Draft - menu for all tastes

As D and I walked home on Locke St.  past Democracy,  a recently opened restaurant (v likely named after John Locke) - www.literary-articles.com/.../john-locke-father-of-modern-democracy  - we toyed with opening our own multi-ethnic eatery and calling it Theocracy after no one in particular. 

We played and tossed around ideas for a menu with a broad, multi-denominational flavour:
For Jews - blintzes bagels and borscht

For Christians – meat and potatoes with a side of coleslaw – Friday maybe loaves and fishes,  canned peas

For Muslims -  baba ghanoush. humus, lamb stew, couscous

For atheists – tea and counseling – liquor license pending

For Buddhists - vegetarian tofu and beans

For the excommunicated - penance, Perrier water

Divinity students  would serve

Who would cook – maybe catered

Investors welcomed

Or we could call our eatery Autocracy and just serve cake,  plain and simple. Cake for the masses or special gourmet cakes for the elites and upper classes,  all on a late summer afternoon. 

Marcia LaBelle mcohenlabelle and David Cohen © 2014

oil on masonite

Marcia LaBelle mcohenlabelle  © 2009

Corner of room

Some customary disarray, ungroomed. 

gouache on gessoed panel 5"x7"

Marcia LaBelle mcohenlabelle © 2013

Paddy Green

Approaching this time last year - actually later in the fall, closer to deer season and not so humid.

oil 9"x12" gessoed panel

Marcia LaBelle mcohenlabelle © 2013

Prior to waking up

Another dream of breathless exertion. This time I awoke from climbing an almost vertical street covered with snow over treacherous patches of ice on my way to an art gallery in downtown Hamilton. 
A tricky climb, I struggled on hands and knees past a new development of  identical one storey bungalows set far back  from the street  before  finally  reaching the small storefront gallery which to my excitement was also a coffee house atop this crazy man made mountain. As I paid for a cup of steaming coffee and a cookie I questioned  their wisdom of situating their gallery atop a hill. Their reply came as a question - "Have you never been to NY?"  I couldn’t understand what bearing that had on anything - but I said I used to live in NY tying to recall in what way if any NY was known for  hills - dreams have their own unfathomable rules - nor do I recall taking one sip of that coffee or one bite of that cookie before waking up. Hungry.

pastel and charcoal on strathmore 18"x24"

MCL(marciacohenlabelle) © 2014

¾ symmetrical view

You can build up resistance from doing nothing.

I woke up this morning from a surprisingly strenuous dream whereby  I was participating in a yoga class, more or less captive,  although I hadn’t been to a yoga workout in years. Every nerve, cell and muscle in my sedentary body was on the floor,  up against a wall straining and stretching  to emulate a difficult position with limbs crossed in every direction.  Simple conformity on my part would surely have spelled success, but try as I might the convoluted pose eluded me.

Just a  dream I reminded myself -all due to  the heat or the late night snack? Nevertheless I resolved to sign  up for a therapeutic beginners yoga starting next week.

 pastel on strathmore 18"x24"

The model is in fact a yoga teacher

MCL(marciacohenlabelle) © 2014

Side view

Preparation for a leap into faith or public service or meditation - a rehearsal stage as in yoga

Being right wing is nothing to be proud of -

Conversely being left wing is nothing to be ashamed of which according to a friend comprises roughly 2% of the population

pastel on strathmore 18"x24"

MCL(marciacohenlabelle) © 2014