Unexpected comic book find

While my parents were moving, they uncovered a box of my comics and magazines that I've not seen since sometime in the 80s. I had either forgotten about these, or assumed them to have been sold at a garage sale long ago. They included my Plop comics with their brilliant Basil Wolverton covers as well as Captain Canuck, a variety of horror comics from the mid 70s, and a couple of Freak Brothers underground comics I probably bought at Adelphe's around 81 or 82.
Beneath the comics were even more wonders; Vampirella magazines, a solid run of "Fantastic Films" and my year subscription to Dragon. 

Backblog 6

Special Filmpool meeting for 5 hours this afternoon to focus on strategic plan. While long, it was one of the more productive sessions.
When I got home, Margaret and William had finished their r&r time and were now struggling with his homework. William created a very cool drawing which responds to Inuit printmaking styles.
After supper, we connected with George and moved shelves and deck furniture from mom's house to ours. To our surprise, George wanted the old frig we were trying to get rid of. It was the Frigidaire that my grandma gave to mom when they got married.
Got home to find William had accidentally driven his office chair over his drawing after having completed his written analysis of it. Big tear but we taped it. 

Backblog 5

All day moving my parent's stuff, trying to find boxes for the nearly endless things that houses tend to hold. Got everything except dad's reading lamp, which I felt very bad about when he asked about it at the end of the evening (cable won't be connected for another week, so what is there to do?). We lunched at the Mercury. 

Backblog 4

Mom and Dad's movers came to take all the big stuff from the house today. I showed up there at 9 am to take apart her computer and tv before heading to work. At the office, I had hoped that more of my students would be developing film (I only had two in the darkroom this week). It did give me time to comb through more old stuff where I found the mini-comic project I gave to my Film 200 students in the first couple of years I was teaching here. One by Lowell Dean caught my eye calle "The Adventures of Satan and Darryl" about him and a friend making a no-budget, improvised, structure-less film on one boring Saturday when he was younger.

Lowell Dean mini-comic

Mom's phone is now disconnected at the house but we later found that it was not working at the condo. Unable to reach anyone, Margaret, William, and I drove to the condo to drop off the computer. On Albert Street, I hit some sort of bump and blew out one of the new tires and had to wait for a tow truck. We eventually ate at Five Guys. Once I connected to family, we moved another load of stuff. Rather exhausted.

Margaret's birthday

I found a few books for Margaret during my trip and managed to bake a lemon cheesecake this morning after dropping William off at school.
In the afternoon, I helped my parents transfer all of their utilities to their new condo.
Later, when we picked him up from school, we went back to the university for the opening of Sharon Eisbrenner's exhibition at the club. Beautiful watercolours of flowers and plants; a really large and impressive show.
William played Happy Birthday on the piano when George, Gertrud, Fred, and Paul were over having cake. We capped off the evening by attending the final showing of "Doctor Cabbie" at the Rainbow. The concept, as we saw in the trailer, was stretched into a feature with few new surprises. Amusing but disappointing. 

Backblog 2

Kallie is back in town. Met with her along with Carmen and Robert to discuss term plans and afterwards she and I met to talk about creative and pragmatic stuff in her studio. Faculty meeting followed. Lots of discussion with guest regarding university communications. I think these will be briefer this year, but time will tell. Was at Kevin's tonight but probably won't connect on weeknights from now on. Sundays will work better.

Backlog of blogs (backblog?) 1

So I don't want to sound like a teenage, so I won't go into a rant about the purpose-less of everything. However, I have been feeling quite a bit of  ambivalence towards all creative activity this week, including, but not limited to, this blog. While I am writing this a week after the date it will show for its publication, no one has mentioned the dearth of posting since then. However, some discussion at the Filmpool meeting yesterday did support the idea of my blog, among others, as a positive support on the Filmpool activities.

I also hope to continue this blog as an extension of my memory. As such, I'm not really sure what happened on this day, as I am writing my entry six days in the future. I know that I taught my Film 201 class and that begins the misalignment of my Monday?Tuesday sequence due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We talked about a variety of editing and transition issues. and shot a bit of video outside, seeking graphic matches. I met with Geremy before class to review what he covered with them last week while I was away. They enjoyed drawing on film.
This evening we went to the Combat Improv. Colby called on William (by name) at one point to tell the group how long after the apocalypse the three minute improv would take place. He thought for a moment and said "negative three minutes" which is a great answer. 

Thanksgiving at Gerda and Richards

Thanksgiving dinner at Gerda's. In an unusual twist, with Mom in the middle of moving, she didn't suggest any event, nor did my sister. This made Gerda's the only festivity of the weekend. Only person beyond those I've known a while was a friend of Kattie's who has taken a Filmpool course and is interested in filmmaking and has not yet gone to university. We had a good chat over desert (he came late and is not in this picture). . 

Car reaches 200,000

Our 13.4 year old car reached 200,000 km today. I was out helping mom move and by the time I got home it was 199,999. I got everyone in for a family ride around the neighbourhood and we turned it over.

Science Centre day 2

We continued presenting the camera obscura this weekend at the Science Centre. There was some press on the subject which actually quoted me accurately. William did a pendulum painting and spoke with R2-D2 (one of about 2000 built by clubs around the world and the only one in Saskatchewan). .

Camera Obscura demo at science centre

William and I spent the day at the Science Centre showing the camera obscura that we built together. It required a lot of light to be effective, so mostly the subject was whatever was 12 inches in front of the light. We got many good responses. 

Touring the demolition

Cats beginning to co-habitate

The two cats have stopped hissing at each other. That doesn't quite mean that they like each other, but they do pass fairly close without problem. I think that with them both going outside, they are at a more even level now and share a confidence that they both live here. 

Scone

I don't know how to get a scone to rise this high (pictured above is a single scone, even though it looks like one on top of another). Delicious. 

William Coke

I finally found a "William" Coke bottle. It was at a meeting so the only way to claim it was to drink it, but I squished and kept the bottle for him. 

School demolition continues

They stopped blowing down the school for the weekend. The guy at the Red Meat Wagon says he talked to a city planner who had stopped in and the plan is to put the new school on the south side of the property. I think that was one of the preferred plans as it gave more space for buses and cars to drop/pick up kids on 13th Ave instead of going into the side streets. 

Thinner DVD cases, making more room

The collector in me resisted my activity today, but I began to pull my dvds out of their original cases and put them into thinner cases. I'd move the cover, although I'd usually have to fold it a bit. The outcome is that in just a couple of hours, I removed at least two linear feet of cases from my collection. Once I finish, I expect to remove three times that much. This stack of cases is 4 feet high and was replaced by about 18 inches of thin cases. 

Connaught: the walls come down

Full scale demolition began on Connaught school. I fully expect it to be gone in a day or two at the rate they began on Friday morning. I would like to get some memento bricks but don't see the opportunity yet. 

William as patron of the arts

We attended two art openings Thursday night. The first was at Slate which was primarily the work of Kyle Herranen and his very shiny wood collages. From there we went to the Creative City Centre's Hague Gallery which opened "Horrid: Journey into the Dark", an exhibition of drawing of monsters. While I did like a few of them, Margaret pointed out that they were not the sort of things you wanted to face on a daily basis except one tiny painting of a man in a hat. I suggested that the true horror is hidden by that hat, leaving the mosterousness of it up to your imaginations. We wanted to buy it but then William stepped up and declared that he had enough with him to buy it and promptly did so. Here is William with the artist, Joel Hustak. The purchased work is on the wall behind/between them. 

Cats getting closer

On occasion, we've been able to get the two cats to be in the same room as each other and not to growl. They are not friends yet and generally avoid each other. Sylvie is the dominant one. She stakes out territory and the black one flees and hides.