Photos of Ireland

I was doing a search of my surname and found this good site. There are some photos of ancient stone circles as well as the countryside.
Tullylease Church c 654 AD
Headstones inside the church remain. Most are broken, have eroded and are illegible, but one Noonan headstone was dated 1752.

Irish Style Ale

If anyone likes to make their own beer, here is a recipe for a Celtic home brew.

The "Gates" may or may not be art...

This link has plenty of shots of Christo and Jeanne-Claudes' installation in Central Park. My cousin Dwight was there with his friend Dick Greener last weekend. The photos are great, reminds me of Toronto's High Park without the orange parade.

Funky Grooves

I was at She Said Books on Roncesvalles last weekend. They have a great selection of new and used Art books, as well as new and used cds. I was looking for some funky bass masters in the Jazz section when I also found this:

I've been listening to it since! Isaak Hayes pretty much turned Soul into Funk during the early Seventies on the Stax record label. He won a Grammy for his theme to Shaft, a television series soundtrack released in 1971. Can you dig it?

Lion Dancers At School

As part of the Chinese New Year celebrations, Jinping Han of the Parent Council arranged for these costumed dancers to perform at my school. You can see me smiling along with all of the children in this picture.

A Bass Deal!

Finally I went and purchased a bass. It seems like years since I owned one. So I grabbed an Epiphone Accu-Bass(Gibson Guitars) that was on sale at Long and McQuade's Nationwide inventory blowout sale. I couldn't resist stopping in at the Ossington and Bloor location. It's a classic style bass with a split humbucking pickup, maple/alder body, maple neck, and chrome hardware. This model has been discontinued, so I got a very sweet deal and they threw in some free picks, ha, ha. The great thing is that it was a rental guitar, so although technically used it has minimal wear. At half the retail price I'll be practicing riffs with this for a while.

Ong namo dev guru namo

I went to my first Yoga class on Thursday evening at the SH Armstrong Community Centre. The 5 lesson introductory Kundalini course is free and is being taught by Lorrie Parrott. My first lesson was actually the course's second lesson which focused upon straightening/strengthening the spine. First you tune in to your breathing and posture by chanting the above mantra. Next: a few warm ups followed by the spinal exercises, of which I remember Cat Cow, then cool down and finish with relaxation meditation. I found it encouraging to exercise with a group and felt very good about the level of exercises, the results were attainable and effects seem to be lasting for a few days... recommended.

Busting Sunday

My friend Claude and I were having a coffee and muffin(cranberry/bran) at the Country Time Coffee place out there at Keele and Dupont on Sunday afternoon. Heading out of the busy place we noticed several Police cars pulling up and half a dozen Constables approaching with their hands on their holsters. I said " Something's going on we should stand out of the way". The Officer motions for Claude to move over to the side of the door turning him to face the glass and tells him "put your hands up on the window". No sooner was he getting the pat down when the simular protocall is applied to me from the other cop. "What are you looking for?" Claude nervously asked. No reply, the Cops order us to stay put and gradually reveal that they are searching for weapons and amunition as there was a call from inside claiming a suspect of our generic profile(white, dark leather jacket and baseball cap)...

Magnetawan Bend Madness

Magnetawan Bend has been a recurring theme in my work. This 1994 acrylic work examines the notion of place in memory.
The windows of my Toronto room are replaced with the image of the Near North landscape; featuring Magnetawan Bend. Note how the image is mirrored in the glass of the book cabinet. Also my guitar is in a backpack(an object in a place). Seeing this painting stirs up some good time memories of where fellow painters and I went landscape sketching.

Mozambique tree of life ?

"The meaning of the tree is life," says Fiel dos Santos, one of the artists, standing in the museum's reading room. "It was difficult when we began. The terrible thing was to work with this material when you knew that it was used to kill people."

Deep Sea Life

These distinct creatures probably represent the remnants of a deep-dwelling group that was able to adapt to the high pressures, the researchers suggest in reporting the find. Their discovery is reported in this week's issue of the journal Science.

Ah Choo

"A small number of individuals will benefit from a non-Fel-d1-producing cat," says Mumneh. "I would never recommend people with severe asthma to have any cat." Brodie says he plans to screen prospective buyers for their level of Fel d1 sensitivity to determine whether they would have bad reaction to one of Allerca's engineered cats.