Appreciation for the Wondrous Nuances of the Historical Peacetimes Society and Art Gallery

Get off your asses and come on down to visit the grand opening of the AoTWNoTHPSaAG on the corner of Burlington Street and Victoria this Saturday! View in amazement at our collection of various oil paintings and pictures conveying the breathtaking excitement of all human history’s most memorable periods of peace. Photographs upon photographs of halcyon days in Soviet Russia and a decedent masterpiece by de Neville of a pretty little avenue garnish the walls of our building. Bask in awe at our collection of high-resolution photographs depicting a post-war Winston Churchill shaking hands with various world leaders. A hallway lined with all history’s most ruthless pacifist dictators make it worth the cost of gas to drive here. Please come, as we would really like to pay our heating bills.

Of Course, we also wholeheartedly invite all like-minded admirers of nonviolent history to join our humble society, because we believe peace is so much more inclusive than war. We will be offering complementary fair-trade coffee and sliced cucumbers to which you may help yourself. We strongly encourage you to visit this grand opening, as all the war museums seem to be disproportionately crowded.

Adult Admission is 10$, Children are free.

Come one, Come all!

All Hail the AoTWNoTHPSaAG!

Get Off My Property

Many times man has set up a flagpole in the dirt and claimed ownership to a piece of land. He declares that he, above all the denizens of nature is the rightful heir to this segment of dirt and rocks to which he has laid claim despite none of the land’s qualities having changed; nothing is different about the land from when it was owned by nobody. The man will set up shelter on the land and cultivate its resources for his own gain, however the land does not recognize it is owned. The animals and bacteria, and flora and fauna do not beg forgiveness because they infringe on the man’s property. They won’t conform to the man’s laws and regulations, for they will not recognize his claim to the earth. Despite of this, He will beget and raise a family on the piece of land. The population will grow. Buildings and institutions form and scrape the clouds out of the sky, but the land will still not have changed. The borders he has established do nothing to keep the air from flowing in and out of his state, nor do the trees rip themselves from their roots and settle elsewhere to accommodate all the man’s roads, banks, and public housing projects. The man is preoccupied establishing laws and regulations keeping other inhabitants of this fenced-off corner of the universe conformed to his interests and respectful of these lines he has drawn in the dirt. Meanwhile, the sun shines down on the grass and the maple trees absorb the sunlight and turn the nutrients into sucrose which they use to live. Deer eat the maple trees and cows eat the grass and are thus consumed by wolves and boa constrictors. While beneath them, the land remains as it had been before it was owned, and shall thus remain until the buildings block the sunlight from the sky.

Discordance

The parent’s council of St. Patrick’s Elementary School had gathered in the basement of the local parish to stroke their egos in yet another inconsequential meeting they deemed necessary to upload their Moral code. The folding chairs were lined into eight rows, divided into an alley in the middle, resembling a chapel. Flies, both human and insect sipped on the coffee used as a petty financial sacrifice by the council to attract a few otherwise socially reclusive organisms to their cause. The cups were paper with foldable handles on the sides. From a distance they resembled porcelain coffee mugs. The speaker was mounted upon a wooden platform in the forefront of the room. He was a stout, balding man wearing an expensive polo shirt and a timid, monotone address. They sipped on their coffee and listened half-heatedly to his announcements: a dead cat, a lost bicycle, nine bake-sales, and a divorce.

“Who is going to contribute to the bake-sale for Father Stevens’ birthday next week?”

Raoul thought that it was not his place to contribute to another fucking church bake-sale. He had nothing personal against Father Stevens; indeed, the sermons he had given when the Patriots weren’t playing on FOX had been rather enjoyable. It was just that his wife Mary was going through menopause and vehemently reiterated that if those cunts at the church wanted any more baked goods from her they could retrieve them from her septic tank. He was in no place but to comply from her. Mary snatched at Raoul’s sleeve.

“Don’t raise your hand Raoul or I swear I will cut your penis off and bake that for them!”

Raoul shook himself free. “I wasn’t going to! You shouldn’t use profanity in the house of god.” he whined.

The council lowered their hands as they had otherwise not heard Mary’s exclamation. There were four volunteers. The monotone bald man gathered his papers and stepped to the side as a figure in a dark suit walked over from the left of the room.

“Thank you parents for coming once again to our weekly council meeting. I would like now to turn our speaker over to Mr. Woodward.”

Mr. Woodward stepped onto the stand. His audience applauded nonchalantly. Mary looked away from the hypnotic swirl of her coffee. She thought that his name sounded familiar. Mr. Woodward had never spoken before any of the parent council meetings she had previously attended, but she swore that she had heard his name before.

“Thank you Jim for your address. I have come before the Parent Council of St. Patrick’s Elementary School today with news of a horrible trend that has ensnared our precious youth.”

There was a feedback of whispers among the audience. Raoul shoved Mary to get her attention.

“A horrible trend? Listen Mary, something has ensnared our Kelly!”

She wished he would shut up.

“There is a musical genre that few of you may know about that is teaching our children to worship Satan and kill one another in bizarre, autophagous rituals. Although it is contained in an obscure subculture, I contend that no children are safe from the dark influences of this dangerous music.”

The man had a cold stoic face that looked worn with age, like boot leather. His hair was slicked back, coloured dark, though it was evident to most that he had dyed it from its natural grey. He leaned on the pulpit with the desperation of a man exhausted beyond composure. His suit was dark. It likely hid various stains. Mary took another sip of her coffee.

“This musical genre that I speak of is called black metal.”

Woodward hinted for the lights to be turned down and projected a menacing photograph of Count Grishnackh onto the screen behind him.

“This music is crafted from the pits of hell itself, it is the...”

Johnny Interrupted.

“Excuse me, but what evidence do you have to prove that this black rock music is as bad as you say it is. Are you a doctor or something?”

Johnny was the father of a boy named Bruce, who was known to be the closest child to resemble the archetype of a school bully. He had been suspended countless times for his trivial acts of delinquency; exposing himself to the classmates, asking distasteful questions about the human anatomy, etc. Nobody at school liked Bruce. Nobody liked Johnny either.

“I used to be a black metal musician myself, so I believe I have full authority to make you aware of its dangers. It has destroyed my hearing, my ethics, and my soul.”

Mary was perplexed by the old prune of an orator the council had allowed to waste everyone’s time with his nonsense, there was a certain familiar quality about him that Mary couldn’t quite discern. Woodward changed the slide on the projector to a photograph of a church immolation.

“As you can see, the music has a history of violence towards religious affiliations.  The members of these black metal groups are murderers and psychopaths.”

He changed the slide to a picture of Per Ohlin. Johnny interrupted.

“I’m sorry but this is a load of shit! Music is clearly nothing we need to be afraid of anymore. I grew up listening to rock n’ roll bands and there is nothing wrong with me!”

Johnny made a face by pressing his lower lip outwards and glaring that neither looked like a frown nor a snarl. He shook his fist at Woodward and motioned for him to leave.

“Rock music has not changed since I was a kid!”

“That used to be my philosophy sir, but rest assured, black metal is a genre that defies all the artistic elements and conventions of typical rock music. There are dangerous chords being played here that children should not be exposed to.”

“Then let’s hear some of this devil music then, shall we?”

There was no response from the crowd to the exchange between Johnny and Woodward, as apathy is not usually considered a response. Mary watched Woodward attentively as he grabbed a CD player from below the wooden stand. He reached into his waist pocket and held up a compact disk.

“I will now play for you the orchestrations of the black metal band Mayhem.”

He pressed play. As the music commenced, the most devote churchgoers among the lot of parents burst into flames upon the first dissonant strings of Cacophony erupting through the speakers. Johnny screamed in agony as the flesh melted in a cascade off his skull and into a pool on the floor. The flames died down with the music and only Woodward and Mary were left unscathed. She stood up from her folding chair and kicked the ashen remains of her husband into a cloud.

“I remember who you are now.”

Mary had said it almost as a statement of fact, as if Woodward had already known.

“March 20^th, 1992, Oslo. You were the guitar player of that band.”

“Black Jesus.”

“Yes, and you...”

“I fucked your brains out. You were the hottest groupie I ever slept with.”

“Is that why you came back, to save me from this hell?”

Woodward placed the CD player down and pressed the pause button. It had already started playing the next track.

“Yes. It is. Now how about we go back to Norway together and burn down some more churches. I think the Catholics just built a new one in Hammerfest.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Hugo

                 With a grand, perhaps almost foreboding entrance into the Jackson Square food court, reminiscent of a thick cumulonimbus cloud billowing just before a new-found horizon, thus looms Hugo; the utmost bane of cardiologists and nutrionists the world over. A thickened plate of petrified bacon grease and high-fructose corn syrup envelop the motorized scooter that propels Hugo forward, beyond the terrified and utterly confused stares of Hamilton’s more well-fit citizens (the sorts of people who will almost certainly never conceive of the joy and sheer unbridled glee that overtakes oneself during the consumption of fourteen Big Macs with extra mayonnaise). Burger King cashiers recoil in disgust at the shapeless mass, possessing the collective weight and appetite akin to that of the Oakland Raiders stood overshadowing them. Perhaps they would even have been able to serve him; had his order not been so lengthy, or better still, if they’d even stocked enough inventory sufficient to accommodate him. Any sane mind would deny that a man of such self-destructive a conscience would be probable to exist, and if he did, it would truly be one who had to despise himself, but there loomed Hugo, the epitome of this law, a creature of such ill taste and gross, debilitating negligence one would think utterly improbable, but alas, we behold Hugo.

                Begotten by mystery and shrouded in salami grease, Hugo’s appetite was responsible for 7.5% of the net earnings of the Food Festival food court in the heart of Jackson Square. Hugo was an addict, the drugs of choice for him being French fries, cheeseburger combos, double cheeseburger combos, rice, triple cheeseburger combos, KFC, and Chinese food (just for the sake of multiculturalism). Every morning, the 850 lb. behemoth would arise monumentally from slumber to pay the daily debt of his consumer obligations. He ate day and night, holiday and weekend; bulk tubs of cookie dough ice cream were relentlessly devoured during the thick, sweaty summer months, whilst Hugo’s fangs sunk deep into whole rotisserie chickens when it got really cold out (provided courtesy of Swiss Chalet). Poor Hugo was confined to a rascal scooter, after decades of binge eating took its inevitable toll of his knees, which upon giving up on supporting the absurd mass of lipids any longer, thus rendered useless. Hugo ate, and ate, and ate, and ate, and ate; yet despite of this fact, He was relatively empty inside. You see, Hugo (as he was known) knew nobody, and of course nobody knew Hugo. Nobody wanted to hang out with Hugo, nobody wanted to get drunk or smoke pot with Hugo, and of course, nobody wanted to take fistfuls of MDMA and rave for seven hours to Yolanda Be Cool songs at the London Tap House until revived by paramedics the following week with Hugo. Hugo just continued to eat and grow. 

His only other companions were the other variously crippled and insane people who add a much needed flavour to Hamilton’s Downtown core (and if I must say, do a mighty fine job scaring away pesky tourists). The crazy man who has conversations with the plush Maple Leafs doll he carries around with him, the schizophrenic women on the 5A Delaware bus who looks like the female version of Quentin Tarantino, the bearded man with the trench coat who talks to pigeons at the Public Library, and of course, all the other sorts of various beggars and minstrels who linger about on the corner of King and James; these were Hugo’s only friends, the only ones he talked to, the only ones he hadn’t already eaten (and it’s probably safe for us to assume that the aforementioned lunatics don’t taste very good). Diabetes would have claimed Hugo’s entire left leg, had he bothered to show up for the surgery three years ago, and upon hearing of the procedure, slipped into a deep depression, in which he consumed 5 more than his usual 12 cheeseburger combos a week. Some say Hugo has not feelings, no emotions, no desires; his only urge is to eat, and eat, and eat.

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Dr. Harold entered the room a few moments later carrying a thick brown dossier folder and dropped it onto his desk. The leather office chair squealed in agony as he lowered his podgy form down to Thomas’ eye level not unlike how an old man would ease his way into a warm bathtub. He slowly opened the folder and eyed a few of its contents as if he were deciphering some sort of cryptic puzzle. A gaze halfway between disapproval and disbelief met Thomas’ as Harold broke eye contact for a moment to rub his face into his palm.

“I have to say Thomas; I haven’t seen anybody in such dismal health for quite some time. Some of these test results are actually quite disturbing!”

He looks back up from his papers as if to expect some explanation.

“Like what?”

“Well your heart for one, is on its last legs, and your blood pressure tested dangerously high. Frankly, I consider it both a miracle of nature and God that you’ve lived to the age of 50. Just out of curiosity, how much coffee do you normally drink in one day?”

“About 9-10 venti cups, the caffeine keeps me stimulated and alert!”

“That does no good when you’re in a coffin Thomas! Hell, I’ve seen nonagenarians in better shape than you are. If you seriously want to live another 5 years, I suggest a total lifestyle overhaul. No more caffeine Thomas! It’s literally killing you!”

“You seem to imply as though abstaining from caffeine would ensure my immortality?”

Harold let out a faint burp and his patient caught a scent of sirloin steak. Seemingly embarrassed, He examines a couple more of the documents and hands them over to Thomas.

“Not entirely so, there’s also the matter of your cigarette smoking. You are not going to live a very long life being at such a detrimental risk of developing lung cancer or emphysema. Have you been thinking of quitting at all?”

“Well, perhaps I ought to go on a sort of indefinite hiatus first, you know, to get used to not smoking?”

“No! There will be no more of your breaks or false commitments, no more indefinite hiatuses—you will quit Thomas! Quit soon!”

“No, I couldn’t. My Belmonts are far too delectable to give up at this point. After a lifetime of self-indulgence, I would not be surprised if I had the nicotine weaved into my DNA already. They may not be doing wonders to my lungs, but I can assure you I still intake oxygen and emit carbon dioxide as well as anyone.”

                Dumbfounded, Harold removed his monstrous bifocals and placed them atop the dossier, which considering their size would have made a decent paper weight. He furrowed his brow and then let out a loud, wet-sounding snort. Perhaps in some vain attempt to make his patient come to terms with his fleeting mortality, Harold pulled his wallet from his back pocket and looked through it; his thick sausage-like fingers fumbling through dozens of receipts and banknotes until he monumentally pulled out a small tarnished photograph that he slid over to Thomas.

“These are my wife and two children—Jason and Megan, to the left is my wife Cynthia. We’ve been happily married for 23 years now. I couldn’t imagine if anything terrible were ever to happen to them. Do you have any family Thomas?”

His hands shaking with rapturous tremors from the X-large dark Paradiso coffee he bought at Second Cup prior to the appointment, Thomas examined the picture. Bringing to mind the possum he had recently chased out of his tool-shed, the first child, presumably Jason, had the unsightly appearance of some sort of deranged, half-man, half-marsupial. Megan in contrast looked alright; she was about 17-18 years old with big tits and a soft face.

“No, I don’t.”

Defeated, Dr. Harold slipped the photo back into his wallet.

“Before you leave, I’m going to give you a bottle of these Omega-3 fish oil supplements to offset your high cholesterol, which if I had to guess, is due to the grandiose quantities of red meat you’ve been eating.”

Thomas grinned.

“Please take them!”

                And with a faint click, the door closed behind Thomas as he left Harold’s office.  The receptionist, to whom he bit adieu, reminded Thomas of the doctor’s daughter—her breasts only slightly more voluptuous.

And as Dr. Harold made his way across James Street to the parking lot where his beautiful new Jaguar awaited him, a 26-Upper Wellington Bus, bound for the Jolly Cut sped up the way. Had his hearing not been so poor, he may have heard the oncoming vehicle and gotten out of its path, but as his teeth and brains were strewn across the newly paved avenue, a final rush of neurons into his brain made for one last sentiment before his spirit ascended up into the pearly gates.

“I really should not have eaten that sirloin steak.”

A puddle of blood trickled down to where Thomas stood, a few yards away. With a grin of resignation, he lit up the last of his cigarettes and walked away.

 ...but not before tossing the bottle of fish oil supplements into a nearby waste bin.