Ravens' View

Welcome to my blog

Graffiti is like a dandelion - to some it's a flower to be appreciated and encouraged, to others it's a weed to be stomped out and eradicated.

For links to some positive articles on graffiti, murals, and legal walls click on my other page .

Local mural projects are here on my Flickr site.  

Unwanted tagging has become an expensive problem in many cities, including here in Ottawa. While some areas focus on increased patrols and immediate eradication as a quick solution, graffiti murals have been shown in many cases to be a more effective choice - cheaper in the long run, more inclusive of youth and other community members, and with many other benefits.  These murals have been shown to not just be a way prevent illegal painting, but to be tool that links together local graffiti artists, business owners, and residents in a transformed community. Transformed into a cleaner and more socially inter-connected neighbourhood, more attractive to shoppers and tourists, and often with property values improved. And of course, with tagged walls replaced by mural art. This mural design can range from a colourful maze of interconnected letters to scenes and cartoon characters, the mix depends mainly on the customer. 

I have a lot of photos on Flickr -a wide selection that includes local graffiti, mural projects and arts events. If you have an event you'd like me to cover, drop me a line.

For more info on graffiti transformation projects - how to get one, how to run one - keep on reading this post.

Christmas Traditions - keep some, let some go

As your children grow up, and then as grandchildren start popping out, some traditions keep going, some have to change. 

We all develop traditions in our families, those various customs and beliefs that we follow and pass on - some lasting for generations, some for a few years. Some of these relate more to a specific date, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, some relate more to a function, like an annual trip to a cottage, but the strongest seem to relate to both. 

My family had our own traditions related to Christmas. Being Catholic, there was the mandatory Christmas Eve tradition of Midnight Mass. If we were up north for Christmas, in Kirkland Lake, we went with my grandparents to their church, the French Catholic one. It was the biggest one in town of course, high up on a rocky hill. We got a sermon in French and, back then, the rest of the Mass in Latin. Since I understood neither, and was never very religious, it was a pretty dull tradition for me. But it was important to my grandparents, and to God, so we went for their sake. n my late teens, after my grandmother died, my mother, "Uncle" Ted, and I started a new tradition - the Christmas Eve Moose Milk. That replaced the Midnight Mass, as we lacked both the motivation and the coordination to venture out. We also had Christmas stockings as kids, filled with trinkets and fruit, I assume had a pile of presents under the tree, and I seem to remember the all-you-can-eat Christmas Day dinner. Strange that I remember a lot of little moments from growing up, but nothing really about Christmas. Other than the memories of Moose Milk - sounds like an obscure Northern Ontario Presidents Choice recipe.    

With my kids, we carried on with the stockings hung by the chimney with care, to be filled with with booty and bling from the new trendy toy places like Mrs.Tiggy Winkles. Filled with wind-up toys and clever puzzles and strange little creatures, the stockings were a highlight of Christmas morning. But, they were not cheap to fill, and as the kids grew up, there was not as much play value in their contents. So a couple of years ago my kids suggested we cut back on all the fancy stocking stuffers, and go back to Dollarama fare, a few simple toys, some basic kitchen things, some needed toiletries. And some fruit. With my grandchildren, I suspect a few fancier trinkets will creep into the little ones' stockings - it's hard not to spoil them. 

Childproofing for grandkids

When I was a kid, a baby boomer, back in the olden days (yikes), I don't think there wasn't much childproofing done for us. Parents back then didn't have many parenting guides to help or confuse them, just their parents' advice. And of course Doctor Spock.  I seem to remember we had gates at stairways to protect us, or maybe an ironing board across a doorway, but that was about it. Our parents probably did the same for a new baby or a new puppy. The rest of the world was right there for us, with all it's thrills and spills, adventures and hazards. I was free to poke things into electrical outlets, sample the cleaning supplies, or flush things down the toilet - not that I recall doing any of those things. I was also free to open kitchen drawers and doors, and that I did. In fact I used to play under the kitchen sink, that cupboard had some pots and pans in it, and utensils on hooks, and was a great place to pretend and escape reality. I did that often, preferring solitary play to socializing - a trait that would later on get me expelled from kindergarten for a week. But that's another story.

For my own kids we had had more guides and courses to tell us how to be parents, and the stores sold the aforementioned gates, plus covers for doorknobs, latches for kitchen doors, and bumpers for sharp corners. Great presents for baby showers. And it seems to me those all stayed installed until the youngest was maybe 3, an ongoing challenge for parents and visitors, and something for the older kids to eventually figure out. When we finally did get around to removing all those protections It did feel weird the first few day to not have to be flicking hidden latches every time we went to open something.

How to write stuff

A friend has been telling me I should write sci-fi stories.

I do admit I’ve been an avid reader of science fiction since my teens in a small town in Northern Ontario, haunting the new books shelf of our tiny library on Duncan Avenue, waiting for each new acquisition. They were on a 7 day limit – not a problem for a speed reader. Back then my obsession focus started as a way to escape the boredom of life as a smart kid in a school of jocks, but now it’s just because I enjoy the genre. In addition, I do seem literate at times, hence my friend’s prompt of "you could write science fiction, you’d be good at it".

I admit I do appreciate a well written book, so if I did somehow manage to produce a good one I’m sure I’d recognize it after the fact. However, I wasn’t sure how I would get from good intentions to a finished manuscript.

In the meantime, I knew that she too churns through sci-fi books, and can string some good phrases together, so while musing on my own talents I tossed the suggestion back to her and went looking for a "how to write" book for her birthday.

Turns out there were dozens of choices in that section of Chapters, covering areas like how to write novels, poetry, essays, plays, term papers, and advertising copy. I browsed the selections, talked to the clerk, chatted with other would-be writers – all things you can’t do via online shopping by the way. Anyways, I didn’t find anything specifically on sci-fi but I’m sure it’s there on the shelf somewhere, I know there are lots of references online.