Opening gifts (day 159)

It feels like Christmas eve pretty much every night now.  Every day there is something to look forward to.  Last night was the game, tonight was preview night at CODE Live 1.  Tomorrow is Opening Night for CODE Live.   And it goes on.  I picked up more tickets today:  for a choral evening at St-Andrews, and for the Cirque Eloize.

I wholeheartedly recommend going to see the CODE Live exhibitions.   There are three sites, CODE Live 1, 2 and 3.  CODE Live 1 is at the Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC).  CODE Live 2 is at Emily Carr.  CODE Live 3 is at the Public Library.  Some highlights from CODE Live 1:

• Vested: Don Ritter - Traverse panoramas of cultural and political sites.  Wear a vest.  Blow them up.
• Condemned Bulbes: Artificiel - Giant lightbulbs glow and buzz in a trance inducing electric space.
• 787 Cliparts: Oliver Laric - Clipart of humans doing things, going by so fast it's like a lifetime of human diversity and passions in a minute.
• Instant Places: Ian Birse, Laura Kavanaugh - Beautiful visuals of Canadian geography, processed and mixed.  A very restful and evocative piece to behold.  Made me love Canada all over again.

The space itself has been transformed for the exhibition and is quite interesting.  I loved the mural in the lounge.  I still don't know who created it.  It looks like a primordial soup of cellular organisms.

A song for this post.

T'was the day after christmas (day 120)

The strange world of being implanted into a young family continues.  Today we were all a little hungover from the sugar and chocolate rush of the day before.  Schedules were disrupted, tempers were short, and naps were needed all around.   We all recovered long enough to walk to the beach, make sand castles and watch a beautiful sunset.   One of us is now quite sick though and the rest of us are living in fear of contracting whatever it is.

Yes, it's a christmas hangover.  The upshot?  The environment is so different I feel like I've rebooted my brain.

A song for this post.

Chaos Collage (day 119)

Tickling monsters
make you run
your voice stretches
scares all who run past
freeze!
can I have another cupcake?
five more minutes?
'nightie night

A song for this post.

A collective cozy (day 106)

I feel Christmas less than I used to.  Every year it feels a little more arbitrary than the year before.  I watch the lights go up and hear the peripheral chatter about gift buying.  The cards trickle in.  The party invites beep into my inbox.   Most of it feels like someone else's concern.   Despite feeling it less, I do love this time of year.  Especially right after school ends when there is a quiet anticipation of the silence in the city on Christmas day.   For a few days there is a collective relaxing that I really appreciate.  When it's ok not to check email because we've collectively agreed that business can wait.  It's a magical time but it has nothing to do with the usual descriptors of christmas.  It's a magical time because culturally we're taking time to look around.

January 1st marks the end of the magic but the start of a slightly different direction -- sometimes subtle but always hopeful.  It's hard for me to imagine that feeling of renewal right now.  Like many people who are tied to an academic schedule, this time just before the Christmas break is frantic and a bit hazy from the accumulated exhaustion.  It's like seeing the finish line accentuates the tired but also triggers a kind of third wind.  I am curious how it will feel on January 1st.

I'm looking forward to taking some time to work on my projects and read some books.  I might even do nothing for a couple of days.  Let it snow...

A song for this post.