Nothin Doin

Doing nothing is so fulfilling! My internet is not working properly, hence the enforced blog vacation. I've tried everything to get it back up and running, but to no avail. Next week, I've hired a witch doctor to exocise my laptop. He claims it is possessed of evil spirits and needs a thourough cleansing. I'm willing to try anything at this point.

If anyone knows why on earth my wireless is connected, but neither Firefox nor Explorer is able to load pages, please let me know. (Not that I'll be able to check up very often).

Still Vacationing

When I say I'm still vacationing, I mean just that: I'm sitting perfectly still for two or three weeks, thinking about what to do with Reality Sketch. Thus, I have no time to actually post anything new on this blog.

Return to Reality Sketch

Ok, so I wasn't really possessed by the spirit of an extra terrestrial space being. But it's nice to dream, isn't it? I seem to have run out of ideas for the New Reality Sketch, for time being. Maybe I'll take a summer vacation from the ol' keyboard. How boring is that? Then again, what did you expect for free?

The Polish Hall

My first week in this humanoid body has been very interesting. The other day, I found myself at a meeting place called "Polish Hall" were I was witness to a most amazing spectacle. A great many Earthlings were congregated, sitting at long tables and drinking fluids out of glass bottles. They were paying close attention to the words of a series of speakers whom I can only assume were some manner of prophets or soothsayers. Their words, however, caused the listeners such discomfort that they would emit strange guttural cries at regular intervals, slapping the wooden tables in agony and taking great swigs from their drinks to assuage the pain.

I must admit, I felt somewhat lost in the midst of these strange proceedings, but I ordered a beverage for myself and tried to make as much sense of my surroundings as possible. The "stage" area of the hall was flanked by two large, winged creatures, reminiscent of the great Ormitz Flame Falcons that guard the royal throne of Amalon IV the Seldom Just. I felt certain that it was these fierce guardians that prevented the gathered crowd from storming the stage and pummelling the soothsayers, so violent were the convulsions the prophets' words effected on the audience.

Then my ears perked up. One of the prophets had mentioned something about time travel. I strained my language processors to comprehend his speech.

The man was pacing the stage, microphone in hand. Here's what I could make out of what he said:

"I built a time machine, but instead of going into the future, I accidentally ended up going back to a time before I had built the machine...so I had to start all over again."

There was a pause while the audience writhed in agony. Then the prophet added a final thought: "At least I knew where to get parts."

So, a time machine! I had underestimated the metaphysical advances of this species. The new information brought back painful memories of my own exile from the Underground Time Travel Parking Facilities of Moboz$-7. Oh how I had enjoyed my post as Supreme Parking Overlord. Of course, time machine parking came with its own set of unique challenges. How many times had patrons come to my office having forgotten not just where they parked their time machine, but when they parked it! But I wouldn't have changed it for anything. Until CobuZan, the Dance Lizard King, destroyed everything. But mark my words; I will be vindicated!

I took further stock of my immediate surroundings. To one side of the stage, an image of a pale woman with a regal bearing looked as though she watched the proceedings with detached amusement. Having downed the whole of my beverage, I decided to indulge my curiosity. Waiting for the intermission between two of the prophet's speeches, I turned to person sitting next to me, a male near the middle of the Earthling life-cycle.

"I say," I said. "Who is that woman in the painting beside the stage?"

The fellow squinted in the direction indicated, then took a brief look at me and answered, "Looks like the Queen to me."

"You mean the Supreme Monarch!"

"Yer could put it that way." The man took a swig of his beverage, finishing it, and looked for the serving maid to order another.

I left it at that, though the man's answer raised even more questions in my mind, such as, if that were the Supreme Monarch, where were her tentacles? Where the royal jelly receptacles? What a strange planet I have found myself on where the Queen keeps all the symbols of her power hidden, and the soothsayers torment their followers using great winged beasts as their bodyguards! Clearly I have much to learn about this world.

Greetings Earthlings

The humanoid author of this electronic communication format has summoned the cosmic entity Zeno of Aa-kro-n'n. I have wandered the vast interstellar wastes for several thousand of your Earth cycles, an exile from my native dimension where my eternal rule of the Moboz$ Time Machine Parking Facility was interrupted by the machinations of the nefarious CobuZan the Lizard Dance King, who has turned my domain into a giant reptilian discotheque.

Since my being deposed, I have been forced to roam the inter-galactic wilderness as a quantum particle beam, beholding many wondrous and mind-bending phenomena, yet unable to document my travels or make any contact with my allies in the Parking Enforcement Legions of Dimension X.

The use of my name by this Earth creature has allowed my aimlessly drifting, disembodied energy signature to take form in this soft tissue vessel, wherein I will take my enjoyment of the planet you Earthlings call home, and plot a means to return to my native realm to regain my rightful rule of the Moboz$ Parking Facility.

Though the means at my disposal are crude by pan-dimensional standards, I will also attempt to enlighten the fleshy humanoids of this sphere by recreating and recounting aspects of my interstellar journeying. Remember Moboz$!

Zeno?

I needed a handle, and I wanted to use one of the Greek philosophers. I didn't want to use one of the Big Guns, mind you, like Plato or Aristotle, so I looked to the hardcore, oldschool, pre-Socratic dudes like Thales or Anaxagoras. Parmenides and Heraclitus are my favourites, but the names just didn't flow.



Zeno was the logical choice: short and cool sounding, it contains the words "zen" and "eno", giving it a kind of meditational ambient angle.

Zeno of Elea is best known for a famous paradox. He argued that movement of any kind is impossible, reasoning that in order to get from point A to point B, one must first pass the mid-way point, C. But, in order to get from A to C, one must first pass the AC mid-way point D, and so on, to infinity.



Basically, Zeno's paradox can be seen as never getting to where you're going due to infinite interruptions. Dissections, detours, digressions...why fight it? The name just sort of stuck.

The Time has Come....

The inaugural, paper edition of Reality Sketch hits the stands tomorrow (available at better Steeltown art supply shops), a mere two months late. The project was beset with hindrances from the start. First off, my printer refuses to acknowledge my print cartridge; in short, it's busted. So I couldn't include the micro essay "Who Owns the View?" on page 5 as I had originally intended. Never fear, it will appear in these digital pages just as soon as I get around to writing it.

The biggest blockage, however, involved indecision over which cover to use. Here is the original version:

This scene unfolded almost exactly as pictured. A graffiti artist had tagged all the parking metres on Ronscevalles Ave. in Toronto with this odd choice of moniker (not that I should talk) and I felt compelled to capture the moment that hazard had so weirdly constellated.

I decided, in the end, to use a cover that tied in to the comic book embedded in the 'zine, wherein the protagonist gets kicked out of a local mall for sketching the infrastructure.

There are plenty of other sketches and commentaries that space restrictions and formatting would not permit inclusion in the 'zine version of Reality Sketch issue 1. Thanks to the magic of the internet, these are available here for anyone interested or bored enough to investigate.

Liuna Station

Liuna Station would be a great skate spot, were it not for the vigilant security guards. One winter night when I was feeling restless, I started jogging up and down the stairs pictured here. It wasn't four minutes before the guard pulled up in his car and asked me to stop.

The Fakie Airwalk

This sketch is based on the cover of the Februaruy 2007 issue of SLAP magazine. It depicts the pro skater Louie Barletta demonstrating a trick which, in the magazine interview, he claims to have invented: the fakie airwalk.

Now, Mr. Barletta is a radical skater, and way more capable and daring than yours truly. But I've been doing backwards, or "fakie" airwalks for at least three years. Sure, I never do them down sets of stairs, as Barletta does in the picture, but I just want to set the record straight.


I half suspect, even though I've never seen video of him doing one, that Rodney Mullen was the first to do a fakie airwalk, just as he invented so many other crazy tricks.

Who Let the Cat Out?

I was very nervous when I started letting my cat out. I live down town, and I wasn't sure he'd be able to find his way off the roof and back. But he more than managed...he's now a very happy kitty and comes and goes as he pleases.

I like to write down my dreams. When I find dreams that I have written down from years gone past, they often make no sense. The memory of them and the "tone feeling" is gone. Sometimes I think that drawing them would be somehow more constructive.