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-22 Degrees C, Facebook Friends, Other
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 151
-22 Degrees this morning, errands to be run, break them up with frequent stops. Bank. Thrift Shop. Drugstore, do some grocery shopping (not going all the way to the supermarket today, thanks!), then again at the ethnic food store, which has an absolutely immense selection, although at substantially more $$ than you'd pay in the big city. I pick up some dried habanero peppers and a peculiar Mole sauce, which I'll figure out a use for.
It's cold enough, walking - I've dug out my big faux-fur Russian top helmet with ear-flaps - but I'm going to have to hunker in. Stop for coffee. The sun is warm through the coffee-house window, bathe in the sun. Every time the door opens there's a blast of freezing air, but the door's quick to spring closed.
After the coffee & sun to the pot shop, I'd received a gift of a vape a few years ago, only it wasn't working, I'd never used it, the oil had thickened too much. I've a mind to diversify my vices, gentrify even, after the local custom, having well and truly mastered alcohol it's time to try some other things.
And all these stops, they're made as soon as you're toes stop reporting, fortunately the town is small, you're never 2 minutes away from a pop-in.
Pot-shop done, now to the soup kitchen, it's cold enough I can foresee not going out the rest of the weekend, and if I'm to be cooking I'll take advantage while I can.
Soup Kitchen, today, on the menu, chicken alfredo (no, but I can't say anything), prawns (OK but Katsup isn't cocktail sauce), the standard.
It's not about the food, it's about filling in the cracks of my diet, the things I wouldn't cook for myself.
Then, home, warm up, check Facebook - wing-nut postings as always.
Notably, Cracky-McCrackhead Sara has not posted since moving to Newfoundland, whether she just blocked everyone who didn't support her go-fund-me to get there or just hasn't found an internet connection, who knows, she used to be good for posting 2, 3 times a day, always nonsense, but she's since disappeared. Maybe it's rehab, or some sort of familial imposed sobriety.
And there's the other, always posting, mentioned in the summer, recognizing her as homeless (as well) we'd hang out if we ran into one another. Facebook friend, but not one you'd make plans with, just the standard if you run into you say "hi" and grab a coffee.
Anyways, she's a big poster, trying to forever sell the same stuff, always grossly overpriced. She's got some issues. And there are the "Jesus" and "Satan" posts, and the "gratitude" posts, and the big thanks for the gift cards she was given and with she bought some beef and some lamb and...
She's living in a trailer in the valley. With 2 demon Chihuahuas. Her trailer needs work, lots of it, only she's unable to do it herself, she's just a girl...
She identifies as "disabled". So she doesn't work, collects whatever the government pays for that sort of stuff, and crowdsources the rest. Always a call-out to the friends that she needs this fixed in her trailer, or that, needs this appliance, or this heater/toilet/sink/shower fixed, insulated, what have you.
And gathering from the posts someone is always coming through because the next day it's the same; "Praise the Lord" and "Thank you Jesus" and "I am truly blessed" but there' s never a shout out to the person or friend that came through for her and did the work (for free!!). From which I gather if you wanted to witness the second coming of Jesus he's somewhere in the Valley doing trailer repairs and handing out gift cards...
This annoys me, though, the community is good at coming together for those in need, but - in doing so it doesn't seem to allow that the individual has some obligations to his/her self as well. By "Identifies" as disabled she claims disability - of some sort, it's not obvious, not, clearly, incapacitating, and as the nature of "work" can be varied - from construction to office - she has identified work in general as the one thing that she can't do - not the in-specific one particular sphere of work she can't do.
Anyways, done scrolling Facebook and now off to do some work. Inside. Thank God.
Past Lives - 2023 - Celine Song
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 172
Watched this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. The trailer's fair, a small film about human relationships and where the choices we make may lead us...
Everyone you know will relate to it.
Anatomy of a Fall - 2023, French w/ English Subtitles
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 163
The reviews for this have already been written, but I'll throw in mine for good measure. A couple live together - The woman, a successful writer, German. The man, an unsuccessful writer and professor, French. They have a child.
One day the husband has an accident - a fall from the upper window of their house. Is it an accident, though, or something more sinister? Suicide? Homicide?
And so the movie takes us on the dissection of their relationship as seen through the eyes of the courts. The relationship, complex, wounded, in parts, unsavory and uncomfortable, but - then, what relationships aren't. The performances are compelling - the Wife, (lead character), you know her by type, intellectual, distant, not overly sympathetic. And so it goes with the rest of the characters, some more sympathetic than others, but adhering to the new movie formula of having no one you can 100% root for.
For a French film they did a brilliant thing, which was ensure over half of the film is conducted in English - the German wife speaks no French, the French husband no German, and so their relationship - dialogue, transpires in English.
This ensures a wider international audience.
Now, I've been sick and it's getting on time to find a comedy that runs under 3 hours, these foreign films, a treat for the intellect but once in a while I'd just like to laugh...
Fevered Dreams, quartz reefs in Tunisia, etc
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 133
A long night, fevered dreams, more selections of unrelated images; that I'm in Tunisia (and thinking "this is where they filmed Star Wars!") and I find under the sand a giant quartz reef, all quartz, deep, beneath the dunes, and digging it goes deeper and deeper and there has to be something here.... I must be living in Europe, because I'm grateful I've found this so close to home...
...or I'm finding a layer of fluorite/calcite under my house, it's fractured, shatters out easily, but what can I do with this (and to dig it up is to undermine my house...)
... or I'm with people, a party, maybe I know them, maybe I don't, emotional associations, "Auld Lang Syne"...
The night passes, I'm in sweats, fitful, restive, tossing and turning, too hot, too cold, fever, chills. I'm up at 9:00, I could sleep all day but I'm not getting better and there are things to be done.
The dreams, all bits, yet the overtones, undertones, create a story much bigger than the images they provide.
Which brings me to consider an old theory, that dreams, ideas, they live outside ourselves, our mind is but an antennae to tap into them, but - given my fevered state it's probably not the time to be giving this too much consideration, my thinker's a bit bedeviled at the moment...
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