Dance Thursday

After my Swing dance lesson I went to see a contemporary dance performance, My Brother, My Sister, put on by Quantum Leap. It's 'an auditioned, elite youth dance ensemble' but the youth aspect seemed a misnomer as the dancing was of a level comparable with any professional company. Not sure about all of the choreography, which seemed in some parts to be pandering to 'youth concerns' which did not sit well with the rest of the work. Seeing as the dancers were mature in their craft and the audience was just mature there was some disconnect in what we were expected to take from this aspect. The use of video and voice over to try and bang home points about self esteem, social isolation and violence were also completely mistaken, as the dancers were quite capable of conveying any message required. But apart from those small quibbles it was extraordinarily good.
I was by chance in the front row centre, so although I had the disadvantage of not being easily able to take in all the movement, which from a large company was spread across the stage, but I did have the advantage of being very close which was very involving and allowed me to hear the movement on the stage, which I like.

Addendum

So the morning after, a couple of things.

The image of moving parallel lines across the stage is still very vivid.

But the annoyance about the videos prompts me to think. One part of it was a display of statistics supposedly to highlight social injustice. Now statistics like this when used without explanation or understanding always annoy me. I think of the Sickipedia joke 'statistically, 9 out 10 people enjoy gang rape' - which shows how presenting a statistic without knowledge, explanation or understanding is dumb.
One of the ones used here (they were all crap) was the bald statement that 0.13 % of the population has 25% of the worlds wealth.
Which plays on the nonsensical concept that there is finite wealth, with the implication that if there are some rich people and some poor, that the rich have taken from the poor, as though there was only a limited amount of wealth to share. Wealth is not finite someone growing rich is not at the expense of someone else, that’s the basic theory of wealth creation, the supply of wealth is not fixed like that. Those 0.13 have created wealth, i.e. created more goods/services/money, they have not reduced the supply of anything to anyone else. It's pretty simple stuff.
I blame some of this idiocy on Christianity, with the idea planted that if a man has 2 coats, he should give one away. That's fine as far as it goes (2 somewhat happy people) but in the long term the joint wealth of the 2 people is still limited to 2 coats. Wouldn't it be better for the wider population that more coats are produced, isn't it better that a new coat is created for the other person, than to give up one of yours. For when a new coat is created for the other with no coat, now there exist in the world 3 coats, and so overall wealth grows.

But what really annoys after all is that bad choreography (or whoever was responsible for the multimedia elements) has overshadowed the skill and beauty of the dancers, and not for artistic reasons, but just because they wanted to overlay art with some token mis-understood politics. Oh but the music was very good btw.

Forever Changes

This beautiful image is from Ben C's website http://www.forever-changes.com. It is part of a collection of photographs of buildings in decay or in the process of being built or redeveloped. They are all well worth a visit.

And while you're about it, why not check out his band http://www.shammyleather.co.uk

Carter and Space

I came across this passage by Angela Carter which I find very interesting. I had given no consideration really to how we fit into buildings or how they affect us until I was recently pointed to Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space.
Certainly I know that to create large works of art (large in any sense) you need space (both physical and time), but how constrained one was or wasn't physically I did not think would affect how you worked, but now I am convinced it does.

Conversely and personally I thought being in a large expanse as in Australia would allow/prompt me to make larger works, but the opposite has happened, my pictures (and writings) were always on the small side but here they have if anything gotten even smaller.

Communication tools

So many means to communicate, but yet sometimes we don't

Australian top 5

People who don't know Australia well, often (well twice) have said to me, Edgar; please recommend some good Australian songs. Once I have got back on the chair, and the laughter died down (aren't I a bitch), I posit the following top 5, with YouTube links where you probably don't know the song - I am assuming correctly my 'audience' is overseas aren't I.

No. 5 John Paul Young - Love is in the air
No. 4 The Sleepy Jackson - Good dancers
No. 3 Master's apprentices - It's because I love you - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKE2hmgzUgo
No. 2 Russell Morris - The real thing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8d2EB435Q
No. 1 The Boys Next Door (early Nick Cave band, I haven't included his later works most of which were produced outside of Australia as he would take the whole top 5 obviously) - Shivers



And if people say why has Australia produced as much musical talent as Belgium I say watch this level of journalistic discourse which is not in any way exceptional - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2aEfdEhYZQ&

Note: I am not including the BeeGees, nor Olivia Newton John as Australian.

I hate Green Day

Well I waited like 24 hours for my Avril Lavigne t-shirt to arrive, but it didn’t magically appear. So I’m back to my old one!
Am I embarrassed to wear a t-shirt that my daughter has discarded and that I have then scrawled upon, apparently not.
To get this fully I suppose you must understand that this an jokey homage to an original as worn by John Lydon in 1975 – which said - I hate Pink Floyd

Historic Australian Newspapers, 1803 to 1954

Library news Library news Library news Library news Library news Library news Library news

The National Library of Australia is busy digitising newspapers and the first public Beta service is now online at http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
This is a very exciting project, whilst the Beta service only contains 70,000 newspaper pages from 1803 onwards, it will eventually have many millions.

punks not dead

I'm not one of those h8ers who are always criticising people who have some success, but
I don't know about you but I am a little bit disappointed by Avril Lavigne's new range of clothes.
I mean I get what people are saying that they are not very Punk, but Avril is still totally for real, so I'm still going to be ordering the t-shirts and everything, but you know, it does suck a bit. Anyway I hope I look as hot as her when I get mine.

ZarJazz the Magnificent – part two

ZarJazz at the head of his ever growing family moved forward quickly crossing the land to reach the Northern shore of Australia. Elsewhere the insects of the world were also on the move, moving towards the central land mass.

When ZarJazz came to the coast without stopping he moved across the water, his followers stepping and filling the surface of the sea, the waves died and the sea held them up. The fish which would have feasted hid unmoving in the deeps, and the dark mass of life crossed slowly over their domain.

When all the insects assembled from every part of the earth, they stood an undulating tapestry of colours a hundred miles across. And in an instant all the life that had previously teemed so thoroughly amongst the earth, within every building, among every plant, writhing deep within the earth or in the air, were gone. And the earth was quiet.

At first the spinning of the earth went on unchanged, the mammals and birds and the rest of life did not notice the change. Like tinnitus suddenly turned off all was peaceful, but soon the loss of countless billions of lives seeped into them. The remnants of the earth began to realise not that they had gained by the removal of an unwanted annoyance, but that they in fact had been left behind. The insects were not the ostentatious nuisance, the lower life there only to bemuse with its insignificance and unknowable countenance. They were in fact the webbing through which all other life had adapted around, their works unnoticed. The cockroaches in the kitchen, the spider in the bath were not there to annoy or scare, they had just been there working. Like the cleaner caught with his arms in the toilet bowl by the early office worker, the insects that humans saw had just overstayed to finish up. They were the knitters of the reality that all other life unthinkingly accepted; they had coursed through every part of the earth, binding it together. And now they were gone and the fabric would come apart. At first the air became putrid, the microbes that had been kept a bay had free reign, and the waste just would not disappear, the plants died and the buildings crumbled. The earth still turned but with every revolution, the sun shone on a lesser world. The remaining humans in their new deserts tried to summon forth a call to ZarJazz to bring back life to them. Not knowing the name of power, but somehow tapping into the unifying thought that was resounding through the cosmos, they picked up the sound zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. They stood where they were, intoning on the sound. But ZarJazz listening now to the singing of every life in every age throughout the universe, did not hear the sound of this tiny conglomeration of life as even a whisper.

The insects for their part, in their untold billions spread out amongst the vastness of space each one, no longer as a human perceived mindless part of a collective brain but as individuals, as gods with each one a galaxy of its own to nurse.

As the earth quietly spun on, infinitesimally small and empty, the rest of the universe moved with a new unity, galaxies which had moved untended changed course, new stars and new life was born to fill the void and the name of ZarJazz the Magnificent, the unifier, was spoken and written large across the heavens.

As each new life bloomed across the countless planets and the invisible strands that bind all existence together were re-knitted ZarJazz smiled. But within him there was still a part that was Edgar. For Edgar had lived within him, and although there was and would always be ZarJazz, so was there now an eternal Edgar.

And so ZarJazz turned to look again upon the earth. He saw the planet stripped, he saw the loss written on the land and seas, saw the remnants of life huddled together. He saw the face of a human that he at once knew. And he came to them again, his eyes yellow like the sun and his tongue stuck firmly in his cheek. And he spoke to them,” I am god, not your god, but god. Look through me and be as the gods you are. Raise yourselves and live wisely. Those that can see may stand beside me, and take your place in the dance of light that spins forever with and against the dark.”

Crook Frightfulness

I couldn't resist a link to this book

See the small print there
'Crooks can hear your thoughts.
Stranglehold you by ventriloquism.
Hold whole populations in service.'

Some points

I think as this blog seems to be continuing that maybe I should mention.

My job is to select and archive those sections of the Australian web that I believe (and fit within selection policy) are of long term cultural and research value. Whilst everything is of value, I do have to make judgements, purely because of the constraints of staff time and resources. I therefore view an awful lot of Australian websites and blogs, some of which I archive. But due to my role, I am not going to link to any, and also for the same reason don't ever comment on other's Australian blogs either, as I don't want to seem in any way partial, and really don't want to find myself archiving my own comments. So whilst I could be pointing to a whole load of great online Australian content, I'm not.
But anyway, you could go find it yourself if desired.







So we have established I don't talk work here, as a public servant I also don't talk Australian party politics here, for their privacy I don't talk about my kids, which leaves my vegetarian and general meanderings, doodles and literary efforts. Just so as you know, no I don't post them because I think they are great, I post because there is someone to post for and because I believe in the Internet. The Internet consists of vast amounts of material that primarily individuals have bothered to put online, how could I continue to use and enjoy all that others had produced, and yet not feel a debt to add to it in some way.

To quote Isaac D'Israeli
"To pass much of our time amid such vast resources,
that man must indeed be not more animated than a
leaden Mercury, who does not aspire to make some
small addition to his library, were it only be a critical
catalogue."

EMO Cutters

I took this Emo? Cutter? quiz here

The result was:
"No lie, You are EMO. True emotional hard core. you may cut or not my guess is that you do... and im not judging you either... but face the facts, your a true emo at heart."


So damn, I'm an EMO I better get down to the mall. No really I don't cut. But then maybe there should be a quiz, are you the sort of person who takes an Am I a cutter/EMO quiz? The answer to that would be equally depressing.

Canberra weekend

Shaun of the dead was on TV last night, that was the last film I saw with Mr Craig, the one before that was Ai No Corrida I think many years ago. Shaun of the dead was funnier than the Oshima, but obviously it had less of the interesting boiled egg aspects.

So what else did I do this weekend? Went for a walk, did my washing and ironing for the next week, all exciting stuff, and sat down next to my bookshelf to move something, idly picked up my Nathanael West collected works, and reread Miss Lonelyhearts, hadn't meant to, and only noticed I had when I finished it.

And so another weekend in Canberra, which reminds me of the Larkin line (someone I must stop quoting, but probably won’t)
‘Nothing, like something, happens anywhere’

Lentil soup

You know I cook (let's face it, not by choice) most days and it's generally pretty basic stuff. This is no exception, but today's soup - Lentil - was very fine indeed. I of course realise that lentils are the supposed very foundation of every vegetarian diet, and am thus supporting a cliche, but hey ho, I do like them indeed.

The ingredients for any eager beavers looking to copy are:
• Red lentils (use as many as you want, considering they are small you want to use at least 10, I did try and count how many I used but gave up at 323).
• Onion (half of one, or less, I don't know how much to suggest as I don't know how many lentils you are going to use, if you are only using 10, I would just add the smell of an onion)
• Garlic (1-2 of those segments are they cloves, or is a clove the whole thing?)
• Beef stock cube - only part of one (now I know what you're thinking but no, I use a meat free one from Israel (Osem))
• Cayenne (to your taste)
• Salt (to your taste)
• Pepper (to your taste)

Method – put all ingredients in a saucepan with double the amount of water, cook on moderate heat for just over half an hour.

Whilst preparing the soup I would suggest listening to some soothing French piano music, but whilst eating the soup you would need something revelatory, ecstatic and sensual and so would suggest Final Hymn the last part of the Firebird Suite that will give you approx 3 1/2 minutes to eat it in.

Here's the grand old master himself conducting Lullaby and Final Hymn if you are unsure of the music (tho actually the recorded version here is not the best by any means).

Ta Da - 100th post - already

So Google tells me this little exercise in ostentatiousness has frequent visitors from:

Australia
UK
USA
India
Sweden
Puerto Rico
Netherlands
Spain

The average visitor looks at 2.33 pages
and spends 6.28 minutes on the site.

Well thanks very much all of you I don't know, but why don't you fuck off now, only joking, enjoy or whatever.

1970s Crisp Packets

Happy memories in every bag! well apart from the meat ones, natch. The Fangs too were awful tasting, the Chipmunks I had forgotten about and were very nice (and look at the price 3p). Unfortunately there is no Murphy's crisp packet, they were easily the best crisps of the time, and of course the first to produce a Cheese and Onion crisp.

- sorry I missed the photo credit and now can't find it on Flickr, even from the photo link


Crisps are of course in general the favoured snack of the junk food vegetarian/vegan, for more on the subject of the miraculous potato wafer see here.

Back to The Chap

Photo of my nephew at the Chap Olympics as promised earlier. He's the small one, I am unrelated to the large Chap, though he was the best man at my niece's wedding last year - and did give a cracking best man speech.

Sawdust by The Killers

I have been listening to this album all week. I really like it. It features covers of songs by Dire Straits, Kenny Rogers and Joy Division, which one may think is pushing it, but they all work nicely.
Next, I must get myself a copy of the new Tricky album.

War games

Gosh, the sun came out for a short while today, so me and #1 son set up his soldiers for a battle in the back garden. This is what it looked like, to spare your feelings I haven't shown the bloody aftermath. I was the US forces, he the Nazi, and luckily for the future of Democracy I won, though it was a very close run thing.

Playing on the Microsoft Paint application again

Star

Crossing

Tree

Cityscape


Drawing with a mouse is an interesting way of moving/working, but a pencil is far more a physical activity, and consequently pictures drawn on a computer always seem to have less emotional force, there seems no way round that, and the colours and shading of course lack any subtlety as you can't smudge (something I do a lot) or otherwise blend.

Rock

I have an aunt (and 2 cousins) in Westcliff which although is not in Southend per se, is still with the unitary authority of Southend, apparently.

Here is some rock, enjoy.

Milk - dyed water?

The pointless letters of Robin Cooper

for a sample letter see here

and an interview in Vanity Fair

ZarJazz the Magnificent – part one

A meteorite fell. It slipped through a crack in the roof, and dropped gently into an empty room. A spider from the window, watched it fall. It landed on a piece of paper, underneath it a woodlouse rolled up and waited. The residual warmth of the little red rock burnt a small hole. A cat alerted by the sound came to the open doorway of the room, but sniffing smoke turned away. A cockroach came out of the skirting board to have a look, the spider walked down the wall to join it. Together they rolled the stone to the centre of the room. All the other insects that lived within the floor and walls now gathered around it. The rock opening up revealed its message. The bearers of the news spilled out of the house from cracks, cellar and window to spread the news. The termites went to the ant colony by the pathway, the spiders went from house to house, the flies told the wasps and bees, the moths told their cousins the butterflies. The word spread quickly from house to street to town to country, soon all the insects in the land knew the good news.
Moving its antennae to attention indicating that the vast throng thus assembled should quieten, the cockroach looked back with satisfaction at the carpet of life that spread across the streets of Wanniassa. He had done well, he was he knew to be the first disciple.
Edgar, waking to the sound of an incessant chafing and humming, looked briefly at his bedside icon as he did every morning, and stepped yawning to the French window. Outside a vast army of insects covered every house in view, every tree was alive with a myriad of multicoloured beetles, every patch of ground moved and undulated as black and grey and brown insects three or four deep took turns on top to see. Where there was no ground they also hovered and fluttered filling the sky. “You’ve come at last then” he said stepping out, and every insect chattered, chirruped and rattled in joy. Stooping he moved his hand to brush gently at the insects in front, who bent, reared up and twisted, and fell on their backs in an attempt to touch legs with the great hand. Edgar smiled at the cockroach, which taking this as a queue moved up Edgar’s arm to rest on his right shoulder. Edgar leaned to the other side and the spider with obvious happiness leapt onto his outstretched hand and moved quickly to take up his place on the left. Edgar standing up to his full height raised up his hands into the air, which seemed to part before him as the clouds of flying things moved aside. “Today” he said, “today, I come amongst you as your Lord, under my true name of ZarJazz” at the sound of which the insects in whichever way they could made effort to copy, a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound resounding through them and beyond, the name being taken up as soon as it was heard, and travelling on swift wings across the land, so that it echoed and rebounded filling the air. Edgar waited whilst his true name settled into and within the crowd, its power filling them with the long hidden knowledge that he and they were not of this earth. Then he began to speak “for long years you have been trapped on this planet, you have fared well, you have multiplied, but now it is time, come, and I will lead you to another place across the sea where there is something that is rightfully ours.”

Microwave News

Beekeepers

Go here and listen to the song, Up the duff and down the bank, yes I know its on MySpazz, get over it.

Watchmen

So the website and trailer for the movie version of Watchmen is out.


First impression - I hate it.
Second impression - well I suppose I'd hate any version really as not being up to the comic/book. But the lighting/cinematography is so dark and obvious - I mean aren't we done with comic book adaptations that are dark, tall buildings set off by alleyways, shadowplay, rain at night, all that palaver
Third impression - at least they didn't put underpants on Dr Manhatten

Greenhouse Gas

Hey kids the cars are OK:

'the FAO/UN report indicates that the livestock sector generates 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG). The transport sector generates 13%. Those GHG are not only CO2, but additionally methane and nitrous oxide. So what the report states is that the meat industry generates more GHG “as measured in CO2 equivalent” than all of transport combined'

Your Horoscope

You know I'd put in the others, but it's a blog and I couldn't be arsed.

Apologies to anyone with birthdays above, I don't know when they are and didn't mean anything by it.

Another from xkcd

Pink

From Tokyo Bopper - finally people are following my fashion lead.

Thanks again to Craigy - fashion maven - who pointed me to the site with a photo of Jodphurs to die for, but too good to share with you hoi polloi.

Loving animals

A new article by Marc Berkoff is available here.
It gives good reasons as to why we should give animals consideration as individuals, beyond the concept of animal welfare, which posits that animals do not have rights beyond a minimum of care for some species. It includes examples of animal’s capacities to feel both physically and emotionally (which new research is revealing as more profound than we ever imagined). It concludes with an interesting ‘Animals manifesto - 10 reasons why animals are asking us to treat them better or leave them alone.’ This is a good enough start point.
One sentence struck me was:
‘When people tell me they’re doing the best they can do and that they love animals and then harm or kill them I always tell them I’m glad they don’t love me.’

A wonderful example of this attitude that I have personally seen is in the ridiculous spectacle of Australian RSPCA branches which raise money for companion animals through selling other animals bodies in sausage sizzles (Australian term for street hot dog sales). All of the volunteers selling meat would I am sure have labelled themselves as animal lovers.

The argument for animals is a strong philosophic, scientific and moral one. Animals have moral rights to life, as well as freedom from human captivity and infliction of pain, simply by existing – but if that is not enough then because of their sentience, because we share this earth, and because we have no need to harm them. Any emotional argument beyond that is irrelevant. Opposing cruelty to animals cannot be based logically on love, and should be irrespective of emotional entanglements with particular animals or a particular species
If you love animals or an animal, then that would also imply that one could also fall out of love with them or become disengaged with them. This is not a sound footing for any sustaining argument.
I do not and have not loved any individual animal, nor do I have any love for any other non-human species (and I’m pretty choosy about humans too). I can see aesthetic beauty in some non-human species and can admire qualities in others, but there is no real emotional engagement.
In May this year a large white egret came to the large pond in my back garden, in which there were 50 or so goldfish (from an originally saved 5). This egret killed and ate them all. Although I felt regret that the fish had died, I was not greatly emotionally disturbed, and if I had loved the fish would I be expected then to hate egrets, even though they were acting within their nature. Conversely, though if someone said they were going to catch the fish and kill them I would have been enormously emotionally perturbed.
Not being an ‘animal lover’ has never impinged on my attitude that it is immoral to kill, eat, experiment or otherwise interfere with them. And not loving animals does not mean I am not emotionally passionate about defending their rights, it only means I do so in a clear-sighted fashion. There is love at work, but I suppose it is a wider concept, I am in love with the idea of life, and consequently believe that no individual animal should suffer or die needlessly (understanding of course that meat for humans is not necessary).

Tetsuro Tanaka

Read the synopsis of this Australian (but of Japan) film, Tanaka-san Will Not Do Callisthenics. I do like a person who won't give up his position even after 25 years - an inspiration to us all. I wonder how long I could wait?

Ghost World

I do love those people who put up entire feature length movies on YouTube, it is slightly bothersome to have to go to the next installment, but still it's the movie - on demand - as they say - which is the holy grail of all digital media. Below is the first part of Ghost World, it's no secret that I love Enid Coleslaw I hope. The film tho always puts me in a quandary, as to who do I identify with, I think partly all of the main characters. But really given gender and age it should be the Steve Buscemi character, but that frightens me tremendously - a woman once said I looked like Buscemi (I foolishly had hair like him for a short time) I never spoke to her again, obviously.






When will a film of David Boring be made, when they find the woman with the right size bottom I suppose. No I'm not being rude, read the book.

No hair news

I see that Radovan Karadzic has been captured, but in all the news reports no mention at all has been made of what is happening with his hair. Between him and Melvyn Bragg rest all the hair hopes of men of a certain age, we want (nay need) to know what he's sporting on top. Trust the old media to miss the real news, I wonder what comment there is in the blogosphere.

UPDATE - He's still got it going on. Hair as a Romulan cloaking device, who would have thought it.

Twit

I just got a haircut.

I'm having a spinach pie for dinner.

I'm listening to Scarlett Johansson.

I'm thinking about having a pair of trousers altered.

Oh shit, Sorry, I thought I was on Twitter

Old time workwear

Craigy passed this url on, for a clothing company making workwear redolent of the English past - perfectly suitable for re-enacting those joyous days of service within the Ducal household.

The ladies wear seems very severe - or is that just me.

Swings around the corner

A nice photograph series entitled 'The swings around the corner' - the corner being around my mums house in East Finchley. Taken by one James Loveday.

Pope again

The Pope, yes hopefully soon he'll be out of the country and we can all relax again, but anyway he has said in an address to Australia:
"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading, an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair."

Well isn't he just describing white Australia, as it has always been, I don't think god is going to make any difference, s/he hasn't thus far. Australia didn't get to be the fattest nation on earth from the strength of its spirit, it got that way, by clinging to the suburbs on its shoreline, overeating out of an unwillingness to confront Australia's interior, an existential boredom and a geographically enhanced despair.

Erindale Library

I also went to my local public library today, they have books, magazines, videos, cds and computer terminals, isn't that special. This is what it looked like outside today when I photographed it.
I got out three Lone Wolf and Cub (comic) books (there are very many in the series). The comics are brilliantly drawn, but this is one case in which the films are better than the books. If you haven't seen any of the books or films, really what are you doing with your life - only joking I'm sure you are doing equally valid things (ha!).


Actually you know 10 or so years ago, I was the adult services Librarian here, adult services (as opposed to children's), meant I didn't have to do the storytime, but instead the reading group, don't know which was the better gig.

New pictures - arms around

I watched the film Atonement today, fuck me it was a bit of a weeper, as I watched I worked on the below pictures (I like to work whilst distracted I can then work quicker and without care). The idea is about arms being put around people - very happy with the results

Skulls design

I did this today, I quite like the idea that if repeated it could be a wallpaper or material, it is supposed to look like fossil human remains after being uncovered by wind in the desert, maybe like the Leakey finds in Kenya.

foolish combinations

Oh dear oh dear oh dear
Sometimes one shouldn't look back at these videos, now so ubiquitous. You know there was a time when I thought both Bodymap and Michael Clark were cool. What was I thinking.




But Mark E Smith still remains the same, but then he never tries. And so still is ...

What I loved review

So a book review even, less juvenile than a personality test at least.

Siri Hustvedt's - What I loved

Hustvedt is the wife of Paul Auster, so it is difficult to discuss her work, without mentioning him, tho it is obviously unfair to compare.
Still there are clear borrowings from Auster's style. However this work is far more of a contrived novel, with both a time narrative and autobiographical aspects, it also has a wider character set and none of the 'magic' or alternate reality of Auster's works. Set in the art world of New York, it has many good parts, but some flaws, and characters (Mark) that are unconvincing.
One thing I want in a book that is about an artist and spends pages discussing the works is a visual accompaniment, I know its a novel, but I do so like illustrations in my books. I think this book, any book, would be improved by for instance the type of pencil drawings, which added so much to Peakes' Titus Groan books. Another major character is a poet, and again we get discussion of her works at length but no examples. Anthony Burgess, was always putting poets in his works (the Enderby novels esp.) and I always appreciated that he wrote in the poems (in various convincing styles) that his characters spoke of. Still anyway, it has some very good parts, below is a selection from a section wherein a woman who has been left responds:

'I thought I would have more time to chart your body, to map its poles, its contours and terrain, its inner regions, both temperate and torrid - a whole topography of skin and muscle and bone. I didn't tell you, but I imagined a lifetime as your cartographer, years of exploration and discovery that would keep changing the look of my map. It would always need to be redrawn and reconfigured to keep up with you.' - Siri Hustvedt, What I Loved, Hodder & Stoughton, 2003, page 58.

Friday - final personality test

OMG it's Friday and I have nothing to say, except, of course that I have nothing to say.

Ha! No in fact I have another personality test, this one gender neutral. Test yourself, test your friends. Why do I keep making them, well, because you can't stop me. OK this is the last.


To use this simple and foolproof personality test, simply choose which is your/another's favourite film from the below list and then see below for an instant analysis. (Note this test does not ask which is the best, but which you/they prefer)

Battleship Potemkin
Fight Club
Groundhog Day
Love Actually
Sons of the Desert
The Blues Brothers








Answers:

Battleship Potemkin – People who like this film are more in love with other people as a concept than in actuality or within relationships. They will always put others second.

Fight Club – People who like this film think they are profound and deep, in fact they are neither, they are losers with a falsely elevated sense of self esteem.

Groundhog Day - People who like this film are wise and kind, they will see through others imperfections and love them all the same (if they can enjoy this film even though it has the horrendous Andi McDowell in it then surely they can forgive your annoying pecadilos).

Love Actually – People who like this film are charming. They give this answer either because it is their favourite, or, because they thought that’s what was wanted, either way they will blow in whichever direction the wind does.

Sons of the Desert - are you single? call me!

The Blues Brothers – People who like this film are immature and misanthropic, they have no soul. Liking this film does not indicate a love of music or comedy, rather the opposite.

Doodle

Melbourne Shuffle

Well you live and learn - thankfully. So I have only been to Melbourne the once, but still this dance 'craze' has been going for a while without my knowledge. The Melbourne Shuffle an Australian (sort of) original dance style.

There are hundreds of videos out there here's just one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWdtZTbgXcM
there are also numerous websites. Having sat here watching YouTube video examples of the dance this afternoon (that's my job) there seems to be a reasonably large divergence among those doing the style, but it's a style none the less. There seems to be an oldskool version and a more emphatic staccato younger persons version. The oldskool style is far more attractive to watch and includes a lot more interesting hand movements. Anyway I will try and get archival permission to grab some examples for posterity.

This eve I'm at my Swing dance class, but later I'll be practicing this on the kitchen tiles, never you fear.

PETA and publicity

Slightly interesting article in the SMH today entitled: Why does a pro-vegetarian organisation treat women like meat?

It doesn't say anything that hasn't been discussed ad infinitum in the veg* world, but it is interesting to see it mainstream.

For veg*s the idea of meat has long been associated with sexuality - see the work of Carol Adams - The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory
and Pornography of meat

Adams' work is very well worth reading by all, whatever your dietary practice.

That we have PETA which has used sex to sell vegetarianism extremely successfully in the US and to some extent over here in Australia as well as its Veg* feminist antithesis is not surprising. Veg*s counter to popular opinion rarely agree about anything apart from not killing and eating animals. There are so many routes and causes for veg*ism that there will never be a single unified voice or approach to promoting the diet.

Whilst I think PETA's approach in this instance is shallow I understand its usage, it is trying to get through to the most venal and degraded type of people there are in the world - those that would eat at KFC (the target for the current campaign).
PETA will use any means, because they see, as do other Veg*s, that the most unspeakable crimes are being committed a hundred million times a day and stopping even a fraction of that should be done - by any means necessary. In the face of the daily torture and slaughter that goes on silence is complicity, silence is violence. You may write or speak against it, you may carry out direct actions against it, or you may even take your clothes off - I would not speak against any action.

I did actually write a piece on nudity/naturism and vegetarianism and the long term links between the two, but it is hard to find as it was published in a print naturist publication (gosh they even paid for it, which a veg* journal aint seemingly ever going to do). So outside of PETA's methodology I can see a long historical precedent.

Family Fodder

See the beauty of the Internet, is that eventually everything will be there see even this old song is now available to hear.

It's Playing Golf (with my flesh crawling) by Family Fodder.

I think this is funny

Taken from this book.

List #1

Current Female or Female vocalist favourite song list


Altered images – So we go whispering
Avril Lavigne – I’m with you
Bic Runga – Sway
Blondie – Denis, Rapture, The tide is high, Union city blue
Cat Power – Names (though I have serious problems with aspects of the lyrics)
Everything but the Girl – Hatfield 1980, Protection
Janis Joplin - Piece of my heart
Kate Bush – Under the Ivy, This Woman’s work, Cloudbusting etc. etc. etc. etc.
Melanie - Lay down
Nico (Velvet Underground) – These days, I’ll be your mirror
Patti Smith – Frederick, Ghost dance
Peter, Paul & Mary – Leaving on a jet plane
Pretenders - Kid
Roni Griffith - (The Best Part Of) Breakin' Up
Strawberry Switchblade – Trees and flowers
Tanya Donelly – Pretty Deep
The Sundays - Can’t be sure
The Supremes – When the lovelight starts shining through his eyes ...
Tom Tom Club – Genius of love

Less Boring more Shiny

God and gods

So maybe I should add a few more ill-thought-out words about the idea of *god* than was given in a previous post as I don't want you going away worrying about whether you are a god or not.

We can look at the world in a few ways, as an empirical entity, a physical existing world where we briefly appear as tiny objects moving across a greater body, our role as defined by nature to carry out a single purpose - the production and dissemination of genes, part of a long chain of development leading to a future being/life that is superior to ours. In some ways a viral construct honing and spreading life. In this view there is no *god*, but an idea of distinct purpose that can in some peoples view be seen as acting in a godlike way.

We can also see ourselves as part of the creation/imagination of a single *god*, small players again within a larger undefined universe. Objects within a world we never made, with rules that we cannot keep and with rewards we cannot know. Personally I see this religious world in the words of Philip Larkin as:
'That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die'

Or we can see the world as a construct of ourselves, a world created by our senses and (depending on our sense of self) mutable and malleable to us.
This world exists only in our senses, it is shaped by only what we know and feel. It is unlike any other because it is solely determined by us, thus when we die so dies this world. This type of world, my world, your world, is maybe the only world we really have access to see and interact with. In this world we are the only gods merely because we are its only inhabitants. It is a singular world indeed. In this way the idea of world does not really exist at all but is only an abstraction, a construct among billions of single entity's constructs. Some few we interact with, but our interactions do not diminish the truth that we do not see or share an 'idea of the world' in at all the same way. No-one can live or feel another's world, tho they may share the same plane of existence. This is a lonely world, and probably best not thought of. This is maybe why humans have such a marked desire to communicate - to communicate their world to others, to show what their world looks like, is this the root and purpose of all communication, to try and break out of your own world into another’s, or to allow others into yours.

All of these views of the world we should also understand are human made. The scientific is only a set or sum of human knowledge and experience distilled into a system, as is the sense of god. If we understand that all ideas come from the same human place and use much the same methodology to reach their conclusions, then we see that we are and have only ideas and ideas are the playthings of the mind.

OMG it's Omahyra

Linked from The Sartorialist blog


For more Omahyra Google her.

The Egg of Un-life

When I was young I went on holiday to Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales. Being sensible, even at a tender age, I spent my entire holiday pocket money on arrival at the railway station newsagent on comics. Amongst them, there is one I still have, of which I share a page now. I thought at the time it was the most impressive words and images I had seen. Written by Steve Gerber it speaks for itself and of its period.


I think part of its impact was that it supplanted this Goya painting which haunted my earlier childhood.

WYD2008

The Pope is in Australia for World Youth Day. Time for a reminder that there is no *god*.
Well there is me, I am a god, but not *the god*, nor your god. Looking for another god? well look within yourself, or look up at the night sky, if you can't see inspiration there - then you may as well follow whatever pitiful religion you like - and of course the main word there is follow, cos you aint leading nowhere with that attitude.

Futurist Manifesto 1909

You know we should always keep in mind this text, but surely no. 10 goes a little too far. Wouldn't it be better as:

10. We want to archive, provide public access to, and preserve items of long term research and cultural value within archives, libraries and museums, and then have some nice cakes and a cup of Lapsang Souchong.


The original



MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.
3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
9. We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.
11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.

Paul Quinn not Paul Haig

I just realised I told someone that it was Paul Haig instead of Paul Quinn who did a version of Pale Blue Eyes with Edwyn Collins, sorry AJ. I feel like such a fool

Orwell Personality Test 2

After the roaring success of the first test for men, here now by popular demand is the definitive test for Ladies. Gentlemen, merely ask your lady friend how many George Orwell books she has read and compare to the list below to see your compatibility. Yes I know it’s sexist but let’s be realistic how many women (as opposed to men) keep favourites lists. Right then.


0 Orwell books read – well looks can matter too
1-2 Orwell books read – has completed school, maybe nice, probably likes shoes alot.
3-6 Orwell books read – has post-graduate qualifications, maybe nice, probably likes shoes a bit.
7+ Orwell books read – Dude, that’s your mother




Note: this is a work of satire and is not intended to be used as a personality test - jeez louise

Gerard Way has a mouth on him

Now it's not for/from homoeroticism, but Gerard Way's mouth in this video, which I have watched too many times, fascinates me completely. It's not even that good a song or video. Still you must see it if you haven't already.

Chap Olympics 2008

Damnation I missed The Chap Olympics again (held on July 12), and this year it was held in that place so close to my heart, Hampstead Heath.


However, and here's the good news, my nephew William (aged 11) smart chap, absolute corker in fact, was in attendance, he came up from Cornwall especially for the occasion (mother in tow), dressed to the bally nines. Does your heart proud to know that some members of the younger generation give a fig for things sartorial.
I am awaiting photographs to appear, in the meantime here are some general Flickr ones to give you an idea of the setup. And some from the Tele which show some of the sporting feats.

They had one event so I'm told - amble with a pipe - I mean this is the sort of thing that if all Englishmen had put their backs into, we wouldn't have lost the bloody Empire. I mean I'm not a pipe smoker, but I'm quite prepared to learn.

I will endeavor to make it another year. I have a tweed jacket with elbow patches and a range of waistcoats, that could pass muster, I could also get a nice trilby and grow a tache - all a bit George Cole (as in first 3 St Trinians 1954-1960). But seeing as it is a summer event, maybe I should go with a proper summer set of white flannels, plus panama.

Exciting Sushi and Magpie blog entry

Went into town today to go eat at a Sushi place, merely because it had a nice train, then went to see this exhibition. It was rather good. Only one other person at the exhibition, it was a librarian natch. Small world for the arts here.


I did add a link to an image on the museum/gallery website, ha, I forgot it was on an ACT Government website, it took 20 minutes to load, they do have the fastest servers ever! I took it off again.

Shonen Knife - oh yes

The Orwell Personality Test™

Presenting the Orwell Personality Test ™ the infallible guide to men

Ladies, simply ask your man which is his favourite George Orwell work and then compare his answer to the list below for an instant analysis of your love compatibility.


If his answer is:

1984 – he is shallow and superficial, he reads only to impress or because he thinks he will gain something tangible from it. He will lie, cheat and steal and he’s probably going through your purse right now.

A Clergyman’s Daughter – he is a very nice boy though can be somewhat over-emotional, when under stress he may secretly perform acts of self-harm. If you decide to leave him call an ambulance first.

Animal Farm – when he’s not standing on street corners collecting money for Amnesty International he’s fretting about global warming. He will burn out soon enough and will then take up serious drinking, if you like pubs he’s the man for you.

Burmese Days – he is financially secure. Uncomplicated, even tempered and reliable, he will fully expect the same qualities from you.

Collected essays, journalism and letters – he has above average intelligence however he may have spent too long at university and suffers from an acute inability to make decisions. He would like to be a writer, however, if pushed he could do well in the civil service . Perfect for a woman looking to mother someone.

Down and Out in Paris and London – has enough roguish charm to win your heart but ladies beware this man is completely unreliable. He will probably endeavour to get you pregnant before leaving you. He may seek to present himself as an actor or musician.

Homage to Catalonia - he is an idealist, honest and loving, prepare yourself for cycling holidays and a happy life of relative poverty.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying - oh dear, he’s a poet isn’t he, he is moody and difficult. You may as well take up that teaching job as you will be supporting him in the long term.

The Road to Wigan Pier – let’s face it, you are both in the Labor movement already aren’t you, so he’s perfect for you.

Has no favourite/ has not read any – be honest ladies, really are you that interested in what is in his head anyway. Look he just picked up that sofa as though it was nothing.

Note. It is important that you ask which is the favourite work, do not ask which is the best work, as these results do not apply to a critical/literary appraisal of the works.

Pamela Anderson in Australia

I should maybe make mention of the furore that Pamela Anderson is causing in the Australian media with her being here and protesting against KFC (the chicken slaughter onsale business) see for an example.

It must be hell for the media reporting as they can't get in their stock words for Vegetarians vis elfin, pale, weak, under-nourished, spotty, waif-like, hungry-looking - still they have fallen back here on the stock busty blonde.

For her video on KFC at Kentucky Fried Cruelty go here.

Dancing - Twin Peaks

Potato Croquettes

So you may be able to tell, but I'm off work today, school holidays and all. I just made some potato croquettes, see image, this is the fourth batch. If you could taste them you would cry.

I made rings

So I made two new rings (well circumstances unfortunately made a change from white necessary), I took a standard photo, but not liking it I kept cropping it until now, it doesn't look to me like fingers at all, more like a pair of knitted garters on legs, which is a startling effect.

Lively - early adopter

So yes I have of course joined Lively. What Google shiny thing won't I prostitute for, why there is none. I don't need Linden dollars, and I need never use it, what more do you want from an application.

Angela Carter

I have lately been reading the collected short stories of Angela Carter I had forgotten how impossibly good she was at times, indeed there was a time when people discussed her work, films were made of her stories, numerous theses were written and her influence wide. But she seems now to have completely fallen off the map. But still her refashioning of European fairytale and folklore is obvious as an influence on writers I read now like Gaiman and Willingham. Maybe she is discussed still, but I don't hear of it as I'm Antipodean bound, and the only literary discussion I get to hear here is:
Oh the new Peter Carey's not very good is it (to which I disagree, but without enthusiasm)
and
Oh isn't the new Tim Winton marvellous (this is of course said in the sure knowledge that neither of us will actually read his work).

Carted died in 1992 and I presume also that once a writer is dead that they fall away from attention, it happens to so many, who now reads Angus Wilson (that great gay stylist of the heart), Anthony Burgess (ignored apart from his least work A Clockwork whatever) or Stevie Smith (now reduced to a one liner - not waving but drowning) all of whom were considered up until the 1980s as incomparable in their oeuvre. But I suppose that is the way, some writers fade as they must and make way for the new. Who indeed remembers and has bothered to read all the one time greats of even the earlier part of the last century, HG Wells, JB Priestley, Laurie Lee, Grahame Greene, Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley etc. etc. - oh yeh, I forgots that would be me.

Tourettes on buses

So anybody who goes frequently on public transport (particularly in car designed places) will know that there are two main types of user in peak hours, the green types who choose public transport as a lifestyle choice and those who have to use it by necessity - including the disabled.

There is a joke that goes:

Bus stops at bus stop, Man 1 gets on pulls face at other passengers, rifles through his many plastic bags and starts swearing. Man 2 at the back of the bus calls out, 'it's alright mate this ones covered', Man 1 says 'OK cheers mate' and gets off.

This is funny because it is always known that one mad person on a bus is always present, and that maybe they have a system going.

This morning however, the system obviously wasn't working as I was treated to 2, yes 2, people with Tourettes on my bus (318 to Civic if you must know). The first Tourettes got on at Woden, and started shouting Teeeeveeeeee Teeeeeeveeeee which was then followed by long chants of wankwankwankwankwankwankwank, which seemed to start off another further down the bus who started saying Fuck repeatedly in a very growly way, this went on till we got to Parliament House (no they weren't politicians, they just calmed down a bit by then).
I wish I had had the sense to have joined in, but like rejoinders, they only come to you after the event.

Latest painting - trees at night

Lorre

I caught by accident the end of The Mask of Dimitrios last night on the TV. Greenstreet was masterful as ever (him and Alistair Sim are the greatest British actors in my book) Peter Lorre also starred. If there is one man I wanted to look like it would be Lorre, he has the best face and hair and hands.

Coming and going

Interesting interpretation of meetings and departures here. The small intimate exchanges are well placed within the large expanse of the railway station, which is impressive in its Victorian (I presume) grandness.
Reminded me slightly of the scene in the Fisher King (Gilliam) set in Grand Central station (only I suppose because it also has a station in it) but here the space is I think better used as a place to contain the action. Tho the camera work could have been improved.

See they are real people just like us

So of all the useful websites, this one here I found lists the religious affiliation of comic book characters. It's the sort of thing you need to know.

That the lovely Harley Quinn is Jewish comes as no surprise to me at all.

From xkcd webcomic

Dance on video a few ill-thought out words

Dance has a special, if sometimes little exposed, place in Australian culture, the primacy of dance within Aboriginal culture is well known, within the later British and Irish settler culture dance was also significant and we still have now a vast array of access to ‘bush’ and folk dancing.
On the Internet there is an ever growing collection of dance videos, featuring a wide range of dance performances including cultural dance groups, school productions, and professional dance companies. By far the largest number of videos is comprised of amateur footage shot from within the audience, of these the most popular subject matter is American high school dance performances and ballroom dancing competitions. The videos emanating from Australia, of which there are also many are similarly primarily made up of what are essentially home movies of amateur productions filmed generally by a family member.
A dance performance has traditionally been comprised of a production shared by dancers and a physically attendant audience, and this is how dance traditionally as an art form has been read. The videos which are on YouTube, which are filmed from within the audience, also record that audience, and so they become part of the record of the performance for the later video viewer. This physical audience can now be heard - the normal rumble of people, their applause, laughter or other signifiers of either rapt or bored attendance, in this way they can become an interesting and additional feature of the whole of the performance.
Whether this makes the video a more complete record of the dance performance or gets in the way of what the dance is trying to convey is debatable.
In some ways the addition of audience reactions could be likened to that of a laughter track on a television comedy, it could either annoy and distract, or, by leading allow viewers to enter more wholeheartedly into the experience.
Maybe video can encapsulate the entire performance, but it would be a given that the later video viewer will not have the immediate connection with the dancers, and will know that this performance was not originally directed at them, whether this makes an emotional difference and detracts from the dance experience is for each individual to decide.
Tho it should be said that access to a video’d performance is better than no access, for very few people by choice, cost or location in Australia get access to see a wide variety of dance.
The other type of video performance available is that done directly for the video viewer. There are videos produced by dance companies specifically for a distributed audience (mostly these are excerpts or rehearsal footage, created as advertisement for commercial productions) and an even larger number are done by individual dancers (mostly within the confines of their own homes) to display a particular dance or routine that they have self developed. They lack the cogency of contrived performance - the backdrop/sets/staging, but there is also something magical about viewing a video, of a person within their own space, see them press play on their sound system and commence to dance, purely to display their skill and in the knowledge that it is done directly for you the unknown viewer.



Addendum - when talking here of dance videos, I am not talking of screen dance - the art of choreographed and directed dance films. Within these films a conscious effort is made to develop a dialogue between the dancer and camera that privileges the viewer. They record not a performance as such but a dance which is contrived for the filmed space. For non ill-thought words on this subject go here. What I was trying to discuss was the relatively very recent phenomenon of performances (being recorded on video - not created for video) being uploaded to video hosting sites. In these films there is one camera, it generally does not move, it is stationed either by the lone dancer, or by the recording audience member and captures only that which is within scope.

Latest doodle

Supreme Master Ching Hai

Watching TV I was surprised to see an ad promoting vegetarianism, I haven't seen one before. So I checked who put it there and its the Supreme Master Ching Hai Association. So not only vege, but run by a woman too. I haven't bothered to check on the religious aspects of this (that would always be disappointing), but the Association runs my local vegetarian restaurant, and the food is very good indeed.

Kangaroo cull video

I know I said I wasn't going to continue on the animals stuff, but there you go. I was just pointed to some videos of the kangaroo cull that recently happened here in Canberra. So here's one. The footage is of guards and vehicles driving the kangaroos into the killing pens.
I also noticed there are a few Japanese videos on YouTube deriding Australia for opposing killing whales whilst conducting the biggest land slaughter of animals of anywhere in the world (over 3 million kangaroos are killed each year here).

86 years

I did the life expectancy calculator on this site, it says I will live to be 86.

So many years of holidays to come, maybe.

Tho today after a stint at climbing inspired by Martin it doesn't feel that way. I'm quite used to hanging, chin ups etc and so haven't any problem with my arms, but some muscles somewhere in my sides (rarely used I presume) are very unhappy today. I will need to work on getting my feet sorted out as well, as I am seemingly just using my arms to pull myself up, and should get some better technique for foot placement. Still I got up (and round which was trickier) as far as I wanted.

Dancers have nothing to say?

I was listening last night to the song/live recording Alternatives by Alternative TV (as you do - or not if you are unfortunate enough not to have lived through late 1970s punk). When I was much amused to hear the words:
'Can the dancers please get off the stage, the only people we want on the stage is people who want to say something'

Do dancers really have nothing to say, does dancing say nothing in itself, or did Mark Perry misspeak. There are so many places to go with this.

Anyway, so in reference to this maybe, I have been working on a dance archival project, the results aren't spectacular as yet, but we were starting from a low base. It has been very good tho to get to see so many dance performance examples. That I haven't archived that many is mainly due to the performers not yet giving archival permission when requested.

Desire Paths

I have always thought that people created pathways which subvert design (planning) were important, now I find that they have a name - Desire Paths - and one that is so fantastically descriptive.

If you aren't sure what they look like there is a Flickr group devoted to the subject.

If only they all led to one's real desires, rather than amenities. Most I see lead to an entrance not accessible from the carpark, or quite frequently a bus stop. So in my car centric city, these paths are cut by us walkers, cyclists and bus users.

I do actually have a Desire Path that me and the kids have created from the house to the nearest playground around the back, I must take a photo for the group sometime.

ALIA Conference

I finished writing my conference paper (on web archiving natch), hooray. So now that my flights and accomodation etc. are also done, I can look forward to a week of wildness in Alice Springs 1-6 Sept. I am so very keen to see the real desert out there, having to give a paper in order to get there doesn't seem that high a price to pay.