Circling The Drain - 197

I went to The Pas by bus. It was nice but a bit long.


Or...

A hangover so intense that it pulls at the cords that attach the eyeballs to the brain - sucking them back into their sockets - I like it. Winnipeg was cold in minus two and sunny - so cold the wind surprised glove-less fingers with sharp brittle stings. I waited at the greyhounds station for the ride north. I waited and watched - suspecting that my bag was placed on the wrong bus and as of 10:20 there was no driver for the 10:00 departure. We board the bus at 10:30, I pick a seat, pick my nose and flick. The air is dry. It's 10:40 as the 20,140 kg of bus begins to back its way out of its berth. I continue to dig in my nose dislodging a booger complete with nose hair and feel satisfied with the extraction in spite of the pain. In a continued attempt to get comfortable for the 10 hour ride I unlace the boots and lift out two sock covered feet out of smelly boots. I feel like there's a rope around my neck and reach to loosen it but of course there's nothing there and I think heart attack as the bus lumbers and jerks its way towards a highway over annoyingly bumpy roads. I dangle smelly feet over the seat beside and into the isle in an effort to get some comfort as the coach jolts punches into my fragile kidneys. I loosen my pants continuing to think heart attack. It was a beautiful morning if you like minus degrees and sun and lovely to philosophise from the inside of a bus. I reflected and told myself that I've had a good life but if I would do it differently if I could do it again. A thought by Jan Amos Comenius popped into mind as I stared out the window of my muse on wheels, "The further you are from the center of society the more turbulent life is." - I'm well pleased that I understood what he meant - that's one thing I wouldn't change, so no, I wouldn't change anything (untrue) - if there was a bar on board I'd raise a glass to the existential mountain climbers, past present and future - a grand toast to be sure - but heartfelt. I guess I'm just obstinate. (That's a tribute...)
I drift. Reflecting on the notion of thinking that I was once a nihilist but perhaps I'm an anarchist. I should have realized I wasn't a nihilist because I get pissed off about perceived injustices and my list of grievances is long. Perhaps McHill, the Irish green preying mantis was right - specifically, that being a nihilist was a romantic notion. Well, if I gave a shit I'd have an identity crisis! (that's a joke.)

Yes, a beatified anarchist, that's what I am, on the way to saint-hood!... The stink of my boots has not subsided but the feeling of heart attack has and this wayfarer enjoys the look of frosty furrowed fields under utterly gloomy prairie skies. The bus pulls into Portage la Prairie for a scheduled stop at 11:45. There's two natives on the bus both drunk, one talking to himself - but no harm, no foul. At 11:58 we leave. The bus is squeaking and at 12:00 we stop, the driver gets out to kick a tire or something to stop the squeak and we move on, minus the squeak.

A train with 152 cars crosses the tracks in front of us, adding to the delay and it begins to snow peacefully, lightly, gently just at the edge of perception, 12:15 eight hours north to 'destination licence'. The furrowed fields are mostly white now, frozen under, twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty two trillion unique snowflakes, snuggled cuddly against, under and atop of each other.

Flat, gloomy and bumpy at 12:30 - seven and a half hours to go. Ah nice..; a fellow traveller has turned on his radio/phone for the benefit of those all around him. I turn to deliver a death stare four rows back and see that the fellow's mentally disabled, not chromosomal or Downs disabled - worse - just weirdo disabled. Death stares don't work against the disabled - perchance he's forgotten to fully charge the batteries and soon it will die. No joke, it stops! Nope, there it is again a few minutes latter. A raven flops through the overcast mood on way to a bare frozen branch. The taste of blood fills my mouth and I remember that I forgot to brush my teeth this morning. 13:10 - four hundred and twenty minutes to go.

13:15 Neepawa, a ten min stop, enough time for two cheeseburgers and a small orange pop to go from Mc D's No offence to the Irish but Jesus Murphy $6.o2 O, Canada. The first nations guy is out for a fag and when he's finished it he sees another one happily laying on the dirty ice of the gas station parking lot and picks the partially smoked cigarette up from below, pops it in his mouth and he's good to go. No harm, no foul. We depart passing a raven teetering on a metal fence post at 13:35, five and a half hours to go. The sky has pulled apart and about 1.6km away there's a sunbeam lighting up a chaff strewn field. The snows mostly gone and the sky's opened up a slit and the road is rougher than cobblestones. 13:48 and we pull into Riding Mountain (prairie humour) and the No 5. Store. I go for a pee in the bus toilet and notice the native girl splayed out on her back over the last seats of the bus catching a bit of a power nap. Two magpies take advantage of the break in the clouds to enjoy a bit of flying in the sun. Blue sky, purple clouds, sunshine and one long, long low hill, set as the western horizon. At the next stop the driver notices that we're an hour behind schedule , so about seven hours to go - again. We cross the bridge over Turtle river at exactly 14:30, in a field there were four horses and a raven stood glistening atop a wooden pike, staring directly at the sun and I noticed the long cast shadows marking the hedgerows between fields.

St Rose du Lac at 14:40 and the cattle capital of Manitoba (according to the sign). 14:50 we're mobile again. The sun of course hangs low over the horizon and the rickety poplar trees along the ditch create an effect like an atomic strobe light strong enough to cause an epileptic fit in those susceptible to such. The blasting contrast is balanced by the universally shared emotion of the suns warm glow against a cheek. We continue to clack, bang and shudder our way north. 15:23 Dauphin and a 15 min stop. 15:43 we lumber out into traffic. We passed through Ashville at 15:55. Even the pebbles along the shoulder of the road cast long shadows as the sun descends, golden towards the horizon. The fields are showing more snow cover now as we inch our way towards another northern parallel. 16:15 we pass over Fishing River the suns obscured by a vast bank of cloud that stretches the entire length of the western horizon It's the perfect thickness that you can see the white hot star as it slides from view turning the cloud bank a deep pumpkin orange. 16:22 yet another stop, Ethelbert home to a white Ukrainian orthodox church with three tin coloured domes. 16:27 we're on the road again and the suns refusing to die, then at 16:32, in a flash, it's gone. Three hundred minutes to The Pas? 16:34 Garland Creek and a Ukrainian Catholic cemetery. 16:45 Pine River stop and yet another Orthodox Ukrainian church, white with three bronze coloured domes, a United church and another unmarked denomination vying for the favour of heaven - all but the main road is solid ice. More cemetery's, somber silhouettes of things to come - stone punctuation marks for the last word in life. We bounce along highway 10 through northern darkness - looking forward to getting "there." 17:23 three? four? hours to go? 17:32 into another hamlet to dark to read we stop at Hemetehek Enterprises for a scheduled stop - Minotas - all the streets ices except the main road and by 17:33 back on the highway. 17:48 Swan River 15 min stop Jack Links beef jerky for dinner and a rudimentary calculation extrapolates the 35 gram package for $3.90 into a 250 kg cow that would retail at $28,600.00 - including tax. 18:10 we go and pass another white Ukranian orthodox church with tin domes. 18:35 We've stopped on the side of the highway - reason unknown three minutes latter we're off again. 19:15 and The Pas is 129 km away. 20:09 and 49km to go...

Circling The Drain - 196

Finally! The OECD has tuned in to The Drain, as per the following BBC headline this beautiful sunny morn. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that every economy it monitors suffered a slowdown during September.

Circling The Drain - 195

Twenty-two million eight-hundred and twenty-four thousand one hundred and eighty days ago marked the beginning of the first dynasty and the approximate beginning of the end of the bronze age. There have been seven-hundred and fifty-thousand, three hundred and eighty-four full moons since then.

It is being suggested, therefore, that most people for the most part of this present era, which I'll refer to ironically, as the Attention Age - are much less oriented or attentive than they realize. Not because of the number of full moons, that's just an interesting aside. Fortunately, this fact (unoriented) rarely becomes apparent to us, unless we make a wrong turn, realize it and hence, have to regain our bearings.

Fortunate because it would freak the people out, which is as understandable as a horn blast terminating the comfortable depths of mass unconsciousness. Being free from the shadows of Plato's cave. The Socratic observation of the prisoners being angry and too upset to comprehend anything other than the illusory shadows of real objects. Being free really does mean having nothing left to loose and can be quite terrifying, more terrifying than liberating I might suggest - but I digress, (as if it were possible)!

Even then, in most environments, there are usually sufficient way finding cues — or people to provide directions — to get us back on our way. And no shortage of people willing to tell us the way to 're-orientate.'  Here, appropriately enough, is a quote from the novel Hard Times and the chapter called, - 'Lost' by Mr C. Dickens, “Not the least eager of the eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not read. These people, as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud - there was always some such ready to help them - stared at the characters which meant so much with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil.”

What is the nature of the misfortune of deception? It shakes feelings of equality, justice, security and safety. Those perceptions have disturbed the sleep of those on the margins of wakefulness and brought them out to protest. Occupy wall street - there's something to be said about it, like a dupe at a card game that keeps loosing, gradually, not immediately, he realizes that something's amiss. He doesn't know specifically how he's been cheated. He's under the anaesthesia of mystification, the mystification of numbers – and psychological conditioning. The complaint lacks goals and cohesion says the cheater, just show me exactly where you were cheated. A casual observer starts to hum the childhood song, 'There was an Old Lady' - who swallowed a fly, who swallowed a spider to catch the fly, who swallowed a bird... and the friendly voice reads aloud...

Marching to the dogmatic beat of the various mantras of the capitalist utopia - has perhaps taken us off course? But then one would have to know where the march was heading to in the first place and that's where the disillusion comes into being. In times past the populous would revolt and cut of the head of the king and court and start over. Now?- Not a chance – who can fight against it? Certainly not the social outcasts in nylon tents with cardboard placards. Society is composed of people who don't live to work - but work in order to consume. Consumerism may be a psychological disorder of addiction, a disease - which is terminal yet treatable and curable. Think of the Platonic shadows and the anger of it's victims. Give us the illusions! Give us the shadows! Give us... In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve...

Being oriented, then, lies as much in our confidence of getting “unturned around,” should the need arise, (which I propose it has), as in being able to determine the correct route. Which by the way is a mantra of the swindlers (they claim to know it). Which is also a criticism of those against whom the protests are blaming for “getting them lost.”

Thus, “knowing where you are” is a psychological state that precludes unconsciousness, and includes perceptions (often erroneous but unchallenged), like freedom, that relate to the direction and distance of known locations (like the end of the rainbow). The followers are being told stories of Shangri-la, Valhalla, and terrible monsters that the leaders are protecting them from - you don't need a compass when you are going in a circle. The O.W.S. movement reflects the fact that a few on the edges of society realize that, although they don't know how to get to where they want to be exactly, they know for sure that those with the compass don't give a damn about them. 

As a little note of interest, or a note of little interest! The Balinese consider not knowing which way is north, as a symptom of insanity...

Circling The Drain - 194

Chancellor George Osborne has said the financial crisis gripping the eurozone is hitting British jobs and growth.

Circling The Drain - 193

Canada sees biggest monthly job loss since 2009. 


The US unemployment rate, which has remained stubbornly high, dropped to 9% in October from 9.1% the month before.

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The decision to cut rates was unexpected and came despite inflation in the 17-country euro zone staying at 3.0 percent for a second month running in October, well above the ECB's target of just below 2 percent.

Circling The Drain - 191

Without knowing it and at the trailing edge of the late morning darkness, that shadow at the edge of light - the feng shui, - it was perfect. Conciseness.

The sun glittered across everything and the resolution of vibrancy was tuned to its zenith. Crisp and clean, through a refreshing zero degrees came the sharp clear test of a winter voice, that of the chick-a-dee. The next acoustic to cross the stage was the shrunken desiccated clack of a falling leaf against the rigid silence of October's passing. The shadows lay stoic upon the gallant ground. Nothing less than a celebration of fire was in order to pay homage to the hyper-manic glory of the un-oxidised brilliance of the day. Fire keeps darkness at bay! I felt the electric tingle caress and stimulate mammalian follicles, electricity zipping up the “goose flesh” - I'm so alive today, I'm so alive today...