SO MUCH TO SAY . . .
. . . so little time.
So Ive assuaged my encroaching dementia by doing the traditional crazy-scientist thing: I go to the library. In the past three days, Ive read the following:
Ive also begun something that I havent done for a few years, since the last rough summer; keeping a notebook of everything that strikes me at the time - all the little things that I read or people say that seem too good or interesting to lose. Here, for example, is what I collected last night:
- ticket info for BPO's Gershwin to Bernstein concert at Artpark - July 29th
- A list of the gay bars in St Catharine's, Ont
- ". . . colleagues of mine had recently turned the popular California Raisins ad slogan of 'Eat raisins because they contain iron!' into 'Eat raisins - shit rivets." - Oscar Levant
- Gargoyle - from the french gariser - "to gargle"
- Rome's official religion (before Christianity) - Sol Invictus (literally The Invincible Sun)
- Heretic - from the latin haereticus - "choice"
- Rose - five petals relate to pentacle - female's 5 stage life cycle of birth/menstruation/motherhood/menopause/death
- Council of Nicea
- Georgia O'Keefe
- "What is history, but a fable agreed upon?" - Napoleon
- "I know it can be hard to remain professional when asked to draw snowmen made out of tits and pirates ejaculating lepruchauns . . . " - Maddox
(Obviously the bulk of last night's notes were while I was reading the Da Vinci Code)
So as such, Monday afternoon, after writing my last purgative post, I was driving around, bereft of a place to read in silence and relaxation with the hope that my headache would fade, when I found myself atop the spectator lawn behind the theatre in Artpark. It was a good vantage point to see the curves of the Niagara as it snaked into the fogged obscurity of the horizon, and catch a breeze from the mile high escarpment behind me. Has anyone else ever noticed the column that sticks straight out of the first major forested lump of Canada thats right across from the Tuesdays in Artpark stage? I decided it must be a religious symbol, or perhaps the statue of a village square (Queenston, I assumed, having never been there), or just a random and visible phallus erected solely to taunt the Americans. The truth, I realized was to become that day's mission. So I went to Canada.
Once driving along the Niagara Parkway, I found myself going through miles and miles of gorgeous scenic vistas while backtracking from the Lewiston-Queenston bridge en route to Niagara-On-The-Lake, which Ive heard is beautiful, but have never been there. I found a place to stop and then took this:
which looks back on Artpark and the bridge. Here are some more images of the Parkway:
the gorgeous houses on the parkway:
and another of the river from another scenic outlook:
Also at this scenic outlook, I turned to notice that my quarry had, in fact, magnified, and was looming directly above me, as though to protect its mystical phallic origins deep, deep in the heart of the Canadian woods that surrounded it. I knew the hunt was on!
Turning, I also found I was almost on top of Artpark, except, obviously, on the other side:
Turning again, I found what I casually referred to ordinally as "Oh look, what a remarkably kept up rape zone:"
Followed by an equally shady, and mostly hidden may I add, Staircase to Nowhere (except Possible Rape):
although in reality, it did, in fact, lead to a clearing that featured both a Cannon:
and a historical marker claiming that in this particular area, a man had died. After rape, I assumed:
Not wanting to end up like dear Lieut-Col MacDonell, I gave one last loving pat to the heavy artillery, and thence decided to blunder about in the woods anyway. Going down a mysterious path to the LEFT, I found myself descending at an increasing rate to what I hoped would be the jetty on the water that Id seen often from the other side, but instead was deposited unceremoniously in the middle of a residential intersection. A motocyclist nearly clipped me and then disappeared into the distance, waving his arm and sceaming Canadian epithets. At that point I recognized the house immediately to my left as one that Id passed earlier in my narcotic haranguings of the Candian villages and vilagers, on the porch of which was pasted the sign "Aunt Betty's." Assuming it to be a sweet shop, and Aunt Betty to be a woman of iondterminate age and pendulous bosoms, I exited the area poste-haste, back up the path, back past the big-ass rock denoting Lieut-Col MacDonell's fatal anal raid, and back to the small road-side plateau where my car had remained unmolested by the big-breasted-anally-fixated-phallus-erecting-pastry-baking Canadians. Everything in this country, I thought to myself, is so fun here!
En route, aka retracing my steps, back to the bridge, I eventually found myself at the gates of a National Park, which advertised it as being the home to "Colonel Brock" and better yet; "Brock's Monument." This sounded promising, and vaguely relevant to my mission, so I dared to enter the heartland of this foreign and unduly erotic Nation, whereupon I was immediately confronted with this:
No, sorry, thats a raging lesbian from Buffalo, being vehement in front of Jim's Steak-Out. What I was confronted with was this:
possibly the most beautifully landscaped, and certainly most fantastically located (if perilously perched) restaurant Ive ever seen; built on a rocky craig immediately below said phallus and above the swirling Niagara. which mean, of course, that the course of my mission had run aground, for when I turned, there, scraping the sky like a giant's throbbing yogurt cannon, was this:
and this:
Brock's Monument was, in fact, a historical dedication and posthumous erection to British Major General Isaac Brock. It was designed in 1853 by William Thomas, and on October 13th 1853, construction of this, the second such monument to Gen Brock, was begun. It was completed in the autumn of 1856. The tower is 184 feet (56m) tall and inside has a 235 step circular stairway to a small twelve foot diameter observation pod at the top. Many funny stories follow the Brock monument also, such as [1] at the beginning of the construction of the new monument, the remains of Gen Brock and his unfortunate counterpart, our own beloved Lieut-Col Macdonell, were disinterred from the Hamilton cemetery and reburied in a vault underneath the monument. Other hilarious episodes featurying the Brock monument include the event on April 5th 1929 when, during a heavy gale, the outstretched arm of the statue of General Brock broke off and fell to the ground below. It broke into three large pieces weighing one thousand pounds. The arm and the entire upper portion of the statue needed replacement. Scaffolding was build around the tower to the very top to allow workers to reconstruct the statue of General Brock.
Having found that my mission was over, I took another gorgeous photo from the well-situated base of the Brock monument:
turned to take my leave past the gorgeous gardens and then Resaurant that I Would Have Tried, Had I Had More Money On Me, Even Though The US Dollar Counts For More Than The Canadian Does, Which Must Be A Major Blow To Their Ego, And As Such, I Should Have Been Fed For Free, passed a veritable phlegmwagon of indignant whining wandering destructive clearly-rapist-in-training Canadian teens, and redoubled my steps down the garden path:
as I realized another mission I owed to myself, now that I was in Canada. Also, if you go back too soon, They assume you bought drugs. They know these things. And therefore I drove another 20 minutes (or kilo per hectare, as our good friends the Canadians call it, har har!), and arrived in St Catharine's, where I hit up the Largest and Most Wonderful Bookstore Ive ever been in:
bought the aforementioned book on Gay Parents, and plan to buy another fantastic book on music theory when I return Friday, that I would have bought except I didnt have enough money. Although as we all know, the American Dollar Is Stronger Than The Canadian, Despite Her Royal Highness the Official Chapters Saggy Book Wench Cahier's constant attempt to Short Change me.
Then I spent a few amusing hours after dark driving around tying to see if I could locate, simply using "gaydar," the alleged St Catharine's homosexual watering holes. Despite finding myself on a brightly lit, twinkly, very artistic part of town, Queenston St, I located no such watering hole. After another hour of taking back roads back to Niagara Falls, Ont, I returned to the American side one book the richer, not including an evening of memories. Also, the joy of having basked in the Canadian's rampant Dollar Envy, although I repaid it doubly in my Penis Envy of their enormous hillside phallus.
And as such, Im going back after work tonight, because I miss Toronto. New missions await!
So Ive assuaged my encroaching dementia by doing the traditional crazy-scientist thing: I go to the library. In the past three days, Ive read the following:
Ive also begun something that I havent done for a few years, since the last rough summer; keeping a notebook of everything that strikes me at the time - all the little things that I read or people say that seem too good or interesting to lose. Here, for example, is what I collected last night:
- ticket info for BPO's Gershwin to Bernstein concert at Artpark - July 29th
- A list of the gay bars in St Catharine's, Ont
- ". . . colleagues of mine had recently turned the popular California Raisins ad slogan of 'Eat raisins because they contain iron!' into 'Eat raisins - shit rivets." - Oscar Levant
- Gargoyle - from the french gariser - "to gargle"
- Rome's official religion (before Christianity) - Sol Invictus (literally The Invincible Sun)
- Heretic - from the latin haereticus - "choice"
- Rose - five petals relate to pentacle - female's 5 stage life cycle of birth/menstruation/motherhood/menopause/death
- Council of Nicea
- Georgia O'Keefe
- "What is history, but a fable agreed upon?" - Napoleon
- "I know it can be hard to remain professional when asked to draw snowmen made out of tits and pirates ejaculating lepruchauns . . . " - Maddox
(Obviously the bulk of last night's notes were while I was reading the Da Vinci Code)
So as such, Monday afternoon, after writing my last purgative post, I was driving around, bereft of a place to read in silence and relaxation with the hope that my headache would fade, when I found myself atop the spectator lawn behind the theatre in Artpark. It was a good vantage point to see the curves of the Niagara as it snaked into the fogged obscurity of the horizon, and catch a breeze from the mile high escarpment behind me. Has anyone else ever noticed the column that sticks straight out of the first major forested lump of Canada thats right across from the Tuesdays in Artpark stage? I decided it must be a religious symbol, or perhaps the statue of a village square (Queenston, I assumed, having never been there), or just a random and visible phallus erected solely to taunt the Americans. The truth, I realized was to become that day's mission. So I went to Canada.
Once driving along the Niagara Parkway, I found myself going through miles and miles of gorgeous scenic vistas while backtracking from the Lewiston-Queenston bridge en route to Niagara-On-The-Lake, which Ive heard is beautiful, but have never been there. I found a place to stop and then took this:
which looks back on Artpark and the bridge. Here are some more images of the Parkway:
the gorgeous houses on the parkway:
and another of the river from another scenic outlook:
Also at this scenic outlook, I turned to notice that my quarry had, in fact, magnified, and was looming directly above me, as though to protect its mystical phallic origins deep, deep in the heart of the Canadian woods that surrounded it. I knew the hunt was on!
Turning, I also found I was almost on top of Artpark, except, obviously, on the other side:
Turning again, I found what I casually referred to ordinally as "Oh look, what a remarkably kept up rape zone:"
Followed by an equally shady, and mostly hidden may I add, Staircase to Nowhere (except Possible Rape):
although in reality, it did, in fact, lead to a clearing that featured both a Cannon:
and a historical marker claiming that in this particular area, a man had died. After rape, I assumed:
Not wanting to end up like dear Lieut-Col MacDonell, I gave one last loving pat to the heavy artillery, and thence decided to blunder about in the woods anyway. Going down a mysterious path to the LEFT, I found myself descending at an increasing rate to what I hoped would be the jetty on the water that Id seen often from the other side, but instead was deposited unceremoniously in the middle of a residential intersection. A motocyclist nearly clipped me and then disappeared into the distance, waving his arm and sceaming Canadian epithets. At that point I recognized the house immediately to my left as one that Id passed earlier in my narcotic haranguings of the Candian villages and vilagers, on the porch of which was pasted the sign "Aunt Betty's." Assuming it to be a sweet shop, and Aunt Betty to be a woman of iondterminate age and pendulous bosoms, I exited the area poste-haste, back up the path, back past the big-ass rock denoting Lieut-Col MacDonell's fatal anal raid, and back to the small road-side plateau where my car had remained unmolested by the big-breasted-anally-fixated-phallus-erecting-pastry-baking Canadians. Everything in this country, I thought to myself, is so fun here!
En route, aka retracing my steps, back to the bridge, I eventually found myself at the gates of a National Park, which advertised it as being the home to "Colonel Brock" and better yet; "Brock's Monument." This sounded promising, and vaguely relevant to my mission, so I dared to enter the heartland of this foreign and unduly erotic Nation, whereupon I was immediately confronted with this:
No, sorry, thats a raging lesbian from Buffalo, being vehement in front of Jim's Steak-Out. What I was confronted with was this:
possibly the most beautifully landscaped, and certainly most fantastically located (if perilously perched) restaurant Ive ever seen; built on a rocky craig immediately below said phallus and above the swirling Niagara. which mean, of course, that the course of my mission had run aground, for when I turned, there, scraping the sky like a giant's throbbing yogurt cannon, was this:
and this:
Brock's Monument was, in fact, a historical dedication and posthumous erection to British Major General Isaac Brock. It was designed in 1853 by William Thomas, and on October 13th 1853, construction of this, the second such monument to Gen Brock, was begun. It was completed in the autumn of 1856. The tower is 184 feet (56m) tall and inside has a 235 step circular stairway to a small twelve foot diameter observation pod at the top. Many funny stories follow the Brock monument also, such as [1] at the beginning of the construction of the new monument, the remains of Gen Brock and his unfortunate counterpart, our own beloved Lieut-Col Macdonell, were disinterred from the Hamilton cemetery and reburied in a vault underneath the monument. Other hilarious episodes featurying the Brock monument include the event on April 5th 1929 when, during a heavy gale, the outstretched arm of the statue of General Brock broke off and fell to the ground below. It broke into three large pieces weighing one thousand pounds. The arm and the entire upper portion of the statue needed replacement. Scaffolding was build around the tower to the very top to allow workers to reconstruct the statue of General Brock.
Having found that my mission was over, I took another gorgeous photo from the well-situated base of the Brock monument:
turned to take my leave past the gorgeous gardens and then Resaurant that I Would Have Tried, Had I Had More Money On Me, Even Though The US Dollar Counts For More Than The Canadian Does, Which Must Be A Major Blow To Their Ego, And As Such, I Should Have Been Fed For Free, passed a veritable phlegmwagon of indignant whining wandering destructive clearly-rapist-in-training Canadian teens, and redoubled my steps down the garden path:
as I realized another mission I owed to myself, now that I was in Canada. Also, if you go back too soon, They assume you bought drugs. They know these things. And therefore I drove another 20 minutes (or kilo per hectare, as our good friends the Canadians call it, har har!), and arrived in St Catharine's, where I hit up the Largest and Most Wonderful Bookstore Ive ever been in:
bought the aforementioned book on Gay Parents, and plan to buy another fantastic book on music theory when I return Friday, that I would have bought except I didnt have enough money. Although as we all know, the American Dollar Is Stronger Than The Canadian, Despite Her Royal Highness the Official Chapters Saggy Book Wench Cahier's constant attempt to Short Change me.
Then I spent a few amusing hours after dark driving around tying to see if I could locate, simply using "gaydar," the alleged St Catharine's homosexual watering holes. Despite finding myself on a brightly lit, twinkly, very artistic part of town, Queenston St, I located no such watering hole. After another hour of taking back roads back to Niagara Falls, Ont, I returned to the American side one book the richer, not including an evening of memories. Also, the joy of having basked in the Canadian's rampant Dollar Envy, although I repaid it doubly in my Penis Envy of their enormous hillside phallus.
And as such, Im going back after work tonight, because I miss Toronto. New missions await!