November twelfth, Toronto, Ontario, and I've woken up considerably later than intended, surrounded by people who've already begun their working day. There's something faintly humiliating about climbing out of a cot while your colleagues are going about their ordinary affairs, though they've been remarkably decent about the whole thing, and I suppose I ought to be grateful that nobody decided to wake me with a broom.

I've been getting back into photography lately, and thinking about the curious things an image can preserve beyond whatever happens to be visible within its borders. An empty doorway, an unremarkable corner of a room, the ordinary geometry of a place you've passed through a hundred times. Some of these photographs contain entire afternoons for me, though I doubt anybody else would know what to make of them.

And then there are the objects we carried around as children, those magnificent pieces of cheap plastic and cardboard upon which we invested such tremendous fortunes of imagination, ambition, and occasionally our very reputations. I've been remembering some of those things, and a rather formidable young gentleman named John French.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

A few dollars in the jar, should you feel inclined.

https://ko-fi.com/thewolfjohnson

JOIN THE NIGHT SHIFT

https://www.patreon.com/thewolfjohnson

WRITE TO THE PODCAST

theclashthechaos@gmail.com

November ninth, Toronto, Ontario. I've just finished a rather magnificent falafel wrap from a Turkish restaurant down the street, where the people have taken to treating me with such extraordinary kindness that I find myself increasingly reluctant to go anywhere else. There's a cup of tea involved, naturally, and a woman whose understanding of hospitality seems to have survived whatever dreadful transformation has overtaken the rest of modern commerce.

The cold is settling in around Lake Ontario, and I'm sitting in the car, contemplating the peculiar events of the past twenty-four hours. I've slept rather badly, though the circumstances were sufficiently ridiculous that I suspect I might have difficulty explaining them to anybody who hasn't already made peace with the general absurdity of my existence.

There are some encouraging developments, at least. The debt is finally approaching its end, and I've got a bowl of soup waiting for me. I've also been thinking about Jean-Claude Van Damme, among other things, which may or may not be a consequence of the exhaustion.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

A few dollars in the jar, should you feel inclined.

https://ko-fi.com/thewolfjohnson

JOIN THE NIGHT SHIFT

https://www.patreon.com/thewolfjohnson

WRITE TO THE PODCAST

theclashthechaos@gmail.com

Sunday morning in Toronto, and I'm sitting in the car remembering a rather wonderful evening spent in the company of some old friends. We gathered for Fox's birthday, four gentlemen of varying degrees of respectability, and made our way into the city for a proper bowl of ramen before surrendering ourselves to the flashing lights and mechanical indignities of an old arcade.

There's something about being reunited with people who've inhabited so much of your life. You spend the first hour discovering what has happened to them in your absence, hearing which old ambitions survived and what new adventures have found them, and gradually you begin furnishing another set of memories together. I find that a rather beautiful thing.

Anyway, I've got somewhere important to be today, and the Ford Escape has apparently decided to develop another goddamn opinion about the matter.

NIGHT MATERIALS

https://nightmaterials.online/

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

A few dollars in the jar, should you feel inclined.

https://ko-fi.com/thewolfjohnson

JOIN THE NIGHT SHIFT

https://www.patreon.com/thewolfjohnson

WRITE TO THE PODCAST

theclashthechaos@gmail.com