Porch Perching

I saw something odd while walking to the gym, yesterday. Several elderly women were walking around carrying long ladders. Other senior citizens stood on the sidewalk gossiping and laughing. Up on top of a porch was a young woman in hiphuggers. She was crouched down on the peaked roof close to the wall of the house.

I paused and looked at her. She bent further into her crouch, and her arse smiled at me from the confines of her pants. "I'm scared," she said.

The women continued setting the ladders up to the porch roof. They seemed to have matters well in hand, so I kept walking.

I have no idea how the young woman got up there. If she'd come out through one of the windows, why couldn't she get back in that way? And if she were suicidal, surely there were better perches from which to fling herself. She was barely one story up. Maybe she was dumb and trying to break into the house the hard way.

It remains a mystery.

Screamers, Art, and Naked Qigong

How can such small children make such big sounds? The neighbours' kids are on a tear again. Sometimes, they like to practice screaming. They really don't need the practice, though. They're very skilled.

They're also very good at wailing, which happens whenever one of them trips over a discarded toy.

Biological clock be damned, these kids remind me that I never want children of my own.

I just got off the phone with Rod Marquart of Freaky Scene and Drums and Machines fame. He wants to get together with me to do some more performance art, but I don't think it will be happening for maybe even another year. We're not booked at this year's Halifax Experimental Music Festival (I have a big performance that same night in Moncton), but he'd like to go for it next year. We shall see. I'd be game to do it, but only if we could get a good time slot. The last show, we were on late, and much of the audience had wandered off by the time we were on. I'd love a prime slot, if that were at all possible. It would make travelling all that way seem more worthwhile.

I modelled again today, this time to a smaller class. Frosh flu is still making the rounds, and two of the five students who normally draw me were off sick. Energy levels were low all around, so the instructor came up with a novel idea. She suggested we all do some qigong to rejuvenate our chi. Now, I happen to think the whole chi thing works well as a metaphor, but as an actual discernable thing, I think it's a load of malarkey. Still, I figured I'd go along with the movements just to see what they were. So I did naked qigong in the midst of a studio of clothed people. This seems downright odd to me, and maybe to you, too.

The movements reminded me a little of the opening forms of the long Wu-style t'ai chi chu'an set. I wonder if there is a martial application to what we were doing. One of the students claimed she felt like she could win a running race, but another said she felt sleepy. As for me, I felt the same as before....

Two-thirds of the way through the class, the instructor suggested we go to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. If you're in Fredericton, you really should go check the Glenn Priestly exhibit out. His paintings and drawings are both creepy and funny. He's into realism, yet something about the perspective makes the images about as surreal as me doing naked qigong.

I also checked out the Britannica exhibit. One whole wall is essentially nothing but paintings of naked ladies. I am especially fond of the one called Juliette. She gazes out with a devious and smug expression as if to say, "Oopsie! I had no idea he was married." On another wall is an enormous painting of wolves tearing apart a large stag. At first, I thought it was a painting of the Great Flood. The grass looks like waves, a rainbow is in the background, and the wolves and stag look like they are panicking in the water. Even after I figured out there was no water, the painting was still unsettling in a watery way. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but in any case, it isn't a terribly cheery painting.

Right now, I'm getting myself psyched to go to kung fu class. No, I won't be doing it naked.