9/31

Links to 8/31 &
The 31 Vibrant Things Launch Post

Art-making materials are the most vibrant things.

Artists sometimes refer to the muse—an apt way to express the relationship and that alchemy that occurs when the materials meet the maker. It's a mysterious bond both abstract yet tangible. 

You have a favourite psychologist, right? Mine is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (MEE-hy CHEEK-sent-mee-HAH-yee), who researched creativity (and happiness) for decades; he coined and studied the sports and arts concept flow. 

During the flow state—a personally defined goldilocks zone between what we find too easy and too hard—time (and trouble) disappear as we become absorbed in a fulfilling task. In connection with our goals, whatever activity prompts and sustains this zone for us—marathoning or driving race-cars or cake-decorating or sewing or performing on stage or refinishing furniture and so on—Csikszentmihalyi declared that flow "transforms a random walk into a chase."  

I find that phrase "random walk" compelling. That's it! For me, art-making is a flow experience, a rapt random walk. 

A fitting metaphor, I have learned to value the walk—the process—as much as or more than that elusive product we artists chase. Regardless of my original plans (my goals), the random walk is about getting absorbed, even lost in that flow zone, creating something surprising, unintended, serendipitous... the fluke I sought all along. As in all valuable relationships, this requires trust. Like a soapstone sculptor trusting something hidden within the stone itself (the seal? the turtle? the fox?), the tools, the muse—they too will provide something vibrant, something more than at first imagined, something connected to happiness.  

Dear friends, what inspires you to find flow? 

Fave Books 2025

I fell in love with reading again this year. It's not like we had broken up, but... perhaps horticulture would call it a reblooming. My relationship with books this year quickened, seeking to make sense of the senselessness and find the humanity amongst the intrusive and pervasive cultural smog surrounding us, because let's be honest, it's choking out there sometimes.  

Dear authors, thank you for the absolute toil you make look so easy: like few other things, it helps clear some of that smog. In no particular order, my top five reads follow. 

If you've read this
title (an imagined
early life of William and
Agnes Shakespeare)
you might be
surprised by my
perspective: this book
is a touching romance.
There's wooing, and
 deep maternal love,
and there's a remoteness
from real-life, to spin
a magic cocoon for a
happy family. But then,
tragedy: one all
parents dread most. 
Yet in making art out of
pain...perhaps all's
 well that ends well?
 Their plight reminded 
me of Prospero's final
lines in Shakespeare's
Tempest. He asks
the audience for
applause. Although
many conflicts remain
unresolved, the story 
(that suspension of
disbelief, that romance
afforded by the arts) 
can transform our
pain into something
bearable, even
meaningful, albeit
temporarily: 
"release me from
these bands
with the help of
your good hands." 

It seems to me that
beneath this short
book's surface
is Ireland itself:
its history, its
trauma, its children,
and its future.
Essentially a
novella, Keegan's book
is in no way small.
That ironic title
highlights how
trauma is minimized,
even institutionalized,
in service to 
old and tired
ideologies until 
one good man,
(seemingly small),
decides that delivering
coal and righteous
sanctimony is less
important than
his daughters' futures.  

Historical fiction
(early 1800s?)
set in what is now
Newfoundland.
A sister and brother,
just children at first,
endure the feral
environment while
trying to survive.
Explorers and early
capitalists come and
go seeking fortunes,
all hapless eventually
yet history teaches us
this is how North
America was settled. 
An Adam and
Eve tale, there's
paradise here and an
inevitable fall, plus a
cruel ocean
waiting to swallow
everything. And yet
we immigrants &
colonizers are the 
descendants of
these tough and
tortured mortals. 

With each incredulous
chapter, my inner voice
continued to ask, 
what IS the long walk?
Is it a coming-of-age
horror story? Yes.
Is it an war allegory?
Yes. Is it modern-day
reality-TV obsessed
USA? Yes. Is it 
about male friendship
and the way
it knots itself
embracing then rejecting
vulnerability? Yes. 
Despite my conclusions,
does it remain
ambiguous? Yes.
Although I've read
many of his titles,
I think this one 
impressed me like no
other King novel,
(and its his first!)
Also this:
read with caution. 
Although published in
1979 (!) the casual
nature of its cruelty
and insanity
 feels very 2025. 

I already wrote about
the film version, yet
I loved the book first.
A lonely good man,
a logger in early
Northwest USA,
grapples with his 
mistakes, his losses,
his empty life. 
Do our mistakes
haunt us? Often.
Do they doom us?
Sometimes. Is there
some cosmic price
to pay? I doubt it.
Or must we simply
enjoy kissing the ones
we love among the 
daisies while we can?
Yes, yes, yes. 

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

It won't stop snowing here. To paint a picture for you.... 

Imagine you're sitting at your dining room table ready for supper. The table is set, nothing is amiss on the table's surface...the food is piping hot...but you'd be sitting in snow. Reach into your pocket... snow. Drop your fork... gone. Forgot the ketchup...you'd be wading back into the kitchen, the snow way over your Sorels (nod to fellow Canadians). Don't even attempt to open the fridge's bottom drawer. 

We are approaching a meter. 😕

It's equal parts alarming and hilarious. Winter travel is doubly concerning. Our community is doing a great job with snow removal but they can't contend...it's relentless. It's also my youth relived, but with climate change, well...we haven't had this much moisture consistently for about a decade...maybe two? Hence I apologize for complaining, but...there's a deer attempting to shelter under my deck. Enough.

Even the trees are alarmed. Examine the photo: I'm 73% sure that's some sort of tree spirit and I'm 100% sure he's exhausted. 

Dear friends, there are apparently about 90 days until Spring (insert Canadian-style guffaw here), so in the meantime, what to do, but just go with the flow snow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Moved

I haven't attended an arena concert since 1991 (Sting), so the Sarah McLachlan concert this past weekend at Edmonton's Rogers Place was...overwhelming, good overwhelming. She performed with the band Tiny Habits; combined they just might be the sad song music therapy epicenter, lol. For a guy who read this book as a beacon to the shadows, let's be honest...all the feels, all at once. 

Things have changed since 1991. Mostly me. This time, sober, conscious, I brought a well functioning (mostly) frontal lobe. But my brain still wanted to play games. The venue? The crowd? Yikes. Massive. This introvert's initial reaction? Fear. And the Dad in me kept waiting for the event safety spiel, lol. But soon I forgot because somehow, Sarah made it feel cozy. 

I have a list of musicians I've longed to experience live: Sarah was third. She's a one-of-a-kind Canadian treasure of a human and her concert did not disappoint. Imagine being a child with hearing loss and becoming a global award-winning performer who used her mastery of sound and voice and language to change the world. (See the Lilith Fair documentary.) 

I had hoped she would perform her cover of Joni Mitchell's song River (Mitchell is the #1 artist on my list). Yet with every hit, old and new—her voice like a weighted blanket—I soon forgot and then she sang a favourite: Ice Cream. 

Years ago I sang this song to my kids at bedtime. If you know it...your love is better than ice cream...better than chocolate...better than anything else that I've tried...that might seem fitting but this song—deceptively simple and upbeat—is also dark, and most importantly, honest...but everyone here knows how to fight...how to cry...it's a long way down to the place where we started from.... That's why I love the song: it juxtaposes exuberant delight with that abrupt anguish inevitable in all our relationships, the mirth and the melancholy. She did not sing her crushing song from Toy Story 2 either, but she did sing a song she wrote about her relationship struggles with her daughter, entitled Gravity. Oh wow. 

While waiting to vacate that massive arena, a stranger asked me what I thought of the concert. Sheepishly, I told her I cried a few times. She nodded and smiled, "you were moved." I'm still moving. 

Dear friends, what's moved you lately? 

Wait, wot?

Wait, wot? 

I swear this main-character-energy mushroom wasn't here yesterday?! I've read that some mushrooms can double their size in 24 hours, but this mushroom? She got quantum leap skills.  

Aren't mushrooms bizarre? They're fascinating. Wikipedia informs me this is a "coprinus comatus" aka the appropriately named "lawyer's wig, or shaggy mane fungus." 

Like all cunning villains, this character wears a wig, proving she's involved in some nefarious subterfuge, popping up into the garden, a stealthy baddie up to no good. It's like she's superbly styled by the genius artists from the series, Wednesday. 

If you're thinking, pea-brain put a leash on your revving imagination, here's the most astonishing fact I learned about her: "this mushroom is unusual because it will turn black and dissolve itself in a matter of hours after being picked or depositing spores." 

Wait, wot? If you look closely, she's already dissolving! No doubt she is currently popping up (right behind you) in your garden (insert Thing's soundtrack here). 🤣

Dust

My grown son and I enjoy texting our Wordle and Canuckle scores to each other. 

We both love all things words: precision, connotation, word-play, the power of words, etc. If you're wondering about this post's title, it's one of his favourite words and it's an apt choice for the entire narrative that is this particular wordle, including a plot twist.  

If words were people, I'd be polyamorous, but what I truly love is that my son texts me his scores, daily. Hmm, what word describes the feeling this generates? Toast. 

Here's hoping someone in your life surprises you with toast.