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Reinterpreting the Tarot
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Creative
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I've begun reinterpreting the Tarot. All that old symbolism, kings, pages, queens, death, hardly any of it is relevant nowadays.
Mine, mine will be relevant.
The King of Cups
He is the King. The blue of his shirt represents the Celestial, or Spiritual Kingdom, the Brown of his trousers the Lower Worlds or Subterranean, the cup, encrusted with gems and overflowing, his falling from the earthly thrown, golden Crown, overturned and the golden sun risen high in the sky suggests perhaps he overdid it last night. His earthly kingdom (green throne) may be neglected for a spell while he recovers.
INVERTED: The wine runneth back into the glass and he has a chance at an early start.
The Mechanic
First of all we notice the Ape, or monkey, with his red hungover eyes, throwing a bone into the sky that is becoming a crescent, or MONKEY wrench. In the background we see a sky blue Volvo, over which peak the golden rays of the sun. A dead bird lies upon the ground, probably stricken by the wrench.
This card represents evolution, the continual striving for perfection at the expense of others and greater dreams, the hope that the wrench might be able to fix the car. Travel is to be avoided. The human/simian features of the monkey suggest the evolution, that he would like to attempt the repair of your Volvo, only he is not yet certain which is the wrench end. The dead bird represents spirituality crushed by earthly ambition.
INVERTED: Travel can be attempted.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
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I didn't start here but it didn't take me a lot of thinking...
FACEBOOK: Motherfuckers. Logged in. Clearly was too bored. And this is the targeted ad:
Holy Shit! I mean, be a little more subtle, folks. "Cancer Society?" Fuck them - eat right and quit smoking I say. Suicide Prevention? Clearly my internet surfing patterns indicate I'm at risk. I say empower them all with the right to choose.
St. Jude? WTF? That's the loss leader. Burn 'em.
This is all I got?
Jeezus. Back to square one - time to top myself. The Motherfuckers!
Now, seriously, you can find me on facebook and you ain't finding shit - my birthday and that's it. But - that they can cobble together this bullshit - from that one data point? Fuck them. Burn Zuckerberg alive and let hell sort 'em out.
Edmonton
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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A quick trip with the daughter, arrive a bit early and poke around downtown, the city has grown around places I remember, or, in that other trick of time and memory, I find places I remember in unfamiliar settings, the daughter notes what a change in character and culture the city has compared to Calgary, and it's true. The city has a culture - Calgary, well, not so much. Calgary's the rich brother that didn't need manners or education or character because - hey - it had money.
Now who's laughing?
Walk past the Bistro, the old building that used to house it, now a shell that conceals the bottom few floors of a skyscraper, see other familiar old buildings revitalized, Churchill Square with it's library and concert hall, the McDonald Hotel now opened (it was closed almost the entire time I lived there), despite the large marginal contingent clearly visible on the street it's physically a much more vibrant city than when I last lived here. There's perfectly interesting and dirty streets, cafes, filled with people, a very different cultural climate than Calgary, even the daughter observes, it's been too long since I've visited, I need to spend a few days here and rediscover old haunts (those that still exist), need to come back and take a few days and rediscover it, who knows who I'll run into?
The "Wee Book Inn" - they tried Calgary, lasted a year - maybe - then folded. People in Calgary don't read books, not good books at least, I pop in and admire their selection. Nothing I need - but if you read books, know books - compare their selection - in a relatively tiny shop - with the same selection in a warehouse that represents Calgary's tastes - you'd understand.
We lunch at Bistro - they've done a fine job of rebuilding, relocating, the perfect blend of familiarity and renovation, the food, double and quadrupled in price, not expensive - but, again, the curse of memory, of ninety-five cent open faced sandwiches, those days are gone. I should have fattened up.
Nostalgia. Don't know if I'm a fan, but the sand is running through the glass, and - as I'm noticing - you never dip your toe in the same river twice.
Google Dog
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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The internet has begun to become a rather homogeneous place, pretty much every website resembling each other, and given that 90% of them are run by 10% of the population, this isn't surprising.
But, searching as I do for peculiar things in extraordinary detail I noticed that I was reaching the end of results often quicker than I expected. I mean, my interests are obscure, but the internet is a big place...
So I Googled Dog.
WONDERFUL! Over 7 and a half BILLION results! Boy oh boy I'm gonna learn some fun things about dogs.
I quickly go past the first couple of dozen pages - first page results seldom interest me, I'm looking for the obscure, remember, and the curious.
Wait a minute - Page 23 - now only 23 pages of results? WTF happened? And, no, I don't believe there's just 230 results. Nice try guys.
Scroll to the bottom of the page:
Notice how Google is censoring me - it makes it an option to search with omitted results included, but really, I should trust it. All the other missing results will be much like the results I've already flipped through.
What is rather droll here is that there are a lot of concerned people worried about Google's compliance with Chinese censorship, and aren't paying any mind to the fact that Google is fully censoring any searches done here. And - 23 pages of results - how many were paid placements for dogfood - petstores - etc, etc. So basically I search for "Dog" and I'm left with the impression the entire World Wide Web is roughly the size of ... I dunno - Drumheller?
I'm being shown 0.0000030383091149273452% of the internet's results on dogs. It's like Google has decided the remaining 99.999999+% of the web is dark. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."
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