Glenn Kubish

A little book found me a few weeks ago in a store in Black Diamond where we had wandered on a trip to Waterton. Somehow, I'd never seen unmediated Waterton. That baffled me. The book is by Lewis Hyde and it's about the tricksters among us. Like all my favourite books, Trickster Makes The World has delivered the thrill of approaching something new, while also leaving a residue of regret that it has taken me this long to get there. And the sad certainty that I am skimming the surface of this book, and life. It is by our likes and dislikes Hyde says John Cage says that we isolate ourselves from the wider mind and the big old world. Hyde: Likes and dislikes are the lapdogs and guard dogs of the ego, busy all the time, panting and barking at the gates of attachment and aversion and thereby narrowing perception and experience.  My thoughts fire this way and that. Likes and dislikes —these are the words of engagement in social media. Lapdogs and guard dogs —Plato's Socr...

I saw some things on the streets today. I heard some things, too. That's Olga signalling a left turn above.  In her impromptu bike network master class, I learned about big green bike boxes and how to safely get across lanes of traffic on the 100 Ave portion of the downtown grid. What I heard: there is a safe place in the city's allocation of space for bicycle commuters. I saw this dude's shoulder bag and heard him say he thought the new bike lane on 100 Ave was pretty good. I saw no helmet on this bicycle rider. I saw her smile and heard her say hello as we passed. "Whoa!" this pedestrian said as he walked on green and watched the car driver turn across his path. A few blocks later, approaching the traffic signal on the Glenora multi-use path, I saw the green traffic light turn yellow and the yellow turn red, and, as I hummed some old April Wine as I always do when red and yellow seasons change in gear, oh yeah, I  heard the rev of a ca...

A solemn scene surprised me this afternoon as I took the turn on Ravine Dr. and pointed for the 142 St. bridge. It shook me. It spoke the visual grammar of the ceremony at a graveside. What I witnessed was the protocol of the aftermath of an automobile collision. The sky was smeared with mascara grey clouds. At the head of the procession sat a flatbed truck. It would soon be loaded with the damaged body. Three people stood on the lawn. They looked up and down, this way and that. They swayed back and forth like metronomes. One held his arms crossed over his chest. Vehicles streamed by on 142 St. The sky sagged. This sudden congress was in no one's plans.  On the sidewalk, apart from the standing congregation, clad in black jeans and hoodie, holding his hands over his eyes, lay, outstretched, a man consumed by an event that cannot be undone.  I held my breath and pedalled through. 

"There's your bear," Shelagh said this morning. We were driving up to Miette, it was raining a little, and, there, right there, in the ditch off to the right, was a trundling bear. We stopped just ahead and looked back as the bear ambled out of the ditch and across the yellow line and into the woods on the other side. We drove on a few hundred metres until we could safely turn around and then drove back looking, hoping to see it again. We did. It's usually good enough for me not to stop for wildlife beyond slowing down to pass safely. That's what we had done the evening before, coming back from Jasper, as a shaggy mountain goat stepped down a rock face. But we had to stop for a bear. The poet says it just don't get no better than a bear. 

Let's call the chance occurrence and development of consecutive Twitter posts from discrete tweeters, whether that conjunction is happy and beneficial or not, serentwitterpity . This morning, for instance, @Penalosa_G celebrates open streets, while @TorontoStar reminds us of their fragility: There is serentwitterpity when we reveal what we count: Serentwitterpity happens when points of view about where viewpoints should be pointed clash:  Serentwitterpity often leaves the one who experiences it with a residue of regret. Regret and rue are worth sharing. Share your serentwitterpities with me. I'm  @kub64. :)