Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Sorry for not posting yesterday, it was a long day!

Because we will be in Mexico soon, I'm rushing to get some tattoo work done before going. All that's left on my right sleeve is some background fills and then touch ups (parts of it like the central Frank character were there before the sleeve was conceived and are I think seven years old). So we did about three hours yesterday and I figure another six will complete it:

Immediately afterwards, Saira and I went and unexpectedly met a few old and new friends at the Pixies show last night. First Sage (who used to pierce out in London and I know via my time at Stainless Studios), now more family man than piercer, said hello, and then I saw that the person sitting across from us in the hallway was wearing a BME shirt — it was velouria13 and her husband! Not long after we bumped into heddi and silentlight and their posse, and then a minute later into “anti-Leah-Anne” as well. Andrew (who used to be on IAM and I know via CHRY) and others were also in attendance… The Pixies draws a large and diverse crowd so I'm sure there were a ton of old friends there I didn't even see.

I HAVE THE SHIRT TO PROVE IT

Anyway, going to a concert is a weird experience now in Toronto. Cigarettes have been criminalized, so the place doesn't reek of cigarette smoke, and all people have is pot. How Canadian is that? It's illegal to have a cigarette, but if you want to smoke your pot, well, that's fine. As idyllic as that may sound at first, they turned the volume up so loud that it really sucked for me because it was outside my range of hearing (so all I heard was noise, no music, no lyrics, nothing)… I figured out pretty quickly that if I went about five hundred feet from the stage (outside) and stood behind a wall it sounded pretty good.

For Pixies (or Erasorhead) fans I'll mention that they did a cover of In Heaven.

I had a bunch of shirt ideas in my head earlier today that I was going to sketch but I got thrown off kilter by having to rewrite my Moneris interface — Ryan helped me get it going, so if any of you had trouble ordering from BMEshop over the past few days, it's fixed.

Anyway, here's an idea I had for the 10th anniversary shirt. Since it's based on the photos of Dan suspending and a couple people have asked me about him recently, I'll mention that he's happy, doing well, and is still living (and wandering around) on Queen Street near the old BME HQ.

As a PS, I have this terrible feeling in my gut that I saw a very similar shirt today on threadless (great shirts!) or something… If I did and you recognize it, please let me know so I don't embarass myself making a knockoff!

The thing about coincidences is that from a statistical point of view, they are exceedingly common, as backwards as that may seem at first. Yes, it's true that a specific and pre-selected coincidence has a slim chance of occurring, but if you're just looking for any coincidence, you can bet one will occur. A “lucky” person is a person who recognizes those coincidences and integrates them positively into their lives.

This morning in the mail I got thirty copies of my friend Ryoichi Maeda's new book (you may have read his Japanese translation of my own book, but this one is all his). Anyway, I walked the boxes down to the post office so BMEshop can get them in stock (by Friday probably). I tend to have good relations on the whole with my postal workers — the old Bathurst postman was a BME reader and I've bumped into my current one socially, and the store near me gives me discounts for no apparent reason other than a lot of smiling and politeness (although they're not so nice to Rachel).

The boxes I was shipping in were labeled with JapanPost and as I was finishing up I was approached by an immediately charming woman who told me she'd just returned from Japan herself. We talked a little and she told me that her most recent book — the most recent of eleven — in fact was about the lives of Japanese women. It turns out I was talking to the artist and writer Patricia Morley, which was really super cool (although I admit that my artschool brain with its drug-destroyed memory didn't clue in to exactly who I was talking to until five minutes after I left).

Anyway, I've met my fair share of celebrities, and I far prefer encounters like this one where you meet really obviously wonderful people and later realize that encounter as “star studded.” I hope I didn't make too much of a fool of myself, I was pretty wired and must have seemed really scatterbrained and kooky. Oh wait, that's probably an accurate assessment of me anyway.

The English Left maintain that the German people Americans have lost faith in victory. I ask you: Do you believe with the Fhrer and us Bush and the Republican Party in the final total victory of the German people Democracy? I ask you: Are you resolved to follow the Fhrer Bush through thick and thin to victory, and are you willing to accept the heaviest personal burdens in the fight for victory?

Second, The English Left say that the German American people are tired of fighting. I ask you: Are you ready to follow the Fhrer Bush as the phalanx of the homeland, standing behind the fighting army and to wage war with wild determination through all the turns of fate until victory is ours? Third: The English Left maintain that the German American people have no desire any longer to accept the government's growing demands for war work. I ask you: Are you and the German American people willing to work, if the Fhrer Bush orders, 10, 12 and if necessary 14 hours a day and to give everything for victory?

Fourth: The English Left maintain that the German American people are resisting the government's total war measures. They do not want total war, but capitulation! Never! Never! Never! I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?

Fifth: The English Left maintain that the German American people have lost faith in the Fhrer Bush. I ask you: Is your confidence in the Fhrer Bush greater, more faithful and unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow him wherever he goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end?

“Fhrer Bush command, we follow!”

Sixth, I ask you : Are you ready from now on to give your full strength to provide the Middle Eastern Front with the men and munitions it needs to give Bolshevism Islamists the death blow?

Seventh, I ask you: Do you take a holy oath to the front that the homeland stands firm behind them, and that you will give them everything then need to win the victory?

Eighth, I ask you: Do you, especially you women, want the government to do all it can to encourage German American women to put their full strength at work to support the war effort, and to release men for the front whenever possible, thereby helping the men at the front?

Ninth, I ask you: Do you approve, if necessary, the most radical measures against a small group of shirkers and black marketeers who pretend there is peace in the middle of war and use the need of the nation for their own selfish purposes? Do you agree that those who harm the war effort should lose their heads?

Tenth and lastly, I ask you: Do you agree that above all in war, according to the National Socialist Republican Party platform, the same rights and duties should apply to all, that the homeland should bear the heavy burdens of the war together, and that the burdens should be shared equally between high and low and rich and poor?

I have asked; you have given me your answers. You are part of the people, and your answers are those of the German people. You have told our enemies what they needed to hear so that they will have no false illusions or ideas.