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Little G & The Thrift Shop
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2456
I'm at a thrift shop, a windowless, drab affair, 2 story building crammed with rubbish in no particular order, a sort of sort-and-find your own treasure affair. It's expensive, as they go, but I've managed to find a few treasures, a few wooden jewelry boxes, another, checking the price, for a moment I misread $12.00 as $120 and put it back, I can't afford it, then I check it again and realize my mistake...it's filled with secret doors and old mismatched earrings, cufflinks, I pile them all in the box, I'll sort it out and explore it later when I get home...
And there's a puppet, lobster, folkways, companion to one I bought for a fingerless friend, a crab, I put my hand in, the long claws can be pulled back to fit over your fingers, check the price, $3.00, fine, but it's scratched out, a note on the tag says it's $5.00, too much, this thrift shop is expensive...
I'm unpacking my finds in the bedroom, time now to go through them, see what I've found, the $12.00 jewelry box is the treasure, when I hear someone enter the house and come upstairs, looking through the doorway it's A****, little G's son, he's pulling, carrying a 4 year old boy up the stairs (her other child (???)), putting it in his room, he sees me, but says nothing, and I realize that I shouldn't be here, this isn't my home, and I'm going to catch it when little G finds out in a big way...
From Art to Artifact
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2690
Art is a tough thing to define, and for economies sake I'll define it as any act of creation (man-made, sorry Zoo) that has the ability to inspire the intellect, the imagination or emotion. Typically it's original, because the repetition of ideas tends to dull the senses and remove any "inspiring" effects, a funny joke told again and again becomes stale and boring in the retelling.
If you accept that as a definition (and, hey, I understand if you don't, it's poorly abbreviated at best), then I'd like to propose to define the life cycle of Art.
1) Creation, the artist in the studio, at their easel, guitar, piano, on the computer, their typewriter, you get the idea. This is Genesis, Genius, Art as a process. It's followed by:
2) Art - as the object - the output of that creative effort, be it a painting, building, song, etc.
3) Art - the object, the book, painting, song - becomes currency for the artist to purchase more supplies, and if they're very, very lucky (and occasionally talented) there's enough left over for them to pay the rent and buy groceries.
4) Art now becomes a commodity, traded and sold as an investment, speculative, a brand name (the Artist), capitalizing on it's ability to provoke/inspire/generate that feeling/sentiment/awe/status, etc. that's currently in vogue. It's success in this depends somewhat on the artists skill and reputation, the investor's knowledge of this, and a whole host of other effects too numerous to list here, but include both public opinion, that of "experts", fellow artists, the opinion of the Artist as a human being, the life of the artist (long suffering, or well pampered: Van Gogh VS Damien Hirst), it's relevance to other Art of it's generation, etc.
As a commodity, art can expect to be reproduced "Ad Infinitum" - endless copies of postcards, calendars, records, tapes, CD's, downloads, blueprints, etc, all of which serve to enhance the value of the original and return investment dollars through the mass production of cheap imitations.
5) The most successful combinations of these factors will result in the Art becoming an Artifact, collected by museums and galleries all over the world. At this point the art, is, really, dead, it is alive to us only in that it fills gaps in our collective unconscious - it's first impression on us - the new and uneducated viewer, is overwhelming, it provokes all of the intended visceral responses, but these are merely shortfalls in our cultural education, a reflection of how poorly the imitation (the postcard, print, poster, CD) reflects the original. The original, It's made it's mark for decades, hundreds or thousands of years even, it's been discussed, dissected, analyzed, and gasp - even understood - and, now, no longer "Art", but "Artifact", it rests in a museum for all those of us who've never found time to catch up and appreciate it.
Gold Rush California Was Much More Expensive Than Today’s Tech-Boom California
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 2241
An interesting article at the Smithsonian on how prices in San Francisco during the gold rush compare to them now, with the current tech bubble.
There's a lot of parallels between the Gold Rush, and every gold rush in Canada & Alaska, and even more relevantly, the "Boom & Bust" cycles of Alberta. As many are now unfortunately discovering...
Canada Post (5)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 2818
I mailed him a parcel last Sunday. Speaking to him last night "Don't worry Pa, I haven't received any of the parcels people sent me yet...".
Canada Post. Your new slogan: "Some of the Mail, Some of the Time". "Maybe". "All of the flyers, All of the Time:".
Still no response to my query, via your webform, sent last Sunday or thereabouts. Not by email or mail (you know better, I know) or phone or at all.
You know, there should be a fee to use the word Canada or Canadian, a Tax, it used to be a mark of distinguishment, now when people hear it they imagine a bunch of clowns running into one another with their dicks out in a circus ring. Think of Canadian Tire, and their upside-down triangle shaped tire. That isn't a logo, that's what they think a tire looks like. OR the Canadian Government, with Stephen Harper screaming:
"Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society... It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff."
Yep. Human rights are scary Mein Fuhrer. Lets not call this "The Canadian Government", call it instead an experiment in right wing futility and dictatorship. So I would suggest re-branding your mail "delivery/loss/parcel-appropriation program" "Maybe?". People will say: "How you gonna ship that" and we'll say "Maybe". Which means, really, find another fucking delivery service, but it doesn't embarrass us, the nation, any further. We've got the government and Canadian Tire working on that, thank you very much.
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