One of my longtime illustrator friends was somewhat
taken aback upon receiving one of my End of an Era-themed dragon cards. Seems
I’d forgotten to mention that the end of one era could herald the start of a
new one … sort of like that overused metaphor about a half empty/half full
glass of liquid.
I’m
not really depressed about my book design career crash diving into oblivion …
if anything I’m more relieved that I no longer have to feel like I’m wasting
away on behalf of the thoughtless, giddy creatures who seem to have hijacked
the publishing industry with little concept at how to operate such an animal.
Better to just let them stew in their own juices as e-books sound their own
death knells.
Now
I have more time to devote to things that really matter. Things like what three
generations of us did on Christmas Eve when we attended the annual “live
nativity” at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church on St. Clair Avenue West. The
shepherds arrived with live sheep. There was a live goat in the stable that
Mary and Joseph arrived at with a real donkey. But the piece de résistance were two cameo appearances by a full grown
camel. Plus there must have been around 100 humans (including a live Christ
child!). There was an amazing phalanx of angels (one of the angels in the
foreground was haranguing her neighbouring seraphim about the states of their
halos, wings or other angelic gear … fortunately the microphones did not pick
up this chatter. King Herod put in a stellar turn with an amped up acoustic
guitar and a talking blues about the threat to his monarchy of the baby Jesus.
The culmination (after a quintet of angels sang from a cloud high up above the
marvelling congregation) were three fellows (with silent assistants) creditably
sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Then we all sang Joy to the World and were
dismissed but we weren’t fast enough to catch the grazing camel like we did
last year. Guess we stayed too long with the goat and sheep.
This
is likely to become an annual tradition now that we no longer inevitably spend
Christmas in Montreal.
My
friend seemed most disturbed by my NOW WHAT? gauntlet which was more me
thinking out loud about what tack to take when I’ve finally exhausted the
dragon theme. Still working on that.
