From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 31, 2006 12:54 AM
Subject: PM: Equalization in the works; Pas de conférence sur le déséquilibre fiscal cet automne, prévient Harper

Dear Stephen,

Sorry I didn't write yesterday. it was a long, full one. Woke up early to take the little pisser to a groomer out in the valley. She was finished by 5pm and seemed all content and peaceful in her new shorn coat. Victor took her mane off as well.

Drove back to the city and spent the day reviewing the applications for the gallery. The committee was patient and made some excellent decisions; we now have a new slate of programming to tackle.

Went to a C-Drift meeting in the evening and then home for supper; Claudine made chicken in carrot juice. Washed a few more loads of laundry and tidied up here and there afterwards, until we settled down to watch Best in Show.

Slept in this morning and then worked on gallery details until coming to work at the bar. Misplaced the gallery keys and so couldn't open up today. So far its been kinda slow. Peter came to relieve me for supper and I met up with Claudine and we had a quick beer and a bite at Sebastians.

Pour moi il y a un période d'inquiète, d'introspection. A ce moment, je pense entre deux ou trois ou quatre vies: l'un au nouveau brunswick, ou je travailler encore plus longue pour le plus pire paye de ma vie au galerie, puis le seul façon de gagner l'argent est dans le bar, celui pas mal travail mais j'ai le sentiment qu'il est trop temps a temps, surtout quand il y a beaucoup des chose de faire au galerie. C'est comme un grand séduction pour l'art, pour élevé le réputation de l'art et des artistes contemporain, mais moi non plus. Les autres vies sont au Québec, ou les payes étranger, ou peut-etre dans un autre époque…

J'ai change les chambres pour améliorer mon atelier, mais je ne suis pas les temps encore de faire la nouveaux tableaux pour John pour l'échange entre les coûtes d'imprimés les affiches pour le dernier exposition, ni la nouveau tableaux pour le galerie national des portraits canadiennes, ni l'ancienne tableaux pour andrea et Stéphane pour leur fête du noces. Je suis en retard, tout les temps, surtout quand j'apprendrai le français. Comment a tu fait ça plus vite?

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 28, 2006 11:21 PM
Subject: Greens come of age; Le député bloquiste de Repentigny, Benoît Sauvageau, meurt dans un accident

Dear Stephen,

I can hardly believe that I haven't written to you since last week, since before Jasper's opening and farewell party. So much has happened since then! The opening went well, the beer arrived—there was a last-minute snafu with the beer, but it was sorted out—and a bunch of folks came back to the gallery for a farewell to jasper, and he showed some of the footage he shot of the harbour tour, which was both mesmerizing and dizzying, especially when projected large. Then there was the rock show at Elwoods, Les Païens, whom I finally was able to see, as Jess was working the bar for me. A fun show made even funner with some of Michael Buckland's beach balls added to the mix.

Saturday morning we had a farewell brunch with Peter and Judy, who is still mad at me, and Mary, and Rich and Katie. Rich was spinning records the night before and it went really well. Then we all packed up and headed to Moncton. We booked Jasper's flight back to Montréal through Moncton, as it was half the price of a flight from SJ. Plus Claudine and I were planning to travel to NS to visit some of my family and see Tim at his cottage for his birthday party but we did neither. Instead, after bidding adieu to Jasper, we became lost and confused at Chrystal Palace trying to find a book, then ate at a mediocre restaurant, then found a motel to stay the night. Watched Kung Fu Hustle, by Steven Chang, which was a totally, totally awesome and fun movie.

Sunday was major, major cleanup day. Since Claudine had to work Monday we decided to come home. We skipped tim's B-day party because we were just plain partied out. And our apartment needed major TLC. Kuan's pissing problem has not subsided, so we are now trying a tinfoil trick. Apparently cats don't like to walk on tinfoil nor hear the sound of it, so I've plastered tinfoil on all her favourite pissing places. We even found that she had hit the vacuum cleaner and the clothes dryer.

We decided to rearrange the apartment so now our bedroom is in the former living room, the living room back in the front room and my studio/sewing room in our old bedroom. Downstairs is still storage but now everything is a lot cleaner and better organized. Well, the studio, almost. Claudine made an impeccable Mexican Zuchinni soup and we watched Les Invasions Barbares in our new bedroom.

I realized today that the selection committee meeting for the gallery is tomorrow, not Thursday, so spent the afternoon getting packages to people. Luckily I'd photocopied everything on the weekend but Staples is on to me: they've finally installed counters on their self-serve copiers. Darn them! And darn Telus again, too, for being so downright confusing. I'm finally getting my cell phone reactivated but when I show up at the kiosk in Hell's Creation today the pleasant teenager behind the counter (why is it that the malls seem to be run by teenagers?) could only point me to the self-serve computer (the whole signup process happens online, on the Telus website), which, can you guess where this is heading? Didn't work. A dozen times I tried. "Username already selected" and "Internal server error" where the most frequent replies. Do you think the girl could fix it? No, she said this sort of thing always happens when the computers get updated. Real effing convenient. Like I've got all the time in the world to set up my own darn phone. Heck no! There were still supplies to get for the screening of Amélie. We had a good attendance, over a dozen folks.

I have to read through the rest of the submissions before tackling Telus again. And as far as we can tell there is no fresh piss for one whole day.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 24, 2006 12:35 AM
Subject: Embattled critic resigns over statements; Le PQ promet des mesures de conciliation travail-famille pour l'élection

Dear Stephen,

It was a full day. Was up early (though not as early as Claudine, who is up at 6 some mornings at work on her translations) to book the harbour tour, then met Jasper at the building, drove to the Arts Centre, continued set-up of the video installation, met Steve Duke for an interview with Here, my mom showed up, having skipped out on the tour of the city (she knows it well enough) and we went to Opera Bistro for a snack and to hear about their adventures. They were staying in Shediac and were bussed in for their day off. They cancelled a tour of St. Martin's because all the cyclists are quite beat and worn and actually would like to rest on their days off. Mom skipped the meeting with the mayor, too. Claudine and I drove out to attend the welcoming reception and lunch at my parent's church hall. It was quite fun and hearty. Then it was back to town to continue planning, making phone calls, and putting Rae to work on the submission packages, which I need to make by this weekend, as the selection meeting is next week. Then I was working at the bar, updating some of the links on my webpage and catching up on my own art-related emails, when all of a sudden the bar filled right up and was quite busy for almost two hours. Then it emptied right out again. A weird night.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 22, 2006 11:29 PM
Subject: Softwood saved? André Boisclair promet une équipe talentueuse aux prochaines élections

Dear Stephen,

I'm beat. We had a big dinner party at Jasper's apartment last night. He cooked a nice haddock and mushrooms dish, with rice and miso soup. The miso soup was a hoot: it was instant, with a single-serving pouch containing the miso and another pouch containing the dried tofu and seaweed. A box comes with eight servings. It was tasty. Katie and Rich, Meghan and Ben, and Claudine and I were in attendance. We had spent the latter part of the afternoon gathering the requisite materials for the evening presentation of Superman (beer, popcorn, water, ice), and the day gathering materials to build the temporary wall in the gallery. Which Brad from Avant-Garde Construction whipped up in under two hours this morning. It looks great and feels sturdy. Sort of like Superman.

This morning Jasper and I primed and painted the track and wall. His installation is almost done, just waiting for a specialized plastic chain link to arrive by special delivery (i.e. magic) tomorrow or Thursday or Friday. If it doesn't come Friday then crazy glue (#8, for plastics) is the answer. Know where I can get some? I shoudl have checked Richies while we were there yesterday. We had to get a panel of MDF from Kents because Richies doesn't have a panel saw but we've managed to avoid the Home Despot and of course WAL*MART. We did darken the door at Future Shop last week when Christopher needed brackets and it was there that I bought Superman. I'm just saying.

The harbour tour is going to happen either tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning. Tomorrow afternoon Claudine and I are going to visit with my parents for a couple hours, who will be in the valley on a rest day. They are in Chatam at the moment. Trev and Tamara plan to meet up with them in New Glasgow on Sunday. We're going to try to get to NS this weekend as well and visit some of my family before my Aunt Anne heads back to Ontario.

Kuan and Manu have been venturing outdoors. Kuan sprints up the neighbours staircase and peers at us through the windows. Manu eats the grass and then vomits half an hour later. We have four more days of medication for Kuan; you should see us, Claudine wraps her hand in a towel, then tries to pry open Kuan's jaws, and when she does I pop a pill in her mouth with a needle-like device, then rub a finger covered in spit on her nose to make her swallow. It's a regular comedy routine. We feed the little porker a Pounce right after, which doesn't seem to faze her. She is still pissing in parts of the apartment, however. Any tips on how to stop this madness?

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 20, 2006 11:49 PM
Subject: Tree thieves can make big bucks; Des parents veulent payer plus cher pour leurs frais de garderie

Dear Stephen,

We had a great time at Floodstock last night, and as per usual Joel Plaskett and the Emergency band—this was the first time I saw them with the new bassist—were absolutely incredible. I don't understand how they can be so good. I still have a few of their new tunes in my head and for their second encore—it was impossible for them to leave the stage because there was no rear door—they played a brilliant rock-version of SOS by ABBA. C'etait incroyable! Jasper seemed to enjoy the show and so did Rae, despite having come down with an allergic reaction he was attributing to bad seafood chowder he had eaten the night before at the Alehouse.

Today we set up the projector from the gallery in the mini-theatre of the SJAC and had a small but enthusiastic audience for the presentation of video art for kids. All the videos were under 3 minutes and were great for adults too. Tanya's little 18-month old boy asked "what's that" at regular fifteen-second intervals throughout the entire presentation. Very cute.

Claudine and I went to Hell's Creation for a bit this afternoon. The parking lots were full. Bought a few snacks at Sobeys and then we drove out to my parents' house to check on the cats, who were busy on outdoor adventures. We saw in the paper that Bob Cop / Bad cop was playing at the cinema—Claudine was convinced it wouldn't come to Saint John—so we drove back to town, picked up Jasper and went to see it. I quite liked it, and the back-and-forth between English and french was witty, and the whole good cop/bad cop scenario well-realized, but the whole hockey subplot was a bit much, a little too forced. But overall I liked it quite a bit.

We wanted to eat at Asian Palace but it was closed. So was Opera. So was Lemongrass. The kitchen was still open at Sebastian so we had a snack there; I enjoyed my chicken and noodles in lettuce leaves. It hit the spot.

Tomorrow the exhibition installation schedule hits a high note as we are up early to get the building materials for the wall, and prepare as well for the first Monday night Film Series screening of Superman, the 1978 version with Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder and Gene Hackman, and featuring Marlon Brando as Jor-El, Superman's daddy. Classic!

My parents are in Bathurst already and will have a rest day in Saint John on Wednesday. From their blog it sounds like some of their evenings have been far less than desirable. It is hard to believe that they are almost finished!

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 19, 2006 12:43 PM
Subject: Success? Depends on who you ask; Le député péquiste Jean-Pierre Charbonneau tirera sa révérence le 15 novembre

Dear Stephen,

Things have been hopping. The gallery hop in particular was a resounding success, with close to two hundred folks streaming through the gallery. The keg provided by Picaroons was empty by 11:30, when Claudine finally closed up shop. I had run down to the bar at 9 to take over from Peter and Judy. Closed the bar a bit early, hung out with jasper and Christopher and Meghan and Rae, we ended up playing a game of pick-up, uphill soccer in the middle of Princess Street until almost 3am, collecting players as they left the neighbouring bars. Much fun.

But I'm nearing exhausting, and we're currently at the Hit! Media studios on Prince William Street waiting for folks to show up for the video editing workshop. After that I'll work a couple hours in the bar and then we're off to Floodstock. Tomorrow is another full day of presentations at the SJAC and planning for the installation of the wall on Monday. Need to organize materials and our builder from Avant-Garde Construction.

I need more sleep.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 17, 2006 11:29 AM
Subject: Conference blasted as 'Hollywood'; Le ministre Michael Fortier défend le gouvernement conservateur

Dear Stephen,

Kuan did indeed have a urinary tract infection. I took her to the vet who managed to get a urine sample, which I thought quite an extraordinary feat. I guess it justified the bill: $165. Hopefully the antibiotics help and she gets better and stops pissing all over the apartment.

Things are progressing with the gallery exhibitions. Jasper gave a presentation on Park TV last night, which was well-attended. We don't know yet what to expect with the other presentations/workshops tonight and Saturday, as they are more hands-on. We have no pre-registration, so it will be a surprise.

It was a late night in the bar. Just the vibe. We got out just in time to catch last call at O'Leary's for a quick beer. The artists are still sleeping but I need to wake them up for a possible trip to a beach with Katie. Dan was in the bar last night and it looks like Jasper's tour of the harbour on a tug or workboat might happen as early as this weekend.

I booked flights for Claudine and I to Baltimore in mid-September. I'm planning to be at the opening of the group show AWOL that my friend Emily is organizing. Still don't know exactly what I'll be doing there. Another surprise.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 15, 2006 11:48 PM
Subject: Clinton pays tribute to Stephen Lewis; Les évacués de Boisbriand peuvent rentrer chez eux

Dear Stephen,

I'm beat and won't write long tonight. Was up early getting more media releases and emails out about the next two weeks of events. Went to the building and Jasper had another minor crisis, this time he needed a custom-built piece of aluminum channel to prop up his camera for the motorized, mirrored tripod he will need for shooting new work aboard the Irving or Coast Guard tug. Found a metalsmithing place and drove out past the community college to get the piece. Ken at Custom Metals was really cool. Then spent the rest of the day preparing the gallery for the presentation. Ate at Taco Pica with Jasper and Rae and then it was time for the talk. A good turnout and it seemed people responded well to Jasper's work. I hope a certain momentum continues and the workshops develop. A bunch of us went for drinks afterwards at Churchills and talked about art, tree-planting and Mormons. My friends Scott and Eric (Elder Davis and Elder Richmond) have been back. Claudine invited them to the opening on Friday, as I missed them. I still haven't prayed like they asked. I'm thinking now of doing it for a video.

On the home front, Kuan is still peeing all around the apartment, and today even got up on Claudine's desk and peed on a book. Needless to say this is not helping Claudine's mood. I am taking the furry little critter to the vet tomorrow to try to figure this out. I hope it is not an infection of some kind. She also needs to be shaved again. I am talking about the cat here, just to be clear.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 15, 2006 12:29 AM
Subject: Clinton, Gates discuss AIDS priorities; Le Parti québécois remporte les deux élections complémentaires

Dear Stephen,

Sorry I haven't been writing. It has been crazy here! And I don't mean in a Hezbollah-Israel sort of crazy, or a US-Iraq sort of crazy, but in that normal, artist-run centre lead up to exhibitions sort of way, mixed with running a half marathon, also deemed by many to be crazy.

So both Judith and I beat our respective times from last year, she at 2:11 and myself at 2:06. We ran together at a faster pace than she has been training for and I went ahead again at the bridge. Afterwards Claudine and I had a nice nap in Rockwood park and then we gathered the smelly cheeses we brought from Québec and collected Jasper and Travis (who from now on will be referred to as Rae, as that is his Korean name), and we headed to Judy and Peter's. We all tucked into the cheeses and wine, Dave and Mary-Ellen-about-to-pop came by for a short visit and we were also joined by Katie and Rich and we proceed to get a little drunk. Rae drove us all home and we attempted to party a little longer at Jasper's pad but we were all exhausted and not even Salad Fingers could save the party, so Rae drove us home.

Lots of PR work for the gallery today and Rae drove to the airport to pick up Christopher Flower, who was flying in from Saskatoon. He has been tree-planting in Saskatchewan this summer. We had left the car at Judy's last night. Then the afternoon was a bit of a whirlwind. Jasper was unpacking his crate and found that a customized motor for producing new work had been damaged in transit, so we set about on a trip to Hell's Creation to find parts. I bought a copy of the 1978 film version of Superman for the movie night next week. Jasper's presentations begin tomorrow night and Rae's sister and a friend were putting up posters all over town. The gallery is still a mess but Andrea had been in to paint so it is almost there. Christopher has brought three swanky flat screen monitors for his show which will look oh-so good. Set up the projector tonight, after making a squash/sweet potato/lentil soup and salad. Claudine is feeling sick and depressed and sad. She doesn't feel like herself.

I've got to go tomorrow is another intense day of preparations.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 12, 2006 7:49 PM
Subject: Military identifies Canadian soldier killed; Le Canada doit défense sa souveraineté sur l'Arctique, dit Harper

Dear Stephen,

So CNN is reporting: "Because the plot involved taking liquid explosives aboard planes in carry-ons, passengers at all U.S. and British airports, and those boarding U.S.-bound flights at other international airports, are banned from taking any liquids onto planes."
And then they have the photo of the TSA guy dumping a tub of confiscated possibly explosive liquids into a garbage can in a crowd of people.

Sheer brilliance.

And while researchers try every-harder to make air travel hijack-proof (all passengers forced to strip nude, carrying ID in plastic baggies sounds about perfect), Israel continues to bomb the shit out of Lebanon before the ceasefire comes into action. My Jewish friends are paranoid that a dirty bomb will eventually find its way there and my Arab friends are paranoid that Israel will keep bombing the shit out of them. Why doesn't everybody just agree to the established borders and leave it at that?
What are the borders anyway?

And is the inter-connectedness of all this just about the biggest white elephant in the room at the moment or are we going to continue to listen to idiots like Blair and Bush go on about how successful they are in thwarting terrorism. Yup, real successful: Just keep the middle east on a powder keg, fueling the worst extremists (Zionist, Muslim and Christian), that should stop terrorism right in its tracks.

We've been busy as of late, getting Jasper set up in the apartment upstairs, prepping the gallery for Christopher Flower, organizing the presentation schedule, printing posters, getting the word out, getting the crate unloaded into the SJAC, making sure everything works, finalizing final sponsorship arrangements, working at the bar, etc. Actually last night Jess took over for most of the night and I went to a barbecue at Rich and Katie's, though this time I only had a couple sips of his rum and could actually remember leaving. Could remember the Tom Fun Orchestra, which was good but not the kind of orchestra we were expecting.

Gotta go, the bar is actually getting busy.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 9, 2006 6:59 AM
Subject: Caledonia negotiations ordered to stop; Jean Charest va procéder jeudi à la mise en route d'Eastmain1

Dear Stephen,

We are still in Halifax. Jasper's crate didn't go to Milan after all but for most of yesterday nobody seemed to know where it was. Turned out it was on its way to Toronto after all, just half a day late. By the time it finally arrived last night we were having drinks with Sarah H. and her new guy and Emily, and decided to stay another night. Safer than driving late into the night. Jasper's talk went well, was well-attended, the students seemed to respond well to his work, and it was nice to see some of the faculty again. Anyway, I'll fill you in more when we get back to Saint John. We've got to get going.

-chris

From: chris lloyd Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: pm@pm.gc.ca
Date: Aug 8, 2006 9:48 AM
Subject: Bishop will seek to have priest defrocked; PQ et PLQ se disent confiants à une semaine du vote dans Taillon

Dear Stephen,

Sorry about my long absence. No, I had not been converted by the Mormons, just decided to not take my computer on vacation nor do any work on the gallery or this project while away. I think it is fair for artists to take vacation, even if making art full time might be considered by some to be a vacation of sorts. Even if visiting galleries and seeing lots of art and reading about art is sort of like work, but fun work. Even if vacation really just means not getting paid. Even if working in the milieu of the arts often means being underpaid. What am I talking about again? At least the bar was busy the two nights I worked this week and tips were good.

At the moment I'm in Halifax to get Jasper, the Dutch artist who is exhibiting next at Third Space. He had missed his connecting flight and was a few hours late but that actually worked out fine because I was late arriving in Halifax myself, due to rear-ending an Echo in Quispamsis. Let me tell you, if you are in a big hulking SUV you do not have to be going very fast to completely destroy the back of a small car. Luckily no one was hurt. The SUV is barely scratched, but it is certainly an awkward situation as the truck was a sponsorship through AVIS. I'm glad I opted for the insurance. The real kicker now is that the whole point of even having an SUV for this trip has been rendered moot: Jasper's crate is inexplicably on its way to Milan, Italy before heading to Toronto and then here, and will probably not make it in time. More little details to work out.

Jasper will make an artist presentation at NSCAD today, they put him up at the Lord Nelson, and then we'll visit some galleries and try to figure out a strategy for getting the crate to Saint John. Any ideas?

-chris