Hoppity Hop

3 Feb - Year of the Rabbit

A year of indulgence in dream and delight, for what else is there to do between the rock of the Tiger and the hard place of the Dragon?

Seeds sown in previous years will sprout to become more permanent in your life. Don’t expect huge or obvious growth though, that comes with next year’s Dragon. This time is characterized by the small many, yet the sum is always greater than the parts. These innumerable events won’t be domino’s falling one after another but like a myriad of beautiful flowers springing up all across the meadow of your life.

It’s the best year possible to enjoy the verdant valley of existence. So roam free of fences, sniff inquisitively at any rose you pass, roll over, spin around, burrow just for fun and above all be sure to nourish all aspects of self!

Enjoy each precious moment here because next year you scale the mountain.

Til then though, more than beware, be aware.

Much love

Previous years from Doctor Lobster:

RRR-Miaow
Oxen-HO!
Rat-a-tat
Wallowing in it
Woof Hey
Cock-a-doodle-do
Monkey-man

Winter Flying Troubles - And a Law of Power

What a shame all this seasonal bad weather causing such travel chaos and hardship for so many in Europe,

Its been real ‘luck-of-the-draw’ stuff. Some people get stuck for days and days often having to abandon all travel plans. Others expect that and then get to leave on time no bother at all…

This has just been the perfect sieve to separate the lucky from the unlucky!

Many years ago I read a book called the 48 Laws of Power. It contained all manner of things one should do in order to have/gain/retain “Power”. Haha. Yet just about the only thing I remember from it was the directive to:

“Avoid unlucky people”

This bothered me … how does one tell if someone is lucky or unlucky… well we’ve just been provided with one such filter… so now we can know.

On the other hand there are so many occasions on which it is very useful to have an unlucky person around. For example its really unusual for 2 people to stand in dog shit on the same walk. Or be hit by a falling piano… the unlucky of the world are welcome to have a place next to me! No really, I mean it. I always thought it would be a really mean thing to do to deliberately avoid the unlucky.

Thus far I have been lucky. 1 of 3 necessarily delicately-timed flights have just happened. So I was lucky. Tomorrow will be the 2^nd and 3^rd of these flights. I’m interested to see if I now fall into the category of the very lucky or the badly disillusioned ! I feel really lucky… living this particularly interesting life and if you want further evidence that I am at one of the luckiest kids on the block… its cos I know YOU!

So have a Merry Xmas and a super magical wonder-new-year!

Feng Shui and Headless Ducks in the Vegetable Patch

A lot of people put the lid down on their toilets. Many of them do this is to prevent their wealth going down the drain which is what Feng Shui suggests. Others do it so that rats do not come up through the sewers and attack you in your sleep.

Both seem pretty good reasons to not risk it. One less likely than the other but in either case one would feel pretty stupid to suffer that fate when all it takes is a little extra effort.

So… what I want to know is… is this draining a constant nefarious thing? Is it best to slam that lid back down as fast as possible to save a second’s worth of wealth upon completion of the paperwork? Is the horrific draining power at its peak at a particularly time eg just as you’re flushing… is that when it’s most imperative to have the lid down? Is that in fact the only time its important? Does it matter how many times one uses the loo in a day? How angry should one be with visitor’s who have no respect for one’s hard-earned loot and leave that lid up after abluting?

And is this all applicable only in one’s own house… what about out and about, should one put that lid down before one flushes or does a toilet’s power to leech your wealth apply whenever one is near one? And on a national scale could this explain why all those 3^rd world countries with their open-air long-drop latrines are so poverty-stricken?

If anyone has any clarification on these matters most important please enlighten me…

I know a rudimentary search on some wiki internetti spaghetti page would answer at least the half serious ones but I’m enjoying letting information come to me randomly via the folks that I know… its also an around-a-bout laziness!

On another matter, yesterday morning I went to the veggie patch in my back garden to rescue the last courgette of the season (of 2 – but they’re alarmingly huge) from predator snails and early frosts. Aside from this magnificent tuber I found a small headless duck. One wing separated off to one side. Over the years I’ve found many a dead pigeon splashed in feathers, the victim’s of various cats. This duck carcass was especially gruesome as I’d not seen its kind. Black, soggy from overnight rain, intact but for its head having been ripped off. Its legs had an appearance of rubberyness to them. As if they’d feel like jelly to the touch. It made me feel squeamish, so much so that I just left it there and went to work.

I was thinking about how to deal with it. My first instinct was to give it a decent burial, this being what my Mum and I would do in years past. Or should I abandon sentiment and throw it in the bin? Why was I questioning this… The natural order seems that it’d be sensible to bury it. That way it could give its bits to the worms and plants in a decent fertilising way. So should I bury it in my vegetable patch in preparation for next year’s crops? That way too, perhaps I’d have the practical experience of discovering just how long bones last in the ground. But we don’t bury the body parts from the animals we eat. We don’t add our meaty bits to the compost heap… is it dangerous for some reason? Or is it because meat in the compost heap also attracts rats and then these godless sewer beasts may do anything to feed that newfound taste!

I have don’t fear rats in my garden though – something far more dreadful. You see, this evening when I returned and went out to deal with said dead duck. It was gone but not its wing. In the dark… imagine the chills to that crawled my spine, knowing that with only one wing, that headless duck with its soggy claws could not have got far… I only hope it’s the snails that suffer its vengeance.

Not much of the above would make for suitable photographic support so instead here is a picture of the courgette I rescued. And a photo taken at Burning Man that shows a planet of courgette type entities.

By the skies above I so truly hope life finds you all well!

Much love

Forget the THC’s pass me the HCB’s

I used to indulge in the Weed. Starting about 20 years ago. Not incessantly or daily, perhaps weekly at most and almost never alone. Getting stoned was always a social thing for me, something to enjoy in the company of others. I gave up in 2003 barring the odd spectacular collapse every now and then. Though I often find myself in one of those situations in which it is either appropriate to indulge or inappropriate not to. And every few months I dip my toe back in the water. Yet for the last several years, as much as I may enjoy such moments I generally dislike the overall impact. Social paranoia.

I can’t tell if my behaviour is acceptable or not. Am I being uncool, aggressive, impassive, insensitive, talking too much, talking too little, do my friends like me, why don’t I have this duck with me and heaven alone knows what else. It’s far from mellow and relaxed as the advertising promises. I wondered about this and concluded that its effect is to make me unconfident.

I first assumed I was simply ‘growing’ out of it, later that my reaction to it was changing but as I looked back I remembered this social paranoia always being something of a feature in the experiences, yet there was many a time of overall enjoyment in the far past.

Feeling unconfident is just horrid. “God” built into all of us enough of a ridiculous propensity towards insecurity so why would I want to inflict this on myself further. Why was I once so willing to do this?

The answer is: back in the day I was unconfident! So smoking weed never made any difference. I lost no confidence because I had none. It’s only now that I have some that I notice this debilitating effect. This may seem an inconsequential or obvious observation. Once anything is explained and fully understood it appears obvious. I wish to share these thought through thoughts of times past as they’re an internal observation made about myself, which bears all the hallmarks of a psychonautic operation.

Psychonauts do to Inner Space what Astronauts do to Outer Space – Dedicated missions of discovery with specific goals in mind. One achieved. This was also always something of the purpose of this sort of posting.

So much for the THC’s not so the HCB’s!

You see while losing one habit I’ve acquired another. Its time-based and lightly rooted in a religion packed with mystery.

I have become addicted to having a Hot Cross Bun on Good Friday!

I know it was cheap to make up a TLA (Three Letter Acronym) for effect but hopefully it made you smile.

I spent this last Easter weekend in Piratey Cornwall with Miss Sparrow. Our journey there began in London on Good Friday at horrid o’clock with a certain-to-be-filled-with-traffic day of driving ahead. I’d failed to arrange the necessary goods in advance so faced the prospect of not having an HCB at all. I knew I’d find no foraging partner in Fraulein Spatz, she of the pathological raisin hatred. HCB’s contain these in abundance. But at a motion lotion station stop I found some – photographed here in all their glory!

Smugly I delayed gratification knowing they’d best be toasted with butter.

However we were distracted by the truly remarkable Eden Project (10/10) which was like travelling to all over the globe and by the time we arrived at Cottage Corsair in the evening my buns had become rocks. I still went for my Good Friday HCB experience. While Mademoiselle Moineau discovered all the Landlord’s booby-trapped appliances in a frenetic 5 minutes, I burned my precious buns in a rubbish toaster. The only thing these two burnt buns were better than was an accidental proverbial in the oven.

See the dismal affair they turned out to be… looks like the work of someone stoned:

I blame sleep deprivation – far more entertaining and debilitating than any drugs!

And what was worse was the little Buccaneer Bungalow in the Back of Beyond had no phone reception so I was unable to call my distant Mom and share my day, which to me is equally part of the HCB experience! Just as travel is better with a purpose so is calling a loved one. Not just dutifully checking-in, nor when needing a favour but best when armed with a silly experience or point of interest to share.

Many will jump in to say one does not need a REASON to call one’s MOM but how nice is it to chat to someone you love when you don’t want something but you have a nice reason to call and share. The HCB thing is definitely rooted in my childhood with her providing them back then. So calling my Mom to share my HCB notes of the day adds pleasure to an already pleasant proceeding. Perhaps this sounds a little like I’m manufacturing my life and working meaning into my Mom and my relationship. That’d be ok by me. After all 99% of my hardships are of my own making. So why not some of the good stuff too?

Talking of which here’s what saved Good Friday’s HCB debacle from completely harshing my mellow… a landlord supplied Cornish Cream Tea welcome gift…. Lashings of clotted cream and raspberry jam. Super double Yum! The picture represents a quarter of what I devoured.

Could sink an armada on them.

Next up, grass of an entirely different kind...

RRR-Miaow

Year of the Tiger

Oooo – exciting isn’t it? All that sleek power with Grace, padding its way as it will through the jungle of your life. But beware, it is unclear who the Tiger is…

Many sense the Tiger to be a year of power and achievement. And it will be, even more so as the Tiger’s reach goes beyond just this year. But the tiger is an individual. Too heavy a claw from the ego may unbalance your greater good. And then the universe will crush your dreams.

Like the Ox, the Tiger is a year of balancing, yet the chances of things swinging out of control are much higher. The line between use and abuse is thinner than ever so it’s a good year to tread the Middle Way. The exciting part is to find this road. It is not an aggregrate between 2 extremes but an agreeable route between them that carries one along the path of the normal while never being ordinary.

That said coming on great leaps and bounds is even more possible. This will come by trusting yourself and the momentum your life has. It’s a good year to radically change direction.

Take what you need but take only that! There will be surprises.

Much love

Previous years from Doctor Lobster:

Oxen-HO!
Rat-a-tat
Wallowing in it
Woof Hey
Cock-a-doodle-do
Monkey-man

Hoarse - Burning Man 2009

I'll write more about my full experience of bring Art to the playa at Burning Man in the fullness of time but here are some notes regarding the Art itself I installed in Deep Playa this year at Burning Man. What an experience!!!

Project Name:
HOARSE

Description:
Death might as well shout itself hoarse for all the attention we pay it before its often untimely arrival.
An eternal loop video installation depicting a decaying horse, disturbing at first glance as the image is grim and predominantly about death. Yet the longer one watches, the more one notices the life in the image - flies, bugs, birds, grass, butterflies... All part of the beautiful and natural cycle of life and death. One hears the flies and wind. And every now and then the alarming roar of someone in a car whizzing obliviously past this roadside moment.
The natural lighting in the scene changes slowly yet dramatically from grim overcast to bright, cheery sunny. As one watches so one’s mood changes with this lighting shift. The longer one sits with the piece the more one recognises the certainty yet peace of death, understanding its place within nature and our own lives.

I love life but i am glad that one day I will die. To die is the greatest adventure. And death, a threshold we cannot peek over before our time. I am content to wait a while longer for that day happily knowing it will come.

Shot in Botswana.

Artist:
Hal Couzens aka Doctor Lobster

Art placement:
Deep playa – 12:45 and 5000’ from the man

Riding Into the Sunset on a Dead Horse

Hello All,

I am recently finished filming in New Mexico and happy to be returning to London shortly in metaphoric cowboy disguise but before THEN its that time of year again – when I go back to Black Rock City – Burning Man. Home! Yay!

And normally I write a whole long thingummy thang about my mood and expectations for the coming adventure... However this time I will not and mainly because I am super tired as I have been hammering, bashing, plotting, planning and creating Art. I am fulfilling on my last year’s promise to put Art on The Playa this year... There were many moments during the year that made me think I would not do it but at the last (ish) minute I got it all together and an doing it.

Its the video installation piece I exhibited in London in 2007 at the Climate of Change exhibition on London’s Southbank. This time it will be in Deep Playa - out there in the dark awaiting any who dare to stop and listen to its secrets. Its called Hoarse because Death might as wellshout itself hoarse for all the attention we're likely to pay it before its oft-too untimely arrival...

If by any chance you are at Burning Man keep your eyes peeled for this piece I expect it will be out beyond the Temple somewhere...

And other than this I anticipate I will have a totally different experience of Burning Man this year as I will be there with a project. Report on THAT to follow...

Much love

Hal aka Doctor Lobster

In the meantime attached are 2 snaps ... One is of the walk in closet door in my room in Santa Fe. You will clearly see that there is a sign saying ‘Mind the Yeti’... The other is of that very Yeti inside that same closet... I had set this up as a silly joke/trap for curious folk to discover while on the way to the toilet...

Well we had a rather large and good party at this house (very well attended at 430am by the Santa Fe police department) and someone still managed to throw up on the Yeti! I mean there was a sign and everything to just not to that.

More to the point though – what fool would risk throwing up on a Yeti... Not only can they tear you limb from limb but as a shamanic god able to ramble through your sleepytime they can also rip your dreams to shreds... Show them respect! Fear them certainly!

Notes from the Yeti Overlord... Well – every Doctor has a darkside, Dr Jekyll had Mr Hyde, and Doctor Lobster has the Yeti Overlord...

Did I mention I was tired? Yes I am... But if I go to sleep then I might dream and then the Yeti...