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Hostel - 2
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
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I meet in the common area Steve from Cafe Beano, apparently he's one of my bunkmates, I didn't recognize him without his beany on, but something about him seemed familiar - from my old hood in Calgary, we chat about Calgary, he's here to promote his chapter book, he's serialized it, selling it on chapter by chapter, self-published, he's escaping his old life to live about here on the breath of the wind. He sold 24 copies today in 4 hours, on the streets of Gastown. And there's the Yogi, the guy I'd noted was perpetually on his computer, He's lived and hitch-hiked everywhere in the world, India, New Zealand, the US, Europe, the world, quite literally - almost every continent less Antarctica, He's on a quest for enlightenment, he's the chosen student of this Yogi (? don't know who, not so much into Yogi's) now discussing with Steve the drug addiction problem - and 'Krishna' announces (his name from the Upanishads, Red hair and freckles make me suspect it was chosen, not given) - that he has no interest in helping these people. Any people for that matter. He's got his own problems.
And I'm thinking ... the essence of enlightenment is compassion ... and - for someone so concerned - the solution is in front of his nose - and yet - he's turning away from it, a distaste for the work, he has all the understanding of a computer programmer trying to explain love, ghosts, anything outside of the directly quantifiable, measurable universe.
I ask about what he's doing on the computer all the time - apparently mixing music. He's a musician.
Other conversations fade in and out...there's a fat girl on the sofa, going on about how hot Justin Trudeau is, she's stayed in Hostels all throughout the US, she's got recommendations, talking about all the countries she won't visit because she's afraid of being raped, discussing her favorite porn, what she likes, getting drunker and drunker, sloppier and sloppier, she has opinions, for sure, and she's only too willing to share...
It's insufferable.
Photos around Hope
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
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None of them any good - but they reflect the general atmosphere - low, hanging clouds, mossy cedars, chainsaw wood sculptures, the burned out/abandoned houses, the wifi at the church, the lifebuoy app advertised everywhere, the neon of the cinema...
Which brings me back - this town, the Pacific North West - they don't need a monster - the place is plenty haunting enough.
Teetering
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
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My phone is on it's last legs - and the camera as well. So apologies for the quality of the pictures.
If you fall over - you pass out - and the high is wasted.
1 down, 2 to go.
Shooting up on West Pender. Open heroin use here has about as much stigma as smoking a joint in the Kootenays.
Moving all of your worldly possessions in a couple of garbage bags on to a new encampment.
And the debris. It's doubtful you could find a 10 yard radius within a mile of East Hastings that wasn't contaminated with something similar.
The entire reddit thread of "Took Too Much" https://www.reddit.com/r/tooktoomuch/ could be filmed here in a day.
People watching Gastown & Hastings
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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Quite possibly the best city ever for this. See past the precarious teeterers - on every block, head down, trying to fight the slumber - try and see past the addicts and the homeless and there's a genuinely interesting contingent of people. Not that they aren't - only - well, that's another post.
The addicts, they all remind me of that short - "The Burden of Other People's Thoughts" - a little masterpiece. And you can see how he came about his inspiration.
But the rest of them - 70 year old man, small, grey hair, adorned with bright gold chains and a huge gold skull pendant. WTF.
A woman stops to say she knows me -
"You were in my AA Meetings".
Not yet, not yet
"Well, then, we must have been drinking buddies..."
And proceeds upon her way.
And others - up early, someone out for a walk in full BDSM regalia, top to toe, including the BDSM mask. On his way home from a sex party? Escaped from a dungeon? The fashionably beautiful - that would fit in anywhere, including Calgary. The visibly trans and misgendered, the odd couples in every combination of age & youth, beauty and decrepitude, that you can imagine. The appalling facial tattoos. And I could go on.
Suffice it to say I'm enjoying the city very much.
And when I'm not watching the people there's always the bookstores - and antique shops - and period architecture - and museums.
All of which other big cities have - Toronto springs to mind - but - unlike Toronto - the range of personalities, fashion, and the out-and-out in your face addiction that plagues the city, makes it all a very interesting place to be. I shouldn't half mind to live here for a year or two.
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