ramble

(untitled image, 2010)

I can't help but feel this heaviness. It is in the air within me, and perhaps around me as well. In the night, a fog overs the land, and all I can see are the glowing pairs of eyes, big and small, red, white, and yellow, dancing. I feel a calling coming from a deep place in my memory. Often I talk of my time in the desert, obsessing over the texture of the land, the atmosphere that surrounded that place, and perhaps it is because this place, where my feet rest right now is too solid, it is too grounded on facts, and seems to have no myth, no eerie cool air, no vastness that provokes the feeling of endlessness. There is very much a limit here, with non such thing as wild. I seek an opposition, something far removed, with chance, and if there's magic, I'll take some of that too. Perhaps, I tell myself, it is just an illusion, an idea, a fragment of nostalgia that has finally crystalized and formed a face to whom I call my longing. I want to see the red sand desert, I want to walk through the pinto forests, and canyons, I want to hear of the legends the live in such places, hear them spoken not from remote sources, but at first hand.

And if I can, I wouldn't mind seeing Monument Valley again.

PeePee Water

(Man Giving A Conquering Pose in Central Park While Wifey Figure Takes His Photograph, 2010)

As a kid I wasn't necessarily afraid of the ocean, nor swimming, or snorkeling, it was the fact there were these jellyfish-like creatures anchored to the ocean floor and there was only a few feet that separated me from them. We were vacationing to Florida, my mother who was big on scuba had taken her family to Aquarius, one of the first underwater sealabs, and one of the features of this attraction was they let you snorkel here, renting out masks and snorkels. The whole family had their gear on, and I couldn't not get in, I just looked at those jellyfish things, with their pulsating bodies jetting water as if they were digging themselves deeper. My flipper foot would not touch water again for years, in fact, it would well over a decade later I put a snorkel on and nervously float/hover over spiky and stringy creatures. After I got used to the whole thing my only fear remained that someone was going to come up to me when I finally found a place to pee.

I've only gone that one time, and perhaps that might be it for me, as far as I can tell. I dreamed to scuba driving but an early childhood nightmare of dying from the bends still plagues the deep regions of my subconscious. I love the ocean, I want to be near it, in it, around it, and above it. I miss the salt in my hair, the buoyancy it gives my body, how I float perfectly, like my body was a carrot in a salty soap just before boiling point.

Oh My Goodness

(Fallen Tree in Swamp, 2010)

What is before me isn't a vast landscape, nor a narrow hallway, it is simply blindness. I close my eyes to see if they were closed and the action clarifies for me, I am very much awake. In the void of space I float to view a world which has become my life. There is a beautiful, epic, and haunting orchestral score playing, my eyes carry an intense look to them as I stare off into the corridors of my mind. What I seek here are not memories, but what of my future. A shapeless figure appears before me like an apparition, I am no stranger to it. It shines with a brilliance that is painful to the eyes. To spite its overwhelming radiance I cannot look away, it is there before me, sucking me up into a vacuum of its void. My soul leaves me for what could be hours, days, and even years.

Before me is a voice, a face, and hair of a creature that I have hunted as well as it has hunted me. Our roles as hunter and prey often oscillate, with each shift marking its own set of challenges and fruits of pleasures. I am lost to words that give greater detail of this figure which now stands before me, it is haunting in the way that sends chills traveling throughout the flesh. Along the way goose pimples form, and a stock travels from my toes to the ground. The current is complete.

I walk through the air with hands pushing over branches covering my path. I am seeking out an illusive creature, I do not plan on returning until I find it. I am coming to this venture with a full life behind me, with a whole set of codes and conduct that is far removed from the life I am currently living. Inside my shoes are damp socks, and I can smell the rot from here as the hours go by, still quite moist, still quite lost as I travel farther and farther. Today marks an unknown passage of time, with uncertainty growing by the day of how long I have been living like this exactly. I have become wild, enchanted, and perhaps even deranged from the journey. My fingernails bear a permanent blackness, and my eyes hold a yellowish fever, maddening to others (if only there were others). In my mouth grows a thirst that is never satisfied, and this is evident in the foamy salvation that lingers at the corners of my mouth.

I am unrecognizable, I am a stranger to all. I make wild animal noises in the dark, I howl to the moon, I run like a coyote, I am the coyote. My eyes are now pure yellow, the hair on my arms, legs, crotch, and head are now bridged together in a sea of fur. My teeth are also transformed, producing sharp fangs. All while my thirst is increased, a hollowness in my stomach reminds me what I live for.

Somewhere in the darkness of the night my body disappears. Where I go even I don't know. All that remains are torn clothes, a few small dead animals, and blood. Late at night, the occasional local come across their own sightings of a humanoid coyote, some talk of their houses being visited by a creature that chooses to walk on all fours and or two feet. The shadows are thick and endless at night, in which legend seems to be brewing within them, and the eyes and calls of creatures unknown invade our houses in stories of the snap, crackle, and pop of the wild at night. Deep breathing, a flashlight held from one's chest as the light covers the face of a storyteller, the legend goes...

Hey You On The Cliff (looking all sad and such)

Looking off into the landscape I remember how the names of the women I loved but never loved me back. I was swallowing myself in sadness, and just below the cliff's edge I could see my best friend, in a shack with a girl, I think I kinda liked her. Every once in a while, KC, the best friend in this story, would yell at me, not in a HEY YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING way, but a how are you doing up there, are you ok way? The girl would also inquire, with more sincerity to her question. I said I was fine, and I'd continue to look off. The hills beyond the one we were on were the same, there was lots of yellowish white sand, with shrubs and pine tree, sparcely placed by nature, this was the desert. I could see rain clouds form from miles away from this height, and I remember just weeks before I learned what rain fall looks from a far, it looks like a stringy mist with like milk being poured into a water sink. I loved the skies of the desert, I loved this place, the rock of mountains, the pines, the ghost stories, and the atmosphere. The rain began to fall, and my hair gel started to dissolve. I looked up to the sky and put my tongue out, it was cool in the most refreshing of ways. The couple below seemed to intensify their romance, rain is becomes sexy when you're close to someone of lust.
In my mind, a song plays endlessly in moments like this. The song is one but many, without having different titles, it is a song that is a piece of one song by one artist, and another piece for this song from this artist. Take all those pieces and bits and the one song is formed. When listening to these songs, those parts give me goose pimples, I feel lost, in a good way, finding myself in a dream like consciousness. I see the world around me but I am not here. I speak when spoken to, I react with conditioned response, but am I really there, I am very much not.
It has been thirteen years since I last sat at the cliff, I couldn't find you the exact place, perhaps after spending a few days in the town I lived in during the time, but I could illustrate its exactness to a dime. Also I cannot describe you the feelings that place holds over me, how there is a strange and beautiful feeling that is involve with places such as that of New Mexico. All I know is I am haunted, entrapped, and enchanted. My endless obsession is all I have for you now, please bare with it.

In a Moment

(My sister, Sheenah, for a test shoot for Otherworld, 2010)

The world is swallowed whole by a pink mist, in it, you can see the shades of people dancing with animals. There is a harmony in both the music and the dance moves, each step correlates with each beat, a low bass key makes the crowd go wild, making all kinds of hip movement. The stars turn into beams from a mirrorball, and the general feeling is good, with animals and people that don't normally smile smiling. Mixed with that was a bitter to the sweet, there was a feeling like this moment will never happen again. Someone whispers into a dolphin's ear, "let's cherish this". Another low bass key.

When the planets aline God puts his own cover of Aquarius on loud, heck, he's even singing it himself, and soon after he puts his finger over each great mountain and pressed them down to sea level. One after another the world's population of great peaks is flatten until it appears as if the world is balding. While all of this happening, the earth rumbles, people and animals alike freak out, running wild, the birds try to migrate but they don't even know where to go, the air itself is vibrating.

The shitstorm eventually subsides, and a tumble weed passes by this scene of a young mother giving birth, it is a small barn in Arizona, it is in fact a Nativity stage built by the owner, put up each and every year since 1988, but the birthing is real, and the actors aren't acting. The mother surprised at her premature pregnancy screams and somewhere deep inside her mind she thinks this baby doesn't have a name, it has no name. Jesus was born the other day reads the local news paper, the writers all had a high-five after their editor agreed to the title, to spite the town being in the bible belt, and the potential local repercussion to follow suit, the story and its title ensued. The mother wasn't a virgin, nor was she religious.

A large cargo ship fights a storm in the south pacific. It's cargo is all animals, for zoo's throughout the nation, it was recorded the largest artificial gathering of animals over seas, and the captain was already stressed out. In the wildness of the storm, his mind was somewhere else, his daughter going to college next year, missing his son's baseball game again, and his wife eloping with their neighbor three days before the ship's departure. The sea turned and turned, and the crew were still thinking of their stop-over on Oahu, the warm and sticky air that fills the walls of the cargo bay, how the early morning sun shined through the port side windows as they were departing. No tanned women and large-bellied Hawai'ians waved to their aloha, nor were there lays being thrown with the intention to hook on to one of the bitts like a game of horse shoes. The ship left, and saw south shore one last time. At some point a pod of whales sang by the ship, never too close, but always there, with the song amplified in the submerged hallways of the ship. Tonight will be the last sang a bird, then another one, with a more reggae melody followed along, and soon all the birds of the boat were singing the same song, in all types of different calls. Juan, the superstitious deckhand manoverboard'd himself into the sea, he survived and was all over television for a few days. Some thought the song was peaceful, maybe it was because it kinda sounded like No Woman No Cry, or even something from the Lion King soundtrack. The ship ran to shore at 65 nauts, and though everyone lived, including Juan, all the animals were set free, most escaped, the remaining where released out of the spirit of the moment. During an interview on its tenth year anniversary one of the crew members on site during the act of releasing said, "...it felt like the best thing I have ever done, I swear I had goosebumps all over me". He later gave a detailed retelling of when the birds first started singing in unison, then how the other animals joined in, and how even the captain came to tears, he was smiling like someone being happy to die. The story was called the Weeping Ship, which focused more on the crew member's individual stories rather than the many stories prior that all seemed to tell the story of how the crew set free raging animals, with some stories making the sailors off as criminals, but animal right activists came to their aid, and so the story turned to the miracle of animals, everyone was happy.

When Charlie and I got to the beach, I photographed him holding an eagle he borrowed from a man flying it moments before. Charlie smiled, I smiled, the owner of the bird looked like he'd seen this many a time. Far off in the distance the ships all shimmered, and in the wind was a feeling, it felt like something was about to happen, but it never did at that moment, never then and there. Eventually that eagle was released, by the owner's grandson after this grandfather died.

These Days Will Never Be-Be-Be The Same

(Burn, Baby, Burn, 2011)

When we walked down that road, that street, and hit that corner, we often resented it's declining distance to us, knowing this is the end. Here you come corner, where we both part, and then like a bad dream come true we do depart. And like all departures with you, I'm not sure when I will be seeing you next. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps never.

Can I call you?

Not really.

Can I write you a letter?

I'm homeless.

Can I kiss you goodbye?

My breath stinks.

Ok.

At the end of the album, the record just skips away, endlessly if no gets to it. I wonder what happens when people die while listening to records, will needle skip on and on forever? Even worse, what happens when their needle gets stuck on a piece of the song they died on, and plays that one second loop forever. Will they end up in limbo? Will their limbo be painted with that one second loop in the background, playing forever, and ever?

Jesus, I don't want to go that way, I can't think of any good one second loops that would be good for eternity.

Dreams of flying are pretty awesome, dreams of romance with some perfect stranger that have very exotic names like Akimi or Fila, are even more awesome, though when you wake up you're wondering where they went, maybe I'll run into them today, but instead of some beautiful summer dress it's a starbucks uniform, and their name isn't as exotic as you remember it, hi (reads name tag) Robin, hi Sandra.

Right now, I wouldn't mind dying with the song I'm listening to playing, it's Sycamore by Bill Callahan.

When the air fills with heat, when the trees grow green again, your socks will be less thick or not at all, you will sing the songs of the Beach Boy, and have on your face some really cool looking sunglasses. I can't wait.

Come Be Lonely With Me

(Tomb, from The Barking Wall, 2010-2011)

I will be showing The Barking Wall for the first official time at Angell Gallery, February 24th, Thursday, 2011.

THE SHOW RUNS UNTIL MARCH 19TH, COME SEE, YES?

Accompanying the four squares will be an old classic from Reminiscence as well. I hope to see you there.

Opening 6 - 9 pm

12 Ossington Ave.

Toronto, ON

More info: Here.