Tannic Teeth

Week 4 has ticked past me like a Dali clock: painfully slow then exceedingly fast. Of course all the fun times blur past and you hope your 8hr bottle-shop shift on a Saturday night is already over. Divvying up time from uni, relationships, gym, work and my jealousy guarded sleep leaves nothing much left for simply sitting down, as I am now, and thinking about how the hell the next 10 or so weeks of uni will pass. One day at a time I guess, but with a little more clarity and focus? That’s what I would like. And it’s not found in a bottle of wine, it’s found during those times of silent contemplation (only silent because I can’t have my music up loud because people are sleeping now). This unit is interesting- as for the Assignment that we have to be ‘considering’ at the moment, I have paid it no regard. But I’ll start it soon I guess, maybe tomorrow after my indulgent sleep.

(Writing and New Technologies Exercise Week 3)

I would wake up every morning and hope my luck would hold out on me. I had to run into the stinging surf, the hiss of bubbles around me, a spa for those how dared to live, amongst rocks jagged like a boars spine. We were looking for mermaid’s tears, each one of us rejoicing when we discovered a mature one, lovely and rounded by thunderous surf. Sometimes they were really fresh, jagged as a sawtooth, far too immature to trade with the Cirrus people. They liked the reds the oranges and blacks. But the black ones are becoming rarer and rarer something that they have a developed a great appetite for. To them it reminded them of sunsets, something they rarely if ever saw

I have always been amused by their ways. They take the mermaid’s tears, polish them and embed it along their faces. Following the contours of leathery hides blasted by years of living at high altitude on their floating cities. Our soft skin would never so much as hold a single tear, for our kingdom is the surf; the edge of the mighty oceans, for we are fluid like the waves that pommel us. But we were just on another level those Cirrus above and the ‘Others’ below. Those that exist below us, in an unsigned contract never to venture into others realms. Sometimes when we swim out too The Lens and look down we see the Underlords, harvesting their bounty but selfishly do not trade.

The higher ranking Cirrus wear the Tears in designs that us beachcombers have seen in the sky. Patterns swirl across their faces, a testament to the clouds they harvest. I have always envied their freedom, for skycombing must be liberating.

(thoughts of Writing and New technologies thus far)

To be honest, I really love this unit. It’s learn-at-your-own-pace (except you better have those postings up by Wednesday arvo), listen-to-when-you-want lectures enable us as busy students (that also work and have relationships) to keep slightly less bogged down lives considering to brave a 40min drive south of the river for uni time.

I do enjoy the unit questions, which probe my understanding of text based new media. I would really like to have a physical meet up at the tavern – perhaps at the end of the semester to put names to all the faces that just appear as text with non-physical identities. As a result of reading and writing more, I feel, but it may not be so evident, (due to my shoddy spelling partly due to the speed at which I type) but I have increased by vocabulary and the weaving of sentences together (a craft in itself) has become easier.

Perhaps just a compulsive thing, but I must post a photo of something when I blog, so I’ll leave you to guess where this is in the city of Perth.

Writing and New Technologies (Writing Exercise Week 3)

Who am I? Where do we truly exist?

Mind or matter? What is more important?

Well science tells me that I exist in some a strange phenomenon called Space-Time. Apparently it’s a continuum too. It’s linear. That means there is no turning back and presumably -putting all my eggs in one basket- Hawking and Co. might be right that we will see an end to it in a few billion years. But as for now I physically exist in space time. I am tangible. Enough said.

But my existence or identity could be considered intangible. My identity as a blogger appears here, most simplistically as the electric impulses of 1’s and 0’s but miraculously programmed into a coherent expression of self – that is – the writer. I exist as I am typing this out on Microsoft word with all permutations of conscious feelings, I also exist to you, my (dear) reader wherever you reside on the earth’s mantle my identity –creepily- follows these truncated words of inner intimacy.

The duality of both existences certainly presses for more inner questioning, however before I get too lost down the rabbit hole of ‘Cogito ergo sum’, and start ranting on about all the oblique mishmash of philosophical existence I’ll put the matter to rest. By the way…

Who are you?

Writing and New Technologies (Writing Exercise Week 1)

A face without a name

I love people watching. Not in a creepy stalker-ish kind of way, but just to observe people as especially being in the city, surrounded by hundreds of other unfamiliar faces, one is granted some anonymity from the usual glaring faces that cause us judgement. I walk the city many times during the week; I see few familiar faces, the rest smear into the amorphous crowd like Perth station during peak hour. There is one man I see regularly. He always catches my eye. He wears the conventions of days of yore; in his hackneyed gait, his sullen face, the tatty leather jacket -of which I’m sure it’s his only one – and the characteristic Black Akubra that I’ve never seen him without. He looks oddly out of place amongst steel and concrete. He looks lost. He belongs in a dusty Western; on a horse riding into the red sunset. He looks lonely and sad. He looks like a cowboy that time forgot.

I really don’t know what he does; some people say he bets of the ponies, living from windfall to windfall. Others say he works as a sheerer in times when seasons demand. Others still say he is a millionaire, given up all the conventions of palatial superfluosity, to live a life free from overarching trust funds and hollow social obligations. Whatever he does do, must be interesting. It must spill fort around him, colouring his world in sepia tones. Bars probably ARE still saloons where dancing girls doubled as fine poker players and tripled as ‘something more’ but only when Bourbon flowed and pockets brimmed with cash. I wonder if he ever thinks he’s judged. If he ever thinks the anonymous faces gleaming back at him knows of his past? What he’s seen though those milky eyes? The loves lost, victories won, brethren he’s buried? His story? History.

Untold, for that it surely is.

It was 9c. I was running late for projections and I though would be smart and ‘kill two birds with one stone’ and quickly nip into the Borders to get a MOLESKINE for my creative writing needs, after all it was only 8pm. Of couse you don’t consider that blissfully driving into the city, then to content with no parking and a light smattering of rain, I made it half way to Borders but fruitlessly without what I had intended to get. For that is why I was late. I’m sorry Jerrem!

OK. Aside from that, the projection night (1st Aug 2008) was pretty groovy with plenty of new inquisitive faces poking around like curious rabbits. We had some total randoms come by and say pretty much WTF is this!? They had a go with stylus in hand, drawing whatever took their fancy. As a stop gap measure to a lack of power, we ran the whole show from Jerrem (trusty) car. It provided all the juice needed, and it did open up new wormholes in to mobile projection and guerilla movie screenings. I just can’t wait for them to happen…