There's a young crow that visits my yard, who likes to talk with their reflection.
So of course it gave me an idea for a new design.
An Odyssey
I mean, sure, Christopher Nolan's film looks fun; but how cool would it be to follow the Seven Sisters across this ancient sea?
Finding faith
Couple of people recently introduced me to Rene Girard, called both the Einstein and Darwin of the human sciences
He described the role of imitation in human life in a book called The Scapegoat (1982), about how it leads to status rivalry.
This argues that conflict is avoided or stopped by creating these circuit-breaking roles that unite the crowd.
He thought Christ was divine intervention, becoming the ultimate scapegoat, to make the mechanism visible to humans.
That led to centuries of social progress, led by Christian institutions.
Girard's ideas gave me an understanding of why C.S. Lewis moved from being an atheist to adopting faith through his conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien, and came to call Christianity the myth that became fact.
Religion is a good mechanism for managing anxiety, but the scapegoat is only part of the process as those ancient institutions play a broader social role.
Actually, maybe I need a caveat to recognise that churches have shown they have a way to go in recognising individual rights -- particularly for women and children.
His Girl Friday
One of those films that I've been meaning to watch for years since
it interested me as both a film student and wannabe journalist
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When
I saw that it was now streaming, I decided that I could use the
subtitles to keep up. However, it's surprising how many errors and gaps
appear in the text on Prime.
That this romantic
comedy is set in a newspaper is so clearly out of date, but so too are
the references to American socialism and also a joke about Hitler that
are interesting in how they give a glimpse of attitudes that quickly
shifted within a few years as the US joined WWII and moved into
McCarthyism.
For a film student there is a
strange sensation while watching it of how the performances from Cary
Grant and Rosalind Russell make sense of those seen in other movies.
Tony
Curtis famously modelled his character of Junior in Some Like It Hot
(1959) on Grant and it's difficult to see the original without thinking
of the imitation.
Similarly, Russell's
performance is mentioned on Wikipedia as inspiring the character of Lois
Lane in Superman, although she appeared in 1938 and the film was
released in 1940, but for me it kept bringing to mind Jennifer Jason
Leigh's role in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) -- which is one of my
favourite films.
The script is remarkable for
showing how a good story will travel through swapping the gender of a
character and into various remakes over the years, including Switching
Channels (1988).
A lot of the humour is still funny and there's so much of it that, if you get your ear in, the jokes flow in a way that moves easily from smirking to producing a laugh.
Perfect Days
The
story follows a guy cleaning toilets in Tokyo and it reveals a city
that appears so much more livable than I would've expected.
While
it isn't acknowledged in the script, I expect the role of a nature-worshipping religion like Shinto is significant for the pockets
of greenery and abundance of potted plants.
There's
also a healthy dose of wabi-sabi in the narrative arc, which reflects
the role of Japan's other religion of Zen Buddhism.
One
of my habits after watching a film is to look on Wikipedia for
background information and it was surprising to learn Perfect Days
developed from a program to promote public restrooms:
I think it shows how
much an artist can elevate a project, but it also helps that you have
someone of the calibre of Wim Wenders with a celebrated catalogue of
stories which are hinted at in small details like the character reading
Patricia Highsmith or the evocative dream sequences that might've been
taken from Until the End of the World (1991).
Another
surprise for me from the film was the Japanese version of 'The House of
the Rising Sun,' which led me to get a new perspective on its themes and learn how a song might be related to
a 17th-century folk melody inspired Bob Dylan to go electric.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
One of my interests in time travel
While
the means to travel back in time have evaded me so far, there's a good
technique for travelling forward in time through watching movies.
So time-travel as a genre has been a fascination and I've got ideas about how it functions as a narrative device.
In
fact, if there was a subject that I would consider writing a thesis
about, I feel I could develop an essay and fiction combination that
would explore this potential.
Since I have time
now to indulge in sitting on the couch in front of the TV after
abandoning my teacher training, I caught up with this film that had
interested me last year.
Actually, slight
spoiler, I think the ending shows it is similar to that famous
time-travel franchise Back To The Future and made me wonder if there was
an aspiration for a sequel.
However, Good
Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die will likely become one of those cult movies
that finds an audience outside of the cinemas since it didn't achieve
much success in those venues and lost money.
I don't want to spoil anything, so let's just say this film is worth watching if you like comedy horror and fluffy sci-fi with a biting commentary on contemporary life.
It shows how science fiction can be used as a device to reflect the present day, while leaving open the possibilities of how things could be different.
End of a journey
Nearly two years ago I started a scholarship to become a primary school teacher
The
Nexus program is an employment-based, accelerated teacher training
pathway, primarily run by La Trobe University in partnership with the
Victorian and NSW Departments of Education.
It
allows career-changers and education support staff to earn a teaching
qualification while working in schools with teacher shortages.
When I applied I was in a job where one of the fun elements was leading school students through discussions of history and, as a parent with three very different kids, I thought I had some sense of how to tailor topics to a variety of learning styles.
There
were a number of hurdles to get accepted and I was grateful that a
staff member kept in contact after a series of emails saying that I was
unsuccessful.
Full-time study
and part-time work took a toll, but it wasn't until the second
placement at a public school in a small nearby town that the wheels really began to
wobble.
The first day was characterised by
miscommunication, as the principal there I had heard that I taught
ukulele and asked me to run classes.
Being
eager to appear agreeable, I explained that they wouldn't be the lessons
expected of me by the university but that I could introduce students to
the basics of tuning and strumming one-finger chords.
It
was a surprise during the first lesson that the supervising teacher
asked for a lesson plan, since it wasn't something required previously.
When
the principal returned she was furious with me for not following
directions, cancelled the ukulele classes and abruptly changed the
arrangement we had to move from stage one classes to stage two -- where I
had been planning to teach a sequence of classes.
This added a level of stress, which combined with a university subject that I couldn't see how I would pass.
In
the end I left my placement early, found the school cancelled it and
attempted to explain the circumstances to the course coordinator and
dean at the uni.
They were unsympathetic and I failed the unit.
My mentor was surprisingly sincere in telling me how sorry she was about my experience and it made me wonder at the time, but now I think she knew the culture of teaching is built on bullying.
This
year I attempted the unit again, again failed the assignment and was told I'd
need to undertake another assessment while undertaking a full-time
placement and working on the next assignment.
I wrote to the lecturer, who was again unsympathetic to my circumstances and this led me to decide that teaching was not for me.
One
of the key moments in making the decision was a comment from a friend
who, as a mature-aged student like me, had completed a teaching degree
and quit the profession within a few years:
My experience of the primary teaching profession once I got there was that it was matriarchal, bullying, political and sycophantic rather than meritocratic...
Someone will write a Phd on teacher culture some day, and it will speak to toxicity and an endless procession of burnt out former educators with good intentions.
It put into perspective some of the experiences I'd had and made me realise the journey to teaching would likely take a toll.
There are many wonderful teachers I have met and I admire their work and grace in challenging circumstances.
Schools
are currently struggling with kids not prepared for classrooms, as well
as screen-based activities that appear to be impacting on the
attentiveness of students.
The university
course was a mess of subjects that were attempting to combine units for
the fast-tracked path to graduation, which was occasionally acknowledged
by lecturers.
Having previously worked in
tertiary education, I am aware how high the attrition rate is for online
learning, as well as the number of students who never finish a teaching
degree.
I just wish I'd thought more realistically before leaving permanent employment and taking on thousands of dollars of HECS debt.
Meanwhile, I am telling anyone who cares to avoid La Trobe Uni and to watch out for the fees charged by institutions -- including an annual $500 bill tacked on for a study centre in Sydney that I reluctantly visited one time last year to watch a bunch of useless things on Zoom.
Farrer election result
The result of the Farrer by-election shows a massive swing that must be understood as a protest vote
It wasn't a popular candidate, but a representative of a party in tune with disenfranchised voters.
Water is the big issue in Farrer and the major parties are all blamed for the impacts from buying water out of the catchment.
One
thing that isn't being acknowledged is the dissatisfaction from Covid
responses, which I think has solidified as a form of opposition --
because on the surface the mess of ideologies doesn't make any sense.
Another
aspect is growing unpopularity of Labor in NSW and my guess is that the
party didn't run a candidate because they knew it would attract all of
the criticism toward the Minns government, particularly in response to
gun legislation.
The decline in informal voting is interesting and I think shows the number of disgruntled voters has increased.
A key issue in the Riverina is the desire for changes to how water is managed in our country.
The
NSW agencies badly treating a wetland has been in the news and it's
worth remembering that the management of these resources was the trigger
for the creation of the Murray-Darling management plan.
This region, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, delivers a significant contribution to the state's GDP and, if you look into some of the ABC's remarkable investigations on Four Corners, there are surprising examples of how investments in industrial agriculture here should be gaining more scrutiny.
For a local it is significant to see the
local independent candidate reflecting the longtime aim of the
independent state member, Helen Dalton, to see a royal commission into
the water market.
You might remember that she was courted by One Nation for this election.
It seems surprising to me that you don't need to look far to start connecting dots, given how some of the same names that have been discoloured in the rort of privatising water were out campaigning in this region.
If you're a student of history then you know the Riverina has been exploited by politicians for literally centuries and it takes a royal commission for the facts to be brought to light and justice to be served.
After FriendlyJordies' attempt at connecting the dots in the region, I guess I can understand why some journalists might hesitate but I wish more would look further into this area!
Robo kettle
Given those that saw Robocop in the cinemas are approaching an age that should be entitled to a pension, this meme hits closer to home than the satire of the original!
Capcha culture
If I didn't watch TV shows from North America, would I know how to answer this question?
Magpie stencil
Beginning to think I should cut a series of songbird stencils.
I cut a second stencil and painted a couple of birds onto a guitar body after giving it a wash with diluted paint leftover after doing the sides.
Anyway, a day later I didn't like the top bird and decided to cut another stencil.
Outsiders
Watching ABC's Insiders this week and their panel discussed the local Farrer by-election
Retiring
Liberal Sussan Ley was one of the few remaining moderates within her
party and clearly made a statement by leaving when she lost the
leadership to Angus Taylor, particularly by forgoing any form of speech
to Parliament.
Ley gained the seat after the retirement of Nationals' leader Tim Fischer, another considered a moderate within his party.
So
it was surprising that a collection of esteemed political commentators
from the city all agreed that Taylor's recent proposals to limit
migration were aimed at the Farrer electorate.
When
you consider that a city like Griffith has the most culturally and
linguistically diverse population west of Western Sydney, you realise
how little metropolitan journalists understand regional Australia.
Given how little faith I have in polling results, it's disheartening to see journalists with such limited understanding of an issue important to me.
Bigger Fish
Jo observed that within a few guitars I moved from solid colour to painting a scene this week
After writing a list of possible subject matter I remembered the murray cod exhibition drafts were among the pile of laminated rubbish I've been cutting into stencils, so I worked with those images.
It's also wonderful to observe how the paint layers blend when the oil soaks into the wood.
The guitar bodies are cheap from China and, although described as maple or sycamore, commentators described it as paulownia.
This wood is very light and, while not traditional material for telecasters, is resonant when playing unplugged.
Share a cuppa!
A season of cool
A new exhibition in Griffith explores creativity as it moves between mediums and around the world
The
Stay Cool project encompasses writing workshops, Japanese-style
short-form poetry and contemporary music composition, as well as
photography.
"I
encourage everyone to see how a picture and a few lines of text can
lead to so many wonderful things, and feel what it's like to hear those
observations interpreted as movements of air."
It's
the latest event from the group who developed community art in Griffith
like 2024's Night At The Museum and Action Day Photography Competition,
as well as the landmark Ngurambang exhibtion in 2023.
This collaboration between the
Riverina's Red Earth Ecology and Italian record label Naviar builds on
previous exhibitions, particularly the 'Crossing Streams' exhibition in
Narrandera during 2017.
Curator Jason
Richardson has been a contributor to Naviar Records' weekly haiku
challenges for over a decade and recorded nearly 300 compositions as a
result, while also writing his own haiku and publishing the book Earthwords in 2019.
"Ekphrasis
is a Greek term for art inspired by other mediums and it describes a
process of synthesis that's at the heart of realising new ideas," said
Mr Richardson.
"Some say necessity is the
mother of invention, but I am inspired by the idea that art builds
empathy as it offers the opportunity to see the world through the eyes
of others.
"It's the way each of us can not
help but bring our own experiences to an activity that infuses
creativity with meaning and spirit, which is what Jennifer Yane
identifies in their wonderful observation that 'Art is spirituality in
drag.'"
The Stay Cool exhibition at the
Artspace in the Griffith Regional Theatre includes six poems that were distributed with the
Naviar Records community of musicians, where each inspired dozens of
pieces of music linked via QR code, as well as sharing over a dozen
other haiku contributed by writers attending the online workshops
supported by Western Riverina Arts earlier this year.
"This
collection of words, pictures and music brings together many creative
people from around the world, so many that it might be the biggest group
exhibition you'll see this year," said Mr Richardson.
Stay Cool will exhibit from 25 April to 31 May at Artspace at the Griffith Regional Theatre
This
project has been supported by Griffith Regional Art Gallery, as well as financial assistance from the NSW
Government through Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW.
Late night shopping
That orange hue was the lighting for late night shopping, since the skylight looked brighter during the day.
Around
the time this photograph was taken I would be led around this location
as a small child. In fact my parents had a little harness that I wore to
stop me from running away.
I don't remember
Tandy in that spot, as it had moved by the time I started shopping for
electronics, but next door to that shop in this photo there was a place
called Hansel and Gretel.
It was while walking
past there that I first smelled coffee. A path was seared into my
neurons and I distinctly remember asking my mother what the shop sold.
Mum
doesn't drink much coffee and seemed disdainful in her answer, which
didn't make sense to me at the time anyway as I was sure she was lying and the smell was
chocolate!
Wooden whale
My partner reminded me that I'd been considering the possibility of using my chisels for something other than guitar cavities.
Compiling
Every week I record something, but it'd been nearly five years since I last published an album
So it was cool to find so much material, like this electric ukulele -- which, coincidentally, I fixed the wiring in this guitar this week and it still sounds good.
(Actually, now that I think about it, this was surprising how simple the soldering seemed after putting off doing that for years but my soldering has gotten better recently.)
Anyway, if anyone asked me to write a Bond theme then it might sound like this if 007 was going to Hawaii.
This track is going on my next album, I think, because it's a more straight-forward rock instrumental and those can be collected together.
However, there was a track with a reversed ukulele part which seemed too similar to sit alongside this track, which is why it's on the album that I published just now.
Automaton
The capcha requires so many ticks that it feels like a trick and, sure enough, I had to do another.
Speak up!
It was something that confronted me while working in a school last year, when I was reminded that I had a duty to actively engage in establishing acceptable behaviour among students.
That aspect of becoming a teacher and being a nagging voice isn't comfortable for me, but I am learning to fit that role as well as being a better ally.
Composition assignment
One of the things about having kids is recognising patterns everywhere
I see aspects of myself and also how they vary. So it's been interesting working with my second son on the same musical assignment that my first son had a few years ago.
Both boys asked for keyboards to write on, then observed the performance of moving from one chord to another could be challenging. It's at this point that I reiterate how a great product like Suzuki's Omnichord addresses this for non-performing musicians. Nah, they say while visibly recoiling, let me try programming beats in Ableton Live.
After happily programming beats for a while, they lose interest and time passes until the deadline is drawing closer. I draw their attention to how time-consuming it is to pick drum samples after programming one loop, then they realise how the Omnichord exports half a dozen parts as soon as you press a button.
It's at this point that the experience of supporting their songwriting diverges, as my first son took a whimsical "what if it were Bossanova" idea toward improvising a melody. Meanwhile, this week my youngest took a couple of lessons toward writing a song.
We looked at the photo and I told him to plot an intro, a verse, a chorus, a middle-eight and a double chorus before concluding. After a couple of attempts he recorded a full take playing an arrangement from start to finish, with a bit where he got lost adding a build-up.
A day went past and he picked instruments from Ableton Live, as well as exploring the MIDI functions.
The night before the assignment is due and he returns to the project, agreeing that it needs something. We consider improvising a vocal that can be turned to MIDI and made into a solo instrument.
Then I mention my idea that it could be a protest song pointing out the problems with his high school's toilets. My second son has been listening to Bob Dylan and considers the idea, how would it go? I wrote some lyrics weeks earlier based on the Dr John song he likes.
My son had his phone out and starts drafting ideas, which are tested against the existing arrangement to identify lengths for verses and lyrics. After singing it through one time, we record it and mix the result.
Wulf in paperback
So it was a thrill to find she'd signed this copy.
Tone up
You're not like the others
On a residency another artist told me that it'd taken a therapist to explain to their significant other how important having a creative practise was for their sanity.
As a result they moved to part-time work and are now winning prizes for innovative art.
Looking at Facebook
I keep pondering the semiotics of the images when I visit Facebook
Having
been through the process while working on marketing documents for
institutions, I feel that I have an understanding of some of those
decisions.
There are a disproportionate number of people of colour, above the statistical average, which signifies diversity.
The
heart and smiley icons are significant symbols within the Facebook
ecosystem, but here signify passions and humour -- rather than the
angry-looking emoji that also plays a role in these responses.
Significantly
for a platform that has been shown to promote negative emotions to
drive engagement for advertisers, the site promotes itself as a happy
place for friendship.
It seems ironic given how much of the newsfeed is now occupied by pages we didn't choose to follow.
The
timestamp is where the darker aspects of Facebook's surveillance are
acknowledged, but it is as much something that users engage in as we can
see when our messages are seen by recipients as well as getting a sense
of what they're doing and with whom.
Of all the roles that Facebook now plays in users' lives, it's the image of the knotted blue rope that prompted my reflection.
Why would a twisted thread be significant enough to go on the homepage of Facebook's website?
It looks sorta like a germ photographed under an electron microscope!
Yet the connotation must be that we are tied together through the website.
Although,
now that I think about it, maybe I am the germ within their clean
user-interface and attempting to infect your experience with some
skepticism.
Facebook has been central within
our societies and the suppression of journalism in favour of knee-jerk
emotions and rage-baiting shows how dangerous it continues to be for
democracies.
Journalism used to be known as the
fourth pillar of democracy and we're still getting a sense of how
communities can operate without a sense of the facts that profession
would establish and interrogate.
So the deeper significance of the knot is that we're tied together by a US-based corporation as it dismantles democracies.
Lessons
Semester begins again next week and I'll be sent to practice teaching in a school during May
Yesterday I noticed the uni had given me three days to complete the checklist, which seemed strange since that deadline is ahead of the course starting and many students wouldn't be looking at emails yet.
One of the items on that list was information on the clothing that would be appropriate for a student attending a school, which surprised me to learn that denim is discouraged.
Most teachers I see dress in a smart casual way, except for special days like excursions when I feel prudish for pondering whether their pants aren't underwear.
Stay Cool with Marco Sebastiano Alessi
In a thoughtful and generous talk, Marco Sebastiano Alessi offered more than practical advice on writing poetry — he shared a philosophy of creative practice shaped by fourteen years of experimentation, collaboration, and attentive listening.
The project began with a simple moment of curiosity: reading a book of poetry while listening to music.
From that quiet overlap grew Naviar’s Haiku Challenge, now more than a decade old.
What started as an idea has evolved into an international online community, exhibitions, and public events — a reminder that creative ecosystems often emerge from small, personal impulses.
A Practice of Staying Cool
Alessi’s advice to writers was grounded and refreshingly honest. Creativity, he suggested, thrives not on pressure but on steadiness.
First, block time for yourself. Poetry requires space — not only physical time but mental permission. Protecting that space signals that writing matters.
At the same time, be receptive. Ideas rarely arrive on command. They surface while walking, listening, waiting. The task is twofold: to remain open to them and to develop a reliable way of capturing them for later. A notebook, a voice memo, a fragment saved in a phone — these small habits make inspiration practical.
He emphasized refining one’s process. Writing improves through repetition and reflection. Notice what works. Notice what doesn’t. Adjust. Over time, process becomes personal craft.
Community also plays a vital role. Sharing work with like-minded people creates encouragement and dialogue. Poetry may be written alone, but it does not have to exist in isolation.
Equally important is rest. Taking breaks is not laziness but incubation. When we step away, another mental process continues quietly in the background. Returning with fresh eyes often reveals what effort alone could not.
Perhaps most crucially, Alessi encouraged writers to do it for themselves. Second-guessing what others might want leads to self-consciousness and dilution. Authenticity carries further than calculation.
Learning from others — even borrowing techniques — is part of growth. Influence is not imitation; it is conversation across time and style. Over time, writing should become part of who you are, not something external you occasionally perform.
And if the process becomes stressful? Pause and ask why. Stress can signal misalignment — with expectations, with habits, or with purpose.
What Makes a Haiku Sing
When turning specifically to haiku submissions for Naviar Records, Alessi described what draws attention.
A strong first line matters. In such a compressed form, the opening must immediately ground the reader — offering an image, a tone, or a moment that feels alive.
Juxtaposition is central. “The fact there is a gap between concepts is where the reader is drawn,” he explained. Haiku often places two elements side by side — image and image, perception and observation — and meaning emerges in the space between them. That gap invites participation.
A successful haiku feels like a snapshot of life: self-contained, yet open. It offers enough detail to anchor the reader, but enough restraint to allow interpretation.
Above all, simplicity. Not simplicity as lack, but as refinement. The language should feel economical and elegant. Each word must justify its presence. The aesthetic lies in precision — in saying exactly enough, and no more.
The Long View
What emerged from the talk was not a formula but a mindset. To “stay cool” is to approach writing with steadiness, curiosity, and self-trust. Build habits. Stay open. Share. Rest. Refine.
From a fleeting moment of poetry and music grew an enduring creative community. The lesson is reassuring: small, sincere acts of attention can expand far beyond their beginnings — especially when nurtured with patience and care.
The workshops are supported by Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW through financial assistance from the NSW Government
Stay Cool with Lisa Germany
Lisa Germany opened the session by reflecting on her own beginnings
When she first developed a serious interest in haiku, she sought guidance from a mentor, Sean O'Connor, whose work she had encountered in various online journals. His presence in the haiku community reassured her that this was a living, evolving art form — and one that rewards careful study.
What is haiku?
Lisa began with the word itself. *Haiku* combines *hai* (short) and *ku* (verse). Yet its brevity is not merely about length. She offered a definition that anchored the rest of the workshop:
One moment, please
There is a common tendency to think of haiku as seventeen “sounds.”
While this idea derives from Japanese poetic structure, those sounds are not exactly syllables in English. Rather than fixating on syllable count, Lisa encouraged participants to think in terms of "three utterances" — three breaths or natural phrases that shape the experience.
Show, don't tell
Haiku often draws from the natural world. But nature in haiku is not decorative; it is observed.
A strong haiku shows rather than tells. It presents images instead of abstract concepts. It offers feeling rather than commentary, perception rather than explanation. The poem should move in a clear and direct path, allowing the reader to enter the moment without obstruction.
In this sense, haiku resists cleverness. It asks for clarity.
Why haiku?
Why practice such a spare form? Because haiku gets you outside basically.
It invites connection with the natural world and anchors you in the present moment. It sharpens the powers of observation. It poses a creative challenge within tight constraints. And despite its brevity, it is timeless.
Walking into a poem
A ginko is a haiku walk — an intentional walk taken for the purpose of observation and writing.
Lisa offered practical guidance for how to ginko:
- Take your time.
- Bring something to record notes.
- Stop when something catches your attention.
- Pay attention with all your senses.
She draws on nature journaling prompts to deepen perception:
- I see
- I hear
- I smell
- I feel
- I taste
The key is specificity. Capture images, not generalities. Instead of “a bird,” what kind? Instead of “a cold day,” what reveals the cold?
Start with the essentials: what, where, and when.
Seasonal availability
Traditional haiku includes a seasonal reference, but season is always context-specific. Lisa illustrated this with the striking difference between a spring breeze in Australia and a spring breeze in Greenland. The same phrase evokes entirely different sensory realities depending on place.
Haiku is rooted in lived environment. Its seasons are not abstract markers but embodied experiences:
Crafting a moment
When shaping a haiku, begin by asking: *What is the moment?* Then present it as it came to you.
Keep the language clear and direct. Avoid ornamentation. Favor nouns and verbs over adjectives and adverbs. Let the images carry the weight.
And when revising, Lisa’s advice was firm:
Fight for the best word
Editing is not about embellishment but precision. Each word must earn its place. In such a brief form, there is no room for excess.
One of the distinguishing moment's in Lisa's thoughtfully-researched presentation was the demonstration of how a draft had developed from the camping trip to revisiting the photographs and editing a related haiku.
In the cool light of Sisimiut, her lessons were not only about poetry. It was about attention — about stepping outside, noticing, and honoring a fleeting instant. Haiku, as Lisa Germany teaches it, is less a technical exercise and more a disciplined act of presence: one moment, keenly perceived.
The workshops are supported by Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW through financial assistance from the NSW Government
Hall in Wagga
Great work by Eastrern Riverina Arts in organising a loan of Fiona Hall's magnificent Paradisus Terrestris (1989-90)
This group of intricate sculptures will be loaned from the National Gallery of Australia for two years thanks to the Sharing the National Collection program.
I'm looking forward to looking at them again soon!
Ley leaves
"One of the good ones," is what they'll say as
another politician leaves politics
Sussan Ley was one of those, as far
as Liberals go. I appreciated that she played the role of sitting member
and answered my emails on subjects like the importance of the public
broadcaster and migration. I met her a couple of times and she was an
effective politician in that she made a point of introducing herself.
One
of the things not being acknowledged in Ley's departure from Parliament
is how long the writing has been on both the proverbial wall and the news
websites: In both 2023 and 2022 the Prime Minister intervened to ensure
she was the Liberal candidate preselected for the seat of Farrer.
Ley
leaves as the first female Liberal leader amid discussion of quotas and
it's clear how much of a problem the party has with women.
When
you consider the strong support Ley had as a sitting member with twice
as many votes as the most recent opponent, it's clear the Liberal party
will run a candidate across all the towns in Farrer in the forthcoming byelection. There are many
towns and one expects they need to have recognition in either Albury,
Deni and/or Griffith. The local members are active at all the polling
stations and that is a significant achievement, however it remains to be
seen if the local party membership has a say in their candidate.
A
group of irrigators have contributed to previous independent candidates
in their campaigns against Ley, as has Climate 200, but neither have the
numbers of actual human resources that the local Liberal branches send
to polling stations. While The Nationals still have a presence in the region, One Nation now has Barnaby Joyce for
publicity and it will be a sign of whether the party is ready to run a
federal campaign if he spends much time in the Riverina.
Detention or anal retention
My son is the number one fan for Dr John and has an assignment to write a piece of music, so I suggested that he change the lyrics to one of his songs to comment on how kids won't crap at school:
Oh my
L33T0N High
taught me to crap
in my own time
Their bathroom stalls
don't have doors
unless you like gaping with kids vaping
then you'll never cross that tiled floor
I wouldn't be in the shit if I could have shit
said I wouldn't be in the shit if I could have shit
I wouldn't have backed out to back it out
if I could have shit
so I wouldn't be in the shit if I could have shit
Patton introduces me to Celentano
Recently I went down a rabbit hole on Youtube
These were phenomenal musicians having a lot of fun performing and I was fortunate to see some of them play at other Bungle but also Secret Chiefs shows.
Aside from having a pass to take photographs that gave me better-than-front-row positions, I could observe one of my heroes in Mike Patton manipulating his voice with a tape machine.
This was the first time I saw a band perform at the Uni of C and hadn't seen a mezzanine over a stage, so I was looking down on the crowd at the start of the show.
It was an unusual audience because it was the first week of the semester or something and people were there for the party as much as the band.
It was also remarkable to see this band because I'd been looking at their t-shirts for years since Faith No More's '90s hits and the first Bungle album challenges a lot of conventions.
I didn't know what to expect, but the tour manager said I had the first two songs to take photos. The first song went for less than a minute, but I took photos from backstage through the entire show.
Anyway, when I was on the mezzanine a guy in bandages started walking toward me with a camera out. I later saw him playing guitar, so I think it was Trey Spruance.
There was a percussionist playing with the band for this tour, I think his name is William Winant, which really elevated the performances and added a lot of that zaniness from Bungle's first album.
I recall a moment where the percussionist and Patton did this duet like a scat vocal but in sync with each other.
So, out of nowhere, came a cover of 'Tower of Strength' made famous by an overwrought Gene McDaniels.
It was a song from around 35 years earlier that I knew from being part of a compilation tape in my father's car.
I can't tell you what a thrill it was to reconnect with that song at that time watching these musicians.
These are the live experiences that I value and there were a few similar moments from going to gigs.
Anyway, I had a similar thrill when I went looking for 'Tower of Strength' and found Adriano Celentano.
Mr Celentano recorded the song in both Italian and Spanish, which was likely part of his efforts to introduce Europe to both rock and roll.
However, as I explored his career, it became clear that he also kept the flame alive with the revival as psychedelic rock a decade later.
It's wild that he's now singing in German, but I guess one would work across several markets and languages if they were a popular singer in Europe.
However, I am even more impressed with his enthusiasm for disco.
It was the major trend in music at the time and Adriano embaced it as a triple threat would do, combining slapstick with the dance moves.
I gather from Wikipedia there was a corkscrew-shaped pasta named for Celentano!
Stay Cool with Jason Richardson
The Stay Cool project aims to develop haiku for responses from Naviar Records’ community of musicians ahead of an exhibition in Griffith during April-May
Interdisciplinary is one term for this approach, ekphrasis is another — which is a Greek term for an artwork inspired by another medium.
“I find that creativity can be stimulated from strategies, including rules,” said Mr Richardson.
“So I take many of the ideas discussed here as starting points rather than standards.
“One great tip from a poetry workshop I previously attended was to consider all of your senses in describing a scene to give details for a reader.
“I am a believer in there being more than five senses, such as experiencing intuition as a sixth sense, and it can be useful to ponder that interplay of stimulus and your inner response.
“Being in an environment will mean light, sound and smell are entering into us, but one might also ponder what ideas are trying to arise within you as well?
“Landscapes are central to my creative practices and one approach is to write a poem inspired by a photograph, so photography became an analogy used to discuss observation and the role that plays in writing.
“In my experience as a photographer, you learn various techniques that generate a “wow” response and use them to give that effect for viewers.
“A couple of good strategies for night sky images are long shutter speeds and saturating colours in post-production, such as Photoshop.
“These are ideas that a haiku writer might draw inspiration from by spending time in an environment and also finding evocative words to describe it.
“It might be useful to consider yourself as a camera, allowing moments to pass as you absorb the sensations through allowing the time as your slow shutter.
“Then the saturation might be considering the hue of your language, particularly if it evokes complex emotions like the wabi-sabi of Japanese culture.”
Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic and philosophical worldview centered on finding beauty in impermanence, imperfection, and nature’s natural cycles.
Rooted in Zen Buddhism, it values simplicity, modesty, and authenticity, encouraging appreciation for rustic, weathered, or aged objects (sabi) and unconventional, humble beauty (wabi).”
This is a good point to introduce some other terms related to haiku:
• haibun = prose with haiku
• haiga = pictures with haiku
• renga = collaborative poetry
• tanka = also developed from renga, slightly longer form
• senryu = haiku-style verse, personal observation style
“In my writing I have developed from the 5+7+5 syllable structure that seems to have become popularly known from the American writers who promoted haiku in the 20th Century, such as Ezra Pound and Jack Kerouac.
“I have always been attracted to this structure as a creative constraint, which is one kind of strategy.
“Over time I’ve learned that a lot of what I write are senryu, as haiku is distinguished through containing a seasonal reference (kigo) and a cutting phrase (kireji).
“A seasonal reference can be less obvious than naming a season, but in the workshop I spoke about how various cultures have viewed the year as being split into more than four seasons.
“For example, some of Australia’s First Nations describe six or more seasons, while one Japanese author I read proposed micro-seasons of 10-14 days as a way to characterise parts of the year.
“The kireji is often the line at the end and is sometimes identified with a em dash-style hyphen, which provides a new way to view the scene that came before the dash.”
One of the most influential haiku authors was Matsuo Basho of the 17th Century and, rather than sticking to the formulas of kigo he aspired to reflect his real environment and emotions in his poems.
A famous example is:
The summer grasses
All that remains
Of brave soldiers dreams
You can see the kigo (seasonal reference) in the first line, while the last line is the kireji (cutting phrase) that forces you to reconsider the scene in a new light.
“Aside from photography, one of the creative strategies that I have promoted for generating ideas is the Cut-up Technique and it follows on from the kireji idea as a way to view previous text in a new light.”
The Cut-Up Technique has established itself as a viable technique for making art after being developed by Tristan Tzara in the Dada movement and then being popularised by William S. Burroughs, who became known among the Beat writers and had a long and influential career.
“There’s a story that Tzara was unimpressed with the manifesto writing that Surrealists were engaged in producing and decided he could do better by cutting up a newspaper and selecting words randomly.
“In some tellings of this story, Tzara found himself kicked out of that famous art movement and went on to establish the Dadaists.
“As a creative process these cut-ups predate “remixing” and share similarities in rearranging existing material to create new meaning and potentially new artworks.
“David Bowie promoted using cut-ups to write song lyrics and explored various approaches during his career, such as drafting his own text to cut-up as well as using software to do a similar process.
The Cut-up Technique is seemingly so simple that it likely had other guises earlier in history.
“One reason why I think it’s often overlooked is that it treats art dispassionately as a process and doesn’t respect either the integrity of the source material nor the artist as a genius.
“Given the basis of literature in western culture developed from respect for the Bible, the idea that one would disfigure text to create new meaning must be seen as an affront.
“I combined the cut-up approach with haiku and senryu in my book Earthwords (2019) as a way to engage readers as collaborators, while demonstrating that creative practice is available to anyone with text and a pair of scissors.”
In conclusion, Jason ended the workshop encouraging participants to be receptive to their environment and become observers who allow landscapes to saturate their experiences.
“I ask everyone to take time, mentally use a slow shutter speed and allow observations to reveal the contrasts which can help to frame a cutting phrase in their poems.
“And then you might consider how a Cut-up Technique type of approach can be as simple as swapping around the first and last lines of a poem.”
The workshops continue through February and, if you’d like to join, please email staycoolexhibition@gmail.com
These workshops are supported by Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW through financial assistance from the NSW Government.
Becoming
One of my projects this year will be compiling a new album
I write a lot of music and it's surprising how effective it can be to remix that material, like the track above was played with guitar and then became something else when I played with it in the computer.
Twisted
Bought a pack of discounted chips and they left me unsettled
They even twisted the slogan "Life's pretty straight without..."
While I've never been to New Zealand, I wonder if the experience is like going to Shelbyville?
The thing that drains you
While I can relate to some of what Mr Valbrun is raising in the comment shown, my feeling is that it began in the early '20s.
That's the 2020s because it was this decade when quarantines were lifted in a rush to normalise life as a new coronavirus was still circulating.
We're still seeing the impacts that it has on lives.
It could just be me, but the more that I look around the more that I see signs everywhere.
In the UK there's been a significant rise in graduates who are unable to work due to health reasons.
It must be devastating to be at the beginning of your adult life and not have the energy to pursue your ambitions.
It was seeing these patterns in data that began giving me an insight into the disconnected attitudes that I see in people.
I hope it gives me patience by recognising that people don't have the energy and possibly are lacking in other capacities as well.
Social identity
It makes sense given that imitation is a large part of how we learn and the gauge by which progress is evaluated.
As
a teenager I remember trying to provoke a reaction from my father, who
studied honours in psychology before being conscripted into the army
near the end of the Vietnam War.
I grew my hair, pierced an ear and pursued various ways to appear obnoxious like wearing t-shirts with offensive slogans.
His
response was frustrating at the time of being a rebellious young adult,
as he'd opine something droll like "I see you've moved from one social
norm to another as a way of asserting your individuality."
So the idea in this post that my friend shared on Facebook reflects something of that lesson.
However,
one of the experiences that probably had a more profound effect on me
than the wisdom of my father was living with divorced parents.
On
weekends I'd be in my father's house and discovering new technology
like computers, compact discs and video tapes, then during the week I'd
live with my mother who was surviving on a government benefit.
In
some ways mum's demonstrations of being able to survive on less in an
affluent society have probably had a more profound impact on me, I
think.
I still do a lot of shopping at
secondhand stores, seek out discounted items at the supermarket and when
I took out a loan on a house I made sure I could make repayments while
on unemployment benefits, because I sooned tired of full-time work and
have never really returned.
It's the idea of a
social identity that probably underpins my creative practices, but I am
wondering whether I have a couple of identities from the modelling I saw
as a child.
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