Neighbour found an injured owl, which ended up being euthanased by a local vet.Reminds me of this dazed owl at the park after being attacked by a kookaburra.
Seems it's been a year for injured owls. Both appear on my Shot Wildlife blog.
Owl ows
Neighbour found an injured owl, which ended up being euthanased by a local vet.Reminds me of this dazed owl at the park after being attacked by a kookaburra.
Seems it's been a year for injured owls. Both appear on my Shot Wildlife blog.
Photography competition finalist!
It passed the popular vote on Facebook to be a finalist and is currently exhibited for another popular vote to select the winner. I love that the competition is based on audience participation.
The theme for entries this year was 'Leeton's identity' and I believe the water slide is something kids associate with the town.
Water is also an intrinsic part of Leeton's identity, as the town was the first built as part of the Murrumbidgee irrigation scheme.
Found a merman in a rockpool
Crap Taxidermy
Live Frontier Psychiatry
The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist performed live. Coming to the Sydney Opera House in May I hear.
Here's an interview I did with The Avalanches last century.
April Fools Day
But Gmail seem to be in-sync with Antipodeans in offering the "Gmail Shelfie" -- which doesn't have anything to do with my shelfie last week.
Soundcloud had a good April Fools Day joke last year.
Documents leaked to the media suggest initial tests proved the system is viable and capable of delivering data payloads many times greater than current radio technology. One problem highlighted in the reports was interference from traditional lighting fixtures.
It plays on moves by the Government to reclaim broadcast spectrum used by products like wireless microphones, a topic where there was some positive news recently with the current Communications Minister meeting with representatives from ACETA,
And here's one from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, with more listed at this news story.
P.S. Hats off to the forethought and planning undertaken by this person.
2 Cellos Thunderstruck
Great version of the song I associate with an ad for a Holden ute -- which I believe was banned because it showed the driver engaging in sustained loss of traction (i.e. a burn-out).
This duo 2Cellos play a couple of other AC/DC covers, as well beaut versions of material as varied as Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal, Guns N' Roses Welcome to the Jungle and The Prodigy's Voodoo People.
Movies In Color
Movies In Color is a website that analyses the colour palatte of cinema, which is something of a dark art IMO. Determining colours for projects was one of the trickiest aspects of graphic design for me until I discovered online colour palatte generators.
Image above comes from the film Wild At Heart, one of my all-time favourites. The palatte for Amelie, another favourite, is particularly lush.
Tony Mott
Mott is a successful photographer who specialises in music industry portraits and concert images. The exhibition is excellent, both for his images and his unreserved comments alongside them.
The talk also contained information about artists that would fill a gossip column, as well as praise for famous and not-so-famous musicians.
One story I liked was about taking Perry Farrell's portrait, the screenshot above comes from Mott's website. The singer from Jane's Addiction and Porno For Pyros is a noted eccentric, as well as being the founder of the US Lollapolooza tour.
Mott recounted that he'd arrived at Farrell's hotel room and was asked by the singer if he trusted him. "Yeah, sure" he replied and was asked to close his eyes. After 10 seconds or so Mott opened his eyes again to find Farrell looking at him and asking "Hey! Where's the trust?"
Mott said he closed his eyes again and felt Farrell's hand on his genitals. When he opened his eyes in surprise Farrell said "Now we trust each other"!
It was great to be able to ask Tony Mott questions and learn from his experience. Afterward I introduced myself and recounted that we'd met at the front of Korn's gig in Canberra in 1997. He seemed to remember the night too.
You can see some of my concert photographs at First Three Songs, No Flash -- which refers to the instructions one usually gets before photographing a concert.
Little ditty
Here's a track I wrote and recorded for the Disquiet Junto last weekend. I set myself a challenge to record each part as a single take and undertook no editing.
The theme was brushing teeth, although you wouldn't pick it from the track.
Shelfie for book awareness
Not to belittle the cancer fundraising by people posting self-portraits on social media, but more needs to be done to promote reading.
Kid History
These cute videos feature adults acting out events recollected by small children. A nice reminder of the perspective they offer, made humourous through the juxtaposition of seeing it happen to adults.
Griffith math graffiti
Yay for math nerditry in Griffith but I've seen the 4x4=16 gag before.
St Patrick's Day
Though I understand they usually put two stories on the front page, I always read it as though they are one. In this case it seemed to me St Patrick's was the cause of the horror weekend.
In fact, it seems likely that the person who did the layout for this cover last month was relishing the play on the word 'bust' under the story with the picture featuring a bra.
Optical distortion
The wide-angle lens used to take the photo has distorted the picture, although the image may also have been stretched to fit full-screen on my internet browser too.
Things to do on Twitter when you're dead
Reminds me of the dead people I saw on Facebook, which seems to have stopped. Wonder if they developed an algorithm for that?
I'd wondered if Facebook would be considered culturally insensitive for showing images of dead Aboriginals, based on the warnings you see on the television about the possibility of seeing an indigenous person who's since moved on.
Why invest in the arts?
Arts minister George Brandis is reported as having written to the Australia Council seeking policy to penalise arts organisations that refuse funding from corporate sponsors on “unreasonable grounds” and threatening to force them adopt one if he wasn’t happy with their effort.
The Greens have seized on the discussion to point out that Brandis’ Liberal party accept funding from tobacco companies, a source of sponsorship that has been discouraged in many sectors. You’ll see the image above has been authorised by Greens leader Christine Milne.
One of the things that I think has been missing from the discussion is why companies invest in the arts. The obvious answer is publicity and to associate themselves with cultural activity but I’m curious why this activity is seen as positive. Why are the arts seen as good? What do companies gain through association?
I’ve just been reading David Byrne’s book How Music Works and he discusses the idea:
Elitism is not the sole reason that the “temples of quality” are lavishly funded. There is also the undeniable glory of seeing your name on a museum or symphony hall.
Byrne quotes Alain de Botton as writing:
I met a lot of people in the property business [developers, as they are called in the United States], an asked them why they did what they did… They said it was to make money. I said, “Don’t you want to do something else? Build better buildings?” Their idea of doing something better for society was to give money to the opera.
Byrne goes on to write:
The kind of compartmentalizing — separating one’s livelihood from one’s social aspirations — is part of the reason David Koch, the hidden hand behind a lot of ultraconservatives and, reportedly, the Tea Party movement in the United States, transforms himself into a respected arts patron by funding a theater at Lincoln Centre, or why a Swiss bank that helps U.S. depositors avoid paying taxes generously supports symphony halls and the ballet. It’s almost as if there are moral scales, and by tossing some loot on one side, you can balance out the precarious situation your reputation might be getting into on the other.
Byrne quotes John Carey’s book What Good Are the Arts? on the attitude of oil magnate John Paul Getty:
In his view, artworks are superior to people. His art collection was viewed as an external or surrogate soul. These spiritual values attributed to the artworks were transferred to the owner.
Working in the arts sector I am occasionally asked what value they bring and I’ll say they hold a mirror to society. That the arts provide metaphors and emotional depths and can provide a variety of perspectives on the human condition.
Rarely am I challenged to outline their benefit beyond that but if I were I’d point to the training ground they provide, with people developing skills in the arts that are sought in commercial realms. The Australian Bureau of Statistics first study into the economic contribution of the Creative and Cultural Industries has found it added $86 billion to our national economy in 2008-09.
However, I’m rarely challenged to make this argument because most people appreciate the arts. There’s an inherent sense of goodwill towards the arts because they promote human expression and — like how the misguided belief in a right to free speech is often thought to be a good thing — this idea that philanthropists are assisting culture is what they're capitalising on.
By investing in the arts they are seen as helping artists express themselves and enrich society. Like this money is helping people reach their potential and achieve goals, much like sporting prowess, in an area where success isn't as easily quantified but imparts some sense of nobility.
Quaffing pic
It says the photo was supplied but I'm sure the journalist Chanal Parratt took it, as she was sitting opposite me and taking photos on the sly.
Death of blogging
None of the blogs I've seen have been updated in 2014. Many seemed to stop around 2011 or 2012.
I'd guess Facebook took over for many and it makes sense. If you're sharing pics of your kids or reflecting on your days, your audience is likely to be friends and family. Facebook's newsfeed makes it easier to reach those people.
It's interesting that the trajectory of online publishing has gone from building your own HTML website to WYSIWYG interfaces (like here on Blogger) to Web 2.0 platforms like MySpace (with some options to personalise your site) to Facebook (with little option to personalise). This process has gained greater audiences through reducing the skills required to publish. It's kinda hegemonic in showing the concessions required for the power of self-publishing online to reach the masses.
However, if you're like Garnet Syberg-Olsen -- whose 'Slacker' sketch I've purloined for this post -- a blog is a great way to reach an audience beyond friends and family. Garnet's work is pretty cool and I've enjoyed seeing it, which probably wouldn't have happened on Facebook.
P.S. Seems I should've clicked 'Next Blog' a few more times as I've found Captain Orange's blog, which has many beaut photos and was updated in the last week.
Her and Hoffman
"Her" trailer plus Philip Seymour Hoffman from Richard Trammell
So I was watching Spike Jonze's movie Her and remembered this trailer which had been edited to use Phillip Seymour Hoffman's voice, who died within weeks of it appearing online.
Her is a clever film and in many ways the story is about human nature. I liked the sense that meaning is created through impermanence, so it seemed all the more poignant that Hoffman's voice was used to replace Scarlett Johansson as the character Samantha.
Another aspect of the film is how we project onto people in our relationships, making the sense of loss with the tragic demise of an acting talent like Hoffman a kind of comment on relationships created through mediums -- whether it's an operating system or movies.
One thing I found kinda charming about the film was how accepting most of the characters were about the idea of having a relationship with an operating system. Dunno, I can see the film would be quite silly if this wasn't the case but it underscored for me that if someone is happy and not doing themselves harm, then loving should be like I once heard Michael Franti say:
"It's not who you love but do you love?"
More from Neve
This week I arrived home to find this scene reminiscent of images from the execution of Hitler's would-be assassins.
Still rising
Leeton newspaper The Irrigator ran this piece today on the last remix chain, which can be heard at the Shinobi Cuts bandcamp page.
Just add Benny
This video of ravers dancing with the Benny Hill TV show theme added has generated a few laughs in recent days but I don't think it's as good as the following version of Beyonce's 'Single ladies' clip.
Neve's curse
My daughter had a tiff with her friends yesterday and was so annoyed that she put this curse on them.
She drew them within a circle, dead from drinking poison. You can see they attempted to cross out their names and substitute with hers.
She drew herself laughing at their demise, which is kinda chilling for a six-year old. Apparently all was forgiven by the time they got on the school bus this morning.
Scrivener's legacy
His early life was fascinating and challenging, entering surveying after getting 100% in his entrance exam and earning the nickname hundred. The work involved a lot of travel and hardwork, including dragging of chains through bushland to triangulate measurements. He slept in canvas tents through winters, later designed the Scrivener tent that was still in use after his death.
Scrivener's legacy was partly known to me from my time in Canberra but reading this book made me aware of how misrepresented he has been. For example, a few years ago I read a piece that suggested it was telling that Scrivener Dam holds back the waters of Lake Burley Griffin because Scrivener prevented the American architect from realising his vision for Canberra -- which is one of only a few designed cities in the world.
Walter Burley Griffin rose to prominence after winning the competition to design the national capital of Australia and was given a position on site that allowed him to undertake this role, while working part-time on private projects including the designs for Leeton and Griffith. I get the impression he stretched himself and the delays in submitting plans for Canberra eventually led to his contract not being renewed.
Griffin's employment with Frank Lloyd Wright, where he met his wife Marion, suggests a lot of the possibility that Canberra could've been designed to be magnificent. Aside from the urban design that Griffin has become known for, like the circular streets bounding suburbs, the school of Frank Lloyd Wright is famous for designing houses from top to bottom -- including furniture and interior features. So I guess there's always been a tantalising question of what might've been as Canberra is only loosely based on Griffin's plan and I think I remember there's only one feature that was built to his specifications.
Birtles' book outlines how Scrivener's relationship with Griffin deteriorated as the American sought to shift blame for delays. But the book keeps this episode in perspective with the rest of Scrivener's career and provides a great overview, including his role in mapping many areas throughout the state.
It was fascinating to read descriptions of places with which I'm familiar as well as the history surrounding the national capital, like why Jervis Bay is part of the Australian Capital Territory and how Burrinjuck Dam got its name. As well as, of course, how Scrivener's Dam was named because he identified the spot as being the best place to build the damn thing.
Reimagining the Murrumbidgee
My contribution is a soundtrack composed from recordings of the River, as well as photographs in the catalogue which I also designed.
If you can't make it to Wagga, you can download my Reimagining soundtrack and a copy of the catalogue from Bandcamp.
Neve's dragon
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