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Of a sudden...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1919
And it's Autumn. Scarce has summer passed - arrived, even, then all the trees have turned and the leaves are rattling down the streets.
I notice it today, too many days in the restaurant, a week is all it takes here, and the seasons have changed, winter is in the air, the cats are no longer dying to go outside, in the air is winter. I don't care, my time is to be served serving people, while I'd love to enjoy the poetry and changing hues, to be going for coffee and tasting - however bitter - life outside, it's not going to be happening. Not this year. This is the year I wrap up every ounce, every last grain of Bad Karma I've accumulated this lifetime - every lifetime - and move on. Already the smile thins, I can in my mind's eye picture the sun setting from Nose Hill, picture walking thoughtfully along creeks and speculating on all that that went before, picture panning for gold (and even picture finding it, so vivid is my imagination).
It's only been 2 years, a light sentence, but when it's done it's done.
Outside, all of a sudden without notice or warning and it's Autumn.
The Casino
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1863
And I visit the casino, with the view to improving my fortunes.
It's hopeless, this, I'm better off buying a lottery ticket, the amount of improving my fortune needs far exceeds any lucky streak this casino can offer.
But I'm looking for opportunity, trying to get out of my box, do different things, and this is one of those things. Never mind that the every fibre of my being resists this, it's where I'm off tonight.
From the moment of entering I'm distracted by the endless rows of VLT's.
I'm not a VLT sort of guy. I'll play them, for a few minutes, but the money goes too quick, the addiction wears thin, the winnings are trivial, the amusement slim and the losses great.
I walk through the dimly-lit maze of VLT's, searching for some games tables. Eventually I find some, but situated, as they are, in the dim light between the forest of VLT's and their attendant zombies I'm not so inspired.
I have a different vision of a Casino, and this isn't it.
I'm picturing, remembering a time when Casinos had a dress code, demanded membership, when the only games were table games - Baccarat, Craps, Roulette, Blackjack, Poker. Where to be there meant you had money to lose. I had a membership in London once, Charlie Chesters, I remember them because they sent me birthday cards, even when I moved back to Canada.
Now, here - and I mean the Alberta Government and the Native Run Casinos - they're all about the VLT's. I know they're great earners, but there's something missing. You follow around the retired people squandering their pensions, or smell them sat in front of their "Lucky" VLT, their pampers on to ensure they don't have to leave, you see the gangsters laundering their drug and other ill-gotten gains - obviously - (and in Victoria they've actually found money stained with dye-packs being laundered in government casinos), you see the single moms squandering their child support and welfare payments, single dads wasting - like me - their EI on the hope that they'll be paid just enough to....
It's bleak. Really bleak. There's no hope here, only despair, and I leave long before my budget's expired.
I have a different vision of a Casino. Where you can only lose money you have to lose, no VLT's, more Croupiers, table games, and everyone is dressed well. Here it's like standing in the welfare-recycling line.
Metropolis
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1713
Inspired by "Midnight In Paris" I've tracked down a masterpiece from the 20's - Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Now I know that - to modern tastes- it's overacted, a little extreme, but look at the effects - the theme, the facial expressions -all this for the 1920's!
It is amazing. And if you can't read the German subtitles, well, it doesn't matter, the film explains (for this 10 minutes at least) itself. Marvelous.
Midnight in Paris
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1617
Written and Directed by Woody Allen, starring Owen Wilson, a charming and romantic look at one writer's discovery of the Paris of his dreams and imagination. To give away more might be to spoil it, so simply - a light film, perfectly suited for that first date with the English or Arts major you've been dying to ask out.
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