A similar thing surfaced a few weeks ago, different friends described difficult tasks as akin to “pushing shit/water up a hill with a broom/ fork”.

Reminds me of the old favourite “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”. There’s something nice about getting all poetic on impossibilities and difficulties.

Night time

I went out walking and the cats watched me
All through the back of Newtown along the trainline
On top of terrace walls and under cars
Their heads turned silently or not at all
And I strolled, marvelling at the orange light
And purple dimples of the clouds.

When I started out I saw a boy who was tall and a girl in a green cardigan cross my path at Abercrombie St. I see them again at Codrington as our routes cross over again. I descend into the shadows, closer still to the tracks, quieter darker streets where the cats are. Under the giant old oak tree, past the three proud people graffiti, down the little lane I’m convinced is haunted.

My night companions appear at the end of the lane, just near Macdonaldtown station, I follow them almost to the Imperial. I am glad to see them again.

The air was just so still and the breeze so slight when I took the rubbish out this evening, that I couldn’t let it go to waste and fall asleep on the couch, waiting for someone to get home. Perhaps it was something about the wide open roads on the documentary about the Grafton Jacaranda Queen that make me homesick for big quiet streets. Familiar streets to stroll. It was a night for my new haircut, my soft ears pricked for any sound. I was all eyes and ears, keen to get out and just walk. Anywhere. Wherever I could. Because I could. Because my short hair gives me new kid attitude. I pulled on some jeans and headed out.

The wind buffered the back of my head, gently, as I walked down Union St. It’s a long straight narrow street, one way, which changes direction in the middle. What beautiful big old houses. I bet some are empties. One house is terrible, it’s made of two big terraced townhouses both painted apricot with brown detailing, and in the left hand ground level there’s a giant brown roller door for a garage, and a car in front. I thought about making a movie with model cars which all live in hollowed out terrace houses.

The jasmine and night flowers were out. I considered going to St Peters, or finding a phone booth and calling Ali, but I couldn’t remember her number, and decided that I just wanted to be alone. I sauntered back up King, crossing over at Newtown square and skulking up Eliza. I came to a stop in Camperdown memorial rest park, and sat on a bench.

There are noises all around the edge of the park, the middle is bright and green in the lamplight, clear as a sweeping gesture. Will it last? There is a wonderful bug buzzing around on the grass nearby. I realise later it’s a cockroach, as it crawls along the wall behind me. It’s a beautiful witching hour, I watch a couple of people walk by, I felt happy, I felt at peace. I felt good and free. Less angst. Just eyes and ears. And nose. Jeans and a pullover, and two hands in pockets. A collared shirt underneath. Preppy, with glasses. Happy that the weather made it all so simple. Happy to be alone, strolling. Biding time in a park at night. Loving the Newtown streets, checking up on old haunts.

I walked past Hordern St, past our old house, superlatively done up by the lesbians who bought it. They even renovated the outhouse down the back of the garden. Further on, past the back of the Newtown North and the Trocadero, on the other side of Missenden Rd, is another long line of beautiful terrace houses. Different styles, some of them are positively scandinavian looking, with their steep steep rooves and dormer windows, tiles gleaming in the streetlight.

I turned back up towards King St, up the little paved street with all the tiny old apartments built almost right up to the gutter, letterboxes perched sideways on each window ledge. When I reached Lander St, I stopped again, and stood across the road from our house, looking up at the stringybark tree behind me, and gazing over the orange sky. It’s so beautiful! And the little gallery with it’s white roller door and ivy covered wall, two doors down. I wanted to stand outside for a long time, but it was time to move on. Yes, I think I could be Gaylourdes.

October 2006

They Rule allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top companies in the US in 2004.
The data was collected from their websites and SEC filings in early 2004, so it may not be completely accurate - companies merge and disappear and directors shift boards.

from the friendly neighbourhood newmedia filter

i’m doing some work over here, at marvelling, mostly because the interface is easier to deal with. It’s funny the differences between wordpress and blogsome, they are small, but make worlds of difference. (and still, infuriatingly, contrained by other incredibly minor shortcomings. like, why design a blog template that lists a tag cloud as a long and tedious list?)

i might move the whole blog over, i’m not sure yet. i guess i just want to be doing something different for a while.

love.

Thirteen people arrested and charged with riot following the G20 protest in Melbourne in
2006 have resolved to fight the charges. Desperate to get convictions, and try to divide
the defence campaign, the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions had offered a deal to
all 23 people charged with riot - to plead guilty in return for a guarentee that there would
be no custodial sentence.

In a shock decision Akin Sari, one of the protestors, has been sentenced to two years and
four months jail (with a non-parole period of 14 months) after pleading guilty to 9 charges
including assault and riot.

Solidarity is hosting a discussion Wed 3rd April about how the courts are being used to curtail civil rights,
and how ‘drop the charges’ campaigns have been used by previous movements to defend
the right to protest.

“It refers to a practice in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s when dissidents who wanted to bring banned Western music into Russia would go to hospital trash cans, secure already exposed X-ray film and then press a master disk onto the X-rays to make floppy records,” Cadava said. “They were called ‘music on bones’ because the grooves were on images of chest cavities and spinal columns.”

Music on bones, some audio to listen to, somehow related to Eduado Cadava’s “small book on the relation between music and techniques of reproduction, memorization, and writing.”