from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 11:12 AM
subject Colisée de Québec: Harper pose ses conditions; Feds consider $33-million payment for isotope shortage
Dear Stephen,
Well it has certainly been awhile. I stopped writing while on vacation in New Brunswick. We spent a great month there at our rental cabin on Knapp Lake, and a week of visiting family in NS, but it turned into a bit of a working vacation as I took a commission for a 12-foot mural for a new restaurant that will be going into the ground floor of the Brodie Building. They have completely gutted the space, tearing out all remnants of the Lemongrass restaurant as well as all the safes. I completed the mural in about 10 working days in a tight hallway in the cabin, sometimes by candlelight, using pastel as primary medium. The images are derived from the work of Miller Brittain, who had a studio in the Brodie building in the 1940s and for whom the restaurant will be named after.
Anyway, after a couple weddings in Upper Canada we hopped a plane to Berlin, where we are wandering around checking out the sites, the museums and the shops. A couple highlights so far have been the Singuhr sound gallery and its incredible location in an old water reservoir about 500 metres from where we are staying in Prenzlauerberg, which, incidentally, has the highest per-capita concentration of babies in all of Europe, so we fit right in. We are staying in Edith Dakovic’s apartment, which is amazing, and she will be in Saint John this week installing her Mer-Made Products exhibition at the NBM and third space. Also the Topographie of Terror, a display installed on the former grounds of the SS headquarters, is enlightening as well as chilling. We saw the Bauhaus Archive and also went up the TV Tower. Transportation is easy and Rose has enjoyed meeting other babies.
My quick glance at Canadian headlines reveals to me that you are still demonizing the “coalition” as your lead election strategy. Yawn, how dull. Good luck with that.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 1:47 AM
subject Harper: le registre des armes à feu sera aboli tôt ou tard; Changes to youth law too tough: child advocates
Dear Stephen,
Sorry to be so erratic in my emails. I know this is supposed to be a daily project, but I can’t seem to muster the energy to write in the evenings lately. My legs have been tired and sore from all the walking, you know how it is when you are in a new city and there is lots to see and even with the trains, buses and all, there is lots of walking to do. Yesterday it was the Turkish Market in Kreuzberg, followed by a long walk to the East Side Gallery, which was interesting to see for a couple reasons. First, of course, is the historical aspect of seeing a large section of the original wall still intact, and second was the way it has become such a tourist attraction. The paintings, most re-creations from the immediate aftermath of the wall coming down, are mostly mwah. Afterwards we went to an opening at a tiny, totally artist-run initiative called Galerie IM (I think), works by artists from LA, but we were amongst the first visitors and it looks like the type of place that gets busy much later. There was a cute little bar in the back which I imagine can get quite smoky; not the best environment for a baby.
The other day we went to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, which is in an previous train station, as is massive in scale and totally impressive in the collections on display. There was a Bruce Nauman show up, and even though we both felt a little over-saturated with Nauman, we enjoyed the visit, even though some of the works we have seen more than a few times. Rose even woke up from her afternoon nap – lately it takes place in her stroller and she sleeps through whatever we happen to be visiting – and seemed to enjoy the art. She especially liked the Paul McCarthy sculptures of Michael Jackson and Bubbles. Whatever happened to his monkey?
Clo and I finished season one of Twin Peaks the other night, now we are going to borrow season two from Elizabeth, whom we have seen on a couple of occasions. She has been living here a few years and her German sounds pretty good, at least to my ears. I am not picking up much at all. And speaking of Twin Peaks, and language, the DVDs here at Edith’s apartment are in dubbed French only, which makes the show sound bizarre to my ears, especially the backwards-talking dream sequences. The weird thing is that in the menu there is an option for the original with subtitles, but every version is the same, dubbed French. I realize that it has been a long time since I had seen the series in its entirety. Back in high school I saw a few random episodes but didn’t watch the whole series until starting in 2002, mostly because Karina became so interested in it. Here are some quotes on the topic from my letters to then-PM Jean Chrétien in 2003:
June 8: Watched a few episodes of Twin Peaks this afternoon, picking up where we left off last year. The RAW crew brought back a collection of TV shows Sarah’s mom had recorded. It is really weird watching TV ads from 1989.
June 9: Came home and Karina and I watched another episode of Twin Peaks. The second season just doesn’t have that spark the first did; it’s almost like the weirdness has become gratuitous and expected. Too overt; the subtlety is lost. It is hard to stop watching after just one, however; whatever happened to poor Audrey? I guess I’ll have to wait until next time. Have a gallery selection committee meeting tomorrow night, so it won’t be until Wednesday.
June 11: Karina didn’t like Wild Dogs (mostly because of Thom, I think. His acting, not his directing), and now she wants to watch another episode of Twin Peaks. Oddly enough, I felt much of the imagery in Wild Dogs had a David Lynch look, though in a more naturalistic manner, less contrived.
June 16: Spent the day indoors; it was raining off and on outside. Did some housecleaning, vacuumed the stairs. The stairs need to be brushed with a lint brush to collect the cat hair before vacuuming. Cleaned the kitchen a couple times. Read some magazines. Made coffee. Finished the “SARS” painting. Watched episodes of Twin Peaks.
June 29: Drove home and about 11:30, dropped Jennifer off and Karina and I watched yet another episode of…Twin Peaks.
June 30: Karina and I walked down to the Khyber to borrow the DVD player; she had rented Fire Walk With Me. I had seen it before but of course at the time it made no sense; I hadn’t seen any of the episodes. We are at the end of the Twin Peaks cycle; the remaining episodes no longer interest us.
July 3: Went home for supper, frustrated at not getting as much done in the office as I would have liked. Rebecca, Karina and I walked to Sobeys to buy some groceries. Karina made supper while I read. We watched a couple more episodes of Twin Peaks afterward, trying to cheer Rebecca up.
July 7: We were swatting flies and listening for the owls. Went to sleep in one of the old bunk-beds, and woke with a stiff back and Eminem (?) in my head after having bizarre Twin Peaks-like dreams: A strange hotel, filled with a film crew or recipients of an awards gala, or both, and Heather Locklear, looking a hundred years old close-up, and a strange elevator operator with red eyes who spoke in riddles.
July 14: I don’t know what is happening, but something is. I hope it doesn’t end badly. Listened to the new Johnny Cash album. Had a little bit of wine, then we walked back to my place to watch the Twin Peaks pilot episode that Karina had rented. We didn’t realize until it started that we had already seen it; we watched it again anyway.
So there you have it. Seems I was last watching Twin Peaks just before heading to a life-altering artist residency. It was a troubling summer: Karina and I were having problems, and I was cheating on my mistress with another woman. My life at the time was a bit Twin Peaks.
Now I just have weird dreams about work and third space that have Twin Peaks elements. Last night I dreamt about the recent spate of grant-writing that Alison, John and Jacqueline worked on. When I tried to log into Go! Grants online the results were the digital manifestation of a plastic bag stuffed with reams of soggy paper. I have been frustrated lately as the gallery does not seem to be living up to my own expectations of what it is capable of. I also feel guilty and responsible, as if I have abandoned it. I am also worried about Edith’s show, as she only arrived in SJ on Thursday, and the opening was last night, and she is giving a talk AND a workshop today and I worry the gallery is woefully under-prepared. I think I need to learn to step away. Then on the other hand I feel I need to help out more. Maybe I will compromise and just write nasty email to the province, who cut the gallery’s annual funding by another $3,000 for this year. This is how they promote self-sufficiency” simply withdraw funding at a steady, regular pace until the organization is self-sufficient, regardless of how ridiculous it is to expect an non-profit organization to maintain professional programming and engage qualified staff for $8,000 per year. Thanks for the diddly-squat, New Brunswick!
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 3:45 PM
subject «Harper est coupé de la réalité», selon Ignatieff; Three decades later, Terry Fox’s inspiration runs strong
Dear Stephen,
The Berlin visit continues. Today we took a short boat tour along a small part of the River Spree, and then went shopping at H&M in the Alexa shopping complex, which Elizabeth tells us is one of the largest in the Europe. I was in bad need of an overhaul on my wardrobe, and I am at a rare point in my life where there is actually a bit of money in my bank account. We stopped by Elizabeth’s beautiful apartment for coffee in the morning, and looked at some of her paintings, which are a fun blend of creepy animals and brutalist architecture, with a bit of forest thrown in for good measure. Yesterday was the portrait museum, which is in the kulturforum complex near Potsdamer Platz, and features absolutely stunning architecture and a fairly impressive collection. It does get a bit repetitive after awhile: I mean, how many versions of crucifixions or Last Suppers or bucolic hunting / bathing / martyrdom scenes can one truly handle in an afternoon? But a least they HAVE a National Portrait Gallery, which I believe Canada would have had by now as well if you hadn’t pulled the plug on the Wellington Street project after you came to power back in ’06. Hard to believe it has been so long already.
We’re still watching the Twin Peaks in the evening, though tonight Claudine is at the symphony with Elizabeth. I am watching Rose, who is sleeping at the moment, and updating emails and photos and Facebook etc. Rose ate well tonight, and passed out after her bottle of German formula. I hope I gave her the right mixture; the instructions were all in German. There is no ready-mix formula available here, it is all powder. Another interesting thing I have noticed is how the parking on the streets is different than in North America. Even on extremely narrow streets, which still count as 2-way traffic, on one side the parking is all perpendicular to the flow of traffic. They can fit more cars on the street that way. Very efficient.
OK, back to photos and films, maybe write some postcards. Or watch some German TV.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 3:50 PM
subject Le PLC au Québec discute stratégie en vue d’éventuelles élections; States of emergency persist as N.L. recovers from hurricane
Dear Stephen,
Sorry I didn’t have a chance to write to you from Leipzig. It is a great city, we had a great time. The Spinnerai complex where we stayed was full of amazing galleries and studios and shops. The whole complex is a former cotton mill, built in 1906. You can check out some of our pictures on Facebook, though my camera battery died halfway into our trip, so I don’t have as many photos as I would have liked. On Friday we visited the massive fine arts museum, built in 2004, right in the middle of the city, a huge glass cube, and I really wanted to get photos of it. The weather was perfect and almost too warm, sunny everyday. I posted some videos to Youtube of Rose laughing and crawling. Did I tell you her second bottom tooth has come through?
Yesterday I felt under the weather and so we mostly stayed in the neighbourhood. We ate at Gagarin, a nearby bar. Great perogies! Today it rained all day but we visited Tempelhof and then the Neue Nationalgalerie, the one designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1968. It still looks stunning, what an amazing building.
Off to bed. I’m reading Catch-22 but I don’t think I can finish it. The only other book I have read since being in Berlin is A history of tractors in Ukraine. Seems fitting somehow, a search for personal histories amidst the horrors of war. We’ve seen so much about the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, Nazis, WW2, genocide, the DDR, the Stasi, and the quiet revolution. A lot to think about.
-chris
from chris lloyd
to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 10:26 PM
subject Ottawa réprimande à l’unanimité la une de Maclean’s; Outgoing GG sent off with bang as military offers 21-gun farewell
Dear Stephen,
We are back from Berlin. Our flight arrived in Montreal around noon. We had flown out of Berlin at 6am to Frankfurt, then had a couple hours to tool around the airport. I had decided not to sleep at all the night before our flight, so as not to run the risk of sleeping in. Elizabeth had called and ordered a cab for us but at 4:15am I noticed the cab was down at the end of the street; the driver had heard 15 instead of 50. No worries, we made it to Tegel in time. Sarah picked us up from the airport, then we dropped her at school and went for a bite to eat at les Folies. We were both craving burgers. Rose was adorable and so well-behaved on the flights, even the gruelling one across the Atlantic fighting a strong wind. She did manage to pee all over her pyjama and her only change of clothes we had with us was already soaked due to a leaky bottle, so she wore her Bolivian orange alpaca jacket and a diaper for the whole flight, poor thing. Once we got home and unpacked a little we all crashed, I think I was out by 3:30pm and didn’t wake up again until 7:30 this morning.
We mostly stayed in the apartment all day, we switched the orientation of the door to Claudine’s studio and switched some desks so that she has more room, we put the piano in her studio. Actually we just put the stand there, we are picking up the piano tomorrow, it was being cleaned and the sticky keys unstuck while we were in Berlin. I also worked on some Third Space stuff and it is driving me batty how slow they can be with communication and planning. Still no photos of Edith’s show on the website, it opened two weeks ago. Anyway, I am trying not to complain. I should spend my energy elsewhere, like in making art, or fighting for proportional representation. Enough of this First past the post crap. Did you see how lopsided the results in the NB provincial election were? What an embarrassment.
-chris
DEAR PM 