Downtown Hamilton Ontario in Photographs

This collection of photographs is a partial representation of my first 8 weeks in Hamilton Ontario. There are photos from the monthly James Street North Art Crawl, street art, architecture, and various esoteric expressions of my experience.

Artisanal works being sold at the art crawl

Pay by the hour sewing place on James Street North 

My Reflection on a Recent Shopping Experience at the Latest Swedish Place

A Three Year Incubation Of My Soul

I just moved to Hamilton after three years spent (mostly) in Calgary, or "the heart of the new west!". It was a very boring and alienating time for me, but a lot of good came out of it as well.

I spent the first year reflecting on my father's recent passing. I ran that entire year, and I ran with a lot of passion, and I ran damn fast actually, and I'm proud of that. Now when I write something good, even one of Canada's greatest athletes Sam Effah sometimes gives me feedback, and I am reminded of how I am part of a special tribe of people, as my father was, who care extremely deeply about inspiring others. And I can think back on Terry Fox, and Emilie Mondor, and Steve Prefontaine, and remember why this sense of urgency I feel matters so much. The race doesn't stop because I'll never run another 52.2 400m (like I did for Gloucester, so our relay team could make provincials in '99, my father's best high school time, a paltry 52.5*).

I always felt I could make my father more proud of me just through simple honest efforts, then by getting a phd, making a zillion dollars, or becoming Prime Minister. I'll always remember when I was an 8yr old boy, him standing in front of me with a hand grip, sweating, showing me how to use it with his undying gusto. I said: "wow that's good Dad, how many should I do?" He become cross with me, and he told me it doesn't matter how many, and stormed out of the room. I understand fully what he meant only now.

personal trainers recommend 3 sets of 15

Year two and three were mainly spent working on the web, and the result of this is a thriving online media project called ZOUCH. My creative partner Jeff Campagna and I exchanged over 4000 emails before we ever spoke one on one, before we ever saw each other in the flesh. So many battles fought, so many concepts refined, so much design, so many feelings, all through the very internet my father warned me was going to mess things up for writers. Nothing is messed up, nothing is ever messed up.

Spiralling deeper and deeper down the rabid whole of the digital media space has helped me find my voice as an artist, and it has taught me that as artists and writers we're working to be in tune with many voices, and decide collective vision through both arcane and direct messages.

_____

*something interesting is that his best time in the 800m was 2:03.9 he told me once when I was a kid, and I only ever ran 2:04.0. One tenth of a second, over a half mile. One tenth of a second that I must run for the rest of my life to make up.
* Gloucester Gator's Tristan Hannington, Jason Stebbings, Nick Burton and I had the fastest 4X400m relay time in Ottawa that year with a 3:33, set at Terry Fox Stadium at Mooney's Bay.

Muslim Women's Lib Movement Bares All (NSFW)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

A Chart Explaining God's Power

Saw this morning and it cracked me up, just thought I'd share since my blog's been on this weird Christian theme lately.

via kyle_strong

Hamilton Art Crawl Induced Reflections on Art, Christianity, and Canada

I got home from the monthly Hamilton Art Crawl late last night, and woke up bright and early with a few ideas racing through my head.

..traded a copy of my book of poetry last night for the
above collage by Sean Gadoury from the Group of 7 Billion 

I've spent 17 years thinking and creating art and music and writing and learning computers and trying to be innovative, and never exactly thought hard about making money with art [follow my train of thought and learn my definition of art in a previous post] until recently (even though it's always been the thing that defines me). 

I'm realizing what a gift being able to do that has been, and how much my family and this decent society have given me. I've had to work hard all those years to make ends meet, and I'm still poor, but somehow I'm healthy as an ox, with a strong will, a clear head, a home to call my own, and healthcare. These are blessings beyond what I deserve, and so I figure I owe.

One interpretation of Catholic guilt could be when someone feels they were raised well, and they can't be happy unless they're working diligently on making the world as good for others as they have it themselves. Even though I'm not part of the church, I feel this so passionately that I press it on others and consider it a core Canadian value. The only hero I will ever truly need is Terry Fox, his life represented this value perfectly. If we could all be like him, we'd be an evolved species by now, we'd be star people walking on the topside of Andromeda, we'd live ten thousand years, we'd have wings. 

But never did an angel come to tell me that everything would be alright for me, that I was doing the right thing with my life working on my inspirations, on what I know is good. So if I want angels to exist, then I must be one then? Because I hear only murmurs in the streets, and there's no one left to tell me that my sacred visions and profane nightmares are not reality. The panthenon of cosmic dangers and invisible orders in my mind's eye are the only reality I can ever know.

I must make a life for myself from all of this, and teach others to do the same, so that we can truly shape the world. So that we may stop pretending that as artists our work should always fit in below the highest levels of media, and that we should be relegated to a corner somewhere, living off a stipend or a part-time barista salary. Do we need more bureaucrats in the world, or do we need more creative innovators? Even though I offer no solutions, I have faith a sea change is possible.

My scrapbook from the Friday the 13th May Art Crawl

The Art of Maker Culture: What Kind Of Future Are We Working To Build?

I've been mentioning lately to Zouch Magazine staff how I'd like to pay a bit more attention to the flow of DYI and maker culture. There are so many innovative things happening there that bleed over into the art world.

For example, you can use a Maker Bot like this:

To create amazing works of art like this:

How cool is that? This machine actually builds things from scratch in front of your very eyes based on 3D modelling software designs.

I had the chance to have a nice chat with Paul Hart a member of the ThinkHaus.org non-profit, and something came out of my mouth that sums up my state of mind lately: "art is really a big deal". I meant this in reference to the concept of art, and the way in which we are driven to create it.

I was channeling a recent encounter I had with prominent electronic artist Norman White, who said something to the effect of how all of the modern creative stuff, from fine art to heavy industrial engineering is connected, all part of one same matrix of human creation. We can define concepts in countless ways, but art is the underlying truth.

In the past, intellectuals categorized art and sought to control its flow. But the 20th century, especially the second half, saw a flood of new more organic and individual creativity. For example, Rock and Pop music are more liberated art forms than classical music. There are no necessary standards, anyone can play guitar. Also they're a more open platform capable of conceptually integrating any form of music that came before. It's like people finally realized that what matters in music is how it sounds and what it represents, and not the dogma of technical standards, or jargon.

However, so many aspects of human creation and endeavor remain locked in a culture of narrow vision, entitlement, and formality. Seeing human potential stunted because of money or status always raises my ire. But make no mistake about it, the 21st century is a time where innovation is exploding. We're seeing the emergence of more and more platforms for this to be expressed everyday. The beauty of it all is that we can be a part of the dissemenation of these messages, because the media tube has been blown wide open, and our messages are exponentially more free than they have every been. Perhaps one day, everything we do will be art? That's a future I'm ready to work for.

A Canadian Artist's Thoughts On KONY 2012

image from funnyjunk.com

This is my facebook post from a few days ago:

If I had extra money I wouldn't support the kill Kony thing. I'd rather see the money go to building wells and schools in the poorest countries in the world, and empowering the people to build stronger democratic governments capable of taking care of their own problems. The world isn't fair, there's tons of horrible shit going on, but I think things flow better when you focus on one problem at a time. Some people think Kony is #1 problem in the world, God bless them. I would wait for the campaign that's about building wells, sustainability, and schools.

I believe in social media's ability to help shift the balance of power towards those meek folks my ancestors claimed are slated to inherit the world. We need to stop looking at things in black or white terms. KONY 2012 is a powerful experiment to see how people will react to a mission. I'm already getting sick of hearing negative things about the individuals involved in it, because it's often the same impotent rhetoric we hear people spout all the time in reference to our politicians.

Blinded by The Light

I stare long into the night
Into the cold void

Tilting my gaze
I'm blinded by the sun

But in its heat I feel truth
The message is effortless: Continue my light

Feel Ok

from 2004


when morning ends
the truth about ourselves
burns so insecure

when there’s no time spent
my life can seem distant
and obscure

the mind and eyes
so separate
divided
so where do these questions go when I feel ok
how can I be both lost and found
where do these questions go when I feel ok

my feet are on the ground
and my head is in the clouds

Adios Formulist, Thanks For The List

The list below is for those of you who use twitter profusely. The tool called Formulists was pretty damn handy, but they had to shut it down :(

The creators of that tool provided this cool list to help their users adjust to life in a post-formulist world, so I thought I'd share:

General Twitter list management
Twitilist.com
“Adding more than five users through the Twitter web interface is tedious, but doing it through Twitilist is a breeze.”

Managing Followers/Unfollowers
Tweepi
“…the Twitter management tool with stats!”

Tracking Fans
Commun_it
“Focus on Your Highest-Value Relationships: Influencers that drive awareness, supporters that spread your message, potential new leads..”

Discover and Share Lists of Awesome People
List.ly
“Lists made social! Make collaborate, shareable lists”

Track Unfollowers

http://who.unfollowed.me/

RE: My Religious Facebook Blab

in reply to Kyle Gallagher's thread on religiousness

Points of view are overrated. Some people don't WANT truth, that's sad, and I don't have a "let them believe whatever they want" attitude, because I know they are just brainwashed into ignorance, and that those of us who live by the pursuit of truth are the light. But truth is more than just a perspective, it's more than a 2012 human scientific perspective. 

"Facts" SEEM real, until we uncover a meta-level that shakes up the framework under which was supposed the simpler truth (gravitation, light, evolution, all sorts of things that seemed understood have later been hacked to pieces by more accurate assessments, and the cycle continues). In other words, many religious people "just feel" that there's a load of ignorance among atheists, and even among scientists, and they are totally right. This doesn't mean there's a magical land somewhere in the sky where you can laugh with God and Jesus and dead people. Modern humans don't need this archaic and epically bizarre suggestion to be well balanced individuals. Do good, then you will live for eternity in your deeds as their influence carries forward into the expanding universe. We are for all eternity the influence we have in the real universe right now, for real. Isn't that good enough!?

When it comes to our science, we have only a relative and fragmented truth. But I think our technologies place us on the cusp of a new age, where we can measure what is really happening in the universe in real time, in precise ways. A universe is as a universe does. But ultimately we're still just simple creatures just kinda looking around, like a chipmunk or a bear would. We don't really stand united for anything, and science can't provide us with a goal, we have to believe in what we're doing, we find belief in our feelings, in our minds, and through philosophy and religion.

Canadian Elk Get Their Own Bridge

This photo shows elk crossing a specially designed bridge in Banff. Good work Canada.

Thanks for emailing this to me mom :)

Reflections On The Places I Have Lived

Ottawa - Everybody in this absolutely beautiful city supposedly loves arts and culture, but they all work for the government. I don't know what that means, but it's a bit strange. Super-cool, super-sophisticated pod-people. I'll never miss any other city as much as I miss Ottawa, the city where I was born and raised, but I don't want to live there.

Montreal - If you don't speak French fluently, don't move there. It's a great place to live for a French artist, or anyone who wants to have a fun life in a vibrant major city on the cheap (I think you can still get a huge 3 bedroom apartment right in the downtown area for under $900/mth). Bohemian lifestyles, bistros and cafes, music, nightlife, yeah yeah, all that shit. Definitely one of the absolute greatest cities in the world.

Reabsorbing Myself

I'm moving soon and I'm going through some of my old stuff. I found this little 12yr old notebook with a some silly illustrations and one poem in it... It gives me a weird feeling to peer into these little fragments of myself I'd left behind, in a box in a closet. Anyways, here's the forgotten poem:

On Hibernating Selflessness

As sure as the grizzly was a bear
he always wept in spring
his dreams thawed and melted away
the bitter nauseating realities of the world
lay before him now
forwarded by the brutal sun's rays
how crude of our lord and master to summon us into action without warning
and how insolent are we to even care

CRE8TIVE ANARCHY | Media Abstractions #1

I'm pre-releasing this little short film I made the other day. I appreciate you guys checking out my blog. I had quit posting for awhile in the spring and noticed a HUGE drop in traffic. And now that I've become a little more active over the summer, I've seen a huge spike. I know you are out there, you fuckin' micro-audience you! So thank you for your patronage.

This film is part of an intended series that will abstractly explore the role of the media in 20th century culture. I have no commercial intentions for this project, so pls nobody sue me for highjacking their footage and reshaping it.

HOOK UP WITH THIS PRoJECT ON TWITTER and TUMBLR

On starting a creative project

I finally learned something about what a good approach is to starting a creative project. It only took me 30 years to figure out that: A - When people say they want to be involved, they actually mean it. You aren't as much of loser as you think you are. B - People need regular kicks in the ass, and C - You have to stick to your guns, or to put it more pretentiously your "vision", and believe. The train then will continue to pick up steam, so long as you offer partners / readers / fans / collaborators / etc. something that's gradually better and better to be a part of. The challenge then lies in never wallowing for too long in pessimism, drink, or lack of self-belief.

Screw The Status Quo R.I.P.

~~~~~{~~<@

excerpt from youtube:

This video memorializes the Screw The Status Quo Zine, which published creative content online from February 2009 to Sept 2010, and stayed live until Aug 2011. The images featured are of STSQ contributors, slogans, remnant website images, and a bunch of art from the zine. The first song was by The Flowers Of Hell, the second by Heroin And Your Veins.

STSQ editor SWAiL (a.k.a Salvatore William Delle Palme) decided to discontinue work on the STSQ zine after beginning a new project with a fellow STSQ contributor, writer and filmaker Jeff Campagna. This new project is called Zouch Magazine. Some of the original STSQ writers, including Meghan Clarkston and Kyle Gallagher have also joined the new posse.

The editorial duo agreed to carry forward Sal's original publishing philosophy, which is to work as a team, assisting indie artists and writers disseminate their work to a broader audience, ignore the mainstream as much as possible while building out of the creative energy of the team, organically and serendipitously. And to ultimately give indie creatives a powerful and global platform for amplifying their vision on the web.

STSQ received approx. 50,000 pageviews.

The 4 editions of the STSQ podcast are still available here:
http://www.nosoundmind.com/2009/10/iconoclast-podcast-episode-2.html

The relaunch video, an STSQ editor Q&A is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L-vzo2hq-8

Thank You, and pls visit ZouchMagazine.com
___

A list of STSQ contributors and other artists who were featured in the zine:

Margaux Wosk
Jerry Grandiose
Jim Gaines
Jeff Campagna
Meghan Clarkston
Kyle Gallagher
Annie G
Skip Pollock
Heather Adair
A.J. Valadka
Andy Ristaino
Emily Ragozzino
Guido Daniele
Madison Brown
Christopher Conte
Rouge Lefevre
GANXTERVISION
Burke Mudge
Brain Fischer
Sadie-Avalon Culver
RKX
Chelsea Delle Palme
Amy Delle Palme
The Migrating Birds
Toykult
GOONSWOOD
Kris Gillis
Jill Zmud
Rachael Freedman
Liz Jukovsky
Eric J. Thompson
The Flowers Of Hell
Melodreama
Foad H.P.
Trisha Kendrick
and more...

Were you a contributor???
Pls drop a line to screwthestatusquo@gmail.com if you would like to be included on the list.

~~~~{~<@
R.I.P. STSQ

Megwetch To Grandfather William Commanda

I received an email today from Circle Of All Nations coordinator Romola telling of how Grandfather William Commanda, former Kitigan Zibi Algonquin chief (from 1951-1970) has departed on his next journey. He passed away peacefully this morning at dawn, in his sleep, in his home. He was 97.

In lieu of flowers, please look for ways to support his vision for the National Indigenous Centre at the Sacred Chaudiére Site.

Former Governor General Michaelle Jean invests Elder William Commanda as an Officer of the Order of Canada. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

A few years ago I created the artwork below, framed it, and gave it as a gift to Commanda on the Victoria Falls site. There's a picture of us together somewhere. I want to help the building get built if I can, because I believe in Commanda's vision to unite all of the nations of the world under one flag. The wisdom I took from him was that we must respect each other first so that we can then work together to protect the land. 

Also, I would like to urge all First Nations' to embrace their identity as Canadian or American or Mexican, etc... while you continue to embrace your history and traditions. And I would also like to urge all the people of the Americas to embrace their identity as First Nations'. Our culture consists of elements from all sides now. We are all people of the same earth, we share the same air and the same water and the same dangers. We all have broad backgrounds, extending all the way back to the beginning of life on earth. We all have stories, troubled and glorious. We have the same desires and wants, and we must unite more and more as we move forward, not let disputes or anger get in the way of our greater destiny. All of the power to do good comes from working together :

{Fiction} Fourteen Girls

I decided late one night that I wanted to know again what it felt like to meditate. The coffee I'd consumed was wearing off, but I wasn't tired. I didn't want to watch television. I didn't want to work, or read, or play guitar. I didn't really want to do anything.

Actually, I experimented with meditation before, as a teenager. Ever since I equate that experience to the highest level of purity I've ever felt in my body. It's strange but I don't relate it much to the mind. I used to think I was close to having one of those out of body experiences you read about. I don't much believe in those now. Yet I feel like there could be something to gain by closing my eyes and taking deep breaths, over and over. Relaxing the gaze, peering inwards, focusing on my yantra.

A lot of people have mantras, but I don't. All I've got is this strange image of circle inside a triangle inside a triangle. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but I think if I focus on it long enough the shapes might start to move around, and get more complex. I'm not sure though, I haven't done this in years.

The scene is set, and I'm on the floor with my legs crossed. I've shut the window to cancel out the whistling of the wind. That's all you can hear out here in the suburbs at this time of night. It seemed like when I was sixteen there was all kinds of activity out there. Young people partying, smoking drugs in the park, and even playing guitars on the grass until the wee hours. I used to do things like that, life used to be so interesting and feel so new. My concentration is broken by my worry that there isn't enough milk left in the fridge for me to make pancakes in the morning.

I thought I might get married once. There's a great happiness to be had through commitment. It's nice to have someone to rely on, and it generally motivates me to be accountable to someone. The thing is, everyone said not to get married because the divorce rates "just keep going up" and the world population is too high, the earth is too poluted, and so on. I guess I believed them and decided to live with several women instead of just one.

Dead quiet is better. I feel alone for the first time in years. No one's asking me to take out the trash, or change the channel, or let them know how their makeup looks. I get tired. Perhaps that's why I'm sitting here trying regain the purity of youth. What has happened over the years? I should be found by now, I should feel more complete. The younger staff members at work having been calling me an old man lately, and I'm only thirty. It's really starting to piss me off because I feel young. But I suppose I still long to feel like I used to, at sixteen, when the mind was a scattered dream that could so easily be mellowed.

They say that when you meditate you should focus the mind on NOT thinking. That's supposed to be the little trick. Isn't it funny, people always say: "You have to think about nothing... but it's sooooo hard to do!" It wasn't hard to do when I was sixteen. I wonder if it used to be easier for people to achieve a state of peace warranting the label of a meditative state, back before the world became this overbearing constant stream of information.

When I was sixteen the internet was this brand new thing. There were personal computers everywhere, but it was a big deal to "go online". That's a funny thought. A thought that wraps my contemplation of why I am sitting here thinking, and not not thinking.

OMMMMM......

OMMMMM......

The "OM" is supposed to do something. It's a symbol in ancient Sanskrit or some other dead Indian language. The symbol is really complicated, way more complicated than my yantra; yet the word is so smooth and simple, a nice mantra unto itself.

OMMMMM......

Fourteen women live in this house with me. Some of them treat me like a king, other treat me like dirt. The honest truth is that I try my best to treat them all the same. It just seems that no matter how hard you try there will always be a little something in your character that rubs some people the wrong way. I should be thankful that at least three or four of them seem to think I'm great, and that many of the rest treat me with dignity. But one of them in particular just can't ever seem to leave a conversation without making me feel like a complete dick. I've deduced that we can all go in different directions with our personality. We shift a little each day, and it depends on what we perceive other people think they want us to be. For the most part this must keep some balance in the world. The things is, it's hard to tell sometimes what people want, and everyday it seems there are so many more people involved in the equation.

The door just opened. A few of the girls are home. Shucks. I was just starting to see my yantra spin in through the endlessness or the nothingness, or the void, or whatever word appeared more fashionable on the day they translated those ancient Sanskrit texts I'll never get to read.