide, Tracker. Erastus claims the spoils, but Tracker fires the shots.
Erastus selected his fourth wife, Dorrie, specifically for her unique talents at taxidermy. She faithfully “resurrects” all of the carcasses deposited at her workshop, but seems to be having an unusually difficult time bringing a certain wolf pack to life.
There is so much I could say about the diversity of Hammer’s four wives. Of the way the title of the book relates to its content. Of the guilt and longing in the heart of Tracker. Of the winding way that “Bendy” Drown becomes a farmhand on the ranch, or how he becomes the agent whereby Dorrie herself is resurrected. Of the foreboding terror a vengeful wolf wreaks upon the household as he howls at night, stalking the perimeter of the homestead. Of the rich way the author reveals the horror of the [real-life] Mountain Meadow Massacre, which took place in 1857 when a wagon train from Arkansas en route to California was ambushed. Dorrie survived this horror, as she will survive the dreadfulness of being Erastus Hammer’s wife. Instead of providing synopsis, I would point you towards the book itself and encourage you to pick it up.

The beauty of Effigy involves the intricacy of the threadwork. Grimness delivered with grace. Through letters, flashbacks, dreams, insights into the hypocrisy of religious devotion gone awry, and ever-eloquent narration, Alissa York has provided me with one of my favorite reads of 2008.
Effigy is a wonderful patchwork-quilt of a novel. Eerie, ominous, riveting and intricate. Searing in the end, and delicious [albeit bittersweet] in revenge and reward.
The author has said, "I want people to really feel a lot. It's not my goal to just make people think. I want them to think, but I want them, more than anything, to feel."
Here in Effigy, she succeeds at both things.

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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Once again we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.
-- Dave Barry --

Have a great Tuesday!
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Best Hunting Video EVER!

Relax!
Relax, animal lovers everywhere! I am an animal lover, too!
The only way I would ever shoot an animal is if it was going to shoot me first, and even then I would first try negotiating. This video is good, trust me!
I am thinking about hunting for several reasons.
Firstly, I am currently in frozen-frosty Saskatchewan, on my Christmas holidays. This is hunting country. It is so cold out today [minus 51 degrees Celsius, which is way colder than Fahrenheit, my Yankee friends] and I am thinking of all the animals that are left outside today.
Secondly, I am visiting my brother and he is, [among having other severe character flaws] guilty of being a prolific hunter. Shame on him! [However, I myself have been guilty of eating the odd venison-burger freshly sizzling from off his barbecue, mmm…. yummy. I hereby apologize to all deers currently freezing their keesters off this afternoon!]
Thirdly, I am still reading this wonderful book by Alissa York, called Effigy. And the pages of Effigy are filled with accounts of animals being killed simply for the sake of taxidermy.
So, without further ado, I present to you a really great video, in which NO MAJESTIC ANIMALS WERE HARMED.
And wherein one severely frustrated hunter was….. severely frustrated.
See, here’s the deal -- well, just watch the thing while I keep blabbing….



See, this hunter only has a tag for a buck. And this is a cow.
For those of you who are really hunter-lingo-challenged I am not referring to money matters or the producers of cereal milk. No. → This hunter is only allowed to brutally murder a male moose, and by golly here’s a girl moose calmly getting so close to his weapon of mass destruction that he could have reached out and tweaked her nose!
So, due to legal restrictions Mrs. Bullwinkle lives for another day! Hurray!
But, too bad she has to live outside! ‘Specially on a day like today!

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Here We Are Now: A Saturday Poem

Here We Are Now

How can I sleep, leaving so much unread.
Notice, it’s not a question.
How can I leave here with so much unwritten.
Again, no one asking.

Why should I climb aboard a train I bought no
ticket for, clacking toward a stop I want not.
I like when my chest goes up, from the down.
No desire to leave it there, flat.

Porter, tell someone else this is their stop.
Or another, “Here we are now.”
I’m nowhere near done. In fact, I do not
remember agreeing to a single –

You know what? [first question] I can carry
that, if this is my damn stop. Already
the trees that flew past my window for days
are missed missed missed. I would climb them.

Would. Wood. What I desire. And trees.
I recall a lifetime of such speculation, but
God, these bags are filled with gravity.
And [second question] how far am I to drag them?

There were as many books before you were born.
Yes, but don’t tell me that, not now. And as much
unwritten – oh please, no more questions.
Notice, no one was asking one.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

“I will love you forever,” swears the poet.
I find this easy to swear. “I will love you at 4:15 p.m. next Tuesday”: Is that still as easy?
-- W.H. Auden, 1959 –

Have a great Friday!
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Splash du Jour: Thursday

Not all chemicals are bad.
Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.
-- Dave Barry --

Have a great Thursday!
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Splash du Jour: Wednesday

One day one of my little nephews came up to me and asked me if the equator was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one.
I had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn't know, and I thought that maybe by laughing he would forget what he asked me.
-- Jack Handey --

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Pullman

His dark materials, indeed.
Here is a man that set something ablaze in me.
I read the first one with a graduated belief, and
by volume two, was longing for my own daemon.
My cat yawned as I took a knife from the drawer
and began fencing with reality.

Around a year ago, my pillow was Iorek’s neck.
I never did cut holes in what is, but dust to Dust,
a year ago I entered a world.
Last year a world entered me.

-- Cipriano --

Have a great Tuesday!
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Discovery...

← Alissa York.
It’s probably one of the most self-centered of things we say, “I’ve discovered a great new author.”
A) The author is probably not as “new” as you think he or she is.
B) They had a perfectly valid existence prior to your “discovering” them.

But it’s understandable though. When we stumble across the work of an author we have not read before, we feel as though we have “discovered” them. As though, prior to this momentous occasion, they were some sort of being-less entity.
So we pick up their book at the store, and something stirs us, to take it home.
It’s probably closer to the truth to say that they have discovered us. Or rather, their work has found us.
I am only a hundred pages in, but Effigy is proving to be one of those rare finds, one of those books that “discover” you. An exquisite, lyrical, layered treasure.
You wish the rest of the world would just shut the hell down and let you read……

Synopsis:

Dorrie, a pale girl with a mass of black hair, cannot recall anything of her life before she recovered from an illness at the age of seven. A solitary child, she dedicates herself to learning the art of taxidermy, fascinated by the act of bringing new and eternal life to the bodies of the dead. At fourteen, her parents marry her off to Erastus Hammer, a polygamous horse rancher and renowned hunter, whose desire to see his kills preserved is made urgent by the fact that he is slowly going blind. Dorrie secludes herself in her workshop, away from the rivalries among the elder wives.
As the novel opens, Hammer has brought Dorrie his latest kills, a family of wolves, and for the first time in her short life she struggles with her craft, dreaming each night of crows and strange scenes of violence. The new ranch hand, Bendy Drown, is the only one to see her dilemma and offer her help, a dangerous game in a Mormon household. Outside, a lone wolf prowls the grounds looking for his lost pack, and his nocturnal searching will unearth the tensions and secrets of this complicated and conflicted family.

[The above synopsis lifted from the author’s homepage.]
Visit Alissa York → HERE.
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Splash du Jour: Monday

I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.
-- Jack Handey –


Have a great Monday!
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Squirrel: A Saturday Poem

Squirrel

Oh, so humiliating, to be reduced
To such – such irreducibility.
To have this one, accentuating feature
so – so – accentuated.

I try to hide it, yet can’t.
It’s there. It’s there, I must admit.
Confounded bushiness,
how I despise thee.

I’d prefer “puff-cheeked,”
“buck-toothed,” or “talon-footed.”
But no. The accursed appendage
shall surely chase me graveward.

Would it help you, dear rodent?
I promise you, I swear.
I shall never once, when referring to you
use the term, “bushy-tailed.”

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

Two bored male casino dealers are waiting at the craps table. A very attractive woman arrives and bets $20,000 on a single roll of the dice.
She says, “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I’m completely nude.”
With that, she strips down, rolls the dice, and yells, “Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!”
As the dice come to a stop she jumps up and down and squeals, “YES! YES! I WON, I WON!” She hugs each of the dealers, picks up her winnings and her clothes, and quickly departs.
The dealers stare at each other dumbfounded.
Finally, one of them asks, “What did she roll?” The other answers, “I don’t know – I thought you were watching.”

Have a great Friday!
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