December 29th, 2008

The Open Door

Happy almost new year!

I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday.

I spent mine out of the city, up in the Valley in Wolfville. I’d lived there for four years and returning for the holidays was wonderful. I spent it with my ex-girlfriend and dear friend, Ariell and her family.

I think I’ll be moving back to that odd little town in a few months time. My days of isolation in the city are coming to an end. –It was a necessary time of solitude, to work and think and research. While I love community and friends and all of that wonderful stuff, the writer in me also thrives on being alone. I didn’t feel lonely at all, even though I’d spend days on end without talking to another living soul. I have done this in the past and it always leads to excellent things creatively; it’s a sort of gestation period for stories. Thieves & Kings came from many days like this on my own, thinking and planning and sketching away. From the Summer of 2007 until now, it has been a very good period, but lately I’ve been noticing a sedentary feeling beginning to creep into my life; the sort of slowing down which threatens to become unhealthy. I’d begun to call it, “Mental Rot”. I fiddled about with the idea of changing something, but nothing really came of it. But on Christmas Eve, the message came home to me loudly.

The story goes like this. . .

The day before my bus was scheduled to leave town, I was spending my last hour doing some writing, my bags were packed and sitting by the door, ready to go. Then I heard an awful sound. Outside my little apartment I heard some terrible groans. I couldn’t understand them. It was either somebody being sick or making love in a very noisy and not very attractive way. It went on for ten minutes or so and then stopped. “That’s the city,” I thought. And forgot about it, getting back to whatever I was doing.

Then forty minutes later, the clock was telling me, “Get a move on, mister! You don’t want to miss the last bus!” So I threw on my coat, picked up my bags, did a last minute check and walked out the door.

Odd. The door just down the hall from mine was standing open with several bags of groceries sitting just outside it, as though somebody had put them down while fumbling for keys and had forgotten about them. The apartment beyond was dark, and something felt wrong. I was feeling the press of time, and knew I only had a few minutes to catch the local city bus which would take me down to the big bus station, but I decided to investigate.

I put my stuff down and knocked on the open door.

“Hello? Is everything all right in there?”

No answer.

I stood at the door, but didn’t want to walk into somebody else’s apartment.

“Hello? Is anybody there? Are you okay?”

Nothing.

I considered looking for the building super, but time was tight, and I wasn’t even sure if the super would be around on Christmas Eve. There were noises of parties going on behind several other doors. I thought, “Perhaps whoever lives here met some friends, and got side tracked. You never know. He might come back any minute.”

But that didn’t feel right. I remembered the awful groaning noises and a vision of somebody curled up in the washroom flashed across my vision. But I paused, seconds ticking away, and I knew this was one of ‘those moments’ where you had to risk screwing up your own plans to get involved in somebody else’s. I’d already missed yesterday’s bus because I’d been behind schedule and had to wait the extra day. This was my very last chance to get out of the city in time, or I’d miss Christmas.

So I made a deal with myself.

“When I get to the bus station, I’ll call the building manager and let him know to look in on this apartment. That should be enough. That will only be in ten minutes. I have to run right now!”

So I did, and my bus arrived just as I stepped to the curb. Another few seconds and I would have been stranded. I rode the bus in a bit of a fluster, thinking, “Gosh, I hope whoever that person is, is alright! I hope I’m not screwing this up! Drive faster, Mrs. Bus Driver!”

We got the station and I plunked a quarter into the pay phone and called the operator. (Our building is unlisted for some reason.) She told me she couldn’t connect me. I explained the situation, but she said, “Sorry. I don’t have a listing I can give out. If you think it’s serious, why don’t you call the police?”

Hm. I had already built a scenario in my mind where whoever it was had stopped off for drinks on the way home from the grocery store and had come home and passed out after being sick. He’d wake up in a few hours feeling hung over and silly. People in Halifax are pretty hard-core drinkers. The cops would probably not be impressed with my calling about something like that, but I decided to finish what I’d started. “Yes. That’s a good idea,” I told the operator. “Can you connect me?”

She did, and the phone clicked over to another line. But all I got was a busy signal at the police station. Outside, my bus was getting ready to go.

I waffled a bit and then rationalized it all to myself. “Yeah. Probably just had too much to drink. I have to go!”

And so I went.

I spent several days up in the Valley, and Ariell drove me home yesterday in her fancy new car. Everything was right with the world. The next morning, (today), I awoke to the sound of movers working outside my door. I stuck my head out to see what was up, and sure enough, the apartment just down the hall from me had been emptied out. Nothing was left but a few odd bits and pieces, and those little indentations in the carpet where bed posts had once stood. There was a lone worker cleaning things up.

“What happened?” I asked him, already knowing, feeling sick my belly. He put down his wash rag and sighed deeply.

“The guy who lived here died,” he said simply.

Damn.

Apparently the fellow had died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve. He’d been 65 years old, and I guess the walk through the city and the three story stair well had been that last straw for his heart. He was probably dead by the time I’d knocked on his door. It had just been his time. But it left me feeling angsty and thoughtful.

In the year and a half I’ve lived in this building, I’d never met the man. Didn’t know his name. The apartment he’d been living in was very small; just a bachelor, much like mine. He’d died alone in the washroom, and I’d heard it all happen and I’d known exactly what was going on but had ignored my instincts.

While I was in the valley, a woman I know, the proprietor of the Indian restaurant was at the same Christmas party I’d spent the evening at. (A very friendly affair, with kids running around, and several people from town enjoying dinner and silly party games. I played, “Twister” for the first time with a bunch of my friends old and young, while lovely people laughed and grinned.) V.J. told me, “I heard you were thinking of moving back to the Valley. I have a perfect room for you in my house! It’s a whole studio apartment on the top floor. Very big. Very warm. I could rent it to you for a very reasonable amount. I’d be very happy to have you living with us!”

I went around to look at it, and it’s an old house, but dry and free of mold. On my very favorite street in the whole town. Summer street. –When I first moved to Wolfville back in 2003, I remember walking along Summer street thinking, “Oh boy! I love this street! There’s lots of students living here. It’s so alive! There are so many trees and flowers and so much life!” –It was then that I’d first formed the idea for Stardrop; a girl from far away moving to a small town to live and work and have adventures. Ashelle was born on that street. And now I was being offered a chance to live there in a big attic studio apartment in the very heart of a bustling town filled with amazing people. My days of solitude would be very much over.

Still, I was hesitant, of course. I don’t like moving, and I am very comfortable in Halifax. But alone, and disconnected, feeing myself beginning to pass from a healthy state of reflection and isolation and into the doldrums of decay which come when a time in life has passed from what it was meant to be and into a rut. But still. . , I was comfortable.

Then, looking around the dead man’s apartment, seeing how similar it was to my own, thinking of how he had died on his own, disconnected without friends or family.

That cut it.

I’m moving.

I give my four months notice on January 1st, and a new chapter of my life will begin! I hope it is fruitful and bright and that it will allow me to bring even better work to the world.

–I am sorry to bring you a downer story like this, but moments like these are part of life and I think they are worth sharing.

Cheers, and love to you all! Try to do something special on New Year’s Eve, with friends or family or both. –If it is right for you, of course. But really, the important thing is to know where you are supposed to be and BE there.

-Mark Oakley
December 29th, 2008
Halifax, Nova Scotia

November 5th, 2008

Big sigh of relief

Congratulations to all my American readers on the successful wrap up of Tuesday’s election. I am sure everybody in the world wishes you all the best.

The world has been having a hard time over the last few years. Hopefully come January, things will begin to heal.

Cheers, and have a great day!

-Mark

November 3rd, 2008

Elephants and Elections

Well, here the world sits watching.

The U.S. presidency is up for grabs and everybody on the planet who is able to know, does know just how important the events over the next few days and weeks are going to be. There is so much up in the air and nothing is certain.

The predictions run the gamut, in all manner of outrageous directions. What can one do but watch in utter fascination while hoping for the best?

The thing I’m finding interesting is how the really big stakes, while largely invisible, are nonetheless quietly recognized by so many of us. The elephants in the living room have never been given so much attention, perhaps because their trunks are raised and ready to trumpet and their big elephant feet are twitching for a stampede. We all know that something is up, but there is little agreement as to the shape, size and general nature of that something. I’ve heard the most amazing declarations about the state of affairs from the most unlikely people. . .

We’ve got the Military Industrial Complex with all their schemes and massive wealth and power in play which have momentum and agendas and underground bunkers and all of that. Cameras and listening devices and chips which can be monitored from orbit; surveillance at levels never before seen and little understood. Everybody’s name is on a list somewhere. –And Bush with active military forces under his direct command on American soil, un-hindered by the now defunct Posse Comitatus. –With private Blackwater troops available to fill the left over gaps in that murky world. Not to mention the nearly ubiquitous prison camps in every American state, and in Canada too, the plans for which we saw come into the spotlight for the first time way back in the 80’s with the Oliver North hearings, and which have not ceased in expansion. My oh my!

We’ve got looming food, energy and money-system crises waiting to tumble upon us. We’ve got rocks falling out of space with increasing frequency and world temperatures spinning in peculiar directions, sun spot minimums and troubling oceanic saline levels. . . Heck, even the temperatures on nearby planets are doing odd things. . .

We’ve got the teeming Christian Right with their end of times theories, their foot soldiers filling baseball stadiums, and representatives dotted throughout the political and corporate spectrum. –Sarah Palin has declared she believes that Christ will be making a personal appearance in her lifetime. And we’ve got Israel with its own chips on the table, and Biden’s own open declaration of his being a staunch Zionist. Oy vey and holy smokes!

With the world wobbling about as it is, can anybody blame the religious for looking to their holy books? Of course not, though one is sometimes tempted to do just that. (I spent a couple of years reading those holy books, and came to the conclusion that they are largely propaganda pieces which managed to beat the odds and remain in popular print. Though, nobody asked me.)

And at the foot of it all, we have Tuesday’s pivotal election being decided through the machinations of one of the most broken vote tabulation bureaucracies on the planet, all poised on the brink of. . . what?

I recently went to a Chinese restaurant and at the end of the dinner, when I crumbled open my little cookie and pulled out my surprise message, it read, “You will always live in interesting times.” Ha ha! –The old Chinese curse in an actual Chinese fortune cookie. How about that? –Though as we went through the ritual of showing fortunes around the table, my friends only responded to my guffaws with blank stares. I discovered that the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” is not only largely unheard of in China but isn’t even particularly ancient. A cheeky Western writer apparently made it up a century or so ago, so I was the only one who found it amusing if not portentous. Who knows? Maybe I’m the only one tossing peanuts to the elephants.

But assuming I’m not the only one, that those of you reading this are similarly aware and interested, the question remains. . . What does one do? What are the answers? What will happen next? What must we make of all these darned elephants?

Easy. The answer is very simple. It always has been. . .

Keep your eyes open, think clearly and always be learning. Then do not be afraid to act on what your perceptions tell you, –and when you act, do not do so out of fear or strong emotion. Be a kind and loving person; offer yourself to friends, neighbors and strangers whenever appropriate. Learn what ‘appropriate’ means. Avoid secrecy; nobody at all is perfect, so there is no reason to fear our own flaws as we continue to work through them. Once one learns how to say ‘No’ when it is appropriate, it becomes relatively straight forward to be firm so that manipulations cannot ensnare and drain you. As it happens, a self-possessed, self-loving, kind and courageous person is a magnificent and enormously powerful thing. Be this, so that when your help is called for, you will have real energy to provide! Don’t allow politics or religion or class to divide. Nobody gets out of life alive, so you have nothing to lose at all on that front.

Be all of this. . , be open, kind, brave, giving and happy. And then. . , well, then you’ll ready to face anything. Anything at all.

It’s really that simple.

Enjoy the show.

-Mark

UPDATE, October 11th, 2008

So I woke up and re-read the latest StarDrop. (#62) When I’m all wobbly and tired as I usually am by the time a strip is completed, there are sometimes too many lateral connections firing in my brain. After sleeping, I sometimes review my posted work and realize that it doesn’t make as much sense as it did when the ink was fresh. So I changed a couple of the balloons in the current strip and uploaded the results.

This actually happens rather frequently in the first 24 hours of posting a new strip or comment. I sometimes wonder what all those who read the early editions must think of my writing!

Cheers!

————

September 27th, 2008

The Word on the Street Will Not be Televised

Hey, everybody!

By the time you read this I’ll probably either be at or have returned from Word On The Street, the big Canada-wide book festival. I’ll be doing a little talk on. . , something. Probably discussing the differences between self-publishing and professional publishing, having now experienced both.

But since you’re not at that event, (or if you went and have now returned home), then I’ve got a different treat for you!

I found another really good documentary for a Sunday afternoon: It’s called, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

This is one of those films which happened somewhat by accident. –Or perhaps it’s better to say, “by surprise”, and the results are amazing. Here’s the scoop. . .

A film crew went down to do a documentary about the controversial Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, and all the trouble he was stirring up. –He’d declared that rather than allow a small group of very wealthy people control his country’s oil wealth, he was instead going to start re-distributing that wealth, spending it on schools and social programs for the 80% of the population which had been until then living in incredibly poor conditions. Chavez earned himself a large cast of powerful enemies through this endeavor, and it was the hope of the film makers that he would make a fascinating subject for their documentary. That was their plan, anyway, and it was probably a good one, but as with all documentaries which attempt to film Life, you never quite know what you’re in for until the film is actually rolling.

The catch in this case was that in the middle of shooting their film, everything in Venezuela decided to go completely bananas. The film makers found themselves right in the thick of events as the state military, backed by a very angry elite and an implicated CIA, swept in and hauled Chavez off to a secret prison. The film crew stayed around and shot the process of government power changing hands. So. . , wow! –They were getting direct footage and interviews while the whole thing was unfolding. But then in the middle of all this, the story somehow became even more amazing.

That 80% of the population? As it happened, they were NOT pleased at all by the turn of events, and certainly not by the authoritarian crack-down which had followed. When the vast bulk of an entire city gathers in front of the governmental offices demanding the return of their president, and when one in four of them owns a gun, coup leaders can find themselves getting rather pale in the face. In the end, after some tricky and tension-filled moments, Chavez was returned to his post and everything settled down once more.

The film makers realized that they had not just witnessed, but had through sheer lucky timing, caught on film the story of a lifetime. So they cut it together and the result is linked above. It’s mind-blowingly powerful, well edited and eerily informative given the current state of the world, but not surprisingly it got little critical attention in North America, (reviled by the Neocons as Chavez happens to be). This kind of documentary doesn’t get made very often, and it’s absolutely one of the most astonishing ones I’ve ever had to wipe tears away to see properly. Be certain to watch this one. It’s dynamite.

Just thought I’d share. –Or rather, I thought I’d link to the site which makes it available, a project called, “Free Documentaries” which is exactly what the title says. –It’s not required, but if you watch a few of the many excellent films they’ve got to share, then if you throw a few dollars in their direction, I’m sure it would be appreciated.

Cheers, and have a great week!

-Mark

September 6th, 2008

Looking Away From the Tunnel

Two years ago, my girlfriend took the tip of her finger off with a chef’s knife. It was a pretty lousy day.

With her hand wrapped in a bloody cloth and the tip of her finger tucked inside a folded square of paper towel on the passenger seat of our car, she left her job at the restaurant and drove to the local hospital. –Being a stubborn and determined person, she didn’t call anybody for help, (I didn’t find out until she got back home later that evening). But it all worked out. After a quick trip through the admittance ward, the doctors took care of things. No muscle or bone had been cut, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been They were able, in fact, to use a clever new medical ‘glue’ to re-attach the end of her finger with little trouble. (I didn’t know such things were possible, but apparently, they are. How very Star Trek!)

After disinfecting the wound and gluing the tip of her finger back on, they bandaged her up and released her. A couple of weeks later, she was able to take the bandage off, and was as good as new.

Why am I recalling this little story?

Well, probably because I just finished watching, “Sicko”, Michael Moore’s film about the American health care system. I found a copy on the internet free for viewing, so if you haven’t seen it, please feel free to do so by clicking the above link. If you have seen it already. . , well, hey. It’s a fun film and it’s a Saturday afternoon. . . And it’s well worth reviewing.

The point of my story was to say, “Yeah. It’s true. The Canadian universal health care system is awesome. The out of pocket cost for Ariell’s emergency room visit and finger-tip re-attaching was zero. The service was fast and direct, and aside from the accident itself, it just wasn’t a big deal. I can’t imagine what it would have cost her had it been an American hospital.

Now, I’ve had arguments with some Americans who stop me when I tell this story; “But your taxes are higher!” –Well, actually, that’s a matter of some debate. What nobody, however, contests is the notion that when you take American taxes and add them to American health care costs, the comparison becomes completely moot. Other, similar arguments similarly fade away upon examination and my American friends are left sighing deeply. I really feel for them.

But that stuff, while they are interesting, is not the point of this post. So what is the point? War. The point is war.

It’s easy to get caught up in nonsense politics, especially these days. I’ve had a brother in Afghanistan, known people whose friends were shot down dead in front of them, and now the Bush and Cheney administration is pushing with vivid desperation for a last minute extension of hostilities in the Middle East and now Georgia. The danger of an October-surprise style strike into Iran is growing rapidly, and has reached the point where European agents have been pulled out of Iran in tense anticipation of American air strikes sometime in the very near future.

When I read stories like this, it causes me to worry for our dear old world.

Fear politics are heinous, and while their perception shaping intent is clear to many of us, it remains a sad truth that many others allow their critical thinking faculties to be stunned into silence by such tactics. –Which is, I strongly believe, the point. The news spin here in the West and the many forceful but flawed rationalizations for expanding war fronts are all so intense today, the slogans and the talking points and all of it. . , it’s very easy to lose sight of the big picture. –And that big picture is one of an entire people and the world they affect slipping ever further into an increasingly negative, miserable and truncated form of existence.

There is, however, a cure for this sort of tunnel vision. –Stop looking down the tunnel. Pull back and look at things from other perspectives so as to re-set the mind, as it were. So I thought it might be a good idea to look at Health Care, which is one of the other items on the political agenda but which seems to have gotten lost of late in the political circus act. Interestingly enough, though, when one looks at the issue of Health Care through Moore’s camera lens, I was surprised just how tightly linked it is to everything else. It becomes apparent how it is simply another part of the whole cult of fear which has locked people into ruining their own lives by following the directives of leaders who, in my opinion, do not really care at all about the people they are leading.

Also there is hatred directed against Michael Moore. –Whenever I bring up this film, the reaction I so often get, even from intelligent people who one would think should hold a different opinion, remains one of disgust and disrespect. I am fully aware of the arguments which have been made against Moore, and I even agree with some of them. But at the same time, many of those arguments seem vastly overblown. Indeed, the level of vitriol directed at Moore strikes me as so very out of proportion with the supposed faults, that it is in itself revealing.

There is a psychological condition known as, “Stockholm Syndrome”, the name of which was coined after a hostage-taking incident which happened in Stockholm, Sweden. After seven days of hell, when the machine-gun toting thugs were at last stormed by the police, the rescuers were baffled and alarmed to find hostages themselves fighting to protect their abusers. Psychologists explain this apparently natural phenomenon thusly; in situations where people are forced to live under the constant threat of death where their lives depend upon pleasing the people holding them captive, deep parts of their minds strive to love their captors in an effort to summon the same love, and thus safety, in return. Tribal thinking exerting itself in a peculiar way.

I wonder sometimes if perhaps this same effect is not evident in American society. Because, how can it be, I find myself demanding, that a people can be so adamant about voting for those who are so bald-faced in their efforts to subjugate the populace? To attack somebody like Michael Moore, who it seems really just wants the world to not suck, seems highly illogical.

Of course, I recognize that there’s more to it than that. I have met many who are filled with very genuine anger and indignation directed at everybody from terrorists to welfare mothers, and neither of those or the many other similar subjects which often drive conservative voting trends, sound like a Stockholm fear thing, but rather a basic anger thing. But anger and fear, while sometimes seeming to be very different are always, always linked at the hip. So really, (not including the mentally ill sociopathic type), in normal people, it really all does come down to fear. And that’s not so bad, because fear happens to have a cure.

Knowledge.

Knowing all the facts about a thing, the good facts, the upsetting facts, the problem and solution facts. . , when you finally have all the information clear and present in your mind, a strange and wonderful thing happens. Fear melts away into nothing. Every single time.

So I thought; “I know! I’ll post a free, legal and fast-downloading copy of Sicko. It’s full of knowledge. It’s good to melt fear.

Because I’d just as soon not have any more friends and family get shot at because of oil and politics.

-Mark

September 1st, 2008

The Circus

Okay. Political junkie that I am, I find that I am simply unable to resist commenting on some of the latest events unfolding in the two-ring circus better known as, “American politics”.

1. John McCain’s selection of veep running mate. Um. . , what the heck? Sarah Palin from up Alaska way immediately struck me as kind of high-pitched and totally non-threatening to any male ego which might hope to tread the halls of government. Compared to the self-realized personal power of Hillary Clinton, the contrast between Republican and Democratic thinking was striking. The whole maneuver made me blink. A kind of, “Yes, that’s nice dear,” brand of allowed power which fits the old American Pie model of family where the wife stays home to bake cookies and drive the kids to soccer and remains happy to let her protective dominant husband make all the big decisions. –Which will no doubt project an appealing image to many voters, but seemed to me exactly the opposite message Hillary’s supporters were generally aiming for. Whatever.

2. Barak Obama is one of the best public orators I’ve ever seen or heard, and his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention made me think wistfully about how cool it would be to vote for him. I’d have a lot more confidence in his message, however, if his running mate wasn’t an avowed Zionist, which essentially means the game of world politics fully intends to stay locked on the path of self-destruction. (I should note that I am firmly of the view that Jews and Zionists are very different things, and that Zionism is stupendously dangerous for Jews and non-Jews alike, which I suspect is the whole idea).

3. I am routinely fatigued whenever I snap out of the siren song to remember that this whole political play is a giant contrivance designed to distract everybody on the planet from the real battle at hand, (that of evolving and incubating personal sovereignty and awareness so that nobody can control you. –So that all of the knee-jerk programs which dominate virtually every aspect of our lives but which so few of us are even aware exist in our own psyches, finally dissolve away so that we can start treating each other and our world with a bit of love and respect). –That, and the division of people into various warring parties is similarly designed to waste everybody’s energy.

Paradoxically, one of the foremost engines of social control, (that of taxation), seems with increasing likelihood to be one of the major catalysts which has a chance of cutting through these social barriers and give people the impetus to unite into a mode of thought which has a chance of taking us off the infernal treadmill. (I include oil dependency under the same umbrella as taxation; the money flows exactly the same way, from the pockets of the middle and lower classes into the pockets of the same handful of very wealthy white men). But will enough people actually blink up from that siren song and move to do something about this, or is it just another one of those doomed-to-be-ignored opportunities? I don’t know.

sigh.

But then, I’ve always been a bit of an optimistic dreamer. Here’s one of my favorite summations of the American tax story, (produced by the same fellow who was fascinated enough by the American money system to produce that neat Eddie Murphy film, “Trading Places”). I know, “Summation of the American tax story” sounds about as much fun to watch as staying indoors to do math homework, but it’s actually a thoroughly riveting film.

So that’s where my head is at the moment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am about three days late in drawing the latest episode of Stardrop. (I’ve been racing to get another project finished for a local newspaper, so my drawing energy has been divided.)

Cheers!

August 14th, 2008

Cats in Canoes

Hey, everybody!

Well, I’m back from a few days out visiting with Mike White, my animator and cartoonist friend, on his marvelous lake front property. We got a fair bit of work done, (it’s very nice working in the same space as another cartoonist; the more like-minds one is around, the easier it is to remain in high spirits with regard to one’s own efforts.)

He has a little boat, a Zodiac, hard bottom with inflatable pontoons and a little outboard motor to shuck us about. He said, “Hey, Mark. Want to go for a boat ride around the lake?”

And I said, “Ugh. I fear water.” (Always have. I’ll do and try nearly anything happily enough, but I tend to halt at the shore line.)

He didn’t let up and so off we went. It was a late afternoon and the sun was getting low on the horizon.

“You want to go around that outcrop on the coast there?” he asked. “I’ve never been on that part of the lake.”

I nervously noted that the sun was maybe twenty minutes from going down and I lamely said something about not wanting to get stuck out on the water on a remote lake after dark. So we headed back, the noise of the engine numbing my ears. I thought wistfully, “You know, this would much more satisfying if we were paddling in a canoe during the daylight hours. This water stuff is actually very nice. . . If I were more out-going like some of the adventure people I know, I’d be on the phone the instant we docked looking up places to rent a canoe. . .” (I was specifically thinking of Ariell, the girl Ashelle in Stardrop is partly based on. Ariell is one of those people who makes things happen and has zero fear of anything.)

I mentioned this to Mike and he said, “What? I have a canoe!”

I lightened up immediately. “Really? Wow! It’s been forever since I was in a canoe. You have a canoe? That’s awesome! We should take it out tomorrow morning!”

So we did.

Wow. What a difference. A quiet lake and warm water. And a cat in the boat. –Mike, not one to leave anybody out, decided that it would be a good idea for Butternut, (named after the creature’s golden coat), to experience the water from a canoe. I was a bit hesitant about this, but figured, “Hey, he’s your cat. It’ll be interesting to see how he takes to boating.”

Now Butternut is a fairly remarkable animal. I’ve never in my life met a cat who was so. . , polite, I suppose is the word. Most cats think little of digging their claws into your leg or your lap or whatever when the mood strikes. Butternut has never done this. –And I spent a whole week sitting him when Mike was off in New York for one of the big comic shows. Butternut will even slide on his paws right off you and fall down rather than dig in for a better grip. Butternut is awesome.

However, even this animal’s patience and reserve fell apart when Mike tried to carry him from the dock into the canoe. The cat scrambled across the boat and climbed up my face and over the top of my head, claws in the fully armed position, in a desperate (and successful) bid to get back on dry land. Sitting in a wobbly canoe and trying to quell my own natural distaste for pretending to be anything other than a land mammal, I didn’t blame him. But we repeated the procedure three times, and I got my face climbed again before we got it right, with the result being that Butternut found himself in the middle of a rocking canoe far out from shore, flat down, fur bristling and none too pleased about it.

And so off we went. I was surprised to see that the cat quickly became comfortable with the arrangement and by the end of our little tour around the lake islands, he was leaning over the edge of the boat in fascination with the ripples. –To the point where we were actively pulling him back in. “No, dude. Don’t try to walk along the edge like that. If you fall in, you’re not going to be happy.”

When we got back ashore, the Olympic opening ceremonies were entering their final hour, so feeling fresh from our relaxing little journey we settled in to watch them. –I don’t take a great deal of interest in the games themselves, but I’ve always been a fan of the opening ceremonies and the lighting of the big torch. China put on a fine show, with that sky-runner doing his thing. –Though still my favorite were the Winter Games held right here in Canada out in Calgary back in 1988. Partly it was some of that national pride which I don’t often partake in, where we did our own version of a giant relay run with a few hundred athletes in their red and white sweat suits across every province and territory in Canada. –And when the torch entered the stadium, the runner lit the end of an arrow and an archer shot the flame up and over the stadium. I remember thinking, “Yikes! I hope that guy doesn’t miss! They’ve been running that torch all over the place for weeks now! What if. . . Oh boy! I hope he doesn’t miss!” All the fun tension one feels while watching a close contest during any of the events was contained in that moment. He didn’t miss, of course, (probably having practiced the shot a few hundred times beforehand), but when it struck true and the flame leapt up, it was. . . Well, I felt all giddy and proud and all of that silly nationalistic stuff I normally try to avoid. In a world where nationalism is so often used to ugly ends, the Olympic games are my little indulgence.

Anyway, I’m right now looking at a partly completed Stardrop episode, so I should get back to that, comics being what they are.

Cheers, and have a great day/evening!

-Mark

August 5th, 2008

So I was asked an interesting question the other day.
. .

With the jazz of Summer holidays having by now settled into a
routine, people can relax. But in one case, a Mom approached me at the Farmer’s
Market. “My kids are bored and I’ve run out of activities to suggest, and
they’re running all around me. Then I thought, ‘books!’. What a great time to
do some nice Summer reading.” She was happy to bump into me as this thought
occurred. Her kids had already read my comics, so what were my favorite books
that I might recommend? What did I enjoy when I was a kid? They were into
Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

Gee. –A dozen titles leapt to mind; books which
transformed me and influenced me in many ways. So I rattled off a few titles,
but while doing so, I felt an odd, nagging doubt. When I got home to put my
groceries away, that nagging hadn’t let up, and so I thought about it some more.
. .

A few days later, I realized what was going on.

When I was a kid, my
parents would sometimes tell me about their favorite books; My mom especially
was into Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and she gave me, “Childhood’s End” (Clarke) and
“Chocky” (Wyndham) and “The Once and Future King” (by T.H. White), all of which
left profound impressions on me. But the really great books were the ones which
were not given to me or recommended to me in any way. They were
discovered by me, which made them personal and thus very powerful in a
manner which went far beyond the book itself.

Even some of the
not-so-brilliant books which I brought home under my own steam I still truly
enjoyed and learned from because they were part of my own journey in the
world. The information inside those books seemed somehow more important and I
paid closer attention to it because I had chosen it. The freedom to
explore at will through book shops shaped me in a significant way. The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, (Adams), came to me in this manner, and in
fact, both my parents scowled at the series, which made those books all the more
powerful. I loved my parents, but knowing that I could pick a different path
and find great value in it was a very important lesson to learn.

So I’d say,
take Tyler and Richard out to hunt through a used book store with enough money
to pick out a couple of things. –I’d recommend a used book store as opposed to
one of those big generic shops for many reasons; partly because it makes a
memorable trip in and of itself, and because the dollar goes farther with
‘used’. And also in a very practical sense, there’s often an equally, if not
far more robust selection of Sci-Fi/Fantasy books in such places. –Paperbacks
don’t just vanish after they’ve been bought new; they are aged on private
shelves, and then eventually find their ways into garage sales and used book
stores. They migrate in this way by the millions, collecting in the corners of the world like
beach stones. You’ll have access to far more than just this year’s fresh
publishing catalog. Plus, a used book shop has a certain type of character;
some of them are nasty places run by sad and bitter old men whereas others are
run by Gandalf himself, either one being an adventure. My favorite used sci-fi
shop in Toronto was staffed by a host of very pretty, bookish girls,
most of whom were either published authors themselves or on the road to becoming
so. That was really cool!

Oh, right. And the library is also good. I
always seem to forget the library. Maybe that’s because libraries seem safer to
me somehow. Tidy and organized and. . , well, safe. Not much chance of an
adventure. –Not that I didn’t love my local library and visit it often when I
was a kid, and I know a number of librarians who would frown at me for
suggesting people pay for that which is freely available, but I’ve got used
bookstores on my mind at the moment so that’s what I’m writing about today. A
used bookshop is slightly scary somehow; like the underside of an old hulk with
its treasure spilled out into semi-random piles. And dis-organized is good
sometimes; Sometimes you find exactly what you need. The magic of Chance is helped along
when the power of Order is not quite so dominant.

Just some thoughts. Your kids,
if they are big readers will get around to the classics eventually, so why not
let them do some exploring on their own this Summer? A school season is enough
structure for one year! I wonder what your kids will pick out? How exciting!
I wish them well on that journey, if you end up going. And who knows? Maybe
you’ll find something, too. Moms don’t need to stop having adventures just
because they’re moms.

I don’t know if you’ll get around to reading this
little entry, but I thought I’d put it out there anyway.

Cheers!

-Mark

August 2nd, 2008
How to Knock Out Most of the Internet.

–UPDATE: Site Meter has repaired the problem after 16 hours of downtime. Their explanation was that in experimenting with new code, they didn’t notice that it interacted poorly with MS Internet Explorer.

———

Time for some fun!

Perhaps you have noticed that a large chunk of the web has gone Kaput. Perhaps you have not. –Depends on the individual, but it’s going on right now!

It’s an early, early Saturday morning, and while pondering whether or not to visit the Halifax Farmer’s Market, I thought I’d do my daily news crawl. I came across an interesting item which affected me directly. I felt so special! World News generally does just fine without me.

Here’s how it works. . .

There’s this cute little feature a lot of webmasters like to put on their pages. It’s called, Site Meter and you’ve almost certainly run across a site or two which runs it. –It’s that little counting mechanism which tells you, “### people have viewed this site since. . .” I’ve used it for a couple of years, in fact, on this site. It’s been a neat little tool to keep track of traffic around here.

Well. . , it seems that for some yet to be determined reason, Site Meter suddenly started crashing every website it was running on for anybody who happened to be browsing with Internet Explorer. (If you are a webmaster and you’re using Site Meter and you don’t have a copy of Internet Explorer handy, you can easily test to see if your site is affected by going here). People using other browsers, like FireFox or Opera are unaffected, so they can happily bop along without noticing any problem with their surfing experience.

When I found out about this, I simply yanked all the Site Meter code from the relevant pages. It’s just a few lines and it was easy enough to clip, afterwhich I started thinking again about Farmer’s Markets. Then a thought struck me. (Being in the writing biz, I’ve made a habit of focusing on all such idea-strikes. You never know when one is going to turn out of be useful!).

Here’s the thing; Internet Explorer still accounts for around 70% of all the browsers being used. And why not? Anybody using Microsoft Windows has the Internet Explorer icon right there on their desktop. It’s easy and it works. –But the result is that 70% of the internet population is now barred from seeing any page which happens to employ what is perhaps the most popular and widely-used web counter in existence.

This led to another thought: “Hm. You know, there’s a certain type of website which uses Site Meter, and that type of site generally does NOT include your typical major news site or popular web portal.” The big guys have other ways of measuring web traffic. Site Meter is used largely by webmasters who run smaller and special interest websites. The million little, tiny voices of the people, as it were.

Which in turn led to another thought. . .

“Hey! That includes pretty much ALL the websites I regularly visit!” –News junkie that I am, I tend not to bother exclusively visiting MSNBC or the BBC etc., for the latest headlines. I find those sites by themselves far too limiting, their slices of reality too thin. Instead, I like smaller news re-servers which gather up interesting headlines from all over the world, scooping items from MSNBC and the BBC as well as municipal news web pages and the blogosphere in general. Stuff from everywhere! This system is great, opening up the vast expanse of world news to the curious reader, allowing people to easily skim through the most interesting stories offered up by a few thousand news agencies in just a few minutes. Cool. –And this way of doing things seems to have evolved naturally with little muss or fuss. You don’t need special software, and you don’t even need to realize that you’re doing it.

But if you happen to be among that 70% who use Internet Explorer to travel the web, this Site Meter problem is. . , well, problematic. –It’s like going to your front door to collect your morning newspaper only to discover that the few thousand papers you normally subscribe to have been thrown in the ditch. A virtual news blackout!

So if this happens to include you, it’s a very easy fix. (Site Meter and Microsoft have not as yet fixed the problem nor have they released any comment). So instead of waiting for them to correct things, you can just pop on over to the Firefox download page and get yourself a copy of the free browser and just double-click it once it’s finished downloading. It’s small, fast, super-easy and there’s no threat to your computer whatsoever. If you don’t like it, you can uninstall it with zero trouble. Open Source projects are great that way; software made by people who just want stuff that works right and which isn’t secretly scheming to take your money. It’s really cool; Firefox has all these great features and generally serves to make the web a happier place. –And as of yesterday, it also won’t crash on all the thousands of sites currently invisible to 70% of the on-line population.

Anyway, because it happens to be both easy and entertaining, I started doing a bit more digging. Turns out Site Meter a few months back started adding cookies to people’s computers. This slows things down a little bit and allows the owner of the cookie to track your movement around the web. Basically, a distant cousin to Spyware. Lame. I’ll be doing a purge of all Site Meter code from some of the more deeply buried pages on this site and try another counter. I think Google runs one which isn’t so nosy.

Okay. So then the next thought struck me; (the one which made me sit down to write all of this). It taps the old conspiracy button which every self-respecting writer ought to have naturally installed deep in their connection-making brains. And it is this: What is going on in the world Right Now which 70% of the population currently is now less likely to learn about? Well. . , let’s take a look. This has actually been a pretty hot week for news.

For starters, we just had a big solar eclipse, though that one isn’t exactly hard to find out about. Though the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico has reached a record size this year; that’s a little less regular headline-worthy. Hmm. . . –A Palestinian video has surfaced taken of Israeli violence in Gaza which has people taking notice where the thousands of text-only stories about the on-going genocide have been largely ignored or heavily spun over the last few years. What else. . . The wave of bank-bailouts in the U.S. continues in the wake of the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac mortgage collapse. Uhh. . , U.S. border agents can, without reason or suspicion, now seize your laptop and never give it back. . .

Oh, now here’s one. . .

The 9-11 Anthrax story has re-surfaced. –Remember back around 9-11 how Islamic Terrorists were supposedly sending anthrax-laced letters to the U.S. Senate and the big news agencies? Tom Brokaw even got one, and everybody was buzzing around, putting tape and plastic on their windows in the resulting fear-fest. Silly time, and anybody who wasn’t buying the con was rolling their eyes and sighing heavily. Well it turned out that the Anthrax and fake letters from fake jihadists were actually sent by people within the U.S. Military. Anybody familiar with the notion that 9-11 was perhaps a giant con-job will be nodding away because that part is ancient history. But for the first time since 2001, the mysterious ebb and flow of the internet and human awareness is seeing the story re-visited. New things have surfaced, including a suicide and some questions about shady dealing within ABC News.

The spin-factory apparently hasn’t caught up yet. It won’t take them long, because as every good writer knows, there is NOTHING which cannot be spun or explained away to an audience willing to suspend disbelief, but it does take a bit of time to get one’s ducks in a row.

And things are rather critical at the moment. –What with the sitting U.S. administration pushing hard to open up yet another war front, this time with Iran, they cannot afford for the ducks to be waddling around instead of being lined up properly. It simply doesn’t help if the public are reminded of how they were manipulated into the first two wars. (One to re-establish Afghanistan’s multi-billion dollar Opium trade and the other to seize Iraq’s multi-billion dollar Oil reserves. Among, ahem, other things.) If one were trying to carefully massage public awareness during a critical bit of social engineering, having the ability to crash 70% of the world’s web browsers whenever they might chance across some blog or alternative news site carrying the story would be a significant advantage.

But, hey, I’m just one cartoonist thinking aloud. Don’t mind me. I’ll get back to drawing soon enough.

–But I will just cap it all off with this. . . I don’t know if it’s connected, but I do recall Bill Gates meeting with George Bush in the year following 9-11 to discuss how Microsoft could help out Homeland Security in the on-going fight against ‘terrorism’.

Okay. The Farmer’s Market is calling.

Cheers and have a great day!

-Mark

July 22nd, 2008
Mark learns how to back up a database, and ANOTHER New Book Arrives!

Okay. So the back-up thing first. True, learning how to back up your stuff is not really that impressive a feat. In fact, it’s sort of inexcusable that I’d not spent the half hour figuring it out a week ago when it would have saved my bacon. All I can say is that I thought web hosts NEVER lost data, and since the data was in their hands. . . –Still, that’s hardly a good excuse for not keeping your own copies of things, but website data bases are new and complex creatures to me, so. . . But before I try to excuse my oversight, I’d best stop here. In any case, that’s all taken care of now, and I actually feel kinda giddy and lucky about it. Goodness, I love learning new stuff, and what a great time to learn! –When it was still small and easy enough to replace! I seem to lead a charmed existence.

So anyway, guess what! -My latest New Book just arrived. And believe it or not, I am actually not talking about Thieves & Kings, Apprentices. (Which is still so new that my apartment is scattered with cardboard boxes filled with copies of it.) I’ve never had two book arrivals coincide before. It really has been feeling like Christmas morning around here for a few days running.

This particular new book is called, “The Seventh Expert”, and I didn’t publish it, (for a change). It is being brought into the world through Toronto’s premier children’s book publishing house, Annick Press. (They do all the industry-defining Robert Munsch stuff.) They’ve put together a web page, for The Seventh Expert so if you care to take a look, that’s the place to do it. You can see what it’s all about there. (They even have a little pod cast thingy where I was interviewed over the phone one afternoon. (If I sound sleepy, it’s because I was.)

Anyway, getting my copy of this new book in the mail was really cool. I’ve never worked with another illustrator before, nor gone through the official editing system used by big publishers. It was VERY different from what I normally experience, and while at times it was enormously frustrating, (I wrote and re-wrote this book more times than I can remember over a three year period!), the finished product is a sharp little success of which we are all quite proud. The game system is pretty sweet. –The senior editors really went out on a limb with this project; after years of publishing hundreds of titles, this will be their first attempt at a game book, so I’m of course hoping it does really well. Their primary customers are libraries and schools, and my Mom, who happens to work in the library at my old Jr. High School, is really excited about this. Ha ha! Isn’t that just so cool? (A couple of years ago, during my last trip to Toronto, I did a little talk at the Jr. High, and my mother was there. We were the only remaining people from my year in the whole school; all the teachers I remember had moved on, but there were two Oakleys in the building that day!)

I’m not sure what the official release date is for The Seventh Expert, but I believe it should be sometime this fall. I’m going to talk with Annick to see how available this book will be for everybody else on the planet who don’t visit children’s book shops regularly, and I might be able to offer some copies through this website, but that’s still up in the air. I did recommend that they approach Diamond Comics Distribution, but I don’t know if they followed through on that.

Anyway, it should be noted that this is a book designed to engage readers across the entire literacy spectrum, and so the editors, (I worked with three different ones over the production cycle), were adamant that I not use my normal brand of sentence structure. That is, my words often got broken down into a more easily digestible form. Not my ideal choice, but then I’ve always known that T&K has been aimed at older people and kids who were already enthusiastic readers, so I don’t really mind. I got to keep all the important aspects of story telling I wanted and half way through the process, they let us double the size of the book to fit everything in. (It was supposed to be only about 48 pages, but now it’s just under 100!). In the end, though, I think it will be the game system which endures. That was really fun to design, and holy smokes, it took a long time! Game design isn’t easy! It’s like both inventing and trying to solve a Rubic’s Cube at the same time. But when it all started to click, things began to shine. My main editor on the project, (David Wichman), played a big, big role in getting things to work smoothly in that department.

It was funny. At the outset, having been around gamers and game designers for years, (the comics world being what it is), I kept saying, “You know, play testing is a major part of this process. You guys have never had to deal with this kind of a project before. I hope you guys are ready!” I don’t think it was until late in the process, the latter half of the third year, when this truth finally hit home. The smallest detail being off can make the difference between a game which gets replayed with enthusiasm and one which gets shelved for eternity, and the only real way to deal with this is to play test the thing a million times. But David really stepped up to the plate and confessed that he’d experienced a few sleepless nights with numbers on his brain. (”Should beer brewing be 50 points or 25 points? How expensive should black powder be?”) I’d designed the general scheme and wrote the story to fit all the game elements, and worked closely with our research god, (the head of History at U of T), but the fine tuning was really dealt with by David. I don’t think most kid’s book editors get hit with that kind of task. But he ran with it and was really excited about the finished product.

So anyway. . .

That’s the latest news around here. The brand new website was destroyed and reborn from the ashes, and two new books through the door all in one week! What more can one ask for from life? Talk about adventures in publishing!

Cheers, and have a great day/evening!

-Mark