Review: To See Again

Flip the book over and:

A fantastic review of PJ and Mr O's book has just been published:

How to Do Words With Things is a beautiful book object. The front cover is the back cover, and the back the front: each a beginning and an end. The two works that comprise the one object–A Free-Dragging Manifesto by Patrick Jones and subtext by Peter O’Mara–face each other in a reverse doubling, like the opening and closing punctuation of quotation marks, or the snug in-folding of two kippers, top-to-tail in a can. The book is made from the chlorine-free pulp of sustainable plantation trees and is printed using vegetable oil-based inks. It is, as Jones said in an email exchange, “practically edible!”

You can read the rest here.

Friday Night Rule

Whenever we go to Melbourne, the Friday Night Rule applies regardless of what day it is.

PJ implemented the rule several months ago after I had a fight with a guy on a street corner. The guy finished his cigarette and dropped it on the ground just as I walked past him. Taken aback, I asked if he was going to pick it up. He told me he wasn't and a fight ensued.

The rule relates not just to smokers but to people doing anything offensive and pertains to my not accosting them on the street, especially after dark.

Last night PJ and I went to Melbourne to see our gorgeous friend SV perform with her cabaret outfit for the Fringe Festival.

Every time we come to Melbourne, the first things I notice are how many cars there are and how many people smoke. But this time the first thing I noticed was how people were just carrying on, business as usual. 

The shops were full of shoppers and their hands were full of goods in plastic bags. How is it that the papers can be so full of doom and gloom but that the majority of people haven't noticed?

A bit of denial is a good thing, I know this. Otherwise being awake would be too hard. But for how long can be people be in denial about the state of things?

Global warming? Peak Oil? The Wall St Crisis? The list goes on and on. People still smoke, gamble, eat junk food, fly overseas on holidays. We delude ourselves to get by, I get that. 

But what I don't quite get is the extent.

Happy Thursday Part 8

Public Concern

This is the first image that came up when I googled Private Public.

This morning I left later than usual for my walk and ran into two different parties of bush walkers in full Gore-Tex attire. At my usual hour it is just the native animals who spy me in my op shopped conglomeration of mismatched colours and layers.

I had my iPod and was in my own world as I listened to the latest This American Life podcast, so to see other human forms amongst the trees really punctured my sense of solitude.

The private made public.

Later in the morning over coffee I read the chapter of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine entitled, 'A Corporatist State,' in which she writes:

In some ways, however, the stories about corruption and revolving doors leave a false impression. They imply that there is still a clear line between the state and the [disaster capitalist] complex, when in fact the line disappeared long ago. The innovation of the Bush years lies not in how quickly politicians move from one world to another but in how many feel entitled to occupy both worlds simultaneously.

The public made private.

And then just now I read on (Text)ure and (me)aning about artist Sophie Calle's fascination with the interface between our public lives and our private selves.

Calle's followings, recordings and wanderings are her work.

She brings the public/private space to the gallery.

To the published page.

To the archive of the extraordinary ordinary.

The private made private made public.

With Decorum

For my birthday I asked my sisters for a totem tennis. It sits in our garden and gets a beating when Z has a friend over or when I am feeling angry. 

Sometimes I feel very very angry. Are you surprised? Why is it that anger is not something we talk about easily? And why is that I don't know many people who are very good at being angry? (Does that say more about the people I hang out with or more about people in general?)

While we were in Newcastle, we went to hear a panel on which there was a woman whose paper absolutely and utterly infuriated me. Still when I think about it now, I feel my cheeks darken. And during question time I told her, then challenged her with a question she answered with indifference.

Afterwards I felt terrible. Even though I had acted according to my own integrity, I felt as though my anger was not in the spirit of the day. And then I was angry at myself for not knowing how to be angry.

PJ is the first boyfriend I have had where I have not felt as though a squabble will culminate in a break up. And as a result, I feel more competent with my anger. But fighting with a sibling or a lover is easier than expressing anger towards a stranger with decorum.

The Conquerer

A few nights ago I was one of 17. We car convoyed to a big gaudy Greek restaurant on the petticoated outskirt of Newcastle: families, feta, folk dancing.

I asked those seated around me what words they know in Greek.

PM, who's on the home straight of his PhD said that he has been hibernating, working. When he leaves the house, the light reaches him from different angles; sounds and encounters are as daydreams.

Recently on a milk errand he found himself a pedestrian behind a man, and a woman in a dress cut low at the back.

Sideways up the centre of her spine she had some letters inked that PM had to sneak closer to read.

The tattoo comprised 6 letters that spelt a Greek word that PM made sure he memorised to look up later.

Behind Me

Between My Toes

About Yesterday

All morning I had a line from my paper in my head: "The French Government doesn't think so." It was the one sentence in my whole presentation I wasn't sure how to intone.

My talk was about violence on YouTube and in it, I discuss how last year the French Government passed legislation that outlawed the filming of violent acts by any citizen who is not a professional journalist. Bloggers, amateur documentary filmmakers or those filming to collect evidence of a crime are not exempt.

In the end when it was time for my paper, that line found its own place and my ideas waved in the breeze of the day, like a flag.

Hair Horse

A quick shower before our early morning's flight.

I place my hair on the wall so as not to clog the drain.

The horse gallops on the tiles.

We fly.