”The Calla Lilies Are in Bloom”
Such a curious flower, suitable for any occasion. . . . I place them here in memory of [somebody who] has died.”

Qualifications
Rana ought to come to Australia, from the sound of things regarding her interests. There is the issue of getting a visa, though. I, of course, was lucky, and married into the country, but, look: deserts (or desertification, anyway), linguistic puzzles (who came up with drongo, and isn’t spit the dummy a lovely phrase) . . . and so much more.

South Seas
It occurs to me somehow that I am severely remiss in what I am reading for pleasure. There is, of course, the wealth of Australian literature that I need to pursue, novels and stories and poetry that often doesn’t make much splash in the fecund output of American publishing, The Thorn Birds notwithstanding. M.’s collection will provide something to carry on the train with me for no little time yet to come, but leaving that aside, I think it’s about time I picked up Joseph Conrad again. Conrad’s been a long-time favorite of mine, but other than re-reading Nostromo about a year ago, I’ve mostly been thinking of his oeuvre as “why don’t I have a copy of Heart of Darkness anywhere?” But I do, actually, as I have in my possession the Viking Portable Conrad, which collects and arranges all his short fiction, including that novella. Although Conrad’s settings are more “out of Australia” than in it, the islands of the Pacific affording him his seafaring adventures more than the continental landmasses could, Australia is the result of English imperialism in the South Seas, so I wouldn’t wonder if Youth and Victory and such other tales won’t offer me a similar narrative point of view to that which settled this country prior to Federation but following colonization. Maybe it’s just the palm trees, although I never got this feeling in Los Angeles.

Obit
Faced with the death of someone so old and so successful [note: irony. ed.], it's difficult to say anything about Strom Thurmond. When he was alive, I regarded him as an ancient racist, whose life perpetuated attitudes that should have long passed from the political scene. Simplistic, I know, as Thurmond was not solely responsible for racial prejudice in the U.S. - he was only 100, after all. Now that he's dead, I have to acknowledge his war record and that he probably did believe he wasn't a bigot. He was, though, and if he'd had the sense to retire years ago, I wouldn't be in this position. Even after getting kicked out of paradise, Lucifer probably still regarded himself as an angel, and so it was with Thurmond.

The Arch-Enemy of Evil
Doc Savage was a character from the pulp fiction days of the 1930’s & ‘40’s. In my lifetime, Bantam Books repackaged and republished the books, at first in single-volume editions, later doubling up to maximize profitability (which couldn’t have been very great to start with), but unfortunately losing in the process the truly ludicrous, somewhat lurid cover art, many of which The Barrister and I collected over the years (and which I’ve imported to Australia, where Doc is a complete unknown, despite the execrable Ron Ely high-camp movie - where will I ever get Up from Earth’s Center now?). Anyway, it’s great fun to locate this collection of covers from the original books. (There’s also a fan site and a pulp resources site, whatever that means.) What a shame, though, to miss the pulp art exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.

Foreign Entanglements
When the CIA fact book says a government is “parliamentary democracy tending toward anarchy,” they’re not referring to the kind of non-system advocated by the anti-globalists, but rather the kind often seen in African nations, Liberia notably, i.e., every man for himself, especially if he’s got a gun. The conditions in the Solomon Islands are such that Australia and New Zealand are now preparing to provide peace-keeping troops, but not until the government there passes legislation to authorize the formal request for assistance. This is the kind of situation that has put and kept Marines in Haiti and NATO in the Balkans, and it is the kind of action that constitutes taking responsibility for improving the world as if superpower nations aren’t required. Similarly, Japan is freezing financial aid to Myanmar until they release Aung San Suu Kyi. Most aid dried up in 1988, when they first put her under arrest, so it’s not clear how this will help. Now, if China would step up to work on North Korea, and if the Middle East would grow up, and if the UN would intervene just about everywhere in Africa. . . .

Costs
Sure, now they want to cut the Stamp Duty. Of course, the GST (Goods and Services Tax) imposed more than two years ago was supposed to eliminate stamp duty, but that’s different, isn’t it?

Sorry
We used to hear in college that displaying the Canadian Maple Leaf would fool Europeans into being nice to us, but apparently the position of Americans abroad has gotten more extreme. I think the French sounds classy.

Stars
Nothing beats a fortune-telling parrot. Even if I have no idea which star-sign I’m supposed to pick. (Via Frogs & Ravens, which also has a nice haiku about squirrels.)

Meta
BlogStreet has a few nice little tools for making ‘bloggers feel like they’re part of a community, instead of just the latest version of homepagers.

Meg Hourihan, world-famous ‘blogger, provided a link to a nice-looking Flash™ app (only US$5 for non-commercial use) that strikes me as a fun thing to have on a ‘blog. If one is travelling more than I’m doing.

And speaking of Megnut, she pointed me to the latest example of big media’s interest in ‘blogs, which doesn’t really offer a lot of advice on increasing traffic, but is still kinda interesting. The Sydney Morning Herald has also recently cottened on to ‘blogging, so it may yet become more of a phenomenon here than it has apparently been so far.

Middle-Child Syndrome
That’s all that can explain:

“You're the United Nations! Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long way to go. You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of beating each other about the head and torso. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result. But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.” Country
Quiz results, from Blue Pyramid.

Downtime
Enforced non-blogging status, as Blogger upgrades their users to a new version. An email would have been nice, but I’m getting it free, so I won’t complain. The new interface is very pretty.

CityStats
The Skyscraper Page is a nice little project, offering pictures and statistics on buildings of cities around the world, Sydney among them. Like the Skyscraper Museum, the site services the urban fascination with building tall. (Via Gawker.)

The Nuclear Winter of Our Discontent
Andrew Denton is something like the Dick Cavett of Australia: bright, witty, and gets good interviews on television. Last night on the ABC, he interviewed Dr. Helen Caldicott, a renowned anti-nuke activist. Dr. Caldicott is a pediatrician, and her activism stems from her medical practice. I haven’t previously heard any of what she’s got to say, but her intelligence was evident last night, and although she is obviously a very compassionate person, she doesn’t much suffer fools. Her account of meeting with Ronald Reagan was priceless, recounting that his foreign policy was derived from the Reader’s Digest and describing him otherwise as a “nice old man.” Nuclear war is an unimaginable event for most people, so vast and devastating that we often fail to grasp just how terrible it would be, despite the accounts available from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the atomic testing we spent 30 years thereafter on. Dr. Caldicott’s analysis of the current situation is worth keeping in mind. After the Cold War, the world thought it was safe, but we are as close to disaster as ever. We must not allow the Bush government to produce more weapons, let alone a policy that would encourage their use, but this is the path the U.S. is presently undertaking. It’s too easy for us to let the news accounts fall into the pile of “it’s just the Pentagon’s war games, not an active plan,” when in fact it is a plan and Bush wants to fight and win a nuclear war. Why else build a useless missile shield? We also need to encourage and support the Russians in accounting for and locking away or destroying the radioactive materials in their country, as the accessibility by terrorists is a very serious concern.

Denton also interviewed the Wiggles, which was a great relief.

Albert Schweitzer
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”

Le Royale, avec Frommage Bleu
What is it about globalization that leads to overreaction? I suppose, given M. Bove’s level of support, the police might have had an expectation of resistance, possibly involving a number of supporters, but he’d said he wouldn’t resist, so why 80 men? I guess the dog was there because the cops had one and wanted to get the use of him, but it reminds me of a scene in one of the Martin Beck stories, although in that one, at least there was the satisfaction of the dog biting the police commissioner. Good luck this Bastille Day, M. Bove.

Libraries On-Line
Sometimes, Flash™ animation isn’t just clever animation. Sometimes, there’s an tool in there, as there is in Whichbook, an on-line resource for selecting books according to up to four “mood” criteria, or plot, character, or setting combinations. This may be worth exploring to see the depth and breadth of the recommendations.

Legion of Doom
If you had to be a supervillain, what name would you use? The Barrister, who can project rays of elucidation or obfuscation, depending on his mood. Dragonfly is already is use, probably by more than one villain, but the insect is also called a Darning Needle, and that kind of works for another in that particular household. This diabolical pair have kids, too, and I suppose names for them must be employed as well, but I don’t know if I dare: it might get back to them. As per the Barrister’s comments previous, avoiding nomenclature based on physical characteristics is important, except, perhaps, insofar as it is descriptive also of behavior, but I’m going to leave off to apply more thought to the process before I get in too deep.

Music Wherever She Goes
Weekends with unscheduled time are becoming hard to find. We have, of course, the chores, which are important, as they become unmanageable if left too long, and visits out to Windsor, which swallow entire days, so this past weekend involved taking the opportunity it presented to do some prep-work for 4 August, on which we expect to entertain a hoard of new/old (depending on which of us you are, I am . . . never mind) friends, gathered for the express purpose of celebrating M.’s birthday, which this year also constitutes a milestone of sorts (depending on whether you regard such things in such way, which I do not, but so what?). So we spent an inordinate amount of time visiting with George, who has a terrific stereo setup, including two DJ-quality turntables and mixer, producing hours of party music for the event. Very successful we were, too. As a result of nicking my little brother’s LP collection off to Australia with me (I inherited them decades ago, when he became a travelling man and couldn’t lug them around anymore – if he’d wanted them, there were ways to get them back, but now they’re mine), plus years of non-marital status spent collecting CDs galore, I have an extensive if only marginally eclectic music collection, and this served us well enough, but George is the archivist, and as such, although he has a particular taste for Soul, which has led to some interesting gaps from the 80’s, he’s got exactly what’s needed in his collection to ensure you can have a crisp copy of Buddy Holly doing “Well, All Right” instead of settling for the Blind Faith cover, when the mix calls for the original, or an obscure B-side Kinks that never made it to LP. I don’t think I ever knew “Hanging on the Telephone,” although I prefer Blondie’s version to that of The Nerves’ original.

Naming Conventions
I had a chat with M., who was preturbed by a previous post’s failure to explicitly mention and thereby hint toward her natal celebration in just over a month’s time, about why I try not to use people’s names and personal details here. It is, of course, my attempt at being polite. I don’t want to use anyone’s name in such a way that it becomes part of the public record via what I write here, especially not with direct reference to personal details that might be embarrassing or where that person’s preference would be for non-disclosure. There’s an African admonishment, What if a snake hears you? such creatures being able thus to take advantage of knowing who you are, and snakes abound on the internet, as we all know, so reticence seems appropriate. Nevertheless, as at the beginning of this paragraph and throughout other posts, even immediately adjacent ones, references to others are necessary, they’re part of the story. I enjoy the practice of nicknames, A.’s being an example of the use of the apt coinage, B.’s exemplifying the use of initials in similar fashion. But most of the people reading this won’t ever know any of these people or would be confused, perhaps, by the diminutives or initials, so I’m left in a quandary. Shall I refer to George as “The Archivist,” which makes him sound like a supervillain’s henchman in a comic book? Would I be able to come home – ever – if I apply a nickname to my beloved spouse? (Perhaps “Beloved Spouse” is the nickname to use? I don’t think “Fifi” is going to cut it.) If A. and B. are both lawyers, can I call one “The Attorney” but not the other? Can I use “Opposing Counsel” for one without offense? It would, of course, be easier if everyone had ‘blogs, because then the onus of identification would reside with the referent, but alas, I must bear the burden of naming names alone. I shall ponder the question, but suggestions wouldn’t be unwelcome.

I Saw It on Star Trek
No, really. Aliens stole Spock’s brain, after using a machine to enhance their intelligence to the requisite level. Although the device reported in the Times only seems to improve one’s ability to draw cartoons, it won’t be long now. (Yes, it will. I'm not that unrealistic.)

Under Western Eyes, et al.
Last night the ABC presented a program done in conjunction with the BBC called, What the World Thinks of America. The presentation consisted of the survey results from 11 countries, including the U.S. itself, and panellists in Australia and the U.K., including a variety of fairly distinguished politicos, statesmen, cultural commentators, and so forth, among them Bob Carr, the NSW Premier, and Benazir Bhutto, former PM of Pakistan. Reports from Brazil, South Korea, Russia, and France were presented to offer brief analysis of specific questions from the survey. It was a well-balanced presentation, although the answers were not too surprising, or at least not always. South Koreans, for example, responded in large numbers that they felt the world was made more dangerous because of U.S. policies and actions. Of course, that only seems surprising because the expectation is that our military is keeping them safe from the starving marauders of the North, whereas the reality also has to take into account that the reluctance of the U.S. to relinquish its aggressively anti-communist stance there is a significant factor in antagonising North Korea. But I digress.

It was no surprise to learn that the populations polled hold a negative view of G. W. Bush. It was no surprise that the U.S. polled as positive. But GW ought to look to his future, because he only turned up 51% of the American people in his favor, and the overwhelming negativity of the rest of the world is bound to have an effect. The biggest negative factors at work were, of course, the Iraq War and the influence of American culture. The military is scary; I can see that. There is no military force on the planet so well-financed and equipped. American culture, however, comes in for it based on how people perceive movies, television, and fast food. It is dismaying to hear that that is all we offer the world in the minds of many. And, as M. says, there is no recognition in these kinds of responses of any ownership by the receiving countries. Don’t like McDonalds? Don’t eat the stuff. In some measure, these aspects of American culture only exist – even in America – because consumers accept them. This is why I support efforts within Australia to reject the free trade agreement currently being negotiated unless subsidies are allowed to remain in force of Australian television and film. Canada has workable protections in place in this regard, as does France, and there’s simply no reason to just roll over on the issue. Again, I ramble.

These are not new issues; neither are the responses new. There were two aspects of this presentation that were revelatory. The first was the responses given to whether or not respondents would care to live in the U.S. I think it was something like 67% said no. Given a little thought, this isn’t so surprising. Most people would like to stay home rather than pick up and relocate someplace strange and potentially difficult, even if they perceive it as offering opportunities for prosperity beyond what they might have otherwise. But Americans have long perceived their country as the destination of choice for immigrants. We have been taught that everyone would like to live in the U.S. or someplace like it if they could. We’ve also learned that we prefer our own country over all others. Well, folks, it ain’t necessarily so. We may turn a blind eye to what’s on offer elsewhere, but when these people say they don’t want to live here, it isn’t simply a question of they don’t know any better. In fact, many of them are fully aware of what’s on offer in the U.S. and would rather stay where they are just the same, thank you very much. America needs to think about what that means.

Of course, one thing I do love about America (and there are many things) – something not very many of the people polled responded to as something they’d like more of themselves – is our freedom of expression, particularly because it not only allows me to say what I think, but also to hear what others think. So the other intriguing aspect of the program was the fact of it. This was a global poll, a global program. It happened, and I’ll bet the Nielsens (U.K./Australian equivalents) were terrific. GWB doesn’t read the papers and he doesn’t watch the news by all accounts, so I hope someone on the staff was paying attention to this, because he really ought to know about it. That America is an arrogant nation was the ultimate appraisal. That, and we should sign the Kyoto Accords. A nation with the kind of power the U.S. wields is indeed arrogant, when it is regarded as a stumbling block to world peace and prosperity, instead of a leader.

Henry Ford: 100 Years of Backseat Squabbling
I’ve just finished reading Roger Angell’s New Yorker piece on driving, and it’s brought up a desire to hire a car and head for . . . someplace. This is, of course, highly strange, as those who know me will aver, given that I have never had a driving license, an even stranger circumstance because I grew up on Long Island, where car culture dominates all other forms. This isn’t to say that I haven’t ever driven a car. I have, many times, if always illegally. I have even done a little bit of middle-distance driving, once notably taking the wheel in a blinding snow storm on the NY State Thruway. The long-distance driving Mr. Angell describes is something in my lief always left to others, my parents, much like he experienced, and much as he tells it, full of animals and children – mostly me – getting nastily ill. This is not to say that driving hasn’t had its sublime moments, although none of them included women, as unfortunate as that may have been then. Still, I have been behind the wheel with the radio on and the windows open, heading for some place, whether home or away, where I wanted to be. Mr. Angell’s article leaves aside the other notable automobile experience that comes from hitchhiking, which I’ve done my share of and which is for the most part sadly passed away, and many of my best experiences travelling by car have come from caging rides in this fashion. Now here I am in Sydney, a city where you can really use a car sometimes, although it isn’t really necessary, especially if you live, as I do, in Surry Hills, where the CBD is just over there and Darlinghurst and Paddington are just over there the other way and there’s plenty of what’s wanted in between. (We’re also just a few blocks from Central Station, so long distance travel is no further off than just as far as you can carry your luggage without hurting yourself, not to mention that the airport is one of the most accessible on the planet, allowing very long distances to be traversed with ease.) Car culture is significant here, but no more so than beach/surf culture, the various performing and non-performing arts, et al. But Sydney aside, I’m in Australia, and it would be unforgivable not to drive the Pacific Highway south, visiting Melbourne and Adelaide, and all the roadside attractions in between, heading up to Brisbane and out to the Red Middle. I’ll leave crossing the Nullarbor to trains, though, and visit Perth that way. In fact, these scenarios demand driving to some extent, for although it is possible to avail oneself of the other methods, like the coast of California, Big Sur notably, you’ll miss some of the best bits if you don’t drive. It’s going to happen; I’m going to make sure of it. If I keep bringing lunches to work, we can save enough money for the $40 per week the lessons will cost. It’s not like Epping is noted for its culinary offerings anyway. That will wait until I get home.

Counter Culture
It was bound to happen, I suppose, that culture shock would afflict both M and me. I’ve had a few culture shock tantrums over the last few months, but walking down Pitt Street to the State Theatre for last Sunday’s Film Festival entry gave M her first reverse culture shock tantrum. We set out early. George had been by, having been in the neighborhood to attend a photographic exhibition in a small gallery down the street from us. He stopped off to visit for a bit because the photos had been of NYC, taken by an Irish ex-pat living in Sydney who’d gone back for a couple of months on a photo safari. We figured we’d fit it in before the movie and dinner. Some of the photos were very good, very NYC, inspiring a bit of nostalgia, for lack of a better expression, but most were a little too photographic for my taste. As we headed into town, we were keeping our eye out for a restaurant to have dinner prior to the film, and talking of NYC, our heads full of the last two years, our eyes full of Sydney. I really like this city. Really. It’s much more dynamic than I think it gets credit for sometimes. There’s a lot going on, some of it out of the way. Construction is apparently booming, and although that’s mostly been true in the suburbs, like Ashfield and Zetland, it’s happening in the CBD, too. There’s something about those skyscraper cranes that gives a city a dynamic, but temporary feel, and that may be part of why we don’t always sense the full urban power of this place. That, and the advantages of the harbour and nearby beaches tend to give an outward focus to the residents. Rugby and AFL (that’s Australian Football League, otherwise known as Aussie Rules) being in season now doesn’t help, either, as the culture of Australia is sports-mad, leaving lots of empty seats in the cinemas showing anything less than a Hollywood blockbuster, although cricket, the summer sport, has a laconic effect of its own that’s as hard to understand as the rules thereof. Meanwhile, as M’s boots, which weren’t, apparently, made for walking, began to exert their full effect on her feet, we continued to not find the Greek restaurant we’d been looking for. In fact, we weren’t finding any restaurants at all, meanwhile getting ever closer to the State and a level of hunger that would soon become insupportable. We’d have been happy enough to venture across to one side or the other of Pitt if there’d been any indication of a nice place to eat nearby and if M’s boots weren’t threatening to take her toes off, but conditions as they were sent M into a rage against all things Australian, Sydney in particular. “Half way around the world and you can’t get a decent meal anywhere!” she raged. “This wouldn’t happen in NY!” Of course, once we’d finally settled on a café we wouldn’t have otherwise looked at twice and boosted our blood sugar to normal levels, we settled down and managed to recall that yes, indeed, this would happen in NYC, and in fact had, more than once, if not in the particular of restaurants, at least in other amenities or necessities. NYC is no different than anyplace else, and you can go for blocks without seeing anything but convenience stores or bodegas. Cafés encountered in these areas are more often than not exactly the kind of place you never want to eat. Then you’ll suddenly find yourself surrounded by a lovely array of restaurants, varieties of ethnic foods disporting themselves up and down the avenue. (That doesn’t sound appetizing, does it? But you know what I mean.) Sydney’s much the same, although it can be more like L.A., requiring you to venture a bit further sometimes than NYC might. Still, if you read Calvin Trillan, you’ll know that if you want the best Chinese or Korean food, you sometimes have to venture into parts of Queens you didn’t even want to know existed prior to that particular dining urge. Until we’re as familiar with Sydney as we’ve been with NYC, I think we’ll just have to take a bit more care in planning our excursions, especially on Sunday nights.

The State Theatre, by the way, is a beautiful, ornate entertainment emporium, harkening back to the glory days, painted in gold tones and encrusted with crenallations beyond imagination. The stage is set back and appears narrow at first, especially from the further ends of the arced rows of seats, but the sight-lines are actually quite good, even for films. This is the kind of structure that gets pulled down in favor of cinema multiplexes all the time, so it's particularly valuable that the State has survived. It sounds a bit 1984, but long live the State.

Politics: Co-opting Everything?
Howard Dean has a weblog. It reads for the most part like a collection of press releases, or worse, but there are occasional personal moments offering some relief from the spin. I may vote in the MoveOn.org primary on June 24, but mostly because I find the internet campaign fascinating. (What a geek.) It is kinda interesting, really, although the content is just as awful as you’d expect. There’s a fair amount of “runaway train” analogies and the kind of foamer enthusiasm you probably remember from any time you ever spent working on a campaign yourself or even just from political movies. “Oh, he’s wonderful, just wonderful,” kind of expressions that you have to push hard to get past to any real content.

Foolishness
Which X-Men Character Are You? Well, it appears that I’m most like Professor X, which is kind of disappointing. (Link via the incomprehensible Bonnie Loves Clyde, which must be one of the most ludicrous ‘blogs out there and a very good reason for Google to sift such content from their central source material. Thanks, Kate, for providing this morning’s comic relief.)

So There
The Council of Europe is proposing a regulation that on-line content providers, including ‘bloggers, will have to provide a right of reply when they are the object of criticism. Although I already am currently providing a comments feature via Squawkbox, I think the Council and its constituent members are idiots. They are, however, welcome to comment.

Meet ‘n’ Greet
Although I think the Howard Dean campaign’s use of the internet is fascinating and tends to make me like him as a candidate, I don’t think Sydney is a likely rally site. Besides, I’m not really done with the other candidates; for example, John Kerry sounds like he’s got an energy plan that fits right in with my Shell-Economist essay entry. Slate’s got profiles of the candidates that are fun, if not terrifically interesting or always relevant. Who cares if Carol Moseley-Braun is Catholic but attends an Episcopal Church? Bob Graham, however, is the man we have to thank for the USA Patriot Act, and he stole his campaign theme song from Dick Gephardt, while Dennis Kuchinch is a vegan Catholic who could use a higher-paying job. Joe Liberman and Al Sharpton can just stay home, as far as I’m concerned, thanks very much, although at least Al’s entertaining. (Thanks to the well-balanced Watchblog for the links.)

Dressed for Success
I suppose I ought to admit that winter is actually upon us, although I have the word of an interested party that August 4 is always the worst day of the season, so there's time yet before Jack Frost is nipping at my nose (and he won't here, anyway, as there's only snow in the mountains well south of here). I resist the idea that it is cold now, even though 19 still sounds chilly indeed to my ears. It’s still green out there, with lots of bird activity, but the blue sky has that winter brightness to it that you know doesn’t mean warm. Summer, in my single season’s experience here, is white, so anything else should warn me off shorts and t-shirts. And 19, for those of you who need to convert but haven’t worked it out yet, is 66, plenty warm enough. But housing is a different matter than being out in the afternoon sun, and following the setting of said celestial object, the temperature drops some few degrees. Indoors, whether house or apartment, Sydney is not constructed as a city in a temperate zone. Insulation and double-pane windows are not as common as in areas that acknowledge seasonal temperature variations, even though the native Sydneysiders feel the cold quite keenly, by all accounts. The result, then, is that in summer heat is trapped indoors to the point where it can be more oppressive to stay home than to go out and in winter it can feel colder indoors than the weather you’re trying to shelter from. All this is to say, in the end, that I need to stop going around barefooted at night, except it’s a matter of pride that I’m not cold.

Meta Matters
There’s a level of maintenance that sometimes gets past me in ‘blogging, but in pursuing the administrative tasks that make running one of these things fun – that is, other than writing-to-entertain, oneself or otherwise – I am sometimes reminded to perform the reciprocation well-mannered ‘bloggers engage in, i.e., adding to the index of ‘blogs I follow. There are others than those listed here, but I don’t always regard them as being more than research tools for my cross-acculturation. I check in pretty much daily with Jeff and Katia.

Heavy Meta
Abbie has a posse and is far and away the best thing to happen to 'blogging since all those warbloggers shut up. They didn't? Who cares? Abbie has a posse. I'm gonna get Buu-buu to start one.

Homework
The leading U.S.-bashing news analysis publication and one of the top oil companies have banded together for the fourth time to offer $20,000 in prizes for an essay on the topic: “Do We Need Nature?”. I wonder if the question isn’t “Does Nature Need Us?” but I’m considering picking up where I left off twenty years ago and submitting a liberal cri de coeur. 2,000 words is too long for ‘blogging. But with the kind of dough they’re handing out, I imagine there will be a lot of competition. I’d like to see some of the more toadying submissions: Dominion Over the Animals! Is there Oil on Mars? Maybe I should submit one of those.

Trends in Graffiti
Hyperbole aside, the ubiquity of corporate branding, whether in films or as a political technique, reduces life to lifestyle and choices to none. Resistance is futile? Fight the power!

Meta
See, that’s what I like about Jeff: not only is he entertaining, he keeps coming across with these little technical items I can use to enhance how my own ‘blog works, like keeping down the Google junk by preventing them from archiving my blather. Well, it was their idea. Thanks.

Varieties of Kryptonite
It’s been done, of course many times, that Superman is re-imagined as powerless, tiny, married, not adopted by the Kents, etc., all as a terrible dream or due to exposure to red kryptonite (green was the kind most common, as I’m sure everyone knows, and exposure was potentially deadly, but there was also gold and white, each with its own specific effect). But now we have Superman as Red Kryptonite, i.e., tool of the Soviet empire. He’s never been my favorite character – too pure, too perfect – but this could be interesting, and as much a phenomenon as back when they last killed him off.

Roam No More
When I first happened upon Wander Lust, over at Outside Counsel, I was sufficiently taken with the idea to add it to my ‘blog template. I saw this as a utility, one that the self-referential nature of the internet was getting better at, which was more than a little necessary, because it more often seems still that the web consists of nothing more than a few subscription-based or registration-required news sites, a lot of 'blogs, and an endless amount of dead-ends. WL brought a level of connectedness to at least the 'blogs, and outside of any commercial imperative, establishing a more communal feeling. I got a lot of hits off WL, too. And now, it’s over, as I discovered upon reading Aussie Lass, one of the ‘blogs that turned up as a result of someone wandering through. I didn’t find many other sites I visited regularly via WL, but it was still fun, something to do while having lunch, when the weather wasn’t up to scratch. Should I leave the link on, in case they change their minds? Just for a week.

Feedback Back
Comments are back up. Technical difficulties at squawkbox, apparently, but no loss of content by appearances. So go ahead, criticize.

No Spoon
For the Queen’s Birthday, a public holiday here, we went to see the Matrix Reloaded, which was just as disappointing as everyone has said it would be, and just as entertaining, although the fact that Buffy, which we watched late last night, was just a full of extended fight sequences, leaving us a little overdone on the kung fu stuff. Never mind, the point is, really, that the Matrix movies constitute an entirely self-referential narrative, with occasional touches to keep the brighter audience members happy, such as naming one character Persephone and having her aid the humans in their quest to free a character from its exile in “hell.” Nice, that, even if it is ultimately pointless, just as all the internet and systems architecture bits are just a clever use of computer jargon in service to Vedic cosmology. The effects are nice, but. We also attended the screening of See What Happens, a biopic of D. A. Pennebaker, the documentarian who produced Don’t Look Back and The War Room, among other features. This was part of the Sydney Film Festival, for which we’ll also go see George Clooney’s directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, being the filmic biography of Chuck Barris, best known in my generation for The Gong Show, one of the most incredibly tasteless pieces of pre-Survivor television programming ever. In any event, See What Happens is a good enough movie, and I’m inclined to be very open indeed to picking up on any of Pennebaker’s work I can locate, Monterey Pop included. I also happened on a bathroom scale, and it even displayed pounds: must get out running very soon.

Commentary
There’s no indication of what’s happened, but comments are down for now. This may be what happens when using resources located by paying attention to fictional internet characters.

Opening
We went last night into deepest Paddington, Sydney’s trendiest suburb, the kind of area where fashion rules, but tastefully, except along Oxford Street, where the shops are that they put out for the people who come to the neighborhood to obtain the haute couture they read about in the papers, because that way they can keep the riff-raff out of the interior areas where they keep the good stuff. (That’s any city, isn’t it?) Mixed in among the restored terrace homes are the art galleries, and last night’s show for Astrid Spielman was held in one of them, a strange, white block that juts up from its Sutherland Street location. It was a double-header, although I didn’t think much of the other artist exhibiting there (an overdone variation on Joseph Cornell is putting it kindly). Astrid is a performance artist who has expanded into video and digital forms. Her pieces last night were travel-themed, examining airports as decorated interiors and the effect they have, or fail to, in a reassessment of public space and personal interaction; an exploration of their juxtaposition of familiar and strange, which is what a lot of good art does and what triggers that sense of the uncanny you get looking at it. Pretty, too. We really want to have one of the prints from the exhibition, but it will take some serious budgetary manoeuvres to accomplish it, I think.

Living in Interesting Times
Back in the office after an enforced hiatus of two days so management could regroup itself and decide how to continue the project. Those bonuses we heard about in March are gone, despite what new management says to the contrary (which wasn’t much and mostly focussed on “working out what was promised to whom,” and those line have plenty of room between them for a variety of interpretations), although the six-month salary review will proceed on schedule. The office block we’re in is small, as these things go, but much larger now than last week, with cubicles galore. Perhaps they'll rent out the upper floor. Now, although two days at home is two days’ more chores, it is nice that the curtains are all up and looking good and that the running around town from one end to another could be done while the weather was so nice, and I did get time to visit a doctor, as I’d been meaning to, and to sit out on the balcony and use the outdoor furniture that otherwise has been two weeks of not used yet. So the corporate pause had the positive effect desired, depending on your point of view. I relaxed and let my mind focus on other matters, for the most part, and they, well, they planned what they’d do next. They might have tried that earlier, but perhaps they get paid too much. Oh, yeah, that’s what they said about us.

Meta
Steal These Buttons offers a selection of predefined buttons to employ on your ‘blog, if you don’t already, as well as a handy little tool for making some of your own. I’ll probably mouse around some of these over the next few days and see if there’s anything among them I want to use or delve into. I’m intrigued by the wealth of “Dean for President” buttons available. This could spark an on-line campaigning meme. Thanks to Rob W. for the heads-up.

Dot-Com Days
The email and phones went out just after noon on Friday, and we all got the word just before or just after that there’d be a mass meeting after lunch. Actually, there were three meetings, plus some individual asides, but it became clear very quickly that we were faced with a shut down at worst, a layoff at best, and no one knew what was happening or to whom. I was lucky, though, and get to stay on, but a 50% cut in staff is hard to take even if you do get to keep your job. Some took it harder than others, but it was tough all around. I had read stories of the dot-com deaths on-line and was amazed, appalled. The terminations were so brutal. I’d been through a tap-on-the-shoulder period in a financial company that had taken over another, and the big law firm retrenching of the late eighties. I hear my former employer has also just completed a layoff, although only 4%. I wonder if there is anyway to reduce staff, other than hiring freezes and attrition, that don’t brutalize the workforce. I’m lucky, though, not just because the angel passed by, but also because Meera’s been so supportive, helping me through a bit of a scare, and working out what we’d need to do, what we’re going to do, and how we’re going overall. This is a important as I am still new to Australia and business here, and not eligible for unemployment benefits for another year.