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Canada Post (6)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 2210
The last 2 parcels arrived today. October 7th. As an FYI, these were ordered on July 17th. This is a total of 82 days. Almost 3 months. Overall, 1 parcel out of 7 arrived on time, 1 2 weeks late, the rest in the order of months late. Seriously people, Given that it came from China, approximately 4,000 miles from here, you could have walked it quicker (50 miles a day and it woulda been here Monday). And there's been no response on my ticket...
Evaluate your own performance. If I sign a lease I'll consider ordering more stuff online...
Roomates (When I had them)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2334
Returning from prospecting, invariably having spent every last nickel in the field on food and gas, my finances needing repair, time to find roomates...
Presumably this is better than being homeless, I never found it so, it was more grueling by a long shot, listening to the opinions of others and the gross conformity of imbeciles...
The one, an old alcoholic, brilliant, an engineer when sober, but something had went wrong with his life, he lost his wife and his kids, and I, not knowing, would offer him a drink and he'd go completely off the rails, find my bottle, finish it up, trying to wake us up at nine in the evening to tell us it was time to get up, I was already up, still up, hadn't yet gone to bed, the other roommate, Homunculus, he wasn't so impressed, he'd tolerate it to a point, he was just hoping to get his over-unity machine built.
Homunculus, regaling me with his endless plans to improve the world, he's got the alcoholic engineer working on his over-unity machine, I tell him it's a fraud, he disagrees "How do you know?" I ask, he explains "...because it's how the Americans are powering their anti-gravity machines...".
The engineer, he'd tell him the same as me when he's sober, "can't be done...", but he's giving up trying to reason with him, takes the money for the magnets and wires and uses it to get drunk. I understand.
Homunculus, he has everyone on his side, people learn just to play along, the owner of the local Chinese restaurant tells him long stories about how they never use MSG and how everything is free range and organic, that's enough to cure his imagined allergies. Complaining to me that the Prime Minister hasn't answered his latest letter requesting the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or to stop spraying contrails overhead, and I'll dryly reassure him that doubtless the Prime Minister has responded, only the reply was tied up with Canada Post. Checking his phone, he tracks the weather, lets me know the 'morrow's forecast, he won't leave the house, I've a 12, 18 hour day to look forward to working outdoors in a 40 below blizzard.., And if he was up when I got home he'd be watching William Shatner's "Weird World", which he took to be fact, concluding every episode with his own pet theory "It was probably Bigfoot...". And I could think of no better answer...
Little G & The Thrift Shop
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2422
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: 2648
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.
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