Home
The Car Show, A shelf, The Variety Show, And a late concert blaring through a closed window all the way from rail town…
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 239
Morning, the car show, I’m up-and-at-em by 8:00 AM, need cigarettes, groceries, walking down Baker, the street - from one end to the other, and a good many of the side streets, are filled with vintage trucks, roadsters, hot-rods, even a few new cars. I've seen it but never really stopped to take it in, work always interfered. This car show, it’s a community thing, all the vehicle owners have set up around their car, camping chairs, coolers, coffee's, the cars, gleaming with bright paint and wax, every owner eager to talk about their pride-and-joy, this is a boon for business, millions of dollars in a couple of days, collectors plates from Idaho, Montana, Washington, Ontario, further even, the shops, cafe’s, hotels all full, streets full of shoppers.
I get my groceries, cigarettes, head home again, eat breakfast, finish cleaning the bathroom, then make lunch.
Then to the thrift shop where I find an appalling shelf, all function, no style, white veneered particle board, but I need one, my art supplies spread out over the living room floor in a 10 foot radius from my chair have grown to be a bit much, the place, once again, is a mess. After lunch I clean it up. And breathe a sigh of relief. The shelf's ugliness is largely concealed by the abundance of supplies I’ve heaped it with, watercolours, gouache, oil pastels, pen, ink, mixed media - paper, maps, passports, foreign currency, envelopes, acrylic, oils, mediums, stamps: duty-paid, postage, lottery tickets, etc, etc.
This done it's time now to read my book - Hiroshima by John Hersey. An assignment by my daughter who’s English course relies on an intelligent interpretation of and essay on said material. This reading merely so we can have an intelligent conversation upon the subject.
After which it's time for a shower, shave, and the Variety Show at the Capital…
Not the show I'd hoped for, but what I'd expected. You recognize everyone from the community, the banker, the MC, another person of finance, an actress, too many others to list. these are the people in your neighbourhood, and most of them in one way or another are in the theatre…
The lobby filled with snacks, everyone saying ‘If I knew I wouldn’t have eaten dinner”, there are salad rolls, chips & salsa, bean dip, guacamole, peanut sauce, a charcuterie of sorts, sausage, smoked meat, cheese, lots of food. I didn’t eat dinner and so make free on the buffet.
Milling and hob-nobbing, meet the authors, B.B is there, needs a drink, is short on cash having just published her second volume of poetry. And R&A are there, 85+ years old, neighbours from the old Beggs Road Vacation house, and R has a new book out, reminisces of the old life in the valley, these are the pioneers, the people that made this place great, in the 70’s with all their free-love, draft-dodging stick-it-to-the man communes & pot-growing, the old timers, and T.W. as well has a new book of poetry out…
Just keeping up with reading the local authors is a chore…
The variety show, a good natured promotion for the upcoming next season, the Xmas Panto, coming musical, theatrical, comedy, the summer youth camps that see every local youth indoctrinated into the world of Drama, as small towns go this is the town.
Then home, there's a concert in rail town, old-style rock&roll, “BC-DC”, 500 people according to a neighbour who went, loud, in tune with the largely out-of-town car show audience, through closed windows I can still here it blaring, and when it wraps up at 11:00 it's time for bed.
The Muppet
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 14
And I have this neighbor, I run in to her all the time when stepping out for a cigarette.
A proper muppet.
In appearance, tall, slender, dressing to great advantage, she has a certain style. "Pretty Woman" if you know what I mean. It becomes her.
But she's not well. On disability of some sort, she claims to have a heart palpitation, a weakness, condition.
I've seen her around with an older man, balding, sunglasses, reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson.
I ask her about him. She denies knowing him. I point out that I've run into them together in a few places, at the mall, bus stop, out behind the building. She corrects me, I saw a man near to her who looks like Hunter S. Thompson but she doesn't know who he is.
She's a muppet. She sits, desponding, for hours on end reading Rumi, the Sufi Poet. She has a dozen editions, different translations. She has loud arguments on the phone, cursing, swearing, walking up and down, waving her arms, she gets incredibly animated, her arms thrust out in front of her, 90 degrees, and then she runs up to them, bobbing up and down like a muppet, her eyes wide, eyeballs like ping-pong balls looking madly off in all directions, hair flying everywhere. I said she has these arguments while on the phone, but often she doesn't have a phone in her hand, these arguments, they're a rehearsal for when she picks up the phone. If she sees you nearby she'll abruptly stop, ask you for a cigarette or to push-start her car, normalcy resumes, you've interrupted her inner monologue.
Her car, apparently it's the source of a lot of her problems, according to the neighbours (a vituperative group of old ladies) she's behind on her car payments, hence she's always looking for a boost or to move it, she's afraid of it being repossessed.
Anyways, a proper character, and a good reason to start taking my cigarettes a lot further from my building...
KAOS ***
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 312
So finished up the Binge watch on this. Better than expected, some original interpretations and an appropriate amount of justifiable confusion.
Good, in the sense that I'm looking at old material through new eyes, good in that I suspect it might be somewhat a satire on the current state of affairs, with the Gods of Olympus replaced by tech bros Bezos, Musk & Zuckerberg (or not?) - it's openness to interpretation is a strength, not a weakness. The tragedy/comedy of Gods in our own image, played out upon the screen, a subject I'm surprised Yorgos Lanthimos didn't undertake - although if he should choose to I would definitely watch.
I was surprised that Eurydice didn't love Orpheus, it had occurred to me, a long time ago, and then again I had dismissed it as inconceivable, in that same voice from "The Princess Bride", and then again and perhaps it is true?
And while I have my own interpretations that is not what I'm getting, and being challenged is always a good thing.
So, very good, curious, interesting, a surprise as far as Netflix goes...
Watercolours
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 284
And, having come across a few pats of watercolours at the thrift shop I've turned my hands to a new medium.
Watch the YouTube videos, seems straightforward enough, should be a cinch.
How many times have I said this?
Anyways, putting the "mixed" into mixed media, with mixed results. More largely failures and slight (accidental) successes.
Slowly, slowly...
Page 85 of 1080