don't dream it's over

But in Detroit, it is.

Utterly chilling. Post-industrial doesn't really sum it up.

la mer

Having been lolling about Villa VVB by the sea for a couple (*of) weeks now, I could have written an equivalent to War and Peace (by weight, if not content), but all I've mustered is one short post saying "we're back" with a picture. Well, here's another picture.



The little red car is hors de combat, it got considerably horser as soon as I starting trying to fix it. So I am denied the pleasure of farting around in it.

Mid-winter here is glorious, the sea is a metallic kind of azure with the odd spotless white sail swanning in the background.

I scan with the binoculars (one thing we noticed when house-hunting here was that every house with a sea view had binoculars to hand or a big fuck-off telescope in the corner of the lounge room). This arvo my naked (ooh-er, Bishop!) eye spotted...well, that's what it was, a spot. With the binocs, it was a bloke in a tinny that couldn't have been more than 3 and a bit metres. So flat was the sea, no swell, no waves, and he's standing up, fishing.

All of which is not conducive to blogging. I have been reading the sites (Grog has come into his own magnificently in the last few weeks) but even with some quickening in the pace of events within the election period, it still looks and sounds too scripted and focus-group driven. Then there's the meta-commentary, for example on the role of the media, and the meta-meta commentary on the role of the blogosphere in commenting on the role of the media, and...

The endless tea-leaf reading is unbelievably tiresome. There are far too many readers and far too few leaves - when you take into account statistical margins of error, electoral boundary changes and countless other unknown unknowns...

Yeah you get the point.

Been playing a few concert DVDs which started to get me thinking about an even bigger TV. For a little while I was kind of third guitar to Phil Manzanera and Chris Spedding in Roxy Music, I needed a bigger screen so I could in there. Fortunately for me, they're deaf. Or at least they were on this DVD.

Anyway, this all sounds like ennui which means it's a good thing I'm back at work next week.

Not really. But I've already started easing back in by reviewing a few documents I'll need to be familiar with when I return. And only 330 e-mails to deleteread.


* Maybe I should also adopt the recent US craze for not saying "of?"


**And while we're on pedantry, the misuse of "versus", from the Latin and meaning "against", seems to have also taken off. Listening to a lot of radio commentary while on hols, the usual pronunciation was "verse." Yes, really. But the other day I read a newspaper article in which it was spelt "verses."


I kid you not.


We're doomed, fucking doomed, I tell you.

The other thing is this being thrown offline every time I hit a function key. Is seriously pissing me off.

wolfman jack

Worth it for the reviews of the three wolf t-shirt alone (actually, I only read about .75% of them, I do have to get to sleep some time). Courtesy of Bookforum.

The picture is neither Amazon nor wolf related, and doesn't have anything to do with t-shirts either, but is intended to represent how "rightards" must feel because of recent "leftist" schadenfreude over lots of things such as winning elections, collapse of capitalism, failure of the globalisation experiment, and so on.

There's so much snarking, evil intent and postmodern bullshit about (read all the usual blogs, they're thick with it), it seeps out from under the monitor, which is where we usually only get mouse poo.

That's another thing: poo is spelt poo, not Pooh. Only the G-G gets it right because he's had a classical education. All the others have been indelibly infected by a combination of (almost certainly) American cartoons and on-line commentary, from the sort of people who write "it's a doggy-dog world."

parallel lines

You'd reckon if you were a well resourced company using a well established ad agency, that the visual (whatever the technical term is) bods would be able to get things right?

Case in point: an ad in today's paper for some way upmarket condominia in the Gold Coast. Picture of said building - looked mostly real - with a Porsche at the portico, well dressed lady and uniformed doorman.

Except if you followed the perspective, the car was sitting about 2 feet clear of the ground.

Similar mistake is made in an ad for some insurance company: again, a lady walking away from a car but the car is floating.

I guess it's all about saving dollars, but surely the sorts of people who flog Gold Coast condominia mix in the social circles where someone has a Porsche that can be borrowed for an hour or two so that some pictures can be taken.

Alternatively, if you are going to hire uni students to do the Photoshopping (or, more likely, ask them to pay you for the privilege - work experience don't you know) at least extend the proofreading to having a good squizz at the photos to ensure they're within the realm of the physically possible.

Ya dig?

In other universes the Scots - who, as we all know, are raving socialists - get a tad upset about capitalism the way she is now practised.

And finally, they should replace all the Kyle Sandilandses of this world with Ross Gittins. They say the truth will out, it'd be nice if it happened sooner and in a more widespread fashion than is occurring because of the infatuation with Malcolm.

Oh, no infatuation? Don't give him the airtime, then.

reflections of my life

Not exactly, more like reflections of buildings in Townsville. Am back, more bloggings at weekend.

good for the economy*

Well here we are on our holidays and that should be the mark of a cultural and intellectual renaissance here at VVBSea. We have plenty of time for reading, preparation, analysis, insight and good writing.

It's all a little much to expect, though, innit? Go back to the first post: there will be no changing of this leopard's spots, whether considered or quite, quite, arbitrary.

That aside, anyone who can name a blog clusterfuck nation bears a little scrutiny, so I invite you to go ahead and scrute to your little heart's content. Note you are still singular, I just don't know which one of you you are, if you follow me.

Articles like Kunstler's can make you feel all superior if you so desire: apocalyptic visions tend to have that sort of effect, nicht war? But the more apocalyptic, the more unremitting the vision, the less force the argument has. Lots of the ideas seem eminently sensible: alternative energy sources, mix of energy, more local production, far less consumerist advertising (Madison Avenue references), re-learn self sufficiency skills and so on.

But the impact of technological advances is either ignored or treated as a 'bad': GMOs and so on. That's plain silly as any short gaze around your current environment will demonstrate. Technological advance does not need to be always equated with "growth at all costs."

The article and comments contain some interesting bons mots: the tattooed lumpenproletariat (and aren't there lots of THOSE about nowadays?); the people who are going to grow yams (they should do a little research first).

It's also very very American centric, although one commenter makes the point that most Americans don't understand that other countries and their citizens' lifestyles and ways of doing things are very different. I've never been to the States but I read that the media is very US-centric with little overseas news or programs that would allow people to better understand the rest of the world?

Anyway, give us your views on the apocalypse or not.

I came to that article via this blog that I have referenced previously. I don't know anything about architecture (but I know what I like, as the saying goes) but a couple of years ago I was involved in a project to do with regional and town planning. It was my introduction to the subject so I learnt a lot of very simple things very quickly, I got an earful (perhaps an eyeful is more appropriate) of contemporary thought and practice without gaining any deep appreciation of the basics. Very dangerous but fortunately my little part was not imbued with the risk of any dire consequences should I have got it not quite right. However my experience on that project did result in my interest in "Sit down man etc etc" and I find it a good occasional read (with nice pictures) and links to fabulously named blogs (with more nice pictures). These blog names: people's ingenuity always blows me away.

We have yet to succeed fully with the new AV gear. I have picture, I do not have sound. It has been suggested to me that the only thing standing between me and my understanding of the technology is my age, and what I need is a 14 year old boy, who will walk into the room, snort, twiddle some buttons and lo! there will be sound. I have been offered the loan of such an animal (and as we've had a male offspring pass through that age, we know all about them)

It's all very frustrating, fortunately we haven't finished all the Christmas wine yet. I also have a brew of ginger beer fermenting nicely downstairs. That's very old technology, but all will be well. I'll get some expert help with the sound.

Finally, while sorting papers downstairs I ran across a hard copy of a George Soros article printed in The Age in December 1998 as the world started to deal with and emerge from the Asian economic crisis. Some nicely selective excerpts:

"A key feature of fundamentalist beliefs is that they rely on either/or judgements. If a proposition is wrong, its opposite is claimed to be right. This logical incoherence lies at the heart of market fundamentalism. State intervention in the economy has always produced some negative results. This has been true not only of central planning but also of the welfare state and of Keynesian demand management. From this banal observation, market fundamentalists jump to a totally illogical conclusion: if state intervention is faulty, free markets must be perfect. Therefore, the state must not be allowed to intervene in the economy. It hardly needs pointing out that the logic of this argument is faulty."

"Market fundamentalism plays a crucial role in the global capitalist system. It provides the ideology that not only motivates many of the most successful participants but also drives policy."

"Another source of potential instability comes from the mutual funds. Fund managers are judged on the basis of their performance relative to other fund managers, not on the grounds of absolute performance."

"If the global capitalist system survives the present period of testing, this period will be followed by a period of further acceleration that will carry the system into far-from-equilibrium territory - if it is not there already."

Hmm, yep, that happened.

*Good for the economy - I'd never heard of it, rather apocalyptic isn't it? Appropriate for the post, then.

every picture tells a story

Some pictures from recent road trips (click on photos to enlarge, especially if you want to read the print).

Where the poor people live.

The other side of the tracks, seen from this side.

We know who lives here.

In Jericho, where Jericho Jim shops.

In Jericho, where the walls are coming down.

Main street of Gladstone, Sunday afternoon...

Don't fence me in.