Philosophy Garden

Peter Stumps gazed out the window of his second story room in a large house into the fantastic garden of Dr. Sylph Gondora, professor of philosophy, Lumpkins University. The layout of the garden resembled a philosophical model, Sylph’s ontology or philosophy of being. It contained thoughts, concepts, definitions, one step leading to the next. This causes that, which in turn causes something else. Every element of the philosophy garden expressed little conceptual games within the infinite. Dr. Sylph Gondora would take delight in explaining the cleverness of his garden and the infinite network of connections with anyone willing to sit down and share a bottle of wine. 

the good life

Lohbado sat in the park and watched hundreds of seagulls gliding about and making a racket. It reminded him of when he worked about thirty-five years ago on the north-western plains as an agent of goodwill. His job was to drive around and wish everyone a nice day, then to record his route and the number of those who responded to his greetings. The job was fifty fifty on the road and in the office. While in the office, he would gaze out the window at pigeons and seagulls on the supermarket roof in the mall next door.

meditation by Lachine Canal, Montreal

Montreal, Sept. 27, 2015

taken along the Lachine Canal

It's soothing to look at the water. The motion of waves made Lohbado think of the movement of his mind. His mind waves mixed with the waves of water as he relaxed. After a while, he got up and gazed at metal towers against clear blue sky. It felt like a burden was lifted from his shoulders. He could breathe without coughing or choking on anxiety and claustrophobic thought loops.

skeleton dance

Rue Sainte-Catherine

sign from Hotel le Bolero, from about 2010

Lohbado dreamed of skeletons dancing in the back room of an old hotel. The "touriste" arrow signs are from an old hotel on Saint-Catherine in Montreal, photo taken about five years ago. It was near the Hotel Bolero. The grave was taken several years ago at a graveyard in Gaspe. Dance macabre is an old tradition of acknowledging death. Things wear out. The body becomes a corpse. One of the most famous sets of images about death is Hans Holbein's dance of death from about 1526.

cornucopia

Over the six decades of his life, Lohbado ate so much food and drank so much, he began to dream of a cosmos made of food, a cornucopia emanating from a hole in space. He woke up laughing, went to the kitchen and ate some cherries. He stuck in a thumb and pulled out a plum and said what a good  boy am I... little Jack Horner's paradise. A voice scolded: Lohbado, don't play with your food!

friendly gathering

A friendly gathering next door to celebrate a birthday, a happy occasion... More photos below...

Ungava Bay from a plane

These pictures were taken while flying from Kuujjuaq to Kangirsuk, as the plane flew along Ungava Bay. Dash-8s and Twin Otters were the two types of planes used. Lohbado has thousands of pictures from the region taken between 2005 and 2009, which were posted on notobscure.com, a site which twice disappeared from Internet due to server problems. So on a rainy day, Lohbado will set up a new site from scratch, featuring some of the material from not obscure. Hopefully the new archival site will not disappear.

evening bike ride

An evening bike ride is the perfect way to release stress. Lohbado often woke up in the middle of the night with hot flashes. As one ages, it’s not so easy to sleep through the night anymore. One has to get up to pee. Joints ache. The smell in the night, when things intensify, the body sweats, heart beats fast, stomach empty and bloated, head aching, then the fear sets in... fear of talking too much, fear of being rude or foolish.

Pont Champlain Montreal

View of Champlain Bridge renovation from a shuttle bus on the estacade, a small bridge next to the big bridge, Lohbado took these pictures as the shuttle bus drove him and four other cyclists from Brossard to Ilse des Soeurs. Lohbado got lost on Ilse des Soeurs for almost an hour. He asked a few people for advice. They knew how to get off the island in a motor vehicle, but not on the bicycle. Lohbado decided to avoid Champlain until the construction or repairs are complete. It can be extremely confusing and overwhelming when one goes for a long bike ride, the suddenly the trail ends, or one is unable to locate where the trail continues. The signage leaves a lot of be desired. Most often, there are no signs, at least, not for the cyclist. Lohbado had been on the bike for several hours when he arrived on Ilse des Soeurs. It was quite the challenge to find a way back to the island of Montreal.

bike ride over Pont Jacques Cartier Montreal

view from Jacques Cartier Bridge

view of Saint-Laurent

Champlain Bridge

Montreal has some fabulous bike trails. For the first time in about fifteen years, Lohbado biked over Jacques Cartier Bridge to the Estacade at Champlain Bridge. Since Champlain Bridge is under construction, a shuttle bus with a trailer for bicycles, drove bikers across the estacade, or small bridge next to the big bridge and let the passengers off on Ilse des Soeurs.

graffiti in Montreal

While riding along the Lachine Canal, Lohbado paused to enjoy some of the graffiti along the way. Lohbado remembered how twenty years ago the Lachine Canal was lined with old factories and warehouses in decay, many dilapidated brick buildings, covered in graffiti and with broken windows. The Lachine has been cleaned up quite a bit. Huge swaths of condos have gone up. The bike trails have been maintained. A pleasant ride is to follow the bike path from Old Montreal to Parc Renee Levesque, where one can enjoy a panoramic view of the river.

rational animals

Lohbado and Jane

According to an ancient Greek saying, from Aristotle, Lohbado and Jane are reasonable animals. What distinguishes homo sapiens from other animals is their ability to reason. Reason is based on the ability to make connections, to separate true from false, to discover cause and effect, to separate statements of logic from opinion and matters of fact. The irrational is based on impulse, reaction, strong emotion, and uninformed opinion or naive views about reality. Reason could be useful in helping one shed self-based mental filters and moralistic overlay which obscure one’s ability to see things as they are.

modification within the infinite

Dr. Jane Wormsly

Dr. Jane Wormsly listened to a youtube lecture by Gilles Deleuze on the subject of Spinoza. The ideas were elegant and stimulating, the idea of the individual as a modification, involving the modes of thought and extension. Bodies and minds are equal occurrences within infinite being or nature. Body and mind are equal in the sense that they both exist. Dr. Jane Wormsly existed as a finite sequence from birth to death within infinite being.

Dr. Jane Wormsly in the back yard

Dr. Jane Wormsly was a professor of Helminthology at Lumpkins University. She met Lohbado by chance at a walkin clinic, where he went to be treated for parasites. She saw the worms crawling in and out of his skull and invited him to her laboratory, since she hadn't seen that variety before. It was some sort of mutate worm Lohbado caught, maybe from drinking tainted water, while camping out on the Plains of Radiation.

War Against Cannibals

A cannibal wandered on the Plains of Radiation and arrived at the medium sized city of Bleeyooga. Og, short for Ogden Thor, son of Jim and Ena Thor arrived in Bleeyooga as a professional wrestler. A knee injury forced him to stop. He became a sports trainer at a privately run junior college. Og got fired for fondling Jason Onyk, a twenty-one year old basketball player. The sex was consensual. No charges got laid. Saint Anthony College fired Ogden Thor for sexual misconduct.

interrogation

    Before release, Lohbado underwent a week of debriefing, or mental reconstruction where agents did their best to break him down, to fragment his sense of identity in order to leave him in a permanent state of confusion. They provided Lohbado with a guidebook, containing rules of conduct and advice about decorum, plus suggestions on how to stay out of trouble. His body ached from the week of interrogation. Stress tightened the neck muscles and made his stomach burn. He trembled and felt dizzy in the blinding light of the back lane after they shoved him out the back door of the warehouse. The door was next to the metal loading dock set into a brick wall. It took a moment to get used to sunlight after a week of living in halogen light of a warehouse basement.

distraction

A very old technique of control...  distract people from real issues by focusing on minor problems. Act as if you're going to live forever and ignore what's going on right now. Ok, no need to belabor the obvious.

existence

Contemplating existence inspired Lohbado to keep going. This is a story, fiction, not nonfiction. A funny middle-aged man woke up one morning and wondered what the fuss was all about? He laughed as he thought of yesterday. The thought of tomorrow filled him with dread and anxiety. There’s the eternal platitudes of the eternal now. How would you like to dwell in the here and now?

battered book shelter

Lohbado’s apartment contained a kind of battered, abandoned or neglected book shelter. When people moved, relationships broke up, somebody died or someone wanted to get rid of books, they contacted Lohbado. Lohbado sorted out the books, separating the junk from the valuable. It’s amazing the amount of junk that gets published. Whole stacks of books, best seller today, worthless tomorrow. Lohbado donated them to book bazars or used book stores. They had no monetary value.

reflections

Extended summer in Montreal, Lachine Canal is the place to be.

Lachine Canal Montreal

A few more summer days in Montreal, sunny and warm, Lachine Canal is a great place to relax. A network of bicycle trails extends for many kilometers. One could ride all day, stopping to enjoy reflections on the water, the shade of trees, the beauty of nature in the city.