The Gallery Walk
Today, the morning, still a grey and gloomy day, walk down 12th Avenue to check the galleries. Abundant inspiration. Abstractions, colorful, various new and well reproduced old interpretations of the mountains (in Calgary it will always be the mountains), the prairies, grain elevators, small towns, big skies, prairie fields and sunsets, one gallery, a showing of vibrant colors, broad strokes and thick textures, vivid contrasts, smears and gaudy daubs, Calgary, the artist doesn't appear to be Chinese, but the neon colors evoke the Asian influences on the city. Well done. A couple of other galleries, one, the over-protective curator, I've got to alter, upgrade my homeless wardrobe, we're stalked by the over-zealous/protective curator, nothing here I can't afford, but I can appreciate that he doesn't think so. Eclectic works, again style, not content. Next gallery, a cornucopia of local artists, some Inuit carvings in whalebone, haunted, haunting, demons, mermaids, faces, Eskimos, I like...Native art, cowboy art, oilfield-worker art, art in every conceivable reworking and imitation of the old masters, the new and contemporary masters, in every imaginable fusion of style and technique, by the time we hit 4 galleries I'm done.
I appreciate it all, trying now to paint myself, recognize every success I've not been able to achieve, from the straight line to the harmony of colors, to the people that however abstractly could represent a tree as a tree and have me understand, I'm impressed, I get it, they are infinitely above my skill, but still...each and every painting we saw, an exercise in technique, style, skill, all too recognizable, and all lacking in the "meta-content", the intelligence one might expect or hope from art, all of these are but the pretty pictures wealthier people of limited education choose to hang upon their walls, original, yes, talented, yes, thoughtful...well...
But, let's be real, this is Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and there will never be a market for "thoughtful" or "thought-provoking" here...
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- Category: Calgary
The Lobster
The boy's back, and my arts and culture budget is being well used. Tonight, film, going in blind (no pun intended) - "The Lobster". And if you've ever been single you'll get it - brilliant, darkly satirical, stylish and funny as hell.
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- Category: Film
Sunday
And the day, filled with the expectation of rain, grey clouds, cool, low hanging, the river the color of a cold mountain stream, the anticipation of rain...
This morning - Beano, coffee, the usual suspects, read my book, love my book, Trout Fishing in America. It's a slim book, that and the title and the vague recognizance of the author the reasons I bought it. I hope one day I write a book this long. From here, drive to the flea market, the police have blocked off a block, 13th or 14th Ave, there's a "Parade" of sorts, a dozen cop-cars maintaining order while a couple of dozen veterans in uniform play the bagpipes to send off a colleague. Here I was complaining about the incompetence and uselessness of the police, but should I go to war I can expect they'll guard the pallbearers at my funeral with exceptional due diligence...
...dodge the traffic and the police out not-policing, to the flea market. Today's finds, a geologists hand-pick, new-ish, $25.00, a book by Hunter S., to the thrift shop, here, a camo-raincoat, by an authentic manufacturer, I am slowly by turns becoming that which I ridicule, and two pairs of fish inspired cufflinks, thank Richard Brautigan...the day now barely half over, not even half over, barely beginning, it's time for a nap...the rest will follow...
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- Category: Miscellany
Trout Fishing in America
At the moment I'm reading "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan. I'm loving it.
A long time ago, almost 30 years, a roomate of mine recommended "In Watermelon Sugar" by Richard Brautigan which I never read, because at the time I only read books by dead authors and I knew better than to listen to my roomate. He was a nut-job.
You have to be careful in the recommendations people give you, they recommend a book, a movie, a play, a song, and you can see, for a moment, into their soul, and if you know already their soul is empty you don't want to go looking into the void. There was a girl once, a long, long time ago, I met her online, she used to be a model and sent me lots of pictures from when she was a model, but when I met her she wasn't a model any more. She was all washed out. When we were chatting online she told me her favorite book was "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and I knew it but hadn't read it so I found a copy and read it and thought to myself: "Uh-Oh". After we met and we talked and went back to my apartment and she told me about the business she was setting up and how she missed her children in Berlin, twin boys, but she had to leave, couldn't get or afford custody, and we slept together and after sleeping together she told me about the evangelical church she belonged to and how she liked to go to the front of the congregation to confess all her sins and how much she was looking forward to going to church on Sunday so she could tell them all about this in tones of infinite remorse and regret...
...and I stared at the ceiling and wondered how it was possible to fall in love...
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- Category: Books
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