Scrapjournal: “Guide to Goodtimes” / personal ephemera, Victoria, 2016

Gallery September 25, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Scrapbook: Victoria, 2016 / "Guide to Goodtimes" personal ephemera (hyaku yen, ring binding, cover) — Scrapbook: Victoria, 2016 / “Guide to Goodtimes” personal ephemera (hyaku yen, ring binding, cover)

This book was assembled in a real tough stretch of time – medically and mentally. A summer in which i came close to “giving up” – the details are still too real and painful so instead i’ll tell you this:

This book was a 100 yen store gift from brother Bob and/or Mom and a great layout, size and heft for my usage. To try to keep myself motivated and cheered up, i filled with bits of inspiration: photos of me and others with smiles, scraps of mantras, colourful things from events, brochures and activities going on around the city i was living at the time (Victoria, BC). There isn’t a chronology or narrative per se, just items old and new and lost and found which made me sorta smile. I was really trying to improve and instead fell apart. Badly, i’m still here though. #survived.

Scrapbook: Guide to Good Times, Victoria, 2016 (inside back cover)

Scrapbook: Guide to Good Times, Victoria, 2016 (back cover)

Scrapjournal: Guide to Goodtimes / personal ephemera – Victoria, 2016

Annapurna Sunrise

Morning, Pokhara – Annapurna Sunrise

September 24, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Morning, Pokhara

Farmer calls to the cow, gently
Corralled in a stonewalled fence

Mother calls her child from an open door
Time for a freshwater cold bath

Labourers scrape broken bricks over the edge
To collide with roof of corrugated tin

Birds call and puff splendid plumes
Demonstrating their innate biologic worth

Trekking guides ply for determined hikers
With different dreams of dizzy altitudes

Cafeman tempts the passers-by
With steamed milk tea and German pastries

Boatman sits quietly with paddle
Ticketbook ready to ply to the lake

The foreign lady talks more loudly
Convinced she’ll be more understood

Dogs yap at movements all through the night
Vigilance unnecessary in this dewy hour

Roosters ritually announce another day
Repeating proclamations well into afternoon

Trucks honk repeatedly for someone
Anyone… to open the rusty metal gate

The black-haired girl sweeps stairs routinely
Her distinct action – whisking dust before polishing

The Stupa gazes quietly from atop the hill
Tea houses lead the way to certain inner-peace

The hotel open doors pleased for patrons
But remembering the days before…

Annapurna and her cousins hide behind clouds and mist
Only revealing peaks when fully dressed

A lonely man seeks a barber to trim a shaggy face
Possibly reveal a timid smile

Youngtime Dossier

Artifacts (youngtime): Certificates, Elementary school – Roll of Honour, etc. / assorted

September 23, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Certificates: Roll of Honour, Harold Bishop Elementary, Grade 2, Achievement

While acknowledging that receiving such Honour Roll status at a young age had no material benefit to future life, nor did this increase self-worth or esteem, or “gain favour with the ladies” as it were. I am however, an unabashed enthusiast of paper-y items, including certificates. As such, as these have remained with me (or in many cases with my now-late-beloved Mother), i am gleefully compelling to document for posterity.

Who’s posterity or for who’s interest? I do not know and am indifferent to such details. These are simply ephemeral documents of life.

Noting, i’m either missing a certificate for Grade 1, or they were not issued to students of that age. Also, some of these are specific to my science fair achievement (documented elsewhere… at some point anyhow) and/or citizenship umm… involvement.

Certificates: Roll of Honour, Harold Bishop Elementary, Grade 3, Citizenship

Continue reading Artifacts (youngtime): Certificates, Elementary school – Roll of Honour, etc. / assorted →

Collections of Artifacts

Earthship VW bus/sauna, Big Cottonwood canyon, Utah (2016) – Lomo photos, colour

Gallery September 22, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Earthship VW bus/sauna: dave and bus front

As documented here and there, i once owned a 1974 VW bus and travelled all over the place and enjoyed many adventures and undertook extensive repairs and renovations. as it goes, it sat in my Granny’s backyard as my travels took me further afield to foreign lands, as such, i passed it along to cousins who sold it to a fella called Zac, who also let it sit for sometime in garage before some adventurous and creative folks called Honi and (Dayglo) Dave bought it for a daughter and quickly realized that it would be an unfit vehicle due to reliability concerns.

You see, Honi and Dave have some great rental lodges and extensive compound in Big Cottonwood canyon (outside of SLC Utah) which they rent primarily to skiiers/boarders and other recreate-ers. They already have a hottub, tipis and so on and converted the noble “Earthship” into a sauna. We connected over some serendipitous internet-happpenstance and i rallied up a gang of pals to go visit. H&D were wonderful hosts and the visit soon turned into an all-night party including hot boxing the sauna (in a couple different ways, soaking in hot tub, and firing up the jukebox in the Mangy Moose cabin. Incidentally, a momma moose and her kids paid a visit.

The bus has been privy to weddings, parties and all sorts of merriment. As is obviously, its extensively painted and decorated, the insides gutted (who knows what lost items were found) its parked in a flower bed of sorts. They presented me a key which travels with me all ’round the globe.

Here are a few pieces of documentary evidence snapped wth Lomo La Sardina (sardine can) camera. Also made a series of friendly postal pictograms with these images. Many of these snaps were captured by Jamielee Eldridge.

Earthship VW bus/sauna: inside the bus sauna (enter via passenger door)

Continue reading Earthship VW bus/sauna, Big Cottonwood canyon, Utah (2016) – Lomo photos, colour →

Post'd (cards + letters)

Post’d: Stick No Bills (Sri Lanka) vol. 1 / Air Ceylon related

Gallery September 21, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

postcards-sri-lanka-front-sticknobills-04 — Postcards: Stick No Bills, Air Ceylon

Postcards sent Dec. 2017created by/purchased from Stick No Bills – creators of fine artisan postcards from Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) – Vol. 1 (of 6), feat. Air Ceylon commercial art, etc.

postcards-sri-lanka-front-sticknobills-36 — Postcards: Stick No Bills, cinema

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Towns and Trains

Document in my diary… / Towns and Trains

Image September 20, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

I document in my diary
But i often miss a day or two
I‘ll fill in the blanks eventually
The same i do with you

from Towns and Trains, Sudden poems 2016-2018

Stubbed Toe

Swirling years past…

Image September 19, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Swirling years past
glinting in an eye
recalls a story

from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

Scrapbooks + Journals

Scrapjournal: Thailand > Philippines / ephemera with annotations, 2015-16

Gallery September 18, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Scrapbook: Thailand > Philippines / ephemera with annotations, 2015-16 (elephant medallion cover)

This little notebook-sized booklet was perhaps over-worked and as such, began falling apart but i couldn’t resist the metal elephants on the vertical layout journal with tactile paper within.

As i fill up these notebooks in “real-time” while roaming (always looking for glue sticks and scissors), i needed a new book anyhow and there it was.

Anyhow, used from Thailand (where it was purchased) through Philippines to collect various bits and pieces of paper items: in this case, i developed a collection of wi-fi passcode slips from hotels and coffeeshops – tiny like fortune cookie fortunes – as well as snippets of poetry, clippings from maps, brochures and newspapers, and other breadcrumbs to retrace steps and recollect where i was or had visited. This was a foggy time for me.

Continue reading Scrapjournal: Thailand > Philippines / ephemera with annotations, 2015-16 →

Annapurna Sunrise

Annapurna Sunrise – Annapurna Sunrise

September 17, 2018 daveo Leave a comment

Annapurna Sunrise

A sunrise isn’t just a sunrise
Each a unique event
The dawning a new circumstance
Unknown since yesterday

Sun glances off the glaciers
Bells on buffaloes provide the song
Your own personal time lapse
Just remember how to breathe

Jagged peaks like ripsaws
Loom over soft curved paddies
Village with rocky pathways
Laid down in olden days

Ridgeline too high for goats
Who would rather look away
Down valleys filled with grasses
Occasionally find a berry

Unaware of their varied fates
Living only for the now, knowing
Can’t control how long you live
Only your present tense

Each day
Lived in anger and greed?
Or fill each
with vast abundance?

Today is not a photograph
Or another dress rehearsal
For a foretold mystic afterlife
In which you are an exalted master

You are given gifts each day
Of beauty, challenge and hope
Hard times bring lessons
Unrequested by conscious self

The glowing dawn brings new noises
Into your tiny universe
Children resist cold washing
While Grandmas fill steel mugs

Buffalo and yaks are elder siblings
Calm, strong and helpful
Giving milk and fuel each day
To people, without expectation

Maybe you’ll bring them fresh hay
Maybe they’ll find some alone
Unimpressed by your shiny toys and colours
Needs kept more elemental
Warmth, food and rest
Content with two as an option

Each house climbs higher
Up the mountain slope
Precarious and sturdy
On each leans a chimney
Releasing pungent smoke

The humans slip outside
Tasks to do, Gods to please
Receive blessings of beauty
Tomorrow, clouds might roll back in
Savour while you are able

Cold water bath for each tiny kid
Strengthen them for future days
Aiding dreams of others
Serve all but not servant to none

Do not mistake diligence with complacency
Lo the free-flying hawks
Wings may appear the tools
The a clean mind does the flying

Simple kindness the underrated virtue
Honesty brings clear respect
Clockwise round the massif
Chanting all the while

Prayer bells go anti-counter-clockwise
Or is it the opposite?
Spin it wrong, good still comes
When done with the right intentions