Homie Bear's Year in Review
(In which he gives a brief account of his year, and then humbly offers you his choices for best music, books and movies.)

2005 was a pretty good year for Mr. H Bear, that's for sure. It started off with me still shaking off the effects of traveling all around New Zealand, a country that insists on driving on the wrong side of the road. It took me a surprisingly long time to readjust- especially since the coal mine where I work also uses left-hand drive. Speaking of the coal mine, I got a shovel oiler bid in February, fulfilling my lifelong dream of finally being an oiler. I have yet to score my first goal or meet Raffi Torres or any of those guys, though. But I did learn how to operate this sucker:

Also in February, I asked the most beautiful woman in the world to marry me, and she said yes! Holy smokes! Here we are the night of our engagement:

And here we are on our wedding day, best day ever, sending you some love:

On our honeymoon we went to the Maritimes and Newfoundland, and had an amazing time. General Grievous was good enough to join us for part of it.

We were camping and hiking and kayaking and whale-watching, driving Seamus, eating lobster, all the things you do in that beautiful part of the country. Here is a puffin, also known as a living Quidditch Snitch.

After that, we did a whole bunch of fun things. And worked a lot. Now we are happy to say that we are eagerly awaiting approval on a mortgage so we can actually buy the beautiful house we put a down payment on a few weeks ago! Happy New Year to you all! The best is yet to come.

Top 5 CDs of 2005
1. Get Behind Me Satan, The White Stripes. Jack and Meg are the best, hands down! Michelle doesn't like them, but I like them enough for the two of us! Choice cut: Red Rain
2. Mesmerize/Hypnotize, System of a Down. SoaD's frenetic nonsense invective is the musical equivalent of one of those wild-eyed speed freaks that you meet downtown who constantly mumble and mutter and occasionally yell their delusional paranoid theories to whoever is in the vicinity. And not the harmless kind, either. Michelle likes them! Choice cut: Holy Mountains.
3. Guero, Beck. Beck at his best! He starts it all with a Beasties beat on E-Pro and ends it with some kind of Swedish yodelling girl, and in between nothing but great tunes. Choice Cut: Farewell Ride
4. Superbeautifulmonster, Bif Naked. Born in India, raised by missionaries, resides in Vancouver, but in reality the incarnation of some sort of Hindu goddess of rock and roll. Choice cut: That's Life (with me)
5. Demon Days, Gorillaz. This CD, as well as Bif and Beck, were the soundtrack to my honeymoon, as Michelle and I drove Seamus (our rented Chrysler 300) around the Maritime provinces dreaming of robots, puffins, whales and lighthouses. Choice cut: Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head

Honorable mention to KoRn's See You on the Other Side. Great album, just too new to have really wrapped itself into my 2005.

Top 2+0+0+5=7 Books of the Year (not that they were necessarily written in '05)

1. Ilium, Dan Simmons. Any book that combines Mars, the Trojan War (complete with all the gods), robots, little green men, dinosaurs and Shakespeare has to be the best book ever written, right? No contest. And it has Voynix. Whatever those are.
2. Half-Blood Prince, You-know-who. Grrr! Rargh! Damn you Snape! I owe you for a punch in the nose!
3. Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, Will Ferguson. A cool Canadian travelogue in the style of both Cahill and Bryson, but not a ripoff of either. Plus he's from Alberta too! The chapter on St. John's is worth the cover price alone.
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clark. I'm reading this one now- not quite done, but I can't leave it off the list. Still, this book is not for everyone- the 19th century language and sensibilities, as well as meanderingness will put off some readers. But I love it- it is often hilarious and quite dark. Surprisingly dark at times, as Clark is keenly aware that the original connotations of Faerie were sinister, malevolent, and had a curiously innocent way of being wickedly selfish.
5. A Game of Thrones, George RR Martin. This guy excels at writing very vivid, lurid scenes full of mayhem and murder. Hard to put down. My only complaint might be that I devoured the second volume and then realized afterward that hardly anything had happened to move the story along. But all those crazy twists and turns made up for it. Martin will be in Edmonton January 11th at Greenwoods, in support of Volume 4, btw.
6. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. Fascinating and funny, well researched and very readable. Bryson at his best.
7. Across China, Peter Jenkins. A friend of my Grandma's moved to Hawaii and left us some books by this guy who walked across America back in the 70s (she also gave me a bright orange hoodie for some reason). Then he went to Tibet and China in the 80s, and wrote about it in his easy, conversational style. You feel like you were there with him, and he made me want to go back.

Top 5 Movie Guys of 2005

1. General Grievous. Did you notice that he has FOUR arms? And a lightsaber wrested from the cold fingers of a slain Jedi for each one.
2. Batman. Only two arms, but two batwings to make up for it, as well as a very stern countenance.
3. King Kong. He's the giant gorilla spawn of gollum. Nuff said.
4. Willy Wonka. He made me laugh. "Ha ha ha ha. You're really weird."
5. The White Witch. Somehow she convinced two polar bears to pull her chariot for her. Too bad she forgot to ask them to protect her from Aslan.

What a great list! It's strange that General Grievous is the only new-to-2005 character on it, and even he is from a 28-year-old franchise.

Merry Christmas everybody! Twenty-four more hours and I can join my beautiful wife for our first merry married Christmas. Good thing her name is not Mary. Mary Bear. Hehe. Anyways, here is a poem from my archives.

Homie Bear was in a mall doing some Christmas shopping
Pretending not to notice how everyone's jaws were dropping
Whenever he left his lair people always stared
His very beariness tended to make them fairly scared
But when he saw Mr. Santa Claus he felt a little jealous
Of all the looks of love he got from the small gals and little fellas
Homie was so happy to see all the beaming smiles
That he started dancing right there in the aisles
But all the children screamed and then the children scattered
And Homie Bear went home alone feeling sad and shattered
So the next day he asked a Salvation Army Santa
Who said "I'd like to help but I'm actually from Atlanta
"I dress up every year to help a worthy cause
"But you'll have to go up North to find the real Claus"
So Homie Bear set off on a trip fraught with many perils
Luckily for him he was wearing his favorite Merrils
He finally arrived at the North Pole feeling kind of freezing
Shivering and snorting and coughing and wheezing
He told his troubles to Santa who offered a solution
To Homie's undesired emitting of scaring-kids pollution
"Ride with me as a reindeer pulling along my sleigh!"
So Homie hitched himself up and off they went away
But Homie felt a little airsick and thought that he would vomit
And he started feeling hungry so he sort of ate some Comet
So I guess dressing as a reindeer was a bit of a mistake
So Santa put him in his workshop and taught him how to make
Toys for all the girls and boys who were "Good" on Santa's list
But Homie felt a little bad for the ones that Santa missed
He made fireworks for the naughty kids who like to play with fire
This made Santa none too pleased and roused up all his ire
"Homie Bear you're a hopeless cause even for Santa Claus
"You make bad toys and then you put my reindeer in your jaws
"So you can go on back to your den and quit making this mess
"And furthermore I hope you have a very unmerry Christmas"
So Homie was sad again and trudged back to his lair
Wishing he was soft and cuddly and not a fearsome bear
But then he thought "I'm not a reindeer and I'm certainly not an elf
"I am a big bad burly bear and I'm proud to be myself!"

Ursulast!

Bog Unicorn
Are your Digger pages ready months in advance or are you up late on a Wednesday night cursing the tuesday/thursday schedule? Do you write the Book of the Gear entries and put them up, or were they already written long time ago? (Will there be more????)

*grin* They're ready about two weeks in advance. I'm never up hammering them out the night before--I may occasionally curse the neccessity of hammering them out during a busy week, but I'm under contract to Graphic Smash, so I have a set schedule--Tuesdays and Thursdays, the first order of art business is to get Digger roughed in, Wednesday and Friday I'll take a few minutes to polish the roughs, over the weekend, I pop in the text. As long as I break it into small chunks, it's not an overwhelming task.

The Book of the Gear is different--I write it when I'm inspired. So I might write four or five entries in an hour or two, and then nothing for a week or so. It'll definitely be back, never fear, but the holidays tend to frazzle me a bit. It's one of those things where I really do have to be inspired to get it to come out, so it's kind've erratic at times...

Okay, I think that is plenty. Thanks again, Ursula. Ooh- one last question- I am trying to talk my wife into naming a future daughter Ursula (because it means bear!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!) and she is not convinced. What is the best thing about being named after the mightiest of all mammals?

Well, the best thing for me is that people are usually going "What an unusual name!" and you tend not to get confused with a bunch of other Ursulas in the same room. *grin* On the downside, people are always trying to spell it with an E.

Peace!
Ursula

To see more of Ursula Vernon's art, or to buy prints, go to Metal and Magic.

Ursula Some More! (part 3 of an exclusive interview with Ursula Vernon)


Sir Bunny vs the Wockwurm
Do you have a day job or are you able to just create whatever you feel like? What does your typical day look like?

I no longer have a day job! Woo! For many years, like a lot of artists, I did work a Real Job, but these days, art's where it's at.

A typical day for me would be to get up, bleary-eyed, at around 8:30, when my husband has made breakfast and coffee. Then I sort of sprawl at the computer, randomly hitting keys, for about an hour until the coffee does its work. Then I check my e-mail and reply to it all, and set up the art for the day. Around noon, I kick off for lunch, then I work a bit more--I may go out for coffee with a friend, or I may take a nap. (Working at home is so decadent!) Then I get back up and get back to work until mid-evening. If I'm really cooking on a painting, I've been known to work until 1 AM, but usually I kick off around six-thirty or seven, play some computer games, have dinner, etc.

As a newlywed, I'm personally interested in knowing how you balance that creative side with your spouse (Here I went into some personal detail to explain what I meant, but it is a little awkward for this blog . . . )

*laugh!* My spouse is really quite wonderful about this sort of thing. His mother was an artist, so possibly he was just raised to understand this sort of thing, but he never complains about having me call in the middle of the day and say "Come home for lunch! I need the car! I'm having an art supply CRISIS!" I suspect I'm lucky in that regard, in that he takes my art very seriously (even when it's small animals with party hats!) and treats my occasionally erratic art-related behavior as just kinda the way it goes. So to that extent I can't really offer any advice--I was lucky!--except that if your spouse has some overriding hobby or interest that they really love, to be equally supportive, and perhaps you can trade off that sort of thing and come to a kind of mutual understanding.

Be sure to check out her brand new illustrated short story, Little Creature (or Dream Deer)

More Ursula!


Zebra Egg
You have a very whimsical style, very fun and playful, which I think would reflect on your personality. How do you cultivate that quality in your life? How do you protect it?

Heh! Actually, I think that may be the thing--I'm a sort of snide, dour individual in real life. If you've ever seen Spongebob Squarepants, I'm basically a vertebrate Squidward. I am full of fascinating and often noxious facts. (Well, actually, that may tie into the sense of wonder. I find great wonder in, for example, the idea that vampire bats live on an entirely liquid diet, and since weight is a major concern, with flight, they have to urinate nearly the entire time they're feeding. Knowing this disgusting little tidbit strikes me as deeply wonderful. I've never figured out how to work it gracefully into a painting, though.) A few other people I know who do very cute stuff have a similiar tendency to be kinda cynical and snarky in real life, and then all the cute comes out in the work. Actually a lot of things are probably like that--I have a buddy who writes these billowy, sentimental romance novels who's got a wonderfully black sense of humor. Perhaps the art winds up as an outlet for these tendencies.

Then again, I dunno, I'll "AWWWW!" over a baby hedgehog as much as anybody, so take my armchair psychology with a grain of salt. *grin*

Anyway, because of that, I don't really worry about protecting my sense of whimsy--it seems pretty durable, and since people really like the whimsical art, it gets a lot of positive reinforcement. If I lived in the middle of a warzone, or something, it'd be different, I'm sure, but for now, not really a problem.

What kind of things do you do to recharge your creative juices? What books and music do you absorb?

Well, I read a lot. Mostly fantasy, with a broad and indiscriminate appetite, the occasional mystery, horror, or thriller. Music, not so much--I know a lot of artists are very musically inclined and really require music to work, but probably because I'm tone deaf, I tend to stick to NPR. Of course, occasionally they get off on three days of senate hearings or something, so I have to dig out music--my tastes are pretty eclectic, and range between heavy metal and folk, with very few stops in between.

And I take walks, and I feed the birds out in my backyard, and occasionally I go to the zoo. Animals are really delightful, so I enjoy watching them. (Animal Planet's usually on in the evenings.) The internet's also a neverending source of inspiration, too.

An Interview with Ursula Vernon (part 1)

Frog Tribe
Here is a special treat for you- an exclusive interview with Ursula Vernon, the crazy genius who makes art such as you see above, as well as single-handedly produces Digger twice a week. More to come in the next few days.

I saw on your Metal and Magic page that you really didn't start drawing seriously till you were 17. Did you have other artistic or creative interests as a child? Or did you have more of a creative "awakening" as an adult?

Actually, for a long time I wanted to be a writer. So I wrote a great deal as a kid, much of it mercifully lost to posterity. As an adult, I still like writing, but art turned into my main field.

Did your parents or teachers help you keep that sense of wonder that is so easily lost when we grow up? How can teachers (and parents) help cultivate creativity? What's the artists' role in that? Do you get invited into schools and stuff ever?

Well, my mother's an artist, and I imagine that helped! I don't know if I had any teachers that worked specifically to address a sense of wonder--I may simply have been lucky on that count!

"Wonder"'s a pretty nebulous quality, so I'm hard pressed to say what, specifically, an artist's role is in cultivating it. I think it may be hard to do intentionally. Kinda like attracting butterflies. You can make butterfly gardens, you can provide a spot for butterflies to show up, but you can't put teeny weeny little shackles on them and keep them chained around the house.

Of course, now I'm just thinking of people with vicious guard butterflies on chains, so hell, maybe you could...*grin*

I don't get invited to many schools, I think because most of my fan base is through the internet, and I'm not terribly active in the local art scene, so the schools in the area don't neccessarily know I exist. It's probably for the best. I'm awkward around children, and however well developed a sense of childlike wonder I have, I also have a tendency to swear under stress, which is not what you want in your guest speaker. *grin*

"Winnie the Pooh" and "rebranding" are not words you want to see in the same article. Poor little Pooh. Did no one learn from Poochy?
But, uh, if you have to rebrand the Hundred Acre Wood, allow me to humbly make the following suggestions:
1) Less Winnie, more Pooh
2) Tigger should try harder to devour Piglet
3) Christopher Robin should be replaced. Oh. Right.
4) Eeyore should show less ass

While you digest the theology of the great god Wuurr (please read and comment! I'm quite pleased with it), here are a few links for you:
I love to take the opportunity to remind you that Sarah How is the wonderful artist who drew the bears for my two blog templates. Make sure you go look at her beautiful rendering of Lyra Belaqua astride Iorek Byrnison, the mighty Panserbjorn.
And though this might piss Philip Pullman off a bit, I loved the Narnia movie! Of special interest was the final battle, filmed in and around Kura Tawhiti, where gabrielle and I spent a fun day playing last year. We had been looking for some LOTR locations, actually, and came across the eery monoliths of Kura Tawhiti more or less by accident. We had passed a big, secretive film crew earlier with a bunch of security guards looking dour, and convinced ourselves it was for Narnia. Turns out we were right, eh, been? Here are the pics.

Here is the first part of that dualism mythology story I promised the other day. I'll keep the "episodes" short and readable, to hopefully keep your interest. It's a little darker than, say, Homie Bear vs the Killer Whale, just so you know.

Uuuw’erruu awoke with nightmarish images fading from her consciousness. She had fleeting impressions of a dried and desiccated Wuurr, cast off by a gloating Krurk. Still groggy she shuddered and looked around. Dark, silent. As it should be, except . . . where was Rweruree? Alarmed now she grabbed her spear and jumped from the branch into the pond below. Her young scattered at her intrusion, then regrouped behind her. They seemed to be unmolested. Though, there was a faint trace of . . . she cursed. Goblin piss. Goblins always defiled birthing ponds. And if there were goblins around, then Rweruree’s absence was all the more ominous.
She followed the scent trail to land, where it was easy to pick up several sets of goblin footprints. She ran her spearhead over her venom glands, and took a deep breath to calm herself. Then she plunged into the jungle.
Before long she came upon a goblin corpse. Maybe Rweruree was alright. She kept going, and came to a clearing, all dark shadows and gloom. Scattered around were a few more goblin corpses, and Uuuw'erruu saw one living goblin bent over something she couldn't quite make out, though she knew what it was without seeing. She drove her powerful hind legs towards the goblin, letting out a furious wartrill as she propelled herself up over the startled goblin's head. The goblin swatted at her, but she twisted and released her spear just before she was sent sprawling. She landed softly, at the same time as the goblin thudded to the ground, her spear embedded in its eye.
Rweruree lay on his back, his throat sack inflating and deflating slowly. His breathing made a gurgling sound, and as Uuuw'erruu came closer she saw that his belly was open, his insides spilled on the ground. "Uuuw'. . . ," he rasped, but there was really nothing to say. Uuuw'erruu sat with her mate, crying, as his brilliant blue and yellow skin slowly faded, and he died.

Wuurr and Krurk Part 2 of 2

Uuuw'erruu took Rweruree's body up into a tree, where it would be absorbed back into the jungle away from the putrid goblin corpses. She strongly considered pissing on those, but didn't want to stoop to their level. Once Rweruree's body was as safely hidden as she could make it, she climbed up to a higher branch to mourn, and to sing, and to pray.
The sun started its ascent, a slim sliver tinting the green canopy with a pinkish hue. Uuuw'erruu was deep in the Frogsong, transforming the notes of the melody Rweruree first sang to her as a mating call into a funeral dirge. She slowed the tempo, changed major keys to minor. Where Rweruree's song was bright, playful, and enticing, Uuuw'erruu's was dark, mournful,and aching.
She began to weave prayers into the song. Prayers to Wuurr, to lend Him strength and offer Him protection against Krurk's vile followers. She affirmed her dedication to serving Wuurr's cause, as the great bullfrog god continued his eternal struggle to swallow Krurk into Himself. The goblin god could claim a victory tonight, perhaps wresting his head a tiny bit out of Wuurr's relentless maw, but it would carry a heavy price, as Uuuw'erruu promised Wuurr to exact a fierce and bloody revenge.
The sun was no longer a sliver, but a sphere, and Uuuw'erruu arose. She inflated her throat sack to its fullest, blasting a terrible trumpet call of defiance, and went to serve her god.


(There! A dualist mythology. I had a dream the other night where I was fighting all these goblins, and for no reason at all there was this big frog thing swallowing a goblin. The goblin's head was in the frog's mouth, but the goblin was still struggling, trying to get free. The image stayed with me, I worked it a bit, and came up with this. PS- this is the kind of frog Uuuw'erruu is. A poison dart frog. Pretty.)

The new KoRn CD kicks ten tons of ass, obviously. Michelle and I have been listening to it nonstop, and I have been regaling her with kernels of KoRn knowledge.
"Did you know Jonathan Davis has a son named Nathan? Same as my name. And he has another son named Pirate."
"Why did he name his son Pirate?"
"I'm not sure, I bet because he really loves pirates. I really love robots, can we name our son Robot?"
"No."
"C3PO?"
"No."
"How about Charles the Third Peter O'Gilvie?"
Suspicious silence- " . . . why?"
"Cause then his initials would be C3PO."

Did you ever notice how bizarre myths are? Partly because they are so old, and partly because they are from an entirely different culture than ours. I love the weirdness of them- Athena being born by bursting from Zeus' head, for example. Or this one, picked more or less at random:

Nohotsakyum and his wife Nainohotsakyum and all the good dead people live in the sky where there is land with roads and trees like here, but no animals and no chickens. When the world comes to an end by being eaten by the big jaguar, everyone will go up there and live like them, and work in the corn patches, smoke cigars, and eat tortillas and beans.

Yum, tortillas. Anyways, the reason I bring it up is because, I thought of my own cool cosmology- a study in dualism. When I get home from work and have some time, maybe I will fashion it into a little story. Your assignment, if you want to exercise your creative juices, is to come up with a pantheon/ mythology/ cosmology of your own, and either poost it on your blog (but let me know in the droppings!) or send it to me. Sound like fun?

I got to hold Littlehammer today! He's so little! But you can't really use him as a hammer. Also, Craig, Deb and Phil, (known collectively as We Three) performed at the G tonight. They played a song I requested two years ago, and then had to miss because my uncle passed away. So, though it took two years to hear it, their rendition of 2000 Miles was absolutely lovely.
Wow, two years. Time just keeps pooing along. In fact, it was a year ago today that I got back from Kiwiland. Crazy. I sure never expected the vampirenomad to survive a year on her own! I thought she would have been eaten by a moa way before now. Just kidding Been! Congratulations on a significant milestone for you.

Congratulations to Marilyn Manson, who married Dita Von Teese the other day in Ireland. Feel free to ask me for marital advice, Marilyn, during our next conference call. The Dalai Lama can't really help you there.

Together at Last!
It must be Christmas- two of my favorite things, Slipknot and Star Wars, are finally brought together (for no particular reason at all), as #8 discusses his lifelong love of that galaxy far, far away. Yay for scary men in masks! I heard Darth Vader, Boba Fett, General Grievous and some stormtroopers formed a band called Sithknot.

Your Guide to the Canadian Election
I very rarely delve into poolitics- there are more than enough blogs that do. But Michelle was reading all the miillions of articles in the paper, and she said she wished there was just a simple little chart to sum up all the parties and stuff. So I made her one.

I have some sad news- Stan Berenstain passed away the other day. He was 82. He leaves a rich legacy, and even had a little to do with my great love of bears. In tribute, please take a moment to read your favorite Berenstain Bears book (mine was The Bike Lesson -or was it The Big Honey Hunt??? The one where the giant mosquitos chase them and try to eat them), and then hoist a beer in the direction of Ursis Major, where I am sure Stan is keeping watch over all us little bears.

Go Esks Go!
I have to miss the Grey Cup since I am off to the coal mine for another set of nightshifts. Bleh. But I will be sure to sing my rousing version of the Eskimos Fight Song while I drive to Hinton. All together now:

"We're gonna fight fight fight fight Eskimos!
We're gonna march right down to Mexico!
And when all the winning's done
We're uh, you know . . . hey we won!"

My call for the score: 34-28 Esks.

Yay and congratulations to the Gotthammers, who welcomed a Littlehammer into the world the other day! I am sure the troll smiths of Niflheim are busy fashioning a mighty, though small, warhammer for him right this minute.

Here is an excerpt from a poem written in the 1940s by Delmore Schwartz called, "The Kingdom of Poetry":

For it is true that poetry invented the unicorn, the centaur and the phoenix.
Hence it is true that poetry is an everlasting Ark,
An omnibus containing, bearing and begetting all the mind's animals.
Whence it is that poetry gave and gives tongue to forgiveness
Therefore a history of poetry would be a history of joy, and a history
of the mystery of love
For poetry provides spontaneously, abundantly and freely
The petnames and the diminutives which love requires and without
which the mystery of love cannot be mastered.

Pretty cool, eh? What do you think? He also wrote one called "The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me", but it's not really about bears, it is really about his own body.

We saw a robot dinosaur at the store yesterday. Cool, eh? Some sort of carnosaur- likely the mighty Rex. It was walking and roaring and chomping its teeth. Little children were playing with it. Much as I love robots, and dinosaurs, I'm not sure if it's wise to allow young kids to have one. If I have learned anything from science fiction, it is never to trust robot dinosaurs- it's only a matter of time before they run amok. Luckily this one was very small.
Anyways, all you parents out there, my advice to you is this: if you must buy this ticking timebomb for your toddler this Christmas, at least buy this book for yourself while you are at it. Please.

Little Green Jellybean hit 300 000 kms the other day! You can send presents c/o me. LGJ really likes cookies. I missed when we hit 200 000 a few years ago because I was driving home from work, venting about a fight I'd had that night with a coworker to my shop steward who happened to be riding with me. Strangely, we hit the 300 mark exactly when we arrived at work, and I spent a part of that shift venting to my shop steward, who is the same guy I was venting about 100 000 kms ago. The vicissitudes of time, in chunks of a hundred thousand kilometers. I'm sure there are deep lessons to be learned here. Like, make sure to send cookies to cars who've hit 300 000 kms.

So the Poo-playlist is as follows- all the songs which got more than one votes. Which is harder than you think since many songs got negative votes! Thanks for playing!
Milla (Jovovich)- In A Glade 4 votes
Marilyn Manson: The Nobodies 3 votes
Seven Devil Fix- The Burden 2 votes
Andy Stochansky: 22 Steps 2 votes
Send The Pain Below by Chevelle 2 votes
Death Cab for Cutie with Soul Meets Body 2 votes

(Updated often to reflect votes. Use the droppings to nominate new songs and cast + or - votes)
Okay, already there's some good suggestions for the Poo-playlist. Remember, the whole point is to generate (good-natured, clean) debate and ultimately a kickass ten song playlist. Feel free to keep suggestions coming, as well as vote for and against those already put forward. So far, Cass suggests: David Usher- Soldiering
notwist- Solitaire
Radiohead- Everything In Its Right Place
gabrielle suggests: nsync- Sailing with 1-2=-1 votes
Milla (Jovovich)- In A Glade which has 4 votes so far
Emiliana Torini- To Be Free
Seven Devil Fix- The Burden 2 votes
Marilyn Manson: The Nobodies 3 votes
And I suggested: Seven Devil Fix- Tremendum
Tragically Hip: Gus, the Polar Bear From Central Park
Blink-182- Asthenia with 1-1=0
Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush- Don't Give Up
My wife Michelle nominates Andy Stochansky: 22 Steps
Erika says Sigur Ros should be on there with Gosloli, but it gets 2-2=0 votes!
and Death Cab for Cutie with Soul Meets Body
And a classical classic, In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg
Alissa says What Became of the Likely Lads? by The Libertines is good. but Cass doesn't! 1-1=0 votes

The other night at work I had to drive a guy into town since he was sick, so I took advantage of the opportunity to listen to some radio that doesn't suck, which, in Hinton, means the CBC. There was a cool program on called the National Playlist. The premise is basically, what if your iPod only had ten songs and you could only change them once a week? What ten songs out of the gazillions out there would you choose? So of course that generates all kinds of debate. Anyways, I liked that idea and thought I would try a Pooing in the Woods Playlist. The poo-playlist, if you will. I suggest Gus, the Polar Bear from Central Park, by the Tragically Hip- I already gave it the Grizzly Award a few days ago, right? And also Tremendum, by Seven Devil Fix, because it is so heavy and reminds me of a three headed dog when I hear it (you can hear or download it legally by clicking on the link) Now you guys suggest some songs, any song at all, and we will debate and discuss and have ourselves a poo-playlist before long. (Make your suggestions in the droppings.) I will trust to your own ingenuity in finding a way to hear the songs.

Another site I have been enjoying lately is this blog about making a Christmas cartoon: Alien for Christmas. Yum! Turkeys were getting old.

Bean Leaf Press is a brand new independent press that is offering their first children's book. It's a pleasure to visit just to enjoy the beautiful site design, by the book's artist Travis Hanson. The Bean's Song would make a great Christmas present- in fact, I ordered one! Merry Christmas to me! No wait, it's for Michelle. Umm, yeah, for my wife. She likes beans.

Here's a poem I wrote last month, never really came up with a good title for it. Just a little wistfulness, and robots. This picture helped crystallize an idea that's been floating in my head for quite a while.

I remember reading
books with titles like
‘The Year 2000 and Beyond’
that promised
acid rain
from brown skies
at lunchtime
Comforting dystopia
for an alien yet inevitable
civilization
where
through the gloom the
red lights of robot eyes
offer you their umbrellas
and guide you across the street

We are well beyond the year 2000
and I stand at a crosswalk
in the pH-neutral rain
with my robotic suit and tie
the red lights of SUVs blurry in the gloom
while Pod people briskly walk by
safe in their isolation and
dystopian comfort
and I realize I would trade
every crosswalk crossing robot
and shark-shaped submarine
for a chance to go back
and read those crazy books
while my mom made me hot chocolate
and said
“Why don’t you go outside and play?”

By some strange alignment of the stars and work schedules and being either poor or overseas, I have never seen the Tragically Hip live. Weird, eh? Any Canadian of my generation knows the Hip's live shows are legendary, and every Canadian of my generation but me has been to one. Lucky for me they have released Hipeponymous (Hipapotamous?) a sort of box set with a concert DVD on it, and it is currently making me very happy. The live version of Grace, Too (tied for my favorite Hip song ever along with Scared ) is perfect, musically, and Gord Downie's singing on it is fierce- I mean, literally, fierce. Like he's going to bite you or something. I love it!
Plus they sing Gus, the Polar Bear from Central Park, which won all kinds of awards among the ursine set when it was released a few years ago. I think it got the Grizzly for Best Maritimus Music.

Alright, so I've put this off for long enough. It's been an agonizing decision, but I declare the winner of my third bloggiversary contest to be Carmen for her whimsical and creepy take on monsters in the closet. All I have in my closet is mismatched socks and holey underwears, and that's just fine by me. Carmen wins a $25 gift certificate to the online retailer of her choice- congratulations! Thanks to all you others who entered. Seriously. I loved reading and seeing what you created.

One solution I can think of would be to put the parrot down.
And now for some referral log-inspired poetry.

Beautiful green and red feathered avian friend
descendant of carnosaurs and Quetzalcoatl
you have learned to quote the finest poetry
and mimic the sound of symphonies
Why can't you stop pooing on me?

One last contest entry. I know I have been delaying announcing a winner, but I wanted to make sure I could get this up before I did. This was done at my request for those talks I did at the Gathering last month. I thought it was super cool and also fit in well with the whole idea of the contest- whimsical, fun, maybe slightly halloweeny. So this is a picture by my friend Carmen.



Cool, hey? So. The contest entries are, Calving Season by Phil of Introspection's Lair.
"why I gave her my subway seat" by Lydia; The Prophet Sighed, by Seraphim; Berg Finds a Hobby, by Mindy's husband; This Tale, by gabrielle, and of course the picture above. So let me know who you think should win in the droppings, and when I get home from the coalmine, I will let you know who I think should win.

The deleted scenes on the Revenge of the Sith DVD were pretty cool. More Grievous is always a good thing. But a couple of scenes I would have liked to have seen would be some background info on Grievous- back when he was Lieutenant Grievous, you know? And maybe a shot of Darth Vader signing bonus cheques for the Clone Troopers who so ably carried out Order 66. Seeing him struggle with mastering a new signature with his new cybernetic arms would have added a lot to his character development I think.

Palpatine: Good, Lord Vader. But you know 'Darth' is spelled with a 'D', right?
Vader: (shakes fist at sky) Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Hallowe'en!! Remember a couple of years ago when I changed my whole blog to orange and black? That kind of hurt the eyes a bit. So today I am just using orange words. Only hurts half as much!
Here is Homie Bear's Hallowe'en Roundup- I already gave you a Hallowe'en poem a few days ago, so now we will go round the web for some more spooky goodness.
Homestar Runner usually has great Halloween cartoons, and it sounds like they are working as fast as they can to get something done today. In the meantime, check out this classic.
Whiskey River has a fun ghost story called "Four Chaps in the Library".
Deviant Art is full of Hallowe'en treats for your eyes. Ooh! Eee! Aaw! Guh!
1313 Magazine is horror-themed all year round, which makes me happy.
Today's Pearls Before Swines has some insightful critique into cultural isolationism vis a vis trick or treating.
Mothercorp has this game for kids.
And, uh, that's about all I can find for now. I guess you could look up "scary" on Google for more.

Can we call it a poocast?

The Gathering uploaded my talk on fear from last week. You can have a listen if you like. I don't think it has been translated from the original Bear, so who knows if you can understand it.
(PS- if you follow the link from the G's front page, you will be lead to the erroneous assumption that I am George. But in fact I am Homie Bear.)

Here is gabrielle's contest entry. As you probably know, she is one of my best friends ever, and she still talks to me even after I abandoned her in New Zealand almost a year ago- somewhere around Pukekura if I recall. She is currently residing in Wellington, where there are many kiwis.

This Tale.
By Gabrielle
There is a lot of beauty in the world. Most of it is contained in one box. That box is guarded by a Mexican Walking Fish who is only called “Ooee”. Sometimes he lets beauty escape. It dissipates on the wind and envelopes the world in a fine mist, gathering in drops that look like dew and bouncing off window panes. Everything beautiful is forgotten unless Ooee remembers to share the beauty.
“That’s absurd.”
“Don’t read over my shoulder.”
Justin shrugged and left the room muttering to himself. He had told her to write a story about a Mexican Walking Fish, not some philosophical rant on the nature of beauty. Women. The front foyer of the theatre was deserted. The dying sun glinted off the marble tiles at perverse angles. It felt old. Huge and old. Justin sighed. And empty. He settled into the swivel chair and stared bleakly at the ticket screen. Only as good as the demand. Nobody to buy, nothing to sell. Nothing to do. The minutes dragged by. He felt his brain would implode. His head drooped. Then a scraping sound on the counter. He snapped to attention. A man of middling height stood there. Middling age, graying hair, stern but nondescript features. Justin offered a smile and the man said this:
“My name is Rudolph Metzger.”
Worlds spun dizzily out of control. Justin gaped.
“No you aren’t. He’s not… real.”
“Oh I am, Justin. You made me up and now I’m here to claim my girl. So go get Tiff.”
Back into the office. Justin’s heart pounded. The story sounded even dumber out loud. Predictably, she scoffed.
“Justin, amuse yourself by cleaning something. I am not ‘Rudolph Metzger’s girl’, I am your boss.”
“What if I said I wasn’t lying?”
“I’d say you’d better be.”
Something about the look on Justin’s face told her things were complicated. She narrowed her eyes. He looked solemn and rather white. She followed him out to the front box office. Nobody was there. The sun glanced hard off the tile. The foyer looked lost without tumbleweeds. She turned on him with a quirked eyebrow. He opened his mouth to defend himself. And the sun suddenly filled the foyer. As mid-day. And on the rays floated pale pink blossoms. They blanketed the foyer. The fragrance was unbearably heady. The tile disappeared under a frothed mass of blossom petals. And the sun was a liquid thing laughing among them.
“Well, back to work,” said a voice like bubbles.
A swath appeared between the blossom waves and a path cut slowly towards the door. A glimpse of pink tail here, a glance of pink gills there.
“Ooee!”
He was gone before she could finish gasping. And the story found it’s end.

Happy Hallowe'en everyone! Here is a quick poem to help you celebrate the season.

Hallowe'en

ding dong
giggle giggle
shhhh!
TRICK OR TREAT!!!!
stomp stomp STOMP
creeeeeee-k
.
.. .
.... .
Raaarrrggghhhh!!!
Eek!
Eep!
Eew!
Chomp
Chomp
Chomp
Yum
Yum
Yum
Me like treats!

Another contest submission, this one by my good friend and ex-roommate, Tom! Who I call Tom Orley-o. He is from Saskatoon, where there are many ignorant primates. Though he doesn't blog for some strange reason, his wife does. His submission is a sequel to last year's winning entry. Although you can certainly enjoy this on its own, to enhance your reading experience even more, I think you should check out Pukekura's website.

The Pukekura Chess Club's Wonderfully Magnificent Sunday Outing
or
Berg Finds A Hobby

The excitement began with a game of chess. Or, rather, many games of chess; all of which ended terribly. At first the whole idea had seemed grand to the members of the Pukekura Chess Club, and it was quickly voted in by the group who heralded the adventure as: The Pukekura Chess Club’s Wonderfully Magnificent Sunday Outing!
“What sport this will be!” was Charles’ response when he had first heard the suggestion.
“Wicked awesome!” delighted Peter, mischievously using the word ‘wicked’ despite his parents disdain for its employment outside of purely religious doxology.
Franklin (who was still only sipping noodle soups for lunch as a result of the massive dental headgear recently mounted to his abnormally shaped cranium) squealed with dungeon-and-dragon-like enchantment.
And so the approval swept through the rest of the club’s membership, until it fell, like so many socially inept dominoes, toward the head chair. For a moment the club became silent, all eyes turning nervously in the direction of Florence. Florence, the local chess champion and club viceroy, stood to his feet and in brilliant neglect of his asthmatic condition bellowed one word in Klingon: “HIja'!!!” YES!!!

(read more)

Please tell me that you read Virgina Lee Burton's Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel when you were little? Now that I run a slightly more advanced version of a steam shovel myself, I'm kind of interested in locating a copy. You'd think it would be easy to find one around, but not really. At least, not in the cool cloth hardcover I remember. You can find a cheapo paper cover version, but it's just not the same. Today I was in a bookstore and they had the cheap version, complete with a cassette tape (anyone remember those?) so I decided no to buy it. But right above it was an intriguing poster of a gobliny creature, so I asked the lady what that was from, and now I have this book, and its companion story, which actually I know nothing about, but it just looked pretty cool. Have you heard of it? I'll tell you how it is when Michelle and I read it.

Here is another contest entry. I know my actual bloggiversary was yesterday or today or maybe two days ago, but I am in no hurry- submissions are still open. This one is a little long, so I will just put the first two paragraphs, then link you to the rest. It is by my friend Seraphim Bonavarius de'Angelo, a saintly ole mystic from Charlottesville, where there are many . . . ummm, mice?

The Prophet sighed -- A Bear Story

The Old prophet sighed. As he was walking thru the woods he came upon the corpse of a young bear. Not killed for food, or in self-defense, but for sport. Killing just for the meanness of killing something smaller than you, because you could.

The prophet took a cloth and wiped his head, with a cloth for just such a purpose, he’d carried it since he lost his hair. The sun was shining down on him. He paused and said a brief prayer, asking God for mercy.

And here is the rest

Another one of the unforeseen joys of marriage is introducing your wife to some of Johnny Cash's more obscure songs, like the hilarious Chicken in Black.
Looking forward to the Walk the Line movie coming out next month.

Rapunzel was soooo much fun! Craig and Deb joined us, and Deb observed that we were the only four adults there who didn't have kids with them. Which is really too bad because as an adult I thoroughyl enjoyed the songs, the jokes, the acting and the set design. It was fantastic. And having so many children in the audience was cool too, because they are so uninhibited in their reponses- laughter, screams, whatver. Afterwards the actors and pianist let anyone join them on stage and just answered questions and talked with all the kids who crowded around them. Very, very cool. Makes me want to write a children's play.
But it wasn't really an opera,in the sense of sopranos and tenors and all that. More of a normal musical. Which is fine. I just had the impression it was an opera for some reason. So Michelle and I will still be looking for our first opera to go to.
Know of any?

Another submission for the contest! What contest you say? This one!
This one is by my good friend Lydia, an Ohioan who currently resides in Toronto, where there are many hogs.

"why i gave her my subway seat"

she's last week's shopping
list folded over, bent backwards
with damp fingers until the
crease cracks with middle age,
its belly spreading into an ever-
increasing bulge of soft yield
too worn to uphold the top half
of the list. when the breeze comes
eggs and milk and bread crash
into the current, letters ping
against each other. and both
g's and an h are lost forever
underneath tomatoes and an apple
pie at the very end of the page.

So Michelle and I are avid patrons of the Symphony, and getting more into the Ballet, but neither of us has ever been to an opera. There's just something a little daunting about opera. But Fringe Theater Adventures is putting on a children's opera about Rapunzel. It sounds like the perfect intro to the world of opera for us. Especially since tickets are only $18.12. If they were $18.14 we probably couldn't afford it. We're going to the Saturday evening show if you want to join us.

From last night's talk at the G, a tone poem of sorts:

Monsters are primal predators
freaks of nature
genetic mutants
bizarre hybrids
scaley slime slingers
invading aliens
robots running amok
creatures of the night
undead aberrations
denizens of hell
outcasts from heaven.
And we are just soft pink things.

Monsters want to eat us
dismember us
mutilate us
take over our bodies
kidnap our children
suck our brains
raygun us
turn us into one of them
perform . . . bizarre experiments on us.
Basically, they want to do us harm.
They are bad.

I forgot to mention I'm speaking at the Gathering tonight and the next two Sundays. Tonight's topic is Monsters! Rarrrrghh! Next week is Fear. Eek! Then the Fear Slayer. Or something like that. I don't want it to sound too much like the satanic love spawn of Tom Araya and Dino Cazares.
And even better than me speaking is Seven Devil Fix providing the Araya-ish soundtrack. Kick ass! Word on the street is they might even be performing my theme song! Hey hey hey Homie Bear! (Yeah, they wrote a song about Homie Bear! Kick more ass!) See you there.

Speaking of contests, Canadian author Yann Martel is holding a contest to illustrate Life of Pi. Yay for tigers lost at sea! And islands that eat people! He's offering a trifle more than a $25 gift certificate (did I mention that it was for the online retailer of your choice? Yup). But I suspect the competition might be a little stiffer. And you kind of have to be able to draw.

Whiskey River featured this poem by Nicholas Christopher last year when I was in New Zealand. I liked it so much I copied it out in my trip journal, right after the entry about the Levin hoodlums that bombarded Wedge with fireworks and unidentified projectiles. Anyways, I couldn't find it in the Whiskey archives, but (s)he let me know where (s)he found it. It's got a cool Hallowe'eny feel to it. Enjoy!
I'm listening to Lou Reed's New York CD, which has the thematic song Halloween Parade. And the lyrics to Last Great American Whale are really cool too, even if they have nothing to do with Hallowe'en.
Since these guys don't really qualify for my bloggiversary contest, I am looking to you to send me your entries!

Yay! Here is the first entry for my bloggiversary contest, details of which you can see by scrolling down a bit to October 2. This one is a poem by Phil of Introspection's Lair, and Calgary, where they have many cows:

Calving Season

‘Twas the witching hour
Of a cold February night
The wind would make any man dour
The chill would seep his might

In my father’s coat
I rode the great Ram
In the snow it could float
It would pull any dram

‘Twas a 4 x 4
The grey hulking thing
Through the field it would roar
In diesel octaves sing

Outside snarled the blizzard
Through which I would trek
And though it blew terrible hard
Ne’ertheless, cows I did check

For ‘twas a task of mercy
For patent motherhood
In wind-chill minus forty
Exposed, outside, the cattle stood

And life’s little miracle
Would often thus begin
Into this howling debacle
Calves quietly slipt’ in-

-to this harsh chilly world,
And heard their mother’s lows
Anxious frosty breath curled
And mixed with fatal snows

I stepped off the great beast
Over drift, fence and into corral
And sought a small sign, the least!
Of new life in this cold hell.

And lo, I did indeed see
Weak wet and shivering
A tiny new calf in the lee
Of the wild wind moaning


I knew what to do, exactly
I grabbed the calf sled
Thus my father taught me
I pulled towards a warm bed

The precious new cargo
And behind me was the mother
Worried, she would bellow
As we neared the barn’s cover

We came out of winter’s frosty maw
Into warm heated air
The barn smelled of fresh straw
It smelled righteous fair

Under the heat lamp in the pen
I briskly rubbed the calf
With bunches of straw in hand, then
Stepped back, let mother do her half

And care for her new baby
I had done all I could
I pulled the calf to safety
With pride there I stood

I knew I did a good job
On this cold lonely night
No calf’s life it would rob
Since I did my job right

Now it was back to bed
Safe from the frozen night
I could rest my own head
And wake to morning’s light

Hallowe'en is only a few weeks away and I'm getting excited- what's your favorite monster? Or the one you are most scared of?
I've reprinted an old essay that was sort of about monsters which I originally wrote for some other website that I think is gone now. It answers my second question, though not the first- my favorite monster would be some sort of giant zombie bear with bat wings and glowing green robot eyes.

(PS- Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian and expatriate friends!)

C is for hockey! Hockey starts with C! Hockeyhockeyhockey starts with C! Or something like that. I always sing a bastardized version of Cookie Monster's song this time of year. Oh wait, I didn't sing it last year, because hockey started with "No!" But that's okay- all was forgiven when the Oilers signed Chris Pronger and Mike Peca on the same day. Plus the new rules mean that Edmonton can actually compete with the megamarkets. And when they come out blazing like they did last night in the opener, well, it's gonna be a great winter!
Hey Selkie, are you going to go to any Coyotes games to see Wayne Gretzky? Not that he'll do much, mostly pace the bench. Maybe his daughter Paulina will sing the anthem from time to time.

Contest!
Pooing in the Woods is nearing its third bloggiversary! Yay! For a humble blog that started out as a depository of endless jokes involving the word "poo" to, well . . . not much has changed I guess. Still, there is now a whole Homie Bear universe, and there has been tons of characters, stories and poems along the way. It's been a lot of fun, and I am very happy with the direction this old blog has taken. So. Three weeks to go- enough time for a contest, n'est-ce pas?
I talk about all kinds of things here at the Woods, but when you boil it down, I think I celebrate two things: wonder and whimsy. With maybe a touch of irreverance. So for the Third Annual Pooing in the Woods Bloggiversary Contest, I am inviting you to submit . . . anything. Well, a story, a poem, artwork . . . anything creative. It doesn't have to be about bears, but it can be. Or it can be about Martians or robots or your neighbour or anything. But what I am looking for is something with a sense of wonder, something whimsical and fun. Cause that's what it's all about.
Anyone can enter, even if you're a lurker I've never heard of. But be aware that your entries will be poosted here for all to see (though I reserve the right to not poost it if it is mean or vulgar or anything like that). The prize will be a $25 gift certificate to Amazon, or Bestbuy, or CafePress, or whatever- winner's choice (as long as it is online). Deadline is October 23rd, the actual anniversary date I believe, and I will announce the winner shortly after that.
To get some ideas, here are some examples of previous winners, and my own writings that sort of epitomize what I mean:
Last Year's Winner
Two Years Ago Winner
A fun story- The Robot and the Devil
A non-rhymey poem- E=mc²
A rhymey poem: The First Annual Forest Animals Forum

So there you go. Enter at nwaddell (at) gmail (dot) com . And keep in mind Halloween is fast approaching, so ghosts and ghouls are of especial interest right now. The most important thing is to have fun, and celebrate your creative side.

Have you heard about the Calvin and Hobbes Complete Works Box Set? Pretty fancy, but I think I already have almost every strip ever printed. What would be cool is if the box set had some new or previously unreleased material- then I might consider parting with 140 bucks.
What would be even more cool is if Bill Watterson unretired Calvin and Hobbes. I would give him $140 if he did that. Heck, $142. And fifty cents.

Attack of the Giant Squid!
Thanks to gabrielle for the headsup- we finally have some footage of a living, mature giant squid! Although you can mostly just see tentacle, which is okay because that preserves an aura of mystery about the mighty Architeuthis. Since the link gabby put in the Droppings doesn't seem to work for us Firefox users, I will send you here instead.
I guess that makes my story about giant squids obsolete! Which is a good thing- the whole point was to find one, right? Still no one has yet seen a living Longman's Beaked whale, though. That story has just now disappeared forever into the oceanic depths that are my archives, but you can find it here.
In fact I read that story at G-Arts, and commissioned an illustration for it, done by the very talented Emily Weber.



She specializes in fun pictures of General Grievous so go check out her gallery (by clicking on the picture)! Ninja Ewoks!

Speaking of giant squids, here is a white giraffe. They should form their own tribe and move to the Arctic and be polar giraffes! They could prey on giant squids.

The past few months I've been getting pretty good at running this one:


and this one:



and this one too:



So this last week I was able to get some hours on the brand new one:



It's pretty fun, and once you get the hang of it, not really that difficult. The main thing is not to do this:

I've been reading Monster of God, by David Quammen. It's pretty interesting- he explores the effect that man-eating predators have on culture and the human psyche. In the section on bears (my favorite!) he talks about how the classic heroic literature such as Beowulf, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, though dealing with mythical themes, heroes and monsters, may not have been all that fantastic (in the sense of, just fantasy) for their contemporary audiences:

No one can prove just how much Grendel and Fafnir and Grendel's mother (charging ferociously, enraged by the death of her cub) owe to the real physical presence of the brown bear, and I don't propose to try. But it's interesting to remember that the old dark woods weren't empty of inspiration.

Can you imagine grumpy ole Grendel as a grizzly?

What are you listening to these days? I finally picked up the new White Stripes. Wow. You should really get it. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone Magazine was only exaggerating a little bit when he said, "If you happen to be a rock band, and you don't happen to be either of the White Stripes, it so sucks to be you right now." Every song is perfect- I especially like The Nurse which reminds me of that happy True Romance theme; and the bluegrassy and whimsical Little Ghost.
Bif Naked's Superbeautifulmonster is another disc never too far from my CD player these days. I'm not sure how much exposure she has in places other than Canada, but she kicks muchas ass, and you should check her out. The new album is probably her strongest one yet. Lots of her trademark sweetbadasssassiness,strong melodies and even a few quick little musical jokes (the bass does a double take when she says "I wanna be like Pamela Lee, you go get the camera and I'll say 'cheese'"). Plus she throws in a cover of Nothing Else Matters. What else could you ask for? My favorite song is That's Life With Me- "But if I french kiss you in the broad daylight you'll fall in love oh oh oh."
And speaking of Rolling Stone, I was browsing their movie reviews and saw the unfortunate poster for Everything is Illuminated which seems to be about Kevin from Sin City.

Cadaverous Cattle

I got another
rejection slip
in the mail today
no one wants to publish my article
about the strange place
only I know about
and even then
I’m not entirely sure where it is
I found it by accident
it’s a place where
brains grow out of the ground like
cabbages
and herds of zombie bovines graze on them
unholy cows
shuffling and ambling
chewing their grey matter cuds
heedless of the giant blue
buzzards
that tear off strips of undead flesh
robot herdsmen watch over their deadstock
keeping the scavengers away
by throwing
robot rocks
at them
one of them saw me
and hefted a glowing electronic
stone
I thought he was waving
so I waved back
and was knocked
unconscious
when the little missile
hit me
I woke up back at home
with no idea how I’d gotten there
and worse
no idea how to get back
and now no one wants to publish my article
until I get photos
and an exact location
after some careful research
I think I might be able to find it
so I’m going back
with my camera
a compass
and a catcher’s glove

The idea for this came last week on nightshift, when I had an image of a field of brain plants come into my brain. Almost as if planted. So I thought about it some more and came up with a whole ecosystem.

New KoRn!!! No release date for the new CD yet, but Twisted Transistor is the first single. I'm listening to it right now. Squizz is playing them on XM Radio , and it kicks about ten tons of ass. It's so good they played it twice! Turn it up! Turn it up!

From Ursula Vernon, the creative genius who gives us Digger two times a week, comes The Book of the Gear, a travel journal in blog format delving into her enigmatic Gearworld. It's worth going to the first entry and starting from there, you are not too far behind yet.

Those who know me know I am pretty loosey goosey (or, as I prefer to call it, bearly carely) when it comes to planning. "What, we're embarking on our around-the-world trek next week? Let's go get tickets then. Tomorrow." But my dear wife is wired quite differently. She is much more organized than I. Today she went and got herself one of those daytimer things, do you know what I mean? They are sort of like a calendar and you can write all the things in them that you have to do for a certain day, and carry it around with you so you don't forget. Cool concept. But the one she bought is for 2006! She needs one for 2005. In fact, a new U of A daytimer would be just about perfect. So . . . who has one that doesn't need it? Can we have it?
We could trade you for a never-been-used 2002 daytimer that I got for my birthday a few years ago. Or a cup of coffee.

We went to the Edmonton Tattoo and Arts Festival today. There weren't any gamertags for sale, but there wasn't much else going on, either. I think because we went on the last day, most of the events were already done. There was a decent band playing, the B-movies, and . . . lots of booths. More of a convention than a festival. But that's okay, it was only the first one. Next year we'll make sure to go for some actual events. Maybe they'll have a body painting contest, like in Wellington where I took these pictures.
What was exceptional and amazing, however, was last night's session of the Symphony Under the Sky. Actually it was in the Winspear, due to weather, but that is just as good. Local goddess Bridget Ryan (who we saw earlier in The Breast Show) narrated Peter and the Wolf, which I had never been exposed to really. It's whimsical, fun and enthralling- and gave me some ideas. Also there was Beethoven's Egmont Overture, which I love, and now brings me to 4 out of my 5 favorite Beethoven pieces live. I just need to see his 3rd and I will have no need of heaven. Beethoven bingo!
And though the entire program was exceptional, the other highlight I need to share with you is an amazing, fun, whimsical (again!) piece written by a former ESO composer-in-residence named Allan Gilliland, called Dreaming of the Masters 1. It's all about jazz, man. There was even a jazz drummer on stage, and the centrepiece is the clarinet- it was written specifically for a Leduc-born clarinet master named James Campbell who performed it last night again. It was so cool to see the ESO do full on bebop, swing big band jazz. Those of you from not Edmonton can just lobby your own orchestras to perform it- the Boston Pops has.
DId you ever notice that all the best festivals celebrate the arts somehow?

I have a pretty decent job, and even though it can be hard work sometimes, and really long hours, I enjoy it. No complaints, you know? Today, though, I forgot my lunch. This made me very sad.
Oh yeah and hungry.
And maybe some grumpy.

Sadly, the Fringe is over for another year. And more sadly, this year's Fringe did not feature Gwen Stefani doing a one woman burlesque show, as she did in my dreams last night. You know you have a strong marriage when you can say to your wife, "I had a non-erotic dream about a nude Gwen Stefani last night." She was doing a Marlene Dietrich/ Betty Boop sort of thing. Unfortunately there were some guys at the show who didn't respect the Fringe's etiquette and were harassing Miss Stefani, so I had to teach them some manners and I missed most of her show.
Also, I dreamt about Slipknot again. They were unveiling their new generation masks, which were ultrahigh-tech and featured all kinds of lasers and stuff. So cool!

We saw two plays today. Yay! And one of them was even free! Yay some more! We were walking around with our Fringe program in our hands when two guys came and offered us tickets to their show, "Journey to the Center of a Doughnut" for free. Since that was right neighbourly of them we took them up on it, and enjoyed a funny, possibly philosophical but more likely just nonsensical romp involving doughnuts, nothingness and lots of crazy characters.
Also we saw The Breast Show, created by and starring Bridget Ryan and Shannon Tyler, two well-known Edmonton media personalities, and it was excellent. Both a hilarious musical and a touching tribute to women who have or have had breast cancer, it is definitely aimed at women but I found it highly enjoyable, so all you bears (and men) will enjoy it too. A portion of all tickets sold goes to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.
Oh yeah, and a festival I forgot to mention yesterday that is coming up Labour Day long weekend is the Edmonton Tattoo Festival. Make sure your speakers are turned down low before you click!

Festival festivallus!
Have you been out to the Fringe yet? Michelle and I are going tomorrow. As always, the hard part is choosing just one or two plays out of the many that sound interesting. I think I'm due for a dud, since so far I have always been really lucky. We'll see.
A couple of weeks ago we went to the Folk Festival for a couple of the nights- the highlight was seeing Loreena McKennit. She sounds even better live than on her CDs, Selkie! Just amazing. Steve Earle the next night.
And Symphony Under the Sky is coming up in a couple of weeks. Beethoven's Overture to Egmont is on the itinerary so we are definitely going to try and get to that. Wanna come?
On a smaller scale, but just as exciting, is next Sunday's G-Arts festival at the Gathering. Third Annual, no less! I will be reading some poems and a story that first appeared right here in the Woods! Always a good time.

It snowed all day at work today. And I banged my thumb when a very large metal pin fell on it. It hurt. Then I fell on some rocks and banged my knees. Also I got wet from wading in mud all day, and I dropped my backpack in some of the same mud. But on the plus side- orange sherbet for dessert when I got home.

Edmonton's been kind of chilly lately. So I remarked to Michelle, "It's cold as hell!"
To which she replied, "Hell is cold?"
"Well, Dante had a level of hell that was freezing."
"Was that for the really bad people, or . . . "
" . . . or the people who were kind of nice?"
"Yeah, like the ones who just got in by the skin of their teeth."
This sounded like a good excuse to pull out Nirvana Unplugged to hear their version of "Lake of Fire":

"Where do bad folks go when they die?
They don't go to Heaven where the angels fly
They go to a lake of fire and fry
See 'em again till the Fourth of July"

But that didn't really warm us up.

The envelope was addressed to "Mr. H. Bear". Mail for him? Yay! The polar bear waved a massive paw at the departing mailman, whose snowshoes were crunching softly in the Arctic snow. Eagerly, he went back into his den to see what the mysterious package could be. The last time he got any mail was months and months ago, when Cousin Berg sent him a postcard from New Zealand.
He used a sleek sharp claw to slice the envelope open. Inside was . . . himself! A picture of him, surrounded by a yellow border. He was on the cover of a magazine! He was making his best menacing snarl, a pretty scary sight for sure. Attached to the magazine was a sticky note that read, "Hey man, thanks for being such a great model! My first cover!", signed by that nice photographer fellow he had met over a year ago. He had forgotten all about that guy. Now he was doubly glad he decided not to eat him. It had been fun taking all those pictures, posing and making faces. He had no idea he would make the cover of National Geographic!
There were more pictures of him inside, in the article on polar bears and PCB contamination. Yuck. He knew all about that, so he flipped through the rest of the magazine. A story called "In Search of the Giant Squid" caught his eye and he began reading. It was so interesting- this article said that squids have blue blood, since they use copper rather than iron to bind oxygen. And they have ammonia inside of 'em! Yuck! Almost as bad as PCBs. But the most intriguing thing about giant squids is that no one had ever seen one alive. Well, the article mentioned one guy in New Zealand (maybe Berg knows him)who caught a few larval ones, but no one had ever seen a big one. No people. And no bears either- until now! Mr. H. Bear decided to go and see a giant squid that very day.
Grabbing his goggles, he headed outside. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, Bear estimated it was not quite midnight, so there should still be a few more hours of daylight. Plenty of time to go to that lead he had passed the other day, where, if he was lucky, that pod of whales might still be hanging around.
The lead, a large swath of open water that remains ice-free year round, was a short distance away, an easy walk for a polar bear. When he arrived, he was pleased to find some whales lounging about, feeding and resting. They were big, much too big to worry about being eaten by a bear, so Mr. H was able to approach without frightening them away. Selkies, seals and even belugas would never let him get so close.
"Hey there!" he called. "Hallo?" Most of the whales ignored him, or maybe just didn't realize he was talking to them, but one swam over to him. "Hi!" she said in a sort of whistly voice. "Who are you, silly bear?"
"I am Mr. H Bear."
"Well than I am Miss C Tacean. Esquire." She giggled. "What can I do for you?"
"Have you ever seen a giant squid?"
"All the time! Why, you don't want to eat one, do you?"
"No, I just want to see one. Will you take me to see one?"
"Well, since you have such nice goggles, I guess I will! But mostly I see squid around New Zealand or Newfoundland, not up here in the Arctic. And you have to go pretty deep, and it gets pretty dark and cold down there, so I doubt we'll see one today. But it'll be fun to look! Hop on!"
And so Mr. H carefully climbed on Miss C Tacean's back, just behind her dorsal fin, and took a deep breath. Although he swam pretty much every day, he had never dove much below a couple of meters. He was excited. "Ready?" C called.
"You betcha!" H answered, and down they went.
The water was cold, but of course polar bears aren't bothered by that. At first, it was clear, blue and familiar in the way the sunlight diffused into straight edges. He could hear whale song, and see vague shapes nearby. But as they went deeper, the water turned black, and Mr. H could feel the pressure increase steadily- his goggles seemed to be trying to suck his eyeballs out. He kept them open, though, not wanting to miss the hordes of giant squid he felt sure were down here. Still they went deeper. And deeper.
Deeper still- farther than any bear had ever gone. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and the pressure was threatening to turn him into a furry snowball. With one last look, he scanned all around, but couldn't see anything. Finally, he tapped Miss C Tacean's fin and she started the ascent. Slowly, so he wouldn't get the bends. It was agony, but Mr. H didn't really mind- what a great adventure! Even if it was a failure.
When they broke the surface, Mr. H rolled onto the snow, gasping for breath. He looked like some exotic new species of drowned Arctic rat, and Miss C Tacean laughed. "Are you alright, silly bear?"
"Yeah," he said, between breaths, "I'll be okay. Did you see any?"
"No, there weren't any down there. Just us whales."
"Oh well. Thanks for the ride! I'm going to go home now. Bye." And he turned for home. Despite not being successful in his quest, he was still excited to learn more about all the crazy things in this world. He loved that there were still things on Earth that no one had ever seen. Maybe someday he would be the first to meet a hitherto-unknown species. Wouldn't that be exciting?
Miss C Tacean watched the funny creature walk away. One of the calves in her pod of Longman's Beaked Whales swam up to her and asked, "I saw you underwater and there was some white alien or something on your back!!! What was it?"
"A polar bear. I bet as long as you live, you'll never see anything like a deep diving polar bear again."
"Wow, cool."

The Shoks are a great family, and they sent me a polar bear t-shirt for a wedding present!
Also Selkie and her sister Evil-lynn sent us a card.
I love you guys.

Not sure how widespread this story got in the media, but a scientist from my alma mater agreed to do a DNA analysis of a tuft of hair found in the Yukon believed to be sasquatch hair. Turns out it is just bison fur, to the surprise of not really anybody. The search continues.
In the meantime, another search continues for something we know exists, but have never actually seen in the wild- Architeuthis, the giant squid. When I was in St. John's, I went to the newly-opened world class facility The Rooms, where they had a really interesting exhibit on Architeuthis. One researcher hit on the idea of capturing newly-hatched giant squids and raising them to adulthood, and he was able to do so, giving the world the first footage of living Architeuthises, albeit they were really little since they were just babies. And sadly they all died within hours.

One interesting and unforeseen side-effect of marriage is you find yourself watching Oprah from time to time. Today's special guest is Ashton Kutcher.

This poem is a direct result of driving around Cape Breton Island, listening to the Gorillaz' (and Dennis Hopper's) "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head", and mulling over Dan Simmons' Ilium, a curious tale about the Trojan War on Mars, among other things. And if this reminds you of the Iron Giant, that's okay, too. Stuff written on one's honeymoon need not be very original or amazing, as long as it's about robots.

The Lighthouse Cove

At the edge of the world
where green grass meets blue sea
a lighthouse stands
where it has kept vigil
for over a century
guiding ships safely
past the rocks

Then one day
with a sea storm's suddenness
a giant black robot
over a hundred feet tall
and not quite humanoid
descended from space
and landed
next to the lighthouse

The residents of the sleepy little cove
watched with apprehension
and wariness
waiting for the strange thing
to do something
anything
probably devour them all
but all it did
was incline its head
toward the heavens

Slowly they overcame their fear
and approached the black shell
the robot didn't devour anyone
it didn't react at all
the braver boys discovered
that it made a hollow clanging sound
when you hit it with a rock
and the girls drew on it with chalk

Inevitably the government came
and so did the tourists
while the residents went about their lives
some of them got jobs as tour guides
in the Robot Interpretive Center
all the while
the lighthouse stood guard
and the robot didn't move
though sometimes its eyes glowed
different colors

The government and all its
secret organizations
could not discover the robot's origins
though there were lots of books
with all kinds of
conspiracy theories
and crackpot hypotheses
sparking endless debate
and boredom
while the robot stood tall
next to the lighthouse

Many years later
with no warning
the robot flew away
leaving the lighthouse behind
where it remained impassive
searching the seas for ships in distress
while the citizens scanned the skies
to no avail
so they returned to their lives
in their sleepy little village
now devoid of government and tourists
and they renamed it
Robot's Cove