The Other Half

...and the Illinois Branch of the Institute still exists... It must. In a world going mad, in a world drowning in waves of its own cultural stupidity, in a world were the sale of one of Paris Hilton's handbags could feed a small country, in a world where polar bears could soon wind up on your doorstep because they have nowhere else to go, in a world where any chance of a meaningful existence grows fainter each day, the Institute is essential. The insanity must be met head-on. The stupidity must be exposed. The meaning must be found. It's over there, in the box. Don't look in unless you're truly ready. And remember to close it when you're done. The last time someone looked in, they left it open, it escaped, and it took me weeks to find it. It turned up in a bus terminal in Cleveland with a woman it didn't know in one hand, and a marriage license in the other. But it must be viewed, and the Institute has devoted its existence to showing it to the world. Jeff has been my beacon, sometimes my only reason for holding on on, since High School. Afternoons at Gamer's Paradise. Lunches at Orange Julius in the Yonge-Eglington Centre food-court (the ORIGINAL food court). Sketching down story ideas on pieces of toilet paper from a public loo in London's East End. Wandering Chicago's Michigan Avenue at 2:00 a.m. Available, always available, for support and assurance and righteous anger, on the Net. Here is where we must be. The last frontier of true creativity and insight. Join us.

The Why, The What, The Who...

My good friend Iain S. W. and I started the Institute of Collosal Enigmas (or I*SEE*Enigmas or ICE for short) when we were in High School (think late 70s). We met in one of the after school programs...I was his printer and he was the school editor. Then a couple of years later he was running for student president in his last year at North Toronto Collegiate Institute and I made myself his campaign manager (created some posters and put them up for him).

I wish I could take you back. Iain made this speech to the school that swept him into office. He said "I don't know what I'm doing but I'll try and do the best job I can." Something like that. Of course you had to be there, to feel the applause, to feel the relief.

It was an honest speech. Doesn't seem so amazing to you now. Remember, Watergate and Trudeau were still fresh. This was before I built up a resistance --an apathy-- to false fronts. Iain said what they should have said.

Of course, he was the first President to ever be impeached. Not that he had anything to do with spray painted messages about drugs on the school walls. That was someone else. But how did he get fingered?

Years later we met in Oxford. He was studying Music Composition (probably had a better name than that)...I was getting away from a girl and working at Cromwell Hospital in London...imagine an isolated Linen Porter in the basement of the building listening to Sadé and 99 Balloons...above many Arabs and rich Britains were repaired (side note: the guy I worked with, he was a regular porter wheeling our guests about, would later run props for a kids sci-fi teevee show in Toronto and then later still he'd put a band together called Cowboy Junkies...but this isn't about him). Iain and I got together again and found this new level of friendship.

Years flew by...I got married, he moved to the States...we both went through the usual life-changing events.

But there was always something going on with him. And he always sent me these AMAZING letters by way of snail mail. They were art pieces. I'd actually get giddy opening these things. Some were incredible rants -- a prophet shaking his fist at the sky. A kind of Hunter S. Thompson...but then again, not someone I'd met before. You know what I mean? He was/is not someone cut from a familiar template. He doesn't "look" like other people you've met. He's a stranger with an obsession for lego...he has kindness, humour (a little Steve Martin and memorized passages from Monty Python), and a dedication for his job (or is that a dad providing security for his charge?). He's a guy with red hair and these fabulous mutton chops (at least he did in the early 80s) and pale skin and this great voice for acting.

And that's it. Iain is not just a musician (a drummer) and not just a wicked wit and not just a dad and an old man to his lady (Karen H.)...he's an actor.

So what the hell has this to do with ICE?

Well, he'd sign each message, each art project from Illinois, like he was writing from this secret underground lab -- which was an extension, a field office of ICE...he was still saying hello to me through the corridor of years (now a couple of decades) and etched at the bottom of his lab notes as he studied and dissected man...I'd find reminders of that Institute...

Well, all Hail THE INSTITUTE.

Yet Another Layman
ICE, Barrie Outpost