So - as a result of some shift swapping I got a 3 day weekend - Monday thru Wednesday, and a coworker is going to Alberta and so I split gas and get a ride to Calgary. Overdue for a visit with my daughter...
And as I'm not rich, not even poor at the moment I've packed along a sleeping bag for the night. There are people I could call, couches I could surf, but as I'm really here to visit my daughter, and don't want to lose focus with hanging out with other friends. It's nice, we catch up. A light bite to eat a Four-Spot, they don't look so thrilled to have me, the sleeping bag tied up and thrown jauntily over my shoulder and my soiled canvas messenger bag, I look homeless. The daughter confirms as much. And after dinner a walk downtown to see the new Bladerunner movie, we arrive an hour or so early and so wander Eau Claire, talk, catch-up. There's an art gallery on the main level, "Affordable" it advertises itself, and it is, and that's about the nicest thing you can say about it.
Most paintings top out at 4X4 feet in size and $400.00, $450.00 per canvas. Signatures, lower right corner, first name only, names like "Josh" or "Joe" or "Sue". The paintings - because by no means could you call them art - a lion roaring, a great white shark, Batman, other mysteries.
Link: http://apikfineart.ca
The "Fine" and the "Art" titles are more than a little bit much. Affordable, yes, but at any price these are too expensive, you're just buying future landfill...
And I'm aghast, I mean, I've posted bad art here, but this is beyond bad, it's not art - not at all, not by a long shot, by any definition, it's certainly not decorative (I mean, I get that it's trying...), there's no narrative, no story - hidden or otherwise, no meaning, no new techniques, no nothing. It's landfill. My "Nelson Gothic" should be worth millions if any of this is worth a dime, and the Batshit scrolls, well, if they get only half their value I'll be buying up Europe...
...
We separate, a short few hours visit, I've got to go walk a few miles down by the river to find someplace to unfold my roll and sleep the night, a couple of miles from downtown should do it, the night, cold, the sleeping bag too thin, torn, the constant trains shunting across the tracks, no amount of tossing and turning could make this comfortable.
The next morning - up (standing, not waking, was up throughout the night) at 5:30, head to Beano for coffee, on the way pass through the old pre-N*** neighborhood, stop at the local store, haven't been there for how long? 10, 15 years at least...and the clerk is the same and he recognizes me, carrying the sleeping bag, beard, I'm looking homeless and he's asking about things and we talk, catch up briefly, and you think of all the forgotten years, people, that you knew and that then disappeared when you left the neighborhood...it makes you a little reflective. It's been a long, busy decade...
A couple of cups of coffee and I set out to peruse a few thrift shops, it's too early but the sun is out, waiting for one to open I lay down on my roll, catch a bit of the sleep I didn't the night before, wake up to an ambulance pulled up on the green belt, Naxalone kit ready, I must have been snoring, somebody called it in, "You all right...?" a concerned driver asks, I sheepishly wave them on, I'm fine, just a wizard passing through from Foon...
***
Thrift shopping done - I'm looking the part now for sure, and 2 days without shower or change and I'm smelling it as well, head out to rendezvous with my ride on the Deerfoot, getting the stink-eye from every other homeless guy in town, they don't want the competition, a couple begging in the core spot me: "Keep your chin up..." they say, past the Sally-Ann rehab, the dodgiest shelter in all of Western Canada, more stabbings and murders within a 5 block radius than anyone could count, cross the bridge - other side a homeless guy retching in the middle of the sidewalk, pedestrians, on their way home from work, try not to notice, look away, he's still bent double coughing up his guts, another one is just beginning his high, dancing, walking strangely and talking to his invisible friends, cops, everywhere, in their armor-clad cruisers, one per cruiser, patrol, see nothing, homelessness in Calgary, it's everywhere, and no one is seeing or saying a thing...
***
I'm missing Foon. I don't know where home is, but Calgary - not a leaf on a single tree, dry, brown, tinder, it's time to set it on fire, I'm missing the Kootenays, where the leaves are still turning and the people are personable, only here a day, the other 2 in transit, but - were it not for the daughter - it would be a day too long...