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Boxes of Bad Photographs and the Divesting myself of all material things...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 273
Sorting out the boxes of photographs to best fit them into the apartment. It's overwhelming, boxes stuffed to overflowing, and I swear, 40 years of taking pictures and only started taking "good" (not great) pictures when the children were born.
By good I mean that sort of staged photography you get at a high-school graduation.
A lot of travel photographs, from living in London, Prague, Visits to Kathmandu, Japan, Tangiers, Spain.
Too many. They take up real estate, and it's time they go. There's a few good ones, most are rubbish. How many thousands of dollars wasted on taking photos, buying film, developing, now to all head to the trash. And hours spent sorting them out, no cheery-memory lane sort of stuff, just-too many.
Then there's the antiques, the gun-sight (WW1), the compass (WW2), vintage bowls, knick-knacks, candlesticks (don't get me started!!!) - something's gotta give. Too-Much-Stuff.
I cart a couple of loads to the antique shop, I'm gonna need multiple loads, and there's more - always more. This is not the place to sell them, and I haven't the time for Facebook Marketplace, the Antique Shop, they're planning on retiring, they're reluctant to take anything and I'll take a bath - for sure, but - there's no place for it, and I've hung on to it all long enough.
And this is where I am at the moment, letting it all go, bit-by-bit, piece by piece...
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 402
Shirley Jackson, whom you've probably read, think "The Lottery" (High School Required Short Story) - in which lots are drawn and a person is stoned to death. The Claustrophobia of Small Towns, similar, in it's way, to "The Wicker Man" and others such.
"We Have Always Lived in the Castle" covers the same themes, only it's unreliable narrator, Mary Katherine Blackwood, while 'of' the town that loathes her lives in a world so far removed...
The walls close in as you read, and the dialogue, simple, forceful, the events, well, something "had" to happen and then again nothing did, there are no surprises, merely you are there for the slow exposition of events...
And, when you read it - you know her, some version of her, some person that is seemingly twice, thrice removed from the world around them, here - well, Nelson, there are many such. But in this there is a certain gradual increasing horror, the events not to be spoken of yet everyone is aware, the hatred slow-turning to compassion...
It was masterfully written, although I did not enjoy it so much, but that is not to say it wasn't a masterpiece.
Dinner in a better restaurant
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Restaurants & Cafes
- Hits: 239
Dinner in a fancy restaurant, with real "Chef Owners".
It's been a while, and friend won the lottery - literally - 5/6 numbers on the LottoMax, paying - wait for it - $4,000. She deserved it, was a little short on rent, so this will help her out.
We go to the fancy restaurant - haven't been for a year. It's built on a 45 degree slope on the other end of Baker, the patio abuts a park popular with the homeless.
It's dinner and a show! They're out there, the "Usual Suspects", mother of Norm, she's gotten a new mobility scooter, various others, some of the out-of-towners, exchanging insults then fisticuffs, many intervening, no one is hurt, the police are called, just another night with the usual suspects. Every other night. What a job! The patio, it abuts this "park" and you think, in the summer, it's gonna be a hard sell, their prices, product, vs the homelessness just a railing away...
Dinner in the fancy restaurant, 2 servers, 2 tables, a 10 minute wait for a glass of wine. Appetizer; mussels, mussels good, broth, some sort of leek-in-water, leek good, water-wet, well...
It goes from there.
Calamari, good, the sauce it's served in - well, shite. Brussel sprouts, amazing, as is the sauce. Steak, with salad and fries. Steak, OK (Sorry to say I make better- at dine-out prices no steak should be indifferent), fries, tasty, but that's because there's more salt than fry, the salad, well, the leaves were fresh, the dressing should have been flushed.
It's really hit-or-miss at this place. What they do well, they do well. But - what they did well was only the Brussel Sprouts. The rest, it was all various shades of "throw it back at the kitchen" and/or "Flush it down the toilet". Nobody is quality checking the idea, let alone the product.
Where I work there's a TV - always on, always playing, and it's "Hell's Kitchen" with Gordon Ramsey. You can watch this shit 24/7, if you're of the inclination, although - really; why would you. I find him a bit offensive, although I've worked with considerably worse.
Anyways, I'm picturing in my head Gordon Ramsay tasting this shit, it wouldn't fly. Well, it would, only onto the chef's apron that deigned to present it. And hard.
Service, pleasant but entirely incompetent. A take away ordered after the meal, forgotten, then billed separately. I've been overwhelmed with a dozen to-go orders and 5 or 6 tables walking in at once, these two were overwhelmed with a table each. Apparently it's for sale, and I for a fleeting moment consider it, but no, the industry is dead, let it die. I can cook so much better at home, for so much less, and serve it as well, and I have to accept that it's just not worth it to dine out anymore. The industry is dead.
The Eternaut
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 228
This, available on Netflix, an Argentine miniseries (6 episodes) on an imagined Apocalypse. Sci-Fi, for reasons that will become slowly apparent. Mighty fine for Netflix, I gotta say.
Anyways, in the same genre as "Last of Us", but much, much better and more intelligently written, more attractive/plausible characters, motives, dialogue, backstories, with an abundance of twists and things that make you think .... "hmmmm" as your mind races off to figure out what's going on...
I enjoyed it. But like "The Three Body Problem" I'm already impatiently awaiting the next season, which is why I fucking hate watching these things...
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