Diaries || What's on your mind?

A completely conventional story in which everyone who misbehaves is punished.

Some thoughts on the subject of driving to and from work each day.

...And St. Crawford came unto him, and did say, "Broadcasteth word of thy wares, my son, for we are privileged to live at the root of an information tree whose branches shall one day emcompass all history."

"But how?" cried CheeseburgerBrown, falling to his knees. "I don't even have enough money in my PayPal account to buy the cheapest ad on K5!"

"Use the Scoop, my son. Let go thy conscious self, and act on instinct."

CheeseburgerBrown nodded. "I shall cast my spams unto the Scooposphere, like little turds left floating in a public lavatory. Thank you, St. Crawford!"

St. Crawford smiled beatifically as he ascended on high by wings made of AdSense. "Remember thy keywords," he called as he was swallowed by a veil of cloud. "Save thou, they can."

CheeseburgerBrown waved and then, when he thought nobody was looking, farted.

INSIDE: Ten compelling reasons to start reading Simon of Space right now!

One rainy Saturday last November I documented my day in a series of whimsical illustrations. I touched on the usual subjects: my toddling daughter, my sexidelicious wife, our menagerie of beasts and our giggling adventures here at the Gilford Old Schoolhouse.

I broadcast the drawings in a Scoop post along with captions. It went over very well, and was widely surfed. It continues to be widely surfed. It's six months later now and I'm still getting fan mail. Superdiva, who supports the arts like Atlas the world, told me I should offer the story in a printed edition.

So now I am. I've made a storybook. Want one?

I would like to apologize in advance for the spammy nature of the body copy.

At least you can take heart in the fact that I will not be offering you discount rates on mortgages, and I have no advice whatsoever with regard to your potentially flaccid member. Also, I cannot offer you video clips of hot teenage vixens begging to be sexually humiliated.

I'm afraid this spam is much more benign than that. It's more like when street performers spam you by making music, and glancing suggestively at the overturned hat or guitar case at their feet.

Here I am tap-dancing...get ready your nickels and dimes.

Or, in this case, the day.

Some freak has written to me and threatened to sue me over something I posted on the Internet.

I guess it had to happen sooner or later.

Defining art is like defining sexy -- as slippery as it is sure, as ephemereal as it is compelling.

None of our modern techniques for detecting art have made the matter more certain. Our giga-computers and mega-scanners of the 21st century have utterly failed to clarify the picture. And, while generation after generation of human beings stumble their way into learning about sexy, art remains more of a mystery than ever.

It is easy to point at history and argue that the constant presence of art is proof of its essential nature to the spirit of every earthly civilisation. Like oxygen, like dance. The portfolios of a thousand dead masters is a solid hook upon which to hang your hat.

It's a Captain Kirk speech waiting to happen. "Art -- is part of...who we are. It's part of...being human, Spock."

We slide through the country night, winter trees black like ink whisking by the windows of our snarling purple Nissan. The clouds are low and thick. To the north their bellies are orange with glow from the small city of Barrie, while the southern horizon is ablaze from shore to shore with the megalopolis of Toronto's light. Above us, a corridor of darkness reflects the strip of rurality through which we drive.

I am a passenger. The car is an extension of my wife's body, now, responding to her nudges and shifts as I lean my tired head against the frosty window. It is the deepest part of winter, and I am flipping through a recently published anthology called Traffic Life: Passionate Tales and Exit Strategies. Running from pages 171 to 181 is my own article, laid out in stately serifs.

"I've been published," I say to myself, feeling the soft, woody texture of the page. "Coolio Iglesias."

And so, speeding through the country night, by bobbing head and cabin light, I elect to read this book.

When I was a kid, my mother wasn't very impressed by most media. "Garbage!" she'd declare, snapping off the TV. "Pabulum."

She said we'd go to the movies, instead. Spielberg and Lucas were all the rage in child circles, but those pictures weren't my mother's cup of tea. So she'd take me down to the Bloor and we'd watch festivals of animation, motley programmes of independent shorts and experimental cartoons.

I thought to my smaller self: wouldn't it cool as ice cream to sit around all day making stuff like that? Wouldn't it be nice to be so silly and craftsy?

And I thought: I'd like to make a short cartoon shown in a festival like this.

So I did.