Ken Mailhot, Terese Marie Mailhot and Queen East

— 01.07.2017 04:51 PM

Exploring in a used furniture shop on Queen East today, Cheyenne found this. She said I should come look. 

It was stunning. It was incredible. We bought it right away. It was a huge find. 

The artist is Ken Mailhot. The piece is called Man Emerging.  It will go on our walls amongst the dozens of other West Coast prints, masks and carvings – and three totems. 

We went looking for information about Ken on the Internet. We found some things, but then we found writing about him by his daughter, the author Terese Marie Mailhot. 

Some is here and here. And below:

The National Film Board of Canada debuted the documentary as a piece with immediacy and no external narrative. I’m a woman wielding narrative now, weaving the parts of my father’s life with my own.

I consider his work a testimony to his being. I have one of his paintings in my living room. “Man Emerging,” is the depiction of a man riding a whale. The work is traditional and simplistic. Salish work calls for simplicity because an animal or man should not be convoluted. 

My father was not a monster, although it was in his monstrous nature to leave my brother and I alone in his van while he drank at The Kent. Our breath became visible in the cold when Dad came back to bring us fried mushrooms. We ate the bar fare like puppies to slop.

Wow. 

She is an amazing writer, and her Dad was an amazing artist.

Two huge finds in one day. You never know what you will find on Queen East.


Comments (10)

Unpresident Trump: puppet to Russia or traitor to the United States

— 01.06.2017 05:08 PM

He’s one of those things. 

He either knew Russia was attacking the U.S. in a way that constitutes an act of war – in which case he has committed treason. 

That, or he didn’t know, but – now knowing – still cravenly defends Russia. Which isn’t treason, per se. It just makes him a puppet and a pathetic coward. 

Either way, I’d say he belongs behind bars. If the United States is still a democracy that has the rule of law, that’s where he is headed. 


Comments (32)

The capacity to feel shame should become a provision in collective agreements

— 01.06.2017 09:40 AM

I have never thought I should look to big corporations and big unions for ethical guidance. But what Jerry Dias et al. are saying, these days – i.e., we should “join with the Trump administration,” quote unquote – is simply despicable. It’s disgusting.



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Libel, libel, oh oh, we gotta go

— 01.06.2017 08:38 AM

Spotted this in the National Post this morning:

Clarification – Yank Barry: On April 15, 2012, the National Post published an article about Mr. Yank Barry entitled “The world according to Yank: Montrealer with checkered past gets Nobel nod, or does he?”

The National Post acknowledges that Mr. Barry has engaged in extensive philanthropic work and has continued to do so since the date of the article; that he has repeatedly been nominated for a Nobel Prize for his philanthropic work since the date of the article; and that subsequent to the article, the Kingsmen website has been revised to acknowledge him as lead singer of the Kingsmen while original members were on sabbatical from 1968 to 1969, and that he has been a member from 2013 to date. The National Post does not suggest, and did not intend to suggest, that Mr. Barry did not have significant philanthropic and career accomplishments. The National Post regrets any contrary interpretation of our article that may have been made.

I don’t know who Yank Berry is, but this is the best clarification/correction/retraction/shit-eating apology of the year so far. It also provides us with an excuse to play Louie, Louie, a tune which is catchier than a drawer full of fish hooks, and was the start of punk rock:



Comments (2)