Codex

zen

2009-05-11T09:27:00.001-07:00

the rocks and the water

2009-03-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Mark Knopfler, Local Hero: The Rocks and the Water.mp3

Fiction

2009-03-25T12:02:00.001-07:00

I think of the innocent lives
Of people in novels who know they'll die
But not that the novel will end. How different they are
From us. Here, the moon stares dumbly down,
Through scattered clouds, onto the sleeping town,
And the wind rounds up the fallen leaves,
And somebody—namely me—deep in his chair,
Riffles the pages left, knowing there's not
Much time for the man and woman in the rented room,
For the red light over the door, for the iris
Tossing its shadow against the wall; not much time
For the soldiers under the trees that line
The river, for the wounded being hauled away
To the cities of the interior where they will stay;
The war that raged for years will come to a close,
And so will everything else, except for a presence
Hard to define, a trace, like the scent of grass
After a night of rain or the remains of a voice
That lets us know without spelling it out
Not to despair; if the end is come, it too will pass.

— Mark Strand from New Selected Poems. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2007

Dog's Death

2009-01-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

— John Updike

digging your scene

2008-09-19T15:32:00.001-07:00

digging your scene
Originally uploaded by kvdl

true love leaves no traces

2008-09-19T15:26:00.001-07:00

true love leaves no traces
Originally uploaded by kvdl

Where the hell is matt?

2008-09-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

"Still, I feel qualified to instruct him that ..."

2008-07-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

What he said.

2050?

2008-07-08T12:00:00.001-07:00

Who do they think they're kidding? My CBC News homepage tells me that "Canada trumpets G8 vow to halve emissions by 2050" By 2050, every one of those G8 leaders will be dead. So what kind of commitment is that? What value does a promise have if nobody is around to see it kept?

Politicians are famous for making promises. End poverty, reduce carbon emissions, etc. But instead of promising something will happen in 10, 20, 30 years, how about just changing your behaviour now? Instead of saying something will happen at some distant date when you will no longer even hold office, how about making changes now?

No more promises. Behaviour needs to change and here are the changes that we are making. Today. That'd be something to trumpet.

Facebook

2008-05-29T07:06:00.001-07:00

In The Middle

2008-02-12T14:52:00.000-08:00

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window,
green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,

again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

— Barbara Crooker from Radiance. © Word Press, 2005

You're the one I want to check out

2008-02-08T11:03:00.001-08:00

These greeting cards by Kit Allen are very cute (hints of Dick Bruna I think).

I Close My Eyes

2008-02-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,
and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas,
as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow.

I do all things required of me to make me
a citizen of sterling worth.
I keep a job and come home each evening for dinner.
I arrive at the same time on the same train
to give my family a sense of order.

I obey traffic signals. I am cordial to strangers,
I answer my mail promptly.
I keep a balanced checking account.
Why can't I live forever?

— David Ignatow from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994.
© Wesleyan University Press, 1994. Reprinted with permission.

Well, that explains it

2008-01-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's Globe and Mail, an article about "the arc of happiness": turns out that, independent of circumstances such as gender, economic status, marital status, &c., most of us are at our happiness nadir in our mid-40s. The good news is that we bounce back and describe ourselves as happier in our 50s and 60s.

Possible reasons for the dip? We come face to face with our unfulfilled dreams, and admit our personal weaknesses. Reasons for the subsequent upswing? We've come to terms with our faults and are able to celebrate our strengths.

I'm Not There

2007-11-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

What looks to be a very interesting new Bob Dylan film, I'm Not There. The title comes from the elusive, ambiguous, mysterious, as yet officially unreleased Basement Tapes song, “I’m Not There (1956)”. Can’t wait to see this!

Bye bye birdie

2007-10-31T22:57:00.000-07:00

The National on CBC Television tonight aired a depressing piece about shrinking bird populations in North America. It's worth watching but it's enough to make you weep.

The God Who Loves You

2007-10-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.

Carl Dennis, from Practical Gods. © Penguin Poets, 2001.

No one belongs here more than you

2007-10-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Miranda July has fun promoting her latest book (via YouWorkForThem).

Where have all the good logos gone?

2007-10-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

The ISO50 blog (via The Canadian Design Resource) praises the 1976 Montreal Olympics symbol and rightfully bemoans the dearth of good design, referencing such recent atrocities as these. Never mind the Vancouver 2010 emblem.

Silliness

2007-09-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

But I’ll admit I'm pleased with my results:

Am-I-Dumb.com - Are you dumb?

The Sunflowers

2007-09-24T11:07:00.001-07:00

Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines

creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky

sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy

but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,

the wandering crows.
Don't be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,

which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds -
each one a new life!

hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,

is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come

and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.

— Mary Oliver

blush

2007-09-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

My Flickr friend keefer says nice things about my photography on his blog.

Flickr

2007-09-13T07:49:00.001-07:00

Helvetica: the Movie

2007-08-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

One has to wonder how a typeface could be worthy of a feature documentary. A 50th anniversary surely isn’t sufficient reason. But as has oft been quipped by typographers, Helvetica isn’t just a typeface, it's a way of life!

The film is really quite entertaining, though I’m not sure its appeal could carry over to the non-designer demographic. These debates about typefaces and ideology (modernism, post-modernism, etc.) are great fodder for graphic designers — I've engaged in them for as long as I’ve been in the business — but for some it may seems like a lot of blather about nothing.

Still, given the incredible ubiquity of Helvetica, it's worth learning why it’s as popular as it is. And, conversely, why some high profile designers hate it so. Me, I’ve always preferred Helvetica's near twin, but (to my eyes) eminently more beautifully drawn family of fonts, Univers.

You can pre-order the DVD here (I already did!). And my good friend, Eman, has done up some very cool anniversary t-shirts that you can see here.

Kindness

2007-07-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

“Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems.
© Eighth Mountain Press, 1995. Reprinted with permission.