Is anything in my life tweetable?
Do I really need another on-line forum for airing my opinions and brain farts?
The only way to know is to give it a go.
Hey, that would make a good T-Shirt!
The only way to know is to give it a go.
Maybe done in some bubbly hippy font and a smiley face at the end.
Gee, you can tell I've had a few days off and wound right down. Anyway, I'm on the Twitter, it is part of the interwebs. If anyone can tell me how to drive it, that would be swell. I think my phone needs a different thingo to be able to talk to it. As usual, look for me as orbitaltorch and say hai, I love that.
We had a GIGANTIC storm a few days ago - sheet lightening, Thor stamping about the place, rumbly thunder to move the foundations, flooding rains, wind to tear the atmo off. It was brilliant. Went for hours and took the power intermittently. I live on top of a hill and my street flooded to about knee height (so just above most people's ankles-ish) so there was a lot of water around. I loved it, and I loved that it cooled everything down by at least 10 degrees for the next few days and we've been back to mid 20s temps, and now everything is green and growing manically to catch up. There's even cool breezes! Oh how pleasant life can be when the physical world is not trying to scald you off the face of the planet.
I stood outside for a while after the bulk of the terrifying bit had passed and took some video on my phone so I would have a sound file of the rain and the frogs going all poly rhythmic gamelan style. Later in the summer if it goes all dry again I will have 45 precious seconds of proof that water can and does sometimes fall freely from the sky. Folk wisdom says that we'll have a wet season this summer. Why? I've heard everything from the large number of flies, ants in the house, 3 dust storms equals a wet season ahead, and my favourite of all, my mother's trick foot. Yes, her barometrically sensitive foot has been aching. It is accurate slightly more often than the meteorologists, but I'm not going to buy another lemon tree just yet!
The weather aside, I baked a banana cake* last night as a house warming gift for Sister2 and her partner who have moved into their dream(ish) home this weekend. I doubled the recipe, thinking that would make for a nice generously sized cake. Kindof an innocent thing to do but the outcome is a monster. I did not think through the fact that getting the larger sized spring based pan and then doubling recipes would result in a cake too large to fit on any plate, serving platter or tray that I have. If I could handle it safely, I would weigh it just to satisfy my curiosity but I am loathe to put it under any further structural strain than just sitting there, being a presentation problem. Hmmm. At least I know it fits on the base of the pan it was cooked in. That will be my back-up position. It is tall too, nearly 7 cm by what I can judge. Holy giant cakes Batman!
I was hoping that it would be a short-lived problem, that we'd be tucking into the moist banana-ry deliciousness of it for morning tea today. But no. They are inconveniently busy with cleaning the old house. I will have to wait the endless hours until afternoon tea. The cake is implacable. It knows it must be gifted whole. My mouth is uncontrollably watering in anticipation. Oh Caped Crusader, if only I had made a little muffin from just some of it!
BTW, while I've been telling you about the cake, twitter has told me about the new Cory Doctorow novel 'Makers' that's out. Happy Happy!
Make cakes people, and be happy.
The only way to know is to give it a go.
*I used the recipe from "Women's Weekly: Old - Fashioned Favourites" which I can recommend heartily to anyone with a sweet tooth and a preference for simple classic dishes. Easily found in good newsagents and occasionally even in the supermarket.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Remember Remember...
... the fifth of November.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
November 5th, 1605. What happened? "Treason" writes the victors and Guy Fawkes was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for it. Imagine what that means for a second - and it was to be done in public (of the conspiritors sent to death that day, Fawkes was weakened by the torture he had been subjected to and using the last of his strength jumped in the noose and broke his neck thereby avoiding being drawn and quartered).
What would drive someone to such an act of (what would be named today as) terrorism?
He was Catholic and King James and most of the aristocracy were Protestant. Catholics were actively persecuted by the ruling Protestants at this time in English history. It was illegal to gather for mass. Ironically (to me) mass was of course in Latin, so many people were risking death or less serious punishments (such as lengthy imprisonment in unsanitary cells) to hear something that they did not understand. Such is the power of belief in ultimate truth!
Why that means parliament should have been blown up I've never been entirely clear, but I think it was a pragmatic rather than philosophical or symbolic decision - it was simply the place that the King and all the lords would be gathered when Parliament would open on the 6th. In the 17th century the European world was savagely fought over by competing christian churches in a way that to my modern eyes seems barbaric, wasteful and largely pointless. After all, they both have the same imaginary friend - right? But real wealth was at stake as the new worlds were discovered and then exploited. The power, drive and expertise to exploit those new sources of wealth came from the churches.
Our governmental system and laws are largely separated from the influence of any church now but at that time the idea of religious tolerance must have been as laughable and dangerous as the idea of hulling a ship with paper.
Guy Fawkes night was commemorated by government fiat to remind the underclasses that the King had survived, that the plot had been foiled and the conspirators given their just ends at the noose and sword. But. But. Had they consulted a magician, wise woman, or even just a low-level marketing hack, they would have been advised to change the name of the event. There's a simple but strong power in naming things.
Somewhere in that long line of burning nights from 1606, Guy Fawkes shifted from being a treasonous scoundrel to something of heroic figure. Indeed he must be magnificent or else why should he not be forgot?!
By the time I came across his story (in the late 80s or early 90s - I was slow to join the broader consciousness) the motivations were presented as political and very modern, he came with his own tagline: "The last man to enter Parliament with honourable intentions" and had been recast in the language of a freedom fighter, tackling tyranny for the justice and betterment of all. Such a stylish case of co opting a piece of history and an actual, historical person with quirks, flaws, joys, flatulence and awkward beliefs all of his own and turning him into a simplified symbol and then even more quickly into a marketing slogan and image for branding up parties and merchandising and acting as a shorthand for a whole bunch of modern concepts that our historical fellow would baulk or blanch at. He's in good company at least, I'm sure Jesus of Nazareth can empathise with that process. Ditto Einstein come to think of it.
It is from twisty turning stories like this that I have gained a sceptical respect for historians of all stripes. Even with primary sources and eyewitness statements or drawings, events must still be read and evaluated within layers of meaning. They happened in worlds so removed to ours as to be wholly alien. Entire, complex and detailed political and cultural structures existed then as invisible and obvious to those citizens as telecommunications and LOLcatz are to us. Shifting into a historical period involves letting go of some of oneself in order to make room for their values and needs. Yet we can't be completely objective, and we don't want to be. We read Shakespeare for our own meanings and pleasures, not to get a better handle on court influence or the emergent commerical structures of 17th centrury entertainments.
So for whatever reason you prefer, remember remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot. It really happened, it's a symbol. They were terrorists, they were fighting for what we take for granted - a separation of Church and State. They were killed as the lowest form of criminal, they live on immortalised in popular culture, more famous than the King who triumphed.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
November 5th, 1605. What happened? "Treason" writes the victors and Guy Fawkes was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for it. Imagine what that means for a second - and it was to be done in public (of the conspiritors sent to death that day, Fawkes was weakened by the torture he had been subjected to and using the last of his strength jumped in the noose and broke his neck thereby avoiding being drawn and quartered).
What would drive someone to such an act of (what would be named today as) terrorism?
He was Catholic and King James and most of the aristocracy were Protestant. Catholics were actively persecuted by the ruling Protestants at this time in English history. It was illegal to gather for mass. Ironically (to me) mass was of course in Latin, so many people were risking death or less serious punishments (such as lengthy imprisonment in unsanitary cells) to hear something that they did not understand. Such is the power of belief in ultimate truth!
Why that means parliament should have been blown up I've never been entirely clear, but I think it was a pragmatic rather than philosophical or symbolic decision - it was simply the place that the King and all the lords would be gathered when Parliament would open on the 6th. In the 17th century the European world was savagely fought over by competing christian churches in a way that to my modern eyes seems barbaric, wasteful and largely pointless. After all, they both have the same imaginary friend - right? But real wealth was at stake as the new worlds were discovered and then exploited. The power, drive and expertise to exploit those new sources of wealth came from the churches.
Our governmental system and laws are largely separated from the influence of any church now but at that time the idea of religious tolerance must have been as laughable and dangerous as the idea of hulling a ship with paper.
Guy Fawkes night was commemorated by government fiat to remind the underclasses that the King had survived, that the plot had been foiled and the conspirators given their just ends at the noose and sword. But. But. Had they consulted a magician, wise woman, or even just a low-level marketing hack, they would have been advised to change the name of the event. There's a simple but strong power in naming things.
Somewhere in that long line of burning nights from 1606, Guy Fawkes shifted from being a treasonous scoundrel to something of heroic figure. Indeed he must be magnificent or else why should he not be forgot?!
By the time I came across his story (in the late 80s or early 90s - I was slow to join the broader consciousness) the motivations were presented as political and very modern, he came with his own tagline: "The last man to enter Parliament with honourable intentions" and had been recast in the language of a freedom fighter, tackling tyranny for the justice and betterment of all. Such a stylish case of co opting a piece of history and an actual, historical person with quirks, flaws, joys, flatulence and awkward beliefs all of his own and turning him into a simplified symbol and then even more quickly into a marketing slogan and image for branding up parties and merchandising and acting as a shorthand for a whole bunch of modern concepts that our historical fellow would baulk or blanch at. He's in good company at least, I'm sure Jesus of Nazareth can empathise with that process. Ditto Einstein come to think of it.
It is from twisty turning stories like this that I have gained a sceptical respect for historians of all stripes. Even with primary sources and eyewitness statements or drawings, events must still be read and evaluated within layers of meaning. They happened in worlds so removed to ours as to be wholly alien. Entire, complex and detailed political and cultural structures existed then as invisible and obvious to those citizens as telecommunications and LOLcatz are to us. Shifting into a historical period involves letting go of some of oneself in order to make room for their values and needs. Yet we can't be completely objective, and we don't want to be. We read Shakespeare for our own meanings and pleasures, not to get a better handle on court influence or the emergent commerical structures of 17th centrury entertainments.
So for whatever reason you prefer, remember remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot. It really happened, it's a symbol. They were terrorists, they were fighting for what we take for granted - a separation of Church and State. They were killed as the lowest form of criminal, they live on immortalised in popular culture, more famous than the King who triumphed.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Nanowrimo 09
It is that time of year again - Nanowrimo - which has gone international, but in the way of things I don't think they'll change the name. If you've ever said "one day I'd like to write a novel" then this is the month for you to give it a go, and as long as you don't blog about it, no one need every know you tried if you don't meet your own exacting standards!
Obviously, I should be over in my other window writing, but my characters are about to order coffee, so I thought I could take a little break and jump over here for a bit. Last year I wrote in longhand, in an actual, physical paper notebook. That was great, and I really enjoyed being able to write in such a portable and low-power requirement mode, but it made editing and sharing things a lot harder, so this year I'm trying it another way and just writing into the machine.
Don't worry that you'll be exposed to it here - it is rough like bogan vowels and as disjointed as a teenager's conversation and attention span. It is a lot of fun, apart from the bits that aren't. I shan't inflict it upon you.
But enough about me. What have you been up to? There are so many ways that people are filling their days. There's such an unpredictable and unknowable variety of things that can happen in the world. We spend so much time fighting against feeling as though we're in a rut that when something out of the ordinary really does happen, we can be at a loss about how to respond, how to grasp the implications, how to interrupt our pattern and reset with the new parameters.
Last night I stood outside in the yard and looked up at the sky. I tried to think about everyone I know and have known. I couldn't manage it. I just didn't have the space for it. Yet all of us and more than we'll ever know are all breathing in and out now, and living and bickering and worrying about pants or relishing dinner or avoiding bills or trying not to scratch an itchy spot or feeling pain or thinking of someone they love. It is immense. You're part of it. Can you hold everyone you know in your heart at once? I wonder tonight if this is something that would be a good idea - to make our hearts bigger and hold more variety, witness more and still feel compassion. It is the kind of idea that is easier to have in the dark silent night, far from the distractions presented by actual people, but that doesn't mean it is completely silly ... just that maybe I've got plenty of challenges in front of me.
Faced with that thought, I think I'll go back to my other window and get those guys some breakfast and maybe some light banter to fill their day. I wonder what will happen next?
Obviously, I should be over in my other window writing, but my characters are about to order coffee, so I thought I could take a little break and jump over here for a bit. Last year I wrote in longhand, in an actual, physical paper notebook. That was great, and I really enjoyed being able to write in such a portable and low-power requirement mode, but it made editing and sharing things a lot harder, so this year I'm trying it another way and just writing into the machine.
Don't worry that you'll be exposed to it here - it is rough like bogan vowels and as disjointed as a teenager's conversation and attention span. It is a lot of fun, apart from the bits that aren't. I shan't inflict it upon you.
But enough about me. What have you been up to? There are so many ways that people are filling their days. There's such an unpredictable and unknowable variety of things that can happen in the world. We spend so much time fighting against feeling as though we're in a rut that when something out of the ordinary really does happen, we can be at a loss about how to respond, how to grasp the implications, how to interrupt our pattern and reset with the new parameters.
Last night I stood outside in the yard and looked up at the sky. I tried to think about everyone I know and have known. I couldn't manage it. I just didn't have the space for it. Yet all of us and more than we'll ever know are all breathing in and out now, and living and bickering and worrying about pants or relishing dinner or avoiding bills or trying not to scratch an itchy spot or feeling pain or thinking of someone they love. It is immense. You're part of it. Can you hold everyone you know in your heart at once? I wonder tonight if this is something that would be a good idea - to make our hearts bigger and hold more variety, witness more and still feel compassion. It is the kind of idea that is easier to have in the dark silent night, far from the distractions presented by actual people, but that doesn't mean it is completely silly ... just that maybe I've got plenty of challenges in front of me.
Faced with that thought, I think I'll go back to my other window and get those guys some breakfast and maybe some light banter to fill their day. I wonder what will happen next?
Monday, November 02, 2009
The Satellite of Grace
Go outside tonight if you can, maybe it will be clear and you can tilt your face up to the radiance of the moon. It is a still night where I am am, and the stars have all taken a step back to clear the stage. Only the leaves of the big tree shift a little in the glintering light. Leaves are impatient like that. I love to look at her on nights like this, but I can't hold her gaze for long.
Last night, the wonderful moment before her glory, she rose for me above the big wet and the waves made a song for her that sang and sang and echoes even now. It is hard to hear the salt song when we're under roofs or hemmed by the concrete that is hard but not slowly alive like stone. Hold there in your yard or the park and squint past the annoying edges that intrude of rooftops and power lines and all the other nagardly reminders of our control over electricity, and see if you can remember what it felt like to live within her rhythm and pray for her tides and good favours.
Her strong face cannot compete with the vibrant emanations of the blue teats of our screens and our clocks and our clevernesses. But there she remains, orbiting at a little over 1klom a second now (as though forever) in synch with us and facing us. The impression thus given of our centrality to meaning yet another gift from her. Ah, as light calls forth shadow in the language of psyche, does the moon gift Gaia with more than physics suggests? The teats' glows will fade and the moon will hold us again, hold us still and without judging our notions of independence. The echoes and songs of the salt that we live from will sing in us all whether we hear it or no.
Last night, the wonderful moment before her glory, she rose for me above the big wet and the waves made a song for her that sang and sang and echoes even now. It is hard to hear the salt song when we're under roofs or hemmed by the concrete that is hard but not slowly alive like stone. Hold there in your yard or the park and squint past the annoying edges that intrude of rooftops and power lines and all the other nagardly reminders of our control over electricity, and see if you can remember what it felt like to live within her rhythm and pray for her tides and good favours.
Her strong face cannot compete with the vibrant emanations of the blue teats of our screens and our clocks and our clevernesses. But there she remains, orbiting at a little over 1klom a second now (as though forever) in synch with us and facing us. The impression thus given of our centrality to meaning yet another gift from her. Ah, as light calls forth shadow in the language of psyche, does the moon gift Gaia with more than physics suggests? The teats' glows will fade and the moon will hold us again, hold us still and without judging our notions of independence. The echoes and songs of the salt that we live from will sing in us all whether we hear it or no.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wha jus happ'nd?
I had a good idea that came to me either in bed or the shower (two great spots for ideas, which is why I keep a whiteboard marker in my soap dish and my bedside table has more pens than my desk) but I can't remember it now because I have been completely distracted by the hilarious, random and prurient curiosities the world has to offer.
These have come to me via a wonderful network of curious and humorous souls who very thoughtfully send me things* to liven my days. I have felt a little bit like Mr Universe this week "There's only the signal Mal!" (I've been re-watching SF films in mute protest at Moon only screening in 1[one!] cinema in Qld for its release. WHAT KIND OF A BACKWATER IS THIS?! I mean, that's just rude. I've spent quite a bit of time in capslock this week).
Where was I? Oh. Yes.
So between the fury that is exile, and the fact that I've been trying to do what feels like two and half units of work in one work-time-segment, waaay too much coffee (jumpy!jumpy!overloud!), cooking timeporn, the excitement of a cool T shirt every single freakin day - I love the interwebs!, a vehicle I reckon would be a total booty magnet (ooh, toss up between this and the Tesla Roadster now if I ever become stupidly rich) , the latest from the Governator, there is the mindfuck of the utterly provocative and offensive/hilarious promotional material for the new the new Rammstein album "Pussy"... I can't seem to keep a thought straight in my mind until the next distraction comes along.
Ohh look! A monkey!
* Thank you to Mr Wright, Mez, Joel and Jen for some of the content I refer to here! And to Msjaye for content that is not! Do you want to send me things? Do so using orbitaltorch@gmail.com
These have come to me via a wonderful network of curious and humorous souls who very thoughtfully send me things* to liven my days. I have felt a little bit like Mr Universe this week "There's only the signal Mal!" (I've been re-watching SF films in mute protest at Moon only screening in 1[one!] cinema in Qld for its release. WHAT KIND OF A BACKWATER IS THIS?! I mean, that's just rude. I've spent quite a bit of time in capslock this week).
Where was I? Oh. Yes.
So between the fury that is exile, and the fact that I've been trying to do what feels like two and half units of work in one work-time-segment, waaay too much coffee (jumpy!jumpy!overloud!), cooking timeporn, the excitement of a cool T shirt every single freakin day - I love the interwebs!, a vehicle I reckon would be a total booty magnet (ooh, toss up between this and the Tesla Roadster now if I ever become stupidly rich) , the latest from the Governator, there is the mindfuck of the utterly provocative and offensive/hilarious promotional material for the new the new Rammstein album "Pussy"... I can't seem to keep a thought straight in my mind until the next distraction comes along.
Ohh look! A monkey!
* Thank you to Mr Wright, Mez, Joel and Jen for some of the content I refer to here! And to Msjaye for content that is not! Do you want to send me things? Do so using orbitaltorch@gmail.com
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Battle Lines
My sister mentioned in passing yesterday that the family is considering holding an intervention on me. Well there's some news.
Which of my many antisocial and problematic behaviours could they be planning to target I wonder? Could it be my relentless cynicism and brooding depressive belief that life is pretty shit and it is best to pretend otherwise so one doesn't spiral helplessly into an abyss of self destruction? Could it be my venomous and acidic disregard for my fellow humans and seething hatred for politicians, derivatives fund managers and smokers? Could it be my addiction to Spider Solitaire - that sensuous and seductive siren who lures me endlessly onto the rocks of lost time?
No. Apparently, these things don't rate a mention. The family takes it all on board with barely a flicker. There are bigger issues. Issues that threaten the fabric of my life if only I could wake up to their horrible implications.
I look again. Is it the dead lemon tree that I haven't removed yet from the barren (possibly poisonous) part of the yard? No. The trees need trimming? I Mean they're kind of touching those wire things at the front of the house again - that can't be good. No, not that, but yes, they do need a trim. The obsession with re-watching Chronicles of Riddick? Nope. Dodgy and worth keeping an eye on, but no.
What then!?
The evil that hides in plain sight gentle reader is this:
Too many books.
To come here I jettisoned about two thirds of my library, and I have culled and thinned and negotiated ever since. Sure there's a few "rainy day" reads put aside, there's a few in the "maybe read" pile that need to be evaluated, there's the "read once - possibly keep for re-reading" pile, there's the room full of books that fall into the "LOVED IT" category, there's the small collection of first editions, there's non-fiction and reference collection, there's the Batman collection. Very humble collections they are too! There's a few piles here and there I admit. But there are no books in the bathroom! There are no books in the hall! And there are only cookbooks in the kitchen! The shed has only 3 tubs of books, that's not bad considering how much room is in there, but I just don't trust the tubs to stand up to the bugs and pests that rule the kingdom of Shed. All the doors in the house open and close without hindrance. Oh, well, except for that one! But other than that I think the house is, frankly, thin on the ground for intellectual stimulation!
Too many books indeed!
There's barbarians at the gate. Raise the drawbridge! Fly the flags of resistance, rattle your swords in their scabbards, release the monsters into the moat! Prepare for battle!
(Oh, and if you're going to pop by, you're welcome to stay, just let me know a day or two ahead if you can so I can unearth the bed in the spare room, it just has a little "filing" on it for the minute.)
Which of my many antisocial and problematic behaviours could they be planning to target I wonder? Could it be my relentless cynicism and brooding depressive belief that life is pretty shit and it is best to pretend otherwise so one doesn't spiral helplessly into an abyss of self destruction? Could it be my venomous and acidic disregard for my fellow humans and seething hatred for politicians, derivatives fund managers and smokers? Could it be my addiction to Spider Solitaire - that sensuous and seductive siren who lures me endlessly onto the rocks of lost time?
No. Apparently, these things don't rate a mention. The family takes it all on board with barely a flicker. There are bigger issues. Issues that threaten the fabric of my life if only I could wake up to their horrible implications.
I look again. Is it the dead lemon tree that I haven't removed yet from the barren (possibly poisonous) part of the yard? No. The trees need trimming? I Mean they're kind of touching those wire things at the front of the house again - that can't be good. No, not that, but yes, they do need a trim. The obsession with re-watching Chronicles of Riddick? Nope. Dodgy and worth keeping an eye on, but no.
What then!?
The evil that hides in plain sight gentle reader is this:
Too many books.
To come here I jettisoned about two thirds of my library, and I have culled and thinned and negotiated ever since. Sure there's a few "rainy day" reads put aside, there's a few in the "maybe read" pile that need to be evaluated, there's the "read once - possibly keep for re-reading" pile, there's the room full of books that fall into the "LOVED IT" category, there's the small collection of first editions, there's non-fiction and reference collection, there's the Batman collection. Very humble collections they are too! There's a few piles here and there I admit. But there are no books in the bathroom! There are no books in the hall! And there are only cookbooks in the kitchen! The shed has only 3 tubs of books, that's not bad considering how much room is in there, but I just don't trust the tubs to stand up to the bugs and pests that rule the kingdom of Shed. All the doors in the house open and close without hindrance. Oh, well, except for that one! But other than that I think the house is, frankly, thin on the ground for intellectual stimulation!
Too many books indeed!
There's barbarians at the gate. Raise the drawbridge! Fly the flags of resistance, rattle your swords in their scabbards, release the monsters into the moat! Prepare for battle!
(Oh, and if you're going to pop by, you're welcome to stay, just let me know a day or two ahead if you can so I can unearth the bed in the spare room, it just has a little "filing" on it for the minute.)
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The First Japanese Teahouse in Qld
Ipswich is building the first Japanese Teahouse in Queensland in the Nerima Gardens -a small(ish - by Qld standards) enclosure in the very freakin large Queens Park.
That's kinda cool. A bit of kimono-zen-calmness is always good to soak up. Maybe this will be somewhere that one might be able to go on an utterly brain-numbingly dull and hot Saturday morning in order to escape the litany of suburban mediocrity and lawnmowers. Some green tea, perhaps some music. The gardens in which is is currently being constructed are lovely and beautifully landscaped with a mix of Australian natives and Japanese classics.
So I enquire.
Once it is built, there will be an official opening ceremony in early November with Japanese ambassadors and a Tea Master. Well that's a bit fancy-pants! Sounds good, so I ask if I can come. No Way. The opening ceremony is by invitation only - no plebeians allowed, no public at all. Oh, I see.
I further enquire, "After the formal proceedings there's bound to be some kind of public element or opportunity. That's what I meant. Can I please come to that?"
"No. There is no public event."
"Oh. So it will just be open to the public after the formal ceremony."
"No," Gives me a look like I am an irritating idiot, "after the ceremony it will be locked up. It's a very special place, you can't just let people into it willy-nilly."
"Right. I get it. So there's just going to be certain days or special events that it is open for the public. Like a museum."
"No. It. Will. Not. Be. Open. To. The. Public."
"Message received and understood. Thank you for your time."
WTF?
This construction is a function of the Sister-City relationship with Nerima in Japan (what are they getting I wonder? - a backyard barbie setup? Maybe a pool with a faux-Balinese shade house?) but there's neither inclination nor resources for integrating it into the "existing cultural fabric" of the area. So why the fuck is it really getting built?!
The cynic in me says so that:
a) It is a "first" and therefore secures the formal ceremony (and therefore press)
b) It is a "first" and therefore secures bragging rights
The chirpy, positive one inside me says - "Don't be so quick to judge! You don't know the whole story! There may be a whole team of people working away on a culturally rich and socially rewarding series of exchanges and events that will happen around this eagerly awaited facility and it is just that they can't officially be announced yet! It could still really work out to be great!"
Maybe she's right. I shall have to wait and see. In the meantime, I can go and visit the garden and see if I can peer into the construction site. I'll take a thermos of green tea and maybe that collection of Japanese Sci-fi I've been planning to re-read. Riley and I will have our own freakin tea ceremony. No kimono required*.
* Unless you use kimono in the direct or literal meaning of "things to wear" in which case, yes, I will be clothed. Riley will be sporting his fur - summer length.
That's kinda cool. A bit of kimono-zen-calmness is always good to soak up. Maybe this will be somewhere that one might be able to go on an utterly brain-numbingly dull and hot Saturday morning in order to escape the litany of suburban mediocrity and lawnmowers. Some green tea, perhaps some music. The gardens in which is is currently being constructed are lovely and beautifully landscaped with a mix of Australian natives and Japanese classics.
So I enquire.
Once it is built, there will be an official opening ceremony in early November with Japanese ambassadors and a Tea Master. Well that's a bit fancy-pants! Sounds good, so I ask if I can come. No Way. The opening ceremony is by invitation only - no plebeians allowed, no public at all. Oh, I see.
I further enquire, "After the formal proceedings there's bound to be some kind of public element or opportunity. That's what I meant. Can I please come to that?"
"No. There is no public event."
"Oh. So it will just be open to the public after the formal ceremony."
"No," Gives me a look like I am an irritating idiot, "after the ceremony it will be locked up. It's a very special place, you can't just let people into it willy-nilly."
"Right. I get it. So there's just going to be certain days or special events that it is open for the public. Like a museum."
"No. It. Will. Not. Be. Open. To. The. Public."
"Message received and understood. Thank you for your time."
WTF?
This construction is a function of the Sister-City relationship with Nerima in Japan (what are they getting I wonder? - a backyard barbie setup? Maybe a pool with a faux-Balinese shade house?) but there's neither inclination nor resources for integrating it into the "existing cultural fabric" of the area. So why the fuck is it really getting built?!
The cynic in me says so that:
a) It is a "first" and therefore secures the formal ceremony (and therefore press)
b) It is a "first" and therefore secures bragging rights
The chirpy, positive one inside me says - "Don't be so quick to judge! You don't know the whole story! There may be a whole team of people working away on a culturally rich and socially rewarding series of exchanges and events that will happen around this eagerly awaited facility and it is just that they can't officially be announced yet! It could still really work out to be great!"
Maybe she's right. I shall have to wait and see. In the meantime, I can go and visit the garden and see if I can peer into the construction site. I'll take a thermos of green tea and maybe that collection of Japanese Sci-fi I've been planning to re-read. Riley and I will have our own freakin tea ceremony. No kimono required*.
* Unless you use kimono in the direct or literal meaning of "things to wear" in which case, yes, I will be clothed. Riley will be sporting his fur - summer length.
Monday, October 12, 2009
I don't like Mondays
For about eight or nine years I worked in the real world, where what you did and how you did it relly mattered in quite a direct way. That experience was far from cubicles and the monday-to-friday-9-to-5. As you probably know, in the real world, service industries (and like it or not Australia's domestic economy is largely service based) are 7 day operations. Well they are on the central planets. Out here on the rim there's not much that's open on a Sunday, or even a saturday arvo.
But I digress.
I had to make many changes when I took the colonisation shuttle here. The pamphlet said things would be a bit different, but I couldn't have guessed how hard it would be to crowbar myself back into the little box of punching the clock, trying to work on an interface centrally controlled and monitored in work processes based around political expediency and box-ticking rather than service, and with people who've grown up here and think (at best) of everywhere else as only a possible holiday destination (but why pass up a trip to the pleasure boats?). The one thing of all of these that is hardest to swallow is not the petty bitching over imaginary power bases, nor the endless chatter about the best fake tan lotions or speed bleaching of hair. It is the cold, terminal nature of Monday Mornings.
Back in the bustle and business of the central planets, Monday mornings and Friday nights are largely just like any other other moments in the purchasing/pleasuring continuum of modern life. Actual days off may vary. From the inside, Mondays and Fridays are the bi-polar manic days of emotional extremism highlighting the endless cycle of the rat-race and the pathetic occlusion of all that is organic and natural about living. Rigid, imposed and arbitary rules still are the guiding principles of bureaucratic structures, no matter their inefficiency, their pointless focus on attendence and process above output and quality, their heartbreaking monotony.
No sir, I do not like these type of Mondays at all.
But I digress.
I had to make many changes when I took the colonisation shuttle here. The pamphlet said things would be a bit different, but I couldn't have guessed how hard it would be to crowbar myself back into the little box of punching the clock, trying to work on an interface centrally controlled and monitored in work processes based around political expediency and box-ticking rather than service, and with people who've grown up here and think (at best) of everywhere else as only a possible holiday destination (but why pass up a trip to the pleasure boats?). The one thing of all of these that is hardest to swallow is not the petty bitching over imaginary power bases, nor the endless chatter about the best fake tan lotions or speed bleaching of hair. It is the cold, terminal nature of Monday Mornings.
Back in the bustle and business of the central planets, Monday mornings and Friday nights are largely just like any other other moments in the purchasing/pleasuring continuum of modern life. Actual days off may vary. From the inside, Mondays and Fridays are the bi-polar manic days of emotional extremism highlighting the endless cycle of the rat-race and the pathetic occlusion of all that is organic and natural about living. Rigid, imposed and arbitary rules still are the guiding principles of bureaucratic structures, no matter their inefficiency, their pointless focus on attendence and process above output and quality, their heartbreaking monotony.
No sir, I do not like these type of Mondays at all.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
3 Years
For some reason I always think that it started later in the month, but no, the anniversary is on the 11th. Three years then of staring out the window and sharing it with you.
Woot!
Woot!
The Parable of the Button
Ever seen one of those crime tv shows, where someone opens a door and there's a reverse shot of the shocked faces then they cut back to the room and it is a total disaster zone?
"Some one's trashed the place!"
Well ... my place kinda looks like that all the time. Minus broken stuff and any bodies that you might see on the tv, but papers everywhere and so on - yup that's how it is. I don't invite people round because they just won't fit, plus there's no where for them to sit. It has been a lot worse since I moved into living on my own - no more guilt-driven clean-ups. But there's a reason, and just in case anyone drops over unannounced, I want to have put my justifications on the record.
All you clean, happy, clutter-free folk need to understand something about us OCD (Obsessive Clutter Disorder) sufferers - we're victims in this. Find your compassion for us. We wade through decades of accumulated cruft and kilos day to day, but we're not necessarily weak-willed, stupid or just lazy. We are in complex relationships with our possessions that are governed by a web of interacting issues often-times beyond our control. So you may understand a little of this world, I shall share with you the marvelous moment I had today when I was finally able to take a bag of 6 shirts to the donation box. This is the Parable of the Button.
Origins.
All stories start at the beginning. This work shirt was purchased in 2004 from a one-step-up-from-a-generic-chain-store—clothing-for-women. In plain black and a very hard-wearing cotton-viscose mix, it featured a collar (the mandatory element), buttons up the front (initially benign, but leading to later complications), a generous V-neckline (keeping things interesting, but not saucy) and a roomy fit (essential in a job with regular lifting and shelving of arm loads of books). The very bottom button never suited the casual look I embody and was removed early on and placed in the button compartment of the sewing box. Time passed. Work happened. The shirt did what it needed to do. It featured in the seminal photo-op with Neil Gaiman in July of 05 (ah - happy, hopeful days!), it was there when the crew went for karaoke after work, it was there for my nadir(s) of customer service and the odd scream in the "on-hold" cupboard. The new lowest button took a fair bit of abuse during the normal working tasks and increasingly as my love of veggo Laksa for lunch took the inevitable toll on my never-svelte waistline.
A Shirt Shifts
Working opportunities came and went, changes in jobs, changes in health, changes in cities and houses and the shirt went unused, unrequired, unnoticed.
The Dilemma
An overdue audit of the surviving wardrobe items in 2008 uncovers a limp black shirt, badly in need of an iron (a household drudgery I have now forever forsworn) and missing the essential second-bottom button. The bottom button could be of no consequence to anyone - either hidden by the tuck-in or too formal for the out-hanger. I don't really want to wear such an obviously creased shirt in my workplace and the need to use a safety pin to secure it is pathetic. The saved button is missing and no other one available matches. I can't throw the shirt out, for someone with an iron and a need for it, it would be an op-shop gem, but it cannot be gifted without the button replaced. This is obvious.
The Dance
Over the next 18 months an elaborate and complex dance takes place. The shirt is placed in a public position in the house to remind me to buy a button. The shirt is eventually overwhelmed by cruft and goes back into the 'wash and hide' cycle of laundry. A button is purchased ... and lost. This repeats. I neither want to re-neg on my earlier decision to not throw the thing away, nor to donate it in such poor condition. Yet through the competing demands on my time and energy I cannot for the life of me seem to align the button and the shirt in the same time-space long enough to achieve the desired outcome, which is to mend it and get it out of the house. Complicated further now by needing my glasses, and a threaded needle. This multiple planetary alignment of tools, time and purpose is needed for every single object that is waiting to leave the house. Effectively hundreds of decisions and actions waiting to be completed. No wonder I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Closure
Today, in a triumphant act of will, in about 3 minutes total I completed the attachment of the replacement button to the patient shirt (and that included a complimentary armpit reinforcement). With joy and satisfaction I showed it to Riley who remained unimpressed by what a feat this truly was. I tried the shirt on one more time, just to be certain I was ready to give it up. Then I placed the shirt next to the computer to remind me that I wanted to write this post about it but now, NOW it is next to the door and this afternoon will join the bag of 5 other equally heartrendingly culled and removed shirts and they will be sent on their way into a big blue box on the side of the road.
One less object in the house!
"Some one's trashed the place!"
Well ... my place kinda looks like that all the time. Minus broken stuff and any bodies that you might see on the tv, but papers everywhere and so on - yup that's how it is. I don't invite people round because they just won't fit, plus there's no where for them to sit. It has been a lot worse since I moved into living on my own - no more guilt-driven clean-ups. But there's a reason, and just in case anyone drops over unannounced, I want to have put my justifications on the record.
All you clean, happy, clutter-free folk need to understand something about us OCD (Obsessive Clutter Disorder) sufferers - we're victims in this. Find your compassion for us. We wade through decades of accumulated cruft and kilos day to day, but we're not necessarily weak-willed, stupid or just lazy. We are in complex relationships with our possessions that are governed by a web of interacting issues often-times beyond our control. So you may understand a little of this world, I shall share with you the marvelous moment I had today when I was finally able to take a bag of 6 shirts to the donation box. This is the Parable of the Button.
Origins.
All stories start at the beginning. This work shirt was purchased in 2004 from a one-step-up-from-a-generic-chain-store—clothing-for-women. In plain black and a very hard-wearing cotton-viscose mix, it featured a collar (the mandatory element), buttons up the front (initially benign, but leading to later complications), a generous V-neckline (keeping things interesting, but not saucy) and a roomy fit (essential in a job with regular lifting and shelving of arm loads of books). The very bottom button never suited the casual look I embody and was removed early on and placed in the button compartment of the sewing box. Time passed. Work happened. The shirt did what it needed to do. It featured in the seminal photo-op with Neil Gaiman in July of 05 (ah - happy, hopeful days!), it was there when the crew went for karaoke after work, it was there for my nadir(s) of customer service and the odd scream in the "on-hold" cupboard. The new lowest button took a fair bit of abuse during the normal working tasks and increasingly as my love of veggo Laksa for lunch took the inevitable toll on my never-svelte waistline.
A Shirt Shifts
Working opportunities came and went, changes in jobs, changes in health, changes in cities and houses and the shirt went unused, unrequired, unnoticed.
The Dilemma
An overdue audit of the surviving wardrobe items in 2008 uncovers a limp black shirt, badly in need of an iron (a household drudgery I have now forever forsworn) and missing the essential second-bottom button. The bottom button could be of no consequence to anyone - either hidden by the tuck-in or too formal for the out-hanger. I don't really want to wear such an obviously creased shirt in my workplace and the need to use a safety pin to secure it is pathetic. The saved button is missing and no other one available matches. I can't throw the shirt out, for someone with an iron and a need for it, it would be an op-shop gem, but it cannot be gifted without the button replaced. This is obvious.
The Dance
Over the next 18 months an elaborate and complex dance takes place. The shirt is placed in a public position in the house to remind me to buy a button. The shirt is eventually overwhelmed by cruft and goes back into the 'wash and hide' cycle of laundry. A button is purchased ... and lost. This repeats. I neither want to re-neg on my earlier decision to not throw the thing away, nor to donate it in such poor condition. Yet through the competing demands on my time and energy I cannot for the life of me seem to align the button and the shirt in the same time-space long enough to achieve the desired outcome, which is to mend it and get it out of the house. Complicated further now by needing my glasses, and a threaded needle. This multiple planetary alignment of tools, time and purpose is needed for every single object that is waiting to leave the house. Effectively hundreds of decisions and actions waiting to be completed. No wonder I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Closure
Today, in a triumphant act of will, in about 3 minutes total I completed the attachment of the replacement button to the patient shirt (and that included a complimentary armpit reinforcement). With joy and satisfaction I showed it to Riley who remained unimpressed by what a feat this truly was. I tried the shirt on one more time, just to be certain I was ready to give it up. Then I placed the shirt next to the computer to remind me that I wanted to write this post about it but now, NOW it is next to the door and this afternoon will join the bag of 5 other equally heartrendingly culled and removed shirts and they will be sent on their way into a big blue box on the side of the road.
One less object in the house!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Malfunction
Sometimes I really hate computers.
My whole post was just replaced by a letter I was capitalising before publishing, and the software autosaved that stupid version over the existing versions.
What I am really steamed about, what that I decided against composing in another program because I have a habit of always saving multiple copies of things unnecessarily and feeling like a worrisome nana with redundant files hanging around.
Until suddenly that just looks like prudent backing-up.
ARRRGH!!!!
My whole post was just replaced by a letter I was capitalising before publishing, and the software autosaved that stupid version over the existing versions.
What I am really steamed about, what that I decided against composing in another program because I have a habit of always saving multiple copies of things unnecessarily and feeling like a worrisome nana with redundant files hanging around.
Until suddenly that just looks like prudent backing-up.
ARRRGH!!!!
Friday, October 09, 2009
The High Ground
It has been a tough week. One where I can't sleep properly at night and nothing seems to go right at work and if I don't scream in the car on the way home then I shout at Riley when I open the door. Not good. Blah blah blah, right?! We've all been there.
Somewhere I haven't been, thank the deities, is shivering under a piece of tarp while some well-fed guy in chinos talks to a black box about how my village/town/city just got totally erased off the face of the planet by a wave, a quake, a fire, a mudslide, a flood or a typhoon. I haven't been sitting there in shock with every single thing I used to use in my day to day life needing to be replaced from stocks that just don't exist, there's no clean water, or food, and I'd rather think about any of that than the death I saw and only just missed out on myself.
Turning on the news this week has really put my petty concerns into perspective. Which is to say, they are trivial. It is something about Australia that I have taken for granted my whole life - we live inside the boundaries of a tectonic plate. While we drift NNE and enjoy our generally placid lives, the edges of this plate scrape and gouge their way along our neighbours' and sometimes this is the result - quakes that lead to tsunamis. Just to make you feel inadequate it can all happen during typhoon season to give that added tropical sense of Armageddon by puring pelting rain that stings as it slaps you.
No matter what problems I have this week, I'm grateful to be in the position of being able to help some people who have got a much rougher end of a much larger pineapple this week.
Somewhere I haven't been, thank the deities, is shivering under a piece of tarp while some well-fed guy in chinos talks to a black box about how my village/town/city just got totally erased off the face of the planet by a wave, a quake, a fire, a mudslide, a flood or a typhoon. I haven't been sitting there in shock with every single thing I used to use in my day to day life needing to be replaced from stocks that just don't exist, there's no clean water, or food, and I'd rather think about any of that than the death I saw and only just missed out on myself.
Turning on the news this week has really put my petty concerns into perspective. Which is to say, they are trivial. It is something about Australia that I have taken for granted my whole life - we live inside the boundaries of a tectonic plate. While we drift NNE and enjoy our generally placid lives, the edges of this plate scrape and gouge their way along our neighbours' and sometimes this is the result - quakes that lead to tsunamis. Just to make you feel inadequate it can all happen during typhoon season to give that added tropical sense of Armageddon by puring pelting rain that stings as it slaps you.
No matter what problems I have this week, I'm grateful to be in the position of being able to help some people who have got a much rougher end of a much larger pineapple this week.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Ouroboros
Without warning, preparation or preemptive therapy there was a brown snake asleep on the footpath this morning when Riley and I went for our walk. It wasn't in the park, or on the path near the river, none of the places I would expect to stumble across one of the worlds' second most poisonous snake. It was on the footpath, outside a house, not far from a 90s model Commodore. That's really part of the special fear that snakes can produce - I don't really expect them to be right here, right now in the same time-space as me and my dog.
But there it was. Undeniable. Painful death in a long thin sock. Looking, I have to say it, basically innocent and peaceful. Snoozing or sleeping - I couldn't say. It was a coldish morning and it was across a little patch of sun in the dusty grass and it scared the crap out of me. And yes, btw, it was a brown snake - not a dark green tree snake. It's in the head. Pointy little heads bring pointy little teeths.
So what was really strange, once the ghastly ghoulish fascination of watching it just be had passed and I'd walked on, grateful Riley was oblivious on his leash and safely breathing, was that I think I brought this moment to happen. I mean, I made that snake appear in our lives.
It could be a coincidence - there seems to be lots of snakes around this spring and there's been loads of sightings already on properties, at the farm and so on, but this is the first time since I was about 6 that I have seen a live, real snake myself. That's a long time. So I don't really think it is just a coincidence, I think I called that snake into our orbit. You see, last week there was an article in the paper about a guy in the Blue Mountains who does occupational health and safety seminars on the risks of brown snakes for people who work in the outdoors. It freaked me out. I got obsessed over what a horrible job that would be (obviously he doesn't mind), I even photocopied the article and stuck it in my notebook and wrote about how scary it would be to be handling those snakes (he lives with them! There were pictures!) anyway, I haven't been able to get it out of my head all week. Big frackin oops!
What kind of massive brain-wave energy load did I accidentally dump into the universe?! Because here, out of no-where and no-how, one is in the physical plane almost right on my doorstep. I'm really wishing I'd listened more closely to the instructions for manifesting things into the world using visualisation because now I want, very desperately, to undo it. I want to un-think snake and re-think "wooden deck on my house" or "fabulous new novel idea". But I'm stuck in a looping party trick where the more I don't want to think about it, the more clearly I see it in my mind. That's something the self-help gurus tend to gloss-over a bit isn't it, the trouble shooting parts of these theories. Right now you're probably going, don't worry about it! There's nothing in this positive thinking shit.
oh. I guess so... but what about the way that quantum physics suggests* that at a sub atomic, a quantum level, our world is purely energy - energy arranged by some kind of organising structure that you could call "invisible glue" or you could call "ideas". Matter (or "the world") is constantly being effected by the act of observing it . We look at things and we thereby interact with them at one level. But more than that, studies of the brain's function show that seeing or doing something and visualising seeing or doing it are indistinguishable to the brain (There was one guy who did groundbreaking visualisation processes with the USA Olympics and NASA programs, and this guy has also done some work on this too). Indistinguishable. If you're detailed and thorough about it, it has effectively really happened as far as your brain is concerned.
So a week of thinking nothing but SNAKE produces ... guess what? A freakin SNAKE! Oh, I'm starting to feel like I'm swallowing my own tail.
Gentle reader, please think of something very pleasant, and send me a fresh, happy new thought loop to entertain. Just remember, in the words of those magnificent popular philosophers, The Pussycat Dolls, "Be careful what you wish for coz you just might get it."
* Actually they're pretty sure that they know that they really don't know, but as my general reading on QP is out of date, I don't want to overstep myself on this bit.
But there it was. Undeniable. Painful death in a long thin sock. Looking, I have to say it, basically innocent and peaceful. Snoozing or sleeping - I couldn't say. It was a coldish morning and it was across a little patch of sun in the dusty grass and it scared the crap out of me. And yes, btw, it was a brown snake - not a dark green tree snake. It's in the head. Pointy little heads bring pointy little teeths.
So what was really strange, once the ghastly ghoulish fascination of watching it just be had passed and I'd walked on, grateful Riley was oblivious on his leash and safely breathing, was that I think I brought this moment to happen. I mean, I made that snake appear in our lives.
It could be a coincidence - there seems to be lots of snakes around this spring and there's been loads of sightings already on properties, at the farm and so on, but this is the first time since I was about 6 that I have seen a live, real snake myself. That's a long time. So I don't really think it is just a coincidence, I think I called that snake into our orbit. You see, last week there was an article in the paper about a guy in the Blue Mountains who does occupational health and safety seminars on the risks of brown snakes for people who work in the outdoors. It freaked me out. I got obsessed over what a horrible job that would be (obviously he doesn't mind), I even photocopied the article and stuck it in my notebook and wrote about how scary it would be to be handling those snakes (he lives with them! There were pictures!) anyway, I haven't been able to get it out of my head all week. Big frackin oops!
What kind of massive brain-wave energy load did I accidentally dump into the universe?! Because here, out of no-where and no-how, one is in the physical plane almost right on my doorstep. I'm really wishing I'd listened more closely to the instructions for manifesting things into the world using visualisation because now I want, very desperately, to undo it. I want to un-think snake and re-think "wooden deck on my house" or "fabulous new novel idea". But I'm stuck in a looping party trick where the more I don't want to think about it, the more clearly I see it in my mind. That's something the self-help gurus tend to gloss-over a bit isn't it, the trouble shooting parts of these theories. Right now you're probably going, don't worry about it! There's nothing in this positive thinking shit.
oh. I guess so... but what about the way that quantum physics suggests* that at a sub atomic, a quantum level, our world is purely energy - energy arranged by some kind of organising structure that you could call "invisible glue" or you could call "ideas". Matter (or "the world") is constantly being effected by the act of observing it . We look at things and we thereby interact with them at one level. But more than that, studies of the brain's function show that seeing or doing something and visualising seeing or doing it are indistinguishable to the brain (There was one guy who did groundbreaking visualisation processes with the USA Olympics and NASA programs, and this guy has also done some work on this too). Indistinguishable. If you're detailed and thorough about it, it has effectively really happened as far as your brain is concerned.
So a week of thinking nothing but SNAKE produces ... guess what? A freakin SNAKE! Oh, I'm starting to feel like I'm swallowing my own tail.
Gentle reader, please think of something very pleasant, and send me a fresh, happy new thought loop to entertain. Just remember, in the words of those magnificent popular philosophers, The Pussycat Dolls, "Be careful what you wish for coz you just might get it."
* Actually they're pretty sure that they know that they really don't know, but as my general reading on QP is out of date, I don't want to overstep myself on this bit.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Does my mind know my mouth is typing?
I'm not sure I've got anything to say tonight, but I wanted to squeeze one more post into September as a pretty soft way of making up for the whole lack of an August thing.
This month has seen a small variety of fairly mundane things happen (that is to say - on top of the interesting things which I have already written about so very entertainingly) (stop fishing and get on with it!- Ed) ...
My leg has healed well and the physiotherapist certainly shamed the doctor with her knowledge, professionalism and capacity to give helpful advice about healing. It also gave me an interesting series of cultural vignettes - she kept tying to give me analogies and motivation based on the Broncos and football. I kept giving her utterly blank looks. I feel for her. That stuff probably works with the vast majority of people who sustain a "sports injury". It would be tough for me to find an upbeat parallel in, say, the life and works of Jane Austen or, worse, Virginia Woolf. No, I'm not ready to wade into the Bremer with my pockets full of stones. Not yet at least. Certainly not over a calf muscle. Anyway we're back up above 80% and frankly I'm not sure I even had a 100%. She lost me when she said "when you start running again..." and I was all "What do you mean again?" and she had a moment and just plugged the electric current octopus thing onto me and left me humming happily with my book. That thing is awesome. I asked her what it is called and she didn't know. It has no labels on it, and these weird 50s plastic tube things that end in a large suction pad that has a bit of sponge roughly cut to fit inside. It vacuums onto one's body and then they let it make a circuit and just run an electric current of some kind through you. Brilliant! I asked what kind of current - couldn't tell me. I asked how it worked, or what it did - couldn't really tell me (she literally waved her hands). How fantastic! I go to a scientific-y type place (where people have clipboards and machines that go "ping!") to get ritual magic performed on me. I so wish I could hear what Tesla would say about this.
Also, from the "it had to happen sooner or later" basket, Ma&Pa bought a 20something year-old caravan which they've parked next to the house and I don't reckon will move again for at least 6 - 9 months, but that's probably why they're not talking to me. Rationality ought never be injected into tightly held dreams. I got confused about that and now I will be given the cold shoulder until I am considered to have learnt my lesson. As with many of the baby boomers, my folks wish to spend their grey years nomadically traipsing this wide brown land soaking up the pleasures of the road and seeing the myriad sights of wonder. I can get behind that vision. I just thought it would make sense to wait until my Pa could fit the the door and maybe walk more than 5 or 10 meters unaided, or my Ma had finished working as a wage slave, or they'd sold the 155 acre property that takes up every available waking minute and dollar to keep functioning, but no. They scrimped and saved their whole lives for this and BY GOD they're going to have it. Well I am glad for them that it has manifest in their lives, and I hope they enjoy looking at it from their bedroom window as they run endlessly around the wheel of their life waiting for the pattern to change.
I really didn't want to get too caught up on that. It's an ugly mofo too - all brown and beige as only the very early 80s can be. *sigh*
But I digress.
In funnier news and for no apparent reason I have a massive, crippling crush on Jeremy Piven. I know nothing about this person (I had to point to a picture of him and ask around until someone knew who he was) other than that he is an actor who recently suffered mercury poisoning from living on too much sushi (no, really!), he does yoga, and he portrays a basically horrible agent in a tv show. How terribly modern! But none of that really matters, can it? After all I only found these meagre half-scraps out *after* the crush had formed. Ergo, he is a symbol of something (or someone) else. Still, it is entertaining. I've printed out a picture of him from the interwebs and stuck it on the wall opposite where I sit to eat my dinner. Hilarious!
"How was your day?" I ask
"Oh, the usual, but tell me all about you! You look tired, howabout a foot rub while you unload?" he answers....
haha. no I'm making that up.
I don't really say that out loud.
Was than an overshare?
Anyway. I have also spent some quality time with the "Amazon Recommends" software this month and that is a relationship that I can heartily endorse. It may not be fabulously healthy for the credit card, but the results will warm your reading heart and keep any problems in the real world with family or fictional lovers at bay. It will take anything and everything you might wish to throw at it - Batman, Georgette Heyer, Buddhism, esoteric reading, poker, sushi, peak oil, roman empire, gardening, knitting, sewing, and give you a hundred, two hundred recommendations, and you plough through those babies, rating the ones you've read, hooking the finds into the wish list and ploughing the corpses of the undesirables back into the database to fertilise the way forward for the next hundred. It is like some kind of Aztec blood cult for media. It is strangely addictive and although fundamentally consumerist, also culturally pleasing because it augments the ring of trust friends have - "oh I just read this - you'll love it!" and usually you do, or kinda do and want to find some more. In that way it is also often wrong, but then it just tries again, and doesn't entirely give up.
A bit like me and this blog (...sortof. Ok not really, but it would have been a nice tight ending, hey?! Now you'll have to make do with this limping "no you hang up" ending.) Bye.
This month has seen a small variety of fairly mundane things happen (that is to say - on top of the interesting things which I have already written about so very entertainingly) (stop fishing and get on with it!- Ed) ...
My leg has healed well and the physiotherapist certainly shamed the doctor with her knowledge, professionalism and capacity to give helpful advice about healing. It also gave me an interesting series of cultural vignettes - she kept tying to give me analogies and motivation based on the Broncos and football. I kept giving her utterly blank looks. I feel for her. That stuff probably works with the vast majority of people who sustain a "sports injury". It would be tough for me to find an upbeat parallel in, say, the life and works of Jane Austen or, worse, Virginia Woolf. No, I'm not ready to wade into the Bremer with my pockets full of stones. Not yet at least. Certainly not over a calf muscle. Anyway we're back up above 80% and frankly I'm not sure I even had a 100%. She lost me when she said "when you start running again..." and I was all "What do you mean again?" and she had a moment and just plugged the electric current octopus thing onto me and left me humming happily with my book. That thing is awesome. I asked her what it is called and she didn't know. It has no labels on it, and these weird 50s plastic tube things that end in a large suction pad that has a bit of sponge roughly cut to fit inside. It vacuums onto one's body and then they let it make a circuit and just run an electric current of some kind through you. Brilliant! I asked what kind of current - couldn't tell me. I asked how it worked, or what it did - couldn't really tell me (she literally waved her hands). How fantastic! I go to a scientific-y type place (where people have clipboards and machines that go "ping!") to get ritual magic performed on me. I so wish I could hear what Tesla would say about this.
Also, from the "it had to happen sooner or later" basket, Ma&Pa bought a 20something year-old caravan which they've parked next to the house and I don't reckon will move again for at least 6 - 9 months, but that's probably why they're not talking to me. Rationality ought never be injected into tightly held dreams. I got confused about that and now I will be given the cold shoulder until I am considered to have learnt my lesson. As with many of the baby boomers, my folks wish to spend their grey years nomadically traipsing this wide brown land soaking up the pleasures of the road and seeing the myriad sights of wonder. I can get behind that vision. I just thought it would make sense to wait until my Pa could fit the the door and maybe walk more than 5 or 10 meters unaided, or my Ma had finished working as a wage slave, or they'd sold the 155 acre property that takes up every available waking minute and dollar to keep functioning, but no. They scrimped and saved their whole lives for this and BY GOD they're going to have it. Well I am glad for them that it has manifest in their lives, and I hope they enjoy looking at it from their bedroom window as they run endlessly around the wheel of their life waiting for the pattern to change.
I really didn't want to get too caught up on that. It's an ugly mofo too - all brown and beige as only the very early 80s can be. *sigh*
But I digress.
In funnier news and for no apparent reason I have a massive, crippling crush on Jeremy Piven. I know nothing about this person (I had to point to a picture of him and ask around until someone knew who he was) other than that he is an actor who recently suffered mercury poisoning from living on too much sushi (no, really!), he does yoga, and he portrays a basically horrible agent in a tv show. How terribly modern! But none of that really matters, can it? After all I only found these meagre half-scraps out *after* the crush had formed. Ergo, he is a symbol of something (or someone) else. Still, it is entertaining. I've printed out a picture of him from the interwebs and stuck it on the wall opposite where I sit to eat my dinner. Hilarious!
"How was your day?" I ask
"Oh, the usual, but tell me all about you! You look tired, howabout a foot rub while you unload?" he answers....
haha. no I'm making that up.
I don't really say that out loud.
Was than an overshare?
Anyway. I have also spent some quality time with the "Amazon Recommends" software this month and that is a relationship that I can heartily endorse. It may not be fabulously healthy for the credit card, but the results will warm your reading heart and keep any problems in the real world with family or fictional lovers at bay. It will take anything and everything you might wish to throw at it - Batman, Georgette Heyer, Buddhism, esoteric reading, poker, sushi, peak oil, roman empire, gardening, knitting, sewing, and give you a hundred, two hundred recommendations, and you plough through those babies, rating the ones you've read, hooking the finds into the wish list and ploughing the corpses of the undesirables back into the database to fertilise the way forward for the next hundred. It is like some kind of Aztec blood cult for media. It is strangely addictive and although fundamentally consumerist, also culturally pleasing because it augments the ring of trust friends have - "oh I just read this - you'll love it!" and usually you do, or kinda do and want to find some more. In that way it is also often wrong, but then it just tries again, and doesn't entirely give up.
A bit like me and this blog (...sortof. Ok not really, but it would have been a nice tight ending, hey?! Now you'll have to make do with this limping "no you hang up" ending.) Bye.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Elemental Questions
The second front of the dust storm that enveloped most of the eastern seaboard this week has passed through. 75 000 tonnes of dirt every hour she dropped at her peak. That's impressive, and to use the older meaning of the word - awesome.
Which is to say that today is dusting, mopping, vacuuming, washing, and generally tidying day. It is days like this, when I realise there is far far too much stuff in my house. And each of those little surfaces is now dirty, and each of them needs a particular type of attention, and none of them have a clean place to be set down once they have been done. If I think about it like a great big puzzle, I'll get through it - or at least far enough through today that I can finish off or give up at my leisure another time. If only one could clean in this way with fire. There would be no reticence on my part to engage, however fire doesn't quite work that way, especially not against earth, so I shall have to persevere with water and air.
I went to see a play yesterday - The Trail of the Catonsville Nine - with thanks to The Monthly. Not only is it the best magazine in Australia, but as a subscriber you can sometimes win treats. The play is being presented here as part of the Brisbane Festival and without the email from the Monthly, I wouldn't even have known there was a BF on, let alone got out of Trash City for the day to participate. It is about 9 people who were put on trail for burning American draft office records during the Vietnam War. They felt profoundly moved to this act of civil disobedience and this play is set in the courtroom with just the 10 actors moving around to play all parts. Really marvelous and I encourage you to see it if the opportunity arises where you are.
One of the questions the play raised for me is "Are we complicit each time we do not speak up or step up to act for justice, for life?" There's a lot of argy bargy that could be done about what exactly "justice" might mean, and even for some contexts "life" and my intention now is not to wiffle about semantics - but to look at the bigger essence. Do we as a community - do I - still believe that there is justice? That life is sacred? Elements of this play were confronting as the characters talked of their commitment to equality for all, of their personal works to bridge poverty and education gaps between the haves and the have nots. The setting of this play might be historical but actually these remain urgent, contemporary issues and Australian issues too, not just American, or African, or Whereverian.
There was one line that tied this experience back to the reading I've been doing on Black Barty, and it was where Father Berrigan said in his statement (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "I have lost faith in the institutions of this country. The law does not look after the people." He was referring to the illegality of the USA entering into the conflict and that somehow the President seemed above the law. Well if the President is above the law - what good is the law? The foundation of the democratic model has been undermined. And more - I remembered the East India Company, I thought of the ramifications of what probably seemed like a good idea at the time - creating a new kind of entity that would have standing and identity in and of itself in front of the law - The Company. Perhaps with hindsight, this is one of the moments where the interests of these new breed of "people" - Companies - overtook the interests of human people. The law certainly looked after their interests in this instance, but not of humans.
We are in the middle of a revolution and it can be hard to see for the haze, and think for the noises and baying. I wonder if the Companies will come through this revolution intact and stronger or if the machines will short-circuit that entire logic and power structure. I'm feeling a little depressed about it, but that's just my natural pessimisim and the fact that I've not yet had breakfast. I'm sure after some eggs and coffee I'll feel more hopeful about our democratic and governmental institutions re-vitalising the sanctity of human life, honouring thoughtful debate, flexibility and the fact that we're all on this ship together. Otherwise, it looks like fire will get a chance to clean after all.
Which is to say that today is dusting, mopping, vacuuming, washing, and generally tidying day. It is days like this, when I realise there is far far too much stuff in my house. And each of those little surfaces is now dirty, and each of them needs a particular type of attention, and none of them have a clean place to be set down once they have been done. If I think about it like a great big puzzle, I'll get through it - or at least far enough through today that I can finish off or give up at my leisure another time. If only one could clean in this way with fire. There would be no reticence on my part to engage, however fire doesn't quite work that way, especially not against earth, so I shall have to persevere with water and air.
I went to see a play yesterday - The Trail of the Catonsville Nine - with thanks to The Monthly. Not only is it the best magazine in Australia, but as a subscriber you can sometimes win treats. The play is being presented here as part of the Brisbane Festival and without the email from the Monthly, I wouldn't even have known there was a BF on, let alone got out of Trash City for the day to participate. It is about 9 people who were put on trail for burning American draft office records during the Vietnam War. They felt profoundly moved to this act of civil disobedience and this play is set in the courtroom with just the 10 actors moving around to play all parts. Really marvelous and I encourage you to see it if the opportunity arises where you are.
One of the questions the play raised for me is "Are we complicit each time we do not speak up or step up to act for justice, for life?" There's a lot of argy bargy that could be done about what exactly "justice" might mean, and even for some contexts "life" and my intention now is not to wiffle about semantics - but to look at the bigger essence. Do we as a community - do I - still believe that there is justice? That life is sacred? Elements of this play were confronting as the characters talked of their commitment to equality for all, of their personal works to bridge poverty and education gaps between the haves and the have nots. The setting of this play might be historical but actually these remain urgent, contemporary issues and Australian issues too, not just American, or African, or Whereverian.
There was one line that tied this experience back to the reading I've been doing on Black Barty, and it was where Father Berrigan said in his statement (and I'm paraphrasing slightly) "I have lost faith in the institutions of this country. The law does not look after the people." He was referring to the illegality of the USA entering into the conflict and that somehow the President seemed above the law. Well if the President is above the law - what good is the law? The foundation of the democratic model has been undermined. And more - I remembered the East India Company, I thought of the ramifications of what probably seemed like a good idea at the time - creating a new kind of entity that would have standing and identity in and of itself in front of the law - The Company. Perhaps with hindsight, this is one of the moments where the interests of these new breed of "people" - Companies - overtook the interests of human people. The law certainly looked after their interests in this instance, but not of humans.
We are in the middle of a revolution and it can be hard to see for the haze, and think for the noises and baying. I wonder if the Companies will come through this revolution intact and stronger or if the machines will short-circuit that entire logic and power structure. I'm feeling a little depressed about it, but that's just my natural pessimisim and the fact that I've not yet had breakfast. I'm sure after some eggs and coffee I'll feel more hopeful about our democratic and governmental institutions re-vitalising the sanctity of human life, honouring thoughtful debate, flexibility and the fact that we're all on this ship together. Otherwise, it looks like fire will get a chance to clean after all.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Ahoy from HMAS Private Dancer
Frankly it astonishes me that this blog has never mentioned "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" and yet so it is. This is my second-most favourite international day of the year after New Year's Day and I mark it in my own ways.
This year, bereft of fellow revellers, I am re-watching Firefly, and reading a very cool history book. It is called "Black Barty: Bartholomew Roberts and his Pirate Crew 1718 - 1723" by Aubrey Burl*, and across the top of the cover is a quite realistic looking skull and crossed bones along with the shout "The Real Pirate of the Caribbean". They manage to avoid using an exclamation mark, but I bet the marketing department fought that battle bitterly. The cover itself is cool, and it is not often you'll hear me make that kind of remark, but to balance out the GIANT FREAKIN SKULL, the bottom is a reproduction of a painting of a naval battle (Barbary Pirates Attacking a Spanish Ship [oil on canvas] Willem can de Velde II. 1633-1707 [studio of]/Private collection) which gives it that fabulous heft of historical authenticity. Plus, the Author's name is Aubrey! Aubrey! Actually, I've just realised I can just link you over to it and you can see the cover for yourself. See?!?!?!
But I digress.
I'm as pleased as the next provocateur for self governance and non-corporatist lifestyles that Pirates have become so hugely popular in the mainstream. Like vampires I think they are performing an important psychological function by bringing metaphor and rebellion back into mainstream entertainment. They offer a way to express shadow desires and to reconnect with a careworn and sadly faded idea of personal freedom that is outside of the constraints of "responsible" adulthood. There are very few blockbuster films or books about going daily to a job you don't enjoy to pay off a mortgage you resent on a house that suffocates you, and nothing much changing from there. No much of an arc to that plot is there?
So this year I have been thinking about how "Talk like a Pirate Day" is a lot of fun and a jolly good idea, but that under the caricatures and cheerful costumes is a very interesting history. Specifically that many of the pirates were normal people looking for a way to get by in very difficult times, and a very few of them were utterly astonishing. The early 1700s were a tough time to be alive and the European nations were slicing up the globe as fast as they could cast cannon and sail there. It was the time of the East India Company, and of the brutal emergence of ruthless Companies - a new kind of entity, with more power it seemed than any crown. Crews of merchant ships were paid a pittance (which was not paid for days at port or ashore, encouraging men to find a better berth) or simply not paid at all. Just before setting sail, a gang of a few burly men from the ship would roam the alleys of the town or city and "press" any able bodied men into service - no matter how unwilling, unskilled or otherwise occupied they may be. Any wonder then that many of the crew members of threatened merchant ships would not even fight, and either flee in the longboats or actively welcome the pirates aboard and volunteer to join them.
If you were caught as a pirate, you died. No two ways about it. You were hung. There was no clemency. But... who was going to catch you? It's a rather large globe that is two-thirds covered in water and the navy ships are largely taken up with fighting someone else's navy. Plus, there was a legitimate business is attacking and scuppering merchant ships of a crown your crown happened to oppose. As you can imagine, this led to quite a bit of grey area between the black and white. There were so many exclusive interests at this point in global trade that many goods were only able to enter the open market through the action of the pirates and so some trading posts would gently look the other way about the provenance of some items and happily purchase them at a fraction of their normal (astronomical) cost in order to be able to do business at all.
So to become a pirate captain you had to be brave, cunning and ruthless but it also helped if you were clever, good with people (pirate crews didn't wait long to mutiny if the booty was slow in coming), strategic (carpenters and other skilled crew were critical to the success of any ship at the time. A surgeon was almost literally worth his weight in gold) and could pull off a bit of play acting in fancy clothes (ships would masquerade as legit traders in order to get close to another ship or a port they wished to plunder). Black Barty had all this in spades. His men adored him, he was a bit of a dandy (but only drank tea) he observed the sabbath and managed to pull off audacious raids.
He even had a manifesto of sorts:
"In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power. And who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.
Damnation to him who ever lived to wear a halter".
It's hard not admire that.
So on this ITLAPD I urge you to be like a real pirate. Be brave, cunning, ruthless, clever, good with people, strategic and if you find the opportunity, indulge in a little bit of play acting (preferably in fancy silks and brocades). Remember, Damnation to him who ever lived to wear a halter!
*BTW I'm pretty sure that the comment in the one reader review on Amazon is by someone who doesn't recognise primary sources when they read them. I have noticed no such errors.
This year, bereft of fellow revellers, I am re-watching Firefly, and reading a very cool history book. It is called "Black Barty: Bartholomew Roberts and his Pirate Crew 1718 - 1723" by Aubrey Burl*, and across the top of the cover is a quite realistic looking skull and crossed bones along with the shout "The Real Pirate of the Caribbean". They manage to avoid using an exclamation mark, but I bet the marketing department fought that battle bitterly. The cover itself is cool, and it is not often you'll hear me make that kind of remark, but to balance out the GIANT FREAKIN SKULL, the bottom is a reproduction of a painting of a naval battle (Barbary Pirates Attacking a Spanish Ship [oil on canvas] Willem can de Velde II. 1633-1707 [studio of]/Private collection) which gives it that fabulous heft of historical authenticity. Plus, the Author's name is Aubrey! Aubrey! Actually, I've just realised I can just link you over to it and you can see the cover for yourself. See?!?!?!
But I digress.
I'm as pleased as the next provocateur for self governance and non-corporatist lifestyles that Pirates have become so hugely popular in the mainstream. Like vampires I think they are performing an important psychological function by bringing metaphor and rebellion back into mainstream entertainment. They offer a way to express shadow desires and to reconnect with a careworn and sadly faded idea of personal freedom that is outside of the constraints of "responsible" adulthood. There are very few blockbuster films or books about going daily to a job you don't enjoy to pay off a mortgage you resent on a house that suffocates you, and nothing much changing from there. No much of an arc to that plot is there?
So this year I have been thinking about how "Talk like a Pirate Day" is a lot of fun and a jolly good idea, but that under the caricatures and cheerful costumes is a very interesting history. Specifically that many of the pirates were normal people looking for a way to get by in very difficult times, and a very few of them were utterly astonishing. The early 1700s were a tough time to be alive and the European nations were slicing up the globe as fast as they could cast cannon and sail there. It was the time of the East India Company, and of the brutal emergence of ruthless Companies - a new kind of entity, with more power it seemed than any crown. Crews of merchant ships were paid a pittance (which was not paid for days at port or ashore, encouraging men to find a better berth) or simply not paid at all. Just before setting sail, a gang of a few burly men from the ship would roam the alleys of the town or city and "press" any able bodied men into service - no matter how unwilling, unskilled or otherwise occupied they may be. Any wonder then that many of the crew members of threatened merchant ships would not even fight, and either flee in the longboats or actively welcome the pirates aboard and volunteer to join them.
If you were caught as a pirate, you died. No two ways about it. You were hung. There was no clemency. But... who was going to catch you? It's a rather large globe that is two-thirds covered in water and the navy ships are largely taken up with fighting someone else's navy. Plus, there was a legitimate business is attacking and scuppering merchant ships of a crown your crown happened to oppose. As you can imagine, this led to quite a bit of grey area between the black and white. There were so many exclusive interests at this point in global trade that many goods were only able to enter the open market through the action of the pirates and so some trading posts would gently look the other way about the provenance of some items and happily purchase them at a fraction of their normal (astronomical) cost in order to be able to do business at all.
So to become a pirate captain you had to be brave, cunning and ruthless but it also helped if you were clever, good with people (pirate crews didn't wait long to mutiny if the booty was slow in coming), strategic (carpenters and other skilled crew were critical to the success of any ship at the time. A surgeon was almost literally worth his weight in gold) and could pull off a bit of play acting in fancy clothes (ships would masquerade as legit traders in order to get close to another ship or a port they wished to plunder). Black Barty had all this in spades. His men adored him, he was a bit of a dandy (but only drank tea) he observed the sabbath and managed to pull off audacious raids.
He even had a manifesto of sorts:
"In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power. And who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.
Damnation to him who ever lived to wear a halter".
It's hard not admire that.
So on this ITLAPD I urge you to be like a real pirate. Be brave, cunning, ruthless, clever, good with people, strategic and if you find the opportunity, indulge in a little bit of play acting (preferably in fancy silks and brocades). Remember, Damnation to him who ever lived to wear a halter!
*BTW I'm pretty sure that the comment in the one reader review on Amazon is by someone who doesn't recognise primary sources when they read them. I have noticed no such errors.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
This work is good work
Two hundred and twenty-four letters need to be printed (4 goes it took for the printer to acknowledge the tray, the correct paper, the single-sidedness of the issue) each needs to be folded (by hand, so the crease is right to read the address through the little window) and go into one of two hundred and twenty-four envelopes, each letter to be accompanied by two copies of the competition form.
Dull day much?
There have been worse.
This client loves a personalised mailout. The largest so far was for 8000 but I made the client pay a rambunctious group of seniors to do the folding and stuffing (the printing alone took me over 7 hours). It would be easy to think that this kind of thing is a real low-point of my job. So tedius, so old-school, so, so predictable. And so yes they are tasks I'll procrastinate over a bit, mostly because once I start them they create massive drifts of papers and if it all gets interrupted (paper jams, unexpected meetings, file crashes) it can be a real mongrel to figure out where everything was up to.
So as I sit folding, folding, folding, and stuffing (and checking I haven't put them in backwards) I can turn my brain off knowing that the only risk is a paper-cut or keep it on a little and browse some news and listen to music safe in the knowledge that although it might not be glamorous, exciting, interesting or something that would ever ever get mentioned in ads or shows about this industry, this work is good work. I am content.
Dull day much?
There have been worse.
This client loves a personalised mailout. The largest so far was for 8000 but I made the client pay a rambunctious group of seniors to do the folding and stuffing (the printing alone took me over 7 hours). It would be easy to think that this kind of thing is a real low-point of my job. So tedius, so old-school, so, so predictable. And so yes they are tasks I'll procrastinate over a bit, mostly because once I start them they create massive drifts of papers and if it all gets interrupted (paper jams, unexpected meetings, file crashes) it can be a real mongrel to figure out where everything was up to.
But...
Actually these mailouts hit nearly all of the key criteria for satisfying work! How can this be?
- It is easy to tell when I'm finished - the letters are put into our mailroom lady's hands. We exchange brief pleasantries.
- These letters work. Addressed to previous customers who have purchased tickets to a similar show in the last 2 years, these are qualified, hot prospects. They sell tickets.
- At the end of the process there's no further anxiety - that happens up front when I want to do something either new, tricky or clever with the copy and the client wants things nice and normal. Once that discussion is resolved for each project it is virtually a mechanical process to complete. I don't lose sleep over it once the lovely mail lady takes charge.
- Did I mention that they work? We know because of the timings of sales after postage, but also because when we put a special offer in the letter, we can track the results super easily. Last time 800 letters got us over 100 sales. Sweet!
- The client doesn't have to pay for postage and they get sales - mailouts make them happy. Happy client = less stress for me.
So as I sit folding, folding, folding, and stuffing (and checking I haven't put them in backwards) I can turn my brain off knowing that the only risk is a paper-cut or keep it on a little and browse some news and listen to music safe in the knowledge that although it might not be glamorous, exciting, interesting or something that would ever ever get mentioned in ads or shows about this industry, this work is good work. I am content.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Once Were Worthy
A nasty, heavy thump on the front porch drew Riley and I from our peaceful slumber on Saturday morning. About 3kg of the past was hand-delivered by some begrimed striding labourer into my present.
Eventually, when we had recovered from the rudeness of someone encroaching uninvited into our personal space so far as to be nearly upon the front steps, and I had brewed some coffee with which to fortify my responses, I peered from behind the curtains sideways out at the evidence of the encounter.
"Shock" is a little too strong a descriptor. Let's say rather that it took a few shifts of consciousness to come to terms with the resources bought to bear very early (before 9am!) on a Saturday morning to physically hand deliver to me, at my house, a phone book.
You may not be familiar with this concept. It is a large, alphabetical (by surname) index of all persons (in this case, although it could also be businesses) who have a telephone and who live within an arbitrary radius of a large city or, indeed, town. It is supplied printed on paper. Paper. It is not available for download. Not even as a PDF. It includes many many dozens of thousands of people, comprises hundreds of pages (more even than Infinite Jest!!) and asks to be let into the house and kept for a year or more. How very cheeky. I drew the curtain again and left it on the porch in order to ponder this request.
Pros
* I do have a phone. Conceivably I may wish to use it at some point in the next 12 to 18 months to call someone I don't currently know. This reference may help to source their number.
* My sister is about to move house and she may need a large amount of wrapping paper for her glassware.
Cons
* I feel it likely that anyone I am welcome to call will provide me with their preferred contact mode and the details thereof.
* My sister has completed wrapping her glassware, as she also received a delivery.
* It is large, ugly, poorly bound, and has nowhere else to live other than the drawer currently colonised by the mouse/mice and I feel it would be interpreted as encouragement to their expansionist ambitions.
* The house is already somewhat cluttered with books.
I feel slightly put-upon by this assumption that I want or need this reference tome.
There was no "tick the box" to opt in or out, no consultation, no other strategy, just presumptuous delivery. Another physical manifestation of the parochial concept of "service" that pushes down from the echelons what it is we plebeian suburbanites apparently want and need. For the same energy and carbon, perhaps I would have chosen a nice fresh (and blank) 8gb flash drive, or even a plain unbranded dvd full of data of my choice, or even better a bale (probably bales plural in relative terms) of mulch straw to bolster the efforts of my neophyte vegetables. So many options. So little consultation or inclusion.
But I digress.
I use the back door to leave the house for the errands in order to postpone the inevitable confrontation, athough I know the final outcome already. It just seems a little rude to put it into the recycling bin immediately. Let the poor doomed thing have a few pitiful hours in the sun, feeling the breeze and hearing the neighbourhood thugs practise their gansta cant before it begins the dark and unknown journey through the big yellow-lidded bin of second-chances to be reborn as thicker paper, light card or perhaps a box.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Eventually, when we had recovered from the rudeness of someone encroaching uninvited into our personal space so far as to be nearly upon the front steps, and I had brewed some coffee with which to fortify my responses, I peered from behind the curtains sideways out at the evidence of the encounter.
"Shock" is a little too strong a descriptor. Let's say rather that it took a few shifts of consciousness to come to terms with the resources bought to bear very early (before 9am!) on a Saturday morning to physically hand deliver to me, at my house, a phone book.
You may not be familiar with this concept. It is a large, alphabetical (by surname) index of all persons (in this case, although it could also be businesses) who have a telephone and who live within an arbitrary radius of a large city or, indeed, town. It is supplied printed on paper. Paper. It is not available for download. Not even as a PDF. It includes many many dozens of thousands of people, comprises hundreds of pages (more even than Infinite Jest!!) and asks to be let into the house and kept for a year or more. How very cheeky. I drew the curtain again and left it on the porch in order to ponder this request.
Pros
* I do have a phone. Conceivably I may wish to use it at some point in the next 12 to 18 months to call someone I don't currently know. This reference may help to source their number.
* My sister is about to move house and she may need a large amount of wrapping paper for her glassware.
Cons
* I feel it likely that anyone I am welcome to call will provide me with their preferred contact mode and the details thereof.
* My sister has completed wrapping her glassware, as she also received a delivery.
* It is large, ugly, poorly bound, and has nowhere else to live other than the drawer currently colonised by the mouse/mice and I feel it would be interpreted as encouragement to their expansionist ambitions.
* The house is already somewhat cluttered with books.
I feel slightly put-upon by this assumption that I want or need this reference tome.
There was no "tick the box" to opt in or out, no consultation, no other strategy, just presumptuous delivery. Another physical manifestation of the parochial concept of "service" that pushes down from the echelons what it is we plebeian suburbanites apparently want and need. For the same energy and carbon, perhaps I would have chosen a nice fresh (and blank) 8gb flash drive, or even a plain unbranded dvd full of data of my choice, or even better a bale (probably bales plural in relative terms) of mulch straw to bolster the efforts of my neophyte vegetables. So many options. So little consultation or inclusion.
But I digress.
I use the back door to leave the house for the errands in order to postpone the inevitable confrontation, athough I know the final outcome already. It just seems a little rude to put it into the recycling bin immediately. Let the poor doomed thing have a few pitiful hours in the sun, feeling the breeze and hearing the neighbourhood thugs practise their gansta cant before it begins the dark and unknown journey through the big yellow-lidded bin of second-chances to be reborn as thicker paper, light card or perhaps a box.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
A Short Reprive
Today an acquaintance here in Trash City said, whilst browsing a cookbook, "I mean, who's ever heard of some of these things?! Blood Oranges?! They made that up!!."
And although I said, "No, they're real, and particularly good for juicing" I thought something else entirely.
I dreamt last night that I was possessed by a length of galvanised chain that turned into a snake that both poisoned me and became me. So I was at once dying and my own killer.
There was a bit more too it, but thankfully I woke and there was rain on the roof - a very welcome sound - and I realised I was very hot under the covers. The dream was hard to shake off, especially as my leg that was hurting in the dream was very painful in real life. I got back to sleep after a while but the sensations and memories of the dream kept coming back throughout today.
Interesting, don't you think, for that theme to be so clear in a dream at this time?
And although I said, "No, they're real, and particularly good for juicing" I thought something else entirely.
I dreamt last night that I was possessed by a length of galvanised chain that turned into a snake that both poisoned me and became me. So I was at once dying and my own killer.
There was a bit more too it, but thankfully I woke and there was rain on the roof - a very welcome sound - and I realised I was very hot under the covers. The dream was hard to shake off, especially as my leg that was hurting in the dream was very painful in real life. I got back to sleep after a while but the sensations and memories of the dream kept coming back throughout today.
Interesting, don't you think, for that theme to be so clear in a dream at this time?
Thursday, September 03, 2009
The Sitzfleisch has an Agenda
There have been so many things to bluster about, to notice and to mourn in these past six or seven weeks (neighbours/heatwave/garden bounty and then death from aforementioned heatwave and Disney buying up Marvel to name but a few) but sadly none of my moments of lucidity have corresponded with any access to suitable/compatible/functioning tech and these have simply slid by, like tears in the rain (slumps: releases dove).
Some things, however, are timeless and can be shared somewhat after the fact without losing impact. I'm referring, in this instance, to my complex and fraught relationship with my physical body.
It's a funny thing, biology. We cannot be separated from it, it is the source of so very many pleasures and pastimes, it defines (or contributes greatly to) many of the profound emotional states we experience and yet it is coordinated through an almost impenetrable chemical (nay, alchemical) process that has another agenda.
Some Points
Point. A few years ago, keen to take responsibility for my health and well-being I reviewed my life and put myself on a diet, took on a new job and began cycling to work. I came down with Ulcerative Colitis. Hilarious. (the UC is still rocking along BTW. You can't shake that snake in the bowel!)
Point. Nine months later when I could be awake for more than 4 hours at a stretch I tried again - took a course to learn something new and joined a gym. Within 3 weeks, the gym burnt to the ground. The GYM! Concrete and steel. I mean - what was there to even burn? Stale sweat is just not that flammable! How utterly unprecedented is that?
Point. I move interstate and focus on other areas for a while. I get all housified and workified until that's running smoothly. Meanwhile, it is once again time to un-blimp. I get a program together, make a graph, start plotting and basically doing the right things and lo ....tear my calf muscle nearly in half (right at the bit where it starts to become the Achilles tendon. Yeah - nice choice) while playing with Riley in the yard. I am immobilised for weeks. Oh, and it hurts like you do not want to know*.
Do you see a pattern here?
A Script idea?
Maybe I should volunteer my services to the defence force.
Army type: "What exactly are you offering to do?"
Me: "Exercise. You know - lose some weight, get some core strength, whatever. Maybe do some pilates ..."
Army type: "... (goldfish mouth a little) and why exactly is that of benefit to the people of Afghanistan?
Me: (looks around, leans in, speaks in a conspiratorial whisper) "Because when I exercise, bad things happen!!"
We can leave that there. Sadly, most of the time, bad things happen to me, which sucks and seems to be pretty much the exact opposite of the intention of the exercising.
Huh.
Bad Juju
I'm no ubermensch but even i can tell (eventually) when I'm swimming against the tide. Whilst in the initial phase of recovery from this latest insult, I read some books on exercise, and none of them covered "Handling Bad Juju" or even "Unconscious Self-Sabotage". I have learnt how to translate calories and kilojoules but not how to unravel the chaotic and vastly vague intuitive associations of the mind/body relationship (and yes I checked the index!). The doctor has not been much help and I don't have any answers. But I do have an idea.
Fire With Fire
It was Einstein who said "as far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue." Which is a freakin awesome philosophy of no direct relevance to this line of thought at all, but so so worth throwing into the mix. More prosaically, he said "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." Oh yeah - there it is.
As I am unconscious of what is causing this problem, I need to rise up to consciousness! If it is mystery/magic/alchemy playing these tricks - then this is the field I need to enter to solve this puzzle! Simple eh!
On the other hand, Einstein also said "It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid" and cunningly neglected to incorporate a measure or her understanding or grasp of the conversation as being an important component of the conversation. Double clever or just arrogant?
So I shall become both the physicist and the barmaid, I shall embrace the lead and the gold, I shall be both the promise and the prestige .. and either go totally nutso or integrate in some marvellous (possibly mystical way) and become the dove - flying upward through the rain and into eternity.
* I acknowledge that as I have not gone through childbirth I don't have the Gold Standard of Pain for comparison available to me. I have made every effort to substantiate my subjective claim to pain, and many others (some of whom have birthed) have advised that they too feel this injury objectively earns the "painful" label. I'm not just exaggerating this. I do presume that everyone reading this blogs assumes most things are exaggerated. I do that. It's a hobby, telling tales. I'm not subtle, I know it. I'm sorry, that's how it is. But in this case you can take it as read. It hurts like someone has stuck a 12 inch hunting knife into your fucking leg, looked you in the eye and fucking twisted it. Then they pulled it out and you heard your own bone scrape. Yeah.
Some things, however, are timeless and can be shared somewhat after the fact without losing impact. I'm referring, in this instance, to my complex and fraught relationship with my physical body.
It's a funny thing, biology. We cannot be separated from it, it is the source of so very many pleasures and pastimes, it defines (or contributes greatly to) many of the profound emotional states we experience and yet it is coordinated through an almost impenetrable chemical (nay, alchemical) process that has another agenda.
Some Points
Point. A few years ago, keen to take responsibility for my health and well-being I reviewed my life and put myself on a diet, took on a new job and began cycling to work. I came down with Ulcerative Colitis. Hilarious. (the UC is still rocking along BTW. You can't shake that snake in the bowel!)
Point. Nine months later when I could be awake for more than 4 hours at a stretch I tried again - took a course to learn something new and joined a gym. Within 3 weeks, the gym burnt to the ground. The GYM! Concrete and steel. I mean - what was there to even burn? Stale sweat is just not that flammable! How utterly unprecedented is that?
Point. I move interstate and focus on other areas for a while. I get all housified and workified until that's running smoothly. Meanwhile, it is once again time to un-blimp. I get a program together, make a graph, start plotting and basically doing the right things and lo ....tear my calf muscle nearly in half (right at the bit where it starts to become the Achilles tendon. Yeah - nice choice) while playing with Riley in the yard. I am immobilised for weeks. Oh, and it hurts like you do not want to know*.
Do you see a pattern here?
A Script idea?
Maybe I should volunteer my services to the defence force.
Army type: "What exactly are you offering to do?"
Me: "Exercise. You know - lose some weight, get some core strength, whatever. Maybe do some pilates ..."
Army type: "... (goldfish mouth a little) and why exactly is that of benefit to the people of Afghanistan?
Me: (looks around, leans in, speaks in a conspiratorial whisper) "Because when I exercise, bad things happen!!"
We can leave that there. Sadly, most of the time, bad things happen to me, which sucks and seems to be pretty much the exact opposite of the intention of the exercising.
Huh.
Bad Juju
I'm no ubermensch but even i can tell (eventually) when I'm swimming against the tide. Whilst in the initial phase of recovery from this latest insult, I read some books on exercise, and none of them covered "Handling Bad Juju" or even "Unconscious Self-Sabotage". I have learnt how to translate calories and kilojoules but not how to unravel the chaotic and vastly vague intuitive associations of the mind/body relationship (and yes I checked the index!). The doctor has not been much help and I don't have any answers. But I do have an idea.
Fire With Fire
It was Einstein who said "as far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue." Which is a freakin awesome philosophy of no direct relevance to this line of thought at all, but so so worth throwing into the mix. More prosaically, he said "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." Oh yeah - there it is.
As I am unconscious of what is causing this problem, I need to rise up to consciousness! If it is mystery/magic/alchemy playing these tricks - then this is the field I need to enter to solve this puzzle! Simple eh!
On the other hand, Einstein also said "It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid" and cunningly neglected to incorporate a measure or her understanding or grasp of the conversation as being an important component of the conversation. Double clever or just arrogant?
So I shall become both the physicist and the barmaid, I shall embrace the lead and the gold, I shall be both the promise and the prestige .. and either go totally nutso or integrate in some marvellous (possibly mystical way) and become the dove - flying upward through the rain and into eternity.
* I acknowledge that as I have not gone through childbirth I don't have the Gold Standard of Pain for comparison available to me. I have made every effort to substantiate my subjective claim to pain, and many others (some of whom have birthed) have advised that they too feel this injury objectively earns the "painful" label. I'm not just exaggerating this. I do presume that everyone reading this blogs assumes most things are exaggerated. I do that. It's a hobby, telling tales. I'm not subtle, I know it. I'm sorry, that's how it is. But in this case you can take it as read. It hurts like someone has stuck a 12 inch hunting knife into your fucking leg, looked you in the eye and fucking twisted it. Then they pulled it out and you heard your own bone scrape. Yeah.
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