the most awesome thing I've seen all week

What a joyous moment.

A little concert by Adam Arcuragi in the middle of a flea market.

Watch the people's reactions!

This should happen more often.

...To hear more of this guy's stuff go to his website, his albums stream non-stop. Beautiful.

shift work

There's a system shutdown/upgrade going on at the moment, which is handy when you're supposed to be working... so I just wrote this instead, inspired by where I'd like to be.

shift work

it's morning
in the southern hemisphere
when she collapses
into bed timed out like
an egg on the boil

she'll stir in four hours to squint
at light pricking
through blinds pure
and precise, her mind turning to things
it normally avoids: wars and
the origin of species, how
pythagoras' theory really works
and just what is the leviathan?

then she'll flip onto her stomach
head turned away from the world,
mind casting shadows
that dance for a time
and sleep

in these arms

Ali posted this on her blog, but I liked it so much I had to share it.

The delightful Glen Hansard, being his scruffy self.

In These Arms from banjo bandstand on Vimeo.

embracing uncertainty

photo: this is a wake up call

I've been thinking a lot lately about the place of uncertainty in life. I think my personality rails against it, except where ambiguity in language is concerned.

I love the ambiguous nature of poetry, and like Keats' idea of "negative capability" - that a good writer must be comfortable in a state of uncertainty, even seeking it for the purpose of tapping into the unconscious imagination.

That is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. - Keats

But in all other contexts, it really goes against my instincts. I like things stitched up, organised and expectations clear.

This means I have a habit of speaking when sometimes silence is required, or acting when patient endurance would be better.

I want to be more at ease with uncertainty, or to put it in the positive, I'm after contentment with the inbetween, unclear times.

I feel like while from the outside my life might seem pretty organised at present, from the inside it feels quite uncertain - I'm starting new projects, adjusting to new family dynamics, and inhabiting new roles and responsibilities in various places. It makes me uneasy, and sometimes it simply overwhelms me (especially at 2am in the morning).

So here is my current manifesto: to embrace the uncertain. You can pray for me in this.

Ps. This has reminded me of the Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. Fishing - now there's a sport for the waiter in all of us. Maybe I need to go fishing and embrace the wait.

Dear Autumn: An open letter

photo: subversive lace

Dear Autumn,

Let's be honest: I think you're tops. You know, the decreasing heat and humidity, the gentle breezes and changing leaves. It's all good stuff.

Maybe we can hang out some time, like old times?

x
Soph



And for you, dear reader - What's your favourite Autumn destination? I fancy Orange in the autumn. Mount Wilson is also up there on the list. Actually, anywhere out of Sydney.

dad-update

I went to visit dad again today - he seemed the happiest I've seen him in the last week. He was sitting in a chair too, which is quite a feat after knee surgery and a torn hamstring.

I think he's feeling heaps better and is looking forward to getting home. We're not sure when that will happen, but hopefully sometime in the next week.

it's all about how you say it

a list of words and phrases you may witness coming out of my mouth after being trained to speak good by the profs at sydney uni:

auteur
preeminent
puritanism
allegorical
imaginative prose discourse
a song of a book
working in two traditions
modernist masterpiece
europe as a moral cesspit
edenic new world
partriarchal theocracy
foundations of transcendentalism
history of dissent
what's the leviathan?
meditation on modern democracy
country of the mind
elements of utopia
rhetoric of chosenness


ahhh yes. Academia. How I have missed thee.