Our Grim Age

 

 Missile Launch as Painting: The Realistic Goes Ballistic (Moviepoem: Israel/ Iran/ US 2026 version)

https://youtu.be/-R-4cKJBg98

Trump’s Wars

 Does Trump love war? Give your opinion #iranwar #trumpwar #trumpiran

https://youtube.com/shorts/1dDMm3bAjjc?feature=share

The Secrecy Cycle

 

  The Secrecy Cycle --

1 – IRAN, 1953

Mohammad Mossadeq

Almost gave the British a heart atteck

When he decided he wanted his own oil.

So MI6 and the agency, too,

Decided to be his foil….

The Secrecy Cycle - from Plastic Millennium, a geopolitical chapbook

https://youtu.be/IWKwoOZwcAc

Office work and AI

 Office work and AI

Subway Experiences

 

 What are your experiences?

Government indifference to unemployment

 Government indifference to unemployment 

Hoover and Bennett

 

 R. B. Bennett and Herbert Hoover: both in power during the worst of the Depression, and both refused to give significant help to the unemployed. In the US, men who’d fought in ww1 at least had serious leverage; a “bonus” promised to them for their service.

More: https://youtube.com/shorts/oY7DvHgS_cQ?feature=share

덕수궁

 덕수궁/ Doksuggung

 

AI and literature

 

How can literature AI-proof itself?

https://youtu.be/aUJ9wr0C3os

Trump vs. NATO

 

Trump and his insults against NATO soldiers. What should other countries do in response? 

#trump #nato

https://youtube.com/shorts/JD3wAyDiWnk?feature=share

Carney at Davos

 

Mark Carney and the end of the “rules based order” that benefits big nations. What will replace it?

CanLit and geopolitics

 

 

Canadian publishing produces very few works of fiction about the gritty, brutal world of bare knuckles geopolitics. The result is a somewhat limited sense of national self; we’re perceived as a nice country, but also a naive one. Can Canadian fiction improve in this regard?

Sapporo

 

Sapporo winter

Insects

 

Insects' World- Baram CXL

https://youtu.be/INoBL09TNtY — We assumed bad days would pass…

Remembering my brother

  

My dad phoned me on January 6th, 2013, to tell me my brother had died at Montreal General Hospital.

It was a messy ending: my mom, senile and delusional, either thought Richard just needed to “escape” the hospital in order to live, or that palliative care would bring about some kind of cure. 

The hospital staff was eager to clear his bed, and repeatedly took him off medication in order that his failing liver would finish him off. I argued with the hospital that my mom — who was frequently in Montreal — should not be main decision maker because of her dementia. 

They relented on that issue but didn’t listen to me anyway. Three times they took richard off antibiotics on a Friday night, then told my dad and me they could only reinstate antibiotics with permission from the attending doctor. When my dad and I asked them to contact the doctor, the staff said they couldn’t because it was the weekend.

Richard left behind no computer disks that I could find, countless unpaginated printouts all randomly thrown together, and old drawings on fraying paper. 

Since then, I’ve been making videopoems based on his work. Ultimately, I’ll scan the printouts and assemble them into book volumes (I’ve done this with one volume already, entitled Happyland). His work isn’t for everyone. But he was a poet who genuinely found his voice before he died. That’s a kind of solace. 

Below are two very early readings from his own chapbook Death Haiku. RIP. I still miss him so much it hurts.

Death Haiku statement:

https://youtu.be/WAJ6ZGR1a3g?si=GnlCrXPQBSUoZ0Ab

The Return of the Nerd

 

Literary fiction aimed at teens and young adults should, theoretically, include many male protagonists who are bookish, physically plain, and awkward with girls. However….

The Return of the Nerd?

https://youtu.be/AWKG3XmDp2w