Lohbado's Boxing Day Bottle of Beer

relaxing at the club morono tabernacle

relaxing at the club morono tabernacle. December 25 is a traditional day for family gatherings, celebration, relaxation. No need to be part of any particular religion to enjoy the holiday.

oogahmas ritual banquet

window display in Montreal, 2006

Lohbado took these photos in 2006

A Lohbado Oogahmas memory: Lohbado rented a large car, more like a lounge inside, soft sofa seats and drove into an old neighbourhood in a town off the main highway. Business suffered when the freeway meant very few people drove through town anymore. There was no reason to take the exit leading into Stammerzville. Shops closed. Vacancy soared to 75%.

upstairs neighbours and a little philosophizing

neighbours, 2007

Rue Beaubien

Maybe it’s impossible to know very much other than a collection of practical skills or social habits. However, Lohbado wasn’t satisfied with drifting along in pursuit of something or other. He felt revulsion towards the routine of simply responding to appetite, fear and desire. It felt empty to be born simply in order to survive. In fact, the effort of survival often made him wonder why bother. Then one day, around 1975, he opened Aristotle’s Metaphysics in his father’s library. It begins in praise of knowledge and wisdom. The book was a revelation. If survival was all that mattered, then why bother with intelligence? The intelligence of a dog or monkey would be sufficient. Of course, intelligence made it possible for humans to dominate the animal world and to wreck the planet. It gave humans greater capacity to commit atrocities. But there was an aspect of intelligence, perhaps best called a religious, spiritual or philosophical sensibility. 

memories

The season of shorter days and cold weather, Lohbado spent more time at home. It's a good opportunity to clean up and organize. Lohbado opened one of his very old external hard drives and began sorting through pictures. It brought back pleasant memories.

window displays Rue Saint Hubert Montreal

baby manikins

Lohbado walked up Rue Saint Hubert from Beaubien to Jean Talon in Montreal and took photos along the way.

Wanna be a member?

The manikin in the top photo looks tired. She put her hair down. A sign indicates specials. She seems to be asking, "What do they want?"

It seems people want several things: first, to have sex with you. If that doesn't work, the person wants to convert you to his or her religion. If that doesn't work, the person wants you to join their cause, become a member. There's a cool Betty Boop cartoon "Wanna be a member..." Then of course, there's the evangelist, who suddenly had an insight and wants to share it with the world. The evangelist feels an almost manic compulsion to share the insight with the world, because the insight would help people find happiness, health and prosperity. It's so exhausting to endure such trips.  Sometimes Lohbado felt like reaching out and giving the person a pinch to find out if the person is for real, or just a bad dream.

Kangirsuk to Kuujjuaq, Nunavik

Here's a video of a trip in December 2007, an Air Inuit flight on a Dash-8 from Kangirsuk to Nunavik.

Sunday morning walk in Cote des Neiges

Jewish General Hospital

Cote Sainte Catherine

Rue Cote des Neiges

After a couple days of deep wet snow, Lohbado finally went out for a walk. Plows had cleared sidewalks, making it easier to move about.

sony camcorder malfunction

sony hdr-hc3

The cassette compartment suddenly won't close. I went on Internet. Many owners of this sony camcorder had the same problem. I tried without success to fix it myself. It's a shame that an expensive unit has to be shelved because of a simple mechanical problem. Also, another problem which many owners of this model encountered was a malfunction with the viewfinder. I used it for years without the touch screen or viewfinder, because the screen went blank. I would rewind the tape on the computer and record looking through the optical viewfinder.

empty building

view from Place des Arts Metro

Lohbado paused before entering Metro Place des Arts in September to enjoy the visual texture of an old building in Montreal. He stood there for a while and contemplated the nature of existence and the strangeness of hurrying from one moment to the next. The dilapidated building mirrored a feeling in his aging body. The body is a type of container, with various compartments. One exists for a while because one seems to have been born.

it's taking over your mind

Club Morono presents It's Taking Over Your Mind, a new video starring Seth. After sitting down to relax, the buzzer rings. Someone delivered a brief case containing a doll... this unleashes a sequence of mental events.

beyond himself

a Lohbado decoration

The Chief Nomroh, an individual made up of various fetish objects, concerns and rituals, reached the threshold of consciousness. He tried to go beyond his self, which is impossible. Reaching the threshold made him aware of his limitations. He hoped to be able to talk about what lay beyond himself. His talk remained within the experience of thoughts, sensations, memories. He could dream or speculate about beyond the threshold. Lohbado nearly drove himself crazy repeating what he knew or had experienced, repetition within the familiar. He put away the game and laughed at his own foolishness.

free peace of mind

a Lohbado graphic

Being able to recognize the limits of self and of one’s knowledge requires an intuition of something beyond the usual way of looking at things. Lohbado remembered an episode of when he was a PBE (push button expert) for the Department of Regulation. One day the boss, Lyle Prickle walked into Lohbado’s cubicle and began snorting through the nose, gasping and sputtering, as if he actually believed he was a representative of civilization out to protect himself, his family and loved ones from the threat of wild spirits such as Lohbado. While Lyle went on and on about the MRM (Minister of Regulation’s mandate), Lohbado gazed at dust spots on the dry wall and at a stained tile of the drop-tile ceiling. Lyle reprimanded Lohbado about a comment he made to a colleague, who felt a moral obligation to go straight to the boss and report what Lohbado had said. Lyle’s eyes bulged in his pale face. His limbs stiffened. He looked like he was on the verge of having an inverse orgasm as he gave Lohbado hell.

heart attack in the Tabernacle

a Lohbado graphic

Lohbado’s first vivid memory goes back to when Lohbado was four. Lohbado’s birth name was Peter Stumps, son of the Reverend Stonehenge and Rosemary Stumps. At four, Peter Stumps saw his grandfather, Reverend Woodlot Stumps, pacing up and down the hall of the tabernacle next door to where two generations of the Stumps family lived. Grandfather staggered about, his shirt open, bathed in sweat, a funny look on his face, a wry grin, as if he was laughing at something that wasn't funny. 

Looking for Honey video

Looking for Honey is a video made with a point and shoot camera. It's about a man in search of honey. He goes to the store. The clerk said it was in aisle 5. There wasn't any to be found. He stopped to have a coffee and chat. Eventually, he found a jar of honey.

winter blues protector

At the beginning of the season of darkness and cold, Ned appeared. Ned offered to guide beings through the dark days of winter. When one feels tired and sick, Ned is always there to offer a warm smile and attentive gaze. He will look at you and listen to your every word. He will give you the attention you craved so long. So don't feel bad, call on Ned. He's always there when you need him.

000000

a Lohbado graphic

A Lohbado diagram... sometimes when a lot of nonsense floods the mind, it helps to look at the picture then hit the delete button. Go for a walk, relax, visit with a friend.

lohbado book art

looking for honey

A clerk said honey was in aisle 5. The gentleman walked up and down aisle 5, studied carefully the shelves but was unable to find honey.

autonomous faculty of anxiety

One afternoon, after walking around for years with a knot of anxiety in the stomach, Lohbado concluded that the mind included an autonomous faculty of worry. The faculty of worry generates a feeling of dread, a sense of doom and gloom. The body tenses up, waiting for the unpleasant phone call or the traumatic registered letter. Sometimes in the middle of reading, a wave of worry would surge through his nervous system, making it difficult to concentrate.

Lohbado closed the book and looked up at the ceramic duck on the top shelf of a wooden cabinet. He took off his glasses and with his point and shoot camera, took a picture of the duck and his glasses, then heaved a sigh of relief. A duck provided focus, to steady the mind when thoughts were bobbing about.

meditation on the Plains of Radiation

acrylic on paper

Ernie died in a bistro. He slumped over the table. His face sank into a plate of spaghetti. He died in the pasta, tomato sauce all over his face. He was soon forgotten. Leave the dead to eat the dead. More people appear on the horizon. Soon a whole crowd fills the bistro. Open a window. Body odor, pepperoni, old cheese, compost smell, plus body heat, open a window. The ventilation system in the old building is not so great. Like most buildings in the neighborhood, it was done on a shoe string budget.

spiritual journey

Lohbado booklet in a can

the prize at the bottom of the can

Part of the fun of being at Expozine is responding to question or trying to explain what Club Morono is all about. Each attempt to explain leads to further questions. The answer lies in many stories, which Lohbado summed up in the word memoirs. The answer to Morono is Lohbado's memoirs. To write a memoir doesn't mean one has a big ego or is looking for attention. It means one is curious about what may or may not be happening.

Here's a short, unedited reply to a question Lohbado received. One day he planned to sit down to edit and organize the material. But for the moment, this will have to do. Actually, the hen riddle might be the best spur of the moment answer: Why did the chicken cross the road?... To get to the other side.

One happened to have been born and then to wonder what is this life all about? Why is existence happening? ... an unanswerable question. It's happening because it's happening. So what are you going to do about it? Lohbado decided to have a closer look. The closer he looked, the more strange things appeared.

boxed book

this box contains a small book

inside the box lid

Don't miss the Club Morono display at Expozine this weekend. In addition to a new zine, Club Morono 5, there will be an array of small artist made books, each one unique.

getting ready for expozine

Club Morono will do another display this year at Expozine. There will be a new zine, vol. 5, plus a new series of handmade zines. Lohbado started making handmade zines out of frustration with the limitations of copy shops. One day, while trying to discuss his work request and as the cost of the estimate kept increasing, it occurred to him that it would be just as fast, (well, not quite), to make everything by hand. Expozine is a fun opportunity to see what other creative people are doing and to enjoy a little friendly conversation.

happily ever after

In the old days, to be overweight was a sign of prosperity and the good life. The woman in the picture started out thin. She tried to be like in the beauty posters, thin as a toothpick. After years of suffering, she sat down to a fabulous goat curry and surrendered to the pleasure of eating. She embraced the old vision of beauty, from the days before the promotion of anorexia and she lived happily ever after. To be heavier made her more confident and cheerful. She didn't sweat the small stuff so much any more.