The English Bay Banner

"Making " a Living

2012-01-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

Most of my adult life since I left home at 16 and travelled from Toronto to Vancouver to 'find' myself, I have been almost totally distracted with this concept of "making" a living. From job to job - ranch manager's assistant, False Creek wall builder, bus boy/waiter, writer, editor, publisher, ad salesman, and on and on with entreprenurial efforts galore, it has finally dawned on me after working with so many different sorts and all shapes of people with all manner of morals or none at all that the idea of 'making' a living is pure hogslop.
Each of us in this capitalist culture eventually, it seems, become owned by money. Our moods are affected, our attitudes are formed, our opinions of others, and finally even our spiritual outlines are all defined by this business of making money, making a living.
What happened to living? I accept capitalism as a system that is best designed for our western culture and one that may indeed offer real opportunities for anyone to prosper and enjoy the fruit of their labours. But greed is replacing civility and good manners and as we import more foreigners into our midst we allow them to contribute their own version of capitalism and we are again enchanted with another dazzling means of profiteering.
This mental infection was brought into sharp focus this last week with the alleged theft and use of cocaine by a senior officer of the RCMP. This organization has fumbled its way into one scandal after the other in recent years and the old pride of the scarlet uniform - an iconic symbol so ingrained that tourists here are still buying little statuettes of these fellows on horseback - has been seriously diminished. And greed can take many forms. Even our sacred institutions have been profoundly injured by the sexual greed of its various priesthoods. Teachers are accused regularly of diddling with children and among Boy Scout leaders the same shameful behaviour is becoming exposed.
With the loss of a good weekly sermon and some minor commitment to religious service in our lives to put a cap on our day-to-day greed, we are becoming almost hysterical about 'making' a living and gorging ourselves on whatever indulgences we fancy. And to hell with anybody who may may be chagrined by pornagraphic conduct.

In this climate, would it surprise any of us if sexual maniacs became urban heroes?

May I make a little suggestion here? How about we arrest this trend, enjoy more face-to-face conversations which require some intellect and thoughtfulness and which allow for a simple discovery: the magnificence of the individual and his connection to the divine. With more of us taking that one step (turning off their games, their little phones, their infernal music, and their TV's), more of us will be inclined to return to living and be less concerned and hysterical about 'making' a living.

OCCUPY THIS

2011-11-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

The voting booth.

IMMINENT DANGER

2011-11-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

A Prognostication: The Global Economy is in imminent danger. The Euro will collapse and be recalled as a nightmare in voodoo economics. Histerical selling on the open stock market will follow. Get out now. Buy bullion. Gold and silver now. There is only one word to resolve all: De-industrialize. Find your garden.

GATHERING THOUGHTS

2011-07-04T13:18:00.001-07:00

VANCOUVER'S HIDDEN CULTURES
It was witnessed by the world time and time again as the media washed us in the shame of the Stanley Cup Vancouver riots. So much for being one of the most desirable cities to live in... but still one of the most expensive. And therein may lie an explanation for this hidden culture of gangsterism. It is indeed hard to compete with the throngs of Asians appearing on our coast and buying everything in sight; then leaving the condos vacant while the homeless and war veterans tread about on our poop-ridden streets below populated by aggressive hit-and-run drivers leering at us with their smug faces hidden behind their cellphones. But no excuse for the thuggery we all had to suck in that night the Canucks blew their last chance to win the over-hyped Holy Grail of their sport. Perchance the thuggery is somewhat more induced by what we see on the screens of one of our innumberable sports bars during one of these 'professional' games. Delivering a concussion appears to be a strategy these days to win a point. Just ask Sydney Crosby.
But I'm having some difficulty with our new neighbours trying to configure how they configure the relationship they have rationalized between being a Chinese Communist and a Capitalist. Why not Communist Radio next? Free speech and all that. And how 'bout an invigorated Communist party to match while Chinatown business owners and elders, as usual, scowl at most of us home-grown Canadians for whatever guilt we're supposed to be carrying for having them by their choice carry our laundry lo those many decades ago?
I'm no racist but even a professor at UBC recently asked the question as entitled in his essay published in the UBYSSEY: "Too Asian?" The question gains legitimacy the longer too many of our new neighbours hold out their sneers to the cap-in-hand of the homeless and prefer to tribalize among their own; and ignore wholly our history, sociology and why we are still proud - though outnumbered here in Vancouver - to call ourselves Canadian.

* * *

ROYALS CROWD OUT RIOTERS
Whether you're a Monarchist, an Anarchist or just an indifferent Populist kinda guy, it was perhaps even for all of us a breath of some relief to see crowds of thousands act with civility while two young people (of some privilege no question) came to visit. And that helicopter show on the lake? Try that on an open ocean during a storm. Glug glug. Bye Bye Crown. But fascinatoring, eh?

* * *

SLANDER-SLUSHING BARS
Having been a patron of Vancouver pubs, bars, restaurants and other unmentionable late-night establishments, I believe I have always conducted myself with civility, albeit booze-inspired exuberance occasionally for some 40+ years now. And so far I have been barred by two – one in the west end and the other a popular cave on Cambie Street. Both barrings were the result of slander-slushing patrons or barkeeps or waiters who took umbrage to my presence for one baseless reason or another.
The west end bar tossed me for “slandering” someone there. Interesting: inasmuch as I didn't know anyone there it would be quite the trick to slander them. The actual reason was because I didn't tip the sluggish waitress-with-attitude and she fed the manager enough bilge to get me turfed going on now for two years. Yawn. Used to be a good spot for a game of pool there on Comox.
The other was even more lame: I got tossed because the manageress didn't want to lose a big gambler's patronage. Yawner again. Ironic that the next day was “Customer Appreciation Day.” She never did read the signed, complimentary copy of my book I gave her two years before. Am I yawning too much?

* * *

WORSHIPPING(?)THE FATHER
The word “Worship” has always been a bugaboo for me even when I was trying to keep from becoming a buggered altar boy.
Since when would any father want to be worshipped? It occurs to me that any good father would be more interested in being acknowledged and if lucky – known.
So why can't we see the same sense in knowing the 'heavenly father'?
And as weather so often comprises our sense of common divinity (How's the weather out your way?), imagine the continuity of joy if one were to know the personality of the sun?
(This piece was conceived and written on July 4th before viewing in Vancouver a corona in the firmament - a wide rainbow encircling the sun.)
I'm not yawning now.

* * *

Man As Singularity

2011-03-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

Mathematicians and physicists are looking at singularities, those sole points of origin of black holes sucking entire galaxies into an apparent maelstrom. This pulse of unlimited gravity confounds the scientists, quantum gravity physicists particularly, as the explanatory formula keeps returning to infinity.

If there were only one singularity one may tend to describe it as the presence of God... the ultimate sustaining source of endless gravitas. However, there has been discovered many singularities throughout many galaxies.

“Nothing in the human body was designed to cease functioning.” The perpetual motion machine. To live forever one’s spiritual ‘muscles’ must be active, sustaining the physical, and any quantitude of gravity.

Consider then: the singularity is man, the first manifestation of God, the pulse of perpetuity and having a personality, reflecting God.

It is just prior to the intake of breath a perfect vaccuum exists, wherin the Divine has its repeating genesis.

The exhalation then creates many singularities. Each soul imbued with that spark of eternal life and with its own power to multiply. The spiritual form of Man the Eternal?

One Pilgrim’s Tablet

2011-02-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

My humanity begins as I am delivered into the Light.

My relationship to the personality of the infinite is private.

My temple is designed to facilitate joy.

In a multitude of ways charity is a healthy act.

All is given for the sole edification of humankind.

The spiritual field of all can be enhanced by moral conduct today.

My identity, and spiritual muscles, may be formed to defy death.

Necessity begets perfection and perfection is beauty.

I am the words I speak and the words I hear.

The memories of a good man increase the body of God.

With the permission of each of us and our willingness to participate with creation, God in His furnace is creating fierce gods.

The Grave Acknowledgement

In its inexorable flux, the personality of the infinite creates and knows more. And this knowing bears its own price: the acknowledgement that its intimates are becoming grist to afford the boast: "Behold! I make all things new again!"

Man's increase in knowledge reflects this quandary - the sadness of loss tempering the trumph of knowledge gained.

Perhaps sadness is too sentimental, eschewed in the fierceness of divine action. It is more a grave acknowledgment of the vagary of being that one hears in the lawgiver's words, "I am that I am."

But to whence are the former intimates dispatched? All to places in a sky of their own custom, in glorious raiment about their new bodies, formed over millenia by the utterance of each compassionate syllable driven to God. Such is the bounty of Light.

Mysteries and Words

2011-02-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

Dreams from Purgatory (prequel to The Dead Sea Revelation) to arrive at the Vancouver Library this week. Thanks to co-author Steve Didcote.

The King of Blessings to arrive next year (sequel to The Dead Sea Revelation).

After that: my only non-fiction: The Enlightenables. Process of elimination.

This, The English Bay Banner, after 5.5 years will continue, especially jumped when readers respond. Otherwise, I will attempt to appreciate the lack of interest in intellectual life in this country as led by a mortician, despite the excitement and courage we see today in Egypt. 18 days of peace and revolution. Well done. Ghandi would be proud.

"How many dim bulbs does it to take to unscrew interest in one brilliant book? 340.

2010-11-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Letter to Globe and Mail:

2010-11-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Dear Editor:

On November 5th, I received my first issue of your grand old paper as a new subscriber. Seeing it in my mail slot here warmed me as I recalled reading The Toronto Globe and Mail when Richard Needham was wryly holding forth and graciously including his readers' remarks in his column. While I was also pleased to witness the layout makeover bring colour and new form to what was, in my view, an overtly conservative and staid presentation, yesterday I didn't get why the photo of the elderly couple was so prominent above the masthead, the story being of some minor human interest at best. But the obvious whopper of a boo-boo on page one (which has probably by now resulted in someone in the layout department being globetrotted) was the misplacement of the two headings - “Mutiny...” and “Harper...” and the misleading discontinuance of the Campbell story on page six.

Duh?

I expected more from you folks but alas even your vaunted group may fall prey to huffing and puffing all the wrong herbs, I suppose. But as my options here are limited to the other conglomerate recently bailed out of bankruptcy (for being so bland, predictable and celebrity-struck?) I will remain for now a reluctant subscriber. After all, as an author and collector of books, on this first delivery you've given me something to frame.

Harry Langen, Author: The Dead Sea Revelation and co-author of Dreams from Purgatory

P.S. In the event that a reporter from your formerly august institution attends my book launch this November 28th, would it be teddibly out of kilter to request copy and layout proofing prior to publication?

Triple Whammy Night - November 22nd

2010-10-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

On Monday,November 22nd, at 6 p.m. march on down to the The Guilt below Chill Winston's in Gastown for an evening of readings from both books by Yours Truly (and Steve Didcote, co-author of Dreams From Purgatory. Enjoy also, interludes of music from Paracletus! my 26 song operetta. Two books to launch and a musical to introduce: by my reckoning that makes the night a triple whammy. And have a gander at the chalice full of pure silver coins under a radiant spotlight exciting one and all to decrypt the code strips on the cover of The Dead Sea Revelation. (see www.deadsearevelation.com) How's that for a Silver Lining?

And wear a fedora and get thyself a discount on each book, signed first editions and wrapped too if you like. "Perfect Christmas gifts." The first annual 'Fedora Night' in Vancouver harkening to the days when gentlemen across the entire country were tipping their brims to the lovely ladies strolling about in their form-fitting dresses billowing in an autumn breeze.

Also, soon, will occur for your listening pleasure a one hour radio programme entitled "Lights out!" An eclectic mix of our version of news and our brand of musical highlights. (As soon as I figure out this tinny gizmo aka audio recorder that only has 401,000 instructions, probably originally written in Japanese and then translated by East Indians and then whispered in code to us English cryptographers.) When all of that is unscrambled you, dear reader, may indeed hear it all right here... just be sure to turn everything else off, especially your tyrannical TV and lend us your virgin ears.

A pleasure to hear from my brother Roger advertising "wear purple day" in support of gay youth at risk of suicide from homophobic bullying. (I hope I was wearing purple that day.)

And if all goes according to Hoyle (that bewildering card shark), the 3rd hard copy of this e-zine will be circulating through Camel Post and by hand to pubs, homes and restaurants, among the lucky few. Keep your eyes peeled and lest you forget, chill under at The Guilt this November 22nd. Can't miss. Hang on to your hat! It's going to be a thrill.

Paracletus!

2010-09-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

All songs below copyright Harry Langen, 2010, Vancouver

ACT ONE
SONG ONE

BE SO MEAN
-SETH

(overture)

What's the matter with this scene?
How do I get off this runaway train?
I've seen enough! I've had my fill!
Take back my ticket! Too much pain!
I want off this train! Off this train!

You're the one who makes this place!
Get on down here! Show your face!
Take a look around. Like what you see?
Countless children, helpless and needy.

Have a good look, you S.O.B.
All of your making, everything you see.

A sweet, oh sweet, dear dear lady;
No luck! No luck for the bag lady!

Come on down you S.O.B.
Let's see if you like what you see!

(dance interlude)

You're the matter with this scene!
You're the master of this scene!

Get on down here, I gotta know
How could you be so mean?
How could you be so mean?
Be so mean?

ACT ONE
SONG TWO

MY MELANCHOLY PHRASE
-RIVERGOD

Silence! Burn my ears no more!

Who be you? Who pray tell are you? (-Seth)

I am. I am here of the will of the waterfall.
I am the Lord of the fountains, the Rivergod.
You Seth have awakened me.
Now what is it you will have of me?

Look! Look! Take a look at this scene!
How could h be so mean, how could he be so mean? -Seth

Yes I see. Oh I see and wonder I, do I:
Why man, why?
Isn't it nearly beyond belief?
How can he expect from Him relief?

He's the matter with this scene!
He's the master of this scene! -Seth

Hark! Yes man grieves.
Darker and darker into the house goes he;
By his own hand does he chart his destiny.
Step by step, beat by beat goes the craze;
And onward I sing my melancholy phrase
As though to walk with head bent and eyes aglaze.

I read the mother's grief on every page
And hear the children hoping happy stories untold;
As i sweep by grandly the burial place of the sage
And into his arms my tears I fold.

Wonder little do I
Except, why man why?

I see white birds in a blue sky and watch the deerskins fade,
And in my body the silver beasts they wade;
But then on a moonless night, I hear this man a'scurry
A gritty thing in such a hurry
To relieve himself of the horror he has made.

Yes, man is of life, the immortal soul;
And yes he may be deified;
But as long as he lives like a bat in a hole
He'll take to his breast a witless bride.

But some day soon, some day soon
The white birds will flock and shout
Love is King, hope and power;
On mountains here and there about
Oh hear the wise birds sing!
Calling his name on every hour
And watch the bees a'swarm and put it on every flower!

Love will easily await its hour
Like me, I roll and wait, wait for its hour
Oh hear the wise birds sing,
Love is King, hope and power.

ACT ONE
SONG THREE

MY HEAVY YOUNG HEART
-SETH

Then send this love along
For my heavy young heart;
Send this hope and power on wings this holy hour.
My legs they weary and the roads are long.

Be sure the white birds they speed
And the bees to whisper this name to me
That I may laugh loud again and heed
The silvery side of leaf flutter the tree.

Let us roll while we wait together
Past a golden field where violets and heather
Colour the ground about and scampering squirrels
Make nature promise a better weather.

Bring this tumbling canopy closer
So there I can see these eyes of God, blue or green;
And hear the secret hymns of a caller
Who will tell me more, here about this scene.

So rush this love along
For my heavy young heart;
Speed this hopeful power on mighty wings this hour,
My legs they weary and the roads are long.

And even then, wild Rivergod,
My ears may hear the songs of Vishnu
My lips taste the milk and honey
But what of the child gone by the morning dew?

Even then great fountain and singer of sweet melodies
What then do we tell our little ones
Who ask and crave to know life's mysteries
When we ourselves seem the guilty ones?

What of them, mighty one?

So send me hope
And rush this love along
For then my heavy young heart to cope.

ACT ONE
SONG FOUR

UNDER THE RAINBOWS
-RIVERGOD

Be still good lad, take heart.
You see dear fellow, I too have watched
But for thousands of years and millions of moons
After some eons you mellow.

Under the shimmering rainbows flow I
To hear the ceaseless wind
And the secrets of the swaying treetops.
Flowing 'neath the misty galaxies find me lie.

I hear the calls which haunt me at midnight
Calling from beneath my belly.
They are the damned asking again for the right
To participate, crackle with light and end their folly.

For me I roll, roll while I wait do I;
Await the hour when comes the prince
To call for hope and the power
Call to the side and above that hour...

Love is King! Love is King!

The wise voices are few;
Rose petal-bearing winds can obscure.
Count them on one hand those true
Whose pinkish tongues sing so pure.

But then, see wily nature persevere
And in all of the white heat and blast,
Nonetheless or more you may hear
His voice so perfect bringing in the last.

Under the shimmering rainbows flow I;
To hear the ceaseless wind
And the secrets of the swaying treetops.
Flowing 'neath the misty galaxies find me lie.

So you see dear fellow,
I too have watched
But for thousands of years and millions of moons
After some eons you mellow.

ACT ONE
SONG FIVE

I AM BUT A BOY
- SETH

I hear your words, rolling rivergod
And do truly take them to heart
But what can I do? What can I do?
I am but a boy. Who will listen to but a boy?

The buildings are high and the banks are mighty,
The temples strange-coloured
And the priests are funny;
The hordes of the armies nine hundred and ninety!
Their knives taste red-blood, ne'er honey.

The noise of the pretender is loud
And the clamour makes them kingly;
Find a man in them true proud
Would indeed be a deed far-reaching.

Who will bend their ear
To a lad so menial as me?
The weight of their black purse, silky and dear,
Is even then greater than all of the kilos in me.

Will you send me the height?
Instruct your birds to pull me thither
That all the king's men will of a thought whither
At the sight of this Seth much bigger in might?

Shall I huff and I puff and blow down the house?
Shall I rattle my sword and swing it on high?
Breathe on them blue-burning fire, ne'er a douse?
Shall I then, Rivergod, alone myself,
Turn this world upside nigh?

I hear your goodly words oh God of streams
And do truly take them to heart;
But what can I do, what can I do?
I am but a boy. I am but a boy.
Who will listen to but a boy?

ACT ONE
SONG SIX

RIPPLES AT MOONLIGHT
-RIVERGOD

Let there be tens of thousands of golden temples
Reaching to the heavens all about my skirts;
And arches of emerald and sapphire spanning my girth,
And fleets of vessels of finest woods
And brightest brass upon my body,

And all of this together Seth, would not match
The elegance and the beauty, the wealth and the dignity
Of one of my ripples at moonlight!

For without heeding the god of nature,
Father God and Mother earth;
The soul of man is a passing blur
And his words are naught but echoes,
echoes in the dark.

Remember Seth: Man was meant to enjoy;
All things in nature mingle for naught but his edification
Love is king and will prevail!
As it is the very stuff of creation.
And so see this now and be not afraid boy!
See this now and be not afraid boy!

Look deep, deep into your soul
And therein and about
Find the stuff of which you need
To build anew and plant the seed.

There! There is a way! There in your soul
To pull even a flower from a wretched hole!
Love! Love is the lighted sword held highly
Illuminating the way to sweetest victory.

Come to my side, the riverside.
Come to your friend who has the might!
When your soul is weary and your heart is heavy
And I'll show you one of my ripples at moonlight.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Not even tens of thousands of temples!
(sounds of sighing and burbling)

ACT ONE
SONG SEVEN

I HEAR AND LIVE
-SETH

Now I see! Now I do! I see indeed!
Even in me is a light so glowing great
I'll find the way though narrow and straight!
That the pierced red body of love no longer bleed.
I see indeed!

You, rolling God of the river;
You Lord of the streams and gusher of fountains;
I thank thee your waterfalls,
For unstopping mine ears and finishing my fears.

Your white birds are true and fast
Your bees sting me alive!
In your voice I find refuge, your words are mine hope.
I'll write the name of power across every field,
upon every flower
Love is King and I, I Seth his prince!

I hear as though drinking your wine!
My heart is lighted joy like speeding stars!
My feet will stand rooted, my will of thine!
Now these eyes can see through the mists of eons;
My voice unwilting, make clear the way of men!

Mighty feeder of oceans, I hear and live!
What invisible wings your truth does bear!
A great and mighty wave has cascaded into my soul
And now and forevermore my deeds
Will tremble the seekers of smooth beads
and upset! upset the iniquitous!

I am Seth! The bringer of good cheer!
I am Seth! The slayer of lies!
I am Seth! A man of lasting wealth
for I have the faith of the Rivergod!
The assurance of endless galaxies, their misty white selves
Dance in the night rejoicing wise!

My walk now a concert with life,
Every muscle and limb a light cadence;
And fill the hollows now I sing with syllables, tuneful issues
Of a spirit of peace unending!

I am Seth of the bountiful one, friend forever to the Rivergod!
Roll! Roll, but wait no longer!
Seth will say and say again your story
And be sure to the God of streams goes the glory!

I hear and live! I hear and live!
Bolder now I shoot to the world!
May even turn it upside nigh!
Never again to ask, "Why man, why?"

ACT ONE
SONG EIGHT

MY STREAM OF THINGS
- RIVERGOD

Oh my joy, that's a good boy,
Make room for one more!
Swing those designer gates wide!
Here's hoping they'll line the corridor!

Like drops of due adorning
Those princely little petals
On those special spring mornings
Each one like Seth is precious!

Now he'll have a better life,
Standing upright, eyes ahead;
A good catch he'll make some wife
By his old times, many men he'll have led.

Daughter Paris will be pleased.
And come to think of her lovely way
It's time to go home now;
My duty's done today.

It was all in my stream of things.
And with thanks to the hopeful wings
I roll along now;
Roll, roll, roll while I wait.

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO
SONG ONE

THIS HOUSE OF MYSTERY
- SETH

I see chocolate clocks and dancing clouds,
Check out the leaky green goblets!
Behold the beasties and brassy boatbells;
Pale oceans of milk and turquoise seashells!

Open windows to strange dimensions
And the walls are like breathing.
What place is this beyond mention?
Mine eyes and senses must be leaving!

I hear archangels whispering;
Was that a Michael or a Gabrielle?
What is this house of mystery;
What place is this, pray tell?

I heard an old man tittering,
Something grand and here lovely;
And look at these little tubes burbling!
Could this be a kind of chemistry?

Was that a host of saints marching?
Martyrs and men and seraphim?
And a young lady sweetly singing,
In this house house I don't recognize anything!

What is this house of mystery?
What place is this pray tell?
Martrys, men, Michael and Gabrielle!
What place is this pray tell?

ACT TWO
SONG TWO

WHAT FUN TO MAKE
- PARACLETUS

Oh good! It's time for me to make!
And what today do I choose to create?
Oh what fun!

I can make funny faces and horseback races!
Basketcases and DNA traces!
(And how bout some romantic places?)
Buffaloes or tippy toes, haloes and halapenos!
Sitting ducks, little bucks and baby chicken clucks!

Butterflies, little lady thighs,
The occasional burgundy sunrise!
The oven hot and the yeast to rise
And someday soon, I'll make young men wise. Ha!

I can make oceans roar and mountains pop!
And the whole planet shiver and shake!
Or today I'll settle for a red-breasted warbler
in an evergreen top.
(Or send Jupiter an afternoon quake!)

I'll invent a new chemistry,
Colours of a sort never seen before!
Just because, you see, it please me.
Or even better, something for Paris - whom I adore.

I'll make bigger lions roar louder, even louder!
And elephants charge even faster!
And turn up the volume on children's laughter!
Don't eat the turnips. Take a powder!

But just as Paris said I would,
I'll make something good.

Perhaps copper plates or Platos
A different kind of mathematics
So two and two make something like... eight 0's!
Rolling bones and magic tricks, who knows?

Another Eve for Adam
Or Helen of Purgatroy.
Some more Cleopatras, you know I can!
What fun making mudpies like a boy!

What fun to make!
And what today do I choose to create?
God isn't this fun?
Why yes, by God it is!

Ha ha!

ACT TWO
SONG THREE

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
- PARIS

Oh God, it's so great to be
So full of joy I'm ablaze!
Oh God, it's so good to be
Home, home for the holidays!

I know these halls.
I can smell the walls!
Memories of loving things come a'pace;
Everything I can find its place.

It's all familiar music to me!
How easily I feel to dance!
Such music of intimacy;
About this home, ne'er a mean glance.

Alive! Alive! I am here!
I know where everything is!
The easiest home in the world to celebrate!
How pleasant to come home to rejuvenate!

The silent light is brightest here!
It swings about mine eyes!
I'm home next to Papa dear,
A loving and lovely man so great and gentlewise.

Oh God it's so great to be
So full of joy I'm ablaze!
Oh God it's so good to be
Home, home for the holidays!

ACT TWO
SONG FOUR

AND WHAT OF IT?
-THUSIAST

Hey Para! Whaddaya doin' down thera?

Now Thusiast, can't you see?
I'm busy having some fun with my chemistries. - Paracletus

Later for that boss man.
We've got some serious stuff to work out!
Everything's going to hell in a basketcase
Do you know what they're saying about?
Against the whole shaboom they're making a case!

Well now what is it? What is it now? - Paracletus

What it is? What it is?
They're saying it's all an accident!
Could it be and what of it?
Everything just burbled up and poof! A planet!
Life just jiggles and wiggles and look! A plum pit.

Hey Para, come on!
You gotta lower da boom!
We got too many agnostics and weird societies,
They're just not jivin' your geometries!

And now to agitate even more
We've got a whole new line of mystics
Who chant and hum and tell us to adore
Some spooky combination of China sticks!

Paracletus! I'm talkin' to ya man!
Atheists and existentialists,
Eighth Day Adventists and Satanists
They're all gettin' downright outta line!

And who do da voodoo?
They got baby dolls and pins
And they dance in a trance
Creatin' all manner of oddball dins!

Immoralists and Sophists,
Preachers in the bleachers!
Druids and Doubting Thomases!
We need some Righteous Teachers!

The world is goin' to hell in a basketcase
And you're playin' with your chemistries!
Send down your shining, pretty little face!
Show 'em some of your majesty!

Somebody's kicked it open,
That Pandora's box
Git your butt out there a ropin'
And put the Jack back in the Box!

SONG FIVE

ACCIDENT?
-Paracletus

An accident?
All of this an accident?
Are we on the same planet?
You know the one where trees grow on it.

An accident?
A million and one and the queen bee
All a humbubbling just so
Every little boy gets his honey.

Are the birds all awry
Doing a V instead of a Y?
Is the sun maybe losing track
Going sideways back and back?

An accident?
Even the oceans sing a different tune
When just comes up our sister moon
All of this, of course, anyone can do!

All those mouthpieces aren't even close
When this they suggest is happenstance!
For me this is just intolerable!
Nothing here at all by chance!

Don't they spy all that wonder I enhance?
There in the sky is my living stamp.
Well maybe they can make the peacocks prance
And I'll go my way for a jig and a dance!

Nothing is holus bolus!
Every little leaf has its place.
I don't make just hocus pocus.
Little ones know where is my trace.

Maybe I'll just get down and dirty
Hellbent and bent for hell
Maybe then they'll see
A dash of this and some infinity.

An accident?
A million and three and the queen bee
All a humbubbling just so
Every little girl gets her honey.

ACT TWO
SONG SIX

MY FATHER'S HOUSE
-Paris

Is this not the place to which heroes aspire?
The reason for those poetic verses
The best of the best my father inspires
Here they come to build glorious universes!

This is the source of laughter
And the reason for being
Why children act silly and play
And fuzzy-faced old grampies pray.

This is the fact of the charitable act
Where all the good spirits congregate
And ne'er a one does agitate
And another good spirit do we create!

Here there are times within times
And every one gets their chance
And each one of them speak in thanksgiving rhymes
Because they live with my father,
his grand old eminence.

All these living souls are alive as a melody
From all tiresome burdens they are finally free
So often here they speak as though in rhapsody
Here in my father's house, this house of felicity!

Lest we forget, we have wonders to work
Strike up the band, 106 trombones!
Wear the colours of splashing rainbows!
Spread our wings o'er all the earthly thrones!

Because we do indeed have our work cut out
But's in all in a lovely stream of things;
A child will know what it's all about.
Sending love to all the earthly kings!

This is the fact of the charitable act
Where all good spirits congregate
And ne'er a one does agitate
A host of spirits do we create!

ACT TWO
SONG SEVEN

ISN'T LIFE STRANGE?
-Seth

I don't know why but I do
I feel this is where it all makes sense
I don't know why but I do
Feel I've hit upon just the right circumstance!

Hereabouts there is a grand sense of purpose
Where friendships might deepen and true loyalties surface.
But wherefore is the answer which explains my presence?
From what sleep must I arise to join this essence?

Isn't life strange?As soon as you think you know,
Zap! Something somewhere opens another door
Through which of course curiously we go
Wondering again whatever the reason for.

And everyone in this strangest place of all
Is having the most interesting of times
Here they sing their thoughts and everyone rhymes.
And so do I and I don't know why,
or from whence my lines.

Only once before
When a boy by the riverside,
Did I find myself exalted and more
Putting my words into rhythms and rhymes.

Have I been here before
This house of mystery
Perhaps in a lighthearted dream or an epic no less
Where all the good guys claim a victory
And damsels are rescued from awful distress.

See there I go and easily again
I'm rhyming quite naturally
And without even the slightest thought or pain
I'm making songs in a house of revelry.

I stll know days and still see twilights,
But why is it so that I walk in a daze?

I don't know why but I do
Feel this is where it all makes sense.
I don't know why but I do
Feel I've hit upon just the right circumstance!

END OF ACT TWO

ACT THREE
SONG ONE

HEAVY TRAFFIC
-Thusiast

Hey Para!
You better have a look!
Oh boy, oh man, oh boy!
We've got real trouble down under thera!
In Station 142 of Purgatroya!

There's a gang of funny-lookin' folk
Goin' round and round by the outward gate
And one helluva mess do they create!
No one, not a soul can escape!

To all this chaos a brethren of contributors
Overworking a special brand of bafflegab
Between these gray barristers and solicitors
Nothing's gettin' through, Not even a jab!

They're right there in front of the gate
Not a soul, no one can escape
Dressed in black robes, holding court
Wearing white wigs, everybody's agape!

And worse yet, and then some,
Another gang most worrisome!
Passing paper ever back and back
A notorious clutch of bureaucrats.

There's trouble in Purgatroy,
Oh man, oh girl, oh boy!
Up and down, round and round, the outward gate,
Get a move on down, don't be late!

We need your perfect little touch
Break em all out a bit much;
And perchance the way will clear
For the escape of those souls most dear.

You better have a look!
Oh boy, oh boy,
We've got real trouble down under
Station 142 of Purgatroy!

Gonna need a real kick of your divine thunder!

How in heaven did they get paper in Purgatroya? - Para

ACT THREE
SONG TWO

ENOUGH TO WEEP
-Paris
(in progress)

ACT THREE
SONG THREE

A NEW DIMENSION
-Thusiast

Hey Paris!
Get a load of this!
There's a new dimension in the makin'
I saw it out theris!

Nine rainbows a crisscrossin'
Over giant red and ragged mountains!
Leaning against a multicoloured
Bigger firmamenta!

Soft colours of pastel greens,
yellows and coppers and indigos
Reflected in those oceans which were three;
All there licking my feet, each at a different angle and hue.
One was milky, one was purple and one was blue.

And I heard the singing of a choir
Like our very own angels,
Except voices like little sires
And their sound was alike a'laughing.

Little critters amid my feet
Skidaddled and tickled my lovely little toes
And a little like chirping they did.
Like chirping they did!

And from behind me came a scent
Of something like magnolias
Carried on a wind heavensent;
And my dear Paris it lifted me right up
And on like wings bigger than mine I humbly mention
I travelled above this spectacular new dimension!

Where the loveliest of strangers' thoughts
Made a kind of sweetheart's waltz.
And the yellow trees, every one of them danced!
But ne'er, ne'er did I see, any inhabitants!

And why, when I landed, something warm and fuzzy
Reached out and by jolly
Cuddled every little black bit of me!
Black bit of me!

Oh Paris! You must see
A new world coming into be!
We must abound and find out how and find out who
All of this makes go round!

Three moons up and down
And a serpent in the sky winked at me!
We must find out who sang those songs
Who fuzzied my feelings and tickled my toes

And why the word Blesseth the wind whispered to me!

ACT THREE
SONG FOUR

MY EMPTY HOUSE
-Instrumental

ACT THREE
SONG FIVE

10,000 YEARS
-Paracletus

How silent my house.
I hear not my name.
Daughter Paris and Thusiast are off and about;
I wonder if Thusiast is to blame?

It is too often I wait.
So faithfully they can be late.
All my children seem to be losing sight
Of dear papa in his house of late.

What was it I wonder?
Not enough of the burgundy sunlight?
Was it too loud I made the thunder?
Was it one of my ripples at moonlight?

I made the lions roar louder, yes louder!
And elephants indeed charge even faster!
I turned up the volume on children's laughter
I said Don't eat the turnips, take a powder!

I gave Adam another Eve
And a dozen or so Cleopatras
And another Helen for Troy
What am I, What am I to believe?

I made the butterflies and little lady thighs
But could it be I was late
Making the young men wise.
Wonder, wonder do I. Why man, why?

What have I your Daddy done so awry?

10,000 years I am confrounded
Alone and not hearing my name;
By not one child am I surrounded.
Alone I sit not hearing my name.

Have I not been adequately dramatic?
Countless warblers in treetops ad infinitum.
Is this not enough to make at least one little girl ecstatic?
I sit alone for 10,000 years, ho-hum ho-hum.

Shall I exact proper vengeance?
And send down frightening firmaments?
And scare the hell out of my offspring?
Or sit here agonize, wondering...

What have I your daddy done so awry?
What have I your daddy done so awry?

10,000 years I am confounded,
Alone and not hearing my name;
By not one child am I surrounded!
Alone I sit, not hearing my name.

ACT THREE
SONG SIX

AND WHO BE YOU?
-Seth

Well now then I must know!
Who be you?
The Lord of this house
Your heartstrings so askew.

I cannot wait any longer
Your soul's lament is a crushing refrain;
What can I say or do
That I may satisfy its hunger?

I am Seth the Mighty!
Dear to the Lord of Streams
A slayer of iniquity.
A Leader of men and friend to Liberty!

To Seth I ask you to speak!
To Seth I ask you to speak!

ACT THREE
SONG SEVEN

I AM
-Paracletus

I am the last song and the first word;
The spirit of your dance and your richest elation.
Across each soar the blue-breasted birds
All of my which are of my creation.

I am the secret equation
The cuddle, hug and cradle;
Your babies very first steps
And the elders' successful collaboration.

I am the scent of the hardwood fireplace
After a day of chilly toil;
Your first glimpse of a young lady's grace
And the distant sound a seashell makes.

I am the anticipation of the ten happy brides
And the designs of the heavens at night.
Their wheels turning and their clocks ticking
Marking the arrival of the day's last light.

My windy words sprinkle seeds.
I am the success of continuity;
The debt paid and the Sunday ease.
The illusion and the shocking reality.

Find me in the unmanifest
Who asks your faith.
I am the correct decision,
Who is the poem which you may envision.

I am the one you will see at the last of times
When it is clear there is not time; there never was.
And I adorn myself in tumbling white clouds,
There about my throat strings of yellow topaz
and green sapphires.

Then there will be four horses to pull my golden carriage
Each one of my steeds will be draped in
finely woven silks;
For it is I who am wealth
And they knowing me then will not be a'tremble.

But my precious planet groans under the weight
Of the infected blanket man in his self-driven fate
Has cast over the delicate face
Of even my daughter earth.

Too long she suffers!
The day is nigh when I perfection, even I
Will strike again the balance
Whence the evil-tongued and deceitful
Shall speed in terror to their demise!

Their very souls I will allow to finish.
The souls of a thousand generations
To which all, I, Paracletus the Intercedor,
Shall turn a blind eye.

Even that portion of my body
I will rip out, and conclude!
Cast out! Cast out!
For better them than all of me.

And even then further do I actually consider
A new altogether thing.
My very own, my very own
Self-extinction!

By neglect I am moved to snuff out my last candles.
All of them.
And let us all see thereafter
What this massive neglect has proved.

Darkness. Coldness. Emptiness. Lifelessness.
Welcome to the nightmare you court.
Your faithless consort - hopelessness.
Shall I, I wonder, explore this, this last resort?

My own children
For love they cannot be trusted.
It is to be disgusted. Disgusted.
Shall I, I wonder, explore my very own self-extinction.

ACT THREE
SONG EIGHT

FRIGHTEN ME NOT!
-Seth

Frighten me not!
You confuse my mind!
Who are you?
And where am I?

Only the Rivergod
Has spoken to me such
Three score years and ten ago!
How dare like him you speak so much!

In me is the faith of the rolling god
Who allows by his side
That I may be enlivened, invigorated;
And many times his name I've cried.

But you! You sing as though you are what?
Of him, my friend the Rivergod?
Tell me it and now and frighten me not
How is it you sound like the Rivergod?

ACT THREE
SONG NINE

I AM PARACLETUS
-Paracletus

I am the language of Eden rediscovered;
The scrolls of the Kings of Peace uncovered.
I am the father with his personality
Usually keen and full of manly Papa pleasantries.

I am the example of goodness,
The rewards of righteousness;
The balance in your excellent gait
And the fire of a week of day's brightness.

I am enthusiasm
The father of Thusiast.
To the bafflers I am the wherefore and the whereas
But moreso I am the King of Spring in Paris.

I am the stuff of your mind which is orderly
And the pleasure you feel in your generosity.
I am the knowledge in which a man may abide
And the child so precious kibitzing wild.

In my breast is my empathy for the wayfarers,
Across my face are rivers of compassion;
Even the misguided have my sympathy,
You see, I love you all with an unyielding passion.

I build and structure, let loose and align
A spirit of freedom so fine
That wildly our joys may become deep,
Deeply coloured realities.

The source of the fountains am I!
The gusher of streams;
I am you see, the Rivergod, even he,
Who cuts a new path across the heaviest of mountains
leaning on my sky.

I am Paracletus!
Creator of the divine spirit!
Of which your heart is mold;
In my hands your life-breath I hold.

I am Paracletus, Lord God, designer of the cosmos,
And alone I am, the glorious throne vacant now;
You see, Seth, you may be the last drop of dew
on my very last flower.
After me, who will replenish the hour?

I am Paracletus, finisher of the cosmos!

ACT THREE
SONG TEN

THANKFUL TO THEE
-Seth

You! You're my precious!
Now it's making sense, Lord sublime!
You taught me about my soul!
From whence I pulled a flower from a wretched hole!

It is you then who bleeds!
Your pierced red body of love.
In my life many men I have led
On the white wings of love we sped...

To put your name on every flower
And o'er every earthly throne!

I am thankful to thee,
You taught me a marvellous mystery!
That the whole world had hope
Even through me!

I found there in my soul deep
A cherished flame ever-burning in a sacred hollow
Which, by your grace, fuels a man's hope.
And evermore after, I knew of its place
Where then I might visit and take refuge in you
And hear your everlasting songs anew!

You are King! You are Love!
You are Lord of skies above!
For the rolling Rivergod who will wait no longer
Give me father, the mightiness
To swing the world upside nigh,
That at last your gentlewise face will bring
To their knees even the iniquitous!

What do you need of me?
Let me give up my soul to the cause!
Take now my heart and soul and throw them into the fray!
For your will be done, oh agonizing father.
Slay the slayer if need be.
I am yours. Send my soul, for you, away!

ACT THREE
SONG ELEVEN

WELLSPRING OF MY HEART
-Paracletus

Oh Seth, rise my son,
As even all of my spirits rise.
They rise in celebration of you my boy.
You are now this moment
the very wellspring of my heart.

To all my worlds I shall apprise
Each angel, every seraphim, and guardians most wise
Of you mighty Seth; and this hour will be
Known by them for eternity
As the genesis, the reason for being of a new age.
The Age of Seth, the God of Courage
My son dearest who has lifted me
And even all of my firmaments.

On each of all of my planets
Where yet my children exist
The skies will broaden this day;
And evermore now a new colour
By my hand spent in the array.

A new colour and even so a new dimension
Known hence and evermore as Blesseth.

You, this hour in eternity,
Have become my reason to be
Another ten thousand years.
Your words daring akin my heartbeat.

Live Lord seth at my right side!
And ever by my ear.
Let me sense your holy breath;
As I will consume its hopefulness
And be then even more empowered.

I thank thee Lord Seth
And send my birds to pull you thither
That you may see and enjoy
This new colour in a wider sky.

This hue and home of Blesseth
Is now by me flowered!

ACT THREE
SONG TWELVE

WHITE WINGS
NEWLY ENDOWED I SEE
-Lord Seth

For you, my precious,
I will carry to the community of man
Your sacred and revivifying council
As I am stronger now.
And I thank Thee,

White wings newly endowed I see.
White wings newly endowed I see.

Evermore I will speed your word
Sing it and script it across every domain
That at last your kingdom will prevail!

And on the sweet lips of every child
Will be found with reverence your name.

As I am stronger now And I thank thee

White wings newly endowed I see.
White wings newly endowed I see.

ACT THREE
SONG THIRTEEN

HEAR AND LIVE! HEAR AND LIVE!
-ensemble-

We are the Kings of spring in Paris!
Sparkling meadows find there us!
The hope of every child we drive!
Look out! Regardez! Our bees will sting you alive!

Our white birds are true and fast.
In their song the words everlast!
In your ears we will ring! Ring! Ring!
Love is king! Love is king, king, kimg!

Hear us now as drinking our wine!
Now shall your eyes see through the mists of eons
Your voices unwilting, your wisdom dear
Make clear the way of men! Make clear!

We hear and live! Hear and live!
Hear, hear, hear and live!
You have the assurance of endless galaxies;
Hear their cries! Their misty white selves
Dance in the night rejoicing wise!

For now you have our voices in unison!
Paris! Thusiast! Your father and his mighty son!
Who step now in concert. Fill the hollows here we sing
With syllables, tuneful issues
of a spirit of peace unending!

We are the Queens of spring in Hera!
The pillars of the Parthenon find thera!
The hope of every child we drive!
Look out! Regardez! Our bees will sting you alive!

Be, be, be of the bountiful!
Love, love by God is king! Love is king!
Love is king, by God, love is king!

Father!
Son?
I love you father!
I love you son!

Alive! Alive! I hear and live!
Sing! Sing! Sing!
Love is king! King! King!

THE END

Sunset on Martha

2010-03-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

When those geese fly home at night
to sleep as we do in the wilderness
Wild yet sane, safe in an unsafe life
we make ready our slumber together.

When wild geese fly home at night
after a hard day's work on the shores of time
Being chased by wolves all day who prey at their living very seriously...

When wild geese fly home at night
Over our tents in bright delight
they sing songs in rhythmic cadences
flying choruses --- acapella
they fly as-only-they-can-fly.
Yet flinging solo it's through the air waves
No less than Lester's, Young their voices swung!

Like Bird they sing. Dizzy with Miles to bring Home waiting in their wings the willingness to punctuate that evening sun with soulful freedom.
That's wild percussively wild, Monk wild Man, woman, child!

And now to beaver's pond they fade
where softer grasses in those lovely meadows cling
With love to be at rest with those loving them singing a silent encore: "Once more once'!
Only their fairy shadows dancing to
A time that is all eternity.

-Johnson Hartman

2010-03-13T18:01:00.001-08:00

A Prayer for Today

2010-03-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Heavenly Father

Help me.

Every day. All day show me Your grace.

Help me to find You.

Help me to cool my temper that I may know your warmth.

Help me to still my tongue that I may Know your Will eternal.

And do Your Will with Joy.

Give me Father your life divine…

That I may enjoy every moment of every day as one beacon of your Everlasting Light.

Give me the strength to resist all temptations which attempt to put asunder Your eternal Love, that I may in turn Love.

Help me Father in Every Way that I may know continuity.

Increase me that I may Know You.

Amen

2010-03-13T17:50:00.001-08:00

2010-03-13T17:39:00.000-08:00

STANDING ON GUARD

2010-02-12T20:08:00.001-08:00

T-Shirt worth wearing
(supporting the child's burn unit)

2010-02-12T20:05:00.000-08:00

The Wayward Revolution

2010-01-14T15:19:00.000-08:00

Re IMAGINE (see post below)

Sounds like the Revolution that has never been given a chance. Always seems to get strong armed by the Human psyche and the ego's need to neutralize fear of death with meaningless material consumption. Time to return to simplicity and Love!

Peace and Justice go hand in hand.

We miss your remarkable insight and panache here in Nelson.
All the best in 2010 Harry! Anon, Nelson, B.C.

IMAGINE

2009-12-30T18:17:00.000-08:00

How easily.

No mortgages. No rent. No luxuries.
Peace for all... to live free on this God-given earth.

And then let us tend our gardens in communities of a love well-spoken, world-wide.

Take the masks off the 'economists' and return our immediate environment to a blessed health.

All creatures will rejoice.

It is possible. It is necessary. It is a matter of will.

Now that you know this, God need not intervene.

2009-12-07T21:36:00.001-08:00

Dark Days and Hopeful Thoughts

2009-12-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

Recently, there were front covers of interest. Appearing in the common media was front page of The Vancouver Sun showcasing all the logos of the local biker gangs. Rather than printing the names of their nefarious money-laundering businesses the editor chose to glorify their logos. My neighbour asked me for a copy of that front page because he thought they were so cool. He’s 50 years old and dying of lung cancer but he sure found those logos to be hip. Thank you Vancouver Sun for your usual gutlessness and sensationalizing stupidity.

Then the Vancouver Courier splashed a cover of a Harry Potter book on their front page promoting book-buying in the city. Thank you editor for ignoring all the independent authors right here in Vancouver and giving that author another unnecessary boost.

Yawn and yawn.

BIKES, SCOOTERS AND COWS ON THE SIDEWALK

In the late ‘60’s when I arrived here in Lotusland, there were no bicycles permitted on the sidewalks and the sight of a motorized scooter was a scene indeed. Now they’re all over the sidewalks scooting and cycling around pedestrians who walk like old cows and the sidewalk has become its own version of mayhem. Pedestrians and drivers meanwhile compete for skip-across street status. The mulit-tonned vehicles have the advantage offering involuntary pedicures, as the busses blast through red lights and not pick up gasping clients after thumping on their door.

And in the murky wild of the downtown eastside, cops release dogs in alleyways after the ‘perp’ has thrown up his arms in surrender. Yawn with fear.

WITNESSED:

An elderly Chinese woman was seen to be staggering on Keefer St in full view of her neighbours. She finally collapsed in mid-street as ongoing traffic passed her by. I was stunned by her predicament and went out there to help, finally with a Chinese storekeeper helping me to lift her bloodied face from the pavement. No one else, of her own people, bothered about her. So much for Chinatown, Vancouver, being the least bit compassionate.

Civility is lost here in the land of the Olympics. Run baby run.

But alas the dogs are nicely attended. We are by law required to bend over and pick up their poop. Who’s the master of this scene? Yelp yelp and hah hah.

TV Wars

Shaw Cable would have us believe they support local issues and spend real money on these productions. They cancelled the show in Nelson entitled Meeting at the Top, which involved interviewing people there of intelligence and some notoriety about what it meant to live at the top of their form. When I, the host, discovered that Shaw Cable kept the copyright of my words and interviews despite many original conversations of note, I resigned and they killed the programme. Meanwhile CTV and CBC are asking for more money for local coverage. CBC is already bankrolled by the taxparer putting CTV and other private stations at a disadvantage. CBC needs to stop selling ads and use their public money for newsworthy purposes as opposed to their rather pathetic effort at comedy and fiction, and the most unfunny man on the air, Rick Mercer.

Both Shaw and CTV etc need to reconcile the viewers more interested in being educated than being a pawn in their petty wars. On my TOMBY index the programming across the board is 9, for crap and gratuitous violence. Save us all some money and let the screen go snowy.

2009-09-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

The Wind About Us

2009-09-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

More tourists coming. And what will they discover?

That we’ve swept away our homeless? Leapt over them under blankets on our charity runs?

Will they risk an involuntary pedicure when trying to cross the street?

Our city, this namesake of a heroic seaman and cartographer, is resplendent with magnificent trees evident of decades of care and we, though, meanwhile have lost the rock garden in Stanley Park by neglect stemming from indifference… and what after all can possibly stem from indifference?

And so unfortunately we have lost a sense of identity. New immigrants of brutal wealth are buying condos and apartments as investments and they remain empty while some gentleman of momentary bad fortune can’t find a home to rent. Landlords here have become shrewd and disinterested in the plight of their fellow man. Credit checking and snooping is the call of their day when apprising any prospective tenant.

But before I begin to sound prejudiced by generalizing, allow me to introduce the TOMBY index: "Too Many By…” So instead of calling all by race, or judging by creed or caste as a writer of some conscience I will attempt to describe a trend, perhaps a sociological one which affects us all. For example: Do lawyers talk too much and charge by the syllable? TOMBY: 80 (on a scale of 1-100).

A neighbourhood is ultimately a reflection of the people who live, shop, laugh and cavort there. A city is a reflection of its neighbourhoods and a country is again mirrored by its modern multifaceted cities.

We wondered not too long ago about “the Canadian identity.” And I wonder now how easily we have allowed a cultural revolution - bloodless - but in ways shameful to our heritage. What made us Canadian? Our pioneers and our wealth of stories seems of little interest to our newcomers (TOMBY 60).

Our spiritual climate can be spied oft times as a wind of fury. A baritone hiss of deliberate ignorance. The sneer and the snobbery; the glance of arrogance and the drivers who treat the walkers like video-game targets. This is how we might perceive the spiritual climate of our city despite those brilliant and comforting willows, maples and oaks which cascade and mingle across our side streets.

We are those leaves, uniquely contoured, fluttering in blessed youth, changing hue in autumn, and there sparkling in the late summer sun. Why, might God wonder - that personality of the infinite - do each of us refuse the glory given as a birthright… that glory of our humanity, our immediate magnificence?

Why do we not acknowledge the power of automatic decency and visible integrity as such goodness may increase the body of the universe, that personality, inflating its pleasure. We are outlined by the breath of God. Let us then carry ourselves with a gait and manner which behoves such divinity.

Let us be aware.

We have all heard the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Well, it’s time now to: “Speak unto others as you would have them speak unto you.” And therein find your identity, your contour, your neighbourhood, your world.

The wind about us will find us. Let us be found in joy and described as a dear companion to beauty.

2009-09-15T20:35:00.001-07:00

poems

2009-09-05T17:25:00.000-07:00

Be inside joy. Spy it around you.

Permit joy.

Hearing affirmations from nature.

There’s your day.

Then pray.

My lost friend
loves me when
i find him again
and with his permission
we enjoy our humanity.

a kind of mission.

my lost friend
is with me again. -langen

talk talk talk
spear
talk talk talk
hear. -s coburn

2009-09-03T01:45:00.001-07:00

For Layabouts

2009-09-03T01:18:00.001-07:00

When you had hope
And hope gave you form,
One might have said, "That is the man you are becoming."

But you are not a man to die with the dignity of manhood.
Labouring with us.
Daily, you gave up your manhood to swim in a swamp of lies.
Which makes you a thing.
You will die as a thing.

But perhaps hope remains.
Because infinite generosity remains...
belonging solely to your choice.

Money in our Genes?

2009-07-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

With science having advanced so impressively this last century – a minor marker in our human history – it is no longer arguable that fear and anxiety have an organic effect on our health. And since industrialization – another brief but more potent negative marker – we have all discovered the unpleasant circumstance of being polluted inside our private and public environments. And now somewhat cornered, not unlike a frightened raccoon, we react with some terror and rage. (Check the drivers these days including the so-called professionals who barrel through red lights.)

And greed soon rears its despicable face and we collapse morally.

After generations of this unnatural tension, our bodies are disinclined to joy and as parents we are presenting a hereditary blueprint of greed and dismay.

Are we on a weird precipice where we find money in our genes? Such a spiritual dilemma amounts to worse than a pox. We are at risk of losing our sense of goodness, that elusive but vital anchor which may describe our neighbourliness and civility.

We are this neighbourhood, this city, this country. Selling our water and citizenship indifferently doesn’t embolden our grasp of a delicate situation. Our words and deeds are our only hope to reverse this predicament and which may collectively bring light to bear upon those wayward genes of ours. Your grandchildren will be thankful that you have taken this notice.

Guarding the Shape of Man

2009-07-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

"As pines keep the shape of the wind
even when the wind has fled, and is no longer there,

so words
guard the shape of man
even when man has fled, and is no longer there."
-George Seferis, 1969.

2009-07-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

The word was made flesh
and then there was light.

light is…
The memory of your mother’s laughter. The first smile of your child hearing the laughter of another’s.

light is…

the form of your lover’s legs,
the laughter of girls and young men at play and
the stars at their most mysterious;
the heaven and those sparkling mathematics.

light is…

the science of goodness and the quiet patience scripted across the countenance of God.

light is…

the warmth of her flesh and the pulse of his sex.

light is…

the opening red flower with its pearl white underpinnings surprising you. And the colour of your tears.

light is…

the tone of his skin and the hue of his hair under that silent moonshine.

light is…

the shadows of our worst fears and the glory of our victories.

light is…

the knowing of humanity and those who hear the first words of the personality of the infinite.

Light is hearing of words spontaneously spoken which give freedom.

Light is the form of hope which drives us to persevere and persevere we must to see… light is ultimately Love and the form of Knowing Itself.

light is…

our beginning with absolute innocence and our knowing of the delicate frame of our mortality, as we wait. Finally, without trepidation, because you see Light escorts us to more chambers of divinity.

Light is detail and clarity. “Be here now?" No. Be with Light in all its complexity and about the rooms in His palace… all of which offer more radiance, warmth and at last, Light.

Matthew Lennox

2009-06-28T21:01:00.001-07:00

Now here's the best busker I've heard in years and Vancouverites can be thankful for his energy and talent, as he slaps on his guitar with his lively right hand and plays the riffs on his left. A really exciting talent - who was not permitted (yawn) to busk at the jazz festival. Typical mean-spirited bureaucracy strikes again. Check Mathew out in front of the Waterfront Station just about any time this summer. Thank you Matthew for your enlivening and welcome spirit.

Random Pix of Gastown Jazz Festival

2009-06-28T20:52:00.000-07:00

Twas another great relief for all to have no road rage on Water Street and the sounds of laughter and music throughout these last two days. Obviously people are hungering for this kind of freedom, and dancing as much as they did, so exuberantly, was clear testament to that desire.

The Whole of the Law

2009-06-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

Let us transform our city by our manners, in every way. By our words, our driving, our awareness of each other as unique beings, full of grace. We are the sum of our efforts in every way. Let us perhaps by ordinary divinity be the totality of goodness with every step. A blessed gait, affirmed by all nature and the personality of the infinite.

2009-06-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

Quick Fix?
Dear Editor
re Quick Fix for the Homeless, Gary Mason

I live, work, shop and wander about the Downtown Eastside and witness every day the calamity that is becoming the lives of people who were once loved. They are troubled and troublesome and Yes many are homeless and addicted.

It’s heartbreaking to see young women picking away at the sidewalk for a hint of crack or offering favours for another hoot. But let us, as a civilized country, province, city, at least identify the issue here. It’s the drug suppliers. Their mules are usually addicts or here illegally or just imagining themselves as the next gang leader, Hollywood style.

The solution is, in my mind, rather simple but it requires courage and commitment to the laws we already have in place. Bust the supplier. That would be the Hells’ Angels who run the “hostels” in my neck of these woods and close their retail operations altogether, city-wide. With no supply, the mules have nothing to sell and those young women and men will have nothing on the sidewalk to pick away at. Just enforce the law. And help those who have been victimized by the creeps who think of themselves as being lord-like in our community. Bust the Angels. It takes guts and that’s where this city is lacking. Why are we wasting taxpayers’ money on rounding up and policing the mules and addicts when we all know down here from where the problem really stems. Bust the bastards across the country. Close them down. Now that would be a good use of our moral and financial resources.

Quick Fix for the Homeless, Gary Mason
The Globe and Mail

No one said solving the world's problems would be easy. Just ask Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

When Mr. Robertson ran for mayor last fall, he said his top priority was the city's homeless problem. He's vowed to eradicate it completely by 2015. His plan is to build lots of social housing – or at least get the province to. Meantime, he's set up emergency shelters as a temporary measure.

And it's quickly turning into a PR fiasco.

The city opened five of the shelters late last year, two in residential areas where there happened to be vacant buildings available, the others in more industrial settings. They met a demand, especially during an unusually long, cold winter. Thousands flocked to them. Hundreds were turned away.

But the frigid temperatures and dark nights eventually gave way to warmer weather and longer days. And the shelters situated in a densely populated residential area were revealed to be cesspools for drug addicts and petty criminals.

The two are located near the much-travelled Granville Street Bridge. Nearby you will find a YWCA daycare, a Montessori school and a low-income seniors home. And condominium towers. You don't have to wait long to witness people shooting up in alleyways or having sex in the nearby park.

“The neighbourhood has completely changed,” says resident John Roberts, who has lived in his area condo for 10 years. “It's horrible what's happening and the city doesn't care. Kids can't go out now. The park can't be used by residents.

“The mayor doesn't care. Council doesn't care. They want to extend the shelters until April of next year.”

Deirdre Barlow, who moved into the neighbourhood with her husband 18 months ago, can't believe what has happened.

“The first part of the time here was wonderful,” she says. “The last six months have been a nightmare. Something horrible is going to happen here, I predict it. It's become a complete zoo. This once wonderful neighbourhood is completely disintegrating. It's becoming …”

The Downtown Eastside?

“Exactly,” she says. “The Downtown Eastside.”

The city's response has been to get police to bolster their presence in the area. So now, any time of day or night you can see a squad car or seven patrolling the area. According to residents, the increased police presence has done little to ameliorate the problem.

“The other day we saw one guy walking around carrying an axe,” reported Mr. Roberts. “A city councillor said the guy was a carver and that's why he had the axe. Well, he wasn't a carver. And they're still shooting up all over the place and doing drug deals.”

Another day a guy was seen carrying a ball and chain – and not the kind you used to drag around in prison. “It was to hurt someone,” Ms. Barlow said.

The “low-barrier” shelters are intended for the hardest-to-home. Those who use them are allowed to bring their shopping carts and pets in with them. Drug users aren't turned away the way they are in other shelters. While no one argues the need for these kinds of accommodations as temporary measures, the problem is the type of individuals they attract if open for long. Drug addicts attract drug suppliers. Drug suppliers attract young boys to run their drugs. Consequently, there are emerging gangs of young kids – drug mules – congregating in the area and intimidating residents.

The city maintains the shelters have to stay open until there is enough social housing to accommodate all the homeless. But many of those using the shelters were evicted from social housing because of their behaviour. Someone at city hall came up with the brilliant idea of asking shelter users to wear green vests and go around cleaning up the neighbourhood. The program has been a bust.

Mr. Robertson, meantime, has been mostly silent on the issue. He showed up unannounced at one shelter a week ago around 11 p.m. to check out the situation for himself. He was spotted by residents who began to jeer him and call him a coward. To his credit, he stopped and talked to them for more than an hour. But nothing changed.

Last Saturday, a man was stabbed near the shelter located next to Mr. Roberts' condominium tower. The next day, Ms. Barlow found a switchblade and reported it to police, who told her it might be a key piece of evidence in a possible attempted homicide.

Residents have had enough. They want the two shelters closed. A retired American couple who live in the area part-time have written to the U.S. State Department urging it to issue a travel advisory to Americans visiting the city. Residents have also contacted The New York Times and other prominent U.S. publications warning them of the danger that lurks in downtown Vancouver.

Not exactly the kind of publicity a city getting ready to host the Olympics wants or needs.

It's time Mr. Robertson brought some leadership to the issue. Or opened up a shelter near his house.

Glorious Spring in Troubled Land

2009-06-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

African Grandmothers and Car-Free Festivals

2009-06-15T18:15:00.001-07:00

Very next day after encountering legitimate protests and expressions of freedom in this grand old country, I witnessed a rally of elders re Grandmothers from Africa concerned for the abandoned orphans. Another inarguable case.

Then Stephen and I, while running an errand, happily bumped into Main Street free of cars all the way from 12th to 25th streets.

Easily thousands of people were joyous and dancing and Tai-chi-ing, playing music and just celebrating the event which we discovered later was also happening that same day on Commercial Drive, downtown and Broadway (should'a been there for the Greek food!).

We can only imagine how exciting and pleasant it would be if the entire city was car-free at this critical time for our globe, de-industrialized
and all we really had to commute to was our gardens where we all ate well and rejoiced in the company of people of peace.

See pictures above and below.
More later re one Canadian’s tireless efforts in Africa to eradicate AIDS and poverty… a hero this author will always support, a man appointed originally by no less than Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

And after all was said and done, someone looked pretty happy... and thank God for that and this country.

Lively Protests, Songs and Freedom

2009-06-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

Today en route to the joy of grocery shopping I encountered two protest groups. The first was mostly comprised of native people by Abbott Street in the downtown eastside rallying and singing for “homes not war” – affordable housing. An inarguable issue given that our premier over the many years of his negligent leadership has managed to provide a shameful explosion in homelessness, the abandonment of the mentally ill and the prevalence of all those empty condos being bought as investments by disinterested foreigners. Even Caligula, demonized by movies, was a better leader assuring access to all public bathhouses and bins of corn and food. The criminalized Gordon Campbell could take a few lessons from that Caesar.

* * *

The next group of protestors, wildly attired were situated in front of the scientology store where ‘personality tests’ are offered as a guise to their inveigling process to dogmatize innocents into a truly weird theology constructed by a science fiction writer who spent his last years on his yacht avoiding the light of the media. Their signs speak for themselves.

Thank God for the freedom to protest. More power to you all, whatever your opinion.

Mining for Optimism

2009-06-09T03:11:00.000-07:00

Mining.NOW and The English Bay Banner were recently introduced to the exhibitors at the World Resources Conference at the new Convention Centre in Vancouver, June 7th and 8th.

It was a pleasure to see old clients and meet new friends.

The optimists among the promoters spoke in terms of millions of dollars recently raised for their latest mining projects and others were frank about how the downturn has seriously affected their ability to continue but there they were all of them with optimism and hopefully with candor.

I wish them all well.

While sometimes a tense atmosphere (“No soliciting of Exhibitors” and the disquiet of some of the exhibitors themselves, including the absentee CEO’s) it was for me and Stephen an intriguing and sometimes joyous occasion. (But what happened to the hospitality suites for the after-party? Hey, next year huh?).

It was a good two days to launch the upcoming hard copy of The English Bay Banner and Harry Langen’s Mining.NOW mixed together, crossing platforms from “Phocken’ Money, Phun and Philosophy.” New slogan. U like?

With my less than humble self as cameraman, journalist, layout guy, sales dude and chief troubleshooter alongside the shrewd mother/son team of Marie and Morgan selling and Stephen in tow hauling papers, methinks a monthly endeavor with a provable and transparent distribution strategy to all interested jr mining investors will work just swell.

Let us all step up to the plate and get in the game and rid ourselves of this hysteria of negativity, as foolish as an electronic herd of frightened lemmings -which by the way never did leap over the cliff. Only we can be that stupid.

Stay the course of optimism over time and see real success.

GORBACHEV CALLS FOR A NEW REVOLUTION

Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's last communist general secretary, called for a new American "revolution" - also calling it a "perestroika," or government restructuring - [1] in an editorial published Wednesday in The Sydney Morning Herald.

"Some have reacted with understanding. Others have objected, sometimes sarcastically, suggesting that I want the United States to experience upheaval, just like the former Soviet Union. In my country, particularly caustic reactions have come from the opponents of perestroika, people with short memories and a deficit of conscience," the former Soviet leader wrote.

He continued: "Our perestroika signalled the need for change in the Soviet Union, but it was not meant to suggest a capitulation to the US model. Today, the need for a more far-reaching perestroika - one for America and the world - has become clearer than ever."

In Russia, Gorbachev's perestroika was a government restructuring and the introduction of limited market economy freedoms into the Communist model, which initially caused a great deal of social unrest before eventually becoming an integral part of society.

Gorbachev called for something similar in November, when he declared then-U.S. President-elect Barack Obama "a man of our times" and suggested his administration would need to bring about an American perestroika.

"[He] is capable of restarting dialogue, all the more since the circumstances will allow him to get out of a dead-end situation,"

"Barack Obama has not had a very long career, but it is hard to find faults, and he has led an election campaign winning over the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton herself. We can judge from this that this person is capable of engaging in dialogue and understanding current realities."

The Russian Communist, in his concluding paragraphs, strikes a surprising balance between capitalistic freedom and government controls.

"[If] all the proposed solutions and action now come down to a mere rebranding of the old system, we are bound to see another, perhaps even greater upheaval down the road," he wrote. "The current model does not need adjusting; it needs replacing. I have no ready-made prescriptions. But I am convinced that a new model will emerge, one that will emphasise public needs and public good, such as a cleaner environment, well-functioning infrastructure and public transport, sound education and health systems and affordable housing."

He continued: "The time has come to strike the right balance between the government and the market, for integrating social and environmental factors and demilitarising the economy."

Finally, Gorbachev warns that the world's current economic model, created by America's elite, is cracking. As it comes undone, many will suffer, he predicted. "Including the United States."

Gorbachev concludes: "However different the problems that the Soviet Union confronted during our perestroika and the challenges now facing the United States, the need for new thinking makes these two eras similar. In our time, we faced up to the main tasks of putting an end to the division of the world, winding down the nuclear arms race and defusing conflicts. We will cope with the new global challenges as well, but only if everyone understands the need for real, cardinal change - for a global perestroika."

2009-05-27T07:15:00.000-07:00

BUILDING A GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Think of no one as "them."

Don't confuse your comfort with your safety.

Talk to strangers.

Imagine other cultures through their art, poetry and novels.

Listen to music you don't understand,

Dance to it.

Act locally.

Notice the workings of power & privilege in your culture.

Question consumption.

Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown; wake up and smell the exploitation.
Look for fair trade and union labels.

Help build economies from the bottom up.
Acquire few needs.

Learn a second (or third) language.
Visit people, places, and cultures - not tourist attractions.

Learn people's history.

Re-define progress.

Know physical and political geography.

Play games from other cultures.
Watch films with subtitles.

Know your heritage.

Honor everyone's holidays.

Look at the moon and imagine someone else, somewhere else, looking at it too.

Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water.

Know where your bank banks.

Never believe you have a right to anyone else's resources.

Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination.

Question military/corporate connections.

Don't confuse money with wealth, or time with money.
Have a pen/email pal.

Honor indigenous cultures.

Judge governance by how well it meets all people's needs.
Be skeptical about what you read.

Eat adventurously;
Enjoy vegetables, beans and grains in your diet.

Choose curiosity over certainty.

Know where your water comes from and where your wastes go.

Pledge allegiance to the earth, question nationalism;
Think South, Central and North - there are many Americas.

Assume that many others share your dreams.

Know that no one is silent though many are not heard.
Work to change this.

2009-05-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

Faithful Readers:

Here is a mix of photos and prose.

THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS ABOUT THE ENLIGHTENABLES... as we each of us may be - by not eliminating ourselves from the bounty of light.

FACING THE SUN

If one were to kneel one early morning in the face of the rising sun beseeching alone and enquiring in a voice audible to the sky, “Mirror, mirror on sacred wall, Who is the fairest of them all…” in vain hope of being declared most radiant, the abuse taken by the personality of the infinite would portend the shrill cries of an empty shell hastening the delirious supplicant’s mortality. So appears the fierceness of a wrathful entity.

Many of us have detected a light imbued with goodness pulsating with meaning and then in inexplicable fear have retreated being fond “of that dull bluish-yellow light from the human [world].” In that dimension of illusions and imaginings the individual prefers to dream of his own creativeness, his being the source of warmth, laughter and even love; benevolent in his eyes, blind to the root of charitableness and righteous awareness.

Such pretense, such thinking, creates only the perception of a wrathful deity - a jealous god – as the consequence of such presumptiveness is the apparent absenteeism of the loving aspects of that infinite personality.

All that which is given in life is by necessity continuous and must continue by necessity. Private vanity is necessary in small doses which serve to keep us living in some concert with beauty and correct hygiene but lop-sided preoccupation with vanity neither contributes to nor supports continuity. Such vanity requires constant propping, as does its cousin, judgement of others. “Judge not lest ye be judged…” refers also, among many other layers of instructive meaning to the threat of our judgeing ourselves according to the tight and mean-minded framework of our judgements of others and opens us to their judgements which may negatively impact on our confidence, self esteem and happiness. No degree of private vanity can withstand such constant assaults on our tenuous well-being.

Self-idolatry designs the pathway to a lack of continuity and thence the absence of steady joy or contentment. Breast-beating, similar to glad-handing and backslapping among the “all hail ye good fellows,” crowd is a hollow experience and an abhorrence to the divine, its precious markings subtle and lovely and as consistent and beautiful as the wind making visible the vibrance of the grasses.

So as we vacillate between vanity and innocence it is hoped my work will yield those words most inspired making effable that state of suspension from which one may enter into the chamber of the divine.

Yet I am alerted to the hazards of overt pride by fellow author Logan Pearsall Smith who stated, “Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.”

But encouraged somewhat cautiously by Benjamin Franklin’s remark that, “Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor and to others who are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.”

And it is in the balance of those wits I am supplicant early in the morn in the face of the radiant god, that elusive personality of the infinite, who enchants me each day to be a vessel full to the brim of His love and cognizant of His everlasting patience and sometimes agonizing compassion. All the earmarks of a loving Father.

Defining the Indefinable

And the Word was made flesh.

Let us make one assumption: Every individual is a thought of God. In this then we can see that God’s thoughts give form. And relative to this power, man’s thinking is an attempt to create, to give form. The reach of his thinking is circumscribed by the limited ability to manipulate circumstances but this shadowy activity cannot give substance, organize an embryo, arrange stars or conduct any of the other unwieldy elements in order to give and sustain life on multidimensional planes simultaneously. Man’s thinking, usually starring himself, is nothing more than an idle and futile attempt to imitate God.

Inherent in each member of every generation, regardless of culture or degree of programming or impact of imposed dogmas, is the way to know God, enjoy affirmations from nature and continuity of pleasure. It must be confounding to the personality of Creation that man is not wholeheartedly accepting this gift of comfort but rather chooses to act as the giver, ready to receive credit for Creation. This pose will strike an imbalance until nourishment of the mental and spiritual sort no longer can find its way past the illusions and the deepening shadows of the individual now lost in fantasies.

The ultimate spiritual experience which constitutes the subject of my work is founded upon good health, a mind enlivened by curiosity, an abiding moral rigor, an intellectual life facing challenges daily and finally the willingness and courage to cross into a spiritual field where time dissolves and divine meaning is all-encompassing.

And this is meant as an ordinary experience.

It is intended as an ordinary experience to be enjoined without fanfare, drum rolls, trumpets or costumes. The individual standing next to you on the subway, bus or in the cafeteria may be experiencing this bliss and you would not be signaled whatsoever. The privacy is necessary for that man of power to enjoy without interference or uncalled for adulation.

That individual’s words are imbued with knowing, directed by compassion, are inclusive of so-called degenerates and ‘low-lifes,’ and are creative of loving situations. That individual’s words prompt and allow and may sustain a loving climate… as do the words of the Lord, that personality of the Righteous Teacher who is generously provided by the Father of Creation every second generation (avoiding overlaps).

Such is the bounty of Light.

And from this perspective one may see time as a pulse, as a field which facilitates growth, as freedom from fear and anxiety and as the ultimate reaper of those individuals who have squandered their awareness allowing themselves to be distracted by self indulgences which amount to nothing more than that constant and futile play at being God, the source of warmth, comfort, joy and peace; the one personality who defies all usurpations.

My mentor, Ted Lewis, taught me at the formative age of 17 that “words are organic” and after a lifetime of contemplation and some reluctant growth I continue to view this declaration from heightened perspectives and am emboldened to see this wisdom at work, observing as I have the power of words spoken to a young person who has since matured and allowed them to come to a kind of unique fruition. The seed was planted at its most auspicious moment.

Magi, shamans, contemporary legitimate practitioners of occultism experience the power of words in a way which exposes the impotence of the uninformed, vacant-minded youth of today whose vocabulary seldom stretches beyond “awesome,” “sweet,” or “cool.” (They had to borrow that last one from the beat generation of 70 years ago.)

“Awesome” is the day they stand and face the curtains of fire as they gird themselves to enter into their spiritual realm after a lifetime of contemplation, meditation, correct hearing and righteous speaking – supported by a vocabulary stuffed with words of optimism, meaningful import and facilitation of peaceable circumstance. Words of thrilling import.

“Sweet” is the nectar of bliss when that individual acknowledges that his joy is affirmed by nature in the appearance of apparently sacred forms and those beings which present themselves to the sense of touch and sound and sometimes smell.

“Cool” is the refreshment of baptism in the river of knowing.

The enlightened man may by his words create the context wherein others may abide in peace and discover a familiar atmosphere, a dimension they may call “home.”

Enlightenment is indefinable only insofar as the experience belongs privately to the individual and the way he arrived at the sublime state may be ineffable even to the enjoyer but the words of Light he speaks open avenues for the hearer to follow at his own pace and his gathering confidence is fortified by the memories of his own experiences.

Lewis taught me that the posture then of the enlightened individual is one of waiting.

He offers no judgement nor critique. He simply allows and his words, each of them, throughout all circumstances, all interactions, all moments are driven, formed and uttered in a field of goodness and placed there to expand the horizons of the hearer.

The bounty of the Lord-speaker is such that He speaks and a multitude may hear and according to their own interpretations receive what they can ‘carry.’ The growth is each a separate and necessarily a private matter.

Self-appointed gurus have been multiplying like maggots on rotting flesh and are assaulting our common sense with real boners akin to this kind of gobbledygook… "the unconscious attempt to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through while you may bruise your right palm spanking your inner child and working overtime in infinity trying to be here now – an inner sanctum next to Nowhereville. blah blah - Why are we listening to this mumbo jumbo. (And I thought that was a dance.)

Yippie, dippie, hippie, flippee trashtalk by Moonglow Pavanandishi.

These self-help halo-polishers aided and abetted by our modern telecommunications invade our living rooms and bedrooms seriously suggesting that their words can be injected into our spiritual bloodstream and thus our lives will undergo a profound change (with cheque or money order, shipping not included). More rot. All the ticket buyers streaming out of the auditoriums after a dose of the guru stagecraft are returning to their own version of mediocrity, long-established by rote.

The appetite for truth is not sated by witnessing someone else’s pretense at knowing. And when watching these priestly types on TV we are attempting to drink from their well, an impossibility and a hoax as cheaply perpetrated on the weak and as deftly as the snake oil salesmen of yesteryear.

TV is insidious on a variety of levels. It is a constant flow of verbiage and sensationalism, loud sounds, gratuitous conflict and the glorification of grief. Boo hoo. Bring flowers. Indulge your false sentimentality.

When watching fictitious characters being presented by actors we are in effect witnessing an act of an act.

And after a lifetime of role-playing actors are apt to lose themselves in a maze of egocentric illusions and anxieties. Clearly dissatisfied with their own identity they humiliate themselves auditioning to be someone else and for the rest of their professional lives are galloping about in the Look-at-Me industry wondering whether they’re on foot, horseback or slithering in the grass. And in this shameful age of nescience who would want to be popular? And yet we have no shortage of candidates in the running for King of the Snakepit.

We are the words we speak. We are the words we hear. The mass of men trivialize themselves by the words they utter as they invite the mundane company of those who utter similar inanities all cornering themselves into dark frames populated by shifting judgements.

It is no wonder that Thoreau observed of his generation something which is equally applicable to our current lamentable situation, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Such is their choice in the spilling of the bounty of light.

on driving to Nottawasaga, with Angie

2009-05-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have a depth of sadness within me
that I can never release
may some parched land
receive the imprint
of the wealth of my watery soul
let the absorption through my skin
of the suffering of others
be translated
into some new world's
life-giving sea
may my wife die in peace
and may my sons live
as long as I
and allow me to know
after my power of knowing is gone
that I was loved

-Roger Langen

Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

2009-05-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation – but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like -- don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat -- have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, re-imagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television
This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author. Starting at age 20, he dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. His practice has included starting and running ecological businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce on living systems, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. His books include Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible. For more, see http://www.paulhawken.com/paulhawken_frameset.html

A Collective Happy Gait

2009-05-09T19:31:00.001-07:00

This society I want to increase in pleasure. With confidence and what might be described as a collective happy gait. So occasionally I dance at rough bars with smiling women. Let us all be guilty of having such private pleasure.

Recently, I was described as a friend by a man who taught me with enthusiasm when I was 15. Those words meant a lot to me.

Also recently, I have been losing a lover.

I miss him immensely. Nothing could hurt more.

I needed to write this to stay sane.

A Daunting Task and Great Pleasure

2009-05-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today is #1 for The English Bay Banner to become a hard copy. I thank Roger Pratt for his support.

2009-05-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

2009-05-04T05:29:00.001-07:00

the flower of Pasto

2009-05-04T05:18:00.000-07:00

she’s an Andes girl
with black hair and a volcano
drifts smoke
over her Pasto home town
and she’s brave

the ocean’s horses
blow through her hair and the mountains
take her by the hand
and could it be, Liliany
that Colombia
is in love with you?

grievous angel
your black mane is flying
the water of truth flows through you
and across the emerald valley
your name echoes
your name echoes

and the rivers take you down
on their strong and flowing backs
to the troubles in the valley
diamonds torn
from the soles of your lover’s feet
winking in her tears
hard sparkle in your eyes, Liliany
hard sparkle in your eyes

Pasto girl, they have found you
Colombia’s flower is in a cell and a paramilitary
with sunglasses and a cigarette
is drifting smoke
over your rivers and your cane
over the petals in your name
‘I shed no tears for them,’ you say
‘Shed none for me, for I am free.’

girl from the Andes, coca memory
you are free
you are all the water and the land
mother, child, burro and man

grievous angel
your black mane is flying
your eagle heart is screaming
and across this emerald land
your name echoes
your name echoes

because Colombia
is in love with you
Liliany Obando!
Liliany Obando!

-Roger Langen

Vancouver Architects and Arborists

2009-05-04T05:11:00.001-07:00

2009-05-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

2009-05-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

2009-05-04T05:04:00.000-07:00

Paracletus!

2009-05-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

A three act musical with terrific melodies created by Ian Hartline of Nelson. Enjoy these abridged excerpts.

2009-05-02T22:28:00.000-07:00

BACKGROUND: Seth is our 17 year-old prototype of a brilliant and angry son-of-man willing to challenge God. He goes alone to the riverside and cries out to the heavens... How could you be so mean?

Silence!
Burn my ears no more!

I am.

I am here of the will of the waterfall.
I am the Lord of the fountains, the Rivergod.

You, Seth, have awakened me.
Now what is it you will have of me?

Look! Look! Take a look at this scene!
How could he be so mean? How could he be so mean? -Seth

Yes I see. Oh I see and wonder I, do I:
Why man, why?

Isn't it nearly beyond belief?
How can he expect from Him relief?

He's the matter with this scene!
He's the master of this scene! -Seth

Hark! Yes man grieves.
Darker and darker into the house goes he;
By his own hand does he chart his destiny.
Step by step, beat by beat goes the craze;
And onward I sing my melancholy phrase
As though to walk with head bent and eyes aglaze.

I read the mother's grief on every page
And hear the children hoping happy stories untold;
As i sweep by grandly the burial place of the sage
And into his arms my tears I fold.

Wonder little do I
Except, why man why?

I see white birds in a blue sky and watch the deerskins fade,
And in my body the silver beasts they wade;
But then on a moonless night, I hear this man a'scurry
A gritty thing in such a hurry
To relieve himself of the horror he has made.

Yes, man is of life, the immortal soul.
And yes he may be deified.

But as long as he lives like a bat in a hole
he'll take to his breast a witless bride.

But some day soon, some day soon
the white birds will flock and shout
Love is King, hope and power!

On mountains here and there about
Oh hear the wise birds sing!
Calling his name on every hour...
And watch the bees a'swarm and put it on every flower!

Love will easily await its hour
Like me, I roll and wait, wait for its hour.

Oh hear the wise birds sing.
Love is King, hope and power.

-excerpt from Paracletus!

Seth Responds

2009-05-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

Then send this love along
For my heavy young heart;
Send this hope and power on wings this holy hour.
My legs they weary and the roads are long.

Be sure the white birds they speed
And the bees to whisper this name to me
that I may laugh loud again and heed
the silvery side of leaf flutter the tree.

Let us roll while we wait together
Past a golden field where violets and heather
colour the ground about and scampering squirrels.

Make nature promise a better weather.

Bring this tumbling canopy closer
so there I can see these eyes of God, blue or green;
And hear the secret hymns of a caller
who will tell me more, here about this scene.

So rush this love along
For my heavy young heart.
Speed this hopeful power on mighty wings this hour,
My legs they weary and the roads are long.

And even then, wild Rivergod,
My ears may hear the songs of Vishnu
my lips taste the milk and honey
but what of the child gone by the morning dew?

Even then great fountain and singer of sweet melodies,
What then do we tell our little ones
Who ask and crave to know life's mysteries
when we ourselves seem the guilty ones?

What of them, mighty one?

So send me hope,
And rush this love along
for then my heavy young heart to cope.

AND THE RIVERGOD RESPONDS

Be still good lad, take heart.

You see dear fellow, I too have watched
but for thousands of years and millions of moons,
after some eons you mellow.

Under the shimmering rainbows flow I
to hear the ceaseless wind
and the secrets of the swaying treetops.

Flowing 'neath the misty galaxies find me lie.

I hear the calls which haunt me at midnight.
Calling from beneath my belly.
They are the damned asking again for the right
to participate, crackle with light and end their folly.

For me I roll, roll while I wait do I.

Await the hour when comes the prince
to call for hope and the power,
call to the side and above that hour...
Love is King! Love is King!

The wise voices are few.

Rose petal-bearing winds can obscure.

Count them on hand those true
whose pinkish tongues sing so pure.

But then, see wily nature persevere.

And in all of the white heat and blast
nonetheless or more you may hear
His voice so perfect bringing in the last.

Under the shimmering rainbows flow I;
To hear the ceaseless wind
and the secrets of the swaying treetops.

Flowing 'neath the misty galaxies find me lie.

So you see dear fellow,
I too have watched.

But for thousands of years and millions of moons,
after some eons you mellow.

-excerpts from Paracletus! by YT (Yours truly)

A Curious Grasp

2009-05-02T07:41:00.001-07:00

From a mirky wild,
dark and tangled
I am thrust into pulsing forms
held there in a curious grasp.
Looked upon in my blooming
by the mind of a perfect entity
Who emboldens me with a fertility
a fierceness raw and revealing.

Kissed by gods tumbling now in
hallowed skies
and beseeching me to increase
their secret bounty of light...

I rise victorious.

Poets of these horizons
have cast their words in flesh
and now call my names, each
of them glorious.

It is I at last who sinks
into your loose embrace.

My eyes alight as I behold
a countenance so sure
its handiwork
Will make pause the stream
of grace.

Media Pork-Assters Still Calling it Swine Flu

2009-04-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

Two days ago it was widely reported around the world that "Swine Flu" was a misnomer and that a new name "H1N1 flu" (Heeny-Flu works for me) would hence be used. Ironic that it was the Sensationalizing Media which reported this World Health Organization switch in labelling and it is those same people, programmers, editors and reporters still using the Swine Flu Nom-de-Boob while that practise they know full well is devastating the pig farmers around the world - because the uninformed still believe one can contract this flu by eating pork. NOT SO.

The Porkers here are particularly the reporters who clearly aren't worth their salt while they ignore how much they are jeopardizing the innocent people invloved in the pork industry trying to sustain their livelihoods and their families while under the gun of these lazy reporters who refuse to change the terminology some idiot invented and they persist in promoting. After all, these 'reporters' by their repetitiousness have created a spectacular brand.

I'll take salted pork over their rot any time.

It's simple: SWINE FLU doesn't exist in the way it has been so irresponsibly misreported.

At Last. To breathe with love.

2009-04-25T21:39:00.001-07:00

The words of power are the same every generation which may be spoken by anyone at any ‘time’. It is the Word which was made flesh and ultimately there are few words we need to know, to breathe with love. And be affirmed by nature.

The following is the lead editorial of the first hard copy of The English Bay Banner to be published this summer, and every three months after with a whopping 32 pages plus, supplemented by weekly posts on this site. Go baby go.

LITERACY IS YOUR FREEDOM

You would not be called onto the carpet or shoved into a closet with a dunce’s hat if you were to ask, “Has the whole world gone to hell?” Just check your TV guide.
Is teenage suicide becoming a rational act? Are the hearts of men being inhabited by something insidious? Just watch those video games your son is playing.
War is the way we measure our history.
It appears that even educators have lost interest, except on the picket lines, and eight year term leaders clearly evacuated their moral basis - embarrassingly so to their constituents. Fodder for pope-bashing Jay Leno of the Holy Handshakes but no help to young minds.
Lifestyles of Celebrities are ruling the airwaves with vulgarity and a kind of self-assurance that is repugnant to a decent person. Who would want to be King of this current snakepit?
The “Look-at-Me Industry” is alive and functioning in Vancouver pouring cash into vanity while intellectual life is lost in the anxiety and chaos of banality and competitiveness.
Our society here in this city has been transformed in a bloodless revolution ever since the federal government started selling citizenships to the wealthy, who did not necessarily bring any interest or compassion to our spiritual environment. In our history the newcomers have expressed very little interest.
While our awarenesses fluctuate and hover like bees attending the matters of their existence – nevertheless flying the way they do defying gravity – so indeed may we, across the dimensions of meaning imbued as we are with spirit and in that experience decry the mundane.
Clearly we can’t be flying all the time, our minds constantly exalted, as it is equally important to witness a first step, to take our own and even to experience frustrations and difficulties through which we persevere. Philosophers and avatars throughout the ages have challenged our minds to step up and view the broader horizon where clean winds blow, perhaps to clear the dust accumulating on the soul rendering it again translucent.
The mood of the philosopher is always inculcating him to face the onslaught of time and his selected words may consume or create (or both simultaneously) to reform the context, possibly even to renew the human atmosphere urging each individual to regain their sight of the original, their membership in the living.
Do we need to reexamine the importance we attribute to our memories, to our failed relationships; to witness that original transaction which permitted the festering illusion? Shall we empty this box of mental baggage that we may allow the refilling of our inner sanctum with unadulterated energy, driven by goodness? Maybe.
Can you afford to judge another human being or is the inherent cost of that mental affair your own freedom?
These are the questions which The English Bay Banner will continue to examine every issue. In keeping with the thought of Socrates (see unhappy face), a man who managed to mention before he chose suicide, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

posted by Harry Langen | 6:03 AM | 0 comments

Casting Diamonds

2009-04-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Sweet prince, I ran across the
lakes on the sun,
casting diamonds
into its mirthful sky.
All this time in holy ascension
I prayed your name and danced
in happy apprehension.
Alone I stand
in the pastel shadows now,
Keeping my breath to
a delicate rhythm,
Awaiting the familiar sound
of your footfalls
across the solitary landscape
of my love-pierced heart.
Take my hands, both of them, and
like wet clay press them
to your precious face...
no lonely day then
nor trembling night near, will I
be without a fond reminder
of your tender grace.
Sweet dear darling prince,
these hands unworthy though
Stay here guarded at my side,
Abiding only your sweetest
command, make me obey...
and obey I gladly will
what your love has beckoned.
- r. h. langen

My Brother Comments
The Pressure of Words
All writing, as you know, is a tentative contract of sorts with an imagined reader. Poetry is the toughest contract. The writing itself is the most demanding, absolutely the hardest to do; and finding the reader, who must be extremely discerning, is a great challenge also. Your writing, I have always found, is most effective in the public sphere of rhetorical commentary - at its best, in my experience, in pithy letters to newspaper editors. But there is a poetic background to it - perhaps a spiritual background - which I see operating in what you have shown me. I don't think I've seen poetry from you before.

Here's my brother holding a picture of a war hero, our dad.
I have never imagined myself a poet. I don't think I am one now. But I have of late been feeling the pressure of words. I respect the fact that you are my brother and have been feeling the same pressure also, probably for a lot longer than me.

Thank you for sharing.

2009-04-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

AprilBonked and BookWhirled

2009-04-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

On Good Friday after working up some Easter stew with my boyfriend I was knocked down on the sidewalk close to my home and left there bleeding from the crown. By my by-then ex-boyfriend. He was angry, infuriated actually, that he couldn’t stay with me past the curfew of 3:30 pm. imposed by the building management; imposed because of his previous violence against me. Someone escorted me back to my building entrance and the cops and ambulance appeared very soon as I continued bleeding. I deferred going to the hospital for a couple of stitches choosing to go upstairs to bed. I didn’t want Stephen persecuted by the system; but since then he has shown little remorse and made no contact except to ask me to take him out for a beer.

Meanwhile, I was happily contemplating the article about my book to be written by Chris Keam for Alan Twigg, the publisher of B.C. Bookworld, offering 100,000 readers. A measly 1200 words was the assignment but the readership claim was substantial.
Keam, after interviewing me and commenting, “If I can’t write this story I’m not worth my pen” did not read the book, The Dead Sea Revelation, and actually phoned Twigg and pooh-poohed me. Thanks Keam for your sloth. Since when is it correct for a freelance writer to trash a B.C. author to the publisher of B. C. Bookworld? Since, I suppose, the publisher permits such nonsense, being the author of these words: “I have determined he (Keam) is not sufficiently confident that your perspective is as viable as you feel it is, and he is no longer eager to proceed.”
Huh? I am a writer of ideas and use fiction to enchant the reader. The reviews have been entirely favourable (www.deadsearevelation.com) but here we have two ‘professionals’ who don’t even read the text before condemning it. So much for Vancouver’s typical support of writers. Writers are our only hope to justify theater and art. Goodnight to April.

AND TO ALL WRITERS RE THE BOOKSTORE: Hang on. Still checking the numbers re feasability. I am thankful for the thoughtful support shown by so many.

April*Fooled

2009-04-09T07:04:00.000-07:00

The following letter went out to major newspapers (of the 'common media' type) after an article appeared in the Vancouver Province edition of April 1st about how the Inukshuk monument was leaking poisonous goop into the soil on the beach by English Bay. The fact that it was Fool's Day escaped this scribe and thus the laugh was on me. Faithful readers of The English Bay Banner will note that I critiqued this pile of rocks before a variation of its form was (mis)chosen as the symbol for the Olympics.

Dear Editor,

Not only is this misplaced pile of rocks a pox on the earth, it's also toxic visually.

Excuse me for sounding politically incorrect, but last I noticed, we are Vancouverites, not Eskimos. On this ground, why not commemorate the courage of Captains Vancouver and Cook, or Francis Drake? These men had guts and their images should be right there on the beach, one of many where they may have strolled. Or why not erect a statue of a defiant Chief Khatsalano who was evicted by whiskey-swilling road builders from his dwelling at Lost Lagoon? His iron countenance windblown, facing his namesake, Kitsilano, as the breaking waves tell his story yet.

Any sculptors out there on time for 2010?

Bullying Clouds

2009-04-09T06:37:00.001-07:00

If a morning could be pitch perfect this is one. Cool and sunny and at last the various tree buds are coming back, following the delicate but dependable cherry blossoms by one week. Despite the gloom and doom on the global economic scale and in the various stock markets, on my stroll this billowy morning I didn’t spy anyone leaping out of windows and I could actually detect a spring in the step of some people exhibiting spontaneous optimism under bright blue skies barreled into by whopping cumulus stunners. Trumpets anyone?

WRITERS' OWN BOOKSTORE NEWS

2009-03-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

THE 'LET'S GO' DEPT.
On Saturday, March 28, I launched a campaign appealing to writers (see Dear Authors below) from the B. C. Federation of Writers to consider owning collectively their own bookstore.

There has been some enthusiasm in the "Let's Go!" dept. and others who have elucidated interesting opinions. I found Angela Burns' reply of particular note (see below) and hope you will enjoy this dialogue and perhaps contribute to it... that the ideas of intelligent people will be exposed and perhaps prevail in this time of general duress. -RHL

Hello Harry,
I am intrigued by your idea to showcase our literary works. I have one book of poetry, A Mother's String, that was published by Ekstasis Editions in 2005. As the years go by, it is more difficult to market my book as something new. I am wondering if you have had any other interest. If I was to participate, it would have to be on the weekend because I work full-time during the week. I am also 5 months pregnant, so I am also wondering when you would plan to have these readings. Please let me know what you have been able to organize so far. Thanks for including me in your idea to promote our books!
Cheers, Andrea McKenzie Raine

"Do as much as you can while you walk the earth,
for under the earth time holds many who can do nothing."
- Hafiz

Harry,
Great idea! While I have no published books to date, I support your idea and look forward to coming in, browsing and shopping (coffee would be nice) once the doors are open. All the best on your new venture, -Gwen Harmen

Harry,
I think that your idea is great! We should definitely look at possible ways of generating funds for both the federation and ourselves. A small bookstore specializing in both used and new books might help give us an economic edge. We could showcase books from federation writers this way--without having to worry about muscling into the local bookstores as much...Best wishes, Luke.

Harry,
A terrific idea. I'd be interested in helping out in the Fall. Ken Klonsky

Dear Harry,
I think your idea is a good one though I do not live in Vancouver and couldn't volunteer any time, sorry. If you paired it with a coffee house and hosted a several reading series and events, you might even make a profit. Just a thought.

Your subject matter (www.deadsearevelation.com)reminds me of my friend Eric Wilson, an American writer friend of mine who lives in Nashville. He has written a trilogy of thrillers set in the Holy Land. I met him in Romania a few years ago when he was researching a novel. http://www.wilsonwriter.com
Good luck in this endeavour. Best regards, Heather Haley

Hi Harry,
Unbelievable! I just came from Cole's bookstore where I was given a cold reception per request to do a book signing. On the way home I was thinking that here was an opportunity for someone, to open a bookstore for local writers, consignment etc. And I also thought that to do this, one would have to be in a higher volume area than Chilliwack.

Two hours later, your email and proposal came dropping in on me. Coincidence? I don't believe in them. Miracles I do.

So, yes, I am extemely interested in your idea, and could easily work it into my schedule, as I presently work week-end nights only.

Please keep me posted, and I surely hope that this idea does in fact bear fruitation. Cheers -Ron Johnson, Chilliwack, BC

Shirley said...

As I am just heading out now to my local bookstore (new and used) to purchase anything they have by Robert Lowell, I must concur with Harry's contention that "bricks and mortar" is important for writers. -Shirley Baziuk, Ontario

Thank you Shirley for your supportive words re this important effort. Words of Light need to be written, spoken, read and heard much more often than is currently happening in this grief-ridden culture. -RHL

Dear Harry,
I'm kind of intrigued by the idea - but I don't spend that much time in Vancouver. I'm based in Gibsons these days and travel a lot...

One thought though. Have you considered connecting with an existing bookstore like... I dunno Biz Books... to see if there's a way to share the load?

All the best with the project! And thanks for taking this on. -Mark

The Green Chain NOW PLAYING at the EMPIRE CAPITOL 6 in Victoria. http://www.empiretheatres.com/node/9246
See you there.... http://www.thegreenchain.com/

Hi Harry,
This sounds exciting! Although I have yet to publish a book, I would extend my support and presence in this inspiring project! Keep us informed~Theresa Dunphy

Harry,
I like this idea. I don't have any work published right now, but next spring a group of poets and I hope to put out a chapbook and this would be a great place to publicize it. keep me informed. Am willing to do a half hour a month, but don't know what you're looking for people to do. - Cary O'Malley.

Dear Harry,

Thanks so much for your email. Your proposal is very interesting! I have a POD erotic novel (previously published by Dell and Blue Moon with over 64,000 copies sold) that I am actively marketing. In fact, I have an article in the March issue (Authors Resources) of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association on Marketing and Selling a Self-published Erotic Novel (http://erotica-readers.com/ERA/AR/Erotica_Authors_Resources.htm).

I plan on doing book signings (no readings) at several Chapters stores in Vancouver--also at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival (May 1-3). If you can interest enough local writers in your idea, I would consider being a part of it. My time availability would be subject to the restrictions of my part-time security guard duties at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Looking forward to hearing more about your proposal. -Best, Jeanne

Great idea! While I have no published books to date, I support your idea and look forward to coming in, browsing and shopping (coffee would be nice) once the doors are open. All the best on your new venture - Gwen Harmen

Dear Harry,
I think it's a genius of an idea. Writer's co-op bookstore idea. Certainly would attract publicity. Open it for 2010 and there'd be sales galore in the right location. What about a moving store like the old mobile library idea.....run it around to towns and write off the costs against taxes. Wish I had a book in print. But would gladly contribute. With such inspiration I might well go forward faster on the books in progress.
http://williamhaywriter.blogspot.com. Liked your holybloodline site. Look forward to seeing how this flies. -Bill

Hello Harry,
Thanks for the inspirational idea. I live on Vancouver Island, so putting in regular shifts in a store is a challenge for me. I could consider a shift once a month, but once a fortnight would break my transportation (and time) budget! However, I am very supportive of a marketing plan and outlet and would be happy to participate in any way possible. My husband, Brad, and I have formed a publication company - please see www.turningpointarts.com. We do editing, design, layout and support and facilitate all publication processes. We are also the official distributor for Circle 49 Publications, which was formed by 6 local authors - we have 5 books in our catalogue to date. Perhaps and you Brad can connect to discuss this project and how we might participate? I have copied him into this email. We would love to get involved with the Vancouver market - and I am available for occasional readings and signings and such. Do you have a location for the storefront in mind? Thanks for the invitation. -Peggy Grigor

Very interesting, Harry,
Do you have a business plan, 1st yr., 5 years later? What is the cost per writer per year IF 100 of BC Feds. sign up? Pre-paid for surety. How much is the rent per month of certain choice locations? How much is the cost of installing shelves, computer, Pay Pal, Credit card or Access machines? How many of BC Fed. members live near Vancouver, and are able bodied? How many BC Fed. members actually have "good" books - those with fans or critical acclaim - to be stocked? Your "Writers' Own" store has a focus on the best case result! What is the cost of business insurance? Can one avoid paying basic hourly wage rates?

A business plan has to project all the problems, giving some solutions or fail-safe ideas.

I would not sign up for such a formless dream. -best wishes, Bernice

Hi Bernice,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. The dream remains formless because I just started this campaign and take all contributions of thought and expertise to heart. YES, we are looking at business planning. It is the OPTIMISTS who will make it work. RHL

Dear Harry,
I think your idea has lot going for it. Even if we are the audience, at least we'd get to know each other better.
I live in Duncan on Vancouver Island, and don't come to Vancouver much, at the moment, but i suppose i could do it. My grandchildren live there, and i visit once a month. But i could come over Mon - Thursday on the free ferry ride for seniors, if i could get the rest of the way to the store easily by local transit.

In any case, let me know how the idea progresses. -Cheers, Marybeth Nelson

Hi Harry,
I'm wondering what your response has been so far to the idea of an authors book store. I have three books so the idea does appeal to me but am not sure how feasible it is. Independent book stores have a real uphill battle to stay afloat. If you have enough interest to move ahead II would be willing to come to a meeting. I live in Squamish. Regards, Nora

Hi Harry,
Good idea.
I’m always interested in a solid promotion and hard work to promote writer’s works. Count me in. -Sincerely, Margo Bates
www.MargoBatesPR.com / margobates.com

Hi Harry,
This is an innovative idea to promote and sell ones books, although this is pre-mature for me, as my book is still in the making.

I can see this working if there is an iron-clad contract between those entering into an agreement to share expenses, and also will need a great management system to allocate work hours, maintanence, advertising, etc.
I may be interested at some future date, -My Best, Irene Butler

Thanks Harry, I'm definitely interested. -Joylene

Dear Angela

2009-03-30T12:06:00.001-07:00

I respectfully agree to disagree.

“A bricks and mortar shop” is precisely what readers want.
My reasoning in believing this is simple enough: writers are generally interesting people with interesting ideas and many of whom have visited unmapped dimensions of thought, their experiences similar to adventurers and pioneers. Would-be book buyers want to share in that cerebral exploration somewhat (perhaps having discovered that life is greatly enhanced by a full intellectual experience) and play the role of the author’s sidekick and confidante. How thrilling then for the reader to meet this torch-carrier, the writer of the prose which has been so engaging and the inventor of such characters of intrigue. So quite apart from the social occasion visiting a bookstore – with coffee, tarts, chairs and tables – the reader can legitimately anticipate interacting with powerful minds, even visionaries.

Hiding in front of TV’s, video games and Yes, even computer monitors doesn’t hold a candle to shaking the hand of an Einstein, Hawking, Huxley, Michael Ondaatje or Angela Burns.

Reading text on screens at home alone supposes that the material is so riveting that joy can be elicited from this solitary experience, and the writer so sure of their brilliance at wordcraft that readers will be wholly satisfied with their pristine (sterile?) body of work.

“Websites are cheap,” Yes, and as effective as an ice cube retail stand in the arctic. They tend to glorify the writer meanwhile expecting the potential buyer to be so moved as to write and send a cheque or provide PayPal their credit card number and then pay for the shipping.

Ebooks can work for research and data transfer but isn’t it so much more fun to hold a new, nicely bound text in your hands and crack that spine for leaf after leaf of the stuff of surprises? And even the paper itself may have its own unique feel and story about its creation.

The print-on-demand aspect of the enterprise would be approached with a separate business plan and no commitment made until viability is clearly established, justifying purchase of printer/binder equipment. But imagine the control we would be wresting from the hands of conventional publishers who have been reducing our take(for our life’s work) to 7% and the retailers who fire-sell us in their big box discounts bins. And shipping freight back and forth from publisher to retailer and back again is a total no-win situation for the scribe.

I invite all the writers with whom I am corresponding to join this debate and also make contributions of anything else on their mind by posting to my four year old The English Bay Banner – the forum for Writers’ Own and a platform advocating social justice.

And no matter where you live in British Columbia, a one week window display and intense promotion of your work to the Vancouver market can’t hurt.

Finally, as to costs to writers: 200 members would get the monthly stipend down to $20 for a home-made-artsy-crafty kind of effort. And what fun!

-Harry Langen

Angela Burns Replies

2009-03-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

It's an interesting idea, Harry, but I don't think it will fly. A bricks and mortar shop is just not smart these days. Authors and publishers need to look outside the 'box' (sorry for the cliche).

I'd much rather see members create a distributor and ensure that books are placed in independent bookstores around BC. Most books are produced in digital format for printing, so a website offering downloadable versions for a small fee would also be a good idea, and generate some income for authors. Websites are cheap.

It's important that authors have their works available to be read - by any means available. E-books are soon going to replace print copies - simply because they will be more accessible. Google and Amazon are gearing up to flood the market with them. I love books and bookstores, but this is the future. If we don't recognize this, we will all go down together.

Readings by the author or a professional 'voice' can be done through audio files and made available online - thereby opening another market for books, and a way to publicize them. Audio books are a huge market.

I don't live in Vancouver, nor do I visit the Mainland - so a bookstore there would have no value to me, either as an author or a publisher. I certainly could not assist in the front.

Also, setting up a printing business is an expensive, complex proposition. It isn't something that can be done in a 'back room'. Print-on-demand shops, like Printorium in Victoria, have economies of scale and technical expertise. I use them and find their product both very good and affordable - as long as one understands the technical side - which I do.

So, digital media has to be considered seriously - websites, audio, visual - even a virtual shop fronts in Second Life. It would be a lot cheaper and give a bigger bang for the buck. Even a chat room devoted to authors and publishers would be helpful. There is open source software for this. We all need to discuss our trade - and not everyone can attend meetings or events.

If we diversify, we may survive.

Cheers,

Angela Burns
GSG Ltd.
Publisher/Editor/Writer/ etc.

Dear Fellow Author,

2009-03-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

I’m shopping an idea around to all the members listed in the Federation of B.C. Writers.

Let’s get some publicity and attractive window display for our book(s) at a retail shop that we own. As a group we can afford to rent a store downtown Vancouver and each author will get one week of window display and chance to read and promote their work intensely throughout that week. Before and after, their work will be on the shelf with posters and such to attract attention of the browsers; and as an incentive to the shoppers the writers will always be welcome to commingle on site with their would-be readers. And hobnobbing with fellow writer/authors, some of whom may be wildly successful, might be fun, huh?

To keep costs down, I propose that, given enough of us, we could each do a 4 – 6 hour cashier shift per fortnight and keep the store open from 8 – 8. Other books can be ordered from our computer access to amazon.com at wholesale rates; but the focus of the store will be to promote local writers.

The readings and access to the authors should generate some public interest and hopefully may cover the monthly cost of running the operation. If enough authors are relying on a print-on-demand process, perhaps we could look into printing and binding our own work in the ‘back room.’

It’s all just germinating now so let me know if this idea appeals to you. And if you are enthused about this and would like to see this idea come to fruition then call me about how I can best allocate a half hour a month of your time.

For more on me, see www.deadsearevelation.com or have a cruise around my e-zine at www.ebaybanner.blogspot.com

Cheers, and hope to hear from you.

- Harry Langen

Back in the Saddle

2009-03-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

Horseshit from the Mounties
Armed to the teeth with deadly sidearms, batons, their eight trained fists, handcuffs and the currently dubiously underrated electrifying tasers, four members of the RCMP managed to kill an unintoxicated, frustrated man from Poland whose only crime it appears was that he threw a little temper tantrum when he couldn’t find his mother at the airport. Boy did those fellas in the noble serge teach him not to misbehave in Canada… permanently.

As members of that goon squad attempt to defend their deadly behavior on that occasion explaining why one of them over-tasered the poor man from Poland, Mr Robert Dziekanski with five trigger-pulls, others have already retracted and changed their testimony, obviously laying waste to their original horseshit excuses.

FLASH! The video account of the horrendous incident does not reconcile with the testimony of the trigger-puller! Will he now change his original testimony to keep up with the revolving-door testimony of his brothers-in-arms?

It is hoped by Yours Truly that the government of Poland will recognize all this as pathetic ducking and weaving and exercise its right to charge these morons in uniform with manslaughter. Reports of dozens of cases of abuse including incidents of death during incarceration and glaring omissions (leaving a couple lost in the frigid wilderness at Whistler) are shining a light on soiled uniforms and ugly tactics employed by miscreant members of what once was a truly heroic organization.

This load of recruits which were hired during the disgraced former commissioner Zacarelli’s regime seem to be disproportionately populated by thugs having been hauled out of some redneck sewer to dress up in pretty scarlets and long black boots, eager to swing their batons and deploy their tasers a multitude of times (as opposed to deploying their hand-to-hand combat skills which might require a hint of courage). If it were ever proven that these four at the airport were preordained by attitude toward violence during their encounter with the exhausted victim, Mr. Dziekanski – who was apparently in the surrendering mode just prior to being jolted to death – then let the law be enforced to its fullest extent and have these men charged with murder right here in Canada.

The sunny days of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon are clearly past and in view of the many accounts of RCMP abuses in the last decade outdated and obscenely over-romanticized.

Perhaps it’s time for retailers trading in tourist trinkets to remove all RCMP statuettes, bobbleheads, pictures of them parading around on horseys with spears pointed at each other and any other iconography glorifying their heroic past until they clean up their bloody act once and for all.

Prime Minister Rides in for some Wild West Gang-Bashing

In a recent letter to the editor of what used to be an alternative press newspaper and which has weirdly morphed into a celebrity-worship rag, the writer seriously suggested that the Hells Angels be approached to police the other gangs because after all they know the ropes and the inner workings of gang management.

Duh?

Our Prime Minister who apparently privately yearns to win a Prime Mortician Look-a-Like contest thought he would drop by and pretend to inflict some gang-bashing in an effort to stem the flow of bleeding bodies piling up on our streets. By extending the jail term for murder and drive-by gunplay he seriously expects to inject the fear of God into these stoned dunderheads who really couldn’t give a crap about anything. They’ve watched and played so many dehumanizing videos where killing gains them points that now some concrete-haired politician is the least likely to make any kind of impact on their chosen lifestyle.

Let’s get real. The only way to sink their ship is to blow a hole in their treasury. Follow the money. Every ‘successful’ gang is laundering its ill-gotten profits (selling meth and crack to kids) by establishing businesses with legitimate licenses and renting properties from cooperative landlords and using turn-a-blind-eye lawyers to come out on the other side smelling like roses and doing charity work through their local business councils and such.

There’s a simple counter measure here. Just demand of your local common media that all businesses owned by members of gangs be listed in the paper and a boycott called to prevent them from conducting any more over-the-counter trade.

The downtown eastside of Vancouver is in the state it’s in because the gang there is renting property, calling them hostels and fronting the addicts with crack who do their sidewalk trade. Close those hostels and prevent that gang from ever securing any business license whatsoever, forever.

No amount of gushing over the Olympics with the huge cost overruns being allowed is going to distract from the embarrassing truth that Vancouver’s civilian populace isn’t really acting very civil towards its homeless population and its addicts who are being poisoned daily by these gangs. A fraction of the funds that have been earmarked toward the two week Olympic spectacle could go a long way to establish affordable housing, and debugging of current city-owned housing (which defy the health bylaws) and assaulting the so-called legitimate businesses owned by gang members through media supported boycotts.

With the extinction of this moral malaise in Vancouver, rather than deepening it by our persistent indifference we could actually enjoy the Olympics and take pride in our city as we host tourists from around the world, knowing that we are looking after our own and eliminating the elements of an insidious underworld.

Toughen up, folks. It’s the only way.

Curiouser and Curiouser

While the 12 theories of Creationism are abounding in debate clubs around the civilized (ahem) world, we find a mention in Science magazine that footprints precisely resembling modern man were discovered in sedimentary rock in Kenya and dated to 1.5 million years ago.

I wonder how this ancient prehistoric man amused himself in those way-bygone days? Given the propensity of the native cultures for casino-building one might be apt to guess gambling might have been part of their leisurely way, after all that hunting and gathering or pizza delivering. Who’s to say?

And then there was that bee in amber dating back tens of millions of years ago and with bees, don’t we find honey and where’s there’s honey are there not bears and perchance to dream - bear rugs?

In short, it would appear that the ecological balances to sustain man and beast have been with us for what might be described as time immemorial. Somewhat bolstering my mentor’s rather brave comment I heard when of the tender age of 17 he spoke, “Man has always been man.” And his interesting ‘cousin-comment’: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Which supports my own belief that enlightenment must occur here in this dynamic environment, on this splendid earth, amidst these wondrous elements and under that mysterious personality of the infinite which manifests itself as the radiant sun. No matter how many lifetimes it takes. We need to acknowledge the perfection around us and then allow ourselves to be enjoined with it.

And who knows? Those footprints probably belong to one of our previous manifestations and here we are still fumbling along denying our perfection. Oh blessed day, come hither.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

At 89, James Lovelock, has made a seriously dire prediction about what we as a species can expect in the not-too-distant future. Lovelock, the scientist who originally rang the bell of warning that the earth, being a unified living organism he called Gaia, was at risk from man's bumbling about the delicate balances of the eco-system.

Our great grandchildren will inherit death on a grand, cataclysmic scale with rising sea levels, floods and the creation of new deserts. And this soothsaying he believes is founded in reliable science which affirms to him that this doomsday scenario is too late to avert.

Oh wicked day, get thee thither.

My Mother's Passing

Two days before I knew my mother was gravely ill I wrote the following...
You can kiss the underside of the ground upon which Yahovah walks and persevering with whispering prayers and persistent to the point of annoyance to all, witness Him - at last! - pluck you into divinity.

Such is the bounty of Light.

My mother, Molly Sullivan Langen Pirie, passed away two days later on December 15th, 2008 after a two day ordeal and a second heart attack. She refused to have her hospital room phone hooked up (to prevent I suppose worrying her sons. She said at the time, "I'll wait til I get home.") so I could only pass messages on to her through the nurses. I suspected she was quite ill and so my last message was "You're not alone." She died the next morning at 3 a.m.

It was her good fortune that her parish priest was by the day before on his rounds and noticed her and correctly detected her grave state. He offered her the Last Rites and she accepted happily.

She died in peace in the eyes of her Lord.

As a church elder and member in the Catholic Women's League she was also responsible for the cemetery where many of the Langens are buried - the Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery, at Red Rapids. She had fundraised for its upkeep and the establishing of a bell there to be rung at times of interment. Appropriately, as though by Design, it rang the first time for Molly's.

The following memorial was passed out at her 'viewing' at the funeral home and all 50 copies were taken up gladly by my distant cousins, great uncles and her many friends.

She was born in the year of the Tiger, 1926, according to the Chinese astrological calendar. And this ancient lore informs us that Tiger people are sensitive, given to deep thinking, capable of great sympathy. They can be short-tempered and occasionally impulsive but are courageous and powerful souls. Maybe Molly’s life was indeed written in the Chinese skies because it’s not far off the mark at all.

In the war years, Molly was the eldest of four sisters whose father, Louis, had recently been killed in a roadside accident as he was walking his plow horses home. To help her mother Mary, Molly was picking enough potatoes to fill 80 barrels a day earning 10 cents a barrel, and at week’s end she sure was looking forward to her night of dancing at the old Silver Slipper dance hall. This, she made the point to Mary, was her treat to herself.

She managed to save $12 for a bicycle and began to make personalized Christmas Card sales biking to the old farm homes separated by two or three miles each. She was well received by her neighbours, many of whom began to eventually rely on their charming young saleslady for magazine subscriptions, cosmetics, information and gossip about their little community of Rowena and their Victoria County. Molly had established her sales run and was very pleased to find her innovativeness, courage and perseverance paying off at $50 profit a day! She saw an ad in a slick magazine for a Buick Wildcat and Lord Jesus by God did she ever want that! And a Wildcat just like her, bustin’ out with mischief and life, all revvin’ to get up and go and not so hard on the eyes either.

But she would still be making her sales by bicycle for some time yet remembering fondly from those exhilarating days her first tippling episode, with Mrs Ed Tomlinson who got along famously with Johnny Barley Corn. In that one afternoon Molly managed $62 in profit and a precarious and wobbly ride home. (Good thing they didn’t bring charges in those days against young lasses for operating a bicycle while under the influence.)

At 18, Molly started to teach school at Crombie Settlement with 13 students, from grade one to six. She excelled at teaching, her attentiveness to each pupil, her loving care, her bounty of good human qualities all came to shine in the classroom. She remembers to this day how those students were so “sweet and well behaved, and so willing to learn.”

And they remembered her. Isaac Goodine remembered his teacher, Miss Sullivan, and decades later recom-mended her for the Certificate of Appreciation which was presented to her by Mr Goodine, then the Chair of Human Relations, World Academy of Letters, on October 7th, 2004. It read in part, “She is a most inspirational and caring teacher who guided me through the 6th grade and is still a loving mentor today.”

Her young teaching career included the schools at Foley Brook, New Denmark, and Gladwyn with 52 students from grade one to eight (including two of her sisters); the California Settlement; Medford and South Tilley.

She married the war-ravaged George Langen when he returned from duty on the front line and had three sons by him - Roger, Scott and Ronnie. The family moved to Toronto following so many other maritimers to the big city. George worked with a law firm there playing “wrinkle-fender” every night to get home while she dabbled in real estate sales and waitressing before landing another teaching job, this time for six years at St Philip Neri in Downsview, Ontario. There they bought their first real home for $10,000 on Lorne Bruce Drive in 1955. It was a cold mile in winter to walk to school every day.

All the boys attended St Philip Neri and Molly looked out for each of them, managing to cover their medical expenses and boyhood needs while her brilliant husband George was holding court, dispensing free legal advice to the neighbours bearing beers, and gradually descending into alcoholism. He was often heard lamenting his move from the forests and fishing streams of New Brunswick.

Molly had to make way for more academically qualified teachers coming to St Philip’s. She had served the nuns as chauffeur and gave much of her personal time to that institution but it was time to find another job and she did at the Toronto International Airport as an insurance saleslady. She started at 5 a.m. and after her shift there was over at two p.m. she went to work at Lockhart’s on Jane St. keeping books and once again building a sales network, this time for auto parts.

Seven solid years of work at the airport came to a close when the ladies were let go for younger lasses. Molly had learned by then that injustices were commonplace in the work environment of the modern world, especially for women.

She was building the Lockhart business and soon became a celebrity – “Molly the Muffler Lady” featured in newspapers and on national radio. With the Lockharts, she bought lakefront acreage around Bracebridge, Ontario and built a “hunt lodge” (called such to get around building inspector licensing problems). It turned out as a magnificent many-roomed cottage, and her son Scott and his wife Trudy bought land adjacent to it. Many happy autumns were spent there hunting deer, and in summer with the children of relatives and friends playing in the yard.

She finally returned to New Brunswick in the mid 90’s and made all the applications necessary to return her hospitalized husband there too. George died after two decades of institutional-ized veteran’s care during which Molly never abandoned his personal welfare nor neglected to bring him his smokes and new clothes.

She was courted by the charming Alton Pirie of Tilley, NB, a successful landowner and potato farmer, and father of 11, and she married him when they were both in their 70’s.

She keeps busy visiting her old friends, dancing at the halls, playing cards with her Aunt Bea and writing emails and letters to her family, friends and the politicians she lambastes - and touring in her gutsy new Chevy Impala (having somewhat outgrown her old Buick Wildcat).

Her boys have all met with varying degrees of success: Roger as a teacher and union executive; Scott as a business owner and salesman (both husbands and fathers in Ontario) and Ronnie as a writer and more recently a real estate salesman in Vancouver.

She is the doting grandmother of seven, and stays in touch with each of their lives, always with a kind word and a patient ear.

Her many nephews and nieces, though spread across the continent, all are very dear to her and they regularly swap stories.

Her boys have all inherited Molly’s compassionate nature for people and are proud to know that she is remembered most fondly by not only her many former students, the Dionnes, Goodines, Finnemores, Rattrays, ONeils, Kinneys, Hamiltons and Brooks and countless others but also her old clients, the Bakers, Boones, DeMerchants and so many more.

When any one of them encounter her dropping in on socials in their beloved rural New Brunswick, they respond with warmth and affectionate hugs.

And quite naturally there are many in heaven who still remember the wildcat on the bicycle who brightened their days with her laughter, her stories and her love. Indeed, as such God-given love of humanity is to be remembered and cherished forever.

2008-11-19T15:39:00.001-08:00

Green Motors?

2008-11-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

While the CEO’s of Ford (Mustang!), Chrysler (LeBaronski!) and GM (Caddilacky!) are presenting hats-in-hand while getting paid millions in bonuses every year for their accumulated losses, may I make a teensy suggestion that might have a very nice compact... impact, impact! Chevy chevy, eh, ya know? Sawee.

Go ahead and take 50 million out of the original 750 million the feds were going to use to bail out the mortgage holders or buy bank shares (or roll dice) and hope the Americans take this rare opportunity to insist on a couple of conditions:

1. No more golden parachutes for exiting executives and keep their salaries and bonuses within a range that doesn’t appear obscene to the rest of those taxpayers whose money they’re pleading for;

2. Pay back this principal amount at bank prime + one (devilishly ironic, bank shares et al);

3. And by far most importantly: insist that these Big Three - whose cars look like each other's and who could not, or refused to see the inevitable consumer trend to smaller, less gas guzzling vehicles of lesser emissions - just go green.

And that’s what this 50 million should be used for: retooling their factories to create electric and crossover, city-friendly vehicles. Then all those zoom-zoomers at every little red/green light in cities, braking hither and thither can finally relax and stop counting their gas-fueled frustrations amidst all their noise.

I always did know: the louder your vehicle the smaller your ... (ahemski). Just ask the Hell's Weenies. "Vroom, vruh, cough, cough, see my big belly and hairy ass hangin' out. WOW am I cool!" I suppose it's too much to ask those morons to just give us all some relief from their means of coping with their shortage in the manly dept.

After all this minor revolution directed by goodness, we can finally and legitimately ask GM to change its name: Green Motors.

BoobToobitis?

The University of Maryland analyzed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness. - Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

You mean after watching all those gratuitously violent, shamelessly vulgar, intellectually vapid, joyless programmes we might actually not feel so hot after a big dose of viewing?

As if the so-called TV Standards people didn't know this for decades. Now that these programmers, producers and celebrities have created this embarrassingly massive appetite for crap, me-wonders how we get back to genuinely interesting and rewarding television viewing?

NO POPPY FOR ME

2008-11-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

My Dad was a war hero. Last one left for dead at Rimini. And then his letters show he was prepared and expecting to return to the front.

After the war he suffered the memories of his dead fellows in the river of blood. As to his command: “The failure taught a useful lesson: not again in Italy in the 11th Brigade was a Company dispatched to take a Battalion objective.”

My Dad suffered and was hospitalized for 24 years as a veteran. After his death, successive federal governments stole his and other veterans’ estates from their families by not allowing them interest on the monies accrued and not permitting their families an inheritance.

My eldest brother has been waiting four years to receive from the Veteran’s Affairs Dept my Dad’s war record. So far nothing.

So much for all this weepy sentimentalism.

Blow somebody else’s horn.

2008-11-04T09:25:00.001-08:00

Winning Back Our Earth

2008-11-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

This morning as I strolled I noticed a patch of ground, ¼ block perhaps, that had been transformed into an urban garden. I couldn’t make out exactly which vegetables were growing as the gate was locked but it reminded me of my mentor’s comment: “All you need is food, shelter and the company of loved ones.” In this holus bolus part of Vancouver (downtown eastside, Hastings) it is well to bear those words with us day to day.

And why are we so busy as a society exporting crap, importing crap from China and manufacturing jobs that have nothing to do with “the company of loved ones” or eating?

It is time to deindustrialise. Industrialisation was born only 100 or so years ago and born from greed. And now it is consuming our earth in harrowing ways (ask the polar bears).

Deindustrialise now. Make more gardens until the urban area is full of brightly coloured veggies for all. And easy on the eyes.

Of Principles and Fundamental Value…

2008-10-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

After watching closely the presidential race for the most powerful position in the world and witnessing the occasional gaffes of both candidates (McCain parading around the TV debate stage was hilariously unpresidential - wound up with too much gravitas maybe), I have concluded that the Americans need the leadership presented in the qualities of Mr Barack Obama.

Qualities of leadership are sometimes hard to define but not really hard to spy. When a man speaks consistently with passion about what he believes and his content returns regularly to the human condition, and he seems to yearn for a better world for all, inclusive even of the disenfranchised, then his integrity may begin to become visible. And that’s who you want to support in any field, associate with and point your children to as an example of successful living – even if that individual has suffered most of his life for his principles, to wit: Nelson Mandela.

We use in our society a kind of rewards system and too often unfortunately short term greed is rewarded with a quick buck, and inevitably a golden handshake and the keys to an escape hatch.

For our society to be more effectively fortified to withstand major upheavals like the current financial collapse, we need to reward more people of principle who demonstrate their will for peace and the intelligence to bring it about and show daily their commitment to goodness, charitableness and the promotion of universal love. This is not, I believe, a namby pamby or pollyanna approach. Quite the contrary: by supporting such individuals and representative organizations we can eventually divine the inherent power of righteousness as it transforms, subtlely but certainly, the moral fabric and colour of our global society from a kind of grey bleakness to that of an astonishingly bright sunrise rife with fresh ideas and the sweeping hues of hope.

It is sad to say that as I work within the Canadian junior mining industry I find very little of this newness and strength of commitment to long-term gains of happiness and joyously righteous business. Where are the leaders who are prepared to stand up and have their company counted now as one of fundamental, long term value? The rather disgusting truth of it is that more 90% of my initial contacts with this group of CEO’s is met with a lie: that voice mail which informs me, “And I’ll get back to you shortly” or some such empty promise. They don’t, which is just rude and reflective of their lack of interest in any decency of humanity and clearly indicative of their single-minded, narrow drive and blind greed. If I were, however, to call and leave a message on their deceptive little machine that I was actively interested in laying out some serious moolah for them to manipulate, methinks I would be graced with a return call.

And now that their shit is hitting the fan, these CEO’s, once all full of promises of heydays, are hiding on tall limbs in high trees somewhere in the general vicinity of their splashy offices, licking their wounds and mapping their escape route.

Is it any wonder then that our global economic circumstance - somewhat billowing out from a Wall Street obscenely populated as it is with clowders of fat alley cats - is in such dire condition? With those lords of the iniquitous at the helm, we can all expect more of this short term desperate lurching and little of the long term success that principled men and women might bring to bear upon our current, rather pathetic situation. The steady-handed and clear-headed can be found among those exasperated people who have been trying to ring the bell of righteous business for their lifetimes. Find among them your leaders.

The voices of these principled gentlefolk are still being muzzled by the recent wailing and breast beating of those former glad-handers and back-slappers of the old regime who chortled shamelessly in dark corners and sneered at the people who abide by “the still small voice.”

Mr Obama, I suspect, wouldn’t last long in that company of patented shit-eating grins, and thank God for that and good luck to him. In this climate of impossible avarice he’s going to need all the luck the sun can muster.

2008-10-15T14:17:00.001-07:00

Leadership Credentials?

2008-10-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

The following letter was posted to the Vancouver Sun and The Globe and Mail on Sept 26th.

The only way this amateur pundit can imagine the victory of the Liberals is if Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae step up to the plate more aggressively; or if they have, that the general media cover their speeches. Otherwise, ordinary Canadians are being shortchanged as to the qualitiies and benefits of these particular statesmen and the real contribution they can make to all Canadians.

To focus soley on the leaders of the respective parties seems too much inclined to personalities (Harper the Mortician and Dion the fussy professor) and not the principles of those parties. While it seems so cheap for people to hop parties, regardless of principle, I felt I understood Rae's swapping parties. Why not have sway to bring about good change? Not an unusual dilemma I suppose.

Let us not discourage too many worthy potential candidates. Just keep an eye. Keep an eye on the moral compass of your candidates.

To paraphrase the core statement of the Vedic Sciptures re politics as found in the Baghavad Gita: "Politics is the eternal sea of Maya (darkness and confusion, up and down chaos)."

But what choice do we have? Hobson's choice is all. Hope is our ultimate and only choice and intellect is a reasonable guide. Why not sail on with some comfort? -end

So now we can not only see what little role did these two play in the campaign but we can now reasonably presume that by their quietness they were angling for leadership positioning since having allowed the captain of their ship to steer into the fog, and likely political oblivion. I can't imagine worse leadership credentials than the sharpness of your blade and skill at shoving it in from behind.

The No-Vote Smart-Asses

2008-10-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

Of eligible voters, 49% were no-shows at the ballot box. So here comes your local news reporter asking if you voted today.

"Nope. I don't vote."

"No. I never have."

"No. I don't understand the politics."

"Sawee." (Vancouver)

Etc etc.

When these nicely dressed smart-ass nobodies find themselves in a foreign jail, maybe they will reconsider the value of the government they might have voted in.

Or during their next defense against being crowded by bad opinion they might appreciate the ultimate social value of democracy.

But methinks they play video games too much (97% of our teens) and us adults watch Disteria Lane (or something). There is a form of intellectual debauchery in which animated corpses might have membership and those no-thinkers are goose-stepping with the best of them.

Discovering the Depth of the Moral Black Holes

2008-10-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Well, well.
How deep the people are now paying where it hurts to have discovered the moral black holes of their communities. They used to be visible at every corner but as they retreated, consolidating their so-called services (charging you to give you your money and colluding among themselves about those fees), we are now witnessing this humongous "bailout" of the banking industry. Those very places which make you cue up in herd-like fashion waiting dumbly for the slaughter. And they make you wait so long that whatever illusion you may have had about seeing your deposits increase goes up in smoke and mirrors but not before golden handshakes of zillions of dollars handed over to those very same people who have caused this economic collapse and the loss of peoples' pensions, investments etc.
And they still (those bankers) have those silly little Charity ads on their counters while you're attempting to conduct your business in some privacy (gooda lucka).
Yeah... it was just the more obviously greedy U.S. bankers who needed the 'bailout' because our Cdn fellows were so much more shrewd... keeping us waiting and upping their fees. And more tightfisted about supporting the entrepreneurs who ultimately make their system tick. The shame belongs easily as much to the Cdn banks as it does to the other world banks being nationalized (good thinking. Nationalize the pharmaceutical industry while you're at it!).

Defying 'Black October'

2008-10-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

My message to CEO's first week of 'Black October'

“Keep a level head and see the opportunities that are there.”
–Fred Ketchen, Scotiabank Investment Guru.

This is an extremely tense but exciting time to be involved in mining in Canada and the choices we make today about our Jr Mining Cos or our investments will tell our tale in years to come.

I feel very strongly that recovery is on its way now that the 850 billion dollar bill passed in Congress and banks and governments internationally are cooperating. Hobson’s Choice or Global Economic Collapse. Duh?

Now is the time to pitch to the “cherry-pickers” looking for the hot deals, buying low. Now is the time to show that your enterprise has fundamental value, a sound rationale for valuing its properties, and this moment as an excellent time to jump into the game.

Great opportunities are abounding now especially with those companies which boast promising properties and a management team of unadulterated integrity.

That’s the message I believe you, as CEO, should be getting out now, defying the pessimists and reminding investors everywhere how much you believe in your operations. Besides, panicking doesn’t become the CEO of an important and prestigious corporation.

Call me today and be part of my inaugural issue, Harry Langen’s Mining.NOW. The astute in the industry will be sure not to miss this provocative new magazine. All 40,000 of them.

Harry's New Venture

2008-10-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

LEAD EDITORIAL
With the oceans of grief and the prevalence of conflict being sustained by almost all forms of the popular media, it is the intent of Mining.NOW to enjoy and bring a sense of pleasure and relief to an otherwise staid industry.
Mining.NOW will deliver a readership by consistently showcasing the happier side of the business of promoting with which most junior mining CEO’s are pre-occupied. The stories featured in these pages will be forward-looking without being wishy-washy and will include those words of the CEO’s as they elucidate their vision and strategy for success of their companies.

Also though, and as importantly, hilarious anecdotes of their early days as prospectors and their misadventures will be included. The forests of North and South America veil many of these stories and the mists of time will cloud them forever if writers don’t unearth them.

New land leases, junior mining plays, mergers and ore-producing enterprises will be covered in all the heroic or checkered details.

It is commonly the objective of the junior mining executives to secure takeover by the majors and that is their definition of success. It’s the thrill of these deals as they are being constructed that we hope to capture. And to remind us all of the necessity of ethical conduct to guide us through the complicated maze of deal-making, number-crunching and huffing fly-by-nighters we will focus on some of the more derelict deeds of the VSE in its shameful heyday. When playing the shell game you really are supposed to find a peanut eventually.

As for myself, I was recently canned by one publication after I attempted some due diligence and asked to see their distribution credentials and print run docket. I was met with significant (and telling?) hostility. So Mining.NOW will show the print docket for each issue – starting at 20,000 – and will offer a transparent documentation of our distribution strategy.

Our rates are 20% less than that dubious Brand X for which I worked and our credentials will, as mentioned, be made irrevocably clear. To publish means to distribute. No argument there.

Our management will be client-focused as opposed to a kind of arrogant pro-management characterized by mindless bullying; and our commitment to service will be relentless in accommodating the client requirements. Welcome. To the adventure that is Mining.NOW.

2008-10-07T12:26:00.001-07:00

Far and Away... Vancouver's Best Menu

2008-10-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

Back bacon and eggs: Two eggs cooked any style, three slices of grilled back bacon oven roasted savory hash browns and buttered toast $5.50

Maple Sausage and eggs: Two eggs cooked any style, three links of grilled maple sausage oven roasted savory hash browns and buttered toast $5.50

Soup & Sandwich of the Day: Randie’s fresh daily creation. $5.50

Salad of the Day: Ask your server what Randie has created today. $5.50

Butter Chicken: Randie’s own creamy Butter Chicken served over steamed Basmati rice surrounded by Naan Bread. $5.50

Honey Bourbon BBQ Chicken: Fresh oven roasted breast of chicken smothered in Randie’s BBQ sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Roulade of Beef: Slow roasted AAA Alberta beef and rosemary red wine jus served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Fraser Valley Turkey: Tender juicy medallions of fresh roasted Fraser Valley Turkey Breast, Golden Tarragon white wine sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Apple Brandy Pork Loin: Carved pork loin cooked to perfection draped in tangy apple brandy sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Dill Chardonnay Salmon: Char broiled filet of salmon coated with creamy fresh dill and white wine sauce served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and fresh vegetable of the day. $5.50

Randie’s $5.50 Café Located at 340 Cambie Street inside Pub 340, Vancouver
Open 10am to 6pm Monday to Friday

Joy

2008-10-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

Continuity of pleasure is given through intimacy with the truth.

2008-09-21T15:18:00.001-07:00

A Weekend Day, Downtown, Last Day of Summer

2008-09-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

I travelled by bus, alongside all the zombie-like passengers looking out at the downpour on a Saturday (that morning the weatherwoman proclaimed gleefully that we were in for a grand day). After having phoned ahead and speaking to the proprietor and making a verbal deal I got skunked anyway at the store on Main by 14th for $10.
On the way out nature called and as soon as I went into a Starbucks to relieve myself my bus had come and gone. A fellow rushed from behind me and managed to catch the bus while I was running after him and missed it. I walked toward Kingsway to give myself the option of more busses at that stop and just before I got to the junction there, the Kingsway bus passed and I was getting soaked while starting to fume. I was tempted to walk the rest of way in the rain but my nice suit jacket was becoming a bit weepy.

The bus finally came and I trudged on and joined the melancholy lot. I got off at Chinatown and wound my way through the milling crowd of Asians oblivious to my presence, so I had to duck and dodge their pointy umbrellas.

When I got to Cordova I observed a blind woman I had seen before walking alone and looking quite disoriented. She finally cried: "Can anyone help me?" I felt compelled to assist her and we walked and chatted three blocks out of my way through crowds of addicts and idiots who made the going rough; worse than Chinatown. But Brenda was a delight. I escorted her to the Carnegie Library where she wanted me to lead her to an outside post where I suppose she was going to meet someone. I felt for her situation. She was in the thick of the downtown eastside with desperate crackheads swarming about and entirely vulnerable. I left her there.

As I crossed Hastings Street I recognized my young friend Sean whose countenance betrayed being crestfallen about something. He informed me that he discovered his half brother yesterday hanging. Sean called the coroner and the police. He was then apprehended by the police and insensitively interrogated for three hours. He said he was all cried out. I gave him a small hug and told him to call me later.

My dearest and most troubled friend called when I got home and I said I could see him in three hours. He showed up an hour later at the door downstairs and while he's not allowed in the building and I could get evicted if I let him in, in his intoxicated state he couldn't give a rat's ass as he was quite insistent about coming up. I resisted him and just left him standing there by the door and I walked away alone. I was getting rather despondent and just walked it off in Gastown where all the moronic tourists gather around that silly steam clock and each snap their little cameras when the thing blows off a teensy puff of vapour. To me this fascination is plainly infantile.

Eventually I returned home and received three calls from my troubled friend who sounded delusional and again insistent about sneaking in. I just turned off the intercom for a while and when I clicked it back on Sean buzzed and I shared dinner with him.

In retrospect, the most pleasant aspect of that Saturday was the stroll through the hordes of maniacs with the brave and delightful Brenda. God keep her safe and may Sean's step-brother rest now in peace.

Almost forgot: I got a rare visit from a neighbour in this building who wanted to pick up a splitter for his TV. He was unusually talkative and he shared his background: from Winnipeg, raised as a polite, well mannered child; was born from an alcoholic so suffered attention deficit; abused at home by a relative; and after arriving in Vancouver as an adult became addicted to heroin which he now declares as his means of getting anything accomplished. Occasionally he spray-paints arenas for employment. With his straggly blonde hair and jerky manner he reminds me of the scarecrow from Oz. This two-time manslaughterer was pleased to inform me that to this day he stands for the elders on busses relinquishing his seat and opens doors for women. Gotcha.

President Hockey Mom?

2008-09-04T13:29:00.001-07:00

The first decision of the next Captain of the World...

"Duh?"

Hey Vlad, you ready for her?

2008-08-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

2008-08-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Clinton Supporters Going To McCain
What happened to those Hilary Clinton supporters' Democratic Party principles? Their bloody sour grapes can cost the whole globe's welfare. Crippling Obama's election campaign will only deliver another four years of Bush-style creepiness. What cretins.

China Gushing

2008-08-24T15:24:00.001-07:00

The Globe and Mail,
The Vancouver Sun

Dear Editors,

All this gushing in the general media about how niftily the powers-that-be in China handled the Olympics and the assorted sentimental ceremonies serves to eliminate or diminish the memory of their brutal management of the students at Tiananmen Square.

How about some real investigative reporting and find out what happened to the lone rebel student who faced down the line of tanks that day (like yesterday) on June 5th, 1989.

His name remains obscured and his fate unknown.

Why not let us all see what became of him and then give the Chinese government their due?

The Rational Act?

2007-08-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

Some time more than 10 years ago, I asked in the original editorial of The Nelson Village Voice after fulminating somewhat, "Is suicide a rational act..?" in this day, era. And then after, within this context we describe as time, a friend committed suicide. He was to others a healer. A homeopath. With a Phd in biochemistry.

He left behind a wife and son. Somewhere in that mix was his problem I suspect. He used a gun. And he left a few people bewildered and shaken.

He was my intellectual partner for decades and the man whom I modelled the character of Eric Summerman after in my book. The depth of his anguish is beyond me and I'm sure his son too. But all our prayers now will help him escape the misty grey zone (which he visited while human) and his sense, every wave, of being so lost.

Rest in peace, brother. Your laughter and joyous moments will be remembered and will continue to increase the body of God.

The (unwitnessed) Magnificence of Man

2007-08-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

For the first few years after I returned to Vancouver from the Kootenays, I walked and shopped alone. Having been on my own since I was 16 arriving from Toronto at English Bay in 1968 to join the sand mites, I was accustomed to my aloneness and park benches. What I didn’t expect this time in this new millenium was the indifference of everyone I encountered. Perfected indifference. Zip for progress in the spiritual zone.

From my perspective as I strolled by these people who thought they were tuned in, they were just i-puddled, completely under the human climate, almost subterranean in their awareness of their fellow human beings. And they think that’s cool. To me it’s cold. Very. The only time I heard a human voice aside from someone taking my money at a counter was when I heard, “Sawhee,” or something similarly spoken by another disinterested neighbourhood shopper who manages to bump into me with their human lights turned off.

And the house I’ve lived in for years is populated by isolated individuals whose show of politeness borders on seething contempt. And they’re all depressed from what I can gather. So I’m escaping. The property janitor acts like a Lord while he mumbles about the property unintelligibly and the security guards who live here spy at my quiet-as-doormouse visitors imagining that we’re all cooking up crack every night. And they report this slander to the arrogant bully of a property manager who took over control of the house from an 82 year old female owner who sells her long-dead husband's clothes on the sidewalk and keeps the lights indoors turned off to save ten cents. Sometimes, the tenants here have gone without shower services for three days because of this unabashed greed and fear of paying plumbers. Yawn.

It's all in keeping with this 'new age' of unadulterated greed and self-indulgence. People in this mass media age are throwing off words like the sensationalist newscasters they listen to every day. Meaningless, and resulting word by word in the unravelling of any sense of civilization.

Sneermeisters in their super-cars pumping and braking at every little light in the west end (raging?) and urban pet owners with their stretcho-leashes pompously hogging the sidewalks are all wasting their humanity as they overlook that vastness of the individual who walks by, head up, and looks them in the eye, to absolutely no avail. The doggie-freaks preoccupied with being bent over as they are scooping the excrement of their little precious.

In the case of that individual where his charitableness is automatic, he is the one of true wealth, who upon each encounter with another human being will detect beauty, the depth of God’s love and mercy and the magnificence of man. Upon every encounter joy and the full wind of freedom will reach him.

And who would know if the one passing you by was the Righteous Teacher? What do we do? We sweep past them grandly gazing at the sidewalk, pondering, ever pondering. How would you know? Keep staring at the sidewalk listening to your bizarre, self-chilling tunes. Another animated corpse, "...less than a scratch on the surface of the earth."

Considered Master

2007-08-08T03:01:00.000-07:00

I ask you not to speak of our father's will. While I continually falter in my own will to serve the deserved, I aspire and believe without doubt even in this wicked, chaotic world honour will be served true. Considered master, your emanicpation merits service... even here in the long, radiant shadow of that unspeakably sublime will.
-Stephen (the swimmer)

2007-07-29T18:03:00.001-07:00

Duck Ponds and Dog Days of Summer

2007-07-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Ducks, little to my foreknowledge, quite enjoy sticking their asses up for a special tan and while paddling their orange tootsies, manage to feed themselves unabashedly. All quite hilarious as Stephen and I watched nature in all her bounty at the edge of Lost Lagoon. We can sit for hours.

We have found special benches where we can sit again in quietness and enjoy peace while observing the loveliness of Stanley Park from what seems like unlimited perspectives. Once, when we found what we thought was an unpopular trail, one man came struggling through the underbrush furtively and managed to examine us without a word; and then another from the other direction and then I realized we were in a gay zone of anonymous sex fiends. Oh well. They were surely not predisposed to conversation… panting and exhibiting animal propensities. Perhaps they succeeded in finding each other but they didn’t succeed in communicating the vastness of their humanity. Stephen and I were equally repulsed.

But for some comic relief we always watch the urban dog-owners with their stretcho- leashes which command the sidewalks until they have to bend over and heel as they 'scoop' their dog's remainings. Ah, and who's the master.

I am gratified that Stephen can make tuna salad sandwiches and his sense of generosity is so plain he reminds me of the hospitable maritimers I am so thankful to have as my ancestors. He continues every day to come to life, swimming sometimes as though baptised again and it is a mercy to witness. Hope.

Colours in the Sky

2007-07-27T14:28:00.001-07:00

When the hordes of people were flowing towards English Bay for the first night of the fireworks, Stephen and I were going in the opposite direction. We were strolling (or loping as Steve does in his rather mystical way) towards Lost Lagoon and hoping to find some quiet spot away from the mob where we might catch some of the celestial display.

On a path before the Lost Lagoon area, we found a spot, hesitated there and watched when the boomings of the fireworks began and looked up and discovered that we had actually found a perfect little place right on that path which afforded us the best possible and private view of the spectacular fireworks. Tucked in between the canopy of the trees. Every colourful explosion in the sky we could see. And somehow we knew it was for our private pleasure. A tremendous gift from the personality of the infinite and it went on for long enough for Stephen and I to know we were being given something.

Thus Man

2007-07-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

The divine breath is an explosion. It takes form, gives rise to voice and then to words. And words, their insistent meanings compel the existence of other souls. All by perfect necessity.

The voice sets the original harmony which establishes the form for all pleasantness of hearing. The severe words enjoin curiosity with adventure and creativity. This song is daring the void, impelling a response.

Thus creation. Thus continuity.

Thus Man.

The Elders

2007-07-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

(the unedited version of letter published today in Globe and Mail)

Dear Editor:

Re: the Elders

Your article was particularly fascinating to me. Ten years ago I hustled Pierre Trudeau in Nelson, B.C. for an interview. He declined at first but then he read my letter and back issues of The Nelson Village Voice which I was publishing at the time. He wanted to respond to the third and last question in my letter: Is there a necessity to put in place (in writing) a moral imperative as in a global creed by which all countries, corporations and religious fiefdoms must abide?

He replied that indeed, “Yes. A Charter of Obligations. We have a Charter of Rights. We need a Charter of Obligations.”

He informed me as I escorted him around town that he had indeed been working with former heads of state (including Jimmy Carter) known as the Interaction Council on a document entitled The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities.

After subsequent correspondence with Mr Trudeau, he graciously permitted me to become its publisher (even before its “ratification” by the Council). Unfortunately, this important document, though on the internet and published by me, received little acclaim. That edition which featured it was even trashed by the Nelson librarian for “lack of space.”

It is most gratifying now, however, to see a similar moral creed being advanced today by such luminaries. Mr Trudeau would be thrilled to see these saints marching in.

Friends and Sprites

2007-07-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

The day before yesterday I was sitting out front with my dear friend, Stephen, and while we were enjoying each other's company - quietly as he is disposed to be rather untalkative - we saw what appeared like a little sprite dancing about the lawn right in front of us. It seemed like its personality was playful and mischievous. I was quite excited having seen my first faerie, the whole while Stephen seemed to be taking it all in his usual stride, which is a kind of lope and sweep. Finally, my upstairs neighbour, Jim arrived and saw the origin of this little light emanation - it was a reflection from his upstairs neighbour, John's yellowish, glittering fabric studded with rhinestones all being windblown.

Oh well. Maybe I'll find a leprachaun sometime before I expire and tell you all about it.

Meanwhile, I have been hosting guys living 'rough' and one at a time they sleep on my floor, snoring in peace at last and help themselves rather aggressively to the fridge. I think they eat out of fear of starvation. But they are each great company for a man like me. They're adventurers and just need some TLC. And a bigger fridge.

B.C. Surplus?

2007-07-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Globe and Mail Editor,

So Carole Taylor and her criminal partner, Premier something Campbell (see Hawaii driving record and his hesitation to admit to his identity at the cop-shop) are now boasting about a $4.1 billion provincial "surplus."

Ask anybody who considers themselves a Vancouverite and then tourists: Why is this city suffering such growing numbers of helplessly depressed and then deliberately addicted numbers of young and old alike? These sons and daughters and otherwise (when not desperate) decent human beings have been tossed off welfare (that extremely inadequate monthly pittance) so this creepy government and lovely Carole and her 'budget' shoes can brag and dance about reducing the bean-count of welfare recipients.

Would somebody please rescue this province from this ethical evacuation we call leadership here? Corky (former NDP leadership candidate): Are you out there? Mr Evans, please?

Published, July 9, Vancouver Sun

2007-07-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Editor,

Re Disabled Veterans

Despite the Ontario Appeal Court's technical ruling against the disabled veterans and their families which supports the vile act of the Brian Mulroney parliament to disown veterans and their families of their estates, the moral outrage is alive and visceral.

(My own father was a war hero who was wounded at Rimini, Italy.)

Even the judges in the original case made it plain they were holding their noses in favour of the technical right of parliament to block interest on veterans' pensions before 1990. Throughout this ugly process over the years, judges have characterized that parliamentary move as outright theft. Ottawa has always admitted mismanaging the veterans’ funds as far back as the First World War, by failing to invest the money or to credit them with any interest.

Only Prime Minister Stephen Harper can set this moral compass right. That sole responsibility during these trying times among our soldiers and their families belongs now to him alone. Now that all the fed lawyers have been paid (at enormous taxpayers' expense), make a decent offer, Mr Prime Minister.

The English Bay Banner

"Making " a Living

OCCUPY THIS

IMMINENT DANGER

GATHERING THOUGHTS

Man As Singularity

One Pilgrim’s Tablet

Mysteries and Words

Letter to Globe and Mail:

Triple Whammy Night - November 22nd

Paracletus!

Sunset on Martha

A Prayer for Today

STANDING ON GUARD

The Wayward Revolution

IMAGINE

Dark Days and Hopeful Thoughts

The Wind About Us

poems

For Layabouts

Money in our Genes?

Guarding the Shape of Man

Matthew Lennox

Random Pix of Gastown Jazz Festival

The Whole of the Law

Glorious Spring in Troubled Land

African Grandmothers and Car-Free Festivals

Lively Protests, Songs and Freedom

Mining for Optimism

on driving to Nottawasaga, with Angie

Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

A Collective Happy Gait

A Daunting Task and Great Pleasure

the flower of Pasto

Vancouver Architects and Arborists

Paracletus!

Seth Responds

A Curious Grasp

Media Pork-Assters Still Calling it Swine Flu

At Last. To breathe with love.

Casting Diamonds

April*Bonked and Book*Whirled

April*Fooled

Bullying Clouds

WRITERS' OWN BOOKSTORE NEWS

Dear Angela

Angela Burns Replies

Dear Fellow Author,

Back in the Saddle

Green Motors?

NO POPPY FOR ME

Winning Back Our Earth

Of Principles and Fundamental Value…

Leadership Credentials?

The No-Vote Smart-Asses

Discovering the Depth of the Moral Black Holes

Defying 'Black October'

Harry's New Venture

Far and Away... Vancouver's Best Menu

Joy

A Weekend Day, Downtown, Last Day of Summer

President Hockey Mom?

China Gushing

The Rational Act?

The (unwitnessed) Magnificence of Man

Considered Master

Duck Ponds and Dog Days of Summer

Colours in the Sky

Thus Man

The Elders

Friends and Sprites

B.C. Surplus?

Published, July 9, Vancouver Sun

AprilBonked and BookWhirled