Thursday, November 30, 2006

Song of the Day

Dust in the Wind by Kansas


A rather Buddhist expression of pop wisdom, now that I think about it.

(I close my eyes
only for a moment then the moment's gone...)

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Santa Baby

The truth is, I'm not much for Christmas, music sentimentalling all over the airwaves for weeks before it's even decent. But this tune by Eartha Kitt is just too hip. (Like Mel Tormé, I was hep before hip was hep...) I don't know about Madonna's version, but Eartha Kitt's delivery of this tune is priceless.

Check out these lyrics:

Santa Baby
Eartha Kitt

(baboom baboom baboom baboom)
(baboom baboom baboom baboom)

Santa Baby,
Just slip a sable under the tree
For me
Been an awful good girl
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight

Santa baby, a '54 convertible too
Light blue
I'll wait up for you, dear
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight

Think of all the fun I've missed
Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed
Next year I could be just as good
If you'll check off my Christmas list

Santa Baby, I want a yacht and really thats not
Alot
Been an angel all year
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight

Santa honey, one little thing I really need
The deed
To a platinum mine
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight

Santa cutie, and fill my stocking with a duplex
And cheques
Sign your 'x' on the line
Santa cutie, and hurry down the chimney tonight

Come and trim my Christmas tree
With some decorations bought at Tif-fa-ny
I really do believe in you
Lets see if you believe in me

Santa Baby, forgot to mention one little thing
A ring
I don't mean on the phone
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Hurry down the chimney tonight
Hurry...tonight

Please, is there anybody out there...

who didn't smoke pot?

All right. I admit it. I experimented with marijuana from time to time in the past.

"Why?" you ask, "Why, Larry, did you never tell us about this before?"

Because the results of my experiments were inconclusive...

The Lancet turned me down flat. The New England Journal of Medicine scoffed at my slipshod approach. Georgia Strait snubbed me. And High Times said, "Get a life, Larry..."

"Guess I showed em all..." (says Larry bravely as he gazes through the bars of his tiny, yet poorly-padded, cell in Z Range at the Yoni School.)

Monday, November 27, 2006

Michael Chong Resigns

OK, I'm just cribbing from the Mothercorp, but the salient quote is this:

But Chong, who was responsible for federal-provincial relations, was left out of the loop when Harper was deciding on the wording of the motion. Instead, the prime minister consulted with former intergovernmental affairs minister Stéphan Dion.

In other words, Stephen Harpie bypassed his own Cabinet Minister to discuss and make decisions with a member of the Official Opposition (and, by the way, a candidate for the leadership of the Gliberal Party.)

Chong can talk all he wants about his philosophical opposition to this nationhood notion. He probly ain't lyin' neither. But you gotta know a snub like that from his own leader can't go unanswered.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Hugh MacLennan

OK, so I have this other book. That makes two now. Another book I've had for a long time. Since 96. But published in 88. I've had it since 96. It was remaindered in some book store. Possibly Coles. Remember Coles? Since 96, without ever really looking at it.

The book is called Strong Voices: Conversations with 50 Canadian Authors, by Alan Twigg. The interviews go from A to W. No Z. Or X. Or Y either. Canada has no Z authors, apparently. Four Bs though: Berton, Birdsell, bissett and Bowering.

Each interview has a photo of the author. They're funny. Many of the men look like farmers, bearded, goofy, wearing what Fotheringham used to call tractor caps. (Not cool baseball caps like they wear nowadays, but clunky spongy tractor caps with John Deere on the forehead...George Bowering actually is wearing a tractor cap, but it's an old style Montreal Expos cap. So it's a baseball cap. I guess in those days even baseball caps were tractor-like.) There's a shot of Patrick Lane playing pool. bill bissett behind reflecting shades. Robertson Davies with billowing beard and glasses one eye black the other transparent. Leonard Cohen when he still had his somewhat boyish voice. Marian Engel looking thoughtful in the middle distance. WP Kinsella (wearing, believe it or not, not a tractor cap or baseball cap but a visor which might as well be a tractor cap) resembling some scraggly Muppet. WO Mitchell doing his Colonel Blake (from MASH) impression. All in all, an interesting read, given that all the interviews were done in the 70s and 80s. It's an historical document now.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Remember, I said DH Lawrence predicted the future. Well, Hugh MacLennan does too, in this 79 interview. Here's what he says:

The Arabs have such fantastic money power they will soon have A-bombs. They can very easily get the plutonium. There's no problem in hiring the technicians. That's all such a terrifying prospect that it makes what's going on in Canada today utterly trivial. I'm not sure the world will survive it. It's very, very dicey.


This was six years after the first OPEC crisis, of course, so Arabs were probably still on our minds. But here we are in 06 pondering Iran's acquisition of WMD. (I simply had to use WMD. It's now part of our lexicon, just as A-bomb was part of MacLennan's 70s lexicon.) Technically, the Iranians aren't Arab. They're Persian. They are, however, very much Muslim.

So we're not looking so much at an ethnic diciness, perhaps, as a religious one. Nevertheless...Notwithstanding...Albeit...(I heard a guy on a call-in show pronounce this all-bite the other day.) We're still talking about the same general geography. And you can bet the real Arabs are also in there like a dirty shirt, trying to play catch up with those Semitic Sephardic Hasidic Ashkenazi Cabinet Ministers in that land formerly known as Palestine.

And what are we talking about in Canada? A couple weeks ago was the firestorm raised by a Cabinet Minister's reference to canines. Last week it was that female Cabinet Minister's hairdo interfering with global warming. This week it's that other thing, what is it? Oh yeah, that Québec nationhood thing. Let's get over it, shall we? If we all suck it up and say, "OK, Québec is a manly man's province, you have your nationhood proudly at attention, you don't need the national erection of a CN Tower to prove your cojones," can we get on with the division of Alberta's oil wealth?

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Friday, November 24, 2006

Bookmark This Page!

And then back it up. Put it in your backup pocket. Mark it with magic marker. Catalogue. Categorize. Plagiarize. Damn yer eyes! Give it to the Search & Rescue. To rescue yer bookmarks.

I found all my Firefox bookmarks after diligent & intuitive searching, which the little Windows Search Wizard couldn't seem to do. And Spirograph below was one of the bookmarks. Hope it works for everbody. Works fine on Firefox. Although it does spill over the borders.

Grade 11 English teacher...of me...once...in Grade 11...said to me in email a couple of years ago that she remembered me as someone who refused to stay in box. Trouble also colouring within the lines. Spilled over borders. Souse of the Border. Two Lips From Amsterdam. Take the Eh Train, eh?

Spirograph












Created by Anu
Garg.


John Allan Cameron

So John Allan Cameron died yesterday. Another musical icon gone.

I actually got to play with him. Once. In Farguess at the Highland Games. He played Lord of the Dance and I was on the stage (such as it was) with him. Lord of the Dance is a great tune. Unfortunately, I didn't know it very well. In fact, even now, I can really only remember one line of it. So I played quite a few clinkers while John Allan played and sang the actual song. (Lucky for me, I've learned the knack of playing unobtrusively when necessary.) Cameron, being the professional that he was, just ignored the mess I was making and played right on through.

Forsooth! (That will be my word of the week.) Forsooth! I didn't really play all that badly, but there was one section where I couldn't quite figure out where the chord pattern was going. I invariably went in the wrong direction.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Impermanence & Loss

I had to take my computer into the shop for repairs. Turned out to be a hardware problem...power supply. Something which has been plaguing me for months. But other techies (who shall remain nameless) couldn't seem to find this problem. I think they weren't trying very hard.

Anyway, all fixed now. Except! Since they couldn't predict in advance what kind of problem...I agreed to let them reinstall Windows. Everything , data etc. got saved. But! Pretty much all my software needs to be reinstalled. Including my default internet browser: Firefox. That's OK. How else could I be spending my time, eh? Hours of installing is fun. It's FUN I tell you.

Except! It seems that the one thing that didn't get saved, retained, or cached somewhere...it seems...was all of my bookmarks on my default browser: ie. Firefox. Oh sure, they saved the bookmarks on my IEwhatever. I don't use that nearly as much. I had a vast number of bookmarks on Firefox. Gone now. All gone. As far as I can tell. Writing sites. Dharma sites. Music sites. (Including tech sites for repairs to electronic instruments which sometimes go awry.) Well, I'll survive I suppose. What I can't remember...maybe I didn't really need it.

The important thing, I'm sure you'll agree, is that I remembered the URL of Mental Blog.

Forsooth! I did not. After re-establishing my email page, I copied the URL from my "Compose Mail" signature line. That got me to the blog page. From which I was able to maneuver to the login & dashboard page. That'd be a hell of a thing if I lost my own blog, eh?

Digg! diigo it

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Breaking News: Louis Riel Hanged!

The Lunchbucket Lament has just received word via telegraph that the Métis rebel Louis Riel has been hanged in Regina for his role in the Northwest Rebellion of 1884. Members of the Northwest Mounted Police were deployed in force at the site of the execution and throughout half-breed enclaves all across the western territories to minimize any possibility of unrest or violence.

The Prime Minister in Ottawa, Sir John A. A. is reported to have knitted his brow, (the previous brow having become unravelled in the face of insurrection) and murmurred, "Hang the man! He's been no end of trouble to me!" When told, once again, that Riel had been hanged, Sir A. A. nodded and sighed, "Now, if we could only apply the same measures to the Honourable Leader of the Opposition..." Sir A. A. was later seen in the House of Commons, wearing his smartly-striped new brow and sipping ice water from a large tumbler.

Mr. Riel was asked his opinion of the hanging. He said, "I agree with A. A. The Leader of the Opposition has got to go." When reminded that it was he himself who had been hanged, he replied, "My lawyer thinks I'm mad as a hatter. But I've never had a problem with my knitted brow. It's the buffalo hair, you see..."

This correspondent fears that the execution of Louis Riel could well have repercussions that will reverberate far into the future, affecting many diverse aspects of the young Canadian society, from public art to the naming of schools to land claims to highways to the publication of histories and mysteries. Perhaps it would not be imprudent to suggest that the Northwest Territories be granted provincial status as quickly as may be practicable, since this will undoubtedly pacify the numerous savages and facilitate the discovery of wheat and oil.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Update on the Schneider's Sign

Well, I don't know if the hole thing's werkin yet. But I did check out what's actually on it. The top part is time and temp. Below that, the Schneider's orange background with Schneider's girl on the left and Schneider's in big letters to the right of her. Duh. Below that, Schneider's blue background with the motto, Famous For Quality. Then, the bottom scroll.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Elections Ontario

Plus ça change, n'est-ce pas?

Elections in Lunchbucket yesterday yielded pretty much the same results this time as 3 years ago. Almost no changes. Wassup wid dat?

Our grey burghers have so bored us and lulled us and stroked us and conned us and generally pacified us with their dull municipal management and complete lack of colour that we simply couldn't find them against the background of the institutional-whitewash walls to vote against them.

True, there has been some controversy over the last year. 1. Over a new libary in downtown Lunchbucket. Cancelled. Cowards. Philistines! 2. Over the demolition of an apparently Heritage building...an old shirt factory. The facade is now in storage, waiting to stand in for the real thing whenever they get around to putting something new up. Barbarians! 3. Our Lunchbucket Farmers' Market...Our market...as in Your Lunchbucket Farmers' Market (presumably cuz you paid handsomely for it with your tax money...is rather a white elephant. (As have been most of the City-driven efforts at downtown renewal.) Thieves! Rascals! (My own personal beef has to do, naturally, with regional transportation policy, or lack thereof. It's at least ten years behind the times. Incompetent bums!)

These are only minor blips on the municipal political horizon. Lunchbucket will survive, maybe even thrive, if the Schneiders ham doesn't go bad and have to be recalled...

What really concerns me is the voter turnout.

Get this: 23%

23%!

Apparently some people are, if not pleased, at least relieved, because it's a higher turnout than last time around. God help us.

This is a badge of shame, as far as I'm concerned. All around. The voters should be ashamed. We get what we deserve. But the pols should be ashamed too. How can you claim to have anything approaching a mandate when less than one quarter of the people have expressed their wills? They should all resign in shame. (Or outrage, one or the other.)

50th Anniversary of "Howl"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

D. H. Lawrence Predicts the Future

I have this book. I've had it quite a long time. A long time without ever really looking at it. It was written by DH Lawrence. Published in 1923, seven years before his death of tuberculosis. j

You know DH. That randy fellow. Wrote that scandalous book.

This book is not that one. Although I have that one too. Read it many years ago. I'll probably read it again. The virtues of recycling.

No, this book is called Studies in Classic American Literature. In fact, it appears to be a rant against the dry Puritan American soul, disguised as a review and analysis of early American writers: Benjamin Franklin, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allen Poe, Melville, even Whitman. (I often think of the sign I saw in the rear window of a car a few years ago which read: There Is No Country In The World Called America) (I say, God Bless Amurrica!)

Lawrence enjoys himself in this book. He has a romp. I suppose he thought he was entitled, since he & his wife lived in the US for a period of time. In the first chapter about Franklin, he makes you understand why the author of Poor Richard's Almanack was indeed "poor." Poor Ben. Poor Puritans. Poor Murricans. Chained to their Oppositionism. Slaves to Moderation. (But perhaps only Public Moderation. Private inclinations are always another matter.)

Anyway, that's not really why I'm constructing this post. In the third chapter of the book, Lawrence starts in on Fenimore Cooper, but not without a parting shot at Franklin. I intend to quote the first paragraphs of this chapter, because this is where Lawrence predicts the future. Our future.

Benjamin Franklin had a specious little equation in providential mathematics:
Rum + Savage = 0

Awfully nice! You might add up the universe to nought, if you kept on.

Rum plus Savage may equal a dead savage. But is a dead savage nought? Can you make a land virgin by killing off its aborigines?

The Aztec is gone, and the Incas. [The Mayans remain, but clandestine. Tour guides for the ruins. LK.] The Red Indian, the Esquimo, the Patagonian are reduced to negligible numbers.

Où sont les neiges d'antan? [I can't find d'antan in my French-English dictionary. Babel-Fish, that next to useless engine translates this phrase as: Where are snows of antan? Duh. Now, Suzy Homemaker teaches French in her spare time & when her schedule permits. She tells me "antan" means "yesteryear." So there you have it. And I have it. And Suzy has it. Where are the snows of yesteryear? Dave Phillips, Canada's national weather weenie says there actually is less average snowfall over the last 20-30 years. So when you get all nostalgic about how you used to play King of the Castle on huge snowbanks overlooking the gritty streets of Lunchbucket or Kirkland Lake, you are remembering really and truly the golden age of snows....And now, back to our story...LK]

My dear, wherever they are, they will come down again next winter, sure as houses.

Not that the Red Indian will ever possess the broad lands of America. At least I presume not. But his ghost will.

The Red Man died hating the white man. What remnant of him lives, lives hating the white man. Go near the Indians and you just feel it. As far as we are concerned, the Red Man is subtly and unremittingly diabolic. Even when he doesn't know it. He is dispossessed in life, and unforgiving. He doesn't believe in us and our civilization, and so is our mystic enemy, for we push him off the face of the earth.
Well, there it is. Even now, the aboriginal chickens are coming home to roost. Or roast, as the case may be. And who are they roasting? All us interlopers. Ex-Europeans. Ex-Asians. Ex-Africans. The so-called Indian problem has never gone away in fact. The debacle down there in Malebonia, just south of Steeltown, is only the latest. In Canada, we have the shining example of Oka. Ipperwash. OK, so it's been a couple hundred years. The First Nations are patient, but unrelenting. And Lawrence is right. They don't believe in us and our civilization, our rule of law. They are following their own law, even if they have to make it up on the spot.

Here's the problem as I see it. Neither side has decided to recognize reality. The First Nations think they can still push us off the edge of the continent. Not likely. Coming waves of Asian immigration will overwhelm any countervailing force. The "new" North Americans have not yet recognized that they need to satisfy the First Nations. Whatever that means. What do they want? (What does Quebec want?) (It's the same question, probably the same answer: Mâitres chez nous...but difficult to qualify, fearsome to quantify.)

It's a dilemma, for sure. The Europeans -- English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese -- usurped the entire continent and left the natives little corners. Somehow they must be recompensed. But the natives must also recognize that this is indeed the dominant culture here now, and come to some settlement that allows for this. The Six Nations protesters down in Malebonia have been flouting laws all over the place, thumbing their noses at the police and terrorizing the local population. (I use "terrorizing" carefully, but correctly.) That can't continue.

Land claims are all very well. But the First Nations people must know that we (let's say descendants of usurpers) are not going to just up and leave. Not anymore. Maybe 300 years ago. But not now. So, get over it, natives.

These days, the currency is money. Wampum, I guess. But we shouldn't expect the natives to be bought off any longer with trinkets. Maybe it's time to really pay.

On the other hand, maybe they can turn all the vices we white peeple brought with us to their advantage. Enough of being slain by demon rum. Turn it back on them. After all, I have lots of friends who go regularly to the reserve to get cheap tobacco. Casinorama is doing a fine business. Maybe the aboriginals can get their land back. Just feed us all the stuff we crave...alcohol, tobacco, gambling. We'll do ourselves in.




Saturday, November 11, 2006

Schneider's Sign Blow-Out

Anyone who lives around Lunchbucket knows the Schneider's sign along the 401. It's gotta be one of the most famous landmarks around. As soon as you see the Schneider's sign, you know you're only 15 or 20 minutes away from home. (Except that nowadays at rush hour you have to take Highway Late into town, and that adds 20 more minutes...)

I don't know how long that sign's been there. Seems like forever. Since afore ah wuz born mebbe. A long time.

Tonight, the sign was off! Or at least parts of it, the main parts. The top section was still lit up showing the time & temp. The bottom scroll advertising Red Hots was still on. But the main section, the colour section, was dark. I can't remember any time when the main part of that sign wasn't working.

But seeing that big black blank raised a riddle. What the hell is actually on that sign? Residents of the region drive past it every day. Hell, I probably drive past it several times a day (on my clandestine excursions from the Yoni School). And suddenly I couldn't remember what the sign says, what it consists of.

It's the Dutch Girl, the Schneider Girl, right? But what else? Who remembers? (No cheating now, driving out there at midnight to take spy photos infrared undercover mug shots...)

Friday, November 10, 2006

Vajrasattva for wt.


Vajrasattva (Vajra Hero, Tib. dorje sempa) "Dorsem" is the buddha of purification. As the "action" or karma protector, he also manifests the energies of all Buddhas.

Vajrasattva manifests in two forms: solitary and in union with consort. As in all depictions of deities with consort, the male represents compassion, the female represents wisdom. In Buddhist tradition, this union, known as yabyum indicates the unity of wisdom and compassion (or wisdom and method).

My "history" with Vajrasattva seems to be a tale of how a deity picked me rather than vice versa.

Now, just to make things a little more confusing, here's an image of a vajra, the hand implement used in Tibetan ritual.
I borrowed this image, believe it or not, from a Dutch website.



The vajra is also a thunderbolt. I guess you could say it represents (among other things) the cataclysmic flash which is the direct realization of emptiness.

Wikipedia says, "The vajra destroys all kinds of ignorance, and itself is indestructible. In tantric rituals the Vajra symbolizes the male principle which represents method in the right hand and the Bell symbolizes the female principle, which is held in the left. Their interaction leads to enlightenment. Also the Dorje or Vajra represents the "Upaya" or method Tibetans name Vajra as "Dorje". Made to be worn as a pendant, it reminds the wearer, and the viewer, of the supreme indestructibility of knowledge."

(Actually, the "made to be worn as a pendant" comment doesn't quite make sense. Unless it's a pendant, which most of the time it's not. It's an actual implement which fits in the palm of your hand.)

More: in Tibetan instructions, vajra is also the term which refers to the penis. The vagina is called the lotus, a felicitous expression if there ever was one.

Digg! diigo it

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Spoke 2 Sune

photos on & off
more off then on
slow boat to photo
slow read to blogger
could not connect
publishing may fail
saving may not save you
photos blankety blank
blankety blank blank failsaved

Thass better

No sooner bitched about than the gods of the blogosphere saw fit to put the heavens aright.

Hey man, where's my pitchers?

An interesting phenomenon...all the photos have disappeared from the blog. I'm assuming it's only temporary. Funny this should happen just as I was posting that previous entry...all about impermanence....transience....blog photos a flash of lightning...phantoms disappearing...of course, photos, even when printed are nothing but a record of phantoms...

Zen Poem

Like dew that vanishes,
like a phantom that disappears,
or the light cast
by a flash of lightning--
so should one think of oneself

Ikkyu Sojun
Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481)
A Zen Buddhist monk who is supposed to have been eccentric even by the standards of Zen at the time.

Well, ole Ikky may have been eccentric, but the pome is straight ahead Dharma, no heterodoxy there at all.

Excuse me now, I have to go look up heterodoxy.

Digg! diigo it

Monday, November 06, 2006

The Names People Give Themselves

Larry is doing up a mailing list for his Buddhabuddies, a list compiled at the latest incarnation of the Relic Tour in Hamilton. He's amused by some of the names people come up with for their email addresses.

Here are a few (not fully completely...to protect the identitititititieess of those who would rather not be seen consorting with Buddhists?):

music_angel_06
xena_blue_bubble
starlady42
foxy28
gotta.be.doped
spirit_of_clarity
cougar001
nyghtryder98060
gordoon
helium21224
drive_by_pylon
supergotenk144

We are left to wonder what some of these mean.

Of course, Larry's email handle is vajrasattva1. But everybody knows what that means, don't they?

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Goering Tells the Truth For Once

I simply couldn't resist this. I picked it from a website called Wisdom Quotes:

Hermann Goering:

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
quote verified at snopes.com

The more things change, eh? What have we been bombarded with since 9-11? On the airlines now, you have to take out your tube of Preparation H and put it in a plastic bag for all to see. Why? Because we are under attack!

All right. The US was attacked. Rather than dealing with that particular problem, however, the Bushwhackers decided to mount a general counterattack -- wide and sweeping -- and now we see the results -- gels and liquids are no longer allowed on your red-eye to wherever. Does this say something about the law of unintended consequences? Or was it intended all along?
Help! I've written and I can't get up!