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.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
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.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The Big Life in a Small Town
This week started out poorly. I decided to floss my teeth and this resulted in a big chip coming off one tooth and another getting lodged in a crevasse. After the initial shock, I was pretty annoyed that my attempt at dental hygiene had been rebuked by my body in such a forceful way. I am learning to live with the strangely lodged chunk of tooth as I am irrationally terrified of dentists ever since one told me that it was inevitable that I would lose all feeling in my lips and possibly most of my jaw if I was to have the operation to "correct" my wisdom teeth. I decided at that point to grow tusks instead and here we have the ongoing consequences of that act of cowardice.
I don't really remember a lot of the rest of the week. I'd like to be able to put this down to outrageous drinking and wild living, but actually it is because it was so mind-numbingly dull and predictable that the highlight was baby-sitting my nieces for a few hours while sister went to class about how to sell beauty products. We watched Kung Fu Panda (again) and I struggled with a crossword. The week ended with two people leaving work who have each (in their very different ways) had a big impact on my working life here. The first is Gill. She is a veteran of the Sheltered Workshop and was the person who hired me into the organisation as a temp and tried to teach me the ways of survival ("Always cover your arse with a paper trail") and the codes of the chronic martyr. Shocked though I am at her resignation, my hope in the resilience of human spirit is renewed. Perhaps she will find her smile again in the near future. Inshalla.
The second is Strelan, the person who first showed me some friendship (or at least companionable emailing from our respective far-flung fortresses of solitude) and has been a reliable source since then of off-hand humour, new musical influences, occasional insight into the worldview and values of Gen Y, and frankly an ambitious but ultimately non-winning poker strategy. I am delighted at the fact that he has gained escape velocity from the draining gravity well of the Sheltered Workshop's weekly pay cheque, and is smiling and bouncing at the idea of working somewhere that he can do stuff. Happy hunting Strelan.
Today was so perfect that I had to dust down the banana lounge and find a pillow and a paper to read then I had all the props in place to do nothing at all. The paper was a week or two old (and was just the News Review and Business sections), but I read it on and off and the birds sang and the sky was blue and the dog snored softly in the grass by my side. A gorgeous way to wrap up the week and I'm so relaxed that I think I'll just hum a little to myself and maybe snooze a little more.
I don't really remember a lot of the rest of the week. I'd like to be able to put this down to outrageous drinking and wild living, but actually it is because it was so mind-numbingly dull and predictable that the highlight was baby-sitting my nieces for a few hours while sister went to class about how to sell beauty products. We watched Kung Fu Panda (again) and I struggled with a crossword. The week ended with two people leaving work who have each (in their very different ways) had a big impact on my working life here. The first is Gill. She is a veteran of the Sheltered Workshop and was the person who hired me into the organisation as a temp and tried to teach me the ways of survival ("Always cover your arse with a paper trail") and the codes of the chronic martyr. Shocked though I am at her resignation, my hope in the resilience of human spirit is renewed. Perhaps she will find her smile again in the near future. Inshalla.
The second is Strelan, the person who first showed me some friendship (or at least companionable emailing from our respective far-flung fortresses of solitude) and has been a reliable source since then of off-hand humour, new musical influences, occasional insight into the worldview and values of Gen Y, and frankly an ambitious but ultimately non-winning poker strategy. I am delighted at the fact that he has gained escape velocity from the draining gravity well of the Sheltered Workshop's weekly pay cheque, and is smiling and bouncing at the idea of working somewhere that he can do stuff. Happy hunting Strelan.
Today was so perfect that I had to dust down the banana lounge and find a pillow and a paper to read then I had all the props in place to do nothing at all. The paper was a week or two old (and was just the News Review and Business sections), but I read it on and off and the birds sang and the sky was blue and the dog snored softly in the grass by my side. A gorgeous way to wrap up the week and I'm so relaxed that I think I'll just hum a little to myself and maybe snooze a little more.
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Blood Orange
Isn't that the most Gothic (Gothically? Gothetically?) named fruit?!
Say it aloud in dark tones with me, let the words drip with gore "The...BLOOD...Orange!"
yessssss
I would have thought that with all the vampire chic going around these fruit would be enjoying a heyday, but stuff me if I know where to get them from normal channels. I have recently been given a small bag for free from Ma & Pa's neighbour (yes, Peter, whom I'm sure has been mentioned in the past at least once) and who is my best line on farm-fresh cauliflowers. During summer we are inundated by tomatoes the size of my head (Bullocks Heart the variety is called in case you feel your tommies are inadequately sized. A few people call Custard Apples by this name so double-check. Not that it would be horrible to end up with custard apples, but they're trees, not vines, and are no good for making sandwiches or salads. But I digress) and in winter it is mandarins and oranges.
I've never really gotten too excited, after all mum's been getting gamey, tart little mandies and tight, terse oranges off her trees for a while now and I figured it would be more of the same. No biggie, so normally I let Little Sister totally snaffle all the produce she wants, and it can take me a whole week to eat a single orange or mango due to my love of anticipation and enormous capacity for self-denial. In fact sometimes I have looked forward to it for so long it is no longer edible.
Last weekend, when Little Sister said she was planning a trip to the orchard, I thought I'd tag along. The fruit from the supermarket has been utterly deplorable for the last month and I had never laid eyes on this promised Eden so if nothing else it would make a nice diversion for an hour or so. She always gets this happy glaze to her face when she talks about the place and now I am a convert too.
We stood in the bountiful grove (that required a 4WD to get to) and plucked the most delicious fruits from the trees and ate them with the sun warming us and bees buzzing merrily around the flowers of the next crop. The soil was a rich, soft black and every tree was heavily laden with ripe or ripening fruit. We walked for a while, just to say the names and guess the varieties and we just didn't know them all. It was gorgeous.
Two trees were stripped bare of fruit and we crossed our fingers that the goods were waiting at the farm. Loaded with stuffed bags of fruit, we ventured back towards roads. Little Sister leapt onto the large box of fruit waiting on the front porch of the farm and then let out a long shuddering sigh of pleasure - here they were - the Blood Oranges. Very bravely she watched as we divvied up the total, a few here, a few there, some for so and so, and here Grandad you try a few, and then the rest were tucked safely into the boot of the car.
Have you ever seen them? They look normal enough from the outside, maybe with a faint hint of pink on the skin. I'm told that colour gets stronger with each frost (we've had such a mild winter here, these ones are barely blushing) and then you cut them open, and from the skin and pith in, depending again on the frosts, they're deep rich pink like fresh blood cut with a little water. And they bleed too - so juicy you can't help but want to lick them. The flesh is soft and pulps easily and quickly. These are a little tart from lack of frost, as though there's cranberries snuck into the blend. So very very delicious.
I've counted mine, and am rationing them out, one at a time, as an aperitif to breakfast and dinner. We're all on the lookout for another source now. You don't know anyone with a tree do you? Now I understand why my sister stands over her baby tree and wills it to blossom and grow. Peter could charge whatever he wanted for these and we would be reduced to stealing car stereos to pay him.
Say it aloud in dark tones with me, let the words drip with gore "The...BLOOD...Orange!"
yessssss
I would have thought that with all the vampire chic going around these fruit would be enjoying a heyday, but stuff me if I know where to get them from normal channels. I have recently been given a small bag for free from Ma & Pa's neighbour (yes, Peter, whom I'm sure has been mentioned in the past at least once) and who is my best line on farm-fresh cauliflowers. During summer we are inundated by tomatoes the size of my head (Bullocks Heart the variety is called in case you feel your tommies are inadequately sized. A few people call Custard Apples by this name so double-check. Not that it would be horrible to end up with custard apples, but they're trees, not vines, and are no good for making sandwiches or salads. But I digress) and in winter it is mandarins and oranges.
I've never really gotten too excited, after all mum's been getting gamey, tart little mandies and tight, terse oranges off her trees for a while now and I figured it would be more of the same. No biggie, so normally I let Little Sister totally snaffle all the produce she wants, and it can take me a whole week to eat a single orange or mango due to my love of anticipation and enormous capacity for self-denial. In fact sometimes I have looked forward to it for so long it is no longer edible.
Last weekend, when Little Sister said she was planning a trip to the orchard, I thought I'd tag along. The fruit from the supermarket has been utterly deplorable for the last month and I had never laid eyes on this promised Eden so if nothing else it would make a nice diversion for an hour or so. She always gets this happy glaze to her face when she talks about the place and now I am a convert too.
We stood in the bountiful grove (that required a 4WD to get to) and plucked the most delicious fruits from the trees and ate them with the sun warming us and bees buzzing merrily around the flowers of the next crop. The soil was a rich, soft black and every tree was heavily laden with ripe or ripening fruit. We walked for a while, just to say the names and guess the varieties and we just didn't know them all. It was gorgeous.
Two trees were stripped bare of fruit and we crossed our fingers that the goods were waiting at the farm. Loaded with stuffed bags of fruit, we ventured back towards roads. Little Sister leapt onto the large box of fruit waiting on the front porch of the farm and then let out a long shuddering sigh of pleasure - here they were - the Blood Oranges. Very bravely she watched as we divvied up the total, a few here, a few there, some for so and so, and here Grandad you try a few, and then the rest were tucked safely into the boot of the car.
Have you ever seen them? They look normal enough from the outside, maybe with a faint hint of pink on the skin. I'm told that colour gets stronger with each frost (we've had such a mild winter here, these ones are barely blushing) and then you cut them open, and from the skin and pith in, depending again on the frosts, they're deep rich pink like fresh blood cut with a little water. And they bleed too - so juicy you can't help but want to lick them. The flesh is soft and pulps easily and quickly. These are a little tart from lack of frost, as though there's cranberries snuck into the blend. So very very delicious.
I've counted mine, and am rationing them out, one at a time, as an aperitif to breakfast and dinner. We're all on the lookout for another source now. You don't know anyone with a tree do you? Now I understand why my sister stands over her baby tree and wills it to blossom and grow. Peter could charge whatever he wanted for these and we would be reduced to stealing car stereos to pay him.
Friday, July 10, 2009
He Invented Tomorrow
I am utterly stoked today by Google commemorating on their homepage the birthday of Nikola Tesla! Yay Google! Perhaps this prompted a few dozen people to digress from their purpose in booting the big G long enough to click through to the Wiki page and discover the brilliant and sadly under-rated (and occasionally just totally nutty) works of this amazing engineer and inventor. I hope they're now feeling a richer connection to their computer screen, and considering digressing more often (you know I'm already a fan).
I've been laboriously trudging my way through "A Brief History of Time" (which I know even Hawking says is outdated now) and I can't help but wonder today what Tesla's incredible and intuitive brain might make of our modern world and in particular of the wealth of advances in theoretical and applied physics. How valuable his creativity and inspiration would be to us, when we have more chance of understanding him than those dazed and confused Victorians.
In 1891 Tesla could create illumination without wires, and believed that this was merely the beginning of a field of industry. In Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency in February 1892 he wrote "Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe".
Not "...at any point of the world", "of the universe" the man had a real scope to his vision that I find inspiring. This was just one of his strands of enquiry. I wish more of his work survived the inevitable fires that came with his experimental conditions and most of all, I wish that he had found a helpmate during his life to take care of the practical things, so his eclectic genius could soar higher and further.
Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla, and thank you for persevering with us as long as you did.
I've been laboriously trudging my way through "A Brief History of Time" (which I know even Hawking says is outdated now) and I can't help but wonder today what Tesla's incredible and intuitive brain might make of our modern world and in particular of the wealth of advances in theoretical and applied physics. How valuable his creativity and inspiration would be to us, when we have more chance of understanding him than those dazed and confused Victorians.
In 1891 Tesla could create illumination without wires, and believed that this was merely the beginning of a field of industry. In Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency in February 1892 he wrote "Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe".
Not "...at any point of the world", "of the universe" the man had a real scope to his vision that I find inspiring. This was just one of his strands of enquiry. I wish more of his work survived the inevitable fires that came with his experimental conditions and most of all, I wish that he had found a helpmate during his life to take care of the practical things, so his eclectic genius could soar higher and further.
Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla, and thank you for persevering with us as long as you did.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Bronze Nails
I intended to blog tonight, and I even made a bit of an effort to think of decent ideas for once, but obviously this plan has not come to fruition. Please forgive me. I've just spent a cozy two and a half hours snuggled up to my Greader. So many blogs and articles and essays all queued up for me by topic or author. I have barely gotten through half of it. What a pleasure. If only I could read it on the couch.
The major distraction tonight was catching up with new posts from Club Orlov. One of the things I love about this blog is the "been there, done that" nature of the analysis and information. Just because the big big mass of Russia is a long way away (in all the different nuances that hang around after the cold war) doesn't mean we can't learn a lot from their recent history and experiences. It is one thing to look at a bunch of graphs and say, "This is going to be bad" and another to hear exactly how bad (and I don't mean just having to live on cabbage). There are little tidbits too, such as the value of bronze nails.
"It also makes sense to establish stockpiles of non-perishable materials that will preserve their usefulness far into the future. My favourite example is bronze nails. They last a over a hundred years in salt water, and so they are perfect for building boats. The manufacturing of bronze nails is actually a good use of the remaining fossil fuels - better than most. They are compact and easy to store."
I didn't even think about the possibility that nails might be made of stuff that erodes. I mean, that's a stupid idea, right?! What a perfect example of how our thinking as a system is faulty. Not that I'm ever going to be able to build a boat. Or even that I can use a hammer without hurting myself. Who am I kidding anyway, I'm almost certain to die off as soon as the chocolate supply gets dodgy. I've got three lightfittings in my house where I can't even get a lightbulb to work. Plus, I live nearly 150 kloms from the ocean. And I don't eat fish. Now. I reckon if rotten cabbages get on the menu, pretty much anything goes.
But I digress.
It's not just the handy hints towards a happy post-peak-oil-life that I enjoy and it is more than the fabulously footnoted details, it is that Club Orlov presents with a fabulous sense of humour. Anyone who can make me laugh involuntarily about global economic collapse due to the denial of the (easily projected) minimum production volumes and maximum affordable costs of energy has to be clever, resilient and fundamentally very, very funny.
I don't want to spoil it for you in case you have the urge to explore for yourself, and maybe you won't think so, but I'm still chuckling now. Anyway, that's the reason there will not be a blog from me tonight. I've been deliciously distracted and suddenly it is past my bedtime and time to don jammies and sleep. Ah, but my mind is spinning, trying to recalibrate my plan to take in all the knowables, the unknowables, the things we don't know we don't know and now to do all of this and yet remain flexible, with lots more humour!
The major distraction tonight was catching up with new posts from Club Orlov. One of the things I love about this blog is the "been there, done that" nature of the analysis and information. Just because the big big mass of Russia is a long way away (in all the different nuances that hang around after the cold war) doesn't mean we can't learn a lot from their recent history and experiences. It is one thing to look at a bunch of graphs and say, "This is going to be bad" and another to hear exactly how bad (and I don't mean just having to live on cabbage). There are little tidbits too, such as the value of bronze nails.
"It also makes sense to establish stockpiles of non-perishable materials that will preserve their usefulness far into the future. My favourite example is bronze nails. They last a over a hundred years in salt water, and so they are perfect for building boats. The manufacturing of bronze nails is actually a good use of the remaining fossil fuels - better than most. They are compact and easy to store."
I didn't even think about the possibility that nails might be made of stuff that erodes. I mean, that's a stupid idea, right?! What a perfect example of how our thinking as a system is faulty. Not that I'm ever going to be able to build a boat. Or even that I can use a hammer without hurting myself. Who am I kidding anyway, I'm almost certain to die off as soon as the chocolate supply gets dodgy. I've got three lightfittings in my house where I can't even get a lightbulb to work. Plus, I live nearly 150 kloms from the ocean. And I don't eat fish. Now. I reckon if rotten cabbages get on the menu, pretty much anything goes.
But I digress.
It's not just the handy hints towards a happy post-peak-oil-life that I enjoy and it is more than the fabulously footnoted details, it is that Club Orlov presents with a fabulous sense of humour. Anyone who can make me laugh involuntarily about global economic collapse due to the denial of the (easily projected) minimum production volumes and maximum affordable costs of energy has to be clever, resilient and fundamentally very, very funny.
I don't want to spoil it for you in case you have the urge to explore for yourself, and maybe you won't think so, but I'm still chuckling now. Anyway, that's the reason there will not be a blog from me tonight. I've been deliciously distracted and suddenly it is past my bedtime and time to don jammies and sleep. Ah, but my mind is spinning, trying to recalibrate my plan to take in all the knowables, the unknowables, the things we don't know we don't know and now to do all of this and yet remain flexible, with lots more humour!
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
2009 in books (pt1)
As usual I've been both cranky and ill.
Someone (irritating) at work today said,
"...but i've seen you be cheerful and friendly before"
and before I could remember the cover story I replied
"It was a LIE."
So, it's out in the open. On the other hand, once one has cultivated even a minor reputation for eccentricity, nothing after that needs to make too much sense to be shrugged off as "just another thing." So you can tell the radical truth and it becomes outrageous entertainment.
"What do you think of so-and-so?"
"I love him and obsess over him in the long nights of my solitude."
Cue uproarious laughter.
It couldn't be any better if I actually wore a Jester's outfit.
But I digress.
For anyone who hasn't noticed it is pretty much the middle of the year. I considered some kind of sincere post, but I'm not up to it. The only goal-related thing I would say is that I am happy with my reading list so far this year, which has held up rather well despite being flooded this month by a series of works by Stephenie Meyer. The tally stands at 28 books in total and of these, 13 are non-fiction! Nearly exactly half!! WOOT! (gently mimes punching air so as not to dislodge reading glasses.
Of these, what books can I recommend to you my tasteful and clever audience?
A good question.
From January, Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman. Very thoughtfully re-published by Penguin in their charming $10 range (thank you Penguin and good idea going back to classic jacket designs!). Get into some Physics - it is already in you!!
February yielded some good quality reading in the form of The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton (another Penguin $10 winner). A novel about Tesla called The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt and a collection of Essays gifted to me by Mez called How to be Alone by Jonathan Franzen. I felt pretty clever by association after those highlights.
March needed a new flavour, so I read the new SF by Richard Morgan - The Black Man and I really liked it but I recommend it to SF readers with some qualifications (depending on your taste). The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman was lovely and had a little unsaid, which I like. The real standout this month was finishing The Invisibles by Grant Morrison which was a loaner from MsJaye and one of those books that infects and gives one a fever. I got through the fever, and now I can't wait to find out what I'm inoculated against or prepared for. Turns out I love anarchistic-chaos-magic. I want to do it again! (BTW for snobs - be warned - that one's a comic.)
April was quiet, I read some non-fic that was a bit dull and I re-read a favourite novel and then read a French SF novel called Babylon Babies (by Mauice Dantec, but I don't remember the translator. It wasn't Nicole Kidman so don't sweat it). I'd read some mixed reviews and of course the film (Babylon AD)was hopeless but actually i thought that the book was good. Not quite as fully anarchist chaos magical as The Invisibles, but possibly a good enough chaser. Lots of good themes and a clever central character and plenty of wild tech. I would like to read more SF from NESB (non english speaking background) as the flavours and textures are less predictable (all of which was pretty much removed for the film. Poor Vin Diesel. I bet he loved the original script.)
So May was not a big reading month, I was pretty sick, but I did finish Kimono: Fashioning Culture by Liza Dalby which I got on a whim and then was able to read nearly half of during a day of travel. It was fascinating, and I feel slightly more informed now when I watch Japanese cinema, or see modern women wearing Kimono. Actually, I'll fess up and say that I went out of my way to re-watch Memoirs of a Geisha just so I could look at all the kimono.
June, ah June. June has been the month of escapist reading. Binging on one-night-reads is something we all do sometimes, but that doesn't make me proud. In the middle of that I finished What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Darwin Knew: From fox-hunting to Whist - the facts of Daily life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool which I had been very eagerly awaiting. I was anticipating a detailed and exhaustive book, but actually this book ought to be subtitled "In Which Things that are Almost Obvious from The Context of the Novel are explained in length oftentimes using Quotations from Self-same Novels. Perhaps you ought to read more proper history books?"
Ah well. More than half of this puny book is pointless. I'm trying to think of a redeeming feature .... um .... it has some nice etchings.
I love to keep lists of books, I wish I'd given-in to the urge a long time ago instead of feeling furtive and dirty for wanting to do so. In a lot of ways it is a more interesting way of tracking the tides and flavours of my life than the dates of trips or the odd event. Movies and Knitting have both taken up a lot of time that I would otherwise have spent reading. But that's ok - ther'e more to come in the great Western Genre exploration, and Riley very nearly has his own bespoke cardigan.
Someone (irritating) at work today said,
"...but i've seen you be cheerful and friendly before"
and before I could remember the cover story I replied
"It was a LIE."
So, it's out in the open. On the other hand, once one has cultivated even a minor reputation for eccentricity, nothing after that needs to make too much sense to be shrugged off as "just another thing." So you can tell the radical truth and it becomes outrageous entertainment.
"What do you think of so-and-so?"
"I love him and obsess over him in the long nights of my solitude."
Cue uproarious laughter.
It couldn't be any better if I actually wore a Jester's outfit.
But I digress.
For anyone who hasn't noticed it is pretty much the middle of the year. I considered some kind of sincere post, but I'm not up to it. The only goal-related thing I would say is that I am happy with my reading list so far this year, which has held up rather well despite being flooded this month by a series of works by Stephenie Meyer. The tally stands at 28 books in total and of these, 13 are non-fiction! Nearly exactly half!! WOOT! (gently mimes punching air so as not to dislodge reading glasses.
Of these, what books can I recommend to you my tasteful and clever audience?
A good question.
From January, Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman. Very thoughtfully re-published by Penguin in their charming $10 range (thank you Penguin and good idea going back to classic jacket designs!). Get into some Physics - it is already in you!!
February yielded some good quality reading in the form of The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton (another Penguin $10 winner). A novel about Tesla called The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt and a collection of Essays gifted to me by Mez called How to be Alone by Jonathan Franzen. I felt pretty clever by association after those highlights.
March needed a new flavour, so I read the new SF by Richard Morgan - The Black Man and I really liked it but I recommend it to SF readers with some qualifications (depending on your taste). The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman was lovely and had a little unsaid, which I like. The real standout this month was finishing The Invisibles by Grant Morrison which was a loaner from MsJaye and one of those books that infects and gives one a fever. I got through the fever, and now I can't wait to find out what I'm inoculated against or prepared for. Turns out I love anarchistic-chaos-magic. I want to do it again! (BTW for snobs - be warned - that one's a comic.)
April was quiet, I read some non-fic that was a bit dull and I re-read a favourite novel and then read a French SF novel called Babylon Babies (by Mauice Dantec, but I don't remember the translator. It wasn't Nicole Kidman so don't sweat it). I'd read some mixed reviews and of course the film (Babylon AD)was hopeless but actually i thought that the book was good. Not quite as fully anarchist chaos magical as The Invisibles, but possibly a good enough chaser. Lots of good themes and a clever central character and plenty of wild tech. I would like to read more SF from NESB (non english speaking background) as the flavours and textures are less predictable (all of which was pretty much removed for the film. Poor Vin Diesel. I bet he loved the original script.)
So May was not a big reading month, I was pretty sick, but I did finish Kimono: Fashioning Culture by Liza Dalby which I got on a whim and then was able to read nearly half of during a day of travel. It was fascinating, and I feel slightly more informed now when I watch Japanese cinema, or see modern women wearing Kimono. Actually, I'll fess up and say that I went out of my way to re-watch Memoirs of a Geisha just so I could look at all the kimono.
June, ah June. June has been the month of escapist reading. Binging on one-night-reads is something we all do sometimes, but that doesn't make me proud. In the middle of that I finished What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Darwin Knew: From fox-hunting to Whist - the facts of Daily life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool which I had been very eagerly awaiting. I was anticipating a detailed and exhaustive book, but actually this book ought to be subtitled "In Which Things that are Almost Obvious from The Context of the Novel are explained in length oftentimes using Quotations from Self-same Novels. Perhaps you ought to read more proper history books?"
Ah well. More than half of this puny book is pointless. I'm trying to think of a redeeming feature .... um .... it has some nice etchings.
I love to keep lists of books, I wish I'd given-in to the urge a long time ago instead of feeling furtive and dirty for wanting to do so. In a lot of ways it is a more interesting way of tracking the tides and flavours of my life than the dates of trips or the odd event. Movies and Knitting have both taken up a lot of time that I would otherwise have spent reading. But that's ok - ther'e more to come in the great Western Genre exploration, and Riley very nearly has his own bespoke cardigan.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Solstice and Spaceship Earth
It is winter solstice again; the long night.
I went to my little sister's place for dinner and to play cards and it was good to see them and catch up on their news. Time is moving faster for them now that she's going to have a baby. There's a very finite and concrete sense of 'time left before the baby comes' and 'everything after'. I can see what shape it is giving to weekends and plans and of course their relationship. All the natural winter urges are heightened for them.
I was thinking earlier today - what is the most beautiful thing that you can think of? Or perhaps it is a place or a person or a sound... feel the joy and the beauty it brings you. How precious and wonderful that is.
Now unless you naturally think of the Eagle Nebula, the Sun's corona or the rings of Saturn, chances are very very good that what you thought of - even your top ten - are all here on earth. Everything is here. So why is it that being a 'greenie' or someone concerned about the well being and survival of the planet is still considered such a social crime? I just don't understand how anyone can be so obstinately ignorant of the peril we're in. It isn't even that "if we break this one we don't have a spare" because we know this one is already broken and the question on every body's heart and mind should really be more like "how much can we mend it if we all pitch in?"
All those extinct species won't come back, but maybe we won't all have to genetically merge with salamanders to survive.
I went to my little sister's place for dinner and to play cards and it was good to see them and catch up on their news. Time is moving faster for them now that she's going to have a baby. There's a very finite and concrete sense of 'time left before the baby comes' and 'everything after'. I can see what shape it is giving to weekends and plans and of course their relationship. All the natural winter urges are heightened for them.
I was thinking earlier today - what is the most beautiful thing that you can think of? Or perhaps it is a place or a person or a sound... feel the joy and the beauty it brings you. How precious and wonderful that is.
Now unless you naturally think of the Eagle Nebula, the Sun's corona or the rings of Saturn, chances are very very good that what you thought of - even your top ten - are all here on earth. Everything is here. So why is it that being a 'greenie' or someone concerned about the well being and survival of the planet is still considered such a social crime? I just don't understand how anyone can be so obstinately ignorant of the peril we're in. It isn't even that "if we break this one we don't have a spare" because we know this one is already broken and the question on every body's heart and mind should really be more like "how much can we mend it if we all pitch in?"
All those extinct species won't come back, but maybe we won't all have to genetically merge with salamanders to survive.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
At Home
I staked up the rogue tomato plants this morning and discovered that they're not just flowering but have set fruit, in June! That was a cute surprise adding to the fact they they're growing over the top of the sweet potatoes. I've got one square meter of garden where every thing's happening. The cauliflowers I tried are all dead and gone. Apart from that one very cold morning last week (about -30 I think it was here, which I thought would kill off the tommies) it is a mild winter so far.
I'm back in touch with the yard because this month I've borrowed a half-remembered part of an English tradition and have decided I am "at home" for my weekends this month. Which means to me that I am by default at home or that I won't be going anywhere simply because of obligation, habit or to fill in time. I've reclaimed the sleep-in! (and the afternoon nap!)
Two weekends in and I'm caught up with myself a little. I have realised how many projects of every kind I've started over the last year or so but left scattered around the house. I'm a full set behind in my subscriptions reading, but that now is back to feeling like a treat in store rather than a task to be completed. I went to two stores today and found it easy to zip in and grab the items on the list and nip back out with just the things I needed and not another armful of stuff. I got some drill bits to put holes in my button blanks and some elastic and batting to make a night-cap (my head is cold when I go to bed. How Dickensian I shall look!).
Yesterday I finished a book (Thursday's Child by Sonya Hartnett. The play is coming to the client's venue in August and as I'll be promoting it heavily, thought is would be good to have a clue what I'm talking about as the material the touring company sent us is heavy on how awesome they are and very light on plot/character details. As usual. It's great too, so I can happily throw my shoulder to the harness for this one.) and then read Twilight (by Stephanie Meyer). I'm possibly in the last 20% of the human population to read this, so I won't say much about it. I think it's more a thriller style than a romance, and that's about as much as I'll venture for now, and yes I'll read the next one.
So with some sleep back behind my eyes and clean sheets on the bed my sense of goodwill-toward-human-kind-O-meter has drifted back into the realm of the positive and I can bid my fellows a good morrow with nary a sneer nor a sardonic riposte in my mind. Hoo-Ray!
Also, Kerryn gifted me owl patterned flannelet jammies! All is right in the world!
I'm back in touch with the yard because this month I've borrowed a half-remembered part of an English tradition and have decided I am "at home" for my weekends this month. Which means to me that I am by default at home or that I won't be going anywhere simply because of obligation, habit or to fill in time. I've reclaimed the sleep-in! (and the afternoon nap!)
Two weekends in and I'm caught up with myself a little. I have realised how many projects of every kind I've started over the last year or so but left scattered around the house. I'm a full set behind in my subscriptions reading, but that now is back to feeling like a treat in store rather than a task to be completed. I went to two stores today and found it easy to zip in and grab the items on the list and nip back out with just the things I needed and not another armful of stuff. I got some drill bits to put holes in my button blanks and some elastic and batting to make a night-cap (my head is cold when I go to bed. How Dickensian I shall look!).
Yesterday I finished a book (Thursday's Child by Sonya Hartnett. The play is coming to the client's venue in August and as I'll be promoting it heavily, thought is would be good to have a clue what I'm talking about as the material the touring company sent us is heavy on how awesome they are and very light on plot/character details. As usual. It's great too, so I can happily throw my shoulder to the harness for this one.) and then read Twilight (by Stephanie Meyer). I'm possibly in the last 20% of the human population to read this, so I won't say much about it. I think it's more a thriller style than a romance, and that's about as much as I'll venture for now, and yes I'll read the next one.
So with some sleep back behind my eyes and clean sheets on the bed my sense of goodwill-toward-human-kind-O-meter has drifted back into the realm of the positive and I can bid my fellows a good morrow with nary a sneer nor a sardonic riposte in my mind. Hoo-Ray!
Also, Kerryn gifted me owl patterned flannelet jammies! All is right in the world!
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Winter Refrain
Overheard in the mall on my way to work (and you'll have to imagine the nasal bogan whine that this is said in):
"Gee it's cold. I can't believe how cold it is!"
So I surreptitiously glance behind me in order to appraise this captain of the obvious and spot a cluster of idiots who are in thongs, shorts and T-shirts and one of them, in concession to the change in seasons, has thrown on a cotton hoodie. They are all hunched over and attempting to gain warmth from lit cigarettes.
It was minus 3oC overnight. Winter, albeit a late (and probably brief one) has arrived. I do not understand the stubborn reticence of locals against putting on warm clothes. This cold weather happens every year. Surely it is not beyond any one's means to have one woolen jumper and a pair of socks bundled into the back of a drawer? That's all it takes, and you can get a decent jumper these days for what it costs to buy two packs of smokes. Then by 9 or 10 in the morning it is back up to a sunny and warm 18oC or so, and then people, you can take the jumper off! A simple, but effective, system that has been serving humans for millenia called "clothing". I recommend it.
Also worth mentioning this week is that the World Health Organisation has officially declared Swine Flu (H1N1) to be a pandemic. Congrats Swiney on your new status. I'm sure no readers of this blog need any delineation made between pandemic and epidemic, but you will appreciate the irony in this being the week that on one hand the Sheltered Workshop has made buckets and buckets of hand sanitiser available to curb to possible spread of Swiney, and on the other (perhaps inevitable and very very bureaucratic) hand, decided that far far too many dollars are spent on tissues and so has cut off their supply. No worries, sneeze into your hand - there's plenty of hand sanitiser!
*shakes head*
"Gee it's cold. I can't believe how cold it is!"
So I surreptitiously glance behind me in order to appraise this captain of the obvious and spot a cluster of idiots who are in thongs, shorts and T-shirts and one of them, in concession to the change in seasons, has thrown on a cotton hoodie. They are all hunched over and attempting to gain warmth from lit cigarettes.
It was minus 3oC overnight. Winter, albeit a late (and probably brief one) has arrived. I do not understand the stubborn reticence of locals against putting on warm clothes. This cold weather happens every year. Surely it is not beyond any one's means to have one woolen jumper and a pair of socks bundled into the back of a drawer? That's all it takes, and you can get a decent jumper these days for what it costs to buy two packs of smokes. Then by 9 or 10 in the morning it is back up to a sunny and warm 18oC or so, and then people, you can take the jumper off! A simple, but effective, system that has been serving humans for millenia called "clothing". I recommend it.
Also worth mentioning this week is that the World Health Organisation has officially declared Swine Flu (H1N1) to be a pandemic. Congrats Swiney on your new status. I'm sure no readers of this blog need any delineation made between pandemic and epidemic, but you will appreciate the irony in this being the week that on one hand the Sheltered Workshop has made buckets and buckets of hand sanitiser available to curb to possible spread of Swiney, and on the other (perhaps inevitable and very very bureaucratic) hand, decided that far far too many dollars are spent on tissues and so has cut off their supply. No worries, sneeze into your hand - there's plenty of hand sanitiser!
*shakes head*
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Terminator: Salvation
(Spoiler Alert! Yes, again. Don't read this if you're seriously looking forward to the latest Terminator film. But really - who is?).
I swear to you, this blog is not going to devolve solely into me bagging the shit out of popular culture. I aim to bag the shit out of high-brow stuff occasionally as well.
Over the long weekend I went along to see Terminator: Salvation at my local cinema. There were many members of the public in attendance which I do not like. It is not (just) that I am anti-social, they are simply not fit to be in the public arena. Case in point: the 'gentleman' seated next to me wore thongs presumably so that when the urge came over him, he could pick his toes during the film without the irritation of having to remove any shoes. Charming.
But I digress.
Firstly, this film is badly misnamed (why do they think that dropping the numbers helps? Oh, that's right, because we're now scraping the prequel barrel and it confuses people to have non-linear sequences. An argument, perhaps, for using the Dewy system for films. But that's a subject for discussion at another time). Anyway. "Salvation" is a misnomer. This film should rightly have been subtitled "Survival" or even something like "have you ever seen a more gritty dystopian future prequel than this?! Holy Shit we're really all going to DIE!!! RUN - RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" but as a marketing person I wouldn't really recommend that - it's hard to make puns with for the actor profiles during promos.
I guess "Survival" was taken, but it is a shame, they should have saved Salvation for when they win the freakin war I would have thought. Not for a film where the resistance takes massive casualties, loses their entire command structure and basically get their arses kicked at every single point.
That leads me to my second point. I don't know a lot about war. Actually, I know very little about war on any level. I've made effort to avoid it personally. From what I have seen and heard it is a deeply unpleasant experience, and something not to be undertaken lightly. Which is why I would have suggested that someone in the Resistance who does know about war ought to read a little book by an old guy call Sun. In this book, which is kind of like a "War for Dummies1" he suggests that you should know everything you can about your enemy. In this film, that could be as simple as remembering that the machines you're fighting are very very smart. Maybe not the ones directly in front of you, but the ones that built them are. I reckon that odds are good that machines that have made themselves self-aware are going to be pretty bright. Hence, one ought to think things through as if you're playing a game of Chess or Go in which your opponent has a higher rank than you. That is to say, they're likely to set traps for you. I would, if I was clever.
Not being clever brings me to my third, and final point. American action films have made a fruitful industry out of not worrying too much about clever if you can be very strong. This almost completely defines the action genre. It is about guys (usually) chasing each other, thumping each other and blowing shit up. This is where T:S comes home and delivers. It's got all the things you look for in an action flick: big guns (tick), attack helicopters (tick), funky secret commando hand signal stuff (tick), blowing shit up (tick, tick, tick), and best of all, big tough guys taking an absolute flogging (sadly I don't mean an actual flogging on a rack. I think the only SF film to deliver that particular delicacy must be Starship Troopers. If you know of any others please, please tell me). In this instance I mean fisty-cuffs to the snoz stuff.
This is what kept me going. I really liked seeing Sam Worthington2 get killed, take a nude mud bath, be beaten, shot at, beaten again, killed again, resurrected, beaten again, and then suicide. Not only is that a thrashing and a half, but it is also one heck of a character arc! And, he just eats it up. I want the next film to be about Marcus Wright stirring things up in the afterlife. OOOHHH - Marcus Wright Vs The Mummy!! I would so totally go and see that. The human equivalent of the bear vs shark question. Brilliant.
But I digress. Again.
On the way home I thought of a great drinking game for this film. It goes like this - first of all you need to get all resistance (shame they skipped the Steampunk possibilities - but one can't have everything) and build (or borrow if you're not well suited to experimental conditions) an alcohol distillation set up ("a still")and make some moonshine (Please remember to cut the juice you get!) then you and your mates all take a swig and settle down to watch this film. Once it starts, every time Marcus Wright does something brutal or has something brutal done to him you have another shot. I leave it up to you to decide if kissing Helena should count. In this way, if you are by some miracle still conscious by the end of the film, you really don't really care that most of the film made no sense and that John Connor is a total arse.
Everybody Wins!3
1. There is both a "Vietnam War for Dummies" and a "War on Terrorism for Dummies" actually published. I thought I was being funny, but it turns out satire is too easily just being inaccurate.
2. Who, BTW, was awesome as Macbeth. Man, I love that version. Even better than Polanski's. Really.
3. Except the humans. And Sam Worthington.
I swear to you, this blog is not going to devolve solely into me bagging the shit out of popular culture. I aim to bag the shit out of high-brow stuff occasionally as well.
Over the long weekend I went along to see Terminator: Salvation at my local cinema. There were many members of the public in attendance which I do not like. It is not (just) that I am anti-social, they are simply not fit to be in the public arena. Case in point: the 'gentleman' seated next to me wore thongs presumably so that when the urge came over him, he could pick his toes during the film without the irritation of having to remove any shoes. Charming.
But I digress.
Firstly, this film is badly misnamed (why do they think that dropping the numbers helps? Oh, that's right, because we're now scraping the prequel barrel and it confuses people to have non-linear sequences. An argument, perhaps, for using the Dewy system for films. But that's a subject for discussion at another time). Anyway. "Salvation" is a misnomer. This film should rightly have been subtitled "Survival" or even something like "have you ever seen a more gritty dystopian future prequel than this?! Holy Shit we're really all going to DIE!!! RUN - RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" but as a marketing person I wouldn't really recommend that - it's hard to make puns with for the actor profiles during promos.
I guess "Survival" was taken, but it is a shame, they should have saved Salvation for when they win the freakin war I would have thought. Not for a film where the resistance takes massive casualties, loses their entire command structure and basically get their arses kicked at every single point.
That leads me to my second point. I don't know a lot about war. Actually, I know very little about war on any level. I've made effort to avoid it personally. From what I have seen and heard it is a deeply unpleasant experience, and something not to be undertaken lightly. Which is why I would have suggested that someone in the Resistance who does know about war ought to read a little book by an old guy call Sun. In this book, which is kind of like a "War for Dummies1" he suggests that you should know everything you can about your enemy. In this film, that could be as simple as remembering that the machines you're fighting are very very smart. Maybe not the ones directly in front of you, but the ones that built them are. I reckon that odds are good that machines that have made themselves self-aware are going to be pretty bright. Hence, one ought to think things through as if you're playing a game of Chess or Go in which your opponent has a higher rank than you. That is to say, they're likely to set traps for you. I would, if I was clever.
Not being clever brings me to my third, and final point. American action films have made a fruitful industry out of not worrying too much about clever if you can be very strong. This almost completely defines the action genre. It is about guys (usually) chasing each other, thumping each other and blowing shit up. This is where T:S comes home and delivers. It's got all the things you look for in an action flick: big guns (tick), attack helicopters (tick), funky secret commando hand signal stuff (tick), blowing shit up (tick, tick, tick), and best of all, big tough guys taking an absolute flogging (sadly I don't mean an actual flogging on a rack. I think the only SF film to deliver that particular delicacy must be Starship Troopers. If you know of any others please, please tell me). In this instance I mean fisty-cuffs to the snoz stuff.
This is what kept me going. I really liked seeing Sam Worthington2 get killed, take a nude mud bath, be beaten, shot at, beaten again, killed again, resurrected, beaten again, and then suicide. Not only is that a thrashing and a half, but it is also one heck of a character arc! And, he just eats it up. I want the next film to be about Marcus Wright stirring things up in the afterlife. OOOHHH - Marcus Wright Vs The Mummy!! I would so totally go and see that. The human equivalent of the bear vs shark question. Brilliant.
But I digress. Again.
On the way home I thought of a great drinking game for this film. It goes like this - first of all you need to get all resistance (shame they skipped the Steampunk possibilities - but one can't have everything) and build (or borrow if you're not well suited to experimental conditions) an alcohol distillation set up ("a still")and make some moonshine (Please remember to cut the juice you get!) then you and your mates all take a swig and settle down to watch this film. Once it starts, every time Marcus Wright does something brutal or has something brutal done to him you have another shot. I leave it up to you to decide if kissing Helena should count. In this way, if you are by some miracle still conscious by the end of the film, you really don't really care that most of the film made no sense and that John Connor is a total arse.
Everybody Wins!3
1. There is both a "Vietnam War for Dummies" and a "War on Terrorism for Dummies" actually published. I thought I was being funny, but it turns out satire is too easily just being inaccurate.
2. Who, BTW, was awesome as Macbeth. Man, I love that version. Even better than Polanski's. Really.
3. Except the humans. And Sam Worthington.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
BSG_S4: WTF?!
(SPOILER ALERT - If you're a Battlestar Galactica Fan and haven't watched all of Season 4, don't read this. Really.)
I can't be the only person who has seen the final episodes of season 4 of BSG and checked under the couch for the missing plot. There's at least two episodes that should exist that seem to have gotten lost as far as I can tell. I went to the pilot of Caprica to see if they're there, but no - just more problems there (if the centurions are created by the combination of a grief-crazed father, a dodgy military contract and a punk genius happy-clapper accidentally dead daughter then how did the Cylons we know as the Final 5 know to spend those thousands of years travelling at sub-light speeds to travel to the 12 colonies and warn of the uprising she would create? See my dilemma? But I digress).
Ok. At least they didn't just fly into the sun (apart from Anders, sorry Anders, someone had to do it, and now that you're a weird-arse brain-in-a-bucket its gunna be you. There's no datastream for you to be zen with on New Earth). I liked the Kara Thrace music psychosis and culmination, I thought that tied a lot of incidental things together very very well. On the other hand, it is always hard to end a long and arduous journey, narratively speaking. We don't like settling for "they rode happily off into the sunset" which is how the wagon-train genre used to settle it. This is one of the difficulties of taking the Western genre into space. It all tracks well until you get to the sunset. Having said that, Serenity had a great sunset ending. Ends got tied, some emotional closure, an uncertain future. All good. So why the frack is the BSG ending so shite?
Firstly, because I think it tries to be cute about tying the story into our Earth (as opposed to Ancient Earth) and that feels kinda patronising. We're SF fans, you don't need to start putting big red YouAreHere arrows around the place (especially at the end. Idiots).
Secondly, because the 7 might have been denied resurrection technology, but the centurions had no mortality issues whatsoever. They're machines who can make more machines, and what happens at the end of the series? The machines who rebelled against the humans and launched the largest genocide program ever then got turned into the followers of the Seven Cylons, fought the big war for 4 years, participated in the civil war, and then... what?! Watched the last of the human-siding cylons ride off into the sunset with the humans leaving them in space with the sad-fuck Cavills and all those other numbers we don't really care about? And what? They made a cup of tea and took up tapestry? I'm not buying it, and I don't think you are either.
Thirdly, the idea that a space going population is going to walk away from their ships carrying *nothing* (look again at those lines of people, they aren't even wearing hats for frack's sake) and survive more than a week against mega-fauna? C'mon. Even I can't suspend that much disbelief.
Fourthly, we spend four years with this community, with the rousing "so say we all!" speeches of the Admiral, and then he goes and build a cairn on a clifftop to die alone with? No. I'm not saying that it might not really happen that way. People might well say "No i'm happy to give up all (ALL) of the comforts, medicines and technologies (including roofs) I've lived my whole life with and go off to compete with Cro Magnons to survive, and if we're all lucky our kids will interbreed with them and the centurions will forget that they hate our guts and that we've given up guns and we'll have a lovely time. But I simply do not believe that they would do that without at least one more speech on the ground from the old man, and a state funeral for you-know-who. (Point was possibly going to be about the raiders and other ships that landed them and the fossil record, but on reflection I think that the psychology is more important).
I'm weighing up how much of my annoyance is purely because the story has finished. I had a childish wish that it just wouldn't end and that these poor people, many of whom I have come to love, respect, and desire would remain trapped in a state of war, or fugitive guerrilla struggles for survival with their numbers slowly decreasing faster than they could ever grow, all just for my entertainment. I can't wish that on anybody. No, it had to end. In endings though, I am more selfish than I like. It doesn't have to be happy, and I'm not such a nihilist that I won't let it be happy. It is just that this ending seems like a nothing ending, and the epilogue feels like I've been watching a "Fall of the Roman Empire" lecture. Just not good enough from the crew who've taught us to expect more.
Grade: FF Fracking Fail - RESUBMIT.
I can't be the only person who has seen the final episodes of season 4 of BSG and checked under the couch for the missing plot. There's at least two episodes that should exist that seem to have gotten lost as far as I can tell. I went to the pilot of Caprica to see if they're there, but no - just more problems there (if the centurions are created by the combination of a grief-crazed father, a dodgy military contract and a punk genius happy-clapper accidentally dead daughter then how did the Cylons we know as the Final 5 know to spend those thousands of years travelling at sub-light speeds to travel to the 12 colonies and warn of the uprising she would create? See my dilemma? But I digress).
Ok. At least they didn't just fly into the sun (apart from Anders, sorry Anders, someone had to do it, and now that you're a weird-arse brain-in-a-bucket its gunna be you. There's no datastream for you to be zen with on New Earth). I liked the Kara Thrace music psychosis and culmination, I thought that tied a lot of incidental things together very very well. On the other hand, it is always hard to end a long and arduous journey, narratively speaking. We don't like settling for "they rode happily off into the sunset" which is how the wagon-train genre used to settle it. This is one of the difficulties of taking the Western genre into space. It all tracks well until you get to the sunset. Having said that, Serenity had a great sunset ending. Ends got tied, some emotional closure, an uncertain future. All good. So why the frack is the BSG ending so shite?
Firstly, because I think it tries to be cute about tying the story into our Earth (as opposed to Ancient Earth) and that feels kinda patronising. We're SF fans, you don't need to start putting big red YouAreHere arrows around the place (especially at the end. Idiots).
Secondly, because the 7 might have been denied resurrection technology, but the centurions had no mortality issues whatsoever. They're machines who can make more machines, and what happens at the end of the series? The machines who rebelled against the humans and launched the largest genocide program ever then got turned into the followers of the Seven Cylons, fought the big war for 4 years, participated in the civil war, and then... what?! Watched the last of the human-siding cylons ride off into the sunset with the humans leaving them in space with the sad-fuck Cavills and all those other numbers we don't really care about? And what? They made a cup of tea and took up tapestry? I'm not buying it, and I don't think you are either.
Thirdly, the idea that a space going population is going to walk away from their ships carrying *nothing* (look again at those lines of people, they aren't even wearing hats for frack's sake) and survive more than a week against mega-fauna? C'mon. Even I can't suspend that much disbelief.
Fourthly, we spend four years with this community, with the rousing "so say we all!" speeches of the Admiral, and then he goes and build a cairn on a clifftop to die alone with? No. I'm not saying that it might not really happen that way. People might well say "No i'm happy to give up all (ALL) of the comforts, medicines and technologies (including roofs) I've lived my whole life with and go off to compete with Cro Magnons to survive, and if we're all lucky our kids will interbreed with them and the centurions will forget that they hate our guts and that we've given up guns and we'll have a lovely time. But I simply do not believe that they would do that without at least one more speech on the ground from the old man, and a state funeral for you-know-who. (Point was possibly going to be about the raiders and other ships that landed them and the fossil record, but on reflection I think that the psychology is more important).
I'm weighing up how much of my annoyance is purely because the story has finished. I had a childish wish that it just wouldn't end and that these poor people, many of whom I have come to love, respect, and desire would remain trapped in a state of war, or fugitive guerrilla struggles for survival with their numbers slowly decreasing faster than they could ever grow, all just for my entertainment. I can't wish that on anybody. No, it had to end. In endings though, I am more selfish than I like. It doesn't have to be happy, and I'm not such a nihilist that I won't let it be happy. It is just that this ending seems like a nothing ending, and the epilogue feels like I've been watching a "Fall of the Roman Empire" lecture. Just not good enough from the crew who've taught us to expect more.
Grade: FF Fracking Fail - RESUBMIT.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Westward Ho!
I never met a Western I didn’t like until I watched this film. Occasionally films have poor production values, or stilted acting, or a plot that just is too implausible, but not usually all at once.
Released in 1935 (originally in B&W) starring a young John Wayne as John Wyatt, this is the story of two brothers and their paths in life after the brutal murder of their parents on the trail (and the theft of all their cattle). The elder brother (Wayne) is left for dead while the youngest is taken as a protégé of the bad guys. As soon as he can swagger and wear a gun, John Wyatt commences his personal vendetta of tracking down and killing the men who murdered his family. The film is dedicated to a group called “The Vigilantes” active in the 1860s, and that’s exactly what happens, Wyatt can’t get funding for an actual police force so he assembles a posse of likewise wronged, angry and gun-wielding men to bring ‘justice’ to the area.
I wanted to start at the beginning of the genre, and here it is. The “good guys” (ie Wyatt’s Vigilantes) all ride white horses (I kid you not!) and most of them sing (yes, this verges on being a musical). The bad guys all have poor personal hygiene and frankly are not that bright. With the focus on vigilante justice and a moral code that makes it ok to shoot some men but not others, I found myself seeing parallels to the Batman origins stories. Batman doesn’t kill, that’s his personal line over which he will not knowingly cross, in Westerns it seems that the willingness to make that decision to shoot to kill and move on with life is what constitutes a man and it is just whether you use your power for good (killing bad men, men in your way, or anyone who cheats at cards) or for stealing cattle.
When watching older films it is useful if one has some personal sense of the period from which they spawn. This is not really a film about the 1860s so much as it is about the 1930s idea of the 1860s and possibly also about something that was topical in the 30s that the director thought might be discussed well by analogy through this story. I have enough understanding of most periods of the 1800s in Europe and North America to be comfortable getting half-way towards the mindset the filmmakers were aiming for. This film made me realise how alienated I am from the 1930s. I don’t really know what was going on, and I certainly don’t understand what was being said in this film implicitly.
The best things for me in this film is that many of the horses are part-Arabs and so are very easy on the eyes, and that it is only 60 minutes long. I had borrowed my Brother-in-Law’s 2 volume set of John Wayne Westerns to watch this film, I skipped the other 11 hours of films. Westward Ho! is sometimes listed in the top Westerns of all time. It might be a great film in the history of the genre, but it didn’t tickle my fancy.
Released in 1935 (originally in B&W) starring a young John Wayne as John Wyatt, this is the story of two brothers and their paths in life after the brutal murder of their parents on the trail (and the theft of all their cattle). The elder brother (Wayne) is left for dead while the youngest is taken as a protégé of the bad guys. As soon as he can swagger and wear a gun, John Wyatt commences his personal vendetta of tracking down and killing the men who murdered his family. The film is dedicated to a group called “The Vigilantes” active in the 1860s, and that’s exactly what happens, Wyatt can’t get funding for an actual police force so he assembles a posse of likewise wronged, angry and gun-wielding men to bring ‘justice’ to the area.
I wanted to start at the beginning of the genre, and here it is. The “good guys” (ie Wyatt’s Vigilantes) all ride white horses (I kid you not!) and most of them sing (yes, this verges on being a musical). The bad guys all have poor personal hygiene and frankly are not that bright. With the focus on vigilante justice and a moral code that makes it ok to shoot some men but not others, I found myself seeing parallels to the Batman origins stories. Batman doesn’t kill, that’s his personal line over which he will not knowingly cross, in Westerns it seems that the willingness to make that decision to shoot to kill and move on with life is what constitutes a man and it is just whether you use your power for good (killing bad men, men in your way, or anyone who cheats at cards) or for stealing cattle.
When watching older films it is useful if one has some personal sense of the period from which they spawn. This is not really a film about the 1860s so much as it is about the 1930s idea of the 1860s and possibly also about something that was topical in the 30s that the director thought might be discussed well by analogy through this story. I have enough understanding of most periods of the 1800s in Europe and North America to be comfortable getting half-way towards the mindset the filmmakers were aiming for. This film made me realise how alienated I am from the 1930s. I don’t really know what was going on, and I certainly don’t understand what was being said in this film implicitly.
The best things for me in this film is that many of the horses are part-Arabs and so are very easy on the eyes, and that it is only 60 minutes long. I had borrowed my Brother-in-Law’s 2 volume set of John Wayne Westerns to watch this film, I skipped the other 11 hours of films. Westward Ho! is sometimes listed in the top Westerns of all time. It might be a great film in the history of the genre, but it didn’t tickle my fancy.
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Western
I was lucky enough to be able to indulge recently in a little bit of fairly nerdy, high-def movie marathoning. We watched Serenity for entrees, Blade Runner (Director's cut) for mains, and finished (and I mention here that it is not a decision lightly made finding the right film to follow Blade Runner!) with an encore screening of Tombstone. A most excellent night, and as it was an exclusive viewing club, there was no guilt and much pleasure in talking over boring scenes, rewinding and freeze-framing, reciting dialogue along with the actors, in short all of the things that make re-watching great films fun.
Obviously at some point the subject of The Western as a genre came up. It is kinda easy to see how Firefly (and so Serenity) qualify (plenty of ponies, sidearms and law of the fastest draw), and Tombstone which apart from the Latin-off is nearly a textbook Western ... or is it? In discussion about what great Western films should be watched (we like a list, oh yes, we like a list) Unforgiven came up. And it is an utterly brilliant film in itself, "But" I said in the slightly preachy and pretty annoying way that I have "you simply can not start with it. You have to know about westerns, at least have a feel for them, to really get why Unforgiven is so good." Rather than calling me a wanker, or pish-poshing my elitist stance, my co-nerd simply enquired "What then, do you suggest I watch first?" thus further endearing her to me.
I took a moment to think about it.
I took a deep breath, marshaled my feeble mental resources and began.
I took another moment.
As I thought about it, I realised there was quite a complex history and lineage to a film like Unforgiven (or indeed Firefly on a different branch) and although I'm a fan of the genre as I critically appraised my knowledge in order to provide a reasonable, purposeful and appropriate guide to suitable viewing for a keen neophyte I realised (not for the first time) that I was in over my head.
"I'll have a think about it, and I'll make you a list." Best I could do at the time.
That was over two weeks ago, and I've been thinking it over. I started a list, and it seemed inadequate. Then I started a second of films I've seen but forgotten, then a third of films I'd been recommended, but never got to, and then a fourth of westerns set in space. The myriad shifts and mutations in the genre, the massive and now difficult to grasp homogeneity and popularity of it in its heyday all these things somehow need to be encapsulated and yet there are a huge huge number of westerns, and really I have only seen a very tiny part of their whole. Also, to add a little more piquancy some films set "in the west" are not a Western, likewise a story can be on a moonbase and still be quintessentially a Western (so I think) so why is that? What is at the heart of this genre? What really defines it? Is it independence? Masculinity? Justice?
So I have not made the list, and in another fresh move for me, I am not turning to my reference books (much as I am tempted) but shall instead embark upon a course of viewings. I shall ramble my way through 70 years of Western films in all their guises with no deadline, no schedule, no roster, no real purpose other than for the journey itself and to share the glory and the pleasures of the trip with you, my beloved travelling companions.
Suggestions and recommendations are warmly welcomed. Reviews and notes or mentions of films may or may not appear here in the future after this next week - nothing much is certain in life. In the great tradition of the high-country cowgirls "we will be together on the ride until we aint" (BTW I made that up, that tradition and that little aphorism, but I promise, I'll take the reviews a lot more seriously. Actually, I had my fingers crossed then too. You're on your own. You'll need to cross-reference anything you find here that you want to quote, or believe, or otherwise propogate).
I've decided to start in the 40s and have borrowed 2 volumes (!) of the "John Wayne Collection" from my brother-in-law. I shall view selectively from this vast array lest I sicken and fall early into the undertaking.
Until next we meet, Ye-Har!
Obviously at some point the subject of The Western as a genre came up. It is kinda easy to see how Firefly (and so Serenity) qualify (plenty of ponies, sidearms and law of the fastest draw), and Tombstone which apart from the Latin-off is nearly a textbook Western ... or is it? In discussion about what great Western films should be watched (we like a list, oh yes, we like a list) Unforgiven came up. And it is an utterly brilliant film in itself, "But" I said in the slightly preachy and pretty annoying way that I have "you simply can not start with it. You have to know about westerns, at least have a feel for them, to really get why Unforgiven is so good." Rather than calling me a wanker, or pish-poshing my elitist stance, my co-nerd simply enquired "What then, do you suggest I watch first?" thus further endearing her to me.
I took a moment to think about it.
I took a deep breath, marshaled my feeble mental resources and began.
I took another moment.
As I thought about it, I realised there was quite a complex history and lineage to a film like Unforgiven (or indeed Firefly on a different branch) and although I'm a fan of the genre as I critically appraised my knowledge in order to provide a reasonable, purposeful and appropriate guide to suitable viewing for a keen neophyte I realised (not for the first time) that I was in over my head.
"I'll have a think about it, and I'll make you a list." Best I could do at the time.
That was over two weeks ago, and I've been thinking it over. I started a list, and it seemed inadequate. Then I started a second of films I've seen but forgotten, then a third of films I'd been recommended, but never got to, and then a fourth of westerns set in space. The myriad shifts and mutations in the genre, the massive and now difficult to grasp homogeneity and popularity of it in its heyday all these things somehow need to be encapsulated and yet there are a huge huge number of westerns, and really I have only seen a very tiny part of their whole. Also, to add a little more piquancy some films set "in the west" are not a Western, likewise a story can be on a moonbase and still be quintessentially a Western (so I think) so why is that? What is at the heart of this genre? What really defines it? Is it independence? Masculinity? Justice?
So I have not made the list, and in another fresh move for me, I am not turning to my reference books (much as I am tempted) but shall instead embark upon a course of viewings. I shall ramble my way through 70 years of Western films in all their guises with no deadline, no schedule, no roster, no real purpose other than for the journey itself and to share the glory and the pleasures of the trip with you, my beloved travelling companions.
Suggestions and recommendations are warmly welcomed. Reviews and notes or mentions of films may or may not appear here in the future after this next week - nothing much is certain in life. In the great tradition of the high-country cowgirls "we will be together on the ride until we aint" (BTW I made that up, that tradition and that little aphorism, but I promise, I'll take the reviews a lot more seriously. Actually, I had my fingers crossed then too. You're on your own. You'll need to cross-reference anything you find here that you want to quote, or believe, or otherwise propogate).
I've decided to start in the 40s and have borrowed 2 volumes (!) of the "John Wayne Collection" from my brother-in-law. I shall view selectively from this vast array lest I sicken and fall early into the undertaking.
Until next we meet, Ye-Har!
Friday, May 08, 2009
Push Me, Pull Me
Tonight I had a fresh run-in with the hidden mechanism to social networking - gated communities.
Yes, I know they've been around the whole time. After all, before it was the interwebs it was ARPAnet and if that wasn't the biggest on-line gated community to begin with I'm a chartered accountant. I didn't even have to make that up about ARPAnet. I noes that from reading a book! Thank you Bruce Sterling!! You too can read The Hacker Crackdown if you're old school and don't mind reading things on that scratchy stuff called paper, or, if you prefer, here's the wiki link on it.) (Oh, how droll, i just went to find a link to the book, and actually, it's gone digital. MIT is hosting a copy here. Thank you Bruce Sterling and MIT, you rock.)
But I digress.
I've been getting recommendations for a particular site1 from different persons of varying trust levels (ie knowledgeable strangers in shops and friends), and in the end, I remembered to write it down on something and put it into my weberciser. Well, jolly jumbucks if it isn't by invitation only! It isn't truly closed - I didn't have to get invited by someone I know (like gmail used to be) and I didn't have to provide in 25 words or less why I would like to be included, or justify my inclusion on the grounds of skills and expected contribution. No, I just asked to be invited, and got told that 1500 invitations go out a day, so I'm 3thousand 6hundred something something in the queue, so I'll have to wait about 3 days.
So my point here, and I do have one, is that pull marketing works.
And that humans still like to be a bit exclusive.
Finally, that the idea that the perfect anything/everything is out there somewhere secret and I don't know about it because I am not in the right circles is traumatising - thus identifying me as a vulnerable under-developed idiot ripe for clever marketing (read = "pretty normal").
Can you tell I've been compulsively watching Mad Men2 lately?
Ah, Advertising, my dirty secret.
So I go and look up a bot more about the site and discover it's in Beta (since 2007 - no rush guys!) and has tools based around organising everything for one's hobby. That's what F'book lacks - a hobby connection (apart from tagging in photos). It would be good to cross-sort tools/books across various interests. But now I'm speculating, I still haven't tried to use it.
Something they don't talk up and I will be heartily surprised if it doesn't happen, is targeted advertising inside that room. Once you've asked to enter, you're self-identified as a consumer for linked products and people like me (wearing a work hat for a second) salivate at such a target-rich environment.
We have to make due at work with putting ads in the paper. LEFT.BE-HIND. people, we are being left behind. I cannot tell my eager potential customers about our wonderful range of products - because I have No pull! NO PULL! People are not queued up 3thousand 6hundred something deep to get the latest news about the next tribute show being hosted in Ipswich (it's John Denver in case you're interested, and then Sinatra next month. All happening at the Civic Hall!! peeps). But there has to be an answer to my work problem out there somewhere, somehow...
Which takes me into another tangent. One of the writers for the show (Mad Men) set up a twitter account for the lead character and had the character twittering to fans. Brilliant idea! Other characters got in on the act (hi-larious!) BUT WAIT - the studio that owns the show asked Twitter to shut it down! Oh Dear! You can read about this over here.
So I guess I'm not the only one trying to get more people involved in my product, and engaged in what we offer but then still completely and utterly trying to control how that happens and when. The sheltered workshop has a very strong stance - no interactive stuff! No blogs! No f'books! No relationships. We are push only! PUSH I say! So we push.
We do letter campaigns - no blip in sales. Email campaigns- no blip in sales. Radio - nothing. Yet some shows sell out with barely any work from us. Word of mouth. We have to get the right mouths going. Or book better acts. That the major variable that we don't really like to mention. Paul Kelly played our venue for half the price he played in Brisbane. Any wonder he sold out? Different proposition trying to fill "standing room only" (there's optimism for you) for the Noiseworks re-union tour that no-one was clamouring for.
Life isn't about buying things, it is about being in relationships. That's why we love movies and TV shows - we want to share in those extra relationships. We want to do things and go places with our friends and loved-ones and that's where the pull is, so be pull-able! But being pullable means letting go of the push a bit. We have to loosen up, flow with the breeze, be more like bamboo. Strong yet flexible.
There it is folks. We have to be more like bamboo.
Don Draper would be pleased with that.
There's the concept, work up some art for it.
Have a whiskey everyone.
1. It is www.ravelry.com if you're interested. It's a knitting thing. I really can't tell you anything else until I can have a peek inside.
2. Not just for the eye candy either, although that is a consideration, but for the thoughtful discussion of themes and issues yes, really, I'm watching it for the articles.
Yes, I know they've been around the whole time. After all, before it was the interwebs it was ARPAnet and if that wasn't the biggest on-line gated community to begin with I'm a chartered accountant. I didn't even have to make that up about ARPAnet. I noes that from reading a book! Thank you Bruce Sterling!! You too can read The Hacker Crackdown if you're old school and don't mind reading things on that scratchy stuff called paper, or, if you prefer, here's the wiki link on it.) (Oh, how droll, i just went to find a link to the book, and actually, it's gone digital. MIT is hosting a copy here. Thank you Bruce Sterling and MIT, you rock.)
But I digress.
I've been getting recommendations for a particular site1 from different persons of varying trust levels (ie knowledgeable strangers in shops and friends), and in the end, I remembered to write it down on something and put it into my weberciser. Well, jolly jumbucks if it isn't by invitation only! It isn't truly closed - I didn't have to get invited by someone I know (like gmail used to be) and I didn't have to provide in 25 words or less why I would like to be included, or justify my inclusion on the grounds of skills and expected contribution. No, I just asked to be invited, and got told that 1500 invitations go out a day, so I'm 3thousand 6hundred something something in the queue, so I'll have to wait about 3 days.
So my point here, and I do have one, is that pull marketing works.
And that humans still like to be a bit exclusive.
Finally, that the idea that the perfect anything/everything is out there somewhere secret and I don't know about it because I am not in the right circles is traumatising - thus identifying me as a vulnerable under-developed idiot ripe for clever marketing (read = "pretty normal").
Can you tell I've been compulsively watching Mad Men2 lately?
Ah, Advertising, my dirty secret.
So I go and look up a bot more about the site and discover it's in Beta (since 2007 - no rush guys!) and has tools based around organising everything for one's hobby. That's what F'book lacks - a hobby connection (apart from tagging in photos). It would be good to cross-sort tools/books across various interests. But now I'm speculating, I still haven't tried to use it.
Something they don't talk up and I will be heartily surprised if it doesn't happen, is targeted advertising inside that room. Once you've asked to enter, you're self-identified as a consumer for linked products and people like me (wearing a work hat for a second) salivate at such a target-rich environment.
We have to make due at work with putting ads in the paper. LEFT.BE-HIND. people, we are being left behind. I cannot tell my eager potential customers about our wonderful range of products - because I have No pull! NO PULL! People are not queued up 3thousand 6hundred something deep to get the latest news about the next tribute show being hosted in Ipswich (it's John Denver in case you're interested, and then Sinatra next month. All happening at the Civic Hall!! peeps). But there has to be an answer to my work problem out there somewhere, somehow...
Which takes me into another tangent. One of the writers for the show (Mad Men) set up a twitter account for the lead character and had the character twittering to fans. Brilliant idea! Other characters got in on the act (hi-larious!) BUT WAIT - the studio that owns the show asked Twitter to shut it down! Oh Dear! You can read about this over here.
So I guess I'm not the only one trying to get more people involved in my product, and engaged in what we offer but then still completely and utterly trying to control how that happens and when. The sheltered workshop has a very strong stance - no interactive stuff! No blogs! No f'books! No relationships. We are push only! PUSH I say! So we push.
We do letter campaigns - no blip in sales. Email campaigns- no blip in sales. Radio - nothing. Yet some shows sell out with barely any work from us. Word of mouth. We have to get the right mouths going. Or book better acts. That the major variable that we don't really like to mention. Paul Kelly played our venue for half the price he played in Brisbane. Any wonder he sold out? Different proposition trying to fill "standing room only" (there's optimism for you) for the Noiseworks re-union tour that no-one was clamouring for.
Life isn't about buying things, it is about being in relationships. That's why we love movies and TV shows - we want to share in those extra relationships. We want to do things and go places with our friends and loved-ones and that's where the pull is, so be pull-able! But being pullable means letting go of the push a bit. We have to loosen up, flow with the breeze, be more like bamboo. Strong yet flexible.
There it is folks. We have to be more like bamboo.
Don Draper would be pleased with that.
There's the concept, work up some art for it.
Have a whiskey everyone.
1. It is www.ravelry.com if you're interested. It's a knitting thing. I really can't tell you anything else until I can have a peek inside.
2. Not just for the eye candy either, although that is a consideration, but for the thoughtful discussion of themes and issues yes, really, I'm watching it for the articles.
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