In Remembrance: Hugh Steers.

Breathing 1987

Breathing

Oil on Paper

11 x 15 in

1987 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers

Signature 1991

Signature

Oil on Canvas

66 x 56 in

1991 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers

Sick Room Hugh Steers 1990

Sick Room

Oil on Canvas

38.12 x 40

1990 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers

Hugh Steers Self Portrait 1987

Self-Portrait 

Charcoal and Watercolour on Paper

30 x 22 in

1987 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers.

_______________________________________

I have always loved the works of this young American Brahmin artist who was felled by AIDS – far too soon.  He was, of course, related by marriage to two of the most iconic Americans – at least for me – of the 20th Century: Gore Vidal (whose Michael Overleaves are to be found on the Michael Overleaves Appendix page) and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – both of whom were king souls.

I remember… this World Aids Day, 2015

_________________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Man Changing into Thunderbird VI of VI

20150609_123817[1]

Oil on Canvas

© 1977 Norval Morrisseau

Provenance: The Leitz Collection,

Art Gallery of Ontario.

http://www.ago.net/

Love these works especially more so as they have been recently relocated within the gallery; they are better displayed now.  A true shaman of the first order, Norval Morrisseau.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

I Remember.

Michael by Warhol

Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol.  On this the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s birth, I thought to pay tribute to one of the most inspiring creative geniuses to have ever graced this world.  This is a work by Andy Warhol which is part of the Revolver Gallery’s Andy Warhol: Revisited – A Pop Art Exhibition in Yorkville at 77 Bloor Street West, Toronto.  One of the truly fantastic shows to have graced Toronto in long ages.

I finally got to attend a couple of weeks ago with my brother and my only nephew –  in town for the summer from the Bahamas.  We had a good visit and the show was the most spectacular show I have seen in long ages.  Beautifully curated and just intimate enough that it doesn’t end up being overwhelming or, more importantly, underwhelming.

https://warholrevisited.com/

Michael_Jackson_as_Captain_EO

Michael Jackson: August 29, 1958 [-O-] June 25, 2009.

Here’s a dream, previously shared in this unique and utterly unrivalled blog of mine, of Michael Jackson being his marvellously shamanic wonderful self.  I love you more, Michael – sweet and blissful dreams.

https://dreampoetica.com/2014/09/17/oh-what-joy/

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LeiFF0gvqcc“>http://

Remember The Time, Michael Jackson, © 1992 MJJ Productions Inc.

____________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Happy 100th Birthday Billie Holiday!

a-billie-holiday

Billie Holiday.

07.04.191517.07.1959

God Bless The Child

Voice: Billie Holiday

Composition: Billie Holiday, Arthur Herzog Jr. c. 1939

________________

Fine and Mellow

Written: Billie Holiday c. 1939

Live TV recording 1957.

Voice: Billie Holiday

Piano: Mal Waldon

Double Bass: Milt Hinton

Guitar: Danny Barker

Tenor Saxophone: BenWebster & Lester Young & Coleman Hawkins

Baritone Saxophone: Gerry Mulligan

Trombone: Vic Dickenson

Trumpet: Doc Cheatham & Roy Eldridge

Drums: Osie Johnson

_______________

Strange Fruit

Written: Abel Meeropol c. 1937

Composition: Billie Holiday c. 1939

Voice: Billie Holiday.

_______________

Lover Man, Oh Where Can You Be.

Written: Jimmy Davis & Roger Ramirez & James Sherman c. 1941

Live performance 1958, Oakdale Music Theater, Wallingford, Connecticut.

Voice: Billie Holiday

Piano: Mal Waldron

Bass: Milt Hinton

Trumpet: Buck Clayton

Drums: Don Lamond

_________________

One of my all-time favourite Billie Holiday tunes.  I first fell in love with it whilst working at the Underground Railroad Restaurant on King Street East just west of Sherbourne Street back in the late 1970s – all whilst finding time to run around the city taking ballet class and studying in high school then later at York University – when Salome Bey was doing her Cabaret show and her husband, Howard Matthews was part owner, along with Jazz drummer, Archie Alleyne.  There was an intense and wonderful Jazz education!

Too, there was that memorable Sunday Brunch in late 1982 at the actress, Patricia Neal’s grand Upper West Side apartment which Merlin took on a short-term sublet.  Frederick Jones and his Puerto Rican-born lover were there, along with a couple of dancer friends of mine and, of course, fellow dancer and friend of Merlin’s, Miguel Godreau.

Merlin the night we met, Friday, October 1, 1982, had excused himself from dinner at the Afro-Cuban restaurant, around from my West 49th Street apartment, on 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.  He had gone to make a phone call – ah yes, there was an age before the cellphone’s ubiquity – and cancelled getting together with Miguel.  They had been dating after Miguel had appeared in Ken Russell’s 1980 film, Altered States starring, William Hurt and who at that time was a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Just in case, I had proven an utter bore, Merlin had made alternate plans; however, after I had passed most of dinner to the groovy music massaging his burgeoning lap across the deuce from me with my nimbly dexterous pointed feet, Miguel did not stand a chance.

Besides, one does not exactly say no to one’s task companion when first meeting on the physical plane… again, especially when it was planned.  In any event, after fruit-filled pancakes drowned in Canadian maple syrup, Merlin and I – who by then had had multiple ménage-à-trois with Miguel – blew each other soft kisses whilst he sat admiringly looking at Miguel and me slow dance to this truly haunting tune.

Merlin almost never danced; however, our pas de deux between the sheets has left Merlin an unsurpassed lover of magical skills.

Happy Birthday Billie Holiday and, wherever you are, may your current incarnation be a most blessed lucid dream.  You know, I really ought to do her overleaves…

_____________________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Summertime.

© 1968 Ella Fitzgerald Live.

The gold Standard…  I can’t imagine a week without Ella’s shamanic beauty inspiring my soul.  Ella’s Michael Overleaves to follow and now to be found in the Michael Overleaves Appendix.

____________________

Fitzgerald, Ella 1917<O>1996

This fragment is a fifth level mature artisan – second life at current level.  Ella was in the passion mode with a goal of growth.  An idealist, she was in the moving part of emotional centre.

Body type is Venus/Saturn.

Ella‘s primary chief feature was stubbornness and the secondary was self-deprecation.

Casting for Ella is fifth-cast in fifth cadence; she is a member of greater cadence four.  Ella’s entity is two, cadre six, greater cadre 7, pod 408.

Ella’s essence twin is an artisan and her task companion is a sage – both extant.

Ella’s three primary needs were: expression, security and power.

There are 11 past-life associations with Arvin, 4 with Merlin. 

This fragment has reincarnated and lives in an area of Chicago, is a one-year-old at this time (December 2013), female.

__________________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Midnight Sun.

© 1954 Sarah Vaughan

© 1978 How Long Has This Been Going On – Pablo Records

There are a few lifetime worth of memories associated with this recording… and they are all beautiful ones!  Sarah’s Michael Overleaves to follow and are now to be had in the Michael Overleaves Appendix.  I was surprised to have discovered that she was such a young soul but great art she created.

________________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Madonna and Child.

Madonna and child

Black and red chalk, pen and brown ink on brownish paper

541 x 396 mm

© 1522-25 Michelangelo Buonarotti

Provenance: Casa Buonarotti, Firenze, Italia.

Today as the gallery is closed tomorrow, I biked to the AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Michelangelo Drawings show.  I had been really looking forward to this show as the video by Hugo Chapman of the British Museum was informative and engaging.  Perhaps, it was the setting – I really don’t see the point of having had Auguste Rodin works combined with the show.  Seriously, less is always more.

Frankly, I think that the works should have been contained in one salon with lots of seating and darker, more soulful colours for décor.  White walls are so dense-energied and negative…  The only salon that worked was the final one where there were dark soulful walls; however, that look was marred by the garish lighting and imposing Rodins which truthfully I paid little heed to.  Frankly, I was underwhelmed by the show; one needed to be able to sit and truly savor the works of art.  Going from salon to salon with the frenetic colour schemata was disruptive and precluded one being able to have a great time.  For an artisan mood is everything.

Too, as these were sketches, there were times that they were unimpressive.  I am certain that there are truly masterful Michelangelo drawings in private collections; those on exhibit at the AGO aren’t among them.  The only one that moved me is the final piece in the exhibit which for me saved the experience, Michelangelo’s Madonna and child.  After having been decidedly underwhelmed, I came downstairs and went past the galleries of objets d’art to the private salon, took a seat and soulfully drank of Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents.  I always go there because the décor of the salon is just right.  The mood is set by the soulful tone of the walls and the just-so lighting.  Both work to enhance the power and richness of tones in the painting which is worth every penny of the 117.5$m that Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron of Fleet paid in 2002 at Sotheby’s auction.

Of course, I also take the time to give thanks when visiting the salon – it is akin to going to church for me… a think that I last did at my father’s funeral in August 2008.  Today, I sat there for about 45 minutes enjoying the Rubens masterpiece and was ever mindful that this creative genius is in entity two of my cadre – one of greater cadre 7, pod 414.

Merlin and I as task companions are in entity six of said cadre whilst in entity one of same cadre is Jim Henson who has since reincarnated and is female, London-born and plans a life on the London stage.  Too, that entity, 1, is host to Sir Anthony van Dyck who is currently incarnate my oldest friend and resident in British Columbia though Dutch-born.

Don’t know his casting as such things were not shared in the Chelsea Quinn Yabro book, Messages from Michael, but Michelangelo Buonarotti’s Overleaves are as follows:

A fourth level mature artisan in the passion mode with a goal of growth, an idealist in the emotional part of intellectual centre with a chief feature of arrogance.  

Happy New Year and the best in 2015.  I am grateful for your continued support and patronage.  Spread the word far and wide – this right here is the most inspiring, uplifting ode to shamanic realism of a joint on WordPress.  Sweet dreams you, you are more magical and beautiful than you know.  I love you more.

Interestingly enough, when I first began this blog, back in February 2013, I knew that there were dreams like those of Won’t Take the A Train and Cicada Principle that I wanted to share… that I have actually remained focussed this long and have had as many interesting dreams to share herein with you has served to make me realise how awesome this man Merlin was.

Merlin it was who said one night as he cuddled in bed at 20 Amelia Street in tony Cabbagetown,

“My darling, you are quite talented and this is quite the gift you’ve got… don’t ever forget that.”

At the time, we were speaking on the cusp of his final hospitalisation of his intention of doing whatever possible to send me dreams from beyond after his passing as he wanted me to write of him and me.  This coming year, I plan on spending less time on this blog as I put the finishing touches to said work; the story of shamanic Merlin and me interspersed with dreams aplenty many of which have not been shared in this blog.

Too, I plan on being very detailed on this blog in my recounting of my experiences with a former employer because falling prey to the racial predator is not something that one should be ashamed of or live in denial of.  This has been the one empowering takeaway from the Jian Ghomeshi scandal – I always thought him an absolute fraud.

http://www.casabuonarroti.it/it/

http://www.ago.net/

http://www.rodinmuseum.org/collections/collectiontheme/6.html

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

____________________________________________________________________________

© 2013-2026 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.