St. Clair Mare

Walking on the concrete slabs that snap at my feet like a giant crab

I saunter past 1 shop 2 shops 3 shops no; I never stop it's always go, go, go

I keep my head still, keep my eyes glued to the sky that once spilled - red, blue - I fear for the day when the heavens will look like a purple and yellow and grey stew

The new condos pop up in the spring and lay dormant in the fall

Who knows how long I'll live here; always waiting for a call

that never comes, partially 'cause I keep my phone on airplane mode; afraid of radiation, afraid of pollution, afraid of interpersonal communication

It's just another weeknight, followed by just another workday

Then the stench of cheap cologne hits me and I realize it has to be a Friday

I know that if I stop to inhale the St. Clair stench I might be led astray

Which might look like walking into McDcs and saying "hey, can I get a 10 piece chicken McNug meal with a large fries? No drink please. And hey, no worries, I promise this won't be the start of my demise"

All the while trying not to think of the chickens, the bees, the human beings being turned into capitalistic commodities

The slaves to the torment of a bygone world; is it just me or is this dystopian fantasy masquerading as a just society?

I keep walking; I curl my lips up into a flaky half smile

The kind of smile where you try and project happiness and hopefulness

and all you get back are looks of strangeness and fearful eyes

But it's not all bad; in fact it's probably a blessing in disguise

I need to know - am I a fool or thou art a saviour?

I ask Lyra "hey, can you do me a favour?

Can you keep me safe from the monster and my reckless behaviour?"

It's not that I don't trust myself; it's just that trust is hard to come by

When all you care about is the next high and not the next goodbye

When I think of her, the voice I hear is subtle

And when I hear her voice, I don't feel like living a life that's tranquil

It was hard getting cut off from my angel; so thank you Seroquel

Thank you for not lobotomizing me

Thank you for not keeping me strapped down to the beds that smell overcleanly

Thank you for keeping me numb and angry; dull and dreamy; fat and teary

Thank you for supposedly giving me a shot at normality

Now is the time to find some distance from the trauma

Now is not the time to go home crying to my momma

Now is the time to reclaim what was lost in the all the drama

So now is probably not the time to walk on St. Clair in my pajamas

Dedicated to Chester Bennington.

©GGH 2017

Duck Haiku

The ducks prune slowly

In the dawn of dusk afloat

On a standstill lake

Beetle Brad

Possiby Osmoderma eremicola

Common Voice Project

If you've been reading my blog since the early days, you might know that one of my dreams is to become a voice actor - professional or otherwise. I've uploaded a few of my blog posts in vocal form before and thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

I've met people in my life who have told me that they're totally weirded out by hearing their recorded voices. I think the idea being that the voice which we hear resonate inside our heads is not the same as what is projected into the common world for others to hear.

I've gotten over my voice sounding weird in recordings. What I haven't gotten over is the feeling that I rarely, if ever, truly speak with my voice from the heart; meaning that I often think about my conversations with people (literally every day) and how often my voice sounds "fake".
I think it's like singing. If you practice speaking from your truth, instead of from your frontal lobe, then you eventually get better.

So anyway, I randomly stumbled upon this thing called the Common Voice Project when I opened up my browser today. It's a crowd-sourced database spearheaded by the amazing Mozilla community - the makers of Firefox no less -  and they aim to build a free repository of human voices for use in things like apps and engines.

What a great way for me to practice my voice acting! Sure, I don't get paid for it and sure, I get little to no recognition, BUT I get to instantaneously listen to my voice in real time. Plus, I also help out struggling developers and new English learners, if they happen to listen to one of the sentences I've enunciated.

I encourage you to check it out if you're bored and feel like giving a minor contribution to human technological advancement.

Social commentary, social ascension

I actually have interesting things to write about. Actually, I have WAY too many interesting things to talk about.

From philosophy to nature, from pictures of food I've prepared to reflections on the state of gender divisiveness in Toronto, is there no limit to what I can blog about? Aside from laws preventing hate speech and that kind of thing (stop! hating's bad), my limit is contained by how effectively I can translate my mind's eye onto this page.

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I'm going to copy some thoughts I wrote on a friend's Facebook status just now and call it a day. The topic is social institutions (i.e. schools and workplaces), popularity, and leadership - to be unclear.

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I disagree that social ascension is valued higher than kindness, [open-mindedness, intelligence] etc. [in our society].

I've been through various school systems and have seen positive role models (and yes, lots of bullying as well...). I would argue that because cruelty is such an intense quality, it tends to get noticed more than kindness; and both can lead to popularity.

A leader is someone who encourages others to achieve their potential through empowerment rather than through coercion. I don't think a true leader can ever be sociopathic in the strongest sense of the word.

Monstres méchants et gentils servans

C'est rare que j'écoute de la musique dubstep pendant que j'écris. Jadis, j'écoutait de la musique transe car elle ne comportait pas souvent de paroles (chose qui me dérangeait un peu), et parce que il y avait une continuation presque infinie de vagues sonore.

Maintenant, en 2017, je me retrouve à écouter Skrillex. Oké, peut-être pas grand chose - juste une chanson - mais il faut dire que la chanson (dont j'ai traduit le titre juste en haut) m'a stimulé à écrire.

Je ne suis plus de l'opinion que seule la musique transe et classique sont idéales pour être créatif en écriture. Non, je dirais plûtot que c'est l'heure de la journée qui à la plus grande influence sur mon écriture: le soir, c'est la folie qui ressort. Le matin, c'est l'obsession avec la grammaire et l'orthographe.

J'écoute encore Paramore. Ils ont un nouveau album. Je ne l'aime pas encore, mais je pense que je vais apprendre à l'aimer, comme toutes leur albums précédents.

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Quelle journée superbe! J'ai jasé avec une coolchick pendant des heures. Ça m'arrive tellement rarement dans mes vingtaines qu'il faut vraiment que j'apprécie ça. Oui, encore une fois... La gratitude. C'est tellement facile à faire! Et je le fais en répétition parce-que je suis sûr à 100% que ça améliore ma joie de vivre - les études l'on démontré. C'est de la psychologie positive, chose dans lequel je ne suis pas expert, mais dont je considère important.

Bon, avant de dégénerer dans du français incompréhensible... je vous laisse avec une photo choisie au hasard, directement de mon portable:

Greatful

It's such a good feeling to be grateful.
These days, I recognize that I am grateful for the food I eat, for the air I breathe, for the water I drink, for the music I listen to, for the flowers I see; the list goes on and on.

I'm not sure if I can really call it a feeling. It's more of a state of mind. But before I get lost in the semantics, know that none of this "grateful-ality" would be possible were it not for self-compassion.


Sure, we're taught that it's important to be nice to people, but are we ever taught to be nice to ourselves? Yes, we are sometimes, but too often this reminder occurs in yoga classes or from self-help books, places that we turn to to accomplish things.

Well, I'm sick of striving for accomplishments! Don't get me wrong: it's important to accomplish things, both for one's own sake and for society's. It's critical to accomplish things when it comes to personal health. One such goal which many can relate to (and which I've managed to do continuously for around 2 months now) is quitting sugary drinks. Namely, sodas and high-fructose juices. But now that that goal is done (I don't ever want to go back to chugging Coke), what's next?

What's next is feeling. Feeling my place in the world instead of thinking about it. Thinking about how I'm going to get in shape, thinking about how nerve-wracking it is asking that one chick out with the cool hair, thinking about how I wish I could be an anime voice-actor in Attack on Titan (which is ridiculously awesome in all senses of the word, btw); these are all good things to think about, but practically, how do I actualize?

I think gratitude can help. Instead of reaching for what I might want, I'm thankful for what I have. And from then on, no matter what happens, I know that past-me is looking out for future-me.

I'm grateful for being able to feel joy instead of pain. Although I'm kind of grateful that I can feel pain too, because it keeps me alive.

I'm grateful to Lyra for always being around even though I seldom stay in touch with her for very long. She's out there somewhere - I wonder which star by now? - and I feel all right in the knowledge that she exists, somewhere.

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Afrofest 2017 and Maker's Expo 2017 were really cool this year. Both free. I highly recommend Afrofest if you're into fantastic rhythms, delicious food, and exotic knick-knacks. I recommend Maker's Expo if you're into gadgets, science, and Nuit Blanche-esque artwork.

Cheerful, gleeful, single

Ladies, gents, and the rest:

I have the pleasure of promoting a song with vocals performed by a friend of mine! If you like 80s-style electro-pop (or you have feminist ideals), then check this one out.

Punctured

It should be as easy as plugging in a few cables here and there; buying some new hardware, but I just sit and stare

I realized for the third time today that semi-colons were the confused stepchildren of commas and full stops

So now I'm worried I'll get disused, so I'll diffuse experimental memories from my scope to keep it dope

 

I'm sick, sick, sick of words that describe other words only for the sake of describing words like verbs; like verbing a noun on the prowl

I can't even imagine that what I'm doing is foul

Hey Lyra, I need you now

Like I was saying; I want it to be easy; I want it to be; I want

Freedom for punctuation

Freedom from punctuation

Which one sounds better?

It doesn't matter

Liberty freedom respect honour talent noun noun acting playing writing feeling owning destroying recreating an anthropomorphic catalyst; incoming

No pictures. No colour. Just black and white. Just shading. It's all so drab and I'm not gonna fly a flag because a flag is to be drab and being drab gets me mad.

All I'm saying is that this white box makes me sick sometimes

NO, NO I DON'T WANT TO RHYME

I'M ALIVE

I don't want to yell either 'cause my throat's sore

Obviously this paragraph is going to end with something more.

Hey Lyra, can you tell me what that is without plugging out?

Inspiration: Demetri Martin

Darwin's Lost Paradise

I just finished watching a documentary called "Darwin's Lost Paradise". Filmed on location, it recreates Darwin's journey across the world on the HMS Beagle, one of the most famous voyages in scientific history. In my head, it rivals C.S. Lewis' fantasy novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in its scope. Except... this really happened. Almost 200 years ago.

A breathtaking journey. Alongside Captain FitzRoy and a crew of mostly young men, they travelled from England to South America, to Tierra del Fuego, onwards to the Galapagos Islands, making a stop in Sydney, Australia to finally, after half a decade, make it back to England with unparalleled tales of natural wonder.

I was struck by Darwin's strength of character. Although he eventually published (arguably) the most famous scientific treatise of all time, his personal moral struggle against the church & monotheism took a toll on him. He lived to his 70s - mostly in ill-health - but nonetheless wrote and endlessly observed the natural realm. The painful death of his 10-year old daughter Annie marked him greatly, and he devoted himself to his work to cope with the suffering.

I believe there is refuge from suffering in the natural realm. Too often we end up closed up in boxes of grey matter; of concrete and brain cells. Darwin arduously tried to show the world that we are not above nature; that we are part of the "coral of life" and that we all have a common ancestor, somewhere in time.

What a beautiful story. Definitely one of my favourite documentaries now.

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Here's a picture I took in Enora, ON over the weekend. It's a cute, touristy town about an hour's drive west of Toronto. There's a zipline nearby, but I calculated that it costs almost 3 dollars a second soooooo I didn't think it was worth it.

Birdwatching

SO I was going to start this blog post saying something like: "Well I didn't actually do any birdwatching" but then I realized that I actually did do some birdwatching: I saw some crows yesterday and some sparrows, too. And I watched them. But the real reason why I titled this post "birdwatching is because I saw a movie called Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) at the reference library and it was a good time!

I don't do spoilers; suffice to say, it's because I think part of the movie experience is (obviously) discovering something new and usually unexpected. And this movie had some great mix of real and fantasy, though it's mostly grounded in a New York Broadway setting.

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I finally got some Lights on my new phone! No, not literal pixels; the artist! The more I listen to her, the more I realize how much I miss listening to her music.

Right now, Frame and Focus is on my mind (from her second studio album, Siberia).

I'm the scene and this blog is the director.