Good to Have Work

Good to have work
in this day n' age
& my God, by midweek
that's just enough for a foothold

Trucks & trains & the dark
& the cold & the smell of gas
& these thoughts of you

A shudder when I think of
what I can't help

Up again & onward
a toolkit inside
made of flesh
& the magic that set it in motion

Distractions on my shoulders
running on poisons

These various triumphs
Are perfectly brief

Away out here
there's a simple,
deep affection
for you
that lives in me

& cannot be destroyed
by my mouth
or the cares of the world

<.......>

I forget what it's called.

It's like waiting, but without the implication of inconvenience.

It's being empty. Without expectation, and so, free.

It's standing on two feet, with the full powers of the breath. Spine straight.

It's trusting in the meantime. Leaning on its arms.

It's the bus coming but not yet.

It's another opportunity to imagine entire realms at work, at rest...

...The concerns of whole populations...

...The joy of certain thousands...

...The sun rising somewhere else, over creatures awakening to the same old miracle.

A million transformer hums, singing with jet engines, the wind in various corners, a million chanting souls, and what else?

Kettles, horns, bowls, bells, anything.

The Cigarette

The Cigarette works against my whole thing lately, which is to be with my breath, to inhabit it.

For days after even one, it's all a little too tight for me to enter. And it ain't the smoke, it's the shit that was in the smoke, makin' the old boy jumpy.

Facing everything like normal, only the metronome swings faster and the balloon is made of thicker stuff.

Sitting inside the breath, sharing it now with addiction.

In the Underground Parking Garage, Engine Off

There is so much peace and joy
In the time between things
The things we think are the things
We are here for
The defining moments
The great contests
The big shows
Peak time

Yes, great stores of peace and joy
Off-peak, in the vast spaces of
What we once called the mundane
A slackening of every muscle,
An echo for every beat of the heart.
Nothing to win or lose
Rolling out the carpet just because.

Everything strictly low-falutin'
Not a single big hairy deal in sight

What The Bullets Are Talking About

Tasting flesh,
Shattering bone
Drawing blood
Drilling sweetbreads
Going deep
Living alone

Some, of course,
Won't talk,
Preferring action.

Yes, Wednesday

Air is still
on the platform
and there is a heck of a lot
of freshly-washed hair smell
OK

Moon is just waning

And in the traincar
there's a girl
with the millennial endless
personal-dream-up-ahead look in her eyes
like in airline commercials

but hers is real-seeming
honest-to-goodness.

In the black window
there I am
inspectin' myself
with lifted skeptical brow

Could I affect such a look?
Or does it have to come naturally?

I can make it happen behind my eyelids
with my breath for sure
hard to show it to the world without thinking.

Ummmmmmmmmm

Whole different kind
of woman hunkers down
facing me

Talking to somebody
behind a free daily
some body inside or by way of
headset
cord-mounted microphone
furrows in the brow
conspiratorial mumbling
emanating from the backpage
Ford Motor Co. Ad
employee pricing for good

Lady
End call
Lower paper
Flip to
Sudoku

Mmmmmmmmmm

Ah yes, there's the lake
Opposite window side
Gonna try
To gaze vaguely into the personal dream
A way out there

The Ultimate Souvenir

(Or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation and Got What I Had All Along):

After we'd had to pull out of our camping jaunt at Bon Echo (36 hrs in), but before our toddler son's stomach flu became rather prolonged and worrisome (4 days), I allowed myself an indulgent thought:

Beyond the disappointment the family felt at having to suspend a vacation in the forest, in awe of Mazinaw Rock, I felt sadness and panic on a totally selfish level. I needed this time 'nearly-off-the-grid', in the presence of nature.

Most of my existence the rest of the year is full of deep engagement with the chatter of voices, the movement of data, the mediated experience. The time of the trains, the arrival and departure of deadlines, the formation and pursuit of goals.

Each camping season I eagerly soaked up some wondrous sight that transformed me and sustained me throughout the months of walking briskly on concrete and pecking with all speed at the keyboard. What would I do without it? All I had, really, was the glory of setting up camp and then tearing it down.

Before too long, sustained concern over the aforementioned stomach flu would eradicate all of this frivolous regret. But before it did, I was able to discover something as durable as any hour spent in contemplation of a natural wonder: the breath.

I've been paying more attention to the breath ever since my 30s brought me various mortal anxieties and existential challenges. I've spent hours with it in prayer and meditation. But I'd never understood it to be on par with any kind of sublime experience. Chalk it up to human nature: every now and then we like to try to see how the cart works when it's in front of the horse.

The breath is a remarkable mechanism, always doing its work and always willing to anchor us in the present moment. In that way, it is always magnificent. But the breath has an even better hand than that: without it, no other experience, sublime or mundane, is possible. It holds all the cards!

The breath. It's good. And I've got it right here, as I turn to my work.

McLuhan's Cake

Last night, on the occasion of Marshall McLuhan's 100th birthday, I had the exciting/daunting honour of addressing a gathering of family and admirers of his, arranged by the McLuhan Legacy Network.

It was quite a time! Some highlights:

Michael McLuhan gave an intimate talk about his father which included some amazing family photos. He also shared his feelings about the various McLuhan biographies: he was particularly perplexed/vexed by Douglas Coupland's recent Penguin volume, expressed some admiration for Philip Marchand's bio, and reserved the highest praise for W. Terence Gordon's 'Escape Into Understanding', which I will read asap.

He then introduced his older brother Eric, who he described as the only living person who really knows the answers to the multitude of questions the world may have about Marshall McLuhan's work.

Eric was presented with a surprise award for stewardship of his father's legacy, and he, in turn, presented John Ralston Saul with the inaugural Gutenberg Galaxy Award.

John Ralston Saul's speech was wide-ranging, fascinating, and a bit controversial, if my conversations with folks afterward were any indication. He made sure to defend Douglas Coupland a couple of times (after all, it was a book he commissioned), and took some (thrilling!) potshots at business schools...but I was a little distracted, because I had to follow him.

In the end, it went well I think. My new haircut helped bolster the old confidence.

Here's what I said:

*****

Good evening, everyone.

For the past decade, I've been a broadcast professional, though I'd prefer to call myself a (radio) amateur.
My current gig at the CBC is Director and Writer at Q with Jian Ghomeshi, which is ostensibly a radio show...but one that has quickly become a rather popular multi-platform concern.

And though I love radio, there are millions of people who have enjoyed our show without any way of receiving our FM signal.

That was unheard of when I got my first job 10 years ago.

I became a member of the McLuhan Legacy Network completely by chance, when I returned a voicemail message from someone on the committee who was searching for archival material.
It was the first I had heard of the centenary, and on that phone call, my brain and my tongue simultaneously said, 'I'd like to help with that'.

With that tiny explosion, I re-established a connection with one of the most important, most inspiring voices I'd ever heard.

Since then, I've worked to encourage the CBC - my employer - to ensure that Marshall McLuhan would have a presence on our airwaves and in our building this summer.

And I think I did OK. I know I did my best. As a stay at home father of three for the past few months, I've lived the dream of working remotely on this project...

...just the way Prof. McLuhan said I would. Using this mobile machine.

And it's thrilling to be 're-embodied' with everyone at the events this week...and in this room tonight.
All by chance, and maybe by synapse.

My introduction to Marshall McLuhan can also be attributed to chance, that flinty, yet elusive character.
It was December 1996. I was in Kingston Ontario, wrapping up a Bachelor of Arts at Queen's University.

And I was trapped in an academic vortex. I was supposed to have found myself by now. But I had no idea where I was.

I worked at the campus radio station and I did well in creative writing, but you couldn't major in either of those.

I realize now, that 15 years ago, the people who were really in the know were into ...computers.

But my own personal device was a restored 1940s Remington portable typewriter - love that infinite battery life and built-in printer!

...and my favourite haunts were record shops and bookstores.

And it was in one of these haunts of mine that I found a book like no other.

The Medium is the Massage.

It was my way 'in', and it was a tantalizing beginning.

Pow! Here's why you love radio!

Wham! Here's why you love books!

Feelin' a little...out of sorts? Could be that 'all at once-ness...!'

Here's why you might occasionally get the distinct impression that we're all going to hell in a handbasket - except we're not, really...or, not right away...

I'm paraphrasing, can you tell?

And...as long as you're working to achieve understanding, nothing is inevitable.

Those things you don't dig?
Don't poo-poo them, don't ignore them, don't deride them...get inside them, look for the buttons!
The...buttons!

For the first time, I could see the water I was swimming in.

And once you see it, you don't un-see it. Though you do forget from time to time.

Marshall McLuhan's wisdom was portable, accessible, and it lacked the academic strictures under which I had laboured - OK, occasionally laboured - for the previous four years.

And though I eventually joined the CBC, I could just as easily have become a teacher.

McLuhan's work didn't necessarily drive me into the media business - it did much more.
It woke me up to what was really happening, and helped me understand why it made me feel the way it did.

And from then on, I could occasionally glance away from the rearview mirror, and down the road ahead.
I'm now a father of three children under the age of 8...just a guy who takes the train to work...and home again.

And my relationship to Marshall McLuhan's work is only deepening as I realize that I have no idea how immersive my children's worlds will be as they grow up.

But I know I'll do all I can to make sure they can see the water they're swimming in.
I'm confident.

Because, you see, I've packed up some probes in my old kit bag.

And I'm grateful for the life of Marshall McLuhan.

Thank you.

Brand New Starts Ain't Just For Day 1s

Sure, day 1s and Mondays are fine times to get it together and try again...

...So are early mornins, before you speak a single word.

New Year's Day is a fine time for it too.

And Labour Day's like a new year's day. You can start over or buckle down on a big thing.

But our muscles are always ready for pullin, as surely on a Tuesday as on Monday. As surely in the middle of the afternoon as first thing in the morn.

A shower can help clean the slate, but a mere breath, a loosening grip can do the same.

Everything can change now. For as long as you can roll with it.

The mistakes are supposed to happen.

Cuz renewal is glorious. Nobody should be spared.

Begin fresh again as many times as you can between right now and whenever it's all done.

As many times as you can in a day, on a walk, as you enter, and when you leave.

@BanffNP's Wildlife Cameras: What is the Meaning of This? (I Ask, Nicely, in a Totally Non-Confrontational Way)

This past week, thanks to the Twitter, I came across this new video montage created by Parks Canada...

...It's a time-lapse video of a year in the life of one of their (relatively new) wildlife cameras, set up throughout Banff National Park, and tended now and then by the rangers.

I love it, right down to the well-chosen Creative Commons Soundtrack.

Not only is it compelling, fly-on-a-tree-trunk viewing for the nature lover (ahem), but it's a fascinating glimpse at the possible applications of 'watching' wild animals in this way.

Granted, it's kind of ominous, too. Urban/suburban/semi-rural humans are already under surveillance 24/7...and we now extend the honour to the animals? There's ecological value to the surveillance project, though...and park rangers hardly conjure suspicious feelings in me, so, OK.

Plus, Parks Canada refers to it as a 'privileged view', which is rather poetic, I reckon.

But it put me in mind, as so many things do, of something Marshall McLuhan said.  It was during a TV debate with Norman Mailer that I reviewed prior to including it in a program of public screenings celebrating the centenary of his birth this month at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto.  With the launch of Earth-orbiting satellites, McLuhan said:

'The planet is no longer nature. It's no longer the external world. It's now the content of an artwork. Nature has ceased to exist.'

(By the way...this part of the debate is also transcribed, to different ends, in Jeet Heer's recent, invigorating article in the Walrus, too: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2011.07-media-divine-inspiration/1/)

Yes, yes...the content of an artwork, in this case, one courtesy of Parks Canada, with the intention of fascinating us, giving us the 'courage' to sit in complete safety before our screens, while a predatory cat saunters by in the dead of night, eyes ablaze.

Engaging us in the notion of nature, employing a language (surveillance), and an editing style that even the most citified soul can find a way into.

Would we stream a live feed of one of these b&w cameras in hopes of spotting a moose by chance? Not likely. It wouldn't come close to conjuring the sensory experience of the real thing.

It's in the midst of the voyeuristic excitement of watching a montage of wild things be wild that I realize - yes, something has been lost: The idea of that place where a tree falls, and there is nobody around to hear it.

But it's already happened, it was underway decades ago...and it's still... happening. Satellites swarming; cameras in the trees.

It's a privileged view.

A Reply, to Mr. Lube's Mr. Lube Club News

Dear Mr. Lube (Hwy 7 branch),

Gosh, thanks for the email and the offer of $100 worth of coupons to be awarded to me upon my next visit. That was a nice start to the day!

But I must tell you, my initial euphoria gave way to a memory of the last time I pulled into bay 1 at your fine garage for an oil change.

Oh yes, I recall with fondness the free copy of the Toronto Star, and the coffee-machine-cup-of-coffee (nice whitener!), as well as the fluid top-ups, tire pressure check, the door-hinge lube, and balloon for the agitated youngster. Such conveniences!

It is for this reason that I have returned, time and again, to Mr. Lube. I am a complex, harried, hairy, busy, occasionally confused and angry person who is just trying to keep things simple, and you help me do that by just letting me drive up and drain my bad old oil out while I sit in self-satisfied comfort. It is a beautiful world.

However, may I be so bold as to suggest that in the interests of the Business Plan, you also have been doing one hell of a job of undoing all that joy, that serenity, that fresh-lubed glow you so lovingly drizzle over me?

Witness:

I am informed, mid-change, by my Mr. Lube Attendant, A____, that the front and rear differential need some love, to the tune of - let's round it up - $160. And not only that, the Belt needs servicing, yes it does. That's $102., installed.

All good, and thank you, A____! Thank you very much! Print that up for a brother, and I'll run it by my wife!

But all of a sudden, there is no time to think! Wha--? I'm just about to crack the sports section, and the child is nodding off...

...surely this is no time for the hard sell, only it comes, A____ falling just short of the greatest apocalypse narratives of our time, describing what will happen if I don't get that all done NOW, and besides, they've got the front and rear diff open already down in the pit.

Nothing I say, no kindly resistance, will satisfy A____. I stick to my guns, and he says, 'it's your funeral', though not in so many words.

And so, Mr. Lube braintrust, well, hey, look at the whole picture here, the yin and the yang, the blue mountain and the white cloud. Forest/trees?

The coffee is cold. The boy cries. Why not shelve the hard sell, let me know what could use a doin', hand me the printout, and quit gettin' in the way of the sublime experience you've engineered? Might do this ol'world of ours one heck of a lot of good.

Maybe go all the way to serenity, and throw in a scented candle, for free.

Worry not, though -- I will return, oh yes. For the coupons.

Sincerely

S. Foley

Tania Will Be Right With You For Your Cleaning: A Reverie.

At first glance in the dentist's lounge, it appears some parasitic worm is catching a ride in the suede of my left shoe and, after a good round involuntary shudder, I wonder what piece of meat it could have crawled out of. Or what - pardon me, but - what orifice?

Ah, OK, it is, in fact, a dessicated rice noodle, from...last night?

Yes, last night, we all gathered, we made a meal.

Some of us made the meal. Some of us chatted with the elders and the guests. Some of us begged the children to stop running, keep the voices just a titch below a dull roar.

Some of us were tipsy, some chilly, those of us in the kitchen, sweaty, swigging, snacking. Serving. Eating last. Proud to watch the feast.

Happy, deeply happy at the silence of children putting food where the noise came from and satisfying their hunger.

While eating last - on my very second forkful, in fact - there was something, something that had to be fetched. From the car. Outside in the cold wind. Now.
I forget what it was. Diapers?

I strained to suppress a grumble, and just up and walked outside, bowl in hand, fork to mouth, step, step, eating and walking into the dark dinnerhour silence, into the sound of no engines running, smell of other kitchens exhausting, bending of all ears to the gusts, walking across the lawn with my meal, treating it like a trophy with Bonus Edible Filling, like what else could all the great Bowls and Cups and Plates and Jugs ever have been for?

Stopping for a few mouthfuls in the frost beneath the trees while this is considered.

Plus a couple bites utterly devoid of thought.

When you eat, just eat.

Just stand there in the dusting of snow, back to the wind, and eat.

And, retrieving whatever it was, diapers I think, or wipes, or stiff diapers and frozen wipes, from the car. Balancing dinner, and the smell of baby powder-infused, waste-catching paper/plastic, all the way back to teeming house and hot heart of hearth.

Satisfied.

Ah yes.

Wake up.

Video loop of fancy dental implants reprises its repulsive Before shots.

One foot brushes another and this worm of sweet memory is cast aside, upon the carpet of a waiting room. I am most certainly a grateful man, with clean blue suede uppers. And a sub-gingeval scraping just ahead.

Summer Dreamz '07

Davy, Davy Crockett

If Wikipedia and I are not mistaken, Sunday marked the 175th anniversary of the end of the Battle of The Alamo, and the deaths of Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and others, of course.

I don't recall ever watching the Disneyfied Davy Crockett programs, or reading much about him. I didn't know what he did for a living; didn't even know until a couple of days ago that he was at the Alamo. I only knew that he was somehow mythical. And I'm not sure how I learned that. Soaked it up somewhere, probably.

He was a pioneer, explorer, storyteller, and politician, and the mythmaking certainly didn't begin with Walt Disney's TV movies in the 1950s. It could have been in full swing during his lifetime, for all I know. But they were at it a while, that's for sure.

While checking out the Wikipedia entry for the man, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_crockett, I learned he was the subject of some entertaining almanacs over the years. They spun tales of his prowess and taste for adventure, and most interestingly, included some speeches he may (or more likely, may not have) delivered in Congress. Here's a bit I lifted from the wiki entry:

"In one word I'm a screamer, and have got the roughest racking horse, the prettiest sister, the surest rifle and the ugliest dog in the district. I'm a leetle the savagest crittur you ever did see. My father can whip any man in Kentucky, and I can lick my father. I can outspeak any man on this floor, and give him two hours start. I can run faster, dive deeper, stay longer under, and come out drier, than any chap this side the big Swamp. I can outlook a panther and outstare a flash of lightning, tote a steamboat on my back and play at rough and tumble with a lion, and an occasional kick from a zebra."

And there's more, oh yes...much more. Go have a look!

True or not, stuff like that reminds me that the classic hip-hop boast has roots that run deep into every era and culture on the globe.

It also makes me long for some genuine entertainment in politics; for a character who could deliver, fearlessly, a stump speech that riotous and ridiculous. The man or woman who does just that gets my vote next time - their sheer courage would stand them in good stead at the helm.

Booze Jenga

Right now Rachel, the children and I are living with my folks. Hiding out, but awaiting new lodging. Which should be ready in a couple of months.

And maybe it's just the combined effect of four adults, or the combined effect of four somewhat encumbered adults or the combined effect of four somewhat encumbered adults letting themselves off the hook at the end of every day, but household production of empty containers that used to hold beer, wine, and/or spirits is going strong, seemingly impervious to storm activity in the economy.

These containers fill a bin under the sink, and when the bin is full, we all take turns balancing more containers on top. It's Booze Jenga, the Jenga of Booze, and finally, when something tumbles and clanks, well, it's time to ferry the empties to the garage, where there's a whole other Booze Jenga, a cache of truth in the form of glass and aluminium shells.

In the absence of bad behaviour or knock'em down, drag'em out fights, it's really a heavy moment. Looking upon The Empties. In their emptiness. Collecting, definitely not organizing, or doing anything else, along the wall of the garage. For some reason one is not reminded of glorious cocktails, grape-enhanced meals, or the effervescent relief of a glass of barley and hops. One is merely shown HOW MUCH.

It's sobering, if only because one senses that things are not about to change anytime soon. And beyond the garage, in the great wide world, there's an illogical argument for the perpetuation of the whole works: a handful of cash, for the emptiness, and then more beauti-full containers, seductive, unconsumed product, impossibly unconnected in our minds to the sad sight they'll become.

Bagz o' Tall Cans Smellin'.

Overpacked, Bulgin' Boxes o' Big Bottles, Clinkin' So Eagerly.

Cases o' Beer Emptees, With The One Brokin One Missin' and Some Other Emptee Rammed In Place.

And Evidence Of Mouse Partyin'.

Muzakal Wisdom of the 1-Yr-Old

I took the boy to Cora's for breakfast, after a rather difficult school drop-off mawnin'. Usually, it's the sisters having a hard time of it, but today, it was the lad, usually pliable enough as I put him in the snowsuit and then the car seat, who stiffened and protested with an indignation that signalled whole new parts of the brain had just come online.

And rather than eat, he mostly wrecked the joint, eating crayons and spiking food, and wanting to handle an open cup of juice HIMSELF, and as I wolfed down the food I'd bought for us both, I thought, well, I still look like kind of a progressive Dad-dude, right? Even layered with ransacked booth and dirty parka and inner strata that included the hollandaise-daubed shirt I slept in. Right?

Why, sure, and anyway, wait, that's not supposed to matter. Yeah man, I'm not defined by what others think of me, nice matronly server, scowling arm-bandage lady, despondent skipping stoned highschoolers. Food-sending-back family.

Yeah.

When unhelpful thoughts depart, I find some form of enlightened experience occurs, with magical immediacy.

And literally, the second I stop freaking on every half-grape the young man salivates upon, half-chews and discards, I am given to realize he has an intriguing musical taste, demonstrated by his uncanny, locked-in bopping to select numbers emanating throughout the joint, between ads and pithy deejay observations, on BOOM 97.3.

Oh, he's broken it down before, mainly to the carefully curated custom selections at home.

But presented with Toronto's Greatest Hits, he points me to the true cream.

Witness:

The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car / Trooper: no reaction. Almost as though nothing is on. Maybe the vacuum...without the excitement of having one to chase.

The Logical Song / Supertramp: a middling curiosity, and then concerted grooving to that middle part, with the keyboard and sax. Then, back to mere curiosity and his dry cup of O's. The existential yearning of the chorus moves him not one bit.

My Girl / Chilliwack: Just digs the beginning part, with the gone-gone-gone a capella caveman rumblings. Then he agitates for a knife.

Out of Touch / Hall and Oates: I'm shocked. The vocal gymnastics, wordplay, glockenspiel, even? Nothin' doin'. I'm singing along as I shore things up a bit in the now-slovenly booth and await the bill, but he's just watching me. Can one-year olds do disapproval yet?

Hold Me Now / Thompson Twins: this is, unmistakeably, and mysteriously, The One. He is utterly delighted by everything in the song, including, possibly, the lyrical content, at least of the chorus.

The Twins, calling out across three decades through a hairstyle and a hit or two, have his full attention. He kicks, moves his torso with an abandon reserved for Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and squeals with delight at the backing vocals.

I'm tempted to buy the song, why the hell not? Put it lovingly on his own li'l playlist, begin chronicling the serendipitous hot traxx of his early life.

...give the young man something I never ...had...wist, wist...

The Home Show ad. This is the moment; the moment to pack him into the coat, leave the detritus in the booth with the tip, and tie him down in the car for his own safety.

Gone gone gone, it's almost naptime, almost time for me to hold him now.

Look!

Just hang on now! Nothing has been decided! Or - maybe someone decided something but that ain't it. Hang on, hang on, look! Look above the trees, get out from behind the windshield and inhale possibility!

Ahhhhhhhyeah.