Thursday, October 30, 2008

Frustratinagatin'

On the iPod: Pelican, Australasia

Despite the title of this post, things are going good overall here in Saskatoon. I am just becoming quite aware of the politics at work and with the Health Region as a whole. I am making it a policy to try and stay out of it as much as possible - the overwhelming majority of it has nothing to do with me anyway. Where workplace politics is hitting home is with one of the people training me. He dislikes our superiors and has been reticent to train me as he is reticent to do anything they ask him to do. He isn't the bad a guy actually, but it is bit like being a little kid who is caught in the middle of a spat between his resentful older brother and their parents who expect the older brother to take some responsibility for the youngest member of the family. I won't say more, but that is just one thing I am quickly getting tired of. I have been jacked around a fair amount on the job front most of my adult life for no particular reasons and I am getting sick of it. If I get jacked out of this job because of someone's personal and childish vendetta - I am not going to take it well at all.
As for school, we are moving on from Lithography into Serigraphy. (Silk Screening) Lithography is a frustrating process since what you draw on the plate may not be exactly what comes out on the paper. I've only just scratched the surface of the possibilities with this medium, but I will be happy to be moving on.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

A post of Generalities (and Genitalia)

On the iPod: Mastodon, Leviathan

Since my friend Del Klassen dropped in last weekend on his way to Halfax, Nova Scotia I have been much more excited about my Printmaking class. It was good to talk "shop" with him as Del always has something worthwhile to contribute in the area of the Arts.
Today I am working on a lithographic plate and am just taking a break while a series of washes I have set up take time to dry. I drew a sketch of a photo of Piet Mondrian's studio in 1926. Took a few liberties and was tempted to push the abstraction further but decided against it. Working on a sketch of my living room for the next print as well. When lithographs are printed the image is reversed, kind of like a mirror image. Mondrian's studio is coming out as a reverse image from the initial sketch and the photo, but I am drawing my living room in reverse so I can see it as it is.
Last night one of the senior students had a show at the university's gallery. On a technical level, the artist is quite good, but as for his subject matter... let us just that even Albrecht Dürer - who is known for his many self-portraits - wasn't that big of a narcissist. His portraits were all of himself and his naked body. I was told he only ever paints himself. There was a show before him that was pushing boundaries between portraits of children and a series of soft sculptures that examined tried to look at early childhood and sexuality. I am not really that offended or shocked (mildly uncomfortable, perhaps) but disappointed.
There are so many aspects of human experience to explore, yet the past 20 years plus have largely been stuck focusing on one. If sex is the one aspect of human experience that defines you then you truly have my pity - you are incomplete as a person. But people go on about how brave it is, how daring, how the artist is pushing boundaries. *Yawn* Next?
Self-possessed people are really quite dull. What makes Dürer worthwhile is that he did actually move beyond himself to create some interesting worl. Even then, at least Dürer has the distinction for being among the first of the openly self-absorbed artists in art history. And I will say that there is depth to Dürer's work that forces you to really examine what he is trying to portray and say with his work. The portrait's in last night's show - and I may have missed the mark - said little about the man painting and drawing them other than that he finds himself to be quite fascinating and beautiful. (including his rectum and especially his penis) Oh well, I showed up a scarfed down the free booze. Feel free to do the same at my show a few years down the road.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Ach...

I have been quite busy these days and blogging has fallen by the wayside. Some of it has to do with me not making to the Library here at the UofS to do it. Long days at work with some tough situations. I have been warned off about blogging about my job, even as non-specific as I have been. So the takes from the autopsy suite are at an end. Mostly.
I have to get down to the Print Shop and work on a lithograph. We should be starting serigraphy (silk screening) this week and I am looking forward to it. One thing I have noticed this week is that my iPod's shuffle function looooves Fugazi. True I have three albums on there, but then it is packed with material from other bands. However, the iPod just loves Fugazi. (oh, here we go with a Fugazi track now) It also gravitates to Isis and DJ Shadow. Good taste.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Thrust Forward into the 21st Century!!!

Currently on the iPod: The 77's, Underworld, Hot Hot Heat, Super Furry Animals and Holy Fuck

My friend J has done me a very turn. It was something I was thinking about doing for myself come Christmas time, but more likely next year sometime. My discman, only two years old, is beginning to fail in some basic ways so it is with great joy that I announce the arrival of an iPod into my life. I might be wrong about this, but J bought a Mac laptop for his wife Geo and it came with an iPod Nano. J has stated that this particular iPod is superfluous to a couple who already have iPods bigger and better, thus it is mine. I am grateful.
BTW, I had intended to see Hayden tomorrow but have realised that it coincides with my class so I have to pass up the show.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Politics and other Observations

CD in Play: Air, The Virgin Suicides. The Jam, Sound Affects

Politics

There are many reasons why I am not voting in this election, the major one being I just don't like any of the leaders enough to vote for them. I really want the option to register my disgust and my total disapproval by being allowed to the option of a vote of non-confidence on the ballot. I have said as much before, but I feel the need to reiterate the sentiment. I don't like any of the major parties or their leaders and I do not feel I should have to swallow hard on my disgust and vote for the least offensive party.
Spoiled ballots are observed but conveniently ignored. Protest votes are similarly disregarded, though sometimes to the detriment of the parties in power. (such as former MP Deborah Grey and the emerging Reform Party back in 1989) To make a person's vote truly mean anything, there must be an option for people to state that they have lost or are losing confidence in the electoral system in this country, that the winners in any election definitely lack the consent of a certain percentage of the public. Leaders need a clear indicator just how much of a mandate that they have been handed by the voting public. Spoiled ballots and protest votes won't disappear, but I think they will be significantly lessened. I also think strategic voting would see a decline and voter turn out might actually be higher if the disillusioned portion of the electorate were given this option.
This all said, God help Canada should Stephen Harper and his New Conservatives win a majority in this election. I am tempted to vote for one reason: The MP for my area is a misogynist, a bigot and a complete idiot, who is incapable of understanding when a person is disagreeing with them.

Observations
Work Related Rating: Normal (Sort of)

It is an odd moment when one catches oneself making the statement, "We just received a shipment of brains." (We have Parkinson's and Alzheimer's studies taking place)

Intestines sometimes inflate with the gases that build inside the body after death and look like an assortment of balloon animals trying to escape from the zoo.

Lab Techs trying to figure out how to or what will push my buttons have learned that I can more easily gross them out than they can me. Although, I have since discovered on my own that rennets (used in cheese making) are not the part of the cow that I thought they were.

Mennonites who accuse recent immigrants of ethnic block voting are usually hypocrites.

Nothing will get your father to see a doctor about his blood pressure faster than telling him that a high percentage of the heart attacks happen to men happen when they are taking a dump. My Dad's heart is great shape apparently.

20 year old girls discussing their mortgages is just plain wrong.

On my last cheque I only made about $145.00 more in two weeks than I did in my old job back in BC, which paid $4.69 less an hour. I have been encouraged to take the matter up with human resources, who like to err on the side of taxation overkill.

Beet tops are incredible as a main vegetable.

Naga peppers are as hot as they say and then some. Yeeeeoooow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!