bed bug

as in, 'crazy as a -'
Up, Down.

i wonder if it is easier to guess why bed bugs are crazy eh? could it be being so close to all that sexual action and not getting any? do you think? if not that then what? somebody please tell me why bed bugs are exemplars of 'crazy'. Mark Twain knows the answer to this right? could there be a 'sniffed sewer gas' connection?

The Rice Show: Of All The People in All The World at the Harbourfront Centre.
piles of white rice on paper mats with some texture and titles, some implications but no editorializing, no colour, some people walking around in tan lab coats, scientists or statisticians one imagines, so instead of concrete realization you get, "right, i understand this, i've 'got' this," and away you go, except you haven't ...

ORGANIX 09, Concerts and events featuring the pipe organ, the King of Instruments. Including many events with a goodwill offering, all good until they complain about the small take and the thing goes sour & south for me.

Church of the Holy Trinity, Casavant Frères, Casavant Opus 3095. Dedication service March 22 2009.

it's always nice to have been someplace, some where, some when

addiction is obvious, later on i will get Gabor Maté's book out and find a pithy definition for y'all, Abishag should be obvious too, the connection between the two maybe not

on my way to see the insides of the Casavant organ at Trinity this morning and choked, went and bought cigarettes instead and smoked them, on the way back the street-car driver said, "how's it going," he was a black jamaican guy by the look and sound of it, and i said, "not bad," but it is shitty to feel barred from this place, by accident, by forbearance (interesting quote in the oed: "the various acts and forbearances which a man supposes to constitute the sum of his duty."), through fear, through exhaustion & languor, defiance ... because at first blush it looked like home to me



God the Holy Spirit is symbolized by fire. This window tells the story of the Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in tongues of fire, blessing them and calling them to spread the faith. The sun, moon, and stars appear to symbolize the cosmos.
God the Creator is represented by the yellow triangle, in turn representing the Holy Trinity. The blue, yellow, and purple olours represent royalty of the Divinity of God. The blue oval is a "body halo" that encircles Christ in many Medieval images. IT is shown symbolically empty, meaning God can not be fully comprehended in one image. Eucharistic grapes, bread, and blades of wheat symbolize the body and blood of Christ and His goodness to mankind through bountiful harvest.
God the Son is represented by the instruments of His Passion - the cross and crown of thorns. The tree beneath refers to ancient beliefs that the wood of the cross came from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and is meant to represent all the branches of Christianity symbolically uniting at the trunk, rooted in their belief in Jesus. The dead wood of the cross is juxtaposed with the fertility of the tree.
Gifts from God depicts the twelve gifts. Flowers are included to symbolize fertility, while the dove with the olive branch symbolizes peace. The pomegranate seeds symbolize the bounty of food and talents God bestows upon us. The green and brown tones are associated with fertility of the earth, while the blues and yellows call to images of the sky and heavens (Allen).

Gabor Maté is an irritating fellow, as i go back into his book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, looking for what i know is in the text somewhere i remember the irritation i had reading it ... even the publisher, Vintage Canada, is irritating - for some reason they use gray ink instead of black, to save money? to make a visual pun on the title? but it certainly makes the thing hard to read for a half-blind old fart like me at any rate (!), anyway, can't find what i was looking for easily, the index is next to useless, blah blah blah, but on the frontpiece is this:

What is addiction really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.
        Alice Miller, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence.

which points the way at least towards Maté's thoughts, which as i remember run along the lines of deficits, deficit of love primarily, of attention, of guidance, of compassion, of protection, of caring, in short of all those behaviours which we would lavish on our beloved children, and anyone else's children for that matter that we happen to come across, in an absolutely indescriminate manner (!)

most of us, or at least many of us, have attended baptisms and have stood up and promised, out loud, to nurture, to include in caring responsibility and fellowship, to surround with love and forgiveness, to pray for, to assist ... both parents and children, i have included only the verbs because the objects in these sentences tend to include phrases like 'christian faith', and 'admonition of the lord' and 'the way that leads to life eternal' which nobody in their right mind could make promises about ... but the verbs stand

there is a collapse of the time dimension here too eh? i see that the so called 'inner child' comes into play, and that it is not just children, and certainly not just baptised children, that i am thinking about, it is everyone at every age, in short, like Bob says:

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

so, irritating as he is, i am glad to have heard from Gabor Maté, he is giving a talk and seminar in Barrie in early July, at the 50th Annual Institute on Addiction Studies and a workshop later in the year, September, at Hollyhock up on Cortes Island, who knows, maybe (?) ... so here, let's post some pictures of him:



and anyway, he reminds me of an old friend.

1 Reis Capítulo 1		1 Kings Chapter 1
Ora, o rei Davi era já velho, de idade mui avançada; e por mais que o cobrissem de roupas não se aquecia. Disseram-lhe, pois, os seus servos: Busque-se para o rei meu senhor uma jovem donzela, que esteja perante o rei, e tenha cuidado dele; e durma no seu seio, para que o rei meu senhor se aqueça. Assim buscaram por todos os termos de Israel uma jovem formosa; e acharam Abisague, a sunamita, e a trouxeram ao rei. Era a jovem sobremaneira formosa; e cuidava do rei, e o servia; porém o rei não a conheceu.		Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.

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China bridge jumper 'gets a push', BBC, Saturday, 23 May 2009.

A man threatening to commit suicide by jumping from a Chinese bridge was approached by a passer-by who shoved him over the edge, local media say.

Lai Jiansheng, 66, said he was fed up with the desperate man's "selfish activity" which caused huge traffic jams in Guangzhou, southern China. Chen Fuchao fell 26ft (8m) on to an air cushion and is recovering in hospital, the official Xinhua news agency said. Xinhua said Mr Lai was "taken away by police", but gave no further details. The drama unfolded when Mr Chen climbed on to Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou on Thursday and threatened to jump.

'Debt worries'

He told police he wanted to kill himself because he was 2m yuan ($293,000 or £184,000) in debt following a failed construction project, the China Daily reported. Traffic around the bridge was stopped for five hours while officers tried to coax Mr Chen to safety.

Retired soldier Mr Lai at first volunteered to try to talk Mr Chen down but was turned away by police, Xinhua said. Mr Lai is said to have then broken through the police cordon, climbed to where Mr Chen sat, greeted him with a handshake - and then pushed him off the edge.

Pictures in the China Daily show him saluting to the crowd after Mr Chen fell on to the partially filled emergency air cushion.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish," the newspaper quoted Mr Lai as saying.

"Their action violates a lot of public interests. They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Mr Chen is said to have suffered spine and elbow injuries and is recovering in a Guangzhou hospital.

The bridge has gained a macabre reputation, attracting at least 12 would-be suicide jumpers since the start of April, according to the China Daily report. None of the 12 has jumped, although each has held up traffic for several hours, it said.

Down.