breach

Ooops, almost over someone's head on first run into the lake.

Happy Dominion Day

We spent some of it at/in the lake.

Armed

This wee guy with the threatening leg spikes is only a few mm across the wings. Sorry I have no patience for doing macro shots (couldn't be bothered getting the heavy, read steady, tripod or finding the flash to bath him in light) but he flew out of my flowers when I was watering them and landed on the grand green of my watering can inviting a photo shoot, so I grabbed the camera.

Pride shots coming. Hopefully in crisper focus than this.

Happy Pride!

1) The ubiquitous fag flag
2) This bee's hairdo is definitely gay --btw, a different kind of bee than the earlier photo
3) Nothin' gayer than a gay man's balcony garden -- this is the north end of my balcony.

Enjoy Pride -- if parade day can't produce hot, sunny weather then nothing may be able to save this summer!

bee

Funny, I just read that there are no native honey bees in Canada (Ontario?) all having been imported from Europe, and that there are tens of types of native non honey producing bees native to Toronto (most nearing extinction apparently in the great bee disappearance crisis) and voila this never seen by me before bright green bee robbed my balcony flowers of some pollen as I sat having lunch today.

Quality not great -- hand held the macro lens in windy conditions. Having said that, this IS a good time to point out that if you click on the photos on this site you see a larger version.

Photos, the next day

Photos by He Who is Now Landed. Here we have:
1)monster from the deep with stick
2) Wet dog and an old dog
3) Testing the water

Commentary in previous blog.

Portuguese WATER dog

Ruby, I may have mentioned, makes like Chicago abattoir meat hooks are being thunked into her spine when I bathe her, or even simply rinse her feet of the 8 pounds each of mud and gunk they can collect on even the driest of days.

So it was with some trepidation -- despite an episode twice recently where she was happily submerging most of her head in a mud hole created by a leaky sprinkler system in a park -- that we FINALLY took her to Lake Ontario to test her receptiveness to water. I also know of a Portie that hates the water; won't go near the lake no how, no way.

Ruby gave a bit of a start when a wee wave washed over her front feet -- surprised I suppose that the water was coming to her -- but then in she went and in she went even to fetch and return a stick a few times before as is usual in land locked dog parks, we ceased to exist -- certainly as someone to be obeyed.

She did not actually swim, never going that deep, but worry wort daddy wasn't ready for that yet anyway :)

The Cherry Street off leash park, which includes the lake, is wonderbar. Ruby was soon wrestling with dogs (her favourite of all things) both on sand and in the water.

A bath afterward at home means there is only about 3 pounds of fine sand everywhere. I'm thinking whatever force results in sand clinging to long haired dogs so tenaciously might work for NASA in keeping Shuttle tiles stuck where they're supposed to be.

Photos by Who Who Is Now Landed -- oh wait, there are no photos since F'n blogger doesn't work. Again, I ask: does anyone know if one is able to migrate one's files out of blogger?

Still Moving In -- if you can believe it (thus the lack of blogging or any other on line activity)

These three shots were in a Lebanese show as part of IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia).

I believe all of these shots stem from PRIDE Toronto events.

Green

There has been a paucity in regards my blogging of late and for that I beg your forgiveness. We are moving soon, I've been very busy at work, I've been walking Ruby at parks much further from home and thus taking much more time, and did I mention I'm packing for a move... In any event, not much photography has been going on. Am taking a friend's family portrait this weekend. I have one goal -- to get them something they like without my producing something that looks like ti came from Sears studios...

The photo: some green from the depths of deepest, darkest, mysterious downtown Toronto, last weekend.

Ruby Returns

I told a therapist once that the reason I got a parrot was it meant responsibility. My father's generation went to war, which brings on adulthood pretty firmly; most others have children -- another responsibility delivery mode. As it turns out I loved that bird, but it wasn't the sort of mutual relationship that made the responsibility very rewarding, for me at least.

Enter Ruby. Over the past short weeks that Ruby has been in my life, more than once I've choked up with pride or love or whatever it is in her very presence. She has so challenged me and rewarded me with her intelligence and fun that the feeling gets too big for my chest . When a young puppy makes the decision to leave a pack of dogs she's playing with simply to respond to my command to come instead to me (her boring person who just wants to leash her and take her away from the mayhem of dog spit and dust), well it's a remarkable thing about dog intelligence and loyalty...

And over the past couple of days she's actually started to walk at "heel." At 17 weeks old. And I'm not doing nearly the amount of work I need to do with her. Today a few people in the new park we tried out this morning were amazed at her responsiveness -- they all assumed she was a small, grown up dog. And that's all her, Ruby, not me. She's far more intelligent than I when it comes to being a dog. I have worked hard to get her to first sit quietly and then to say hello to approaching dogs. Problem is, hilariously, now when she sees a dog, even a block away, she'll sit immediately and ignore my commands to walk, waiting to meet the dog! Then there are ALL the times when she ignores everything and goes puppy silly.

Oh, and I learned when walking her in the Rosedale Valley yesterday that she has a taste for horse poop. Ewwww. At least she dropped it when told to. Few things funnier than when a dog spits things out.

Some photos of Ruby, of course.
1) Fleeing, joyfully, a behemoth and gentle giant.
2) Catching the butt of a fleeing terrier (who had just stolen the frisbee from a beautiful Gr. Dane)
3) Ruby looking very much the Portuguese Water Dog here
4) Off the ground in the middle of the pack

Sorry for the snapshot quality of these shots, but my mind wasn't into doing much of anything but pushing the shutter release this morning.

Holy Mother of Marriott??

Downtown Montreal

Another nighttime shot handheld thanks to high (very high) ISO with very manageable image noise -- All hail the mighty Nikon D3 sensor! :)

Commercial Might

At one time Montreal was the very seat of banking might in North America, and indeed the world. Good thing too, for if such power had been expressed architecturally in Toronto as it was in Montreal the buildings would have been knocked down or only their facades saved, I figure. A couple have survived in Toronto. Emphasis on a couple.

Can you imagine the drive to maximize shareholder return producing this sort of magnificence ever again?

Montreal at Night

Somewhere on Rue Ste-Catherine

Opera Poster on Hoarding in Montreal

I feel like this today -- went to Montreal for a conference (where I presented) and caught my first cold of the season (I smugly last week knocked on wood and suggested I'd made it through the flu/cold season intact...) Not quite bleeding from the eyes, but can't help believe it would make me feel better if I did, somehow.

Being in Montreal is also my reason for not blogging for several days.

Upon reflection I like the uncropped version better

Fly. And be free.

On the Spit, Canadas are quwonking their displeasure at my approach, impatient seagulls stand, don't float, on ice at the downwind end of an otherwise open small bay. A couple of killdeer pathetically and fraudulently present broken wings as my feet quadruple in weight as my boots bring the mud underneath with them on each step.

But most gloriously is the unwritable sound of blackbirds -- redwing and red/yellow wings. I don't know what the actual names are and don't care. The redwings, the sounds they make, that blackbird inflection and tone, and the warning ding, as if a fine crystal jar were struck with a silver hammer, it's tip covered in velvet... No matter where I am, how many times I hear these sounds, this is childhood, this is the small marsh behind my childhood home where muskrat and blackbirds and bullfrogs, measured by the size of plates -- saucer to salad to dinner -- made their home. The blackbird calling reminds of fungi so large that as a small boy I could stand on the shelves they made circling tree trunks. My oldest brothers carved their names in those fungi (don't know the fungus names either; don't care either) so that by the time I was old enough the names had stretched in size, growing with the fungus. I remember still the sense of loss when foolishly showing those fungi to "outsiders" and the next day discovering them smashed from the tree trunks.

These are the same blackbird cries of protest heard as when we would try to traverse the marsh, moving from one island of grass and cat tail roots to another. The water black with tadpoles, the air more bug than oxygen in places, crawling annoying linings of our noses and mouths.

The marsh mud, the blackest thing we'd ever see, it's smell warm, alive.

Colourless Wall

I had a request to produce the peeling paint wall shot (posted earlier) in black and white. I've somehow misplaced the Raw file of that particular shot (which is of a much better and more interesting perspective) but here is the same wall from the same day produced in b&w (a process for which I have few skills, as may be evident).

Classic

Beauty & The Beast

Architectural beauty in the shadow of one of advertising's henchmen.

Raise a, er, plastic container

Ruby, ignoring her expensive doggy toys in favour of an old plastic container...

Tibet

Let me just say that an Olympic boycott against the Beijing Games would be delicious. (Not that it is EVER going to happen in light of the economic strength of China). Certainly since both Kissinger and Trudeau put their heads up Mao's ass (on separate occasions, of course) there has been a real need for the West to treat China's political leadership in a way fitting the murderous bastards.

In any event, whether Tibet is rightfully part of China or not really is moot at the moment -- so long as the Maoist regime continues to hold grip on China, not even China should be left to the present style of government there, let alone have a sovereignty question be answered with the Spawn of Mao regime involved.

A couple of shots from a pro-Tibet (really an anti-China) rally at the Ontario Legislature on Sunday.

Bricks

A couple of walls on Queen St. East, south side between Sherbourne and Berkley streets in Toronto.

49 Is the New Old

St. Paddy's also marked the date I turned 49 years of age. I suppose if I were to keel today the obit would indicate I am IN my 50th year. I really must get back to healthy eating and some bit of an exercise regime.

A friend from Brandon (thanks, Steven) sent me a few photos in an email birthday wish. One is attached.

Here I would be less than 25, more than 21. The photo contains nice markers of my life from that period -- note the cowboy boot, as I lived in Western Canada. Note the running shorts as I was distance running then. Note the cocktail glass, as that will be gin and pink lemonade almost certainly (at a time when a bit of mix wasn't thought by me to ruin the perfectly good alcohol). Oh, and clearly my hatred of shaving and my disappointment with a weak chin came together most vigorously in some modest facial hair. Hey, it was the early '80s; memories of the Bee Gees were not distant.

Behind me is the wall of 17 Alpine Bay, the townhouse I shared with many roommates at once; all of us worked together. There are several short stories on that address, if I was still so inclined.

(There is another photo which my friend forwarded, over which I shall now ponder as to whether to share at this blog for the delight of others and embarrassment of self. We'll see.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day (tomorrow, I think)

It is advised that you please consult your local priest or other RC liturgical consultant for what is and what is not allowed around the celebration (certainly the timing) of the feast of St. Patrick, this year. Or you can screw that and just celebrate all that is Irish and as spring fresh as a shamrock.

Formal Portrait Lighting

I noticed Ruby sitting basking in what was traditional natural portrait light so thought I'd grab a photo -- plus she just survived (and that conclusion was close, indeed -- what trauma!!) her first bath here and is looking quite her best here. I'm also thinking this shot displays her half-'stache very well.

Canadian Residential Schools

The first shame I ever felt as a Canadian related to learning of (and then reading voraciously about) Canada's treatment of our own citizens (and otherwise) through the establishment of interment camps for Canadians of Japanese descent and Japanese nationals who were making Canada their home when Japan entered WWII. Simply, we collectively robbed people of their possessions (homes, businesses, property), split up families and stuck 'em in prisoner of war camps in the name of national security.

I bring that up, as a shame of wider (not greater, for shame is surely not comparative in determining depth ) scope was certainly ignored, other than some minor history text acknowledgment of the existence of Canada's system of residential schools for Native Canadians. our aboriginal peoples, until relatively recently. Simply, we dragged children (in great numbers) from their parents in order to civilize them, beat them out of their beliefs and languages, bugger them, diddle them, and kill them (in great numbers) and bury them, many in unmarked graves. Oh, we didn't forget to make them eat their own shit when they were bad (bad meant weeping for their lost families or speaking their native language) It was a nice collaborative effort too -- organized by governments; operationalized by the sadistic churches and an unimaginative bureaucracy.

The kicking and screaming and defensive nature of governments and their henchmen in this mess, Christian churches in this country, has only added to the shame as the tragedy gets more light and begins to focus on the victims not the process or fiscal implications of the nightmare. The most pathetic irony is most certainly church cries that to pay (more, or adequate) compensation will bankrupt the churches. Sounds good to me. Government should consider that to raise dollars for its paltry court ordered compensation levels it could always begin to tax the churches and apply those monies....

Anyway, these pictured protesters are at a United Church of Canada franchise at Queen & Jarvis streets on Sunday. They were asked to leave the church, they asked to speak to parishioners during the service and were refused, they left the church and the cops were called.

This is not about guilt, btw. I feel no guilt about the crimes committed against Aboriginal Canadians. I do, as a citizen of this country however, assume my responsibility in wanting and advocating for justice to be done, punishment meted out, and (real) compensation paid.

Cherubim sans shovels

John Borg

Captured here is Antinous 2 from John Borg's new works' show at O'Connor Gallery in Toronto. This is one of the strongest shows I have seen in some, some time. My love of the figurative..., well, there are glorious non-figurative works to be seen in this show -- don't miss the view of Athens or the olive grove. Or the most interesting (and beautiful) painting of the Pantheon you've seen.

John's works can be seen at this website: johnborg.com

(This might have been a better painting if it had incorporated a small mostly black puppy!)

Surrender

Ruby was shown all the photos being posted of her on this blog -- her reaction was collapse with just enough strength to raise one paw in a signal of surrender on behalf of my readers/viewers...

(Photo by He Who is Now Landed.)

New Toy Tired Theme

Yah, yah, another puppy photo -- I haven't had a moment to point the camera at anything but the pooch, so give me a break.

I had a long chat with Ruby and believe she is now convinced this rope toy is in fact my most expensive pair of sneakers...

Spin

Due to an overwhelming groundswell of support in opposition to my earlier email suggesting a self-imposed prohibition of Rube-ster photographs here, said earlier email suggestion is rescinded and herein please find more photographs of Ms. Ruby (aka Rube-ster, Ruby-Q, Ruby-ness, Rubes, Ruby-doo, Roooobeeeeeee).

Can you tell I'm in PR? I could have said all of that by pointing out the earlier blog entry was a lie.

In these shots, despite the apparent rude gesture nature of the one photo, Ruby is in the midst of her mother's favourite game, and clearly what Ruby is growing to love: chasing one's own tail.

Ruby attended her first puppy school class last night. She has already figured out the sit, stand, down commands -- but is a VERY long way from doing said commands in the absence of a treat reward.

She cried still last night, but mostly quietly enough that I drifted in and out of sleep. We are a bit tired.

Okay, I'll stop.

For reasons that stem from, just how many photographs of one puppy, marked by the dog aging by simple hours," can one take?, to the photographer has taken a memo out to self titled, "Learn Pet Photography," I will resist more Ruby shots. But, before that prohibition starts I offer these noise riddled aerial shots of the new hound.

(And, no kidding, except for the cuteness of the subject perhaps, these photographs suck!)

Warning!

That's right, I'm a man with a dog, AND a blog and camera. Pretty much the 21st C. version of the parent with a wallet, or '70s slide carousel, full of pictures of the new baby who traps you at work or the end of a dinner at their home...

In much less than 24 hours I've already been brought to a weepy stage a few times watching and interacting with Ruby. Her crying herself to sleep last night was... It is amazing the noises sadness can bring forth. More importantly the sad whining lasted maybe 15 minutes total before she went to sleep!! :) This thus avoiding in her adults the need, borne of a sleepless night, to throttle the sweet darling :) In fact, it was ME who had to wake HER up at 6 this morning! But most of the emotionally overwhelming moments are not the result of sad moments like the lonely cries last night, but just moments of pure puppy poignancy and trust.

In both photos, Ruby sleeps (she's an eyes-open sleeper; and a big dreamer -- in fact, she's herding fish off the Portuguese coast at this very moment, kicking her legs as she sleeps at my feet); one shot she's with her sheep toy -- the same toy that Ruby's mother nearly disemboweled and de-limbed during a few moments of "get mommy's spit all over the toy" incident :)

She is thus far a remarkably laid back dog, quiet in all ways -- although she did bark at Bob Rae's canvassers who came to the door; obviously has difficulty with Party jumpers...

A homecoming

I've learned already that photographing a mostly black dog with black eyes has some considerable challenges. Like capturing any details, for example :)

Ruby is home. She liked her first romp in some snow, but preferred to wait until we got inside to pee on the warm floor :)