Scriffles: Almost through my schoolbook poetry out.

In a war against dust and clutter I've chucked stuff out - including books.
Who needs books! Who reads books! Who reads poetry?
But that stupid high school poetry book - I stuck back on the shelf.
Not just one copy, no, I have TWO!
Must've rescued a copy that someone else in the family was going to chuck.

I am the family repository of photographs, memorabilia etc
They tell me to throw it out - I keep it.
Why must I be so sentimental and emotional?
I have no choice in this matter but my clean-up was partly a rebellion against myself.

Your point of view changes as you move through life.
At 17, or 24, or 30, lots of things are just things.
And they ARE just things.
Words are just things.

Something turned up on Twitter made me think of a poem I adored in high school.
It spoke of a beauty free of space and time.
This quote inspired a decade of my working life - I inscribed it on diaries, address books, and a painting.
"Beauty free of space and time" - this was my life's goal when I started out.
Funny that!

I called a painting I did once Beauty free of Space and Time.
I don't think anyone else saw in it what I saw.
I kept it.
Once I could gaze endless at it.
I saw this company of dazzling Russian dancers.
Painting a small photograph out of the programme let me hang onto that moment of joy.
But today it's just a ghostly thing.
I'd forgotten what I once passionately believed in.
What is beauty free of space and time?

Perceptions ... sights, sounds, touch, smell ...
lead to
Reactions, expressions, words, silences ...
....
...
.
English poet Clive Sansom talks about a grand design in this poem, The Spirit of the Cathedral.
Now, I've never believed that our lives are laid out by a grand design.
Perhaps I've even tried to prove this poem wrong.
By steadfastly pursuing something that truly is beyond me I've proved him right.
There is a grand design, an immaculate pattern, the repository of perfection.
Everything in its perfect place.

"The artist gropes to find. But being
Artist he must grope, must mould
Within his mouldering hands a symbol
Of that perfection - loveliness dissolving
Even as it leaves his touch, but telling
For a space of time, of beauty free
Of space and time. And beholders know
The shadow's substance, the divine matrix
From which this image came."

Even though I eventually forgot these words, the idea had taken root in my very being.
Maybe it was always there.
If you want to read the whole poem, here it is:

The Spirit of the Cathedral
by Clive Sansom b 1912 England.

Whatever is beautiful, whatever rouses
The heart from its complacent sleep, says
"Man, you are more than man, more
Than a repository of birth and death" - such beauty,
Before the creative chisel of the mind
Shaped it in stone or word, music
Or colour, lay in the Imagination's eye,
The retina of God.

They know, who see it, that a world exists
Behind the world, where the thought, the Idea
Of beauty, independent of its earthly form,
Lives in perfection - an eternal realm
Which holds the immaculate pattern fast
The artist gropes to find. But being
Artist he must grope, must mould
Within his mouldering hands a symbol
Of that perfection - loveliness dissolving
Even as it leaves his touch, but telling
For a space of time, of beauty free
Of space and time. And beholders know
The shadow's substance, the divine matrix
From which this image came.

So with the Cathedral. Before it laid
Its pressure on the clay, enclosed the moving
Air with arches, or threw its spire
Upon the mercy of the wind - already in that other
Kingdom stood the great archetype,
Supreme and perfect, waiting only
The man to see, the will to fashion
Its mortal replica.

*** *** ***

Now what amazes me most about this is that it informs all the work I've done for the past five years writing a children's book.
Almost 10,000 words about a grand design.
Never would even have found this connection unless Gary Tan hadn't blogged about building a cathedral.
And certainly wouldn't have connected the dots if I'd thrown this book out because I can't find it on the internet.

*** *** ***

Scriffles: Brain cells are invisible, no one pays them any mind.

Awe: n. Probably before 1300, in Arthour and Merlin; developed from earlier age (about 1250, in The Story of Genesis and Exodus) ... 
The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, a text explaining the origins and development of English words, traces the use of the word awe back to when it meant fear and terror.
"Awesome" didn't come into use until 1598 and just over 400 years later it is an ubiquitous expression for amazing, fabulous, fantastic, incredible, OMG!, sick, trippy...

Alien ghetto in South Africa - District 9. Awesome!
Susan Boyle getting up despite derision and sneers to sing. Awesome!

The whole world quests for the unknown, for the new, for the "never-before seen", for the unimaginable, elusive, invisible, beautiful secret "thing". Why is it invisible?

If we find it what's the first thing we'd do?
"AWESOME!" We need to shout it from the rooftops.
It's not ours. We are making it into something else.
The ugly truth about wanting to "share" the "awesome" is that most of the time the only concern is about "keeping up appearances".
We must make ourselves appear to be interesting.
Gossipers know what I'm talking about - this is the "awesome" thing about gossipers.

They're a breed that's been on Earth since the year dot - spreading their "awesomeness".
Gossipers steamroll every little juicy morsel of awesomeness out of every elusive, invisible, beautiful thing their little brains can fathom.
Same beast today as at the height of the Roman Empire - read Homer, read Shakespeare, see Pulp Fiction, see UP!
They gossip to make themselves feel important.
Certain brain cells wither and die - did you know that the human brain has a finite capacity?
So what you see as awesome depends upon what you spend your life focusing on.

Brain cells are invisible, no one pays them any mind.
But they exist. 
No don't crack your skull open, take my word for it.
And if you use them perhaps you too might happen upon on something elusive, tantalizing just out of reach "thing".
Will you keep it to yourself?
Like a child enjoying a stolen chocolate.
Like buying that pair of shoes without telling your husband.
Like sleeping with your soul mate, who's not you spouse.
Like stealing out during work hours for a surf.

We are exploiters, plunderers! Poseurs! Fakes all looking for the genuine article.
I think that's ok - if we're genuinely honest about it with ourselves.
But we're not. 
Take individuality.

You don't EVER want to be SEEN to be outside the square. 
You want to be inside the square telling people it's a diamond.
Break down: homogenization is the brand - that's why it's called "mass" marketing.

Give an eight-year-old an iPod, they scream for joy (hopefully): pause, rewind, play hundreds, thousands of songs.
Imagine if you gave a 21st century brat a vinyl record and an old record player which played but eight to 10 tracks before you had to physically walk to the player, turn the album over and then set down the needle? And it doesn't have cool earphones so you can walk down the street for everyone to see. Different story in the record player's heyday.
Well, some people still like to play records - some pretty awesome DJs do.
I don't feel like researching but I bet the guy who started scratchin' and sampling was as invisible as your brain cells until someone connected - it's called tinkering.

Most people really aren't that interesting any more.
I blame TV producers.
"Now is the winter of my discontent..." :•{(
People just don't tinker any more. 
They switch off. Literally. I do it too, OK. So I know!
William Robinson, a great Australian artist, once said he was almost invisible for most of his career because he was too busy in the studio making art to promote himself - unlike some of his flamboyant contemporaries who are now forgotten.
And former Australian of the Year, Professor Ian Frazer, talks about how seemingly insignificant discoveries all add up until one day the light bulb goes off - and that could be a century later.
I blame the TV networks for the lag. ;)

We spend most of our lives trying to be someone else, put down those who have what we don't, or go for broke in a jealous rage frantically burying it because Mozart wrote it and we didn't.
Even a tired smile and a pat on the head pleases a child seeking acknowledgement - but "the world" would have us bedazzled with the brilliance of a perfect set of veneers.
Why would someone who has something really, really special want to share it with "the world"?
It's an awesome prospect - in the fear and terror sense of the word.
When a gambler wins we are gobsmacked - as we stealthily climb into the saddle of that steamroller. 

You want to know why I blame TV networks? Think reality TV!
We have laws against inciting hatred don't we?
Perhaps I should just stop right here.

The truth is 100 percent of the world possesses that elusive, invisible, beautiful, secret thing and it can't be bought and it can't be sold and it's invisible - until we express it in some visible form.
And we hope it's as beautiful as Apple's iPhone. 
But if you want something commercial then make sure you're aiming squarely at that target - otherwise it's delusional.
Those of us who dare to call a square a square and not a diamond - whether from inside or outside the square - will dance in our living rooms, sing to the dog, write to our heart's content and dream with one foot in the grave looking up - like Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember - rushing towards that elusive, invisible, beautiful secret. And I don't care at all that no body's watching, reading or listening. In fact, I'm glad. :p

Ah, they've brought me my medication.... sometimes it's not the stars. Sometimes it's a button lying in a crack on the pavement.

Scriffles: Luck's just around the corner.

I left home to do grocery shopping thinking: "I have nothing to more to write. Ever. I have nothing to say. I will blog no more. I will not take my camera. I will not take my Flip. There's nothing out there for me any more."

I hop in the car and weave my way through my little crossroads puzzle to the main road where a certain "tolerance" factor is introduced. 
Game on. 
Suddenly everything is interesting once more.
Some white-haired geezer glares at me as I pull in behind him - my blood starts to boil.
"Watch yo'all lookin' at? Are you lookin' at me?"
I keep my distance giving him no excuses.

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Don't worry no one got hurt. 
Astounding how intense people are on the road - death stares in rear vision mirrors "just because".
I tell you it's a powder keg when combined with PMT.

I can hear these words falling out of the mouth of a defence lawyer in a courtroom now: "What did she say?"
" 'Just because', Your Honour...."
"Just because" is the equal and opposite force to "Whatever"!

You might not think of a parking lot as a haven but it is for me 'cause the Parking Fairy is my friend.
I found a park beside a post right at the entrance to the ramp that goes up to Coles!
I have the knack, I am charmed when it comes to parking. Luck.

Guys don't get PMT but some of them are in a constant state of PMT I think.
Like the guy on the weekend who happened to glance round just at the moment that I got too frustrated with his girlfriend standing with the door open so I couldn't pull into the empty car park space beside them.
So I threw my hands up in the air in frustration.
He wasn't supposed to see. He was facing the other way.
The cars behind me start beeping because I'm holding up traffic and this loser wags his finger at me!
He's ready to get out of the car and tell me off except his girlfriend is trying to understand why he's all upset and is trying to calm him down.
Finally she gets into the car and closes the door and I'm scared to pull into the car park for fear of retribution but I've got to get out of the way.
So I decide to pull in and I wind the window down.
"What's the matter?" she says.
"I don't know your boyfriend's a nut case," I reply. "I didn't do anything."

You know those nights when you lie awake terrified that nothing will ever be right again - the long, dark night of the soul or something like that.
Well, stretch that out over a period of a few days and call it PMT.
It feels like nothing is right or will ever right again.
"Just because" - is the overriding force that takes over if you're not talking yourself down at these times with soothing thoughts like:
"Give it a day before you react. No, it's not a good idea to eat the guy in the car in front."

On my way to Coles I saw a beautiful African girl dressed to the 9s in her school uniform.
Luck comes before everything in the game of life.
This country gives her the opportunity to live peacefully and prosper.
That's lucky isn't it?
She has the perspective of two cultures - that's lucky too.

Thinking lucky is something parents can pass on to their children.

And maybe some people are born with it.
If it doesn't come naturally then it may take years to develop - if you're lucky.

One thing's for sure it's damn near impossible if you never hear a voice raised in your defence.

My theory is that everyone needs just one person to tell them that they are worthy, they are talented, they are beautiful, they are lucky...

If just one person truly believes in you - a teacher, your grandma, your friend, your husband - you start to believe too because everyone really wants to believe they're OK.

Everyone needs someone to believe in them - especially at that crucial point when you think there's no hope.
I read a tweet the other day: A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and sings it back to you when you can't remember it."

Luck comes in many shapes and sizes.
He's just around the corner. 
She's sitting beside you.
He's smiling.
She's in your heart.
You are someone's Luck.

Scriffles: Designing a vulture.

In 1991, audiences thrilled to Anthony Hopkin's performance as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs which ended in the now classic line: "I'm having an old friend for dinner".
It's a landmark in the world of film. Five Oscars!

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Only three years later, a photographer named Kevin Carter took this photo of a toddler in Sudan.
It also won an award, the Pulitzer Prize.
It is a landmark in photojournalism. It too tells a story.

The photographer tried to make the vulture out to be the villain but instead became the villain himself.
People wondered at the photographer's lack of humanity - he might as well of eaten the child himself.
Apparently, he chased the vulture away and left the starving child some distance away from help.

I wonder. How many people in his situation would have been afraid to touch the face of death?
If suddenly the cafes of James Street were magically transported to Sudan, to 1994 the moment before Kevin Carter stumbles upon this child, would people even notice the child?
They would be living a drama of their own in their heads.

In fiction writing the best way to design a villain is to let your audience inside his head - that means you have to go their first.

Yesterday I did a TV writing seminar and the question was posed: "Can you identify with the vulture? Can you write from the vulture's perspective"
It's only a one-day seminar so we didn't actually do the exercise but university students do this.
I Googled the photo as I sat down to try this exercise. But I remember the controversy.

In 1994, the aspiring young writers at UQ would have not been much older than this child. 
It's not so much the vulture in this photograph that caused such a controversy - it was ethics of the photographer.

No one knows what happened to the child or the vulture but the photographer didn't survive.
What was going on in his head? Now there's a story I'd like to write.

Scriffles: The Vulture. A short, short story about a photograph of death.

(WARNING: Perhaps you might want to read yesterday's blog first to put this in context. This is fiction. This is a writing exercise looking at the perspective of the vulture in the Pulitzer Prize winning photo taken in 1994.)

The vulture sits on a dead tree and remembers the land as it once was, green, until a fly buzzes around his head and distracts him.

Weak with hunger, he loosens the grip of his razor claws on the branch and sways from foot to foot.
Through half-closed eyes, he gazes across the searing barren plains.
There! 
An animal crumples to the earth under the puny weight of its own skeletal form.
Better than nothing, thinks the vulture.
Suddenly revived and alert, the vulture casts an eye about the sky.
No other vultures.
With minimum effort, he sweeps low, moving but his wing tips.
The rising heat fills his wings but burns his belly while the sun bakes his back.
He circles once.
The winged flight casts a shadow upon the lonely child barely breathing, barely conscious, unprotected.
The vulture's claws raise dust as they hit the earth. 
He stumbles, panting, moving awkwardly towards what he thinks is wayside carrion.
And then he sees a man.
The vulture stops.
So close and yet ... 
Can't he see that the child is dead?
The vulture waits. 
Is he going to shoot me?
The vulture waits.
They are three grotesque statues.
Finally, the man shoots, his camera buzzes and clicks.
The man stands up, disappointed, and circles an imaginary perimeter around the child towards the bird.
"All you had to do was raise your wings for the camera!" he shouts frustrated but secretly pleased.
He chases the bird away so no one else catches the shot.
In his mind the child is dead.
He walks away but hesitates and glances back.
He decides the child is dead.

Priests of nothing. Poets of our time. Scriff File 240

Reminded today of a song. When at Media 2010 the Director of the American Film Institute's Content Lab Susanne Stefanac played a segment from The Interview Project: http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/www/#/all-episodes/088-deb_johnson

Saw a beautiful video interview with a guy who described in the most open and delightful way how Stevie Nix's song saved his life.

 

The Interview Project by Austin Lynch and Jason S..http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/oct/26/david-lynch-son-interview-project

Conspiracy 365 - A great read

I am reading a series by Gabrielle Lord called Conspiracy 365.

She writes one book per month.
It is exiting because it is very creepy . Things happen like when a criminal gang threw him into a oil tank and he
still survived.  He has got 365 days to put up with this stuff.
I got into this series because our librarian told us about the series once I got the first one I just had to keep going. 
I can't wait for the next one !  _ Emma Yallamas (Scriffles' niece)

A lesson in seduction for social media pundits. Don't flinch when fishing.

"Do I know you?
"I'm sure I've seen you."
This 20-something dark-eyed, curly-topped Latino lad has been to the George Clooney school of charm - he's not shy at all.
His personal space is obviously a little narrow because he's standing close - not quite face to face but close - and his gaze is unflinching.
This is a rare quality - an unflinching but relaxed and interested gaze.
"Don't worry I don't bite, not at work anyway," he coos making direct eye contact.
Irresistible - and he knows it. He's not even trying.
He's half South American-half Canadian but his parents met in Israel so you can't pick his accent.
He makes his job look easy as he throws a line out and reels customers in.

He hovers, casually leans against the counter of the stall where he sells skin care products.
He doesn't smile those gaudy toothy grins that most sales people think are so attractive.
No. He raises his dark brow and his eyes sparkle as if he's really interested and then he acts as if we have already met.
And he makes you feel as though he's pleased to make - not a customer - but an acquaintance.
His art is seduction and he's a master.
He sold $2000 worth of product to a guy at Christmas.

I thought I'd reward this bravura performance but then he spoilt it.
As I handed him my card he turned and said, "I like you so," as if the thought had just occurred, "I'm gonna do this for you."
As if I was something special. And off he goes reaching for another product - that's right he's doubling his bet.
Buy this as well and I'll throw in this ... neat. If you buy this .... I'll throw this in for free.
It reminded me a lot of social media actually - that's all I'm gonna say.
Blasphemy is my middle name - if I had one.

Apparently, Edgar Allan Poe was not popular because he dared to challenge the optimism of his Age.
I'm not comparing myself to Poe - I'm just saying to question something is to assert your right to know the facts.

I'm reading Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a book of Poe's short stories. Really quite interesting. But that's another blog.

Did you know that the human being stopped evolving as a species 50,000 years ago.
(The Turning Point: Science, Society, and The Rising Culture, by Fritjof Capra)
The human brain (it's the same size!) and body basically are the same as the BC model - FACT!
Only the power of scientific knowledge and technological skills have evolved. That's a worry isn't it?
(I've held this theory since high school when ancient history was my passion.)

What would Aristotle do with Twitter?
What would Socrates do with Facebook? He-he.
There's a thought.
Socrates, the Gadfly who was put to death for challenging the morals of his fellow Athenians.

I've been thinking that the most amazing special moments in life are few.
There aren't that many and that's why we remember them, even when they are seemingly insignificant.
In real life there's data flying in all directions in a hundred variations and formats.
What's posted online is finite (contrary to belief) and filtered. Kinda = not the same.
But don't let someone else tell you what those moments are or should be or where they should be conducted!
Is it possible to be more than entertaining online?
Being entertaining is bloody hard after all.

Ah well. One o'clock and all's well!
But wait! GIANT! There's a giant washed up on the shore of Liliput.

The online reality is being written minute by minute.
We're all in a Jonathan Swift adventure.
New media is Gulliver and we're the little people.

Are you still here? The End.