let's go to the golden palace

Dark short days of winter, solstice arrives. Lohbado proposes a toast to festive season. He dreams of going to a golden palace and listening to beautiful music.

alphabet room

During morning walk Lohbado came up with ideas for a new story called Alphabet room, plus reflections on weather and change.

Ivan's terrible joke

Ivan diffused a tense moment on the Plains of Radiation during the Yee Haw Controversy. He told a joke. The thing about the joke, nobody could remember it, except that it was pretty lame and nobody got it. The joke made the mind blank out.

devenir fou becoming

Lohbado woke at 4 am with aches and pains, so went for a walk to enjoy sights and sounds. He thought of a phrase from Deleuze, Logique du sens, devenir fou, a loaded poetic expression. Literally it means to go crazy. On another level, it's about contemplating reality and how one creates meaning, which leads to paradox. As things break down, or crack, one could access the 4th dimension through any creative act, for example, art, music, poetry, dance...

what do you mean

Lohbado started out doing a philosophical discussion about meaning, but then ended up doing video and audio art.

cats

Lohbado visited a friend who has three cats.

stm getaway band

Stm band is a group of Montreal musicians who wrote songs creating tall tales and humour about various bus routes in Montreal. This video features a few clips from Hootenanny at Brasserie Beaubien. They'll be performing tomorrow night at the Barfly on St Laurent

garden of introspection

Sometimes when feeling anxious or stuck in negative thinking, Lohbado went to the garden of introspection to enjoy sights and sounds of the city. He could grumble and complain to a weeping and wailing brick wall. Nobody would hear. He wouldn't get on people's nerves. After he would cheer up and enjoy beautiful flowers.

we'll let it play out

At least three stories occur in this video about infinite connections. Lohbado goes for his usual morning walk. He has a copy of Giordano Bruno's Liens in his back pocket. Bruno is a motif in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Lohbado bought the book in 2006 to read during trips to the arctic.

noise inside noise outside

Noise of the city and noise in the mind blend into a giant musical composition.

post employment economy

Lohbado joined artist Michael Waterman and his daughter Liz to view an exhibit of the art of Bharti Kher at DHC Gallery, Montreal. Over a pint of beer, he talked about post employment economy, in a world where work is increasingly automated and done by robots.

bleak rooms

Lohbado woke at 3 AM with a rash. He drew a happy face on a dusty mirror and reflected on the nature of getting old and being a person.

lost concentration

Lohbado had trouble as a push button expert when he began losing concentration, causing him to push the wrong buttons.

montreal heat

Lohbado recorded a little video during the heatwave at the beginning of July. Lohbado reflected on memories of trying to explain. The only explanation that made sense to him was to view life as an art project.

tabernacle of love

The Club Morono Tabernacle is a place of creativity and love. Lohbado shows a romance painting he did years ago and proposes a toast to romance.

Yee Haw Controversy

The Yee Haw Controversy goes back at least 2,500 years and continues to resonate. Club Morono offers a third possibility. One doesn't have to be a Yee or a Haw. One could follow the Moronovian Way.

grandmotherly advice

Grandmother's advice on cheering up: first, acknowledge suffering. Go ahead, complain. There's a room at the tabernacle for lamentation. Then let go. Next, find something that interests you. Make an effort. Be disciplined. Pay attention to details. The reward of effort; one might cheer up. To make no effort is to risk sinking into depressive inertia.

respect all life

While taking shelter from the rain, Lohbado contemplated the sacredness of existence. One could tune into the dignity of one's being. All life is to respected, regardless of wealth or status.

St. Jean Baptiste Day toast Montreal

A friendly toast on St Jean Baptiste Day in Montreal, Lohbado stood under a tree in order to not get wet in the rain. He talked about two minor bicycle accidents.

jolly good time

Lohbado during a bike ride contemplated the many promises being offered. There's something exciting about expectation, the lure of something about to happen. At the same time, it's not healthy to get carried away looking for UFOs; although it does stretch the imagination.

beautiful trees in evening light

Lohbado rode his bicycle to a local park to enjoy sunset among beautiful trees.

expert specialist

After retiring from his post as Push Button Expert, Lohbado became a nerve specialist. Sometimes walking around the city is scary when vehicles lunge at pedestrians who walk slowly as they cross the street.

to just sit there

Morning walk, Lohbado sat in the park and reflected on the value of just sitting there, to take a break from feeling overwhelmed, anxious and beset with problems. It feels good to relax sometimes.

friendly tabernacle

Dr. Bob Goonston's Glandular Bulb

Dr. Bob Goonston from Lumpkins University invented a Glandular Bulb as a pet for lonely people unable to afford traditional pets.

food and philosophy

In a quest for meaning or trying to make sense of things, a first stop could be to note the importance of food and eros. One attempts to go beyond mindless habitual chatter as one yearns for wisdom. Sometimes it's pretty funny.

endless winter

Second weekend of April, still below freezing, ice cold wind, endless winter in Montreal. Do whatever it takes to not sink into despair. Abandon all hope. Maybe warmer weather will eventually take one by surprise.

Deleuze Logic of Meaning

Lohbado began reading Logique du sens by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It presents a series of paradoxes related to meaning, the various levels of meaning and the tension involving word and object. The idea is to open one's understanding of meaning to allow for creative exploration or expression.

joy of desolation

Lohbado paused during morning walk to reflect on desolation as a tonic to open the mind.

like yourself

It's ok to like yourself. Lohbado reflects on turmoil and the need to relax during a winter bike ride. The winter shots were recorded March 15.

moon river

Lohbado lay on the sofa and thought about a bike ride and about years ago when his mother died.

dreary and beautiful maybe

a key situation

water colour and ink

A key situation took place when Hoity Toitson and Dr. Tintuna sat down and reconciled over a plate of dill pickles.

beyond preconceived notions

pencil ink watercolour on paper

The above images are from pages of handmade Lohbado books, part of the Club Morono library. Lohbado frequently bumped into people who disapproved of his pictures. Rather than dwell on that, an important thing to keep in mind: the key to melting creative block and entering into the realm of creative joy is to get beyond preconceived notions, to overcome the limitations of one's personality in order to allow rays of infinite nature to bathe one's mind. If you can overcome vanity or any ego ambition to impress anyone or to reproduce a familiar template, then whatever you're doing, in addition to hard work, discipline, mindfulness,  becomes effortless, spontaneous, playful, imaginative, interesting.

Or if you're doing something detail orientated and methodical, the work could take on a life of its own. In other words, you allow the art work to tell you what to do, rather than trying to impose your ego's preconceived notion of how you feel art should be.

approaching spring

water color in Lohbado sketchbook

Monday spring approached. Thursday, winter lingered. Soon, hopefully very soon, or at least not too long, eventually spring will unfold.

what the hail

Hail came down hard as Lohbado sat down to a plate of spaghetti. He grabbed the camera, leaned out his front door and took photos of the beautiful panorama.

pretty peas please

Nothing like fresh green peas from a can in a china bowl. Lohbado drained the brine and added peas to a plate of spaghetti. Their firm texture added character, dry peas, not mushy. Presentation adds a lot. Lohbado found a box full of beautiful old china on the curb for garbage pickup one summer. He added it to his collection.

Senorita brand cooked dry peas, product of the Philippines, a lot of tasty products from around the world are available in Cote des Neiges, Montreal. It's fun to go into a local grocery store and wander among the aisles of jars, cans, boxes, various types of packages with interesting graphics. Once in a while Lohbado would buy an item just to see and taste what was inside.

stuttering stranger

A
demonstration of 2 concepts of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925 - 1995): to stutter and to be a stranger in one's own language.

admirable scene in the snow

Beauty in the snow cold crystals and mushy dried out fruit, apple, persimmon, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Rich red warm textures comforting and a cold dose of snow, Lohbado admired the scene.

Snow White and the Forbidden Fruit

In the white snow so white, Lohbado contemplated the forbidden fruit, an old apple. As punishment for eating the forbidden fruit, Lohbado was obliged to endure one cold stormy winter per year. During the cold dark season, Lohbado contemplated impermanence, how everything comes to an end. The apple in the snow was once a ripe juicy apple. There's one imperfect apple in every basket. Sometimes beauty increases with age. The above apple sat on Lohbado's shelf for three or four years before he tossed it into the snow.

juice king of the plants

Lohbado looked at the shiny Juice-King on the radiator among the plants and thought of an old tune produced by Apple records, The King of Fuh. What would the Juice Queen think of the Fuh King? Lohbado then went for morning walk early Sunday morning, the city about as quiet as it gets before returning to the roar of Monday.

yearning for spring

man looking for woman

The signs are there. Yearning for romance, plants perking up and tilting towards brighter light, vibrant graffiti on the side of a van, yearning for spring, it will happen. Just when you're ready to throw in the sponge, or to collapse in winter despair, the sun moves higher in the sky. Temperatures rise a bit. Snow melts. Of course, March is the wild card. March is known for snow storms and chilly surprises.

crow gathering

A hundred or more crows gathered in trees down the street from Lohbado's front door. The sound was amazing, bird town.

psychological endurance winter challenge

view out Lohbado's front door

So, here we are again, more snow, more ice, more dark days, a few cold sunny days the trick is how to endure, especially if you add in flu, cold or whatever winter virus stops you in your tracks. Maybe you fell down hard and got a bruise, sprain, twist or broken bone. Lohbado developed a nervous tick of checking the weather forecast every two or three hours for glimmers of hope on the horizon. There's no hope. It might warm up one day. It's ice cold the next, then more snow.

Lohbado viewed it as a challenge. Forget the ice bucket challenge. This is the Montreal winter challenge. Can you get through without the blues, or without cough, sneeze, fever and sore joints? It feels like a season of entering the underworld. Go through the doorway to Hades, the world of the dead in Greek mythology. Look into space. Look at your mind. What is going on? What is your name? Sometimes Lohbado felt like he was disintegrating or dissolving. He burst out laughing. Better to laugh than cry.

congenial data

Lohbado worked for ten years as a PBE (push button expert) in the Cha Region of the Poh Valley, after the Apocalyptic War which was supposed to wipe out life as we know it in order to initiate a cosmic fantasy of a new godly kingdom on earth. Kill the here and now in order to obtain something better later. It didn't work out according to fantasy. The consequences were disastrous. In the chaos, Lohbado found work in an outlying area on the Plains of Radiation.

He had a booth with a PBC (push button console). The console was a mechanical device to organize sense data into representations of a world. From material data, new structures were created. Lohbado did mostly data entry and calculation. It required an ability to manipulate algorithms. The console accepted a type of data congenial to processing. This limited the resulting models of existence.

phases of winter

ink on paper in Lohbado sketchbook

be confident, strong and cheerful

After more than 60 winters, Lobhado knew what to expect. First phase of winter is the lead up to December holiday season, lots of festive gatherings and good cheer. January the super cold hits, if you live in a city like Montreal. February the sun starts to move higher in the sky. It's not quite so dark. There's a glimmer of hope, but continual frustration with each major dump of snow. Then March comes and one is totally fed up, irritated, close to breaking point. Spring usually arrives in April.

While in the middle of feeling grumpy about more snow and more cold, Lohbado noticed two new shoots on the amaryllis plant, which flowered, then wilted. That made him happy right away, the beautiful green of fresh leaves. Then he felt the familiar knot of anxiety in his stomach, which he often felt during moments of happiness, as if to say, you're not supposed to be happy. Maybe it's related to some sort of religious hangover, from being the son of a preacher man. Lohbado did the above drawings to teach himself that it's ok to enjoy flickers of happiness when they occur. One is not obligated to feel miserable.

beer comparison

Lohbado compared a mass produced local beer with a mass produced import. The import was about $1.90 per beer, the local $ 140. The import was more foamy, but a bit bland. The local was sweeter and a bit acidic. So is the import worth the extra 50 cents?

Sunday possibilities in winter

The power of winter, wear your birthday suit. Sit by a window as winter continues. Dream of summer. Contemplate the nature of craving pleasure and fearing pain. Who is experiencing all this? What happens to this moment? Where will Sunday go when Monday comes? A Sunday in winter is filled with possibilities.

trying to get back on track

Who knows how many got the winter virus. This year it was quite fierce. Of course, don't complain. There is always someone who has it worse. If you drop a brick on your toe, you might yell ouch, even though someone might at the same moment somewhere be experiencing the pain of being run over by a delivery van, or having their limbs hacked off on the battle field. There's always worse pain and discomfort. Nobody is complaining. But it still hurts when you drop a brick on your toe and the winter virus was quite fierce.

Eventually it passes. The body emerges, weak, tired. Slowly get back on track.

winter virus

Lots of people are getting hit with winter virus in Montreal. Lohbado is into round two of the battle between his immune system and viruses that are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. This time the cold is deep in the chest, tons of cough and burning when the coughing happens. He coughed up cakes and wondered if new creatures would emerge from the phlegm to take over the planet.

That could be a horror movie, Revenge of the Killer Virus. A virus gathers forces to take over the world, while rendering humans weak, unable to eat, nauseated and with migraine and joint pain and an inability to think clearly.

winter light

Amaryllis after a few weeks began to ripen and decay. Even a wilted dried amaryllis radiates beauty in the pale winter light as it snows outside in Montreal.

wear a wig

Pinkie on Wednesday

Pinkie woke up uneasy and nearly passed out after looking in the mirror. A voice echoed from the faucet as water flowed down the drain: Wear a wig!

Pinkie put on a purple wig, added a smile, a sparkle in the eye. In this way Pinkie prepared for Wednesday. Hurry before Wednesday dissolves and Thursday takes over.

keeping it together in winter

Ha ha, yeah, ha ha, yeah yeah, let's get together. Dance. Play a little music. Smile. Strip down to essentials. Winter has a way of slowing things down. One feels drowsy. A nasty virus takes over. Cough, sneeze, fever, sore throat, aching joints, close your eyes and dream about paradise. Wake up. Start again. Smile. Laugh. It's ok. We're in it together. It's part of living in a northern land, the joy of winter, an overpowering experience. Take off your pants and ride the metro.

winter topics of conversation

Another cold and snowy winter happening in Montreal, Lohbado reminded himself to avoid unpleasant topics of conversation, as he had a tendency to get morbid sometimes.

beautiful amaryllis

Lohbado raised a silver chalice as a gesture of appreciation and respect for the beautiful amaryllis. Flowers to brighten the mind and add warm tones to a room, the flowers were like doorways to infinite nature.