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.