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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Testing, Testing 1,2

Time sits still
Waits




For rhythm

to set in, cut off, tables
shrinking in measurements minuscule
motes flurry like seconds in
sitting composure on plates, ready
to be eaten.
The wait staff jostle each other and laugh.
This room where
while meets forever, or until wines and dines
during, this
restaurant where
the busboy’s name is then.
No rush orders here, where
the hunter parts reeds
to shoot ducks,
but hits deer instead. Venison in vein,
gristle, and marrow.
Tomorrow need not fear that it
never knows; sorrow; it has yesterday’s
20/20 foresight.
Time sits still
Waits




For rhythm

to set in, cut off, tables shrinking in measurements minuscule motes flurry like seconds in sitting composure on plates, ready to be eaten. The wait staff jostle each other and laugh. This room where while meets forever, or until wines and dines during, this restaurant where the busboy’s name is then. No rush orders here, where the hunter parts reeds to shoot ducks, but hits deer instead. Venison in vein, gristle, and marrow. Tomorrow need not fear that it never knows; it has yesterday’s 20/20 foresight.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

There are four main erections.

My kindergarten students are memorizing a short speech for their graduation ceremony. I'm having them all be numbers and explain what things characteristically come in that number. For example, the kid who is "being" number four says "My name is four. There are four wheels on a car. There are four walls in a room. There are four main directions." Well, I'll be damned if today he didn't say "There are four main erections." I had to stop myself from laughing.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

I've got my I's on you.



This photograph was inspired by one of my students. I gave them a recent assignment to draw their favourite room of the house, and he drew the "eyebathroom." This drawing, while poorly executed, was conceptually bold. He drew a bathtub full of eyeballs, eyeballs coming out of the faucet in the sink, and eyes around the toilet seat. While I could draw lots of Freudian innuendoes out of this, I think it's just surreally funny. Sure, he might have reverse primal scene anxieties, and he could be stuck in the anal stage of development. Or he could be the reincarnation of Victor Brauner. Or he could be a kid with a overactive imagination and a sense of the dramatic and shocking.

I love kids...

Monday, January 22, 2007

Revenge of the flatulence.

I have a student in one of my classes who always makes fun of the other students or me when any of us fart. She seems to have radar-reinforced olfactory nerves or something, because she knows who farts when. I myself can never tell who it is when it's not me. Well, today she let loose a couple stinkers of the silent, but violent variety in the classroom. The poor girl was mortified. She buried her head in her arms on top of her desk, and she actually started crying. GEEZ. No one made fun of her though... except one other student who commented on the ordeal to me in a whisper and a giggle.

On another issue entirely, I heard Bush ordered another 21 000 some odd troops for the war in Iraq. That's old news already, but the video games that simulate war in the middle east the military designed and then deployed into the public to recruit people who might have got an inkling that real war might be like a video game, seem to be working. There's still enough people that either think that the war is justified or that war would just be cool to participate in to keep the war going. I'm reminded of newsreels of Iraq War #1 with Bush Sr where the public witnessed the reverse effect of a real war becoming like a video game, pixellated in our living rooms as smart bombs that err as much as the humans that make them blew up military targets (and some civilian ones they neglected to show).

When are they going to make smart fart bombs? I know. That's course and callous of me to make a joke like that, but in a world where torture is justified by invoking paranoia about national security, sometimes laughter is therapeutic.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

A Conservative Jewish Organization accepts homosexuality.




I was chatting to a friend online today, and he told me that the Conservative Jews accepted gay relationships as an alternate life choice. The reform Jewish movement accepted gay relationships years ago. He also told me that Canada voted down the recent proposal to revoke the legalization of gay marriages. I think that this move was good both from a human rights perspective and from an economic perspective.

There are only a handful of countries where gay marriage is legal. Such countries I would expect to attract gay immigrants. I would also expect that many of these gay immigrants would have a higher average standard of living than their heterosexual counterparts. Rich people often wield the privilege of deviating from behavioral norms (such as not marrying) because they can do so while being considered "eccentric." Poor people who deviate from behavioural norms are usually just considered "crazy." None of this is based on fact; they are merely my perceptions.

Attracting a group of people who might be variously excluded from legitimate institutions (such as marriage) in their home countries who enjoy a higher than average income (again, this is a vague suspicion unsupported by evidence) level increases their buying power and stimulates the economy in general.

Just some idle speculation...
Is idleness the mother of invention (oh yeah, it's necessity), or is it really the father of evil?