On the selvedge

New discovery of the week is a glossy UK magazine celebrating the rich culture of textiles: Selvedge.

"If France was to get back on her feet [after the Germans retreated from Paris in 1944], she would have to find the money to buy herself some shoes."

Kate Constable, writing in Selvedge about La Theatre de la Mode, a postwar exhibition of mannequins dressed by couturiers such as Balenciaga, Nina Ricci and Pierre Balmain.

Sad dude II

This image is from a story on homeless youth in Sydney in today's Sydney Morning Herald. The wall of the squat features artwork similar to the sad graffiti people I have been collecting images of around the city.
The story that accompanied the image was pretty sad, too. Most of the homeless teens interviewed were caught in a cycle of drug use: they can't get accommodation unless they stop using drugs and they can't stop using drugs until they get accommodation. Some of the reasons they gave for using drugs were to stay warm and to stay awake so they wouldn't be bashed or robbed while they slept.
No wonder that old dude and all his grandchildren are so sad.

P.S. Do you have just enough faith to help the homeless?

Vale Swadlings

We were woken by sirens this morning, which turned out to be an eighth alarm fire at the hardware store two blocks down the road. Flames 15 metres high were shooting through the roof, fuelled by timber, paint, LPG cylinders and all that hardware stuff...

This afternoon the Dude and I wandered down on the pretext of buying the makings of dinner at the smoke-logged grocery store, to survey the damage. We just loved the irony of the smouldering remains, walls tilted at a precarious angle, behind the footpath sign proudly proclaiming "Now Open". It sure is.

Another great achievement for the fireys: the Swadlings Memorial Carpark.

It is what it is

I found Keri Smith's blog recently and made it one I'll check up on regularly. I love her list of 100 ideas for living a creative life. Why not try one today?

Today's entry has the slogan I've quoted in the title of this post. I want it on a T-shirt!

Easter reading

Sex is the balance of male and female in the universe, the attraction, the repulsion, the transit of neutrality, the new attraction, the new repulsion, always different, always new. The long neuter spell of Lent, when the blood is low, and the delight of the Easter kiss, the sexual revel of spring, the passion of midsummer, the slow recoil, revolt, and grief of autumn, greyness again, then the sharp stimulus of winter, of the long nights. Sex goes through the rhythm of the year, in man and woman, ceaselessly changing: the rhythm of the sun in his relation to the earth.

DH Lawrence, A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover

Earth Hour 2008

I'm getting excited about Earth Hour, on March 29th. If the weather's nice, I plan to go out to Sydney Park the night before and take some photographs of the city lights. Then, during Earth Hour, I'll go to the same spot and take some more photographs to see what the place looks like with the lights out. I'm hoping to get a good view of some stars too.
In my philosophy class last night we discussed the postmodernist view that large-scale change cannot be effected by individual agency. I'm not suggesting that turning the lights off for an hour will have any major impact on climate change, but to see the way that this phenomenon has spread across the planet (as shown on the map above) from its conception as a local event last year surely shows that small steps can lead to bigger things. There is hope for the future!
So don't succumb to postmodernist despair: sign up, and make a difference to the world.

More sad graffiti

This bemused old gentleman has appeared on the hoardings outside the former Nando's chicken shop that was firebombed a couple of weeks ago. I am not sure if he is the grandfather of the sad children or whether he is simply weeping for the loss of his favourite Portuguese chicken shop.
The Dude is getting worried. In the past 12 months, there have been three large fires in the vicinity of his school: first St Barnabas Broadway, then Nando's, then the Broadway shopping centre (His Dagginess' brother, Tiger, was the first officer on the scene at that fire). The Dude and various of his mates think their school might be next. If they're lucky.

Oh my god!

Since I'm joining the teapot cult, I thought I'd put up an image of my latest idol, bought in Taipei in January. It's not two storeys tall, but only a petite three inches. Yes, the cups do fit together to make a perfect egg.
I think I'll appropriate an ancient heathen festival to celebrate my new beliefs: how fortunate that there's an equinox in a week or two. Now, what would go nicely with a steaming sacred beverage? I know, soft fruit buns! Hmm, perhaps I could decorate them with a cross to represent the chicken's perch...

I got religion!

This morning's broadsheet had a story about a woman who worships a teapot. Forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster, where do I sign up?

On a serious note, I am not unaware of the irony of the situation: I can make jokes about the beliefs of all sorts of religions but the woman in this story once went to jail simply for saying she is not a muslim. A quick google brought up several recent news stories about similar cases. It made me give some thought to what I can do to help these people.

So here's what I did... it's not much, but I signed up for Anwar Ibrahim's newsletter in the hope that somewhere along the way I can learn enough about Malaysian politics to do something, even if it's just to write to the PM or my local member to encourage them to put political pressure on the Malaysian government.

In the meantime, I'm off for a steaming cup of ambrosia from my divine vessel. In-cha-lah.

Recycling CDs and DVDs

After my epic struggle to find an environmentally friendly way to dispose of my obsolete printer last year, I viewed the growing stack of used CDs and DVDs on my desk with some alarm. These bits of plastic and metal are a necessary evil for transporting data and images in my industry, but once I've finished with them the information is immediately out of date and the discs can't be reused.
The local council just dumps them in landfill; they can't be recycled with the tin cans and plastic bottles because they contain both metal and plastic. A Google search led me to this fun site -- I might have to make one of those hovercrafts -- but I've got other creative projects to keep me busy.
Finally, I found Ecodisc, so I'll be packing my stack off to them soon. If you're in Sydney, Auckland or South Africa you too can recycle your discs.
P.S. If you're in Sydney and have an old computer, printer or other hardware to get rid of, I've got the address for that too. You've got to take it to the depot at Homebush Bay yourself, but at least you know it's not going into landfill.

Here be dragons

After reading a post by the Bad Astronomer on the science of fairy tales, I surfed over to LiveScience.com and found this great article about the possible real creatures that may have helped give rise to myths about dragons.
Aren't they all so CUTE!

Rubbish!

On Monday this week, Lucky Mark, the Dude and I started walking in the mornings before work and school. The first day we were out, I noticed that the single most common type of rubbish on the footpaths was empty cigarette packets. The second day, we counted 47 cigarette packets on our three-quarters of an hour walk. Today, armed with rubber gloves and a plastic bag (and joined by the Messa), we collected 64 cigarette packets.
Most of these were found around the side doors of small businesses, which begs the question: why cannot a cigarette smoker, who carries a packet outside with a cigarette in it, carry the empty packet back inside to put it in a garbage bin?
The obvious conclusion is that smokers, who care so little for the state of their lungs, care even less about the lungs of the planet.
Tomorrow, I am going to count the second most prevalent form of rubbish: breath mint packets. Could the same culprits be responsible?

Singapore swings

Just to prove that we've been there, done that. I drank a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar at the Raffles, so now I can come home.

I also astounded the people in the Raffles shop by buying ten packets of Raffles Iced Tea -- well, you never know when the Master will be back to get some more. We've eaten chilli crab (and various other delicacies), shopped at the markets in Chinatown and caught the MRT everywhere. Went shopping on Orchard Road (waste of time -- the markets were much better) but did get a jar of my favourite face cream from Marks & Spencer. Also discovered that you can't buy bath salts in Singapore.

Yesterday we ate [roast chicken and rice] in a food court off Orchard Road. It was so crowded, people were grabbing the corner of a table wherever they could. At our table, the two girls opposite got up to leave and a fellow who wanted to sit down immediately signalled for the trays to be cleared. A grumpy little old lady was in charge, and she came and sullenly cleared the trays while complaining bitterly to me in Chinese and gesturing towards one of the food stalls with sharp, angry hands. Then she wiped down the table top with a damp cloth, made somewhat damper by the fact that she ladelled some of the leftover chicken broth from the bowls on the tray onto the rag -- so much for hygeine! I never did work out what she was so cross about.

Today we make the Aussie pilgrimage to Changi Memorial, then perhaps drop in at Little India on the way to the Night Zoo at Sentosa Island.

First Pavarotti, now Teresa Brewer

As children, my cousins and sisters and I would beg our grandmother for a chance to play the old 78s in the cabinet of the stereogram in the living room. One of my uncles had been a big Teresa Brewer fan in his (and her) heyday, so "Ricochet Romance" was on high rotation (along with its flipside, "Too Young to Tango").

Sing along:

I knew the day I met you, you had a rovin' eye
I thought that I could hold you, what a fool I was to try
You buzzed around the other girls, just like a busy bee
And when you'd finished buzzin', cousin, you buzzed right back to me.
But baby...
I don't want a ricochet romance, I don't want a ricochet love
If you're careless with your kisses, find another turtle dove
I can't live on ricochet romance, no, no, not me
So if you're gonna ricochet baby, I'm gonna set you free.

Oh, Teresa, how you spoke to my prepubescent heart! RIP.

Just what I have been saying for years...

Sydney Morning Herald, October 24, 2007

Hail the Master

Lucky Mark graduated today with his MBT. Best guess at what that stands for gets a prize (or at least a big sloppy kiss next time I see you).

Iron-y

I was complaining of feeling tired despite having a reasonably early night and a reasonably good sleep, and Lucky Mark asked me if I had been taking my iron supplement.

"No," I replied, "because I haven't had the strength to get the child-proof cap off the bottle."

Walk to work Friday

Ten steps down the hallway, up the attic ladder and I've walked to work. I was out (driving, unfortunately, because the distance was a good 10 kilometres) taking the Dude to his friend the Dealer's place to spend the day, when I noticed the streets were buzzing with 20- and 30-something pedestrians, lugging their laptop satchels and streaming steadily city-ward.

An article in yesterday's newspaper pointed out the trend for members of this younger generation to live an inner city lifestyle, rather than subscribing to the suburban tradition of large house and yard that seems to have been the ideal for the previous two generations (Baby Boomers and Generation X). Of course, there are those of us Gen-Xers who live in poky little inner city terraces despite the trend...

But I liked seeing Generation Y out en masse, walking to work and thinking about the effects on the environment and their own health of our city's great reliance on fossil-fuel-fed transport. The only shame is that the demographic was so narrow: where were all the older people on Walk to Work Friday?

Verbing nouns

Lucky Mark was reading me an email he was writing so that I could act as his portable thesaurus. The email was full of such phrases as 'in order to progress this application' and 'we will action the document'.

"Why don't you use plain English?" I complained. "'Progress' and 'action' are nouns, not verbs."

"Everybody else does it," he pouted.

"That doesn't make it right," I echoed my mother's favourite admonishment. "What's wrong with saying, 'in order to take the application to the next stage'?"

"That takes too many words," he whinged. "'Progress' is faster to type and say."

"You can't use that excuse for 'action'," I countered. "'Act on' has one less letter!"

"But it has a space, so it's still the same number of keystrokes."

I give up.

There's no other word for it

Yes, she is.