Reckoner by Radiohead

Reckoner

You can't take it with you
Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for
Bittersweet distractor
Dare not speak its name
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)
Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)

Reckoner

Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

- Reckoner, by Radiohead, written by Thom Yorke.

This coming Tuesday- Radiohead, Gara and Brodie. It's like going home.

Codex Reperio Wordled

I took about 10,000 words I'd written from this blog and worked it through Wordle to get this funky "word cloud" above, based on frequency of usage. Loving the dadaist juxtaposition.

Then I put the entire text of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse through and tweaked the formatting a little further to get the result below. My vote for the cover of the 90th anniversary edition.

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

"I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray.

When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me.

In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me:

"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."

Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written.

I am not done with my changes."

- The Layers- by the late, American Poet Laureate, Stanley Kunitz

Cultures at the far edge of the world

Spend twenty minutes with Wade Davis, a Harvard-educated ethnobotanist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He tells an intense and incredibly powerful story that challenges our view of the world and the lives we lead, in inspiring and beautiful ways.

Like Spinning Plates

The photograph below is the final scene of a powerful series capturing the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, during a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27th 2007. Interview with photographer John Moore, Getty Images, 1st Prize for Stories, 2008 World Press Photo.

While you make pretty speeches
I'm being cut to shreds
You feed me to the lions
A delicate balance

And this just feels like spinning plates
I'm living in cloud cuckoo land
And this just feels like spinning plates
Our bodies floating down the muddy river

- Like Spinning Plates by Thom Yorke of Radiohead

Standing silent in the Old Church (Oude Kerk) in central Amsterdam, I'd made my annual pilgrimage to remember the world unfolding around me. The sermon was strong again this year; suppression of the human condition in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Kenya and other lands so tortured. How often have we heard this parable and how often have we begged the lesson yet be learned? There was no hymn, no choir of angels to descend upon our fearful souls. We came to see, not listen, and we look until our eyes are filled with tears upon faintest realisation that THIS is happening HERE and NOW, merely outside whatever walls that we imagine line our little lands. There is no priest, except whatever voice wells up from within, and no communion except the few fragile seconds when you let slip and imagine that this man or woman or child is human, just like you.

Afghan Women

Another favourite of mine from this year's World Press Photo. These are two potraits of Afghan women from a simply beautiful collection of ten.

Lana Slezic, Panos Pictures, Portraits: 3rd prize stories.

"Six years after the ousting of the Taliban regime, the lives of many women in Afghanistan remain unaltered. Honor killings, forced marriage, domestic violence and denial of education continue to affect women daily. These portraits of women in Kabul were made by focusing a modern digital camera onto the glass plate inside an old-fashioned Afghan box camera."

Booka Shade and the Birth of Electro

Tonight, I will be seeing/dancing/being in the proximity of one of my favourite electro/house groups- Booka Shade from Frankfurt. Here is something to listen to and nothing to watch, Mandarine Girl by Booka Shade.

In high school I held strong opinions denying the status of "music" to anything with an electronic beat. Punk had taken its toll- largely in the shape of sore neck muscles, large blue/purple hair and a notion that "society" was something to be yelled about. A fortuitous meeting with a jazz guitar teacher ignited a revolution in taste and within months I was listening to jazz divas and big bands. Still, electronic music seemed rather too much like the soundtrack to car racing games to be of any interest. Hip hop DJs built the bridge for me, but it wasn't until I came to Europe, the global heart of electronic music, that I started to differentiate between genres, styles and quality, to discern what I liked and what to avoid. Now I'm fairly able to unpack the amorphous and rather hilarious genre descriptions of the electro world such as "happy hardcore", "goa trance" and "intelligent drum-and-bass". But there is one style that forms my nemesis, a style that has risen to immense popularity during my time in Amsterdam such that it is almost unavoidable on any given evening, a style known by its adherents and dark practitioners as "minimal techno".

To understand the travesty that is minimal techno, I have to take you back to the very beginnings of techno. And here's the catch, like veritably all modern western music genres, techno was invented by African-Americans! I hear minds being blown world-wide. Techno, seemingly pretty much the whitest music there is, looks largely designed for people who cant handle too many complications in their rhythm section. But travel back with me to Detroit in the pivotal year of 1980. Detroit had largely avoided the disco fad of the 70's but kept strong connections to Funk and Soul. Of course the big news in Detroit and everywhere else in 1980 was the coming computer revolution. And damn, a funk band leader don't need no degree from MIT to talk about "funk technology". A common view emerged that in the near future we would be typing on computers (possibly in space), wearing computers (possible in flouro colours) and listening to "computer music" (possibly in devices made by a computer company). Mix this funk-futurism with the emergent sounds of European synth-pop (Kraftwerk etc) and "computer music" of the future was only steps away. As Derrick May described, the sound of techno was "...like Detroit... a complete mistake, it's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company."

Now, minimal techno has nothing at all to do with George Clinton, despite being his estranged progeny. It is a repetitive melee of tiny bits and beats with no tempo progression, melody or build whatsoever. It is fau "arty" background music for imperceptibly nodding one's head to in elevators. There is no funk, no feeling in minimal techno, a music so stripped down that it tires the ears and bores the soul. Were George alive today (and he is) he would surely declare that minimal is all foreplay and no sex... A Maladaptive Melody... The Defunctive Funk.

Citizens’ rights and the rule of law in a civil society: not just yet

"On the 24th of November 2007, history presented Australia with a choice. To the surprise of some and the delight of a narrow majority, Australia chose the ALP and brought to an ignominious end 11½ years of John Howard’s Government... The magnitude of the choice became clear soon afterwards. In the first sitting of the new parliament, the Government said ‘sorry’ to the stolen generations. It seemed almost too good to be true: the apology so many had waited so long to hear. And it was astonishing and uplifting to hear some of the noblest and most dignified sentiments ever uttered in that place on the hill. It is worth recalling some of the words:

“Today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and Governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. …
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say ‘sorry’.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say ‘sorry’.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say ‘sorry’. …
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. …”

The 13th of February 2008 will be remembered as a day the nation shifted, perceptibly. The apology was significant not only for marking a significant step in the process of reconciling ourselves with our past: it cast a new light on the former government. It set a new tone. And I think it reminded us of something we had lost: a sense of decency.

Most of the worst aspects of the Howard years can be explained by the lack of decency which infected their approach to government. They could not acknowledge the wrong that was done to the stolen generations; they failed to help David Hicks when it was a moral imperative: they waited until his rescue became a political imperative; they never quite understood the wickedness of imprisoning children who were fleeing persecution; they abandoned ministerial responsibility; they attacked the courts scandalously but unblushing; they argued for the right to detain innocent people for life; they introduced laws which prevent fair trials; they bribed the impoverished Republic of Nauru to warehouse refugees for us. It seemed that they did not understand just how badly they were behaving, or perhaps they just did not care. And they are unable to change their ways in defeat: prominent back-benchers are scrambling for the lifeboats.
One of the most compelling things about the apology to the stolen generations was that it was so decent. Suddenly, a dreadful episode in our history was acknowledged for what it was. Unfortunately, when announcing that the Government would apologize to the stolen generations, the Prime Minister also said that the Government would not offer compensation. Let me explain why I think that was unfortunate. ..."

Excerpt from the Ninth Manning Clark Lecture entitled "Citizens’ rights and the rule of law in a civil society: not just yet". By Julian Burnside QC.

Full transcript is here, unfortunately the podcast has been removed.

Jon Stewart interviews Douglas Fief

One of the most dangerous and infuriating aspects of the Bush administration has been the media-spinning, propaganda producing, history revising, blank-faced lies and denials. Knowledgeable, respectful, willy and determined, Jon Stewart interviews a lead Neocon in the Bush Administration's planning, execution and justification of the Iraq War- former Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Fief.

Feel it. That sweet sense of accountability, and almost.. almost a hint of justice.

Putuwa

The Cammeraygal were the Aboriginal group living near my home in Sydney at the time of the European settlement in 1788. They were members of the Eora language family group, one of hundreds of languages and dialects native to Australia.

In Eora, the word Putuwa means "to warm one's hand by the fire and then to squeeze gently the fingers of another person."

The language was first documented by William Dawes, a member of the First Fleet to Australa, a surveyor, engineer, astronomer and botanist. Dawes learnt Eora from a Cammeraygal girl called Patyegarang, being the first European to learn an Aboriginal language- a feat Europeans found incredibly difficult, although the Eora had no problems mimicking English.

Against his wishes Dawes was sent from Australia on the first voyage of marines back to Britain, for his refusal to join punitive expeditions against aborigines. By the early 19th century the Eora people had become extinct, due to European disease and decline in natural food sources.

"Putuwa" and the acts of Dawes are a reminder of how kind humans can be when we choose. The settlement, his expulsion and the extinction of the Eora people seem a clear lesson of the destructive danger of indifference.

With thanks to "Cacophony", by Lewis Nowra, The Best Australian Essays 2005.

Time for Philosophers

Travelling to work on this particularly sunny spring morning, I faced the sudden realisation that I was a "Block Universe" theorist. I felt mostly the same; my jaw was still unshaven and belly not uncommonly empty, but now, in this short mater of seconds my ideas were no longer my own and I could be labelled as a a mere member of the eternalist cadre.

Such is the danger of the podcast in the modern age (given that podcasts in all previous ages were no problem whatsoever). One may wake up an honest man- ideas of his own making- and return to the very same bed, a non-reductive physico- Kuhnian -psychoexistentialist, with troublingly liberal, anti-historicist tendencies. I might dare to think that this is all just names, but then suddenly this makes me either a staunch logical positivist or belong to any number of post-modern genera, and I'm stuck in a universe factory.

Today's realisation came about because of a podcast on the nature of time, from the ABC's Philosophers Zone. The discussion took place with Dr David Braddon-Mitchell, who was a philosophy professor of mine at the University of Sydney.

Dr D. B-M: "...the block universe (view) says that all of space and time is one ginormous, eternal thing, and it has parts which are temporal parts, if you like. So the moment that we're in now, is one of the parts, there are lots of future parts, all of which exist, and lots of past parts, all of which exist. So this is the Yes, it's all there view, that's the eternalist view."

I like this view of everything existing as a timeless whole. When combined with ideas emerging from quantum physics suggesting that there is only one kind of stuff, we get a picture that is not unlike the views of some ancient monist philosophers. When one tries to add/reduce consciousness into the picture the ontological (simply, what is) picture gets really interesting.

At the close of the programme, the host, Alan Saunders, read beautifully from T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

The full programme can be downloaded from the Philosophers Zone website for a short time.

Come One and All the Springtime has Befallen

We wait; cold, damp, shrouded in the feeble greying light as color leaches from our skies, our streets and our souls. For long months it goes but this way. Winter passes in name alone, as Spring and Autumn offer no sign of release. Atlantic gales chill our very bones and mock the rare flashes of once pink skin. Those of us from southern climes reach for strong drink and palliatives to fight off insensible complaints.

Then BAMN, just as hopes were being crushed and curses reached the windswept boughs, the Amsterdam Magnificence Engine fires up and turns on this-

Photography by Tom Weaver

Come one and many, the grand summer of 2008 is beckoning from fair Amsterdam! With a great sadness I had to leave my wonderful room on Leliegracht before heading to Brazil. However, I have now taken residence in central Leidseplein, an environment equally comfortable and stimulating, if not rather decadent. Looking forward to sharing a remarkable summer with many of you.

Drifting Ocean

Drifting - composed and played by Andy McKee
Myspace, Label: Candyrat

(link via bloggingheadstv)

For the those who think their "oh my god, utter guitar genius" level cannot go any higher, prepare to realize your former belief system was ruinously corrupted. Welcoming Mr. John Butler.

Ocean - composed and played by John Butler
Tour Dates

(thanks Westy!)

Refined Design

I visited an Amsterdam design studio last week and got my aesthetic schooled by some serious pro's. The pic above is a perfectly understated little piece;

a vase, textured in braille, with a poem about flowers.

Big City Life

"The Linguist across
the seas and the oceans
A permanent Itinerant
is what I`ve chosen
I find myself in Big City prison
arisen from the vision
of mankind"

-Big City Life, Mattafix

Compiling Poets Forever Young

How many golden roads end at The Samarkand,
When midnight chokes the disquieted soul
And history finds another fall from grace?

Those who with songs beguile the pilgrimage.
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die
For lust of knowing what should not be known.
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why,
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest.

The thief speaks now to many here
But none level on this line
We, bare-foot servant-princes feel
The cold distance they will find


James Elroy Flecker, (November 5, 1884- January 3, 1915)
Jimi Hendrix, (November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970)

Zeitgeist Tech Ninja

Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, bending the $40 game part so it powers a digital whiteboard, a multitouch display and a head-mounted 3-D viewer.

This completely blew my mind. Technology is at its best when it functionality is unlocked on an existing system, i.e. figuring out that regular phone lines could carry high-speed internet. Johnny Lee deserves some form of life sized golden statue. Rest assured the world is going to give this guy whatever he needs to keep inventing in his lab- money, recognition, tenure, unbridled power...

Check out his Wii project page for more, including how the Wii Remote hack can be use to make your laptop screen a touch screen- without an LCD projector.

My Sister Liases with Dignitaries in Foreign Lands

Yesterday, I wrote of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd speaking truth to power while on a diplomatic visit to Beijing. Well it turns out that last night, my very own sister ran a media conference for him in fair Peking! Proof? I shall supply weighty evidence!

My sister, Alethea (or Ti-li in mandarin) moved to Beijing two months ago to begin a traineeship in public relations. How awesome is this? Answer: Totally awesome. Congratulations Ti-li!

Speak Truth to Power

Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd "is the highest-profile western leader to visit China since unrest erupted in Tibet last month. Speaking in fluent Mandarin to students at Beijing University, he began by defying his hosts and voicing concern over human rights in the Himalayan region.

“Australia like most other countries recognises China’s sovereignty over Tibet. But we also believe it is necessary to recognise there are significant human rights problem in Tibet. The current situation in Tibet is of concern to Australians.

We recognise the need for all parties to avoid violence and find a solution through dialogue. As a long-standing friend of China I intend to have a straightforward discussion with China’s leaders on this.

We wish to see the year 2008 as one of harmony, and celebration – not one of conflict and contention. "

The Australian, April 09, 2008

Below, The Prime Minister apologises that his Mandarin was not as good as it had been, and cited a Chinese saying: "We don't fear anything in heaven or earth except for a laowai, a foreigner, speaking Chinese.". Awesome.

Gargling Pandas

Make your own tonsillitis themed, obscure japanese comic at bitstrips.com.

A More Perfect Union

(P.S. Brodie has raised some poignant points, the comments section is worth a look)

Neil Gaiman and the Nature of Free

Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series is the perfect introduction to anyone who thinks that "Graphic Novel" is a euphemism for "children's comic". Seventy-five issues, compiled into ten books, issued over seven years- it is the only comic to ever win the World Fantasy Award and the only comic book to be on the New York Times Bestseller List. Still Skeptical? The main characters are anthropomorphic manifestations of states of consciousness- Dream, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Destiny, Destruction and Death. Bam..

He has forged a plethora of work: comics, "real" books and film- becoming one of the UK's top contemporary authors. See Mirrormask, part The Labyrinth, part The Never Ending Story, it's the most wonderful children's film I've seen in a good decade and graphically dark and absolutely gorgeous.

Whenever I move continent/nation-state/side of the canal all but two of my books get thrown into giant bags and pragmatically smashed around. The first exception is the collected work of the late Australian painter, Brett Whiteley, a master of the surreal and hyperreal. The second is a copy of Gaiman's Endless Nights- written as a post-script to the Sandman series, although it can easily be read as a standalone piece. It is comprised of seven stories, each in a unique style and with a different artist, each expressing the essence of one character/mode of consciousness. The Fifteen Portraits of Despair are the most beautifully, gut-renchingly despondent piece I've ever read- definitely not for those with depression issues, unless they want to plumb the very base of there emotion. A tender taste.

She decides to make a list of the things that make her happy.
She writes 'plum-blossom' at the top of a piece of paper.
Then she stares at the paper, unable to think of anything else.

Eventually it begins to get dark.

I suggest you read Endless Nights first, however, for the hasty he has made the first book in the Sandman series available free here, to begin your fragile addiction. On his blog, he has a nice rant on the nature of free books, and offers a great deal more free audio, essays and short stories.

Sold in Salvador

At first she's a prom girl, but then slurred speech and a vacant look that reads only money, speak of something else entirely. Shake and sigh and So Wrong- in this oldest city- and seem to pray that maybe she gets it together enough that baby daughter wont realise until she can... Handle it? Run her own game? Get the hell out of here? And to where? This is The Where.

You have to pay me.

I don't think anyone cries for them. Desired and reviled for the same thing by the same people. Such a shame at such a price. Lie down with heady everything and stand with condemnation- they are nothing- and you are still clean.. if you forget.

You have to pay me.

And so what? Run drugs or scam gringoes or make something beautiful that no-one ever sees and it's tomorrow again and you're still hungry, and so the fuck what? Stop the screams and the pain and maybe it's a forgotten day or two ahead or maybe just the streets again.

We all sell. But people cry for your pain.

High and Dry

Somehow goes with the above. High and Dry, by Radiohead.

The Outsider In

I arrive onto Morro do Sao Paulo at 7 am, after a gorgeous two hour boat trip from Valencia and a horrible 9 hours on the bus from Porto Seguro. Tired I stumble around pousadas trying to find something cheap and beachish. Ah, the Black & White pousada on Praia Tres, clean, friendly, cheap. I crash into emergency sleep and stumble to a late breakfast. And here's the kicker given my comments about the huge teams of Israelis in Arrial D'Ajuda. Something is up in this hostel. Every single other person is Israeli. And then I notice the pousada sign properly. It's not the Black & White pousada, it's the Black (Star of David) White pousada. Better yet, I'm rocking my Kufiyya, the black and white arab headscarf I use as a beach towel. Awkward! Awesome. So I'm the only גוי (gentile) dude living with around 30 Israelis.

It's been fun and I think I can understand why they appear as a closed and perhaps cold groups to outsiders. The basic plan is that they do their military service for 1-3 years, work to earn cash for a year and then feck off to latin america for 6-18 months to get out of the head trip built up from the army and living in Israel all their life. Here they meet old school and army buddies and connect with people who speak their language in what, for many, is their first real foreign experience. On the outside these groups often seem insular, uninterested in local culture or adapting from their cultural norms, but inside they show a very different dynamic. Sitting around in groups playing Hebrew (and radiohead) songs on guitar, singing, laughing and sharing a communal connection fostered by the above factors, perhaps combined with some kibbutz heritage. A really lovely communal warmth that reminded me of my time with groups of Koreans and Egyptians.

I'm not fond of this type of travel as it massively limits the diversity of experience, but I think I can understand it a bit better now. And definitely Israelis aren't the only ones- Argentines here often seem similar- and British weekenders in Amsterdam or Aussies in London- can be pretty insenitive and insular to put it mildly. Of course I don't mean generalize, indeed I'm referring to a subgroup. I've meet some awesome Israeli solo traveller who avoid the common haunts and are as open and adaptive as any people I've meet upon the way. Enough hedging- to the beach I go!