2020
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 2, 2020, 11:22 AM
subject One hundred and thirty-four
Dear Justin,
We slept in this morning, and Sol was late for school. I had him over last night, he is growing up so fast! His front teeth are almost completely in. His hair is longer, long and such a golden colour. He’s just so sweet and engaged with the world. He loves my new telephone of course, and played video games last night – it was fun to watch Jessica and him both play the floor is lava game at the same time, each on their own devices. He woke up this morning at 6:17 and asked to play on my phone, and then he hit the snooze button on my alarm 4 times so that is why we were late, haha! But lucky for us the rain held off and we were able to bike to school.
Back at work, back to the grind, getting things done. I’m a little thrown off by a proposition by an artist we are exhibiting next January, Clemens van Wedemeyer, who is requesting emergency beds (like red cross, or army) for one of his installations. I think her has since transitioned a bit to having portable bleachers or seating, like for sporting events, so my own personal ethical dilemma may be averted somewhat. I was thinking about the VOX gallery, already spacious and climate controlled, visited by a few select people from the “contemporary art community” (whatever the hell that is supposed to be, and the occasional school group, but imagining it with video installations of 3D modelled individuals in crowd scenes, protests, data about surveillance, with emergency beds, bunks, empty, in the midst of not only a pandemic but also a crisis here – especially in this neighbourhood – of homelessness. I don’t think I can, in good consciousness, put up an exhibit of that nature. If we are going to try to borrow emergency bedding for an art show we had damn well better offer sleeping quarters to those in need, and I can’t imagine that idea passing with the directors. And after listening to the latest Sandy and Nora podcast yesterday, it makes me realize even more that me just quietly doing my job here is some sort of silent complicity in a system that is elitist and fundamentally flawed.
Aarg! Crisis of faith, again!
Off to take a phone call from Karen, my tattooist, to discuss the work she will do on my arm on Friday – very exciting! I’ve been waiting for these since May.
-chris
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 3, 2020, 10:55 PM
subject One hundred and thirty-five
Dear justin,
Boy oh boy am I tired. I went to esse ROBERTS last night to help with baby Valerie and stayed up with a newborn on my chest until two in the morning before transferring her to Sarah. And didn’t sleep much after that and then dropped Gloria off to daycare and then cycle to work and then lo and behold there were technical problems yet again with the installation just as Michaele and Sophie were arriving to test for the performance is tonight and then talking to Evan And switching out some components and seemed to make everything work OK and then luckily for the three performances tonight everything ran smoothly I was able to pause the insulation in between performances and crowd control worked and everything seem to be OK? I guess? But all that to say that since yesterday morning being late for school way Wait, did I tell you that we had slept in because soul was playing video games on my phone? Anyway I told the story to Gloria about 10 times because she was fascinated with us being late for some reason. It has just been a lot of work. But, I am very excited because tomorrow I get my tattoo and then I get Rose and saw for two weeks! Also, we are going to look at fun and Evan‘s apartment again on Sunday this time with the kids and it seems like this is all moving ahead and it is happening very fastBut sometimes life is fast, right?
Dictated, not corrected
Sent with positive vibes from my super-duper hand-held computing device.
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 5, 2020, 11:49 PM subject One hundred and thirty-six
Dear justin,
Wow, what a bunch of stuff in the last couple days. Performance is Thursday night went well, managed to get technical glitch is solved and everything went smoothly, except Sophie said one of her looping petals was stuck but honestly I don’t think anyone except her noticed. Friday I had to come in to tear down and also Do a projector test with Claudine and Marie-Josée and it went longer than I expected and had to rush out because I had my tattoos scheduled! And as usual Karen did a bang up job and I decided to put the Honeybear on my left forearm and the heart on my right hand looks really cool and bad ass. And then the big news, aside from finally getting my kids Friday night and then jessica coming over unexpectedly as she has been field
Feeling out of sorts a bitch and had some bad news about her hours at the CEP, and we were planning to go see fine and Evan‘s place again tomorrow but then today got a call from Alexis and the family who were supposed to take their place backed out suddenly, very suddenly as the lease transfer was for October 1, and so Jessica and the kids and I went over to see their place and It is amazing, Alexis and Adam are in the process of moving things up to the country and when Jessica and I heard what the rent is our jaws both hit the floor as it is so amazingly affordable. The rent on this place is actually less than what jessica put pays for her 3 1/2 up the street. This is bonkers. So, we are not taking the place in Saint Henri and probably Jessica will move in for October 1 and the kids and I will follow for November 1. I just don’t think it is feasible for both of us to leave our places for October 1 but who knows? Maybe it will work. I’d like to paint the place before moving in and adjust some of the built-in shelving that atom has made and we still have lots of logistics to figure out about appliances, it looks like Jessica and I will have to sell some of ours but maybe look for a new fridge? I like the apartment size ones, 24 inches. There is much to discuss in the coming days.
Dictated, I have not corrected
Sent with positive vibes from my super-duper hand-held computing device.
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 8, 2020, 10:49 AM subject One hundred and thirty-six
Dear Justin,
How was your long weekend? I stayed in the city with the kids. Had to rush off for my tattoos on Friday as Claudine and Marie-Josée wanted to do projector tests at VOX in the morning and it ran late. The
tattoos look great! I changed my mind at the last minute and had Karen put Honeybear on my left arm, so now that’s a thing. Jessica stayed over Friday night and Sunday and last night. We cancelled the apartment visit with Evana and Fawn on Sunday because on Saturday I got a call from Alexis and Atom and the family that was supposed to sublet their apartment backed out and we were next on the list, so we went for visit with the kids and we like the place – it only has 2
closed rooms but Jessica can make her studio in the double room we’ll
use as a bedroom – and it has a yard, it is on the ground floor, tons
of caché and storage and character and there is really no question of
taking it because HOLY F*CKING SHIT THE RENT IS $710 per MONTH. Jessica asked “for each of us, right?” and the answer is no, it is
$710 / month. You can only imagine (and growing up wealthy, not even sure if you can imagine) what a weight was lifted from my shoulders, especially as I am dipping into my savings just for groceries this
week – I haven’t finished at Angie’s so there is money coming in – but OMG it will be a relief to have some room to even save money. Jessica and I both feel a little guilty that we are taking a place that surely
other families might need more than us, two white folk with bags full
of privilege, but we’ll take it and send some of the savings in money
and time to BLM and Indigenous movements. Anyway, I’m back at work this morning, the kids are at school, but Rose has a bit of a cough
that started yesterday and although she has no other symptoms, with the rising cases in Quebec including those at schools we are a little worried. Yesterday we spent the day playground hopping, visiting 6 in total, but they were mostly deserted. Oh yeah and Sunday we took Gloria to a park and we took the metro there and back, the kids wear their masks inside, but Saturday we bought Sol soccer shoes from Evangalista on St. Laurent and had to walk by a crooner singing on the sidewalk, it seems people are getting a little too careless, so I
really hope we’re still in the clear. OK back to work.
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 11, 2020, 10:37 PM
subject One hundred and thirty-seven
Dear justin,
Another week. I can’t remember if I told you or not but the city had painted over the defund the police neural I did a couple weeks ago, so I had some time today and added a third. I think it is the best yet. Since Labour Day was a Monday I could carry it over and took the morning to finish The job at Angie’s. The kids had a pedagogy go all day but Rose was invited to spend the day with her friend Ava. Cell found that very unfair, I told him I would try to get a play date for him on the next PET ago. Anyway, Not to complain about money but my fox pay was late and my account was going to be overdrawn by some automatic payment and tangerine charged me a $40 NSF which makes my blood boil. Also, I am lending my parents $13,000 so they can buy a new trailer. They will pay me back when they sell the current one. It is nice to beAble to help out financially, basically for the first time in my life ha ha.
Dictated, not corrected
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from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 14, 2020, 10:30 PM
subject One hundred and thirty-eight
Dear justin,
Wow, I can’t believe it is Monday and the city painted over my defund we are all during the day. It really feels like they have a vendetta to keep this wall blank, which if you know me at all just means I will try hard Harder.
Anyway, had a good weekend with the kids, Saturday we went to see S Roberts and Gloria to the park and had ANW for supper and Sunday mostly stayed in because it rained all day. Tonight Rose is with her mom and I had an appointment with my psychiatrist in the morning and my psychologist in the afternoon, did some work at Vox in between and picked up a few things for jessica at Eva B For her birthday tomorrow. I had ordered a cake from Petit Lapin, which is a vegan bakery, Rose had suggested we get a raccoon on it and it looks adorable, also Rose painted an amazing picture of Willow from Buffy for Jessica and Rose no sorry Saul wrapped One of his sticks with yard,.
Dictated, not corrected
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from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 16, 2020, 11:53 AM subject One hundred and forty
Dear Justin,
I doubled up letter #136 so I skipped #139 and jumped right to #140. The hazards of writing so erratically.
Last night we celebrated Jessica’s birthday at my place, the kids were super excited. She loved their gifts – Rose’s painting of Willow and Sol’s yarn-wrapped magic wand – and of course the raccoon cake. I had ordered vegan sushi and we drank 2 bottles of wine. I had stopped at Eva B’s on Monday and found a nice top, earrings and sunglasses for her. We stayed up late on a video call with some of her friends.
I’m at work, spent almost 4 hours on the phone with Evan as he set up automatic shutdown protocols for Max. All working good today, although one of the Macs keeps losing its wifi connection. Not a big problem,
so long as the works keep running as they should. I’m null with these programs. I can’t get Juan’s video to play properly on the Brightsign
but I think that is because his video file is 3840 x 1280 which is a custom resolution, and possibly not accepted with the players. They keep stretching the image.
Ugh I’m not feeling the vibe at work so much. I want to be doing something that is more directly helpful for people, that makes more of a difference in the world. Not to say art isn’t important, but I
honestly think I’d feel more fulfilled if I was mopping floors and cleaning toilets at a homeless shelter. Maybe in the new year I’ll
phase out from Vox and just do my own contracts, and have more time for actual volunteering. Not sure if social media activism is
effective enough.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 17, 2020, 10:48 PM subject One hundred and forty-one
Dear justin, well, I received a phone call tonight from someone unexpected. My bank! They were calling to follow up on comments that I left on the website after a call about daily and weekly transfer limits. They refunded the $40 NSF fee they charged me when my account Was overdrawn last week. It was really quite pleasant, kudos to them.
Rose didn’t go to school today, she woke up with a very sore throat and she has been developing a cough this week so to be on the safe side we went to the hotel do you hospital for a Covid test. I had to be at Vox for a projector test with Juan so Went down for that and then came back up for a zoom staff meeting from home, then got soul after school. He had a major freak out tonight when an online game wasn’t working correctly. I feel bad for him when he gets in the states, it really does seem like he loses all control.
Oh, there is some news I haven’t had time to Tell you about. My ex emailed the other day about high school visits for Rose and then mentioned how she was aware that Jessica and I are moving in together and would like to meet her and asked again about mediation and then to top it all off wanted to know if we all four of us could do something for Rosi‘s birthday, like go to a restaurant or a walk on the mountain! I have yet to respond because honestly I don’t know how to. She is not respecting my boundaries and that makes me second-guess my boundaries which my therapist says are good and necessary and as Jessica says she created the situation. We are not a family anymore. Disease These are the consequences to her actions.
Are you aware of 1492 Land back Lane? You have to start walking the walk and not just talking to talk. Subsidy soil companies, green lighting pipelines, reneging on trees and selling land to third parties And dragging your heels on I’m going Landis buttes is not cool man.
Dictated, not corrected
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from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 23, 2020, 4:01 PM subject One hundred and forty-two
Dear Justin,
Sorry for the long delay, you know how it is. I had the kids until Friday, Rose was not feeling well Thursday morning and awoke with a really sore throat, so I stayed home with her and took her for a COVID test. We got the results Saturday or Sunday and she is negative.
Friday I dropped her off with my Ex for the day. Spent the weekend with Jessica, met our new landlord, and Monday night started some demolition, getting rid of an unnecessary closet wall, to give us a
little more floor space in the bedroom.
Had a not-so-fun interaction with my Ex on Monday as I had left work early – the building lost power – and Roses’ new backpack arrived, plus I wanted to get her painting supplies to her for the online
Studio Ghibli course – so I picked her up after school, but had only given my Ex a couple hours warning. Well, she showed up looking for Rose, her after-school teacher had left and nobody knew that Rose had left with me, and she started freaking out, but didn’t check her messages right away, so that when she met us on the street having ice cream she literally yelled at me. So I guess she is not in therapy to deal with her short temper and anger issues.
Oh, and Sunday I painted another Defund Police mural, this time adding a back to the Future style Land Back. The situation with the violence against the Mi’kmaq lobster fishers in NS is gross and inexcusable.
I’m ashamed to be born in that province. The paternalistic attitude of
the colonial state and its’ racist institutions against Indigenous People overall is gross and inexcusable.
Oh, good luck with the Throne Speech today.
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 23, 2020, 4:17 PM
subject One hundred and forty-three
Dear Justin,
Oh, I see you have already given the throne speech. Here is my 2-cents:
Not enough and not fast enough on Climate. We should be aiming at carbon neutral by 2030. These bogus “5% below 2005 levels” are bullshit. Governments have been using these moving targets for decades.
No mention of quick transitions from the oilpatch to renewables.
No mention whatsoever of any anti-racism measures, decolonizing, following through on any of the recommendations from the TRCC, or ensuring at the most basic, clean drinking water for every First
Nation community. No mention of Black lives matter, and from what I heard on Nora and Sandy yesterday, the only thing your government has proposed to help the Black community is a small business loans program – which will be run mostly by the Big Banks, and is essentially a program that encourages people to take on more debt and pay already grossly-profitable banks more interest.
Nothing about defunding the RCMP.
Nothing about respecting Treaties, or deciding with the Mi’kmaq just what a “moderate income” is after 20 years that the 1999 Marshall decision upheld rights enshrined in the Friendship Treaties from the 1750s. I mean, WTF?
Fuck this Throne Speech!
—
- ° Chris Lloyd
- ° 514 295-3048
- ° chris lloyd projects
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 26, 2020, 10:59 PM subject One hundred and forty-four
Dear justin,
Wow, what a lot for the last couple days. For starters, the city painted over my mural very early Friday morning, so it didn’t quite last week but it lasted most of the work week. I probably won’t have time to do a new one until next week as I have the kids. Just came over last night and we all watched frozen two, which is a much better version or sequel in terms of story, Jess really liked that Elsa is quite obviously a witch, and it seems that the treatment of the indigenous people in the story is respectful. Nothing like the disrespect shown to the Micmac by non-indigenous fishers in Nova Scotia.
Today I took the kids to Fox for the green screen workshop, we picked up Eva and we were the first group as I had to help with some of the final setting up and it was laid and it was a bit rushed but I think the kids had fun just being there. We went to Chinatown for lunch and the girls window shopped and eventually found some cute little headbands no hair bands and saw a sword.
We visited with Sara and Pascal and met their new kitten Bartleby who is cute as a button. Then we went to the new apartment met Jess helped carry plants there and then while Jess and I tore down the lower part of the bedroom closet walls and patched holes and reinforce the shelf the kids met some of the alia kids and had a great time playing chase tag. In fact, the kid said meeting new friends was the highlight of their day, which it’s really nice to hear. We got home late, there was lots of metro and buses today as the kids did not want to bike, and the kids had baths before bed. My apartment is a mess, there are dirty dishes in the sink but I will straighten things up tomorrow.
Oh, and almost 700 new corona virus cases today so is this the second one wave? Dictated, not corrected
Sent with positive vibes from my super-duper hand-held computing device.
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 28, 2020, 11:08 PM subject One hundred and forty-five
Dear justin,
Jessica move today, the biggest challenge was probably getting civil and Crowley into travel cases, which was practically impossible. Eventually, after a few attempts which were incredibly stressful and Trumatic for everyone involved, the spider technique managed to get Sybil into a cardboard box which we taped to another cardboard lid and thenWe were able to put them into a communal too. Commune auto. Community auto. Jessica was able to get Crowley into the carrier. I pick the kids up after school before we actually got the cats into our new place, while the movers were unloading, and it was another late night made even later because I had promised Rose we could watch an episode of Buffy. And now, who knows what is going to happen? Quebec goes into code red and a 28 day lock down, stacy has already cancelled his flight here, they were going to fly out tomorrow, why try to confine a pandemic by banning indoor house parties and social gatherings but keeping schools and businesses open? Wouldn’t another total quarantine make more sense? Or, I don’t know. More masks?
Dictated, not corrected
Sent with positive vibes from my super-duper hand-held computing device.
from chris lloyd to pm@pm.gc.ca
date Sep 29, 2020, 11:26 PM subject One hundred and forty-six
Dear justin, not a very exciting day at work, I am thinking of asking to reduce my hours so I have more time to pack and move and work on fixing up some of the things at the new apartment, also the crates that I agreed to build for an eye heater and who knows, maybe just quality time with Jess. Or myself, did I tell you that that I am going to take some studio space with Sara and Pascal? That won’t be until after I move in but it might be nice to set up a new winter routine where I work three days a week? With the lower rent I could probably swing it. Have you heard what is going on with the red zone? Seems a bit ridiculous to close galleries in cinemas believe big box stores open and schools when the second wave is clearly has hit. Makes sense to close bars and restaurants, but hell to enforce the no visiting or private gathering rule? The few visits I’ve done have been pretty careful, but I guess one never knows. Norah and Sandy tear your throne spree speech apart pretty good on the latest podcast, where is the lesson. I painted it defund the police T-shirts for Janice, and artist in New Brunswick who is sending them to her son and partner in New York. Oh, I guess I could also do that with some free time this week or next, repaint the mural on samara.
Dictated, not corrected
Sent with positive vibes from my super-duper hand-held computing device.
DEAR PM 