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in the Trailer for the Next Hogwarts Movie
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2151
I'm in the trailer for the next Hogwarts movie. A giant wave, dimly flickering blue within, outlining the shapes of the magical sea creatures within, is moving in and around Hogwarts, Judi Dench is watching with a severe look upon her face, there are going to be problems for sure...
...Walking along the ramparts the waves are beginning to crest the tops, a trickle of water slowly making it's way over the mortar to trickle down the wall, looking at the waves off in the distance I don't think this is going to last long...
...with the boy Potter, going down the stairs beneath the waves into the castle, witches, dark flitting shadows, are darting in the arrowslits, marking pickaxes upon the wall, I find one and rub it out with my sleeve, I'm sure they're up to no good, boy Potter exclaims "They're looking for Treasure", and I look at him, he's a bit young for this, shouldn't he have aged a bit, and just like Keanu Reeves he grows up in front of me, lean and weathering, like a new action hero, he means business...
Post-Truth as an Art Movement
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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There were the Cubists, the Surrealists, the Dadaists, the Modernists, the scornfully Modern, the absurdly Post-Modern, which - by definition - made no sense whatsoever, and a hundred others I've purposely omitted. Time forbidding and my limited brain obliging. But now perhaps, reflecting on not just the current political clime, but the world in general, we have the "Post-Truth" art movement.
Think - Art, so far in its ideals, has striven to express truth - whether through the accurate depiction of it's subjects, or on a more allegorical or metaphorical level. And it has often reflected the cultural and political clime from which it came.
But now, in the "Post-Truth" era of politics, how should art reflect that? Some questions. accuracy of form, line, shape, these are no longer important. Truth is no longer important. Metaphor - the expression of deeper, underlying truths, is unimportant. And - unlike other movements - Dadaism, which used recognizable representations, or Modernism, which might abstractly reveal elements of truth, the Post-Truth movement should concern itself with the utter rejection of all recognizable shape or form, of any pleasing harmony of colors, and to write this down is easy, but to illustrate it might be another thing entirely...
Home
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2252
...and all this commuting between the Kootenays and Calgary and I've come to realize that I have no home.
Nothing.
That if I owned a place here - nice, unpack, but I'm not sure it would be home. Maybe, I haven't been here long enough, and the winter, cold, grey, shortened days, fine if you're not living in a woodshed and have a fireplace, a bottle of scotch, are marginally settled in, involved in the community, but that's not the situation, not yet, maybe not ever, when spring comes I know again I'll be restless and wanting to make trails.
Maybe 5, 6, 7 even years since I've been unpacked - in a safe place, jobs, precarious, leaving Calgary, returning to Calgary, so often, summers - when I could afford to - travelling, prospecting, in a way I'm homesick for the idea of home, I have no idea where that is. And there's the inane platitude that "Home is where the Heart Is..." but I've kept my heart and my bits to myself, for good reason, and this plethora of choice has me wondering...
So not home, but feverish in the woodshed, recovering gradually, and as both I and the weather improve there will be plans made for sure...
Missing - Coleman
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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Up late, restless, sick, perusing the internet, looking up Missing People in Alberta, a few outstanding cases that always give you pause to think. They never give you enough information, the police always know more than they say, and the surrounding details are generally scant or non-existent.
Examples - "Last seen leaving Canmore Gas Station in a 1978 Red....heading west"...There are lots of these. And that highway, get west of Lake Louise, Golden, go off the road, every year they find missing people, remains at the bottom of a lake in a rusting out car, or swinging eerily in the treetops. In the summer to go off the road is misfortune, in the winter almost certain death, and the finding of you is left almost entirely to chance.
Or: "...last seen attempting to swim the river, appeared to be in distress.". That one's a wrap, case solved.
And yet another example might be: "...Woman leaves home at approx. 10:15 at night to walk to local store and is never seen of again...". Which makes a big mystery out a situation that might not be, for example they don't mention "After fighting with her husband over custody of their children" or "having been laid off from work and in the midst of a difficult divorce", fair clues that might leave the reader with some idea of what may have transpired. The situation - often known to the police, is withheld from the armchair sleuth, and unless alternate sources are found you're left to draw your own fantastical conclusions.
This might be one such example - in any event it caught my eye.
"Edward Joseph Arcand, age 27, was last seen leaving his house in Coleman, AB on June 8, 1975. He was wearing a red shirt, blue jeans and a blue jean jacket. On July 15, 1975 his 1969 Ford Falcon station wagon was found on Highway 940, 50km north of Coleman. He was a small man, 5'8", 139lbs, black hair and brown eyes."
In itself unremarkable. Maybe he got lost while out hunting, fell off a cliff, there's not enough information to say. But then there's this:
"Howard William Booth, age 49, is missing from Coleman area on July 17, 1977. His whereabouts prior to his disappearance is not known. His truck was located 44 miles north of Coleman, in Kananaskis Country. He was a small man, 5'6", 145lbs, sandy hair and blue eyes."
The similarities in the cases are a bit uncanny. And, again, with a bit more information it just might make sense - in the mid seventies the population of Coleman was roughly 1400 people, so such a disappearance would have been a big deal, but I can't find any newspaper clippings from the time that might fill in my understanding. And the area where the cars were found, 44, 50 KM north on highway #40, that's the area of The Lost Lemon Mine, if you're into that sort of thing (if it ever even existed.). Just another fabulous wrench in the story. If you have any information regarding the disappearances - or theories - I'd be curious to know, but it does seem a bit much for coincidence.
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