peace like no other

naptime, originally uploaded by josh lyon.

there really is nothing else like this. mental exhaustion, insane responsibility, socially overwhelming, getting soaked in breastmilk poop and urine (amongst other things!) . . .

and yet these moments are worth it all and so much more!

for unto us a child is born!

being amazing, originally uploaded by josh lyon.

molly jean peppley lyon born feb 12th 2007, weighing 9 pounds even. all is well.

thanks be to god!

jesus and spidey

Jesus and Spiderman exchange a knowing look...., originally uploaded by shadowplay.

found on flickr.com

si takes a break

si takes a break, originally uploaded by josh lyon.

entire cities recording day... for the coffee demo (FREE [secret]GIVEAWAY at WAVELENGTH this sunday the 4th!)... oh what fun. and a long day. mostly i just love this pic of simon.

see myspace.com/entirecities for some other songs.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Opening this week in Toronto:

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
New Works on Paper by Shari-Anne Gibson

Feb 1-11, 2007
Opening Feb 1, 7-10pm
Katharine Mulherin's Sideshow
1080 Queen St. West

Hours: Wed-Sun 12-5pm

Entire Cities at the Drake - (photo by Jen S.)

Entire Cities at the Drake - (photo by Jen S.), originally uploaded by josh lyon.

a sweet moment... the more music in my life, the better. there's nothing quite like it - esp. moments like this. or 'Come on up to the House' with Paul at the Supermarket the following night...

new years at the cottage

new years at the cottage, originally uploaded by josh lyon.

abi and simon by the fire... as usual, new years was rung in with much pots and pans banging and other such merriment. although this time we also read a screenplay and played thicket in the soggy snow... yours truly was reiging champ.... not to boast or nuthin'.

Christmas eve at the cottage

as per family tradition we gather up at my parents cottage (off the grid - woodstove and candlelight and lake water only) on christmas eve...

cottage on Christmas eve through trees
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

invisble college courses

From invisiblecollege.ca, the non-school my parents run in Kingston, ON:

Living Lightly: Rediscovering Sabbath in a 24/7 World
Find it hard to say “no” to more work in a crazy-busy world? Ever wondered what it means that God rested after creating the earth? Only PEI has no Sunday trading—does anyone care any more? What if the earth and our own bodies have built-in rhythms for work-and-rest that cause breakdown when they’re disturbed? How vital are pausing, playing, recreation, celebration and embracing life?

Explore these themes through provocative plenary presentations, written materials and interactive small-group discussion in a five-week evening course. No assignments or credit. Think, talk, question, explore…

Who is the course for?
Anyone who puzzles about a proper balance in life and wants a fresh perspective on priorities. Anyone who wonders if the Bible says anything about corporate time, burn-out or life in fast lanes. Anyone wanting to get in synch with the spirit of deep heaven.

Check out the new course listings at invisiblecollege.ca for upcoming courses...

Encarna 2006

My friend Andrew sent me this... If you can make it, check it out - i saw pics from last year's even that looked amazing!

This is just a quick note to let you know about thisyear's ENCARNA Christmas Worship Installation. It's happening on Fri. Dec. 15 and Sat. Dec. 16, doors open from 7pm-10pm, at St. James United Church (306 Parkside Dr., Waterdown, ON).

ENCARNA is a emerging church style worship event. Participants engage with different interactive and contemplative stations, all at their own pace and direction, bringing people in touch with the Christmas story. There is no preaching, singing, bulletins or ministers. If people want to pray, reflect, discuss,just listen to the music, engage, or not, that's up to each person.

ENCARNA is alternative engagement with the Christmas story - different, perhaps more artsy and postmodern, than your regular pageants orcantatas. For a better sense of what ENCARNA is and if you'dlike to check it out, go to www.myspace.com/christmas_encarna. Last year was the first year we did this event, and we're hoping you'll help us build off the successes of last year. Many people told us it was a deeply meaningful experience, helping them prepare for Christmas. If you know anyone who would be interested in coming to ENCARNA, please pass the word on to them as well. Blessings and peace for this Christmas.

In Christ,
Andrew Hyde
St. James United Church

gospel according to tom

so i've been on a tom waits kick of late and i am very excited about the upcoming orphans 3-disc set... recently compiled a little liturgy of tom waits tunes which i thought i would share with the world. if i really had the time this would be a podcast, but it's not, it's a list:

• Invocation: "Come on up to the house" (Mule Variations)
  
• Creed: "Everything you can think" (Alice)
  
• Confession: "Chocolate Jesus"* (Mule Variations)
  
• Absolution: "Sins" (Real Gone)
  
• Closing: "Way down in the hole" (live version from Big Time)
  
• Blessing: "Jesus Gonna be here" (Bone Machine, although the blind boys of alabama do a great cover too)
  

any other suggestions...? I've been thinking about doing this with other bands too... any suggestions? (btw. they don't have to use so much religious language for this to work...)

* the real genius of this song is the rooster crowing throughout... think about it.

Truth, Lies and Plastic Eyes

Last weekend was the amazing art talks series at ICS sponsored by Imago... Betty Spackman was there to speak about her book: A Profound Weakness: Christians and Kitsch
and her talk was entitled: "Truth, Lies and Plastic Eyes."

Betty had a lot of great things to say and it was nice to see her in person having heard so much from Adrienne Chaplin about her and looking at her work as part of an independent study while I was at OCAD. I have been wanting to write a response to the weekend but haven't had a chance yet so instead I'll post some of my favourite quotes/ideas that came out of the talk and discussions. They are as close to verbatim as possible... I take any responsibility for transcribing them inaccurately - please notify me if I say you said something you didn't. If these don't make sense out of context - also my fault...

"Instead of walking the streets with [Christ],
we hide him in our churches
and drag people in to see Him."
- Betty Spackman

"Christian Kitsch = Faith in drag."
- Betty Spackman

"Truth is what is true but not necessarily factual."
- Madeline L'engle

"Kitsch offers paradise now, bypassing the 'not yet'."
- not sure who said that

"Rational Christians who are emotionally starved turn to Kitsch"
- not sure about this one either

"We are the message - not the objects we create"
- Betty Spackman (on whether art itself can be "Christian")

"Aspire not for greatness but to be the humblest, . . .
creating with joy and freedom, as a child. . ."
- Betty Spackman

Betty also talked about learning the language of the culture around you... which is good, but are you doing it only so you can say what you want to say or so you can listen? Her example was from a missionary in a foreign culture context but she applied it also to the arts...

Another thing that I loved that she said... She compared making art to the feeding of the 5000. Jesus asks what we've got and we respond "I don't have enough. You take it and break it." and then we see what he does with it. Our responsibility falls not in having to feed everyone or make the perfect work of art or craft the most clever message... but simply to offer all that we have, acknowledging our insufficiency and let Jesus do the rest. And somehow, 5000 are fed.

read some other people's notes on Betty here.

sign of the day...

one of the many religious slogans
Originally uploaded by sue the potter.

my parents took this on vacation...

amen.

found

found
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

FREE HUGS

the music may be a bit too sappy... but nice concept.


toying with public space/personal boundaries...

One by One art show

DSC03769.JPG
Originally uploaded by froesebydesign.

some buddies from Freedomize put on an art/fashion show to raise funds for some good cause and i missed it. but my wife got to go. and some of the art rocked. it was all formatted 1" x 1"... check out the lego ghandi too. and i can't find the website with all the details hence the sketchy 'for some good cause' line.

but i really like this piece of work and i have no idea who did it. if anyone knows, please leave a comment or email me... thanks.

here's the lego ghandi:


DSC03784.JPG
Originally uploaded by froesebydesign.

rockin' in the K-Town

Sick as a dog, playing bass at the Merchant Taphouse in Kingston during 'showcase' week with Colin Munroe.

I didn't pass out or fall over! yeah!

btw. we're playing the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto this week on Thursday opening for Ninja Tunes own Pop Levi. come on out and support local music!

rockin' the supermarket

IMGP2937
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

on tour with colin, rockin the supermarket on sept 12th. thanks to everyone who came out - what an amazing audience for our third show ever! 150 people? and all cheering like banshees? you kids are too kind. check out colin on myspace (www.myspace.com/colinmunroe) if you want to hear the sort of thing we're rocking. i don't feel bad plugging him coz he rocks and i'm just the bass player. but yeah, i like to thing i help bring the rock to the live show... even from behind my dark curtain. yeah, that's me on the right of the shot.

"pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" - the wizard, from the wizard of Oz.

falling in love... with design

every now and then, i stumble accross someone or something so inspiring it winds up on this ol' blog... my poor, sad, neglected blog. i miss this thing.

but you can't/shouldn't miss this:



design, i love.
music, i love.

myspace, thankyou.

moremusic: Lots of upcoming shows!

So I'm playing bass with Colin Munroe and we're finally touring! check out http://myspace.com/colinmunroe for details... we'll be in Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, London, etc. around the second week of sept. come out if you can - tell everyone else to come too! rockpoptacular!

Also, my other band (Entire Cities) has some Toronto area shows (ie next saturday - aug 26th)... check out http://myspace.com/entirecities for details... mmm... psychadelic alt-country mayhem!

come out and support live music... rock on.

with love from yer friendly neighbourhood rockstyle lifestar.

soldierman

soldierman
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

found this little toy soldier beside this demolition site near our house... the elements of the picture just somehow seemed to fit together too well.

54cr3d 5p4c3?

everybody sing: summertime, and the blogger is lazy...

so, it's summer... i was hoping to keep this blog up more faithfully through the summer months but yet again sunshine calls and i have no internet at home and for some reason don't like spending my extra hours at work to keep this up. i have hundreds of things to post about 'coz i'm finally done school and out and about but don't really want to sit in front of the screen... apparently there's a way you can just call in yer blog posts on the phone - but only in the states. too bad.

anyway, latest news is that I'm touring with a band this summer and into the fall, as the bass player no less... (check out Colin Munroe on Myspace) so that should be fun - so glad to be playing music all the time finally! I'll try to keep updating the blog whenever I can and from the road but we'll see how that goes! anyway, i don't mind if y'all don't check back 'till the fall - i'm sure no one feels all that let down but apologies if you are... see you on the flipside!

4:30am - Shots fired...

Image from Toronto Star, basically taken from our front steps.

How you see the world is forever changed when you have a kid.

How you see the world the day that you are awoken at 4:30am by the sound of gunfire on the street in front of the house where you are trying to raise that child is a change that I had no pregnancy holding time during which I could at least grow acustomed to the idea.

Once before I was woken in the wee hours of the morning by what sounded like a round being fired out of some kind of handgun - exactly 6 bangs followed by a woman's scream. Of course that turned out to simply be an exploding power transformer the night the ice fell in the great ice storm that hit parts of Ontario and Quebec a few years back. And the screaming, no doubt someone surprised by the lights going out in a very dramatic fashion.

But Thursday morning was not like that. Although the sounds sounded a lot less like movie gunfire than the transformer did, as I leapt from my bed, I was greeted by the sight of a cop in the middle of the road holding a shotgun... I tried to convince my wife it was simply firecrackers but she didn't buy it. She was out of the bed before I was.

Having experienced firsthand cops firing weapons at citizens during the FTAA protests in Quebec, I have been wary of them ever since... Since Quebec City I have always felt somewhat betrayed by the police and our government - I thought we had a right to peaceful protest but the taste and sting of teargas had lead me to think otherwise.

For the first time in many years, as the cop with the shotgun glanced around nervously at the dark edges of the building across the street, I really understood that they do truly 'serve and protect' far more than I would ever be able to. That cops life was on the line to protect me and my little family - his very life... Obviously that was not his main concern, he was trying to round up a man on the loose, firing at cops and ambulances, having just shot a man a few blocks away. But as a citizen, I thanked God then and there for people who are willing to take on the task of trying to make our streets safe, whether or not i always agree with their methods, attitudes and tactics.

And I prayed for courage in those officers to do their job nobly and peacefully, even in the face of this awful situation. You could see in their stance and hear in their voices that they were afraid (probably as much of simply having to wield deadly force as the potential threat on their own lives) and yet they faced what they had to, thank God...

In Canada, we're the lucky ones. We rarely wake to such things, rarely live in such proximity to threats like that (although it seems, sadly, to be coming more common in Toronto)... I don't think living on our street will ever seem quite so safe. Even last night the darkness brought chills and that funny feeling - peering a little harder into those shadows... looking a little more cautiously at those passing on the street...

(Although yesterday morning I also finally got to talk to neighbours we've been saying hi to for a few months and haven't yet had a good excuse to converse with - funny how crisis bonds people. One of them quipped that, like the house that Garp buys in the John Irving novel "The World according to Garp", our house had been pre-disastered now, less likely for something like that to occur again!)

I don't really know how to sum this all up in the context of this blog... and yet, like most things for me it connects. Violation of the safety of my family in the little space we call home... somehow in some way I don't understand... things have changed... I have changed...

weird days man, weird days.

read the news story here...

pentecost recycling

so last year i posted a flash piece for pentecost (posted here) and just recieved some fresh comments... for those of you interested in using the piece tommorow if it's not too late, simply click on the link in the other post and exchange the '.html' extension in the address bar with '.swf'

(this is usually the easiest way of stealing/using/borrowing flash files. if the naming system is not so straight forward you can always go to VIEW SOURCE and search for '.swf' and then copy the address from the html. while some people may not like you stealing their flash, feel free to borrow mine any time, just let me know it's being used - i always like to hear about and support other peoples creative ventures!)

now that you've learned something, here's the shortcut anyway to save you the trouble: pentecost flash file. of course you'll still need to right click or control click and save target as... as well as having a flash player installed on yer church's computer.

josh lyon remixed by josh lyon

so i discovered another josh lyon on the interweb (owner of joshlyon.com) and was much amused to find out that he also makes music (posted on sparklyfresh.com). so i decided to take one of his tracks (called 'future' as i recall) and remix it. go look for the original on his site and check out my remix here: future remixed (josh lyon vs josh lyon).

lamb in the city

hannah-lamb
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

these lambs are all over our neighborhood (east side of downtown toronto)... i really like spotting them hiding under bridges, sheltering from the weather.

felted womb

womb-hannah
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

my wife made this beautiful art piece over an excersize ball out of a whole lot of raw and died wool - mostly shaped in the shower due to the need for a lot of hot water in the felting process!

labyrinth coffee table

labyrinth
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

this labyrinth table is in the window of a design store called 'space' on queen street east right near our house... i really like this table though it does remind me of the ikea labyrinth rug that i'm not so sure about.

prayer/wish forward

i got this prayer in an email forward explaining that you are to make a wish, prayer the prayer and then pass it on... why a prayer for contentment would be accompanied with 'wishing' is beyond me - but here's the prayer anyway:

St. Theresa's Prayer:

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that
has been given to you....
May you be content knowing you are a child of God....
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom
to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

NT Wright Revival (updated)

IMG_0127
Originally uploaded by nathancolquhoun.

last night in toronto, 'the bish' kak NT Wright spoke at a club called revival... at an event organized by Empire Remixed. so when I arrived someone asked me if I was a big NT fan. I admitted that I'd never read anything of his and that I was really there mostly coz cool people told me about it and that I should probably go (thanks mr. rennie).

anyway, having attended and not really liking the idea of being a fan, I'd have to say I'm on my way to being converted... really appreciated his thoughts and theology, certainly a cat worth looking up and reading more of. I have a few questions regarding his answer to a question (asked by John Franklin of Imago) about the role of art in the church which I guess I'll have to email 'the Bish' about after I get a hold of and read the chapter entitled 'Beauty' from his new book. Anyone got a copy they want to lend me?

see more pics from the event here: nathan's flickr pics and/or read more about it here on nathan's blog.

woodland labyrinth

woodland labyrinth
Originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

jonny baker posted this to flickr... maybe a design i might imitate at the in-laws farm where I promised to help them build a labyrinth on their property sometime... don't know the location but it looks loverly!

He is risen!

Happy Easter yo.

Spent good friday eve at the Labyrinth at the eaton centre... beautiful time with 8 other freedomizers and simon. we shared communion and prayerwalked meditating on Gethsemene on the way in - praying with Christ in the garden, and on the way out prayed with peter in the courtyard facing the questions of the world acknowledging or denying christ, feeling betrayed and facing his own betrayal... based on a short reflection I wrote for the event. Thick fog descended on us during the walk (which took the better part of 1.5 hours for everyone to complete) and even thunder, lightning and a brief but heavy downpour - and no one quit or walked away despite the rain. amazing and powerful. many thanks to those who came out.

Easter sunday we joined the Catholic worker community in toronto for their easter dawn celebration. we biked down to the waterfront east of toronto, leaving our house at 4am and packing up little Hannah in a borrowed bike trailer. the ride took the better part of an hour and the service was beautiful and refreshing... the sun rise was glorious too! what a way to celebrate! after breakfast we recovered with an extended nap before heading to freedomize for the evening service... which was also a lovely celebration. I finally broke lent post-church with some fine white wine I got as a Christmas present... (thanks val) and shared it with the in-laws who arrived to visit.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

It's OVER!

well, i handed it in. i am now forever 'ficially done at OCAD. yea!

i am excited; one new thing and one old thing.

two things i am very excited about: an event in toronto called NIDUS

AND

tommorow at noon I hand in my final assignment for OCAD and then graduate... after 5 long years IT'S OVER!!!

okay THREE THINGS:

I can't wait 'till easter... don't tell anyone but today I was playing piano and singing easter hymns... bellowing "up from the grave he arose" at the top of my little lungs - my favourite easter-only-song as a small child.

temptation in the brewery

I gave up alcohol for lent and then was scheduled to work st paddy's day at a local brewery. i thought that was pretty funny until it was one of the most stressful days of my life (due to the work, not the abundance of drinking, yeasty smells, and free beer potentially available to me!)

thanks to jonny for posting this lenten meditation which I love...

yesterday birds... (spring sprung?)

yesterday i heard the craziest sound from within our apartment... i went to investigate and opened the back porch door to see thousands of starlings in the tree above my head... it was such a fantastic cacophony i went to get my minidisc recorder immediately: and now i share the sound of spring with you, my friend, the internet.

many birds tweeting

I also am currently working on a new song. It's my best ever. Let me know what you think internet?

new ambient track

breakfast, haircuts and sunglasses

breakfast2
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

last night we cut our hair off... cork and i. needless to say, hannah was a little surprised this morning... so we celebrated at breakfast

another pic of our haircuts...

videoblog - hannah's entry

my digital still camera (christmas yay!) does video... my daughter wanted to see herself blinking so we shot this video... she also dressed up as a bird one morning (or rather, it was the only way I could get clothes on her - playing dressup). this may seem tangential - i have no real justification for posting it here - other than an interest in videoblogging and the potential thereof.

postsecret blog

postsecret is a collection of mailed in handmade postcards revealing untold secrets anonymously to the world.

looking for collaborators/co-conspirators

here is my latest musical offering to the world accompanied by an offer/request: anyone looking for soundtrack/backing track/ambient music/custom built electronica? i post what i can and what I like to my myspace account, but i make all sorts for all sorts. I'm up for the challenge: are you?

beautiful Lent illustrations/reflections by Si Smith

from 40 by Si Smith.

church 2.0 - same ol' deal?

in response to a post by jonny baker about church 2.0 I wrote the following:

i've been thinking a lot about this idea of community/people as content and something just struck me: in the wikipedia of the world, we christians are the definition of christianity and who christ is. constantly updated and morphing - many voices changing it all the time, but ultimately the world's understanding of christ is framed through us.

not a new concept, but new terminology.


which is simultaneously a scary and reassuring point - get your voice out there! contribute - if you don't like the cultural understanding of Christianity, help bring it back!

ex-building in toronto

ghosthouse
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

i've always loved ex-buildings, and the stains they leave, expecially when they were built first and added on to, then removed leaving scars in the newer building's side. the sun was in the perfect spot the other day to describe the dimension of a possible foundation...

words made from flickr pics

code auto generated at http://metaatem.net/words/

love in the face of violence

After having seen Paradise Now and feeling very ignorant in my understanding of the Palestine/Israel conflict, I am trying to do as much reading and research as I can on what seems like a very devicive issue - especially in Christian circles... I'm currently reading a book by a Palestinian Melkite Christian Priest, Abuna Elias Chacour, entitled We belong to the land about his experiences in Israel. Just wanted to share the following quote which I found so simple yet so striking:

"The answer to hatred and violence is a genuine, personal initiative completely independent from the reaction to violence. Respecting human rights and protecting human life should never be a reaction to violence, but should arise out of one's love for human beings, for life.

This is the message of the man from Galilee. Jesus Christ teaches us today, as he did two thousand years ago in this very place, that we are not to love people out of charity or for Jesus' sake, as if others were a tool, an instrument, or a tunnel to pass through to reach the goal. Rather, the other - the Jew, the Palestinian, the American, the Muslim, the Christian - is to be loved becauase that person is loveable as who he or she is. We are to love as God loves. God's love is unconditional and sacrificial. God is love."

sheer volume (of sites unseen)

Sites Unseen has the most incredible list - so vast! - of christian related anything. found some cool bands, still browsing the rest. I had to post it, not so much for the content as the connectivity - this is the web after all... I'd love to see a map of the interconnectivity of all these links as a tagcloud or like something from visualcomplexity which is a network of maps of networks.

stillnotstill - beautiful meditative video art

still not still by Sue Costabile is one of the most beautiful pieces of video art I have seen in a long time... paired with lovely audio work by AGF. She does most of her work live using Jitter (part of Max/MSP). check out minimoviemovement too for more of their collaborations... inspiring lovely stuff.

freedom toaster - vending machine for free open source software

The Freedom Toaster project puts free open source software (including operating systems) on the streetcorner. Simply bring a CD to burn, click and go.
In South Africa, it is often hard to gain access to Ye Olde Interwebbe, especially to download large files/software. Problem no more. Just go find a toaster!

the cyborg identification quiz

fill in the blank in the following statement:

_____________ is a crutch for the weak.

a) religion
b) alcohol
c) blogging
d) a bicycle
e) a car
f) love
g) power
h) community
i) literacy
j) television
k) a crutch
l) all of the above

snowsuit photoblog

Snowsuit.net - an amazing photoblog.

$100 laptop plan - save the interweb!

I've been thinking about the $100 laptop and enjoyed the Banksy style take on it that Jonny Baker posted about (from gizmondo: a moment of perspective).

One of my favourite quotes from the $100 laptop website FAQ is the following:

"In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home."

#$%&*%^@$%^$*!!!!

as my sister and wife just pointed out, why not just buy them $10 windup lamps? better yet (i suggested) if they need information too, give them a book to read and then burn for light...

This technotopic vision seems to me to really be about not saving the word (as if) but about saving cyberspace. The biggest problem (as I see it) with the Internet saving us (humankind) is the issue of access. How can we claim it is the great democratic and freespeech leveler unless everyone has one? so save the internet and give everyone a laptop. they wouldn't even dream of selling it to buy food... unless of course they access the internet and start getting ideas...

Paradise Now

Saw this film (Paradise Now, 2005) last night with my dad at Cinema Kingston... Aside from being a really well made film (good drama/suspence, maintains tension and interest level throughout) it really brings to the forefront the humanity of Palestinian suicide bombers. I found myself very ignorant of many factors involved in the occupation/conflict and this movie really drove me to want to know more... While the movie does have a focus (humanizing people who are constantly dehumanized by the western media), it also presents a wide variety of viewpoints on what sort of response/protest is worthwhile - debates relevant to any situation not just the one depicted in the film. I'm somewhat nervous about displaying my ignorance in this obviously heated topic, but wanted to reccomend seeing this film - which I think is a really important voice that needs to be heard in the ongoing hope for some sort of peace.

new musical tracks posted

my my myspace page now has three tracks for your listening pleasure - new since the christmas private release of the flk ep. name changed to akaflk (adding more redundant letters!) because some lousy punkband in the states used the name already... check out myspace akaflk page

my[54cr3d]space

hideleho! I've joined the ranks of myspace... (on forbes' suggestion). see myspace here... you can listen to one track on the page... my shareware mp3 converter ran out of trial conversions. pah. more tracks to come when i sort that out.

easter art

my friend andrew and i have been having a really interesting dialogue as he has recently started curating art/worship events at the church he works at in waterdown. It thrills me that he is involved in such things, many years after we had conversations about new possibilities of melding of art and church... way to go mr. hyde! the following is from an email he sent out... i urge you to check it out if you are in the area around easter - i probably won't be able to make it as i'll be involved with Freedomize's easter thing... which is still in the 'works in progress' catagory! Not sure if this is actually an open call for submissions, but if you comment here, i'll forward ideas to mister hyde.

link to his church blog to see more pictures from Encarna

Easter Art Show 2006
Grindstone Valley Bible Church & St. James United Church – Waterdown

As a follow-up to the ENCARNA worship installation at Christmas, St. James and Grindstone are teaming up to put on an Easter Art Show during Holy Week.
The art show will take place on Palm Sunday, April 9, at the old St. Thomas Church in Waterdown (44 Flamboro St.). This is a really great space for the art show, as all the pews and fixtures in the old church have been removed, leaving an open and majestic space. The exhibit will be open from 9am to 9pm, with a culminating worship service taking place at 8pm.
Currently, we are looking for artists to showcase their art in this exhibit.
The aim of this art show is to prepare people for the special celebration of Easter – the Christian understanding of our redemption through Christ’s death and resurrection. Therefore we are looking for art that draws people into the Easter story in a profound way.
The art in this art show will be divided into two major categories (along with their subsequent themes).
GOOD FRIDAY – depicting themes of sacrifice, injustice, pain, separation from God, sin, etc.
EASTER – depicting themes of resurrection, new life, victory over death, hope, holiness, purity, etc.
Have you made any art, or would you like to create a new piece, that we could exhibit in this art show? If so, please contact either Jeff or Andrew as soon as possible, giving a brief description of the piece and why you’d like to exhibit it. If you can, it would be great to email a picture of the piece, so the organizers can plan ahead.
We are really excited about this event. It should prove to be a profound and meaningful way to move into Holy Week and the life-giving celebration of Easter.

pandora

multiple people seem to have caught on to this simultaneously... so good. pandora.com allows you to type in a song or an artist and get a sweet playlist of similar tracks streamed to your 'puter... ANY MUSIC OF ANY KIND. genius. refine the list and add other artists or start a new playlist - register to have and save multiple stations. sweet.

I have a sweet little F.S. Blumm/Tin Hat Trio/Christian Wallumrod Ensemble list going on right now... try it and see beautiful musics!

vinebranches

vinebranches
Originally uploaded by josh lyon.

more flickr pics added... trying to set up a myspace band page so those of you in webland can hear my latest audio experiments/play. throw me an email if you want a demo disc and we'll make plans... or wait for updates re:my myspace page.

pics on flickr

I got a digital camera for christmas - yay! - and I'm uploading to Flickr like a fiend. I find their 'organize' tool to be really slow or entirely unresponsive, so I haven't yet sorted them all out. see my pics here: my Flickr pics. So excited to complete so many photo projects I've had in mind for so long! So excited to be able to take so many pictures! Recent uploads include: the Freedomize going away party for Todd (our now-former-senior-pastor-all-on-good-terms-!), and 'arty' stuff I took playing around with my little camera just after I got it.

Bono icon

Not sure where this originated but my friend andrew sent it to me in response to my contemporary icons...

Happy New Year!

creative sound play

Creative sound play with bunch o' guys jumping and stomping and making noise... flashtastic.

"How Great Thou Art"

How Great Thou Art is a videoart piece currently on exhibition at invisiblevenue.com. The piece is by Melissa Day who is the sister of a girl in my "Art, Faith and Postmodern Culture" class at ICS. The class is amazing and has been slowly undoing all that OCAD has taught me (!) over the last four-and-a-bit years. The artwork in question is also quite stunning and worth a watch. To see the other work in the current show, click this.

updated icons

inspired by jonny baker's post about banksy's madonna with ipod...
some illustrations for a lecture series my dad (David Lyon) is doing called "Devices and Desires: living with everyday technologies." He's talking this week in toronto at Tyndale college & seminary on: Messianic Microwaves, Cellphones and Sabbaths, Spirit of the SUV, and Laptop Love... tuesday, wednesday and thurday at 11:45am and wednesday night. if you're in toronto, check it out!

SPAM

i didn't know there was such thing as blog spam... now i do. i'm getting overrun by moles! in celebration of all the new spam on my blog, let's all sing together...

rusty, i know...

i never wanted to become this to become another blogsolete obs. so i'm going to keep trying... thanks for the continued comments even in my silence! no internet at home means rare blogging. but i love this picture so i couldn't help myself. thanks to freewayblogger.com

A is for Apple

A is for Apple... haven't got a chance to explore the whole site yet... all concepts connect back to the concept of 'apple'... nice art...