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Arrowheads
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 976
The lack of vehicle - 3 weeks now while ICBC sits on their asses twiddling their thumbs - means that my prospecting interests are confined a lot closer to home.
A lot closer. Specifically, walking the beach along Kootenay Lake looking for arrowheads.
I've never found an arrowhead, it's long been a delayed childhood ambition. I've found better - the hammer/maul, other artifacts, flints, but never for some reason, an arrowhead.
And so I begin again walking the beaches of the lake, eyes peeled, scanning the gravel...there sure is a lot of gravel...
Days go by. I'm acquiring the eye.
Finally, digging in the sand I come across this. Entirely by chance.
thin, flat, could be, turning it over and over, clearly broken, but when finally I spot the line of symmetry I have it. My first arrowhead, out of Kootenay Argillite. Walking back up the beach I spy a couple of other flints, out of place in the gravel, clearly napped/worked, discards perhaps or remains of other tools.
I'm not sure about the arrowhead, I was expecting something a bit more - well, complete, and obvious, but shining a light through it reveals the tiny pressure points where it was napped, the edges are serrated from multiple tiny flakes pushed off, it's an arrowhead, sure enough.
Not a bad find, but not perfect, there are better. And so in the morning before week I get up and comb the beach. It's a big beach. I find a few flakes and a sinker, which I discard (later research shows me an image of the same, I should have kept, I had a hunch and disregarded, not good...).
Then the next day, more flakes, and then:
Another broken arrowhead, top, and a few flints/flakes on the bottom.
I'm getting an eye for this, although they're still bloody hard to find, it reassures me that I'm not entirely incompetent and maybe soon I'll be finding complete ones...
Back in Time to an Old Hotel
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1186
I've traveled back in time to a big, old hotel, it's a servers nightmare, the kitchen is on one floor, the bar is on another, and everywhere there are flights of stairs and unattended tables, I can't keep up, can't begin to keep up...people keep arriving, looking at me expectantly, where do I find the water? This place is a labyrinth, I'm lost...
...a couple at one table, they seem to be enjoying themselves, younger man, twenties, 80's hair, older woman, they tell me that it's time, and they push a remote control and blow up their car, it's somewhere in the hotel, I'm horrified that people will be hurt, I have a bad feeling about this, but they seem pretty confident everything will work out fine...
...the hotel is evacuating, everything is now under control, I can see outside a big blast in the side of a parkade, smoke, people are walking underneath the dangling wreckage of an automobile and I'm getting angry and shooing them away, I'm convinced this bomb thing will end badly...
...in a guests room, he's talking to me familiar like, I've served him before, he's barrel chested and has no torso, lower limbs, just his arms that he uses to carry himself about, and his wife, I don't recognize him at all, but I turn around and by the time I look back he's pulled his torso and legs out from his abdomen or wherever he had them tucked, he's standing up like Burt Reynolds, all normal, laughing at me, he was just joking, I recognize him now, don't I?
...at the back entry there's a stack of old bottles the hotel is throwing away, they're shaped like figurines for exotic and expensive liquers, novelty bottles, one a gilt and porcelaine pig, another is Wile-E-Coyote, there are others, and I'm collecting them, wondering where to store them, someone tells me I have a locker...
...down in the basement of the parkade, I don't recognize this place, I don't have a locker here, friend assures me I do, I find my key, it's a small locker, like a half-sized one at the gym (not the locker I was thinking of), no room for these figurines, inside are a bunch of papers I'd written for university, it's been a long time since I've seen them, makes sense, I'm way back in time, my twenties, I scan the papers, gently scathing criticism from professors, comments...that's all, ...
Now I'm thinking, there's got to be a few people to look up, people I met when I was older and wouldn't it be curious to meet them when they were younger only there's no internet in the 80's or email and how would I get hold of them?
(Strange.)
Didn't buy, who would I send to?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 996
Spotted this in a thrift shop. Fucking amazing. I should have bought it...but I'm kinda glad I didn't.
I mean, look at it...it's amazing. Clearly the artist is trying to say something Oh, yeah. And that isn't wine she's pouring.
The canvas, it's not the angle of the photo, that's the angle of the painting. Look at the painting again, ignore the lack of talent, it's all about the symbolism The expression on her face, the "gimme just another drink and we'll go to bed...". The streetlight. The manyfold bottles. The armpit hair. The red top/bustier/negligee, the streetlights....
Who is the subject? What is her relationship to the artist? What is he/she trying to say? What does it all mean? There's just enough talent there you can read all the messages...
Fucking amazing. Only I don't want to send it on and be obnoxious and so I let it sit...
In Buddhist Hell
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1673
A lesser known tradition of Buddhism - lesser known to the students of the "New Age" movement who all profess themselves Buddhas on the path to enlightenment, well known to the Chinese - is that of the Buddhist Hell.
It holds that the afterworld is much like the world we live in now, and to that end Chinese Buddhists will buy their departed ancestors and loved ones
"Hell Money", little totemic sheets of currency or papers with gold bars to burn on alters; this money, it is believed, will serve the dead in the Bureaucracy of hell. Hell, it would seem, is filled with government officials and petty diplomats that must be bribed...
To the Chinese, Hell is Bureaucracy.
Funny, the New Agers never bring up this interpretation of Buddhism, it's all sunshine and roses and the presumption of enlightenment. The Chinese are infinitely more practical and wise...
The Accident, my first proper accident, the logs off the logging truck crushing my jeep, it's got me wondering if I haven't actually died and ended up in Hell...
The whole day, the grey skies, the sun, a pale shadow of itself, the horizons in all directions vanishing into grey, and then the accident, standing in the middle of a highway wondering WTF just happened, dust and smoke raining down upon me, the highway strewn with logs, sawdust, the catching up to the truck driver, the insanity of his not knowing what had happened, the short but slow drive to the ferry, sagging windshield crumbling glass onto my lap, the ferry ride, life as a metaphor for death...
It's all a little surreal, like "Carnival of Souls", wherein the girl is dead and doesn't know it and keeps meeting other dead people, the general discombobulation, puzzling, ...
The smoke is still here and it's time to deal with the bureaucracy.
Monday I go to the Nelson Police Department to report the accident. They sympathize briefly before referring me to the RCMP. The Nelson RCMP, the receptionist there tells me I should file my report with the Wynndel Detachment - an hour and a half away, but upon slight pressing agree to file my report there and fax it over.
With my case number I go to the AMA website and file my Insurance claim. I've only got PLPD, but this is pretty clearly not my fault, and I expect that ICBC will be paying to restore (not, it's irreparable, there's frame damage, roof, windshield, bumper...) or replace. The AMA webform, upon declaring my submission a success, warns me of a 1 or 2 day SLA, (Service Level Agreement), I can expect to hear from an adjustor or agent then.
That evening I miss a call:
That evening, a call from a Private Number, a phone message, I return the call. Constable ***** at the Wynndel RCMP detachment asking me for details as to the accident, I'm a witness, and to return his call at the number above. Funny he would call me from a private number, but it makes sense later on...
I call him as soon as I get the message. See above. 9 minutes later. The receptionist informs me that he's off for the day, and they don't have a schedule but he might be working tomorrow if I'd be so kind as to return it then...
The next day I call the number again. They tell me that Constable ***** is based out of Creston, and give me a number there. I call the new number.
The Creston RCMP advise me that Constable ***** is retired.
My patience has limits. I explain to them why I'm calling, that I'm returning a call about a log spill on the 3A, that I'm both witness and victim, that Constable ***** called ME, I give them my case number...
They apologize, profusely, and then refer me back to the Wynndel RCMP.
I call them back.
Now the receptionist is irate. "What do you Want?!! WHAT DO YOU WANT!!!" she asks me, demands of me, she's pissed off, I'm tipping her chair, I know the feeling, she was getting up for more coffee, updating her Facebook, and I'm the fly that keeps irritating her...
I explain that I'm returning a call by Constable *****, and that maybe she can take my statement, but she doesn't want to, too busy, and she arranges that someone else will be calling me.
Tuesday afternoon (not the Moody Blues, sorry) another call from a Private Number. This is all ripe, overripe, for Terry Gilliam styled comedy and interpretation, 27/B forms, a different Constable (and why can't anybody ever just call them back?), and I give him my version of events, statement, all news to him, apparently the logging truck driver failed to mention there was a witness/victim/other party to this escapade, and the plot thickens.
Meanwhile it's Tuesday, no call from Insurance, and then it's Wednesday, no call, and Thursday and I'm growing impatient and wondering WTF and so call them, AMA Insurance if you're wondering, and they tell me they've got the claim and that "Deb" is working on it...
I've talked to friends, relatives, fender benders, small rear-end collisions with no damage, that called their agents and were called back before they got home, 10 minutes later, in their own hometown, me, I'm out of province, "On Vacation", no vehicle, and I've got nothing...
Friday now and they still haven't called, I've no emails, contacts, nothing. Maybe I've died? In any event, the Chinese were right, Bureaucracy is Hell.
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