Mushroom Studio

this is katie bethune leaman's beautiful mushroom studio. she graciously let me do a mini-residency here at the sculpture park near St. James' cathedral. i know it's gross to show a bunch of photos of oneself but who else is gonna do it? fountainhead style. besides, this is all about the mushroom which is so special. it felt heavenly to sit inside and do some work.

all photos by: T. Marcel Bois. Thank you, Ted.

i'm very concerned about the polar bears. Sea Of Tea, for you.

working hard or hardly lurking? doodling 'babe, you've got the love/i like'. guess who.

Majeur de Poseur

ps happy birthday, grandpa. i'm glad your heart surgery went well, pig's valve and all.
i'm listening to jimi hendrix
also...the MUSHROOM studo..in vancouver there lives the famous Mushroom Studios where HEART recorded all their dope albums.

Mushroom Studio

yeah i know

i think, perhaps, i may have seen one of the best live show spectacles of my life. this is coming from a lady who's first teenage CONCERT was The Who. Here i sit in neutral TO ruminating..feeling slightly the way i felt when i had to leave that Who concert on (yes) a Magic Bus tour. Driving away from the *magic* in 1989. It couldn't get lamer. Back to the future, i got to see RICK WHITE (Elevator To Hell, Elevator Through, Elevator, eric's trip) perform NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN (prior to that a sweet treat solo performance by *rick* who is one of the most amazing looking people on the planet. i would consider taking the time to do a drawing of him - he's that interesting looking. i would care that much about the subject matter to sit down and re-teach myself how to draw which is what i do every single time i sit down to draw) and Tara joined him to do a POPPY FAMILY cover 'BLOOD FROM BONE'. i almost passed out. but the main squeeze is $100 or One Hundred Dollars

Influences:

• Gordon Lightfoot
• George Jones
• The Sadies
• Dolly Parton
• Don Williams
• Doug Paisley

Led by a new young Lady of Rock for real - Simone Schmidt. she's got the joplin, i swear it. But a Joplin that is contained and in control. You can see that in the live show (it doesn't translate so much in the quiet acoustic recordings). She has everyone in the room in the palm of her hand. totally commanding, totally in charge. a killer voice, a killer delivery, killer ALL.
It is always good to see all band members completely in the pocket during a live show - as opposed to a band ruined by tour.

After they blew all of our minds (her band of several men - including a pedal steel guitarist doing things i've never dreamed could from...a pedal steel guitar is a good indicator of the band sound we're talking about here) with their set - $100 took a 15 minute break and came back with all star-studded out-of-handness: introducing various TO musicians from the house of all sorts. One maniac singer (??) showed up at the last minute (still taking his bag off his back) to do his tune and kicked all the bottles and glasses on stage GG Allin style breaking enroute into our psychic space..shards everywhere (which reminds me - i was so into the show i was chewing on a straw and chipped off a piece of second to front tooth. yes. that good)...the Awesome just didn't stop. How do i explain it? A cover of seger's NIGHT MOVES, four ladies all in black evening wear singing back-up, 9, 10 musicians on stage...but the NIGHT MOVES. I was almost in tears, shards of glass from ducts. almost. And i sure as certain called out, "BRAVO" several times over, hands clapping like an entertained queen at an opera.

i couldn't stay for the party any longer. I made my choice. I made my choice awhile back. almost a year ago. I rode katie's bike home because it's beauty sleep i choose. the party isn't worth it.
it knocks years off of your life. i have too much work to do. so much so that it will span several more decades.

remember this for yourself, if you like.

PS i spent my afternoon in the mushroom studio (by katie leaman) more on this! it's outstanding. I get to sit inside her mushroom studio near St. James' cathedral on King Street. I did some art and some craft - made some gold circles, used some silver pencil crayons, wrote the words 'hey baby, you've got the love i like'...wrote the words "I'm free!" (which is how i felt riding the bike past all the businessmen on King Street today and for once in my life i did not feel guilty about this), worked over some collages ('a shadow of your former self'). that's how i roll. i usually close the book and maybe 15% of my art sees the light of day.

xo smooch.
PS i found an old Family Ties episode with Crispin Glover ! Yah! jackpot...he plays one of alex's buddies. I love that show. It's hilarious. Especially the dad - and of course, APKeaton/MJFox's excellent comedy (physical at times, even).
and this is a favourite with "Cousin Kenneth" played by Joshua Miller - the kid from River's Edge...also a Crispin Hellion Glover vehicle. Yay coinky dinks...

One Fell Swoop

photograph: ahlers

i've been in transit for the past few weeks. packing up my sheet again and again and now i'm in sunny Toronto for the summer. what luck!

I went to the TO Outdoor Art Exhibition the other day and i took a picture of...more garbage. What's going on? I've been taking pictures of garbage and dumps for the past year now. I am tapping into the collective consciousness.

I am having a great time here. more soon.

but i would like to leave you with this phone message that daniel barrow found online and emailed to shary boyle who sent it to me. It's called 'Douchebag Phone Message'. A lady was approached on the streets of TO by this creep and was no doubt harassed into giving him her number. She uploaded these two messages online. How could she not?

It is the largest display of deluded male egomania I've ever heard - and i've heard alot! Years and years of endless droning self-promoting talking about what he's doing what he's done what he's gonna do talking talking.

But to get back on track - this guy believes he is the greatest guy in town.

http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?ContentID=527579

'...thinking about the years...' that's from a HAYWIRE song

Sissy Spacek and Carrie Fisher. What are the chances?

i think of the best writing while i'm out on my walks...it's mostly to entertain myself. this is something i have always done - ever since i can remember.

i wish i could repeat it all here now for you.

i was watching st. elmo's fire last nite. it's so bad. in a bad way.
hi-lights:

rob lowe/billy hixx playing the saxophone like he's about to blow a gasket replete with thin black headband and mass sweatin' it out while demi moore/jules(or is it jewels?) dressed like cyndilauper/madonna like-a-virgin dry humping a speaker while all of st. elmo's is cheering on the sax (and violence).

ally sheedy/andrew mccarthy getting it on for two passionate days. she KEEPS her pearls on the whole time...and managed to push out the glass shower stall door.

demi's apartment decor..bubblegum pink paint job, slight deco/miami vice vibe (always good), very large vases w/ minimalist stick arrangements and a MASSIVE (as in: are you kidding me?) wall mural of billy idol. Massive with real neon accents...his earring in the shape of a cross (pink neon) and some squiggles above his head (blue neon)..i might be making that last part up..I was too busy scanning my book. The scanner was drowning out the sound (thank god. i hate sax) and i was only half-watching it (b/c i've seen it before).

ally sheedy is a graphic designer and judd nelson is her live-in republican boyfriend..THEY too, have a MASSIVE mural: a NIKE ad filling an entire wall of their open area concept whatever loft space. I don't understand it. Maybe Ally designed it.

i also like the scene where they are all stuffed into Demi's hoodless jeep. Somehow they all got crammed into the shot - all six of them - on their way to their choklit shop/st. elmo's.

Friends forever.

PS there are about a hundred other cringe-inducing embarrassing moments but i'm too lazy/couldn't be bothered to...type it out.
---------------------------------

I myself have been driving around listening to a Sissy Spacek cassette i found at the Sally Ann yesterday. I was happy to find it. It was put out in 1983 probably post Loretta lynn/coal miner's daughter. I KNOW she has a great voice but it isn't captured on this recording. sad face. it has a bit of a honky tonk vibe but blanded out and overproduced. There is one song that isn't shirley templed out - she's singing about being a star and how people want their picture taken with her and they know everything about her including her mother's maiden name and they hand her bouquets of roses...it's a good song. I always want to hear the real deal. That's why i lived my 20s in the 90s - when things were REAL, man.

Sissy is awesome. She's one of my favourite actresses. I like Shelley Duvall, too..and BOTH of them are in one of my top 10 movies: THREE WOMEN..an altman 70s movie he wrote from a dream. (Sissy's character's name is PINKY).

Some dumb dork from the generation before mine had a nickname for Sissy:
Sissy Spacechick.

Sissy was the SET DECORATOR for de palma's Phantom of the Paradise. This is the kind of information you learn from sitting through credits all the way through (and reading LINER NOTES).

I also love Meryl Streep. Obvs. 'you can't touch this'. I just re-watched (ahem) Postcards From the Edge and sat mesmerized by the dialogue. Carrie Fisher's novel turned movie. It focuses on the mother/daughter relationship. Carrie's a hollywood kid - her mom was Debbie Reynolds played by Shirley "Out On A Limb" Maclaine (also awesome as Aurora in Terms of Endearment - another good mother/daughter movie).

Meryl sings a few times in Postcards (from the edge). She has one of the most beautiful, pure voices in the history of the universe. When i hear her sing 'Amazing Grace' at the end of SILKWOOD, i start crying. Her voice is one of my all-time favourites. Period. Those stars. They can do it all. They just give it.

Meryl sings all through Altman's last movie (and final) A Prairie Home Companion. Lindsay Lohan is in that, too - and a bunch of other shtars. I was excited to see it in the theatre. Jesse birch and i went to see a matinee but i wasn't in the mood and leaned over and said, 'let's split'. We didn't totally split. We snuck into 'an inconvenient truth'. I did give 'Prairie' a second chance and it was okay/pleasant enough...okay it's boring but worth it to Meryl sing.

seeing a performance of lindsay lohan singing 'edge of seventeen' on youtube really nailed it home about the singing/performing monkey stars. Her song about her dad is really heavy. I applaud that. She's really putting out the party for that song: Father to daughter/father to daughter..'

and her dad was in JAIL at the time.

CUBBY

That's my brother. I have a brother.
We were kind of like twins b/c there are only 16 months between us. Apparently I tried to kill him a few times as a baby. I pushed the baby pram he was in through a plate glass window. I opened up the basement door for him to fall down two flights of steep stairs. He still brings it up. I have ZERO memory of these things.
His name is cubby. it's David. it's 'cubby' b/c he looked like a baby bear when he was teensie.

thank you to my friends who wrote in about SATC. Susan Farmer said i read her mind. That is a comforting thought since i'm sitting here bored in yukon isolation (my choice. i take the effin responsibility). IT'S FINE. I'm WORKING. IT'S A GREAT DAY. ok moving along here. Also comforting b/c my mind is...uh..well...it's an unusual one. Susan is the only person who can help me make my books..but i am learning..that...possibly..there is a new generation of fragmented visual like-minded minds...so come on down (or up).

susan brought up another pertinent SATC point:

One of the things I found most baffling about the movie was the complete shock & disgust everyone had when Samantha returned from LA having apparently gained a whopping 15 pounds. When she arrived & everyone was so shocked at her appearance, I thought that maybe they were insinuating that she'd had a boob job or something - aside from them showing a few scenes after that where she's kind of out of control shoveling food down her throat, I didn't really notice any difference. They did ultimately throw in the token line from Carrie saying that she'd be gorgeous whatever size she was, but we were all quite stunned by it - I don't think any of us really noticed anything different with her appearance.


Me again: that was a strange moment in the movie..kind of added as another 'female issue'..weight gain. There wasn't enough time for this. That was wrong.

Susan also mentioned how carrie's hair was out of hand at the very end of the movie..i didn't notice that..probably b/c i was asleep at that point.

and thanks to LILY FAWN for giving me her opinionz, too. 'opinions were like kittens/we were giving them away'.

and oddly, strangely...both these ladies are the ladies who i played music with in kiki bridges..which i've been listening to today and yesterday...our old band. high five! i'm making a copy for AJA ROSE who sent me an incredible parcel of angora and treats and HER MUSIC!

and even more oddly, strangely...the day i hated SATC the most was watching it one morning before we went to record our album...i had to have my carcass dragged to the recording studio (The Sea Of Shit is the name..of the studio).

Overdue review SATC

SATC NOTES

Miranda in the witch hat in the dollar store

Telling

Seemed to me/ in the 90s/ the women that banded togeth to watch SATC one night per week/to me/ were like covens
(doesn’t rhyme with ‘oven’)


(@ SATC Yukon premiere)
Me slumped against the wall of the theatre
It was really hot in there
(I happened to be sitting at the end of the row)
and pressing a can of soda water against my forehead

Samantha’s humping dog. Way overkill. Way. That was bad. Real bad.

But she was good.

She had a GREAT sunhat on. the widest brim I’ve ever seen.

And I liked her swank totally modern apartment on the beach in LA (could very well be my new style)

I felt as though SJP’s true self shone thru a few times throughout and I didn’t like her.
Kind of a bitchyMadonna bitch vibe
I find scary (personally)

Screaming, hissy fits, S throwing sushi, CB smashing Big w/ her wedding bouquet

The men were like paper dolls. Barely there.
This bothered me

Trying to cover way too much ground: fashion week, decadent 5-star hotel holiday in mexico, massive wedding, pregnancy…I’ve already forgotten the rest

Gaudy outfits

SJP’s studded belt: awesome (SJP she said it was her favourite but in ‘real life’ she doesn’t shop. At all. This is confirmed b/c I have often seen her photographed
in uggs and dumpy comfy outfits pushing her little boy around in a stroller. She loves her kid.

LP said SJP had to live in a CAR with her family as a kid. Broke ass style

81 costume changes for Carrie Bradshaw

what is it about TV to silver screen? Never translates. The intimacy is always lost. It always come out so hollow.

Charlotte’s kid is a brat

That Vivienne westwood gown is a stunner. I like the emerald green bird headdress touch.

I like that pink sparkly glitter phone w/ duct tape strategically placed (that makes it look so fake set dress style..well, that’s the props department. It was brand new duct tape. Details. It’s all in the details).

Kinda felt like a funeral

What’s up with all the starbucks?
That shit is bad.
Product placement is so seventies…so stepford wives.
(sidenote: while watching 27 Dresses, I noticed there was some ‘seventh generation’ P.P. while our heroine was occupying herself with some frenetic cleaning at all hours). A real close-up shot. Oh well, better than …Nescafe or coffeemate)

here is one of my all-time favourite SATC moments (and strangely, oddly makes me think of the craft/etsy revolution):


http://youtube.com/watch?v=8OWl26yXYuE&feature=related

When it was over
I wanted to clap because

it was over.
Waiting for it to end
Clapping when it ended


I got misty-eyed cried during the part when carrie and her PA Louise from St. Louis were exchanging gifts. C gave her that fancy louis vuitton gift box and luxury bag it was such a sweet, pure-seeming gesture.
Now the PA don’t have to rent a designer bag.
Jennifer Hudson was great.

Synopsis:
Watching SATC confirmed the fact that I want a Personal Assistant.
It also scares me how many young women embrace and are influenced by Sex and the city. Sure, yes. It’s important and groundbreaking if you go over the entire series and find the choice moments – but this movie didn’t hit any of those choice moment notes. I really wanted it to. When the movie started I turned in my seat and told my friends, ‘I feel like I’m at Star Wars for the first time’..but this feeling fell away so fast. I just ended up eating a big bag of popcorn the whole time.

When SATC was actually ON-AIR, I refused to participate. I thought it was the biggest load of shit lies I’d ever bore witness to. I remember watching an episode or two and feeling so disgusted. All lies. Who lives this way? Not anybody I know. Bur that was the early 2000s and I was in a dark place. The moment the show was cancelled, I mysteriously had a hankering to watch it. There was no turning back. My viewpoints/frame of mind had changed – I was feeling much lighter in life and was able to embrace it for was it was: nothing. All fun. But it IS something. It’s important. We will see why.

Tootie Freaks Out

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IubygCvXB_Y&feature=related

you really only need to watch half of this.