Category: Absurdities

Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris, France in 1821. Except for one brief period he lived in Paris his entire life.

Charles Baudelaire’s father was 63 when Charles was born, and his mother just 29. Charles Baudelaire’s father died when Charles was 6. A year later his mother married a general in the French Army. Charles Baudelaire, for the most part, was on good terms with General Aupick.

In 1841, at the age of twenty, Charles Baudelaire, at the urging of his parents, who had the money, and were disturbed by his propensities to what was known at the time as “dandyism”, embarked on a voyage bound for Calcutta. The hope was that the experience might straighten him out.

He got as far as Réunion Island, a French protectorate east of Madagascar, where he decided to give up on the voyage and return to Paris. In later life he regretted not completing the voyage. He died in Paris in 1867.

The thing that struck me early is the emotion in Charles Baudelaire. The conviction. And what appeared to me as his disdain for just about everything. He’s not actually disdainful of everything.  He despised convention, and mediocrity.  He managed to get himself very heavily into debt.

Charles Baudelaire lived to be 46. For the last 20 years of his life the poet, translator and critic suffered from the varying effects of syphilis.

Charles Baudelaire is what one writer has called the greatest French poet of the nineteenth century. He’s simply a great poet.  He’s the most modern of nineteenth century poets.

Representative of his cool critical eye, Charles Baudelaire knew of and translated the works of Edgar Allen Poe.  Poe died in 1849 at the age of 40.

Charles Baudelaire wrote about a land of grace and measure.  He also wrote about angst and personal suffering and the chasm separating disillusion and the ideal.

Charles Baudelaire wrote about a wild ride. His poems are a mix of the morbid and the ecstatic ground up in a terrible wit.

---

On Sunday January 8, 2017 at 3pm I’ll be reading from the works of Charles Baudelaire for the Dead Poet’s Reading Series Reading Series at the Vancouver Public Library Main Branch, 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver.

As the usual venue, the Alice MacKay Room, is unavailable due to flooding the reading will take place on the library’s 3rd floor in the “L3 Program Area” just to the left of the escalators.

I’m privileged to be reading with some fine writers January 8.

Hope to see you there.

 

---

That’s about the size of it.  Bravery is a necessary component of life.  Without bravery there is no life.  That is the most harebrained idea I have driving east down 9th Avenue this afternoon.  What happens when you just don’t know?  You’re looking for one final gift and you act on instinct.  Just deleting your account won’t help.  Not after this.  And there needs to be push-back.

Couldn’t agree more.  Undermines their tangled web.  Just put on the headset and we bring it to you.  That’s gift giving.

Did you say “Crinklies”?  That’s what disconnected thoughts sound like.  They do that. “Crink”.  They come in packages 40 to a box.  Superstore carries the 400 family size. Crinklies are round and about the size of a Ritz cracker except they’ve been around a lot longer than Ritz crackers.  They’ve outlasted them, like they said they would.  The stale taste is part of it.

Christmas crinklies and time.  There’s no difference.  It’s like “Fiddle Faddle”.  A memory you can’t get rid of.  And why would anyone try? Crinklies are good.  Mocha, ginger, a flash of arborite and and a long sausage finish.  Grease is good for you.  It’s too stupid but they’re under every tree every year.  It’s like Steve Allen only better.

---

December 19, 2016.  States brought the potted olive bush in because she thought it might die in the cold. It sat on the step-up to the upper deck just inside the sliding glass door. The temperature’s warmed up a bit and there’s quite a layer of sloppy wet snow on deck and the plant is back out there. It gives us a warm sloppy feeling.

Later.  Our inveterate happy partyer millionaire neighbour is out there on his deck even now at 5 pm in the cool blackness.  He’s with a couple of friends. I can hear their raucous, manly laughter. It sounds pretty raucous. They’re raucous-ing it up over there. They just went inside.  That wonderful time of year is back.

---

I couldn’t really see them because he has a large rooftop deck and they were at the north-end or downtown view side.  He’s paying for it.  He’s a generous person.  He loves to share and have people over.  That’s my thought. That’s what I’ve heard about him.

We did a lot of work around the place in anticipation of all the hard partying we’ll be doing here Christmas Eve. It’s thoroughly modern, keeping up with the dust.  Battling the clutter is an exquisite feeling, difficult to describe.  So hard to get motivated.  So good.

We do everything for you. And for all of you who have to do everything, and do it, and do it well, that’s all I’m gonna say.  Thanks very much.  Is greatly appreciated by all mother Russiya’s children.

There’s no other way to characterize it.  It’s a big tree for big people doing big things.  And really, it doesn’t matter what time of year it is.  It’s a nice little town and I hope I never go back there.  You try to dis-imagine that you’re stuck in Sverdlovsk.  It’s all you’ve got until you finally get out of here.  Later there’s nostalgia.  And it’s hard.  You miss Sverdlovsk like cancer.  That Russian tour was a beast.  Why do we do it to ourselves?  We do it for the love.

---

December 20.  No.  It’s better than that.  You scrape the tin-foil off the truffle and down she goes.  That’s when you know you’re in time again to the music.  Death by Christmas music.  One more Feliz outta you and this Navidad is over.  Holly jolly my stained neck muffler.

I’m in line behind this guy at “Customer Service” at the “Liquor Depot” who’s complaining bitterly there’s no Fireball on the shelves.  How can you be out of Fireball especially at this time of year?  Catastrophe.  All I’m after is the key to the washroom, but it’s okay.  This time of year you need patience.

---

December 21. So that’s it.  I’ve always liked December 21.  It means you’re getting close.  Close to the end and you can wrap a bow on it.  You don’t have to think.  Around here you can relax.  We’ll talk about it at the break.  The idea completely resonated with me when I first heard it.  Content-free content.  As chanteuse Dua Lipa so eloquently puts it,”I ask myself what am I doin here?”

I love the expression “Happy Holidays”.  And I doubt there was ever any irony intended.  I’m in good shape now.  I have time to do those final little things that are still out there and need to be gathered in as gifts.  I don’t need the car anymore.  I can walk out in the early morning and take care of it before traffic gets too bad.

 

Next on samoyeddogs Monsieur Charles Baudelaire in connection with an upcoming poetry reading.  Happy holidays….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s nothing like a happy elephant.  Not from what I’ve seen.  Elephants, in their nature, are happy.

That’s what we like to see.  An elephant enjoying life.

---

December 10, 2016.  Five o’clock.  Ryan Reynolds reigns supreme.  A few parents had their kids out tobogganing on Alder Street tonight.  I’m on foot coming home having decided to leave the car in the parkade today.  Such a brave man.  I had a job to do.

The barricades are out and there’s no cars.  The white stuff, which was late and started slow, has fulfilled its promise and makes a nice change.  Alder street in this block is steep and perfect for tobogganing, something I’d never thought about before.

If I wasn’t so lazy I’d go back out there and do some tobogganing myself.  Tobogganing.   Good for you. Fond memories of tobogganing as a child.  Oh, to be a child again.  No thanks.

It’s safe to say the season is on.

---

December 12.  Up early expecting a close, but reality intervened and I got some Christmas shopping done.  Great.  You drive around.  You need fuel.  The red carpet love is strong. Although I know that for weeks the spotlight has been on Emma Stone there’s nary a premiere that she’ll miss and, as usual, I’m good with that.  The price of gas has gone up two cents since yesterday and I’m the kind of person who notices right away.  I thought it was still…

I put $40 in and drive off.  It’s great.  I was just down at the car wash and the black sedan is as clean as it’s been in weeks and me and the car are both feeling pumped.  A clean car runs better.  The guy ahead of me at the car wash driving a Mazda 3 complimented staff on his way off.

“Thanks.  Cars are really dirty now.”  He’s talking about the weather in the last couple of days.

It’s bright and clear today and I was surprised to see the car wash not busier as I made my illegal left turn across the painted island to get in there.  Obviously it’s going to save me going around the block to come in from the westbound lane which is what I should be doing. Right this instant, at this moment in time, for some odd reason I can’t quite understand, there is no traffic coming in the usually busy westbound lane and that’s when I went for it.

While I’m waiting in the five or so car queue I reflect on how I need to do something about my driving.  An employee is soap-brushing my wheels and I notice he is wearing a “Happy Elephant Car Wash” logo fleece-type of warm jacket in black.  The logo is in orange lettering.

Scant moments before that I’d witnessed a large SUV up on Broadway cavalierly cop a full U-turn right in the intersection at Burrard Street, as it’s called, which had thrown me into my by now predictable tizzy about U-turn-ers and how I hate them. And it was still bothering me.  “Bad driving habits are contagious,” I repeat ad nauseum whenever I get the chance, and I’d just proven it.

---

December 13.  A brilliant, bright day.  I mean, it’s called “silly season” for a reason.  Bringing a defenceless tree into your home and sticking it in a metal pot for a couple of weeks is silly.  Why do we do it?  Because we did it last year and the year before.  We’re those kind of people.

It’s tradition.  That doesn’t make it right, but it is silly.  We were at it again last night.

---

December 14.  That’s what I’m thinking. We have to be careful. I inadvertently cut off a car making a lane change on Burrard this afternoon after closing out this deal. Blast of the horn twice and then, of course, the red car I cut off roars up beside me.   I, the bad driver, and I admit it, no excuses, ignore ignore ignore.  I haven’t cut anybody off in years.  It’s been too long.

It worked. The car backed off. The driver must have realized the danger he or she was in, getting into a road-rage incident on Burrard Street with a guy who looks as dangerous as me.

---

No, sadly, it wasn’t a Ferrari.  It was an older beater.

But now, in a sense, I understand that driver’s U-turn yesterday.  That was on Burrard Street too.  Maybe this should be called Burrard Street.  By the way, for all our American viewers and all our fine non-locals everywhere who may not know how to pronounce “Burrard” it’s not “Burr-Erd” it’s Burr-Ard”. I don’t know. Some Britisher sea captain or something.  I’d look it up but there’s just no time this time of year.

Because this driver, this U-turner, and who am I to judge now, saw the peril on Burrard. The street’s had the crap ripped out of it for many months for new water mains or whatever it is.  It’s been blocked off completely in some places, or restricted to one or two lanes.  And it’s frustrating.  Especially if you don’t know it’s happening and could have gone some other way.  And the guy just couldn’t face it.  He must have panicked.  And I forgive him because it’s the thing to do.

 

Back after these quick messages