#ron paul funeral city etc. etc.

[elancholia]

Our children are alienated pussies and we lack social cohesion.

Bring back chariot racing.

We don't build things any more! Modern public architecture sucks!

Turn the National Mall into a colossal neoclassical hippodrome.

Literature and the humanities are in decline!

Chariot races will furnish a perfect occasion for the composition of odes.

The male loneliness crisis and/or social atomization of late capitalism!

Consider the bond—presumably homoerotic—between two charioteers of the same faction cooperating to hem in and crush a rival against the spina.

Uhh sports gender biology spaces!

Chariot racing is open to all. A chariot is even sort of like a wheelchair (disability win!). All are equal before the terrible will of the gods, the merciless intensity of speed and mass, and the idiot mania of panicked horses.

[billandkenride]

Across the Prairies...by automobile

Good morning,

On Friday we racked up the bikes and headed west. The Ks whipped by. A few reflections in the day:

-On our trail over the past three weeks, we noticed the first towns we pedaled through in eastern Alberta and western Sask were incorporated in the era of 1912-1915. By the time we were in southeast Sask, the villages boasted of being around since 1906 or 1910. In Manitoba it was more likely 1893 or 1899 that the communities started. Such is the story of the settlement of the West.

-A good way to see Canada is by car

-Ticks linger around for some time

We are in Moose Jaw this morning. On our way to Calgary we will stop in Morse to attend the memorial service of a dear lady, the mother of a friend.

Speaking of Moose Jaw and friends, Janice Anderson (Thompson), who follows our blog, sent us additional memories of this city from times we visited in our childhood. See below the photos for her highlights.

Final blog from Calgary tomorrow.

Cheers,

Bill & Ken

P.S. A reminder that we have set up our fundraising page for the Heart & Stroke Foundation again this year. To donate, click here.

From Janice:

The Friendly City/Band City indeed had much to offer in the 60’s and 70’s and I couldn’t resist adding my memories......

-Civic Centre hosting Canuck hockey games, the Shrine Circus etc.

-The band parade marching down Main Street on the May long weekend

-At Christmas there was Christmas Card Lane winding around the east side of Crescent Park

-In the summer there were swans and ducks to feed in the park as well as the kiddie paddling pool. Later years we cooled off inside and out at the “Nat”

-Every Dec. there was a big decorated evergreen at the foot of Main St. and garlands draped across the road

-The animated holiday displays in the Eaton’s store windows were magical. I’m so glad they were preserved and now reside at the WDM in Saskatoon - I’ve taken my kids and now my grandkids to see them every year

Places to eat:

-A&W- with car hops!

-Burger Baron- not many of those left

-KFC in River Park- when the flood waters receded each spring

-The Modern- where “Paul” knew everyone and their families within a 100 mile radius of the city

-The 722 and Uptown cafes

-Lunch counters at Woolworths and Kresgies- great for a sandwich

-The National Cafe for Chinese food (and juke box songs) and upstairs in the Arbor Room for special occasions

- The Regal Room at the Harwood or dining room at the Grant Hall when fine dining was required

-Grad corsages, wedding bouquets and funeral arrangements either came from Moffats or Evans

-Hair cuts and colourings were done at the Artistique or Ron Muir’s (I believe Gladys preferred the latter)

-Groceries were bought at Loblaws, Safeway, Co-op, or Economart (they used to sell Pic a Pop). Smaller grocers were the Supermarket and BC Fruit on Main St.

- Baked treats came from Dutch Bakery (wedding cakes were a specialty) or Maple Leaf Bakery on South Hill (best Eccles Cakes in town)

-The Times Herald kept us informed of national, provincial and local events, not to mention wedding photos, birth and death announcements, and the police lists of drivers fined for speeding (Jack Thompson appeared here more times than he wanted!)

—Swingin’ Sam’s was the best place to pick up ‘45’s and the CJME weekly list of top songs

-The Studio was where you got Stooges reruns and if you were lucky there would be a new Disney or Elvis flick at the Cap. It was ok to enter half way through a movie and then stay to rewatch the whole show again

-Memorable fires: the National Cafe, St. Andrews church and Joyner’s Dept. store

That’s my trip down memory lane....

—

Song of the Day

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[elancholia]

Of course, this is all happening around the summer solstice. In Slavic culture, this is the most auspicious possible season for coup attempts, when the god Perun favors

[elancholia]

Joe Biden’s public live burial of a dog at that campaign rally was actually a deeply spiritual act, sensitive to the Ancient North Eurasian motif of the dog as keeper of the underworld, intermediary between life and death, and scapegoated absorber of sin and sickness. Parallel expressions of this impulse include the ancient Slavic dog-burials associated with the Iron Age Wielbark Culture and also found at various sites in Pomerania, the live mass-burial of dogs as sacrifices in Shang Dynasty tombs, and (of course) the myth of Cerberus. Don’t disrespect what you don’t understand.

[elancholia]

Tired: The Roman Empire was the Western China. The big question is why the Mediterranean Basin and Western Europe did not (as China did) remain a coherent polity in the long term once the initial Imperial continuity was broken, despite the linguistic and religious unity of the Empire and the enduring cultural strength of the Latin tradition.

Wired: the western China was the great Sumero-Akkadian cultural continuity of Near Eastern paramount kingship, marginalised by the Roman era, but finally laid to rest only by the Arab conquest.