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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Reviews

Published: 06 September 2023

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And, one of two great bookstores in Nelson closing, just noticed it on the weekend, popped in, couldn't believe the sign but the owner confirmed it. 

The pandemic, and rents on Baker through the roof, and this is it, the community loses another great thing, like the Old Wait's News on Baker and Ward, there 70, 80 years, moved to put in a shoe store, we need more useless gift shops, card shops, ....

Anyways, they're picking the bones of it now as I write this, I couldn't go over, it seems too much like exploiting another's misery.

Lost Continents

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Books

Published: 06 September 2023

Hits: 501

Lost Continents - The Atlantis Theme in History, Science and Literature

Now this was an enjoyable read, in which the author, formidably well read with hundreds if not thousands sources, discusses the intent of Platos' Atlantis, and then gives a rundown of all the expeditions that sought to place it on a map, why it can't be placed on a map, arguing not just from history but from geology, geography, literature and myth.

I mean, he's right, but this is an imaginary place used by Plato to advance his theory of a golden age fallen into decline, but - for an imaginary place it's had an outsized influence on history. 

Named in the book are Blavtsky, Manly P Hall, Edgary Cayce, Percy Fawcett, Bulwer Lytton, - amongst countless others, and the argued precursors to Atlantis Mu, Lemuria, Mt Shasta, - Atlantis - for an imaginary place - has a large citizenry and distinguished geological history, which de Camp dryly - and drolly - narrates and explains. This is important, because Atlantis, as a place that exists solely in the unfettered human imagination, is one of the hotbeds of "New Thought", and it becomes an atlas, as it were, of all that new aged flapdoodle and balderdash that people care to deposit there. 

A few of the more interesting things and people I came across:

• The Glozel Artifacts
• Hanns Horbiger's Welteislehre theory
• James Churchward's Mu
• Jean-Frédéric Waldeck (Artist, Explorer, Pornographer...)
• Guy Warren Ballard
• Ignatius T.T. Donnelly
• Ziusrudra
• Edgar Lucien Larkin
• R. Swinburne Clymer
• W. Scott Elliot
• Pierre Benoit - "Each of Benoit's novels consist of exactly 227 pages and have the heroine's name begin with the letter "A""
• 'Count' Byron Khun de Prorok

I could go on. The entire book should be a Wikipedia article, with every named character and place a hyperlink that leads you down another rabbit hole, and de Camp drolly sums up the essential flavour of the characters and places and underlying ideas.

Five Stars.

Monday, September 4 2023

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 04 September 2023

Hits: 488

Beginning a slow recovery from the summer.

To catch you up - last week, friend wants to go to Creston to help me search for basic furniture. The flat is still empty.

So we go and search, nada, although we hit the bookstore and I pick up a few books - 2 volumes of Stanley's "Out of Darkest Africa", old, marbled edging and front plates, and 2 volumes of the Lewis and Clarke expedition. So I count it a success, these are big books and I'll be the armchair adventurer all winter long. 

Following that she talks me into going to the locker, which has to be emptied that day.

We succeed.

The locker, I have a huge resistance to going to, it's filled with art supplies, trifles, bits and bobs but nothing of any practical day to day value. And it's full of rocks. It takes two trips - for her, no sweat, for me, well....

The physical baggage, it's too much, the psychic baggage, well...it's overwhelming, but it's done, the apartment is filled now with shit to be categorized, thrown away, or packed away into a very small cupboard. My work is cut out for me.

Friday, work, I close. I show up to work on time, there's a paranoia there that I'm not coming, so often - always in fact - I've been there a few hours early "just in case", but - well, my time now is my own, I have a place to live, and enough is enough. 

The night, busy with JR working, he's taken the afternoon off, takes a few tables in the evening, then books off. I have no tables, he has two, but he's on the split so I can close. 

Saturday I've switched my shifts around, working the day, and I've swapped Sunday around so I'm off, got T*** to cover my night shift, there's a rave, "Summer's End", out by Salmo, and - fuck it, I'm going. 

JR is a little concerned, the day - it passes, busy enough, too busy for 1, not busy enough for 2, but he's worried about the night. 

Not my problem. For the first time this summer it's not my problem. He's working with his mother in law, afraid that it might get busy, He wishes me well, hopes I have a great time, I've a pocket full of cash and I'm giving him a rundown of all the drugs I intend to take, I'll be in to work Monday, he doesn't need to worry....

***

Fucking off work and to Nelson, too slow, 80 KM per hour and the engine's revving high. Stop, get food, toy with the idea of getting more liquor, but - no, this is a different sort of party, pack my tent, sleeping bag, and I'm off...

****

Arrive, set up camp, the party's in full swing. Talk to a vendor, tip well, give him a list, I'm on a Scavenger hunt, looking for MDMA, Mushrooms, Cocaine...

Work has me exhausted but this will help my recovery...

***

the night goes, and in time I'm approached by all the little helpers, a surprising number I know from the restaurant - or, more accurately, they know me, "You're Rod from ..."...

there's Dean, who looks like a host to a dating game show, and his gorgeous girlfriend, there's others, the usual suspects and pickups full of rednecks from Alberta who keep to themselves, I'm partying with some teenagers who are telling me I'll outlive Ozzy Osbourne, chatting to people in that sociable way, nothing too deep for the most part.

The pantry is stocked, the night goes, meet people, old faces, new faces, loads of people, it is after all the best way to meet people even if by morning most of their names and faces will be a blur, dance until 6:00 AM, try and sleep until 9:00, there will be no sleeping, somebody has taken too much and is hollering in a hilarious accent that "where's the music? What kind of music festival is this? I want to party..." and you can hear the groaning in all the tents, it's funny, only, maybe not so funny when you've been up 24 hours and are trying to get some sleep...

9:00 AM give up on the idea of sleep, outside, a gentle rain. 

I'm done. I'll need all of Sunday to recover, pack my sleeping bag, tent up and am off. 

***

Into cell range and my phone goes off, messages, JR - "We'll be closed Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, see you on Thursday". This is good news, but what's up? 

The other staff fill me in. It was crazy on Saturday night, as predicted, and JR refused to call C**** in, a car went off the road, accident on the highway, closed for 4 hours, and the restaurant was a madhouse. Not a madhouse if it were, say, me and JR or Me and C****, but for JR and his mother in law, nuts, and JR was rude to his mom who was just trying to help and so she punched his father and went upstairs and tore apart his bedroom and ....

...well, the drama.

And T***, well, she couldn't find childcare for the three days she was scheduled.

Hence we're closed. 

***

C**** wants to quit. The Mother in Law, she's done, back to Cranbrook, she was "doing us a favour" and wants out. Can't blame her. C**** worked with JR all day Sunday, got tired of his dog-fucking, enough is enough, which leaves me. 

Bullshit. 

***

Sunday, otherwise, recovery. It takes a bottle of Vodka to put me down and out, but I manage it. In the evening they close off Baker, bring in a DJ, there's a mini-rave, dance for Pride, everyone's invited. But I've partied enough.

***

This morning, thank god for the day off. I'm lower than I've been for a while - well, maybe not, the summer's been long and I'm done. Town is deserted but slowly you see the Zombies from the night before; everyone found a party....

My life's a shitshow and it's time to get it together. The restaurant, well, damn, it's been a gold mine, but JR's an entitled sociopath, his parents both clueless enablers, and I'm done carrying them all on my back.

Out for coffee, the town is quiet, then busy, and all the voices in my head are silenced. Sort out the demons, the projects, time to get some groceries and eat them and get back to the gym and start writing again on things that interest me...