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The Week in News and Outrage...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Sooo, brought in a few of my less valuable books for trade and discovered Bloch's "Marquis De Sade - His Life and Works", which puts him into context with the rest of the Era, the countless unforgivable crimes of Louis XV, his concubines and Mary Antoinette, the innumerable vices and sins of the Clergy and Church, (with many pages given over to police reports detailing the "in flagrente delicto" acts of Monks, Jesuits, Priests, etc. It is very laugh-out loud, and while I'm barely 30 pages in I've already made as many pages in notes. Unfortunately it demands a bit of attention, and my attention has been a bit scattered by the events of the weekend.
Anyways; news I've been following, the apparent closeness of the Russian American election, news that Elon Musk has apparently been in contact with Putin, that he's paying voters to vote Trump, his Million Dollar Lottery, his dancing dipshit routine, and Trump, who's so chaotic and terrifying that there's no keeping up with him, and no point even trying...
Closer to home, news of the poor girl burned alive in a Halifax Wal-Mart Oven, Temporary foreign worker/or International Student, I knew all this without even reading the article, Canada, we've become the Dubai, the UAE of North America, bringing in cheaply paid foreign workers, giving them little to no training, and placing them in dangerous situations where this should not even be possible, yet clearly it is and it's happened. Or the recent case of an employee found dead in a Cambridge, Ontario, walk-in Freezer, Canada's become a bit like France, over there you serve 5 years in the French Foreign Legion and you become a citizen, over here you work 5 years for some of the dodgiest employers ever and - if you survive, you get citizenship.
Back to the election, Bloch and the Marquis De Sade, It's worth noting that while eventually the populace in France rebelled against the obscene hypocrisy and corruption of the Nobility/King and Clergy, resulting in the French Revolution, In America they're seriously considering reelecting them in. I mean - time, if ever there was one, to yell "Off with their heads...". Win or lose this election won't be so clean cut...
There are no clean players, from Trump, Musk, Bezos, Thiel, the list of corrupted technocrats, politicians and their sycophants should keep the guillotine busy for quite some time...on the other hand, never have they been easier to identify, merely look for the Trump Logo/Flag.
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Other than that, my books slowly arriving - early last week (the same day I was setting my chops to Bloch) Muireann Maguire's "Red Spectres" arrive, one I've long looked forward to, as well as Friday I received David Lindsay's "A Voyage to Arcturus". And there are yet two to arrive by Cendrars, and I've lengthened my list with a few more via Bloch.
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Friday night, the Dosed Party, up far too late (in fact didn't sleep, a little sketch all day and only slightly recovered for work Saturday, today feeling a little bit better. You can have too much of a good thing. I am getting a little bit too old for this, and am going to need a few weeks banging on a Tamborine following a granola truck to fully recover. This is how the Yellow Deli gets you...
Concert St. Saviour's
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Monday night, I've picked up a ticket to a concert at St. Saviour's, Kitty-Corner from Oso.
I've never been inside, old Anglican Church, from the outside quite beautiful.
Monday night, on the inside, cozy, beautiful as well. Find my pew.
The concert, 2 classical guitarists, one violinist, very good, but not playing anything that grabs me. I'm not engaged. But I wait it out, they're good, charming, the audience, probably average age 70+, maybe a hundred people.
In the end, not what I was hoping for. The church, brought back memories for sure, but the music, well, not my thing. That's OK, you pay for these and sooner or later someone will deliver, these "trials" or "forays", they're just feelers into those places I should be a little more often...
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting - 1979
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
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This, another on the list of "Movies no-one has ever seen but you must if you'd consider yourself cinema-literate".
Which of course I bought into, being a fan of the obscure and esoteric.
The premise, an art collector has a selection of 7 paintings of Tableaux that he interprets for the camera/audience, via live recreation of each of the tableaux and his subsequent interpretations.
In style, a black-and-white forerunner of Peter Greenaway. The sets, styles, music, filming - I'm pretty sure this made an impression on him.
In substance - the paintings the collector has amassed - ludicrous, appalling recreations of what we are assured are art masterpieces. Even in black and white these appear to be 3rd rate studies by an artist of little talent and an impoverished imagination. That is not addressed, and I would think should be taken as a "clue". The collector shows us the painting, and then analyzes it for us, then on to the next painting - and each painting, somehow, is joined or thematically linked to the next. Until we arrive at the third or fourth which has been stolen, but the collector nevertheless attempts to reconstruct it's content and link it to the others.
It is a fine example of the "unreliable narrator" - how someone with a great deal of knowledge upon various subjects can tie them together in ways that - while they may impress the uneducated viewer - in themselves possess no greater value (or insight) than the paintings do on their own. The progenitor of every conspiracy theory. A curiosity, for sure, and some interesting ideas, but niche in the extreme and not entirely relevant. Yet another film I can strike up a conversation at the bar with..."You should see"...ending with "Well, maybe you shouldn't but it's only an hour long...".
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyQf4am7VOA
I'm waiting on the books I ordered, need a break from all of this European-Art-Haus, and, checking the tracking, I"m still 2-3-4 weeks away. And they're all on the same continent. Bloody hell. I'm seeing the value of Amazon...
Kelowna
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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And so I've another scheduled trip to the dentist, only without a car and so a friend steps up, opportunity for her to visit her family, and we're off. Beautiful autumn colours, stop at a pub in Rock Creek for lunch.
The pub, far better on the inside than outside, lunch, the big "Fell off the back of a GFS Truck" feast, onion rings, chicken wings, cheese sticks, chicken fingers, spring rolls, celery/carrots, fries, gravy.
Fucking appalling. $40 for maybe $4 worth of food, chicken wings cut from chicks still in the eggs, fingers more aborted McNuggets, spring rolls without filling, Onion rings that forgot the onion, carrots/celery recycled since the beginning of time, I mean, this was the worst - and most expensive - iteration of the classic Kootenay Roadhouse Menu I've seen in my life. It's like GFS has a secret menu for even worse food that what they usually sell these places, somehow, if possible, they managed to sell them on the "D" menu, half the price of the "C" menu which is what most places buy and is easily ranked as "appalling".
What kills me is that while it's far too generic, commonplace, the menu virtually identical to every other restaurant for a couple of hundred miles, it doesn't have to be. You could - from scratch - make an amazing fried cheese. Or Chicken Wing. Or French Fry, or Chicken Finger or Spring Roll or - well, all of it, you just have to know how to cook and take 5 minutes to prep it. But I swear GFS unloads this shit directly into the deep fryer and - the results, well, you know, you know.
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Onward to Kelowna, a couple of thrift shops, I pick up a few nice shirts, pair of pants, if you're into thrifting, Kelowna, it's the place to be. Any number of treasures, and I could have searched a lot longer, harder, only I was being done a favour and didn't care to impose further.
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The Dentist, fine, the standard, and then home, a couple more thrift shops, if I'd had time I might have found some treasures, the quality of the post-consumer landfill there is great, far better than the Kootenays, only I was a little disinclined, the dentist, the impatience of my ride, and so I cut it short, but next year, new vehicle, and I'll be making the trip for sure...
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