No. 95 - Ghouls R Us

and other ways to spend your time

Hi dear readers

Let’s get the halloween photos out of the way, shall we? This post is all-over-the-place and it starts with some blasts from the past.

My husband David and I in 1990

1994… same couple

2013… Déjà vu

The world’s saddest ghoul

Okay, back to our regular programming.

Soujourn in Van-coo-coo

(from May 2023)

A few weeks back we went to Vancouver see the Shary Boyle exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery, plus catch up with some friends and generally goof off. The trip coincided with my birthday so we made a reservation at Lupo, a very good, very expensive restaurant on Hamilton Street. The entire trip represented an opportunity to take a break after a super shitty year, and a long-overdue chance to throw down some money that we don’t have. Hence Lupo.

Lupo is situated in a house—it’s understated and it’s quiet. The service was near-perfect and the food was out of this world, though there wasn’t quite enough of it. The only points lost for service were due to the “charming” Italian waiter whose charm withered and went stone cold when it became clear that we were wrapping up and the money tap was closing. We were dead to him after that.

When we arrived I noticed another table for two by the window, just to the left behind my husband David’s back. There was an unopened bottle of wine on it—clearly someone’s regular table, and they were on their way. The couple arrived and they appeared to be, let’s say, uber-rich. The man was wearing a suit, but he was too outside my field of vision to examine without outright staring. The woman however was very much in my field of vision; I was able to surreptitiously gather information without bald-faced staring. She on the other hand was not at all shy about looking straight at me, which for her meant turning her head sharply to the left. But more on that later.

She wasn’t young, but she was well preserved. Not in a puff-lipped, skin-yanked-back kind of way. More in a finely-cracked, invaluable ancient porcelain vase kind of way. Her clothing was an interesting mix… it became showier as it went from head to toe. Her brown hair was cut in a pageboy and she sported black heavy-rimmed statement glasses. She wore a somewhat conservative, long-sleeved blouse of (by my reckoning) heavy brown silk. The pants were black leather. And her feet were crammed into the nastiest, pointiest, highest black patent stilettos you can imagine. They had some metal detail on the toe like a hood ornament. Think Darth Vader’s dominatrix piece-of-work mistress he keeps on the side—she would wear these shoes.

And yes, several times during dinner I could see in my peripheral vision (she was right behind David, to his left) that she had turned and was openly gazing at me. Strangely, it didn’t bother me—I felt no malice in it. I willingly offered myself to her so that she could gather whatever information she needed. Yes, take it in, here I am! A perfectly regular person relishing my food and laughing with my husband! My clothes aren’t worth much! My boots are flat! The skin on my face is shifting dangerously and melting off my head! Enjoy!

Anyway, that was my birthday. I recommend Lupo if you have some unneeded cash you want to part with.

David and I in our Vancouver hotel room. Photo by jackasspath

Life in the Real World

(present-day thoughts)

I’m feeling a little distant from this-here Substack newsletter platform, and I’ll tell you why. I started giving workshops last April—so far, collage and journaling, and one workshop called Journal Collage that combines collaging on the front of a new notebook with doing a few journaling exercises in said new notebook.

I’m also offering sessions that provide a time and place to do the writing of your choice, called Writing Togetherness. I give a writing prompt and a journaling exercise, but you don’t have to use them—you can write whatever the hell you want. I previously didn’t understand the need for company when doing something like writing, because I’ve always worked alone. I see now that some people appreciate the accountability, and some people need the presence of others to do such work.

Writing Togetherness… the delightful sound of pens moving across paper

I’m also working on developing a drawing workshop, but I haven’t fully landed on how I want to approach it.

Giving workshops isn’t something I ever thought I’d want to do necessarily, but I’m really enjoying it. I like to be alone: I write alone and I make art alone. I’m surprised at how much I’m liking these group activities—I guess I’m human after all. The energy in the room, the collages that people make that are each like fingerprints, the insights that people share when talking about journaling. That people show up at all. That they’re willing to put themselves in a new environment to learn something new or have a new experience. They are present. I am present.

This change of heart may have partially to do with the pandemic, and how my social life seemed to shrink and never come fully back to size. It also has to do with coming to recognize that the energy I was putting into my online life (Substack, I’m looking at you) could never reap the same rewards that building something in the real world can. The real world that boasts oxygen and laughing and meeting someone else’s eyes.

So CHECK THEM OUT (if you please):

• Monthly Collage Workshops

• Monthly Writing Togetherness

• Taking Note: Creating Ourselves Through Journalling

• Journal Collage

• Collage Class download

• Taking Note download

balampman

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Behold the beauty and wonder of the monthly collage workshops… SOUND ON :)

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Some stuff!

• In the late 1980’s I worked at a bookstore in Montréal and was introduced to Jeanette Winterson’s first novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit from 1985, and then Sexing the Cherry from 1989. They were small hardcovers—approximately 4 x 6 inches—and I loved those books very much. I don’t remember what else I’ve read of hers over the years, apart from her memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal—also great— from 2011, which I read during the pandemic when I was trapped on the bed for six weeks with a broken ankle. Now she writes a Substack newsletter which is—you guessed it—GREAT, and yesterday’s post was no exception: read it here.

• There’s a new comic in town! I’m looking forward to watching this unfold: Charismatic Megafauna Comic

• A seven-minute long film about Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim

Thanks, Bye!

🪞WORKSHOPS! Downloads, and in-person workshops!

🪞Check out my resource page where I’ve started compiling things related to journaling, note-taking, and more.

🪞Visit balampman.com

🪞There’s always Instagram