My cousin, Gord, sent me this SEA OF CLOUDS picture of his sister Karen’s view from her recently purchased lot near Osoyoos, British Columbia, Canada.
Factoid: I love mountains! I love the majesty! I love the mountains because they are antediluvian!
Gord informed me that the Osoyoos locals have coined this view as the SEA OF CLOUDS, and his sister, Karen, has suggested that if you stare long enough into that sky, you’ll eventually see a ship or two!
SEA OF CLOUDS, both picture and caption, is my found Xmas card! In the literary world, a found poem is an unedited quotation from a newspaper or magazine or any print published that when isolated, reads like a poem. The rhythm in the sentence, A DEAD'LY VI'RUS STALKED' THE PLA'NET, for example, has a similar cadence to any of Robert W. Service poems (see The Cremation of Sam McGee). For the purposes of real time explanation, I just found this sentence from a subtitle in the SPECIAL TIME EDITION 2020.
Being a snappy title guy, I just had to include SEA OF CLOUDS for my Christmastime blog title, and being ever clever and ever literary, decided upon SLEW OF CARDS as a complement. For the rest of this blog entry, as inspired by the Sea of Clouds, I am going to post some pictures of Xmas cards, and some Xmas pictures I found that could be Xmas cards, with the why explanations for each.
ALL of these pictures I present are lifted from my Instagram pages. Please note that I am not on Facebook. And the only reason I am on Instagram is because a guy, a guy I taught some 20 years ago in a third year Psychology class at the University of Regina, a guy I have become quite close to over the years, a guy like me (Psyc guy, guitar guy, and portrait artist guy), convinced me to create an Instagram account to show off my wares. Well, as it happens, my wares are limited to guitar busking, portrait busking, and hiking. Well (again) as it happens, I follow like-minded people and others of this ilk, too, follow me. My Instagram account, similar to this blog, attracts people from all over the planet! Who knew that this blog would grow in popularity to have a readership in 151 countries! And who knows where my Instagram will go!
Factoid: I take great pride and offer great bluster with regard to this blog. In my day job I work exclusively with Level Five Young Offenders, those incarcerated for the highest of crimes, murder, attempted murder, assault with weapons, you get the picture. Most my evenings are spent in my other occupation, that being a professional hypnotherapist. And yet, my claim to fame seems to be my planetary busker blog presentation and the tag-along notoriety that comes from writing this blog!
Meanwhile, back at the card ranch …
This was my SANTA 2019 XMAS card …
And now my 2020 SANTA card inspired by my love of billiards. Here I’ve Santa shooting 8-Ball. Hmmm … and the 8 ball inspired me to colour Santa black …
The inside of this card depicts Santa’s hand holding a pool cue …
And then I decided to scribble the initials, BLM, on his spectacles. Hmmm … such scribble action is a significant break from my blinkered past. Perhaps this SANTA 2020 year is a significant moment in my bildungsroman; a personal appeal for others to recognize and assist those who are marginalized and oppressed and less fortunate.
Inside every one of my limited edition premiere 28 cards I wrote the following questions:
Who knew Santa was Black?
(Residing at the North Pole, I think he could be Brown and Inuit.)
Who knew Santa’s real name was SAINT SCHTICK?
(I know he loves to play pool -- it's an easy stretch from SAINT NICK to SAINT SCHTICK.)
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT HUH! … I so love to brag!
As per usual, my brilliance pales quickly when compared to that of the real artisans I’ve met on Instagram.
And I’d love to introduce a couple of them.
This is my favourite Xmas card EVER! In the picture of a ball decoration is painted a ’55 Pontiac hauling a Christmas tree …
And from this same artist, Nataly Aparina from Moscow, is a Christmas CAT card. Admittedly I am stunned over how many cat lovers there are in my Instagram guitar and portrait world!
And now some more found cards, some festive family pictures sent through Instagram …
My granddaughter, Eden, and her XMAS ORANGE …
My daughter-in-law, Sila, standing at the base of Mt. Norquay in Banff, Alberta. Sila and Travers (our son) flew from Switzerland to spend Xmastime with us in the Rocky Mountains near Banff. However, the Covid restrictions placed upon Albertans kiboshed our grand plan. Travers and Sila are still enjoying the Rockies, while we are stationary in Regina. They fly back to Zurich early in the New Year.
This is a picture of that guy I mentioned at the top of this blog post. Dustin is that guitar guy, that portrait guy, that Psyc guy, that guy who encouraged me to join Instagram.
2020. The year of Black Lives Matter, the year of Corona Virus, yet another year of Trump chaos, turned to be a great year for Dustin and Veronica and their soon-to-be-bambino-member of the famous Ritter Family Band!
2021. HERE WE COME!
2021. AND WE’LL HAVE FUN, FUN, FUN
‘TIL HER DADDY TAKES HER T-BIRD AWAY …
BRILLIANT HUH … to end with yet another found poem.
MERRY XMAS, EVERYONE!
