• Believe in your fucking self
• Stay up all fucking night
• Work outside of your fucking habits
• Know when to fucking speak up
• Fucking collaborate
• Don’t fucking procrastinate
• Get over your fucking self
• Keep fucking learning
• Form follows fucking function
• A computer is a Lite-Brite for bad fucking ideas
• Find fucking inspiration everywhere
• Fucking network
• Educate your fucking client
• Trust your fucking gut
• Ask for fucking help
• Make it fucking sustainable
• Question fucking everything
• Have a fucking concept
• Learn to take some fucking criticism
• Make me fucking care
• Use fucking spell check
• Do your fucking research
• Sketch more fucking ideas
• The problem contains the fucking solution
• Think about all the fucking possibilities

[updated to add: if anyone knows the author, I'd love to link to them...]

Tonight, as part of The Sackville Film Society’s fall series, I watched Werner Herzog’s wonderful, quirky documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

The film was an exploration of what it means to be human, to share experiences through story-telling, through what people in the art community call mark-making.

Reaching back as far as 35,000 years, these oldest known cave paintings show that their makers had an intimate knowledge of horses, bison, rhinos, lions, bears, and more, that mocks the facile notion of the artists as primitives. Their lines are as practiced, as stylistic and as skilled as any human can make.

As someone whose personal drawing style tends towards contour drawings, I felt an immediate connection with whoever rendered these magnificent images on rock. It’s impossible to know if they were teaching aids (be successful; be safe), storytelling devices, spiritual touchstones, pure decoration, or the only thing an artist could do to express something inside them that they needed to share in order to feel human. To be human.

I also couldn’t help but wonder what these people would have thought of the technologies we have at our fingertips today; cameras, smartphones, video, communications satellites. We’re not really doing anything fundamentally different with them than they did with these paintings. We congratulate ourselves that our great-great-grandparents would be mystified by iPhones and instant, global communication, but we use them to tell the same stories. Be successful. Be safe. Learn. Share. Marvel. Wonder.

These long-dead artists can’t see us, but we can see them. They’re a little out-of-focus, but they look familiar. They’re not so different, are they?

The show was, in a word, amazing.

As it happens, I was first in line, so I was able to get front-row seats. Having had good luck recording video at Garnet Rogers and U2, I thought I’d give my new iPhone 4S a whirl. Sadly, I missed the first song (stupid, stupid, stupid), but I got the rest of the show in 1080p.

After the show, Kelly and John met Dan, got autographs, and had a chat. I asked Dan if he was okay with me posting these clips to YouTube, and he said you can’t stop it these days. I pointed out that if he didn’t want me to, then I wouldn’t post them. He said he appreciated that, but to go ahead.

So I have. I shot 18 GB of video, and it took almost 48 hours to upload. Hope you enjoy it. If you get the chance to see him live, do not hesitate.

• A review of Dan Mangan’s show a couple of nights later in Halifax
• Follow @danmanganmusic on Twitter
• Buy all of Dan Mangan’s music on iTunes — he’s gotta eat!

Dan Managan: Sold

Dan Mangan: Oh Fortune

Dan Mangan: Post-war Blues

Dan Mangan: Basket

Dan Mangan: You Silly Git/Road Regrets

Dan Mangan: If I Am Dead/Daffodil/Starts With Them, Ends With Us

Dan Mangan: How Darwinian

Dan Mangan: Some People

Dan Mangan: Rows of Houses/Regarding Death and Dying

Dan Mangan: The Indie Queens Are Waiting
The Crackling: Keep Me Drunk

Dan Mangan: Robots/So Much for Everyone

First year drawing was taught by Prof. Virgil Hammock, who retired in 2004.

Most of these figure studies would’ve been completed in somewhere between 10 seconds and 3 or 4 minutes. The more detail, the longer the pose was likely held. The architectural pieces were done from my photographs.

Mainly drawn on throw-away newsprint, about 18×24″, they’re just simple exercises, having no merit as art. In keeping with that, these reproductions were hastily shot on an iPhone with available lighting with no effort made even to remove folds, wrinkles or avoid shadows. But for me, they’re a snapshot of what I was doing, in another life, twenty years ago.

Male nude, standing (white conté pencil on black Mayfair)

Female nude, arms folded

abandoned buildings (part of what is now the Campbell Carriage Factory museum)

Homes in Middle Sackville, corner of Main Street and School Lane

Self-portrait, drawn while looking in a mirror — but without looking at the page

Self-portrait, drawn with eyes closed

Female nude, with easel

Plaster bust (white conté pencil on black Mayfair)

Female nude, standing (the next drwaing is on the reverse of this sheet)

Female nude, standing beside stool (verso of previous drawing)

Female nude, standing behind stool

Thomas Williams’ House, Park Street, Moncton, New Brunswick

male nude, seated (white conté pencil on black Mayfair)

Hon. Mike Olscamp,
MLA, Tantramar

Mr Olscamp;

I recently learned of the premier’s intention to pay for MS patients’ so-called “liberation treatment” (N.B. will fund MS vein-opening treatment). This is unfortunate.

While I understand that the premier is acting with the best of intentions and seeks only to alleviate suffering, he is not equipped to second-guess medical professionals who have yet to determine the safety and efficacy of this expensive and controversial technique.

Emotional stories from old friends should not carry undue weight — if any — when making expensive healthcare funding decisions. Scientific journals are not filled with articles containing “I heard from somebody that this works great”, or “wouldn’t it be just wonderful if this worked?”.

Intervening politically in this way undermines the healthcare profession and places the health of New Brunswickers in the hands of people with a vested financial interest in promoting unproven surgical procedures. Is the province prepared to cover possible lawsuits, should the technique prove to be dangerous, since it has endorsed it and funded it?

I hope to learn that the premier has reconsidered his position, and thank you for taking the time to read this; I know how busy you must be.

Regards,

Christopher Mackay

PS — I will be posting this on my blog at cbmackay.ca