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familiar places, a so-so movie...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1895
My dream landscape has some places that seem oddly fixed, recurring places that show up - once in a while - in different dreams. They have no counterpart in the real world. There's a thrift shop, Women In Need, beside the Higher Ground in Kensington, and there's another in a basement - Salvation Army perhaps? on 14 Street, just a bit North of Kensington Road.
Only, of course, it's not Kensington Road in my dream, or not the same Kensington Road, it's the Kensington Road in London, only closer to my house, the thrift shop is one that doesn't exist, only in my dreams, and always I'm arriving just before close to discover a few treasures, I always remember that it's fallen off my map and I rush down at the last minute, it's getting dark outside, the inside of the thrift shop is cozy and inviting and there are glass cabinets everywhere with all sorts of trinkets...
***
And I dreamed that I was surfing the web and came across a website that was promoting a new movie, and I recognized the director as a friend of a friend and so I clicked on the play button to see what it was all about...
...and I found myself in a run down "artiste's" house, lots of people there for the special screening, it's on a tiny retro-tube TV on her dresser and we're all sitting on the floor to watch but as soon as she turns it on the size doesn't matter, everyone is watching and it's kind of silly with some special effects and Bob and Doug McKenzie, it's exactly that sort of movie and I don't know what to say other than "it will probably be very commercially successful"...
Charities spend big trashing trash
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 2491
I shouldn't let myself get riled, I shouldn't, really, but happening upon an article by the Calgary Sun I find myself quite incensed.
If you couldn't bring yourself to click on the link the gist of it is that Charities in Alberta spend in excess of half a million dollars hauling away useless donations. Don't click on the link, I just saved you the pain of reading the article.
Now it must have been a slow day in the news, and somebody was told in no uncertain terms to make something up, because - really...
A few observations & suggestions.
#1) How much do the charities make per year - off of free donations and volunteer labour? To me it seems that it's the smallest of reasonable expenses any business could hope to incur. I mean, their product is supplied free - and the decision not to sell something is frequently theirs and theirs alone.
#2) Who decides what is salvageable and what isn't? How many times have I wanted to root through a charity dumpster because I've had the suspicion that they were throwing away perfectly saleable merchandise (and once I did, found a stack of old books that I traded for $100.00 in credit at a local bookstore...not Fair's Fair.)
#3) Perhaps - nay, indeed likely - if they laid out the "rubbish" provided them by donors they'd find a fair measure of it hauled away - free of charge - by patrons that couldn't afford to shop their inflated prices. I know artists, myself amongst them, that would love and even pay for access to the materials they don't deem fit to sell. I'm talking to you, Salvation Army and Interfaith Thrift Store. Sometimes I wonder why their dumpsters are so secure - is it to prevent others from using them, or others from finding and reusing items they'd rather you paid for?
In short, a lousy article making a full page whinge out of local charities whining the quality of their donations isn't nearly what they'd like. Too bad, you should know better. What will the next article be - "Scheduling and Screening Volunteers Costs us Valuable Hours in Administration"?
Reverse Speech
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1931
And there's this theory from this Aussie that suggests that our intent - our real intent - is expressed by hidden messages encoded backwards in our speech. It sounds like Mumbo Jumbo, but he's charismatic and seems to have attracted quite a few followers, and if you think about it it just might not be that far out....
Similar to Backmasking, only whereas in backmasking the record producers or artists deliberately encode messages backwards in records, Reverse speech suggest that these messages are encoded - backwards - by our subconscious.
Make up your own mind: Reverse Speech (Google search, choose your links carefully...)
Garage Sales - Week 3 - 2011
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2302
Week 2 and they're scattered far and wide about the city. Now there are some parades in the farther flung suburbs, but there's no way I'm going to drive that far, there's a promising looking one, a barn filled with antiques some 20 KM north of Cochrane, but to get there, time to get back, the day's over, really, and so I have to give it a miss. It's an impossible day, really, to make a map, they're everywhere today and so eventually I decide to retrace an old familiar route - down Elbow Drive to Brittania.
And it's a great day; Brittania's "Parade" is small, about 8 houses scattered over a few blocks, most are desperate (contrary to what you might think the rich shop at Wal-Mart just as much as the poor do..), but at the final one I find an old teak chest, perhaps 16 tall, 18 deep, 30 inches wide, inside are numerous small compartments for hiding things in, a pip at $20.00, and an antique oak planter, 4 bartley twist legs and a spindle basket on top, perfect, and these are the treasures that keep me going...
I continue down Elbow Drive, there's a parade of sales in Haysboro, I turn to follow numerous signs, find the sales, many of them are too well hidden, and it's a game of numbers after all so I keep going, no time to search for the poorly flagged sales, some treasures may have to remain undiscovered...
Mental Note: Never turn left for a garage sale, always right, always right, saves time....
I find an antique Red Man Picnic basket, with politically incorrect logo inside the hamper, $5.00, keep going, an antique back massager that looks like a floor sander, weighs 20 lbs, all shiny steel and thick power cords - "How Much?" I ask, "$15.00" is the answer, too much for a novelty, keep going, a couple of books for the boy (the Dirk Gently Holistic Detective agency, he liked the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy), the collected letters of Queen Victoria, other small things, by 11:00 the treasures are done and I'm on my way back home.
Stop at the St. Anthony's Church - pointless, really, whatever they have looks like well picked leftovers from several weeks ago, not the slightest trace that a treasure was ever here, and finally, after numerous fruitless detours I'm home.
Sunday Morning I'm woken early by the lugubrious howls of a cat forgotten outside overnight, I would ignore him, not give into his wailing but the neighbors, they shouldn't have to put up with this and so I let him in, he sulks about wary of my foot, I help him downstairs to his own private Guantanamo Bay, the cat carrier, he can howl to his heart's content there but this revenge is no good, I'm up and so set off...
The Hillhurst Flea Market, where I can find those treasures I missed - a silver flute, $30.00, I pick it up - telling myself that I need one for travel, the other is too fine, now really, I never play either but that will change...and an old upright silverware case, with Chinese painting on the front in gilt, perfect as a jewelry box for the daughter, I talk to the book fairy and he tells me that CBC has their annual "Canada Reads" book sale at the curling rink and I head down to check it out.
Oddly enough I've never been.
And here, countless books, and I pass an hour or so going through them - they are ordered according to genre, but not really, it's a rough guide at best and so I take my time, walk the length of the tables, I'm looking for certain particular books that I haven't read or books that I have read and can recommend and pass on, there are tens of thousands of books here and I take the time to read every title...
Robertson Davies, every one of his books is here, a hundred different editions, paperback, hardcover, Atwood as well, I'm not looking for these...
I'm looking for specific books. And they're conspicuous by their absence. Not a single copy of "The Famished Road' by Ben Okri, although there are others by him. No books by Nabokov, Pynchon, Casanova, Miller, Bukowski, Laclos, and possibly they've been picked (there is more than one book fairy in Calgary), but they're still putting out boxes....
Slowly, slowly, reading every table, walking up and down the length of the tables, reading every title, taking my time, I've got time...
In a couple of hours I've found perhaps a dozen books - Edward Lear - "Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria", a few other travel books - some recommendations to pass on, nothing specifically that I was looking for but that's the nature of Serendipity, you never find what you're looking for but perhaps I've found something just as good...these to be added to the pile of a hundred books or so at the foot of the bed, books I intend to read - if only, when I can find time.
Home, a living room filled to the brim with this weekend's treasures - a four star garage sale weekend and a couple of hours work to sort and place these new treasures.
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