When I saw this comment earlier in the week it seemed like outrageous clickbait fodder
Today I think I gained an understanding of how it's an insidious message.
Young men might think their freedom comes from being single, but their opportunities to mature are severely curtailed by not having a relationship.
When you have a significant other you gain someone outside of your family who will observe and comment on where you have opportunities to grow.
It's not always easy to have a person you love who will call out your shortcomings, particularly if you respect them enough to listen and care.
Too often people feel empowered to end a relationship when it's not serving them and, while I can't comment on all of those experiences nor the hurts that might be stirred, sometimes these are experiences where emotional growth can occur.
Obviously not all our relationships are good ones, otherwise so many wouldn't seek ways to escape or move past trauma.
However, it is through reflection that we can learn things not able to be seen from our own limited view of the world or learn about the patterns of behaviours that lie below the initial flush of anger, embarrassment and shame.
I learn a lot about myself from those around me, particularly those who have known me and trust me as I can trust them.
Some of the best lessons have come from girlfriends, which is why this hateful human is disdainful and wants men to look to other men for a limited reflection of human experience.
I was walking through dark streets one time and a drunk approached to ask a question, like "do you know the time?"
I flinched and they noticed, touched my arm and said something like "it's alright mate, I'm not here to hurt you."
I remember brushing it off at the time, like 'nah, I wouldn't be scared of you' but, afterwards, I realised how frightened my body had been.
It was like when I touch a hurt and mentally tell myself to heal, since I have been assaulted on the street and at the time no one cared.
That flinch made me appreciate the trauma of being assaulted.
Apparently young men are the most common victims of assault and, because they're usually hit by other men, there's often an attitude that it's boys being boys or something.
I remember the police laughed at the idea they would find my assailant and a journalist dismissed my story, saying "it happens all the time."
Well, let me say, it sucks being hit and finding that no one considers it seriously.
Mark Davis wrote a book titled Gangland that argued Baby Boomers were holding the reigns of Australian culture
It was published in 1997 and, as Generation X gave way to Y and Millennials, it seems like nothing has changed.
While it might be unfair to compare Woodstock to Glastonbury, since one defined a generation by not collecting tickets from attendees and the other aims to make a profit, this chart tells a similar story.
In fact, when I hear what my kids are listening to I find myself wondering if the music industry invests any money in cultivating new talent?
An uncle once advised me to keep a sock in my desk drawer to discourage managers from allocating stressful tasks
My friend Ted has a good bit of advice to add to this:
It's even better if you take off both socks and hand them over one at a time. For an encore you can get another sock worn the previous week out of your pocket and hand them that as well. Nobody knows what to do with that third sock.
Australia “…does not have a Ministry of Culture. It’s reflective of a poisonous societal mindset that history and culture are irrelevant. Well, I’m telling you, culture is anything but irrelevant. You’ve got to know where you came from in order to get where you want to go. Without that foundation, you won’t know who you are, and you sure can’t expect to create truthfully without knowing the truth.”
On the weekend I uploaded my 1000th video to Youtube
Nearly 20 years ago my first video showed mountain-biking outside Wagga with a track I made in Cubase.
Yesterday it was a piece on tenor guitar responding to a poem.
It's remarkable to consider how my experience of Youtube has changed in 20 years, given I wrote about that encounter and now endure the indignity of watching advertising to view my own work.
Anyway, another number just now:
2222
Total for posts on this blog and I'm on the way to the most in almost a decade.
Today is the "national giving day to arts", according to Creative Australia
One of the things that stands out is that funding for the arts in this country is changing, such as the promotion of this official donation website and the appearance within it of a peak organisation for regional arts in my state that used to be funded by government.
Regional Arts NSW has a role uniting the arts boards that help communities make sense of the complex and ever-changing environment for creative industries, yet their funding was withdrawn by the state government who have since also withdrawn funding for one of those regional arts boards.
So it's clear the network that existed for regional artists is broken and there doesn't seem to be any discussion in the small amount of media covering the arts to know what is likely to replace it.
One of the fundamental aspects to building a brand is the opportunity to convince consumers to pay more or buy more often
Brand
loyalty is a relationship where the consumer sees value over time, even
if that means something as simple as saving their mental bandwidth from having to research
other options.
However, some brands are
fractured through diverse market offerings, which might explain my
disappointment with the current Reese's ice-cream.
Now
chocolate brands reinterpreted as ice-confections is an area that
fascinates me, as there's a weird thing where their primary appeal
behaves differently.
Chocolate is one
experience at room temperature that differs markedly when it is cold,
although that also serves as a way to disguise bad quality.
The
Reese's ice-creams have been a very mixed bag in their various
iterations, but there are some key components that can be successful and
it has been my greatest pleasure during previous summers.
Currently
the brand is being sold in the "sandwich" form, which is probably my
least-liked style because this tries to make a virtue of eating a soggy
biscuit.
The new Reese's version lacks caramel
and I'm not convinced there is any peanut in there either, although
there was a lump that I couldn't identify.
Then I wondered -- are they having a laugh?
My
conclusion is that brand loyalty has not delivered a product that
rewards my consumption and I advise caution when approaching this
confection.
There's no caramel and no chocolate and probably not enough peanut to trigger an allergy (but please don't test this if you have a reaction to those, in fact just don't buy this icecream)!
Eden was already reading when he became one of the youngest kids in his year at school.
Now
that he's starting his final year of high school, it means he's 16
years old while some of his cohort are already legally adults.
I used to worry about access to alcohol, given how enticing it can be while a child's brain is still growing.
However, a story Eden shared the other day illustrates that many parents have other concerns.
A group of kids were driving home from Griffith when there was a wave of phone calls across the back seat.
An app on the kids' phones had alerted parents the car was travelling over the speed limit.
My son described how each conversation concluded with parents telling their kids that they wouldn't be driven in that car again.
It surprises me that helicopter-parenting is now akin to a drone swooping in on a child from an app on their digital device.
While
I am concerned that my son was driving in a speeding car by a
relatively inexperienced driver, my response is a sense that privacy has
been intruded on.
I mean, my son will be an
adult in less than two years, there are many lessons he will need to
learn to promote his own safety before then.
My
mind replays the many ways I snuck out of home or planned crimes as a
child, yet ultimately I had to take steps to be an adult that involved
responsibility for my actions.
I wonder whether
kids will be losing an opportunity to develop a skill, a bit like how
satellite navigation has impacted on the abilities of people to develop
geo-spatial awareness.
How do kids learn to grow up in this new panopticon?
However, as a parent and former teenager, I know the struggle to get to school on time.
Currently it frustrates me that my son needs assistance when I'm at my mental peak for the day, but I'm probably just looking at the internet anyway.
This week I was observing that his older brother got himself to school, then his sister started asking for lifts when there was an early start.
Now he, as the youngest, is now asking for a lift every day and is late more often than not.
As a firstborn I can't think of many occasions when I got a lift to high school and I've seen stories that (in the US admittedly) a kid making their own way to school is reason to question their welfare.
So I'm grateful that he's only got one more year to go before finishing high school (although I might be working in schools myself by that time).
Recently I started experimenting with open-tunings and it has opened new musical ideas
In the past I found that replacing the low E string on the guitar with a D string from a bass held pitch better, and also that DADGAD was a lot of fun for riffing.
One time I settled on DDAE tuning, which was interesting as it switched around notes when picking arpeggios.
Anyway, this time I've gone for DGDGBD and really like the way it sits sorta between a guitar and a bass.
It was using that tuning that I started writing the song in the video at the top.
However, a recent Junto project asked for a remix and I thought it would be a good opportunity to revisit the song.
I knew there would be vocal performances that were close enough to layer together for the thick sound one gets through doubling.
The remix below worked from those pieces and added a 909 beat and a wubby bass part.
I'd read about the amount of iron it offered and noticed it was growing on the property where I was living, under kurrajong trees in the leaf litter.
When I was young, my mother would bake filo pies with layers of spinach.
For many years I'd eat the filo and try to avoid the spinach but, when I left home, I found myself cooking it and enjoying the sentimental connection to this dish.
That's where I began with nettle, adding it to spinach and realising that I couldn't taste much difference.
Cooking removes the sting, but a quick blanch will too.
Then I tried nettle tea and found the zing of the iron a nice complement for the green flavour.
However, when I brewed nettle beer, I began to wonder why this weed hasn't been embraced more widely.
So I began letting it go to seed where it grew in my garden.
This year the conditions have been ideal, late winter rain has brought up patches of nettle and mallow.
It's an ideal crop, self-seeding and filling a gap between winter and spring vegetables.
While there are a couple of spinach plants that have survived, the nettle has offered enough leafy goodness for a few pies and now I'm wondering if I should brew a batch of beer.
Parkview
Public School's third grade students were given a guided tour of
Fivebough Wetland on 20 August to learn about the important role of this
ecosystem, which attracts migratory birds from as far away as the
northern hemisphere
In
the much-anticipated follow-up to the Beak Technique workshop at the
School in July, that illustrated the relationship between habitat and
bird diet.
"This
excursion highlighted the important role the landscape plays and how it
has developed over hundreds of millions of years," said Red Earth
Ecology's Jo Roberts.
Activities
included identifying birds and beaks using binoculars, map-making,
hearing about the history of the Wetlands and seeing small invertebrates
in water samples using magnifying glasses.
"We're
grateful to the Murrumbidgee Field Naturalists for the loan of
binoculars," said Ms Roberts. "Their assistance was also appreciated in
creating the educational resources shared with students."
The
excursion also included walking along the Wiradjuri Loop at Leeton's
Fivebough Wetlands that demonstrates First Nations totems, fish traps
and other cultural practices.
Enthusiasm
among the students was clearly evident, as they were keen to share
their observations and detailed experiences with local flora and fauna.
"One highlight was watching a swamp hen through the binoculars as it
caught and ate a fish," said Ms Roberts, who also noted the popularity
of looking at the magnified water 'bugs', which was an eye-opening
insight into the microscopic world that supports the wetland food chain.
Worksheets
developed by Red Earth Ecology for the project were supported with a
Country Art Support Program grant administered by Western Riverina Arts
and Create NSW through funding from the NSW Government.
This week I watched two science fiction films and got me thinking
It
started with the sequel to Avatar, which I got curious about because
the original film was a cultural phenomenon that led to a brief flurry
of 3D movies.
I liked the experience of 3D, possibly because it
made me sentimental about the time I saw Creature From The Black Lagoon
as a small child.
3D worked well with the alien landscape of the
Avatar movies and there were films like Life Of Pi that I regretted not
seeing in the cinema to enjoy the effect.
However, it always
seemed like the 3D novelty wasn't going to last and I was aghast that
the local Roxy Theatre in Leeton spent tens of thousands of dollars
investing in it.
Cinemas had largely abandoned the format by the
time the sequel to Avatar arrived and I'm curious whether there will be
any 3D screenings of the third film in the series.
One thing I
liked about the original Avatar story was the way it contained elements
of Metropolis, particularly the use of a robot to infiltrate resistance
to capitalist industry.
The titular avatars are attempting to
support mining on the alien planet and the sequel takes the colonial
narrative into the sea, where it presents a version of the whaling
industry.
It's kinda grim, given how whaling persists today, but the audience gets to cheer the big fish smashing boats.
The next film I watched was Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which is a Luc Besson film I had missed.
He's a director who would probably have been cancelled for various reasons if he was American.
There's
a curiousity about the themes in his work for me, since I first
reviewed Leon The Professional and thought the relationship between that
character and a girl was also unlike the material from Hollywood.
Valerian
is a natural successor to the successful film The Fifth Element, which
again has a big age gap between the central characters, and in many ways
I thought the recent film was more polished and better paced.
As I reflected on the two films I watched this week I found myself admiring the sci-fi elements from Valerian over those in the Avatar sequel.
Besson's
film had so many more wow moments, where I'd shake my head at the
imaginative twists, and it was surprising to see Herbie Hancock in there
too.
Afterwards I read Wikipedia to see what I could learn and was surprised to read
the French director had been influenced by the first Avatar film:
Then I read an interview with Besson where he criticised Hollywood movies for being too dark.
It prompted me to reflect on how much angst appears in American stories, and I appreciated the fun I'd had watching Valerian.
France has a great reputation for film and sometimes
I find myself wishing that Australia had stronger quotas for local
content, because our film industry has diminished in recent years as US
productions gain tax-breaks to produce their blockbusters in our
country.
There are many qualities of our local stories that I wished could be represented in more movies.
Another
film I watched this week was Two Hands, which was called an Australian
version of Goodfellas but really deserves to be recognised without that
US lens.
This prompted me to consider the current discussion of Australian copyright and whether foreign-owned (so-called) AI (really, large language models) should have unfettered access to our country's cultural works for free.
While I am generally of the opinion that copyright is an antiquated model, it is the one that provides remuneration to a (small) group of creatives (but mostly the corporations that take ownership of works) and (in theory) incentivises the creation of new cultural material and other intellectual property.
Given the author of the comment quoted above wrote their reflection in 2022, I began wondering what they'd make of the contemporary debate about copyright.
However, I was reluctant to create a LinkedIn account and found that Lamb's Substack requires a paid subscription for me to ask, so I started looking for interviews with the author and soon found myself interested in the book he's been promoting -- a biography of Frank Moorhouse.
It looks like a good book and I'm really curious about the subject's experience of living in Wagga, where he worked on The Daily Advertiser newspaper.
That journal is usually referred to as The Agoniser by people I know, and it's become renowned as the place where sometime Nationals leader Michael McCormack wrote a homophobic editorial (that he's since distanced).
So, before long, I've found myself interested in learning more about Moorhouse from digging into interviews with Lamb.
My partner Jo and I go for walks along a nearby water channel
The Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area has many of these and the gravity-fed system is an engineering marvel.
Recently they've been enclosing some channels with pipes, which has led to our local channel dropping to a trickle.
Many birds seem to be enjoying the opportunity to fossick in the mud, also some humans too.
There are many sunken treasures, particularly witches hats and bits of metal.
I had passed a strangely shaped object a couple of times, thinking it was a dumped toolbox before I recognised the XLR connections and realised it's a wedge-shaped speaker box.
When I shared this photo my friends commented that it's "monitoring the water level" and offers "sub bass"!
I have watched many of Emily's pedal reviews and enjoy her observations
One of the things that jumped out in this recent video is her recollection of an artist residency.
There's a lot in there about elitism in the arts, as well as the rationale for her new album.
If you have been on an artist residency though, then you might recognise Emily's comment about how it made her feel like an artist.
I think this is one of the best aspects of a residency, where the residents identify as the role after doing there own thing elsewhere and not considering it art.
The best residencies have an open-ended quality that allows room for this development to occur.
This seems like the sorta thing Disney would produce if they used pollsters instead of test audiences
Or maybe it's just a question of where the audiences are located?
Personally I pay Disney little money and have enjoyed their franchises, and am becoming really curious to see if the Shogun series can survive going beyond the book with a second season.
Sure, the Marvel and Star Wars spin offs have been hit and miss.
I read Shogun for fun in high school and the TV mini-series at that time already felt dated.
So it's been fun to revisit the story but reminded me how much I wanted to see the battle just beyond the end of the book.
I'm beginning to think that "toxic masculinity" is a term that appeals to many people
Rather than serving as a gentle way to change behaviours by suggesting something dangerous, it's become so polarising that it only succeeds in confirming biases in different directions across the gendered landscape.
In that way it reminds me of the crisises that feminism has encountered whenever someone with a marginal identity asks if a political movement representing 51% of the population can claim to reflect their particular margin.
Usually those moments see the margins considered, possibly shifted or given new labels, then the small number of people it impacted either follow the renewed movement or find their own splinter to support.
The feminst authors I've read are generally aiming to show solidarity with men where it will improve lives for everyone, such as reducing the burden of gender schema.
However, I think history shows that one doesn't simply change the rules and expect the game to adjust -- more often it leads to a new code of sports or church for believers.
So I wonder if masculinity is toxic enough to die or if it will just get more extreme?
The passing of Ozzy Osbourne has got me feeling sentimental
Feels like heresy but for the longest time I thought he was the worst singer in Black Sabbath's history and couldn't appreciate his solo work either.
My interest in heavy metal started in the mid-1980s when I began buying cheap vinyl, particularly Wasp's "Inside the Electric Circus."
That album didn't get a lot of listening, but was followed with an introduction to Motley Crue's "Theatre of Pain" and then things got progressively heavier with Guns n' Roses "Appetite for Destruction" and into Metallica just before "And Justice For All."
The pursuit of thrash metal and headbanging at the rollerskating rink was accompanied with learning to play guitar, then Faith No More's cover of 'War Pigs' made me realise I needed to learn about Sabbath.
Their earlier material had slower tempos and those blues shuffles that now make Van Halen sound like they can't keep time because everyone is so used to hearing quantised rhythms.
Many late nights were spent exploring the extensive catalogue of Sabbath and I remember for the longest time I thought their peak was 'Zero the Hero':
That monstrous overdubbed guitar riff and horror movie clip really rocked my teenage world.
The production sounds flat today, but the chord changes that build toward the chorus are fun.
Anyway, the interest in playing guitar was fuelled by nights at my cousin's bedsit apartment.
We would rock his Marshall half-stack into the early hours, messing with an Alesis effects unit and drum machine.
My cousin Chris was a fan of Ozzy's lesser-known guitarist, Jake E Lee.
In particular I remember there was a lot of rewinding the videotape of a live show to appreciate this solo in 'Killer of Giants':
Listening now I appreciate the melodic sensibility balanced with squealing pitchbends and fingertaps.
However, Ozzy's singing still grated on me.
How was it that someone who'd been at the birth of metal, launched so many careers and worked with so many of my favourite musicians could sound so flat and look so goofy?
Then 1991 saw the release of "No More Tears" and, amazingly, it still is amazing:
Those saturated colours of the MTV era, that remarkable riff from young Zakk Wylde and even the synthesisers sound gooder than I remember.
And, even as binge-drinking kid in denima jacket featuring Satan on numerous patches, that Beatles-esque segue in the middle was what made me pay attention.
I got the reference and it was audacious.
Years later, after recognising 'The Wizard' from being sampled by Cypress Hill, I realised I needed to reconsider Sabbath and found Ozzy's singing to be less of a problem for me.
I mean, I still think there are people who do covers of his material that elevates it -- such as Charles Bradley here:
However, for the little my experiences are worth sharing, I began to really dig Ozzy as I got older for the way his music took me back to these moments where I came to appreciate something that a younger me hadn't enjoyed.
I read his autobiography after finding a secondhand copy and it is one of the funniest things I've read since Ben Elton, although I would've liked more reflection on his trauma and those he inflicted.
Or even more detail about working with so many incredible musicians.
The role of Ozzy's music has become bittersweet as people I associate with it have died.
My cousin Chris was an influence for so many years and more recently the tune 'Mama I'm Coming Home' was such a poignant performance at Ozzy's last gig.
When I shared it with my partner, she reminded me it had also been the last post that a friend had made on Facebook and I realised that I'd forgotten that moment for a reason.
At the time I'd 'liked' the post and thought I was looking forward to her return to the Riverina.
Then, after events that don't need to be shared, I had gone back and unliked it for feeling as though I might have condoned suicidal ideation.
Sadly, it's another powerful feeling that I now associate with Ozzy's music.
Surprised to see Leeton's Roxy on the front page of The Guardian today
Even more surprised that it will host 76,000 local residents -- since there was uproar in the community that the venue had reduced capacity during renovations that cost around $12 million.
This article seems like an attempt to address criticism of the shocking shortfall in funding for essential organisations across NSW, such as 20% of the Regional Arts Boards who missed out in the recent four-year funding round.
One of the Riverina's most notorious artists has been served a court attendance notice more than three months after his shop displayed images of politicians and a billionaire in German World War Two uniforms
It's the latest in a string of controversies for Michael Agzarian, who has previously claimed the artwork was based on the sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes.
Local member Michael McCormack has described Agzarian's art as “beyond disgraceful” and reported it to the police.
At that time the authorities decided it had not broken any laws.
An interesting comparison that the same TV show was used by newspaper The Daily Telegraph in 2013, although the politicians represented were from the alternate side of Australia's two-party system.
It's possible the court notice will draw on the Crimes Amendment (Prohibition on Display of Nazi Symbols) Bill, although the artwork carefully avoids representing a swastika but does include SS insignia.
An important distinction is that the poster isn't glorifying Nazis, in fact it's ridiculing them.
While McCormack has refused to comment on the current case prior to Agzarian's day in court, his name is attached to the Region Riverina's news story as supplying the image of the artwork.
The NSW Crimes legislation does recognise "a reasonable excuse" for "for an academic, artistic or educational purpose," so it might be that someone unhappy with the police's initial assessment may have exerted additional pressure to have the man charged.
It is worth noting the Agzarian had a long career in academia, before the controversies that followed his "treasonous" contributions to an exhibition in Wagga during 2005.
His artist statement from that time gives context based on personal experience.
My own view is that the hounding of Agzarian reflects a kind of "broken windows" policy by conservative politicians, despite further alienating themselves from the arts community and progressive constituents.
In criminology the broken windows theory proposes that visible signs of crime and disorder, if left unaddressed, can create an environment that encourages further crime and disorder, potentially leading to more serious offenses.
While many of McCormack's colleagues have argued for free speech, they fall silent when it comes to supporting their critics.
I would suggest they should read Voltaire, but I've just learned that he didn't explicitly say or write the often-quoted phrase "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
However, politicians have made so much money through defamation law cases that I doubt they care at all about giving Australians a right to express themselves.
Meanwhile those hypocrits yell from "coward's castle" as words spoken in parliamentary chambers are reported under a different set of laws.
This graphic novel covers a lot of Eadweard Muybridge's life, innovations and influence
Guy Delisle's art and storytelling are so engaging that I had read through this book within less than 24 hours.
Muybridge is a name that was only a little bit familiar to me at first and his photograph showing a horse has all four hooves off the ground while galloping is a technical feat, although it's hard to appreciate from over one hundred years later.
I had not known about his role in demonstrating the use of photography for public relations outcomes by the US Government, after the beauty of Yosemite was captured within a decade of it becoming the first national park.
These old cameras were heavy and involved to use, which reflects a commitment to camping and working in a remote location.
Looking up Muybridge just now, I'm pondering the photographers influence on Ansell Adams -- who would become synonymous with that landscape.
The innovations developed by Muybridge really are remarkable and Delisle links the invention of synchronised photography with the famous "bullet time" technique.
It was also interesting to learn his presentations used a moving picture technology that pre-dated cinema.
This influence is relevant a quarter of a century later, as the recent film 28 Years Later used a portable rig of iPhones to great effect.
Recently I learned that a number of regional galleries and three of NSW's regional art boards were unsuccessful in securing four-year funding from the state government through Create NSW
While Minister for the Arts John Graham has asked we wait for the two-year funding decisions to be finalised, many of the organisations needing financial support will have already had their planning for the future disrupted.
This morning there's an interview being broadcast that I recorded with ABC Riverina yesterday, where I outlined some of the benefits of funding creativity.
There's data that shows Australians engage with the arts more than
sport, although I think it's a bit of a false equivalence since both
activities reflect our national culture.
Many don't recognise culture, as it's like the joke about fish not knowing about water since we're surrounded by it every day.
One of my themes is that spending money on cultural practices is an investment in the future.
When you look at art you are able to get a perspective through the senses and thoughts of another person, so art builds empathy -- which is sorely needed in contemporary times.
It is at best ironic and at worst a sad indictment on NSW's arts ecosystem that one fifth of the regional arts boards were denied funding in this round, as they are the organisations placed to assist non-metropolitan communities to access grants.
Orana Arts is one board that was denied funding and I've been part of their innovative Studio Collab project for a few years, gaining opportunities to learn and collaborate and network with other regional artists.
I'm grateful for their residencies and other opportunities to promote creative practices, such as my talk on the cut-up technique.
Brian Eno has argued in a recent book that, where children learn through play, adults learn through art.
I think it's an important idea, since we gain perspectives and learn new capacities through experiencing culture.
It's as simple as feeling emotions when watching TV, those aren't considered art often enough to recognise the skills developed by a team of people to present interdisciplinary media.
In my ramble with journalist Sally Bryant I mentioned how 40 years ago the band Mental As Anything had a hit song called 'Live It Up'.
That band was a group of art school students and their exhibitions were opened by prime ministers, but their music was an unexpected outcome from their creativity (and possibly a desire for free drinks).
The song 'Live It Up' went on to appear on pop music charts around the world for two years, even returning to the Scottish charts as recently as five years ago.
It is one of our enduring cultural exports and an example of how something like free art education can lead to surprising outcomes.
As the world becomes increasingly fueled by (so-called) artificial intelligence, there's a need to invest in art to develop human creativity.
There is also a need to promote art-making for the benefits in developing empathy and, as careers are lost to AI, it will offer a balm in the well-being that arises from engaging in activities within our communities and sharing in the joy of creating.
NSW teachers were recently told the creative domain was a focus in the High potential and gifted education policy and that's exciting as it's an area that I believe can be taught.
However, every teacher knows the role of modelling to demonstrate their lessons and it's vital for students to see the arts are valued.
So, c'mon NSW State Government, Create NSW needs funding to give the arts a boost and regional communities deserve better.
It's my daughter's 18th birthday today and I'm prompted to reflect
One of the wonderful aspects of being a parent is seeing those glimpses of personalities in little babies develop through childhood and blossom into adulthood.
There are so many lessons that one learns about themself in the process, particularly that opportunity to revisit memories of one's own childhood from a new perspective.
I found a new gratitude for my parents and was able to let go of some painful experiences too.
A key moment for me in fathering a daughter was recognising my own sexism, which came as a surprise after identifying as a feminist and studying that topic through one of my university degrees.
It came after years of viewing my daughter with some suspicion, based on what I now see as a resourcefulness to get what she wanted without asking.
A family member had written letters to each of my three children and, after they were discarded, I looked over them and recognised a distinct shift in tone within the correspondence directed to the girl.
That prompted me to reflect on how my own interactions had subtle, yet observable, differences that meant I treated my daughter differently to her brothers.
Over time I worked to consider my attitudes and address the perception that I might be unconsciously sexist in my behaviour.
This isn't to say that I don't worry about how the world treats females, particularly how their needs are different, but it was a step toward recognising I wanted her to retain those capabilities and strengths that had been previously a source of conflict.
In psychology they identify positive and negative conditioning as ways of shaping behaviours, and I guess I'm trying to articulate that the opportunity to be a father to a daughter helped me to recognise a broader range of strategies in parenting.
There's more I can write about identifying my biases, but for now I want to conclude with gratitude for seeing another child reach adulthood and how my capacity for love has grown.
"For certain engineering purposes, it is desirable to have as silent a situation as possible. Such a room is called an anechoic chamber, its six walls made of special material, a room without echoes. I entered one at Harvard University several years ago and heard two sounds, one high and one low.
"When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation."
Darrell Jones is shown cleaning a Bills horse trough at Griffith Pioneer Park Museum
George and Annis Bills established a trust fund to support working horses that led to 700 troughs being installed throughout NSW and Victoria between 1930 and '39.
Made this zine while I was waiting for my partner yesterday
It uses drawings from the sketchbook diary that I kept for a month in 2013, inspired by my family and the work of James Kochalka.
That project developed my comic-making skills surprisingly quickly and gave me an appreciation for how much work Kochalka put into his American Elf series.
This zine will likely be a parting gift to my class when I finish up next week and I hope it shows them the joy of drawing and self-publishing.
I've used the format promoted by Austin Kleon, see here.
You should print a copy of the zine and leave some lying around your part of the world because, assuming they don't become litter, it'd be great to be distributed!
Recently I found the word "whelm" used in a book and thought it was unusual, so I looked it up
What I found was shocking!
(Okay, shocking for a word nerd.)
How is that when you're underwhelmed, you're not underneath by feeling engulfed, submerged or buried; and when you're overwhelmed it is more likely evoking that experience of being under the thing?
June McGrane (30 June 1932 – 21 May 2021) shares details about life in Griffith when the second world war raged, 1939-45
She remembers the trenches dug at the high school and air raid drills, as well as a bomb shelter built in the site now known as Memorial Gardens.
One remarkable recollection is the concern of locals for the real possibility of an invasion by the Japanese after the bombing of Darwin, because there was only one place in Australia where they grew rice!
June was a long-serving volunteer at Griffith Pioneer Park Museum, where this interview was filmed during February 2017.
I'm grateful for the love of my family, particularly my partner of 23 years: Jo
This morning my Facebook Memories had this post and it's illustrated with a graphic she published to my profile yesterday:
In last night's subconsciousnews I dreamed that the vibrational field created by Jason and my love for one another was so powerful that it spread throughout the entire Universe in all directions of space and time.
It was so significant an event that it was taught as history in text/books on other planets, and also anecdotally in the form of oral myths and stories passed down the generations among all sentient beings.
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