friendly evening

A happy moment during a spring evening...

between peak experiences

Between peak experiences, the highs and the lows, life unfolds pretty much even keel. During even keel moments, mundane details come to life. A simple thing like a traffic light, a crane or street sign could be an interesting character or figure. Each object has a story about its purpose, how it got there and how it got old, stained and eventually in need of repair or replacement.

Thursday afternoon bicycle poem

23 C in Montreal, sunshine, Lohbado grabbed a pocket book, camera, recorder and went for a bicycle ride. Bike riding provides an interesting visual experience. One focuses on not driving into potholes, being careful of car doors that might suddenly open, shoulder checking to make sure a motorist isn't getting too close. Images flash from all directions, not to mention the deafening roar and exhaust fumes. Lohbado stopped every 15 minutes or so to relax, read a little, take a few photos. The sequence of visual images occurred in the form of a poem, emanating something about the experience of being swept along in the city, confronted with visual forms, textures, some beautiful, some ugly, mostly ordinary. Reality could be described from many perspectives, using various means of communication. One could dance, play music, take photos, or simply enjoy forms on the canvas of space.

at the tabernacle

The approaching light and noise outside was nothing cosmic, not a UFO. It was a huge bus approaching, broken muffler and all. The bus stopped. Some people got out and asked to use the toilet, as the plumbing in the bus was broken. Dr. Jane Wormsly invited them into the living room. Soon they were relaxing with wine, beer and hard liquor. Lohbado had a bit too much to drink and folded his hands together, without knowing why.

approaching the abyss

Jane, Joe and Lohbado were streaming an epic movie called Approaching the Abyss, a love story set against a backdrop of natural disaster, when they lost their internet connection. They heard a loud noise outside and saw a strange light in the sky, slowly intensifying and moving closer to their house.

the mystery of oneself

Know yourself, instructed an inscription at the Temple to Apollo at Delphi. Knowing oneself is not so easy. One could begin by pausing a moment to have a look at what's going on in one's mind. Often one gets swept away in a stream of unexamined stimulus response. A button gets pressed. One goes boom in a predictable manner. Maybe one's brain is like a midi keyboard, with various thought loops matched to various everyday situations. Name a topic; one has an opinion, most likely tiresome and predictable.

It's easy to complete an entire lifespan without once pausing to wonder what is going on. Or if one does pause, one doesn't pause long enough. Another wave of confusion takes over. Two basic questions at the Club Morono Tabernacle: "Who are you?" and "What is going on?" To understand or get to know oneself would be a wise place to begin as one sets off on a journey to seek knowledge.

the pain of having to endure discourse

During summer vacation, Dr. Jane Wormsly could finally unwind. Things had been tense at the Department of Helminthology, Lumpkins University in Yamaville. Sometimes the department felt like a cess pool of big egos, each player trying to impress and outdo the other. As a woman, she was towards the bottom of the hierarchy. She endured a lot of discourse from those who managed to obtain a little power. However, if you can get over vanity and not react to provocation, it's possible to survive.

Joe's annoying habit

Jane asked Joe to stop doing his voice exercises all the time. He kept right on going. He even tried to get her to do it too. No wonder they got divorced.

click picture to watch video. It stopped raining in the afternoon. Lohbado poured a ritual drink and thought about rituals he experienced Sunday mornings while growing up. His birth name was Peter Stumps, son of the Reverend Stonehenge Stumps, a minister at the Church of the Living Monument.

running away

You're looking for company? It's right there in front of your face and under your feet. What were you looking for when you rode through the graveyard and up Mount Royal?

I wasn't looking for anything other than to see what was there.

Were you running away from something? Do you have a bad conscience? Were you a bad girl or boy?

I did nothing wrong, said Lohbado.

Moronovian Dialectic

Moronovian Dialectic goes back at least 5,000 years to the time of the Yee Haw Controversy in the Cha Region of the Po Valley. It involved a play of forces, which at first appeared to conflict, but which in fact with a little mediation were able to harmonize in a kind of dance, the Ooo Cha Dance. The Ooo and the Cha worked together, an in and out back and forth up and down foot stomping arm swinging torso swaying celebration.

When Yeeman Jack Noiyeh drowned up Fitz Creek after losing his paddle Haw General Foakheem set up a military barricade at the source and proclaimed exclusive water rights. When asked if all the sea was made of paper and all the sea was ink, if all the trees were bread and cheese, what would they have to drink, General Foakheem said: "Let them drink sand."

Lord Woulabong and his jumping soldiers did battle with General Foakheem and his furious fighters. A lot of blood flowed into Friz Creek for two weeks. In the end, opposing forces decided to share water rights, like they'd done before. After this, the Yee and Haw became friends.

dreary and joyful

Lohbado was a connoisseur of dreary moments, dreary days, dreary seasons. Dreariness is the background against which the theatre of joyful moments occurs.

rite of spring

Rite of spring goes back to before recorded history. Long winter never failed to dissolve into spring before summer. Sometimes winter feels like a long illness, when one is stuck indoors with the flu, cold, or whatever virus is circulating. It's dark outside. One makes an effort. Just as one is about to collapse, the sky brightens a bit. Snow melts. A little heat and sunshine, euphoria, time to emerge from the shadows. Rise from the bed. Drink wine, play music, dance, sing, it's time to celebrate.

city of the dead

Lohbado turned off the land of the living into the city of the dead. Dead of winter, rite of spring, Lohbado's bicycle took him into the largest cemetery in Montreal, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Lohbado sat on a bench and scratched his head as he gazed out over a sea of tombstones commemorating individuals who lived, had a lot of ideas, opinions, beliefs and emotions then died.

The Moronovian question: what is going on? ended in silence. Silence is not something to write home about. It's no reason for self-congratulation. Emptiness offers no peg on which to hang one's hat. It's more like standing at the edge of the ocean and gazing into the infinite. Haze sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish where ocean ends and sky begins.

repetition

Lohbado rode up Mount Royal again in Montreal. He sat on the belvedere for a while and read a passage about repetition in Presentation de Sacher-Masoch: le froid et le cruel by Gilles Deleuze. Repetition involves excitation of body cells. Lohbado's molecules felt good, a real peak experience on the mountain, more like a rock hill, old and friendly. Heartbeat, breath, digestion manifest repetition. Deleuze's words hit the mark: "Sous les tam-tams sadique et masochiste, il'y a bien la repetition comme puissance terrible."1 (Under the sadistic and masochistic tam tams, repetition is there as a powerful force.). In other words, repetition unchained becomes an ideal in its own right, independent of the pleasure to come.

Next time someone accuses Lohbado of taking the same old pictures or telling a story he already told, he could cite the writings of Deleuze, with regards to repetition.

1 page 104. Presentation de Sacher-Masoch: le froid et le cruel. Gilles Deleuze. Editions de Minuit: Paris. 1967.

a jolly good time

Lohbado had a jolly good time on his morning walk along a freeway service road. He could shout and sing without annoying anyone, the decibels of traffic were so loud. He contemplated the mysteries of love.

spring euphoria on Mount Royal

 The temperature went up to about 25 C in Montreal. After the long challenge of winter and a slow to materialize spring, people gathered on Mount Royal to enjoy the sun, the spectacular view and an atmosphere of friendliness and good cheer. Lohbado listened as a brother of Jesus explained some of his adventures which began decades ago when he had a drink with a fisherman in South America and ended with the gradual transformation of his life, to the present, when he became a man of the light.

Paco wearing a disaster tee shirt

It looks like maybe for sure there won't be more snow this season. Some of the back lanes are a bit of a disaster, a real mess, waiting to be cleaned up. Paco stood outside a bar on Beaubien and wore a disaster tee shirt.

haggard but cheerful

Haggard but cheerful, Lohbado got up to face another week.

I am me

Lohbado enjoyed contemplating self-consciousness. Everyone has a sense of being somebody, a sense of being me. I am me. One is a subject in a world of objects and other people. One is born into a world. The world will continue after one dies. One's consciousness of being somebody lasts a lifetime, even as many changes occur. Whether one is ten years old or sixty, one still feels "I am me."

Lobhado thought of this consciousness as being similar to a variable X. Let X = me. X exists in relation to a river of thought, a flow of sensations, the cycle of seasons, impermanence, change. X is not some single fixed material entity. It's an invisible process, in the mind. The mind thinks I am me. But Me can't be seen, unless one identifies Me with the body.

One can't see thoughts. One can't see emotions, only the expression of emotion. X involves an illusion of being at the centre of things. X is of utmost importance. X is concerned about maintaining the health and wellbeing of one's body/mind continuum. When a group of Xs get together, there's often conflict, as each X feels it is more important or special by virtue of being X. The most extraordinary thing about me is I am me. There's only one me. Once I'm dead, this me will no longer exist, unless one dreams about me or X existing independently of a body. Lohbado was unable to imagine how X could be without a body. Thoughts generally swirl around the reference point of the body. One's consciousness is intertwined with embodiment.

izzy cox

A musical remembrance concert took place at Sala Rosa in Montreal, April 4, 2017, in memory of Montreal musician and composer Izzy Cox. Various musicians performed her songs and shared memories. Video recorded and edited by Lohbado.

Remembering Izzy Cox

Joellen did a eulogy from Vancouver

Izzy Cox a gifted, courageous, passionate, warm-hearted woman devoted to music died the weekend before last. A memorial evening was held at Sala Rosa to commemorate her life and music. Friends and people who knew her performed songs she wrote or offered tribute in her memory.