Lohbado goes to the clinic

Lohbado walked up hill to a bistro, ordered a coffee and sat on the terrace. He forgot to bring a sweater. The wind chilled him to the bone. Inside the ribcage felt like a cabinet, or the body of a grandfather clock. Lohbado thought of the Bosch painting, Death and the Miser, in which the miser tries to bribe death, or the skeleton emerging from the closet.

dreamscape

ink on paper

Lohbado dreamed about the question of being and nonbeing, popularized in the writings of Plato. What is the nature of being? What does it mean to be born, to live and to die? Why is this happening. What is the nature of suffering? How could one attain happiness?

bread ritual july 2015

The top administrator misappropriated funds to build a private pleasure house in the country. He bussed personnel to the house of pleasure and instigated exhuberant orgies. He followed the road of excess. After it was over, quivering with the sensation of her body against his, vibrating with her frequency, attuned to her ups and downs, her struggle to live, his heart overflowed with love. 

Moronovian Meditation

A round cement pad, the remains of a silo that had been torn down leaving only the cement floor, sat in the middle of a field. It reminded him of eroded stone in a graveyard. The cement and rock pulled him inward, a dynamic. The rock opened into a temple where he could sit down, relax and contemplate the mysteries of everyday life. What does it mean to exist? What is the nature of being human?

bone drill trepanning

At the clinic, in a room with three glass cabinets, Dr. Jane Wormsly did trepanning on Lohbado. With a little bone drill, hand crank, she gently bored a hole the diameter of a pencil, Venus hb, into his skull and inserted a mucous plug, stitched up the skin. Lohbado felt better. It relieved the pressure. For a week he felt a floating euphoria and relaxation.

evening spirits

    Lohbado wandered a country road at dusk. Crimson, purple and silver clouds arced above the horizon. A reverence for the cosmos filled Lohbado’s heart. Two women approached from across a field of wheat. They had dark eyes and black hair. They smiled at Lohbado and began singing a sinuous diachromatic song in a strange language, unusual sound combinations. Deep clicking in the throat and high vibrations from the cheek bones heightened the supernatural impression of their hallucinogenic duet. The exquisite beauty of their performance brought tears to his eyes.

    He waited for them to finish. A few hundred questions flooded his mind. As he was about to speak, they dissolved into mist. They vanished into the clouds.

emerge

in the outer tabernacle

Moronovian Ritual

Emerge, not emergency, from relaxation. To be floating, not paying attention, spaced out, something startles one back to life. Loud noise, bright light, fragrance, bitter or sweet, wet or burning...

relaxing

acrylic on wood

Lohbado gazed into the letter O and the number 0, at the outline of the form and the space inside and surrounding, into the infinite. Lohbado put away the computer and decided to go into retreat, turn off the computer, walk in the park, enjoy the greenery, relax.

bottle painting

acrylic on wood

Christina on the balcony

Christina on the balcony of a neighbour's place...

walk in the park

from Lohbado's sketchbook

Nearly every morning, weather permitting, Lohbado went for a walk in the park to clear the mind and get the blood circulating. He was among the regulars who went there to walk or jog on the dirt track surrounding a playing field. Often in the morning, Lohbado's mind was filled with chatter and drowsiness. The park provided a place to relax and enjoy the greenery and the space. Eventually the mind would settle down a little. It felt good to be moving about. On one side of the park, he could see the new pavilion of the hospital. In another, there was an apartment block which looked like a cliff, the way it reflected the light. It was also pleasant to sit on a bench and look at the horizon and the sky.

positive cat

The elegant old cat is sixteen years old. During the spring, the cat got lost for about three weeks. While out wandering, he turned the wrong direction and headed out towards the freeway. A kind hearted woman rescued the cat and contacted the owner, who was grateful and delighted at the cat's safe return.

negative

from Lohbado's sketchbook

Negative and false are two concepts that have been discussed since antiquity. It occurs for example in Plato's Sophist, the discussion about what is involved in falsehood, or being and non-being. How can something which is not the case exist? Negative Dialectics is the title of a book by Adorno, where he mentioned how whenever one asserts an identity or concept, that from which the concept separates itself is part of the assertion. The assertion occurs against a background. The concept of day would not occur if night did not exist. The moment Joe says he is short, he implies the existence of tall people, otherwise the concept of short wouldn't exist. Negative is something that positively exists in relation to the positive. So even if one would like to be positive, being positive occurs in conjunction with the negative.

play words

from Lohbado's sketchbook

Lohbado paintings

acrylic on wood

painted book

A dream dance of gangly eccentrics, dancing is not just for the young and athletic. Anyone who feels inspired is welcome to get up on the dance floor and join in. Embarrassment only happens if you compare yourself with someone else. You're allowed to have fun as long as your heart beats and air moves in and out of your lungs.

Moronovian Ritual

ink drawings from a Lohbado art book

A Moronovian ritual offers little explanation and few traces, other than ink drawings or various paintings and maybe a video or two as well. Ritual is a general term going back as far as historical records, or anthropological artifacts. The term covers a huge variety of religious experience, something one might find in a book such as Varieties of Religious Experience, William James. Religious is a controversial term which won't be discussed here. This is a a story, part of Lohbado's memoirs.

apartment blocks

back side

inside

in front

Montreal has a wide variety of architectural styles. The in front picture features brick facade with standard door window balcony design. The photo of inside shows the lobby of an apartment block. The top photo is a building viewed from behind. Tin sheds used to be quite popular.

Satan Tango Bela Tarr

ink drawing inspired by Satantango

from Satantango

Satantango, Bela Tarr, is like walking into a cathedral. Things appear all at once in an overall impression. One forms a general idea, then sets out to explore. It takes some time to tour the cathedral. After a few hours, one’s appreciation deepens as one becomes familiar with details. It isn’t until towards the end of the seven hour movie that the opening scene of a voice talking about the sound of bells becomes clear. Some works of art need to be experienced several times. The first time one gets to know the lay of the land. Certain art objects are intended to be enjoyed this way. The longer one becomes involved in contemplating or exploring the work, the greater the riches one finds.