Thursday, April 26, 2007

Philosophy Does Have its Consolations

Aphorisms are the fast food of philosophy, they give a great sound-bite and can stand in for actual conversations an extraordinary amount of the time. However, for the long hours alone with doubt, nothing has the staying power of full-strength philosophy - even for a dabbler such as myself.

Everything you can think of - every pain and ache and anguish. Poets have been there and carved the passage they took into the stones along the way. Philosophers eat those stones and eat the pain and eat down all the doubt and sit, alert and still while giant eggs of wisdom form in them and get squeezed out their eyes. Well, that's how it seems, although most philosophers seem keen to point out that they do their own laundry and washing up. So maybe those eggs need movement of the body to help them come out.

There is a feeling of exile at the moment. I am homesick again. I do have a plan for being here, it's not subtle or sophisticated - make money and set up the infrastructure for a life.
It is starting to come together too, and that's why I came - these things are attainable here. But of course they're *here*. I have the habits of a decade to appraise and choose to keep or not. The short-term plan is still in it's first third. One year or two is not so long int he bigger picture, after all.

Plans do unfold as long as you have them and tend them. Better hope I planned for the right things then!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Another Lowpoint

Some milestones should not be recorded, but i am feeling macabre this week.

In 1988 I purchased "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco from the Koala Park newsagency. It was the first grown-up book I'd ever handed over money for, and expanded my book buying from Kmart (where I'd picked up a copy of Shakespeare). Shakey hadn't counted as a grown-up purchase because I'd heard of him at school, and he was in the library there, and I knew there would be more of him to come. But Eco, well, that was something else altogther! Plus, $15 was a lot of money to me then. I could fill my car for $20 and buy a record for $12. I still have that book. It was within months of this that I discovered that there were still "bookstores". I had heard of them in my reading, but I had never been anywhere that had a whole store devoted to books - so at that time I thought it was an old-fashioned thing.

So I have never even considered buying a book from a news agent since then. Until yesterday. I was looking for The Monthly (only stocked in one news agent in area!) and in front of me was a rack of remainders - all penguins! There was the last a-format paperback by Orson Scott Card - "Shadow of the Giant" which must be number 3 in the Bean series, which makes it - what?- number 7? in the Ender world? Orson Scott-Card is making a chronology of books more comlpex than the Star Wars universe. Anyway, got the mag, and picked up the book ($7!) and there you have it. Read it in an overnight binge on SF and Ender backstory. My first book purchase from a news agent in 19 years.

Oh Kino! How I miss you so!

Last week I was at the Gallery of Modern Art - which is right next door to the State Library. I did browse their bookstore, but it was kindof the book equivalent of Gourmet Traveller magazine - good looking, glossy, plenty of ads, and really, largely unsatisfying for being spread too thin over too much bread.

There's plenty more to say about that day, but this is not the time.
The upside is, at least I read a book!! And it was good!! And i had fun!!
Yay. Shame it has that nasty black marker-pen slash on the bottom, but a little bit of fine sandpaper will fix that!

ANZAC Day

Here it is again, dawn services to commemorate the sacrifices of our brave soldiers and fighting forces in wars and military actions of all shapes and sizes but basically the landing at Channackle in the Dardanelles as part of an English offensive to piss Russia off, and put pressure on the Turkish.
Was it the right kind of pressure to put on a degenerate state?

I learnt something about our history this year that shocked me.

It's been a long time since I was shocked by atrocity, usually i feel resigned and numb to what has happened and seems like will always happen. Humans are such shit-bags so much of the time. Somehow, this cut through to me so that yesterday and today have been made fresh again. Perhaps this is old news for you, so patience please for those among us to whom this is new. Ordinarily I wouldn't try and parse something this big, I would refer you to a text or to a web page.
So here's Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_massacre
and another Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANZAC_Day
and my story for today falls in the gap between the two.

The massacre and then our landing. Do we hold any responsibility for the actions of the Ottomans against the Armenians? Perhaps not - certainly not directly - but should this atrocity have it's place in our commemoration of this time? Absolutely!

After all, isn't that the point of ANZAC Day? That it's important to remember these things, and wars are bad but it's good people who fight them, and so on. But that doesn't seem to be what we do so much anymore. We seem to be glorifying, mythologising and embroidering a story about war, getting further and further from the messy truth of the matter rather than feeling the immediacy of loss and interrogating our present actions as a nation in light of the pain of the past.

Which is to say that the landing in that small shingle cove was wrapped up in a flow of other events that we deliberately stay blind to.

If we insist that we "came of age as a nation" in that landing, then we must remember the full nature of that phrase. A loss of innocence is important because it is about accepting the full range of costs an adult can understand. We were not just as a fighting force mis-used at the hands of our British masters, but as must accept our complicity in a bungled foreign policy where a whole race of people suffered the consequences. That is what has been lost along the way.

That our heartfelt pilgrimages to the cove (Yes, I went there, as so many people my age have done, and like them, I didn't hear of the Armenian massacre from my charming Turkish hosts) and the hair-raising on our arms and necks during these most solemn services are sincere is not in question, but the point of these services must also to refresh the sense of responsibility that we as citizens have for the actions of our warriors and their leaders.

Australian and New Zealand troops landed on a small cove, north of the main English action. They weren't quite in the right spot, but no real matter - warfare is like that. The ground rose steeply and their objective was to take the high ground. Soldiers since Sun Tzu would recognise the objective. A dawn landing would give them the advantage of surprise - it's all by the book. Our enemy was known to be ruthless, vicious and ready to defend their land, and they did so successfully.

Knowing they could not fight on two fronts, they slaughtered the civilians who were rebelling against mistreatment, and focused their energies on repelling the foreign invaders. We turned the Turks into a part of our fairytale about manhood and nationhood and for all our rhetoric about *remembrance* we seem deeply unwilling to remember the cost the invasion had for the Armenian people. They should be our partners in this story. They should have a place in our services and our myth.

It turns out that even now, the victors still get to write the history.
Today, as I made the traditional biscuits that will go up to Ma & Pa picking in the patch, and I know that Grandad would be coming home from the service, and even now, as I finish writing, my work colleagues are laying wreaths and listening to speeches, I could not think of anything but how horrible, how utterly saddening that slaughter was in thought and in deed. How interwoven it is with our small, blind role in a ill-managed battle, how it is but a thread in what was to become the Second World War, where Hitler remembered what the Turks had gotten away with when he had his own *troublesome* internal populations to deal with.

I honour our warriors and commemorate their personal sacrifices. As a thinking citizen, I also interrogate our role in wars, in battles, in invading other countries. If we do not remember the ugly consequences of some of these actions, we risk diminishing those sacrifices. Sun Tzu also pointed out that the best way to win was to plan to not fight - that negotiation, maneuvering, information, terrain, politics, so many things could be used by a good leader before force should be deployed.
Today I am sorrowful for the deaths of the soldiers on that harsh ground and am shaken that we choose not to remember the full actions of our enemies at that time in preference for glorifying our ability to take a beating. Not much of a myth to live up to when you look at it that way.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

New Phone Parable

My old mobile couldn’t talk for very long anymore. You know how it goes – it would charge all the way and last forever if you only wanted to SMS people and tell the time, but call someone and within 5 minutes or so it’s bleating for some juice.
Poor little chook, and it feels like I’ve had it forever. The numbers are worn off the keypad and I can set the alarm in the dark half asleep.
So I went into the Telstra shop, and said “I’m out of contract and I want a new phone.”

Erin helped me out.
And by that, I mean that Erin confused the fuck out of me with a torrent of technojumbo and shiny things with far far too many features. Reeling and intimidated, I did what I did last time, and said “I want a nokia, and give me a fairly simple one.”
So here I am with the Nokia N80, which has more computing power than my first 3 computers *put*together*.
It’s not even officially a phone, it’s a “multimedia device”.

Actually, it’s kinda hard to use it as a phone – that command is about 5 or 6 actions down the menu structure. It has a little blue light that keeps flashing, it came with more cables than my laptop. It’s clearly a hardcore piece of technology and I’m not sure I should have it.

I’m starting to think I should have just scrounged around and got a new battery and keypad for my old one. At least I didn’t need my glasses on to operate it, and I could make a call with just my thumb. This is exactly how the Cylons end up destroying us isn’t it? This thing can connect to the internet – in fact I don’t know how to *not* make it do that. Maybe I’ll be okay as long as it doesn’t remember my credit card number. Maybe it has a swipe reader I haven’t found in the manual yet.

We may have to institute Turing tests for these posts.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Doubts

"I would like to be a writer - but how! My style is poor, my vocabulary lamentably small, and my ideas indistinct. Yet I do receive inspiration, by which I mean my mind becomes filled with an idea, and I want to develop it - then I am excited ... to achieve my goal I must (i) Discipline myself - no excesses - an artist should observe (ii) Note down my ideas and impressions (iii) Not be dependent on people."

Manning Clark 1942

(as quoted in 'The Monthly' March Issue 2007, pg 25)

Monday, April 16, 2007

More Poker Madness

My nieces were on Easter break last week and stayed with us at the farm so Sis2 could work.
Hilarity all 'round.

Then of course, they want to play games in the evening after dinner and before bed.
What do you think is the favourite game of the eleven and six year olds?

That's right - Texas Hold 'Em!

Yup, gambling teaches great numeracy skills, as well as process, rule interpretation and statistical likelihood. Not only that, but who to be a gracious looser, and in their case, non-gloating winners.

Little one had a bit of a tell though, when she had a strong hand she would say:
"I'm liken' *that* pot!"

Fold, fold, fold around the table.

User Pays

I wasn't all *that* shocked that I couldn't get tempeh in the supermarket. I did laugh at the woman's face when I went to ask them to order it, and this is Woolworths remember, and she said:
"We can only get what we already have."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA.
Okay - no love there.
So I went tot eh health food store - no, we don't have it.
"Do you ever have it?"
"Yeah, well you can special order it."
"Ok, fair enough. When is the next order and how much will it be?"
"No idea."

*sigh*
so I pushed ahead and placed the order, and three weeks later they've rung me - it's in.
Great.
"How much is it?"
(This is protein for me - daily serve type situation)
"It's a 250gram block and it's $6.65."
"You're joking."
.... silence....

No, they aren't. Vegos can fucking pay for the privilege thank you very much. Well, I'm sick of tofu to the point of homocide, so extortion seems like the easy way out.

On the way to the store, I drop by the photo place thinking to make a cd of all the cruft on my camera.
"Hi, how much is it to burn a CD?"
"How big is your chip?"
"Umm, I'll check - 512."
"Okay - that'll be $15."
"What. Does the size of the chip make a difference ?"
"Yeah! Takes a different amount of time to run it, and if it's a gig chip, then it's more than one cd."
"I'll skip it today thanks."

FIFTEEN BUCKS!!!?
What are they thinking? And I'm a "so-called" VIP member!

You want to make your own culture here - there's a surcharge.

I am very tempted to overuse the exclamation point.

"We Need to Talk About Kevin"

What a great book!
I love the epistolary form and it works so well for this contemporary story.
There's such tension between the size of the "polt" and the personal immedicacy of her letters.

Put it on your reading list.
"We Need to Talk About Kevin" Lionel Shriver.
(http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/bookseaohb.cgi?ISBN=1921145080&AREA=06)

Very satisfying fiction.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Nothing to Write Home About

Thankfully, yesterday afternoon was anti-climactic in the "personal danger - excitement of living" area.
Good.
There a many, many people in the world who would draw a great deal of inspiration and srt from such a moment, and I am not one of them. I am dull.

Today I saw an antique steam train in pristine "Harry Potter" condition chugging across the old rail bridge (which I had been told was no longer in use). I was in almost the identical spot as yesterday when I saw the bomber. Perhaps TC has it's own tiny Bermuda Triangle? How intriguing!! I may have to swing by it more often and see if I can catch glimpses of bogans throughout the ages.
I wonder if the marketing team have thought of this?
They could use the help - currently the "Top 20 Reasons to Visit Ipswich" lists (with a straight face) (in no particular order) golf (!), dining (!), walking tours (listed 3 times - city, bush & heritage), friendly clubs (local leagues club!) and, shopping (! yes, the people are standing out the front of a Wendy's Donuts!).
In this light the odd bomber sighting must be utterly gripping - better spice up this Bermuda Triangle link asap.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Bomber Passing Over

Well the long weekend whooshed by in the usual blur of feasting, working and a bit of booze. It was great to see my sisters and nieces and Grandad Luxton stayed over and cleaned us out of crosswords.
The olives are horribly light-on, and if we get even two tonne we'll be considering it a win (after revising our expectations down to about 6 tonne around October last year). So much rain was promised and so very very little actually precipitated. We're basically lucky our trees are alive, let alone managing to push out an average of about 10 to 15 kilos each.
Returning to work is always a bit of a strain on mondays, but after 4 days it can be so much harder, and it was. Although the farm is struggling, and the work is draining, it's such a continual pleasure to feel the ground under my feet and feel air all around me. The sky has been dazzling, and Riley drops at the end of his days into a contented stupor.

There were two other great highlights last week - just prior to the long weekend - Upstairs Tom came through town on the home-leg of a 5 week journey. He'd been across to Adelaide, up through the red heart, across to the reef and down. We had noodles out on the Bremer and the bats came up the river and it was great to hear him tell his stories of the trip and to see a familiar face. Upstairs Tom has a great laugh and a sly sense of humour. After dinner we had a beer and attempted a stroll. My first visitor! Glorious.

Then, a shock - I went to a book launch at the Art Gallery and - it was great!! A local (prolific) artist has self-published a book - on the creative process. Well. I was hobnobbing it with the TC Arts Crowd and didn't all 10 of us have a top night. The highlight of the night for me was hearing the guest speaker - Dr Gilbert Burgh (lecturer in philosophy) give a fairly radical point of view on the role of art in life. I did buy a copy of the book, as it looks great and will probably get a bit of air-time here once I've read it!

Wednesday is, of course, hump-day and needs no other reason to be mentioned, except that two very odd things have already happened. Yesterday I zoomed past a middle-aged man hitchhiking on the highway heading west. He looked a lot like Nicholas Higgens (from North & South) and that got me to thinking how he's probably doing it tough and here I am in the Road Monster, shuttleing backwards and forwards. So this morning at 7.15 am, I picked up a white-haired fellow who introduced himself as Barry Johns. I just accidentally typed "Batty" Johns and considered letting it stand. He was as full of shit as a nappy left at a picnic site. Sis2 saw me drop him off at the Amberley Roadhouse and SMSed me with dire warnings and imprecations against doing this kind of thing again. Now I thought that it was *being* the hitch-hiker that was dangerous. After all - how did he know that I wasn't some nutter with an intimate knowledge of the local scrub and a penchant for forensic science? He didn't. So my day started with a slightly random, barely thought through exploration of annonymous generosity and it's relationship to personal danger.

The personal danger theme was obliquely developed when on an errand out and about, a giant, fat, heavy plane dragged itself over the sky above me. Feeling small and vulnerable, I looked up at its belly and realised "those are *bomb*doors* above me." Right above me. Other people started taking photos - I was looking around for somewhere to run to. The immediate urge passed, and the bomber took a few slow orbits to find the right runway or whatever it was looking for. Apparently this is considered a bit of an attraction around here. Frankly, I found it disturbing. A lot more disturbing that Batty Johns who was *right*there* next to me for half an hour. But no-one wants to stop and take a photo of old Batty, or the unknown Nicholas Higgens of yesterday.

If things come in threes, this arvo ought to be a corker.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Wrapping up the "Festival of J9"

It's been a fully chockas coupla weeks and they came to a close on Sunday with a batch of Gingernuts and a GIANT catch-up with Sis2 and Maritiming Mez.

{contented sigh}

Let me give the action-packed synopsis.

Sat 24 March: Festival opens with a HOEDOWN party at Sis2's place. Costumes hired, racks of shot glasses, crates of booze, and stodgy camp-food to fill the most ravenous cowboys. Gun ratio of roughly 3 (cap) guns per child led to an authentic pandemonium. Costumes and decorations created desired ambiance leading to a poker tournament (of 14!!) filled with drunken claims of cheating, suprise pot scoops, and ultimately a first-time player/granny beating everyone out with her cool head and calm play.
Utterly Hilarious.
Brother in-laws both got rat-faced to the point of legless/sick. A job well done, I say.

Tue 27 March: Enter my first ever Texas-Hold'em Poker Tournament. One of 4 women in a room of 48 intense guys. AWESOME! Was *not* first person knocked out - made it to about midfield and had a ball. Took about 2 rounds before I stopped visibly shaking, and another 8 or so before I could join in the table banter. They kept apologising to me when they swore, and I let them. hehehehe. Wrapped the night up with a late-night session of baking and watching "The Libertine". *dark*swoon*.

Wed 28 March: The actual day of celebration. Diet thrown to the wind, I bake the giant carrot-cake of LOVE and throw myself a party at work. Bewildered workmates all to happy to join in the spirit and some bring food too - minor feast seems to spontaneously combust out of an empty desk. Very gratefully receive unexpected gifts from co-workers. Go to lunch with Sis3 and enjoy discovering *excellent* deli does exist. Mass sensations of peace and good-will to all mankind lasts until the coffee wears off (around 3pm).

Randomly scattered throughout week: Come home to find the mail has delivered boxes, cards, good wishes and lots of fun. DVDs and books feature highly and the slightly glamorous feeling of being loved by people not immediately present is deeply gratifying.

Friday 30 March: After work swing by S3's place and check in on brother-in-law and general hello-ness. Lovely to be able to do a drop-in for a half hour. S2 and kids at the farm all having dinner when I get back. Family, family, family.

Saturday 31 March: Outdoor concert of jazz and classical music in lush gardens of nearby luxury b&b starts in afternoon with local talent performing extrordinary original compositions (a la Michael Nyman) and then old standards etc. Wonderful music marred only by the usual propensity of humans at live events where it's a "picnic style" event to become sidetracked by their eskies and thence by chatting. Local mountains provided excellent backdrop. Glass of wine and comfy seat was perfect. Just perfect.

And so here we are. Thirty-six years old, and still happy-enough to own up to it.