Costumes

Just re-watching Singin' in the Rain and was reminded of how wonderful Debbie Reynolds was, especially in this dress (or is it a top and skirt?) for the Good Mornin' song, the blue is perfect and the length and shape and pleating are so attractive. The costume (see above) is now available in paper doll format.

Marvelous but not as good as in the movie.

Furry friends

If you don't know about Furries, for god's sake don't Google it. No offence meant to any Furries out there I realise you are humans with feelings too! :-)

Governor

My new birthday t-shirt - Former Governor of Illinois if you want to know the provenance. I of course now Govern a much wider constituency.

Lizard at sea

Music: Like air from your lungs by Karoshi

Shopping in Wanniassa

Your September Tarot Reading

Trees and donkey

40 years

The National Library of Australia is celebrating 40 years of being in its current building. See picture above, which is a magnet depicting the building - all staff were given one. I went to the celebratory tea at which the Minister was present to cut the cake, and yes a joke about cuts was made!

Great Train journeys (via East Finchley that is)

East Finchley to Finchley Central Click link, can't embed.

Or maybe this one was better

Arsenal 0

So that's a good Sunday, lying reading Theroux's Dark star safari and the sun shining so hard that I'm burnt - oh happy day - and news from Angleterre, Fulham 1 arsenal 0

On Rage

I have just finished reading Germaine Greer’s latest book - On rage - a small red book, an essay really, put out by MUP. Like much of Greer’s work it is contrarian, but unlike someone like Christopher Hitchens, she here signally fails to make you think, except to ponder how mad she really is. The book has caused much controversy over here with apparently everyone lining up to attack her, including such Aboriginal luminaries as Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson and everyone else as well. I read some of the critiques before reading it and so was expecting something a bit more strident, but it’s not so much that. Essentially the book is about Aboriginal male rage, and how it is a result of white dispossession, and how the men’s response is to drink, suicide, commit crime, rape and generally abuse their families (it is no secret that some Aboriginal women and children are the victims of incredible levels of violence and sexual abuse by some Aboriginal men). Greer sees that the rage emanating from dispossession of traditional lands, the ending of a patriarchal hunter gatherer society, and the consequent loss of role for men has seen them turn their anger onto themselves and their families. It is indeed a fact that Aboriginal violence is turned to a surprising extent inward, and does not impinge so much on white society. If it did I’m sure much more would have been done to ameliorate some of the conditions in which it grows.
What has raised the ire of all is Greer’s belief that Aboriginal women have connived in the dispossession, that they assisted whites to settle, and have sided with whites to sideline men within their own communities. In Greer’s view the latest of these attacks on male power is Aboriginal women’s support and engagement with the Australian government’s intervention into the Northern Territory (a 2007 crisis measure in which soldiers, doctors, nurses, social workers etc were brought in to try and halt the continued sexual exploitation of children in remote Aboriginal communities). Greer says that women have chosen to side with white society as it seemingly offers them more security, less work and more freedom. Traditional Aboriginal life was hard on women, in that there is little to deny, when white society offered them greater choices they unsurprisingly took them up. Greer sides with Aboriginal men in her book, she thinks that the women have abandoned their men, that their first responsibility is to their menfolk rather than their own liberation, which is initially surprising if you haven’t been following Greer’s movement to this position in her writings on Islam (in which again she prefers maintenance of a traditional culture to women’s rights).
What Greer wants apparently is for a treaty to be made between White and Aboriginal Australia (including a division of land), and then for a hunter gatherer society to continue equal but separate alongside modern westernised Australian society. This is not a bad idea, but what it involves is, that is Aboriginal women are expected to continue in and accept a hunter gatherer society, to their own detriment, so as to maintain a culture. That women must give up their rights to assist men suffering from a loss of status, a status that was often built on the backs of women, is a thesis that happily today the leaders of the Aboriginal community both women and men find insulting.

Blossom time

The blossoms are coming out on the fruit trees around me. I'm hoping that it is a signal of winters end.

Pear

Apricot

Neck

Bell Book and Candle

Seeing as it is 50 years since Bell Book and Candle came out, I thought I'd post on it, but someone (many people in fact) else has here
I'm not a huge fan generally of Novak, but being in this film and Vertigo in the same year is worth mention.

Legs

Click on this picture and a larger version will open up in the same window!

Wind reply (again again)

You flatter yourself, mud bound stick
I care not at all that animals, crawling and venal
May scavenge from you, creeping and gnawing away under your bark
And at your too solid heart

Tree reply (again again)

Yes, I will stay
While you may go
But I think I have the happier lot
You spread yourself, only to hide what you have not

You could go wherever
But yet you come back to me
Do you think it is flattery

And yes the animals may also share me
And is that I sense, jealousy

Wind reply (again)

Ha, I do not hold on
Because I have no need
Things have no use
For a being that is free

But, speak your case as you may
You are still trapped
And those small animals you do not protect
They use you and you do not see
They will hollow you more than me

So stay where you are rooted
With your colours and smell
You are indeed a very obvious thing
And wait, as you must do
Until I come again

Tree reply

I did not complain
Am I not at least allowed to state my case
But with you there is no use
You are both silent and noisily blind to your abuse

True, my branches reach out and spread
But you know they are not for you, but the sun instead
And you snatch my seed and send it away
So I stand alone, when around me a forest could have grown

Yes, I will pass and thankfully too
But while here I am rooted and real
I give scent and colour and fruit
I hold the earth in place to keep the soil from your theft
I protect and warm the small things within me
And you moving void only take
But cannot even hold
And let drop, someplace else

Tho discussing any form of 'art' is alien, I think I should say that this series is not saying anything about me or using metaphor. The first part wrote itself in a dream, and the following just followed, make/take of it what you will. I feel stupidly that actually it is a conversation with very little to do with me.

Scouting badges

Back to badges, I believe I qualify for the following Scouting badges:

Being creative (oh yes)


Being imaginative (t'sall I do)


Eating healthy (how do you like them apples)


Being a Librarian - oh yes there is a Librarian badge - are there other professions listed, no - suck that up


Keeping promises (you know it)

Has this been done as a fashion thing already? I'm thinking of getting some.

Vegetarian History final

So vegetarian history buffs the final version of my history of Australian vegetarianism is from yesterday free online at the International Vegetarian Union website at http://www.ivu.org/history/australia/index.html
Not wanting to sound too pompous, but I have tried to make some progress in vegetarianism and animal rights in this country in various ways, useless as it sometimes may seem. However, now I'm done with it as I'm maybe done with the country. So next year in Jerusalem as they say.

So what are the things that stand out in Australia's history, the first is that Australia has for long and still does kill, trade and eat animals out of all proportion to the rest of the world. Secondly, vegetarianism has always been a struggle, first for things to eat, it is amazing to think how hard it was to get even the most basic of foods like vegetables for at least the first 150 years of white settlement, (for instance it took US administration during WW2 for a reasonable system of fruit production and distribution to be brought about (the US needed fruit for its soldiers in the Pacific)) the second is how much antipathy there has been to vegetarians and for so long, in the press, in business and in parliament. The meat industry has many friends and much money, even today it is seen as quite acceptable for television adverts for dead sheep products (video here) to denounce vegetarianism as un-Australian - but in truth that is exactly what it is, profoundly so. Australia is the least vegetarian of all western nations; it eats the most meat and is consequently the fattest nation on earth (it recently won this from the Americans). The most prominent vegetarians were always foreign born settlers from Europe (mainly Britain) they tried appealing to peoples sense of decency, and when that failed tried to use arguments of better health, but always with the same result. Even today looking around at the grass roots of many vegetarian or animal rights organisations, you will find still a predominance of the non-Australian born. It used to be just Europeans, but since the 1970s now happily there are growing numbers of Asian vegetarians also. In fact every vegetarian restaurant I know in Australia is run by Indian or Vietnamese vegetarians. It was for long the case that vegetarians that came to Australia facing the traditional dietary opposition gave up their diet, today I hope that isn't still the case. Though however I did read a report on Korean vegetarian immigrants, which found that since migration to Australia most have adopted the Australian diet.
So what future for Australia, well maybe the knowledge that meat eating is the largest cause of greenhouse gases may do some good, but realistically I know that no great change will happen, but I am least consoled that in future not living here, I won't have the day to day slaughter of animals thrust in my face.

TG school badges

Leonard Cohen on tour

I see that Cohen is on tour that is if you are in North America or Europe, dammit.

Scribbled gums

Underneath the bark of these trees moth larvae have made tracks as they have eaten their way. Once the bark goes (as has happened to these fallen trees seen today) the scribbles are revealed.
If you look at Aboriginal art you can see how this patterning has influenced some styles of painting.

Premier league

So first game of the Premier, Fulham score the first goal of the new season, but then lose 2-1 to Hull. So almost London 0 Hull 4 but not quite. And dammit it to hell arsenal won, however up north Rangers won and celtic are yet to - so some good news.


btw the video, there are three parts, watch them all, but don't watch Paul Heaton's face whilst singing it aint pretty, on the other hand Norman Cook nice hair and knitwear! oh and the rapping in part three is one of the worst examples of white rap you will ever ever see, but is pulled back from the abyss by some drumming.

curry

My potato, onion and pea curry.

After winning at SingStar, I realised there is a point to knowing Stereophonics songs, because at some pont, who knows when, you may have to sing one.

Wind reply

It is not I to blame
For I am trapped and wrapped around this either wet or muddy sphere
Look above there is the vast openness that is what I see
My brother winds cross the heavens
Are warmed and blown by mighty suns
And ride with comets
That is where I belong

I do not blow against the trees
It is they that impede me
Sticking out their arms to pull me in
Do you not hear me moan as they detain me
And yet they stick their seed within me
Speak what of leaves, of tiny things, but yet there are a billion
But they all will pass, also these rocks these trees
And I will always blow, do not complain to me

Support the Austrian prisoners of conscience

Please go here and do something about the Austrian animal protectionists imprisoned
http://www.vgt.at/hinweise/20080527Repression/index_en.php

Tree

Every day I am raped by the wind
It pushes against me, trying to get underneath my bark, my skin
It moves about me sometimes hard, sometimes with the pretence of caress
It touches my leaves, flaps them about, it knows they are my coloured pride
But it will strip them from me
Meanwhile
The wind's tarts the birds sit in me and shriek

It has always been thus
When first I came up to discover the light
It tried to push me flat
When I grew my first leaves to show the sun, it used them against me
I had to push back underground, holding firm to the earth where it could not go
I held on
So I who love above all the sun am forced to spread myself amongst the dark

In the end it will strip me of my branches
Its constant sucking breathe will dry me out, and then uproot me
Then even my lower hidden parts it will have and lick around

Coldplay

Picture

Oh the humility! click on image and it will open up bigger, which is how best to view it.

Obama

'The actual realisation of real desires - that is to say, the abolition of all the pseudo needs and pseudo desires that the system manufactures daily in order to perpetuate its own power - cannot take place without the suppression and positive supersession of the commodity spectacle.' - from On the Poverty of Student Life.




Neither Obama nor McCain can or will change society in any meaningful way, they are after all just politicians. They may control budgets to some extent, but they cannot alter the basic tenets of your life, only you can do that. While you may support Obama as the better choice it's still just a good cop/bad cop scenario and all they are talking about is pseudo needs - economics, taxes, foreign policy, oil, climate change, jobs. How important are those as opposed to time to play.


Hey and remember the only 'change you can believe in' is the change you make yourself.

Copyright note - I'd credit the photographer of the photo I have played with but can't find the owner.

Australians in the bush

So remember in Bambi, when Bambi's father says 'man is in the forest'
Well here's what happens when 'Australians are in the bush'
Found today on a walk in my locality, and these ones won't even count in the legal annual kill of 3.6 million. But lets not talk of Australia's shame with animals, we could go on all day about that, why there's mulesing, live transport, piggeries, battery farms none of which would be legal in Europe, oh hang on look we won a medal in the Olympics, that's alright then.

Fierce dancing

Enjoy this wonderful picture, not mine, unknown artist but copied from Bigger Cages, Longer Chains.
It looks circa 18th Century, love the term fierce dancing, but the dancing here doesn't look that fierce, more jolly.

But dance should not just be used to celebrate the revolution, it should be part and parcel of it.

Think of the lovely Emma Goldman - the below from Wikipedia

"At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.
I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.

This incident was the source of a statement commonly attributed to Goldman that occurs in several variants:
If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming."

Sunday lunch

Spiced mash potato balls, baked. I call them Potatoes Malatesta.

Wow, so it looks like all I do is cook, how excitement!

Or in actuality I suppose everyone cooks all the time, but I'm so dull as to post my food as of interest. Tho in fact I'm not alone there, there are many many blogs on the subject of food, which just post this inanity, and even some wherein they post pictures of the food served them in restaurants, and why not, I suppose. As Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living" the examination necessary within blogging is I suppose something.
Funny just the other week I was castigating John L, on his giving up philosophy for filo pastry (his words) and voila!

Anyway, hope you like my range of plates that have been shown, they at least are not as ephemeral as the food, tho I didn't make them obviously.

BTW, planted out some potatoes today, so hopefully a supply for future meals.

Dinner - Saturday

Ingredients:

Sunflower seeds
Tofu
Carrot
Bean sprouts
Water chestnuts
Baby corn
Noodles
Soy sauce



Method:
Fry together (best to par boil the carrot a bit first maybe, unless you cut very fine)


Listen to this theme tune, when eating.

Olympic post

In case you hadn't noticed the Olympics starts today, I know it hasn't had much publicity, but this Olympics are being held in Beijing, China.
If you can't get there, you might be able to catch some of it on the television, good luck with that.

I'm watching the start of the opening ceremony, there appear to be thousands of men in silver dresses doing interpretative dance and banging drums, quite good so far then.

Oh there are now dancers writing as they dance across a giant scroll of paper - shame about the shithead Australian commentary I have - this opening ceremony is stunning.


Once it begins I am interested in only the men's gymnastics, and the women's synchronised swimming and diving to me they are the most visually interesting sporting activities. Running and throwing things and team sports are so pointless as to be beyond understanding.

Peter and the Wolf

Picture inspired by reading the short story by Angela Carter - Peter and the Wolf - in this story, a girl's parents are killed and she is raised by wolves, her cousin encounters her twice, once when they are both children, and later as adults. At the second meeting he is about to enter a seminary when he encounters her by a river with two cubs in tow, after seeing her and her 'natural state' he loses his religion. It is a great story the description of a wolf woman is stunning.

Some new pictures in a surrealist style

Look I have found proofs (sort of)!

From J Krishnamurti's At the feet of the Master (1910) Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, India.

Lucy Speaks

The Animals Australia - Lucy Speaks campaign - to end the factory farming of Pigs (see http://www.animalsaustralia.org/lucy_speaks/) is doing well and is now in its fourth week, these radio adverts are now being funded by donations coming in from the public.

The adverts rely on the premise that a pig has roughly the same mental age and capacity as a 3 year old human child. Using the voice of a 3 year old girl the adverts attempt to give an insight into what pig captivity is like, very effective it is too.

Chrystie Hill talk

As a librarian I get to go to many many meetings and presentations. Today however, I went to one I actually enjoyed - Chrystie Hill from WebJunction - so nice to hear such a positive view of libraries and how they can interact and serve and create community. The first part of the talk discussed place and community building, the second an exposition on WebJunction. For the longest time I haven't heard anyone in the library world talk about the role of place or community within libraries and so I really enjoyed this as I am intrigued by the sense of place, and it is really why I went into librarianship in the first place.

As a child I found in my local public library a space that I found immensely warm and accepting (even comforting), it would be nice if we could create an online environment for library users as conducive.


On my must read list now is Great good place ... which she mentioned in her talk.

Austinist

'Such parodistic methods have often been used to obtain comical effects. But such humor is the result of contradictions within a condition whose existence is taken for granted.' - A User’s Guide to Détournement

Situationism an occult reading

I came across this sentence, which I make no statement about, let it seep in.

"3.2 To conclude: I suggest that :

3.2.1 The work and life of Guy Debord and the Situationist International must be analysed, understood and critiqued from an occult perspective."

From this fascinating blog.

Oh BTW if you are not au fait with Situationism go here or better still just read all the Spectacular Times series written by Larry Law available here (an Internet Archive no less!). They are all well worth reading. If you've got no time just read this The Boy Scout's Guide to the Situationist International

IVU Dresden Conference

I missed the IVU Conference, but hopefully will be able to make North Carolina 2012. Herewith the Minutes of the Meeting of The IVU International Council, 29 July, 2008.

Lazy blogging

OMFG! I was going to use this, but couldn't be bothered!

My Town

I took a camera on my walk around my neighbourhood this Sunday. Click on the images, and like magic they will open up huge in a new window.


View from Fadden


Kangaroos!


A tree in my street


A dead Wombat

The night Ape Sex came to town

Ape Sex is a band in Love & Rockets, duh!

John L reminded me of this, and I do agree that it is a very fine band name indeed. There is a website and a Wikipedia page for fictional bands. While Ape Sex is fine, Creme Brulée (both a real and fictional band name) is my favourite.

Cake

My new cake, tastes better than it looks.

1 cup SR flour
1 cup raw sugar
1 cup margarine
1/3 cup oats
1/3 cup ground almonds
1/3 shredded coconut
some currants
2 egg substitute eggs (check health food store), or 2 free range eggs if you wanna


If you want you could add 1/2 tsp nutmeg as well, it works well with or without.

Mix together (should be reasonably sloppy) and bake for half an hour in the middle of the oven at moderate heat.

Update

OMFG, sorry I forgot to add listening advice, you will want to play it something soothing like The Pastoral while its cooking (it will help it really), and Eroica while you're eating it.

Italy

If I could go anywhere
That I would wish to be
Why this week (rather 10 days) it'd be Italy!