observation #4: its make or break baby

its funny. Some relationships have recently come to a halt. Others have transpired in front of me. Arising from nothingness, completly unexpected on my part. Some 'ships i have clung to, others i have remembered how sore it is to loose them. Others i am happy to have some form of distance from.

nearness hurts, distance hurts... it seems connecting it a delema not limited to hedgehogs.

in hind sight, all loves take time. all 'ships define themselves. they manifest in their own way... its no use forcing it, just play it by touch.

heat wave

heat in summer. its never the nicest thing. seems to bring out the worst in people. take for instance riots on the beach. It seems everyone decided it wasnt hot enough just lying there. no. some people needed to get a bit phyiscal too...

race riots.

there seems to be several versions floating around. not surprising given how inaccurate & down right wrong the press can be. But there does seem to be some aggreed on - dare i say - 'facts'. two lebs injure a life guard. so some people decide to reclaim the beach. with violence, of course. And so some lebs decide to return the favour & protect their colour. with violence, of course. and so the police decide to stop the riots. with violence of course.

Any use of violence is only done to halt a percieved posibility of violence from the other group in question. Such a flimsy excuse. But then again a thin cover is all thats needed to legitimise actions when things get hot. And when issues of race & nation are rasied things get hot. Stickily hot.

too may fears & emotions mixed together. all sides are misrepresented by the press. it stalls any true understanding of the situation. (perhaps this is the greatest violence of all - if we cant ever really understand whats going on how do we solve the problem?) Latent issues are ignored and only the manifested expressions of those issues are dealt with.

the violence the police issue is most devistating & most hipocritical.

pseudo political spiels either complain about this as being the real face of 'racist australia' or as a hicup within a essentially multicultural society. pseudo politicans play name games, while socialists call a rally. a pesudo political action, no teeth to the bite. no content to the form.

Real thought, engagement of the differently afftected people of society remains ignored. Both perpertrators and victims go on being perpetrators & victims. Policicians hope to buy up the votes by giving the best subjective description to the bystanding majority of australia.

Scince the world trade centre's went blam, one thing is obvious - the religious strategy of tackling racism & opression has failed. As too has the political strategy, half arsed as it was to begin with.

Maybe before we think up anything else to do, before we fix the world, we should take some time out. Be a bit anti-political, be a bit anti-religious. Maybe go down to the beach and have a sit down in the sand. Look at the people dashing around. And, at some point say 'Hi, how are you?' to that stranger near by...

maybe learn something, understand something, then doing something...

letters

i couldnt quite believe it happened. such an unusual thing, and of all people, it happen to me! My mind quizzes over the situation, 'how had this come to be?'

I imagine the catalyst for such a senario could only be a moment of sheer boredom. Someone sitting in there lounge room, daily chores half done, looking for relief in some internet key bashing. Google this, read that. And then at some point a thought would have traversed their mind...

Maybe they glanced at a picture on the wall - a photograph from a summer holiday. Oversized sunglasses and smuges of fluro pink zinc cream. young smiling children whom you half remember, and of course your own face. now aged scince then. A day at the beach, maybe? a typical polariod moment. Maybe such a picture was the reason to thread together several letters on the keyboard into a proper name... d... a... v... all the way through to the letter r.

A name googled. results come up & by sheer coincidence my name appears with a email address attached. A perfect opportunity to send a letter over the ether. Or atleast this is how i suspect the event originated...

I recived an email. from my cousin in canada. she shares my last name. she reminded me of trips to the beach. to the zoo. to the park. even to wollongong. typical things done during a holiday. she's asked me how things are with the family. She writes:

so anyways -- how old are you now? you are working too?
how are your brothers and sister? My mom told me that adam is now 19.... I feel so old. I have thought of you guys many times. In fact I still have alittle note that you wrote me when I returned to canada from my trip.

so I am good - alittle stressed over the whole christmas thing but this shall pass. I have recently gone back to school. I took about 10 years off to raise my kids and I think its time I got back to work. One of my boys is actually named david too! he is seven. daniella is 10 and anthony is 5. and I am old


i am stumped. i don not know what to write in reply. so much has happened. not all so good... memories, sweet memories. remember the good ones eh?! tears stall in my eyes. i fail in my ability to turn letters into words. if only you could offer a silent smile over the ether, and not have to settle for letters.

this dance is for me

last week i had made a decision. It was high time that i went out on the scene... alone.

without the prearranged meetings, without taking along a safety net of friends. i felt it was something i needed to do, given the current pressures that i've had with friends. Given the current change in my life. the only safetly net that i took was a pill and a plan to end up at Dirty Donkey.

During the solo treak... this journey of self discovery... i found that i was never quite alone. My path so quickly flowed into the path of others. I met up with steve at palms. Was good to see him doing well. I could have stayed longer, listening to the handbag trash - but going it alone means going it alone. While jumping between the oxford & manicle i met several of the boys. danny, rob, guy, luke & ben happened to stumble into my path.

Walked into rouges not knowing what to expect. Dirty donkey had got good billing in the past, but rainy days tend to keep crazy clubers away. but rest assured, the dirty cubz were there. those crazy older clubers who rove manicle, arq & kooky lookin for a bit of fun. I knew that i'd be in good hands tonight ;)

danced, clubed raved, little rach & khan graced my presence & ms ali arrived all glamour & glitz promising to stay out the night now that she had taken a pill. My own pill sent me all lovey dovey. Text messages, random pashes & flash dancing. Playful boys & e talks. Bumps of k, flirtations & contemplations of life, Love & friends.

after a snit at phoenix ali, rach, khan and i went back to my place to chill & we all ended up in the cemetary drinking long necks & eating takeaway from clems. such a sweet thing to do with people whom i've known but not really hung out with so closely.

the day ended. i slept, i felt warm. wasnt sure if it was the pill, or if it was real happiness. maybe both... most likely.

workin 9 to 5

so last week was all sex & work. not much time left for puppet or friends - is this what work life is like? mmmm... need to get a routine together.

anyone for tea

i recently obtained a set of japanese tea cups. very cute. very ornate. very symptomatic.

my old life that ive known for all its ups & downs, the recklessness & the love seems to be passing, or atleast changing. altering in quality & quantity. not that it was bad. It taught me lots & still has much to give, but alas, things change.

Transition. Between jobs, places, friends, homes, boys.

I'm beginning to be a bit more, say, tender? brave? stable? - more like relaxed. I still want the clubing, & the occassional recklessness but i need some other things too, things that have thus far has only appeared in apparitions. I am unsure of what i see, there is no manifestation for me to reach out. to grab. all is mystery.

This sighting has left its mark on me. It influences from underneath. Alters my action, differs who i am. ever so slightly. small changes. little desires. glimpses &
the occasional materialisation of objects that remind me of what is to be. They fill me with the kind of warmth you get from drinking a glass of green tea.

is this what they call the mid 20's

two four. 24. i'm older now... though still young at heart :) this was my birthday weekend. 48 hours of drugs, sex, boys, friends, emotions, and friendship, all washed down with several sweetly tasting glasses of sangrier. In the past, a party at my place has meant viciously trashy behaviour - unexpected guests, unwanted messes, and unforseen crashes. Luckily, at this party the trashyness was kept to a more subdued level.

With soft lighting, music from both justin's & my play list, a movie playing in the background and an adequite level of sangrier the party kept a stable level of enthusiasm. No peaks, no slumps, just a fairly chilled hum. People happily roved up and down the long hall separating the lounge from the kitchen, plastic cups in hand, stopping mid way to chat as they bumped into friends. Forgetting where they were ment to be. Rediscovering their destination only after several further displacements and several drinks later.

One thing that was striking about the party was the level of sexual energy and tension that hung in the air. the tension came from the high proportion of ex's present - emma jorja, will, puppet, luke, justin. Sexual enegry i think was the result of the large number of gay boi's present. There was alot of 'W likes X, X likes Y, Y likes Z etc' going on. The outcome of this energy was a a mixture of flirtation, drinking, crying, kisses, D&M's, and other bizare confessions which were possibly more of the moment than of the heart.

the rest of the party on the sunday was at kens & kooky. needless to say, i got my birthday fuck. then went out and got really fucked up. Ran into the older scene boys went down with them to arq & danced well into the morning light.

thankyou to those who came & for the thoughful presents. special thanks to justin for sorting out the music, the kids at kens for getting me extra passes.

serious? fun!? KooKy 10

Its been ten years scince Club KooKy openned. KooKy has changed alot scince the five or so years ago i went there. Different, that is, but still very much the same. Gemma & Seymour seem to have become more serious about their fun. Its as if they are two kids who've moved from a childrens chemestry set to one for adults.

I wish i had some of the past CD's to really touch on the history of their music in this review of KooKy 10. But i cant. So i wont. I'll just give you the low down.

Gemma and Seymour have been hard at work. Its a strong CD, with very little filler. Was a little surprised that they didn't actually mix the songs in together, as would happen on a typical Ministry of Sound CD. Instead it plays like a 'best of' album. The album clues into Seymours liking of deep male vocals (morning city stirs) and gemmas punkish interests (suck it). As well as the usual assortment of electronica (wet n wild), nostalgia (dreams), and darker (dimension) tunes.

club kooky 10 does have a few faults. the rock dont always sit well with the electro. it could also do with some of the more lighter beats. but what can you do? guess i'll just have to hope one of them reads this b4 the next club kooky album is relased...

TRACK LISTING

01 WET N WILD - kim
02 MORNING CITY STIRS - dsico: that no-talent hack
03 SIREN - general electric feat. llama
04 BLACK ELIZABETH - ollo
05 KITTY IN THE MIDDLE (kitty said) - the presets
06 DIMENSION (dimensional kooky mix) - wolfmother
07 QUEEN ON CROWN - the somethings
08 DREAMS - kill peaches
09 TOURIST ATTRACTION - kiosk
10 FAT CAT - liz martin
11 SUCK IT - buggirl
12 ITS NOT ME ITS YOU - paul mac feat ngaiire (itchee and scratchee remix)
13 CRICKET BALL - ez & loretto
14 DUSKY - lake lustre
15 ASTON - suspect

the politics of dance

so at approx 5pm yesterday i wrote this response to someone who emailed me about my zine, 'dance pig'. I thought it would be good to post it here because a) i was impresed that i could write something like this, given how sleep deprived i was. b) it helps to explain some of the politics behind the zine, & c) lots of people who dont participate in dance culture have asked me similar questions -this may offer them the beginnings of an answer ... cheers

hey there,

thanks for taking the time out to read my zine. Im gald you liked it :)

The dance scene is what i kinda grew up on. (or more like the queer alternative dance scene). Mmm, Pretty much everything in it has happened to me or someone else at one time of another, give or tke a few name changes, and alterations. So its kinda more personal than political - not that i really want to separate them (when isn't the personal political?) rather i just want to suggest that i didnt really want to make a definitive political statement.

I wanted to keep the politics implicit. The politics only become explicit through the act of interperetation by the reader. And as Freud noticed from any one text there are many times more interperetations that can be made. Any text is always a highly condensed work of other social, political and psychic texts. This is as true for lived experience as it is the writen word. Any experience is always a highly condensed product of social, political and psychic processes.

It was really good to hear about your take on the scene. I've had talks with friends about this before, and agree that people can partake in the scene as a bit an escapist venture, but this is a highly problematic concept. What i mean to say is who has the right (or ability) to draw the line in the sand so mark where fun ends and escapism begins?, If capitalism is so bad that people need to escape on occasion, is this nessasarily a bad thing? Is escapism really a threat to political action, or can they both exist simoultaneously?

I always find it interesting that escapism is always used in reference to pleasurable activity. Isn't pleasure allowed without some negative connotation or is there a serious need to apply a work ethic to time off the clock. I personally always thought that the true escapists were political individuals who undertake political action that does nothing - such as labor hacks, members of the DSP and people who donate money to charity. They know the system dosent work but they escape from any real form of comitment to social change, yet aleviate any guilt from their own concious by participating in half-arsed campaigns.

Clubing - dancing, meeting people, socialising, substance usage & altered states, a darkened room and loud music. people may find this a nice place to escape, but it is not the only thing they do there. People in these spaces tend to create. They create friends, new perspectives on life, new values that differ from the mainstream. Its a social space in which people can talk politics, they can be confronted with issues of race & sexuality. People can be incited to think - and unlike thinking at work - its on their terms.

What is produced is a sociality that is unlike the nuclear family, the taylorist work place, or the buracratic apparatus that Kafka detested. It is a place with the posibility of open connections. It is a sociality - a way of life - that offers people de-individualisation. I personally follow Fredrick Jamerson in believing that new socialities are a pre-requisite for any political struggle and vice versa. Social spaces - social interaction - shape the culture, politics and actions of the political struggle, and sometimes for the struggle the values and sociality of dance culture are more desirable than the values and sociality of work culture

mmm... i'm talking too much, i hope that made sense, thanks for reading

working 9 to 5

so today i completed my final exam - was up at 4am studying, sat the exam at 8:30am and left campus at 11am. As i walked off campus i felt a little sad that this would be pretty much the last time i saw the campus. *sniff* the place made me allot of who i am. Its also attached to some bad memories... alas, fairwell :(

on the brighter side of things, i got the job at youth association accomodation. YAY! i start in two weeks. so i have a bit of chill time till then. Pro's it'll give me some good experience, its in redfern, it'll be interesting, cons the pay is quite average. Either way it'll be good for the change. Hopefully it'll go ok :)

once again YAY! - it seems that today is one of those thresholds between the old and the new. the past & the future - lets see how i go...

puppet is turning 24!

Its puppet's birthday coming up in just under 2 weeks!

on the Sunday 20th will be partying at Klub Kooky from 11pm onwards! (its at 77 williams st, near the corner of riley)

there are other b.day on goings but you'll have to get in contact with me to find those out.(try dancepuppet@gmail.com)

no more classes

i droped my research report in today! 2 days early. No more classes yay!

And give or take a little bit of study for my final exam i can start to get back on track and be sociable, write not so boring blogs. That is till i get a job, then its all grey suits and droopy faces :-(

UPCOMING: halloween kooky this sunday, dress up & dance up!! performers & tunes 4 the freaktastic!

work it out

mmm... that last post was a bit angsty in a teenage way. Remind me never to post song lyrics again.

Anyways, last week i lived up to my comitment not to drink for 5 consecutive days. I suceeded. Yes thats right the one and only puppet 'is it beer o'clock?' choose not to drink, and whats more kinda enjoyed it. Am a bit proud. I think it was high time that i pushed the reset button on my drinking habits.

My reserch project is done, yay! all thats left is a proper print up. Thanks to luke & nat for their help.

You may have noticed a link in the post, its a first 4 me. I'm teaching myself HTML. Its kinda fun, but also kinda make me feel like 'well now that i can do it so... that's it... i guess...'

study days can be meloncholy too

There’s no point in being careful
I’ll burn bridges anyway

There’s no point in talking vicious
(I’ve) nothing cutting left to say

I’ve achieved my own survival
I’ve refined my own sweet hell

There’s no point in craving beauty
When you’ll tear me anyhow

If I look you in the eye
I swear I’ll die
‘Cos you kill everything you love

Should I scar my face
To find my peace
While you kill everything you love

-Skin you kill everything you love

cute paper and a bow

my sneakers came today, wrapped up in cute paper and a bow. Strangers can be so kind...

It made me think of presents, of the act of giving. Of another gift. A band placed on the wrist and left there, so precariously. It clung to me so dearly & yet just so... i dont know the word, it is somewhere between meloncholy, unworthyness, adoration & confussion. It is difficult to say anything, at all really. Instead a silent game is of interperetation and wonder is played as my fist clenches and releases. The leather tightens and eases on my naked skin. Grip & release...

I also am reminded of being given a letter written on an old type writer. Some mispelt words were erased with other lettera typed over them. Such a cute thing. Like the band it was another goodbye of sorts. I know exactly where it is, in my room, in between the pages of a certian book. I choose to leave those pages firmly pressed closed. other memories typed over this one, it is an effort to remember, to erase the former without damaging the latter...

...as i was saying, strangers can be so kind to give a sense of naievity to the act of giving & recieving. As if what was given and what was recieved is the same thing.

livin' just enough for the city

word count is now down to 5000. most of the formatting is done. referecnes are checked. All thats left for my reseach project is fixing up on one or two mistakes, doing the proof read, grammar, spelling etc & then printing it!! It will be done a week in advance! I'll be glad to have it done and over with. Its an experience to be at uni, but i'm sure there are other experiences out there that i'd like to partake in...

To walk to school, she's got to get up early
Her clothes are old, but never are they dirty
Living just enough, just enough for the city
Living for the city - bonnie tyler
(from puppets homo studyin' music)

dancing with my eyes closed

something inside of me tells me to close my eyes. something told me to just enjoy the moment. roll with the beats. didnt notice whats going on around me. ignored the signs. lived in a dream that 'of course it's all ok...' but then, as always, i bumped into someone. My shoulder connected with their rib cage. coughs... chokes... cry... my arm hurts, but i imagine the pain to be worse for the chest. its such a foolish thing to dance with my eyes closed, to dance in dreams. where what you think your doing and what you are doing are two completely different things.

random things

I am born in the year of the roster, metal is the sub-element.

I smirked as i read Sartre's comments on terror. It goes... 'Marxist formalism is a project of elimination. The method is identical with Terror in its inflexible refusal to differentiate; its goal is total assimilation at the least possible effort.'

Today I bought my first pair of sneakers on ebay. they are navy with orange stripes.

A song comes onto itunes, a reminder of being in the imperial in that beer filled youth of mine. Bizzare love triangle played in the background then too... 'every time i see you falling, i get down on my knees and pray'

My little solider boy is back. I knew he would be.

Dubravka Ugresic has writen a new book! The ministry of pain. The review says 'It is an angry narrative, and a dystopic one, suggesting that it is inhumanity, and not goodwill, that binds us. Ugresic does not so much champion difference as detail its disintegration. (...) Despite the bleak prognosis, and occasional awkwardness of the narrative as fiction, this is a disturbing read that should have you in its thrall'

A boy in a club told me that my cosmological sign is White Electric Wind - is this the reason why there is a hurricane within me?

ordinary life

Study, study, study...

Its all this little puppet seems to be doin these days. Little bits of paper have crept onto the walls of my bedroom. Definitions, mind maps & lists form a wallpaper of reminders & commands. My note book is now filled with quotes from Merleu-ponty, Jung, & Giorgi, with a note or two on Husserl.

I've been hacking away at my interview transcripts puling out themes, generating models, throwin it away & putting together something totally new. It should all come together by the end of the week, yay.

Got a good omen too. it came in the mail. a mysterious check from the UNI. dont know why, some refund i assume. it will be spent on junk by the weeks end.

But in this life... I'll give it time...
Cause its always sneaking up from behind...
It'll be alright, it will be fine...
Its nothing more than ordinary life.
- Kristen Barry, Ordinary life
(from puppets homo studyin' music comp.)

misfits & rascals

Every week starts with corny island & ends with club kooky. These bookends keep many different stories together. Sometimes we have a romance, other times tragedy. Sometimes the story is dramatic, at other times comedic. A wide selection of volumes have found themselves between those bookends. It seems by chance i picked up a childrens story to read this time. A fairy tale. Warm, and friendly, with softly spoken romantic intentions. There were several heroes, but no vilians to this bedtime story.

Valiant deeds we performed. People stood up to challenges and faced their fears. So many little adventures. My soft touches reaching up his leg; having coffee with james dean; running an obsticle course of mass produced 'designer' decore; breakfast snacks at midnight; commmunal facinations with david bowies crotch. The book ended with the same warm tingly feeling that it began with. Comfort. I liked the heroes in this book - misfits & rascals who just wanted to be happy & see justice done. I havn't read a book like this in a while.

It wasn't like the other books either, it wasn't a story for the eyes. The words had been writen in braile. The finger darts across the page to find out the ending. Eyes closed to find an inner picture of the adventure. It was not a story to be seen. It is was a story to be felt.

unexplained bruises can be fun

In tropical climates they only have two seasons. the wet & the dry season. In the world of clubs & fun, i'd assume the weather follows a similar pattern. This passing weekend marks the end of the dry. With the Sleaze party there is a migration from our hobbles & into the wilderness. It is the first big storm for the coming torrential down pour of dance, love, clubs & drugs. It begins a monsoon of dance that will last untill mardi gras. And from the looks of it - this storm is set to leave us all drenched to the bone.

While most of the crew steered clear of Sleaze itself, there was more than enough fun on the outskirts to keep us enjoyed. Emma's birthday procedings went quite well. House parties & clubbing, dinners & pool parties, it was the first time in a while that i've sat down & really chilled out with the gang in the same room at the same time. Quiet chats & plenty of magic made the night pretty fantastic even with one or two hicups through the evening. Afterward we went ot bent bar followed by kooky. Bent bar was pretty much the usuall. Was nice to bump into Will, though a little arkward mainly cause we were both quite trashed.

Kooky was fantastic. The music went off, the boys were cute & the company was great. Spent a good deal of the time dancing with the older boys aka mark, bobbie & their cohorts. The guys created their own little dance floor between the tables & rocked to their own beat. It was nice to be around a different crowd, and of such loverly crowd at that too.

This morning i woke up after 6 hours of sleep. My first snit scince i woke on saturday. My legs were aching. I discovered bruises that i just cant explain & a lot less money than i began with. None the less, i cant wait to brave the weather again.

currently reading 'the psychopathology of everyday life' - Sigmund Freud

oh my god

for those who dont know me too well, i love film. There are a number of films that i have heard about and wanted to watch. I went down to the video store to see if those films were there. Scarface wasn't (steve informs me that its one of the most stolen films from video stores), AI was not there (i guess spielberg aint that popular), so i settled on showgirls. .....Argh! why didnt anyone warn me! As me and luke watched, we laughed, cried & stared blankly - but not in the way the movie wanted us to. laughed at the so-so serous bits, cried at the flimsy twists, and stared blankly at an unexpected rape scene. Completely out of the blue. I dont quite know what to make of it. I wonder why no-one warned me about it prior to watching? It didnt make sense in terms of the movies plot, but then again, im not sure if the movie had a plot. All in all, a very strange movie.

on the brighter side of things Howl's moving castle is good. A little lovey dovey at the end but worth the trip getting there. Its very much in the them, of kikis delivery service & spirited away. worth the watch even though the ending is a bit sappy

on a final note there are newly added links to garys blog & jon's live journal please feel free to browse :)

currently reading 'the democratic paradox' by chantle moffe

TLC

argh! What do ya do when nice people do patronising/paternalistic things? People act with good intentions - they're trying to 'help' but its done in a manner that brushes away any trace of sencerity. Brushed away as quickly as the deed was done.

My 'professional issues in psych' class is full of ex-teachers. they're studying the subject to become school counsellors. They really are nice people - as individuals that is. But on mass they are a clique of anecdote telling, paternalising, and self-refering cowboys. Very in-crowd & very naieve to the fact. Anyways to make a long story short, they noticed the scars on my arm. And so begins an ordeal of questions 'what happened', polite comments 'how are you today', and and ever searching eyes for another scar. Its nice that the care about my health, but the experience just puts me on the spot. Makes me soo self conscious, and feel paternalised. Argh, just makes me not like uni at all. But i dont blame them, they care atleast.

For contrast, Trevor at work comes outright and says to me 'god. those scars are still there'. He then whips out some moisturising cream & begins to demonstrate the 'magic of vitamin e on scaring'. He rubs the cream in for me. No skirting about, no assumptions of my reasons or muffled statement of intentions. Just the action to show he cares.

on the ball

to jump on lukey's band wagon i just might take a moment to reflect on my breakup from William. I feel that this is best done by sharing persistant metaphor

A persistant metaphor
Recently i've been more concious of my body, i've missed the dance floor & going seriously at dance as opposed to comedically. I've started 7am wakeups, exercising and streching. The last time i did this consistently was approx 2 years ago. As part of this conciousness I have attempted to walk less on the side of my foot & more on the ball. I've realised that this pattern of walking - this small aberation - is part of the reason that i dance so fast, and get a little wobbly. The sides of the feet may be stable footings when walking, but on the dance floor, where things intensify, i really do need the stability promised by using the balls of my feet. In conciously changing the distribution of wheight - the way in which i step - i aim to step more steadily. The process led from not noticing a difference to fatige & tumbles as i began using different muscles. But now i'm noticing this is disappearing and now i'm finding that i'm getting more stable even at the extreme of bodily movement on the dance floor.

dance piggy, dance!

at last! my new zine has been printed - dance pig - a zine about clubs, pubs, boys, friends, puppets and love. to all those who will see me around, you can get yours then. If i wont see you & you'd like a copy then email me. it comes with a free CD of my tacky music

dancepuppet@gmail.com (this is my new email, i'm taking for a test run, my other email will still be used for a while). :)

in other news, i'm my usual excessively smiling self today (which is strange cause its a uni day & it usually bores the fuck out of me). I am currently reading a book called metaphysical horror - very interesting to read, if not a trivial safari into the triviality of philosophy.

zen and the art of bookself construction

i stood in the newtown talking to adrian '...its like everyone's life is changing so much, alot of heart ache,' he nods at me, and offers up an observation 'you know lifes changing all the time, sometimes you just notice it... feel it strongly when the change is also hapening to you'. It makes sense. I think he's right.

Heidi opened the door to her little gathering. She's moved to ashfield to be closer to friends. Our posse of four finds some magical beans. we climb the stalks into the sky. Her new house feels warm, friendly, compassionate - as too is the company. 'oooh, oooh, i'm peaking - were's that soundtrack' stamers heidi. Bolero begins to play. It is a strange moment as i move between the past and the present. Was it also a house warming when i last heard this? I hypothesise that house warmings are strange events that require such magical moments - this entirely new place will become as old and as safe as those other places we've given the same name.

the boys from the shift have come down to kooky. theres marky mark, micheal, arq mark, and a host of other boys whos company i have made. i sit in the conner with the little ones as i sip my beer & pass i smile out here and there. little rach, little arron & not so little arron, those little pups rolling around with fun. Emma, luke & daniel arrive to share some drinks, to make this night complete. for the most part i daze away in my happy home of friends & chats. i leave early, and the next day recieve a text from marky - hoping that i'm doing ok today - it reminds me the words that he said the last night, half joking, half serious, 'your magic, puppet, just make a wish, and it'll be'

as i sat contently in the lounge i looked at the book shelf i had made. 'Zen and the art of book shelf construction' i thought to myself. Enviromentally friendly, practical & warm, dismatable, not-quite perfect, but sturdy & capable. Filled with the pages of the books that had filled my thoughts over time. like friends i have made who have filled my arms over time.

a po mo tortise and hare

the heart played a game with the mind, to see who'd win over this body this one last time. neurons trasmit with amazing speed, quicker than the blink of an eye. The mind was always the first to act, to react, to rationalise & over think. It had the ace up its sleave, take what was given & then make it something radically different. Emotions trasformed into denials, feelings endlessly displaced. A fearce competitor for the prize of power - determination.

The heart could not keep such a pace with its mere beats. Its endless profussion of a fiery liquid so quickly became redirected. From the powerhouse of arteries to the dissipated capillaries. Unbounded emotion wanned so quickly. How could the heart win? it had the strength, the patience, but not the skill, the wit, the speed. And in that moment a plan conspired... the mind could not be beaten at its own game, but it could be tricked into an untennable position. The mind could win, with the prize of loosing.

The mind freted & flipped, it collapsed into a heap. Outdone at last - for once it had nothing to think. The heart won, breaking out of its cage and into the world. To guide its boy toward the truth. Yet its plan had unforseen concequences, unplanned tiddings. It discovered that the minds work could not be undone. The mind had lost, but now so too did the heart. It fell in love, and in a week the heart was broken, exhausted, decieved. The lacerations dug deep. To stop the blood, to seal the wound the mind stripped off its own mylien sheath, wrapped it round, and became infused with the hearts very being.

The heart thinks now, the mind feels, its such a strange thing, to sleep with the enemy, so lovingly.

just for this moment....

after the chats, the beers, the sex. After the night of casual jokes in bed, I can tell that things are changing and soon i will need to look inward & decipher my heart. Make sense of all of this. But for now I curl into his arms and just enjoy the moment. I'll tend to my 'capacities' tommorrow. Save all my thoughs of needs & desires, of fears & past hurts, of being true to myself & being respectfull of others for some time after these arms have let me go. Save all that for later, & just let my arms curl back around him. just for this moment....

love puppet

I leave the mall with my recent aquisition. A copy of 'leather folk'. Accounts of kink, politics & community lie within its pages. I had heard the title mentioned by a friend, and decided to indulge. Tales of leather, fetish, love, pain & other assorted forms of taboo fun.

taking public transport home, a bus to be exact, i watch as a young boy stares at my tattoo's. At the ripe age of 15(ish) this little boy discovers a love for the inked flesh. I cant quite remember when i first discovered my affliction for tattoos, but i imagine the event to be much the same. a glance is all it takes.

When i get home i pin my leather voucher to the wall so as to remind me to get out there & spend it. As i sit, looking at it my roomie justin tumbles through the door offering a recent musical discovery for my ears to hear.

'hit me, smack me, drag me to the floor,
hit me, shake me, make me want more,
crush me, break me, drive me to the floor,
crack me, whip me, im your .....(dont quite get the word)
push me, love me, play with my strings, i'm your love, your love puppet.
- sonic animation, love puppet

maybe its time i started to challenge myself sexually instead of letting it just fall onto me as is so often the case. maybe its time i seriously challenged my inhibitions & got down & dirty (& safe). maybe its time that fantasy became reality... maybe... all the signs seem to say so. But its one thing to read them & another to follow.

p.s. as i write this 'dance hall days' is playing, & i cant help but give a big smile as i sit in my room by myself. A smile so big the corners of my mouth may be reaching the ends of the world :)

something found caught in the cogs of a machine

'So we'll change, we have already changed. We're doing all right. Some people think we're bound to stay on the same old path. We dream of other things. more secret, more joyful. Compromise no longer because that wont be necessary, and we will always find allies we want or who want us.'
Gilles Deleuze

little soldier boy

It is a cold day in melbourne. Walking through the market stalls a chance item catches my eye. A small plastic toy, a little solider boy. Such a contrast for such a youthful figure dressed to play an adults game. His story unravells in my mind. This worthless trinket develops a fantastic history. A history that may finally give value to its artificial being.

This scared little boy. His dreams were dashed in the ravages of war. Promises became deceit. And what was right became what was wrong. Surviving, yet without sight of what to live for. The world is nolonger the safe playground of his childhood. He shivers in the cold melbourne weather. This brave little boy. He remembers he once smiled, and in that moment he departs. Abandoning all he has, except the hope for some distant home. Taking his first step away from the front line, now he is a enemy to all but himself. Not quite a boy any more, yet not quite a man. No mapped out route to follow, only the cracked face of a compas to point toward the future. Leading him from the present. His mouth begins to smile once again.

I craddled him in the palm of my hand. He was the only thing worth keeping.

its a heartache, nothing but a heartache

it seems that everyone is so sad at the moment, i learnt from my roomie today that a whole range of dyke friends & aquatences have also recently ended their relationships. Its so sad. It seems eveyone is breaking appart.

on another note, a friend of mines privacy was recently invaded. someone hacked into their email. its quite shaken them up. :( while the culprit has been found, it really sucks that this happened to them, and considering the culprit was in their teens, its really made me wonder how easy it would be for government agencies to access, say, my info. Most likely at the touch of a key.

unpoetic uni life

Once in a while i go to uni. this hapens to be one of those times. I'm in the fourth year of a psych degree. Things seem to be going good. My marks are going well, i'm understanding statistics better than i thought i would after 2 years hiatus (its valuble having a mathamatical/science background sometimes) & am taking time out to study. Unfortunately after four years i cant help but be so over it. I dont want to see another text book, experimental design or university campus for a while. I dont want to administer tests on people & i'd like a bit of life experience before getting into course work for professional accreditation. This of course means that next year will be spent learning to hate full time work in order to take a small snit overseas, b4 i worry about carear path. Probably not as long as Ali or Louise, i cant imagine myself being out of sydney for long, i like the sunshine they have here.

them's the breaks

why is it so hard to get over people & move on? I've quit smoking. Thats addictive, something they have support lines to help you through. But that dosent bring you down like a break up does.

i know that emotions are not rational, just talking about it dont always help. justin explains that in time you 'just turn off. You'll realise something and then you run with it'. Rod from work explains 'that you have to get angry at them' (thus make a distance i assume). emma reminds me that 'puppet, you dont believe that people fall in love with just one person, dont let this get you down.'

the brief-therapy text book that i flicked through in the uni library explians that 'solutions dont always come from the problem itself. sometimes we have to talk ourselves into a solution, the way we can talk ourselves into a problem'. im not quite sure what i want my solution to be.

folk wisdom explains: 'time heals all wounds'. i'm better than before, but i've still got a way to go.

puppet vs existentialism

i watched a movie once. two women alone in the middle of no where. one who talked too much, the other none at all. At a point early in the movie the following passage is read from a book:

'all the anxiety that we bare with us. all our thwarted dreams. the incomprehensible cruelty. our fear of extinction. the painful insight into our earthly condition have slowly eroded our hope of an other-worldly salvation. The howl of our faith and doubt against the darkness and scilence is one of the most awful proofs of our abandonment and our terrified unuttered knowledge'

there is no possiblity to disagree with such a pesimistic view. such a view is the acknowledgement of the death of god. no holy hand shall guide us, or to which we can seek refuge in. there is no destiny. only the cruelty of chance. it is the throw of the dice, a throw that can be mystified as destiny. god may exist, but god is in no dice...

so now we are abandoned. alone. the world entraps with no soul to transgress. how we got to this place we do not fully comprehend. but the desire to change is with us. that feeling called hope prevails. within the darkness & scilence i discover that the criteria for all actions is my will to action. my hope. hope is neither faith nor doubt. it underpin's both. faith & doubt is their false maifestations - faith & doubt wrongly search for exterior criteria for legitimation. the final requiem for some higher purpose. hope is only grounded in the nothingness. It is pure alchemy - as lead into gold, nothing into hope. spontaneous production of life without reason.

so i hope. hope into production. i create, i create a world of hope. chance encounters into friendships. casual sex into dance. a brisk touch into love. hope is neither fantasy nor reality. psychoanalysis & materialism need not apply. endless machines replaced consecrated meaning. and thus meaning becomes the grinding of machines. meaning becomes a secular meaning. ever personal, ever shared, like the teeth of a cog. those i have lost i regret. some cog jumped from the machine. those who i have gained i stand in salute. ours is a strange love. note that our communal hope is all we need. it is a worthy condender to nothing, one that may suceed.

Ms emma dont doubt me - i'm the one who left satre's eyes crossed, and dont doubt yourself - you left my eyes crossed. ms liz one of your words is deeper with meaning than 10 of mine. Luke, dont be afriad to cry. Steven thanks for the love, & understanding. Mr justin, fear is not always the enemy. To those others - jorja, aaron, daniel, arq mark and the all the rest - ours is a world of our making, so make it...

simple frustrations

life feels as if i am on a razors edge, as if i were to crash, to fall, but i have yet to hit the ground. Dont get me wrong - most is good, things are well, but in this crazy world of high flying acts, i seem have lost my safety net. I know the routine, i know myself (enough, at least for this night) but without that net in vision i must acknowledge how precarious my life is. Of course, dear readers, this carnival has more than one attraction...

On the high wire is mr Luke & mr Justin who must now each do their own routines alone. On a tense rope they preform their tricks solo, there could be no other way. Each can only see the other, losing sight of themselves in the process of looking. Walking in oposite directions their bodies obscure their desired destinations. Each walks forward, but to the other they walk in reverse. We do not know if the audience will break out in laughter or tears. beneath them stands a clown with a miniture umbrella. there he waits for the fall. he loves them both. i cannot imagine that what the outcome will be. he just hopes that neither fall, that he need not cry.

In the house of mirrors, (the side attraction that we all love) i make my way. Lost in a sea of reflections. Each reflection is me, yet not me. There are many mirrors, many differing aspects, many differing faces. Then i realise that the reflections are of me but also the people whom i know. This is not so strange. Deleuze & Guattari once commented that our psyche & our social overlay one another. A social repression is a psychic one. A psychic extension is a social one. The 'I' is always already a 'we'. Little parts of me - familiarities & passions - are little parts of them. Yet the people i see these days are less those whom i share history with & dearly love, but rather its the new people & the 'not so causal' encounters i experience. I fully realise that all it takes for me to consolidate my old friends is to walk down the road. But perhaps i like mr bobby with his friendly talks over cigarettes, perhaps i like mr sam with his effortless fun and happiness. Time is limited. Must i loose sight of one to see the other? Perhaps i am making a fuss over nothing, in a moments time i will turn a corner to lead me out, but perhaps i may not.

In her tent the gypsy reads the palms of passers by. She sees a figure. She cant seem to make out his image, his esence, yet she knows he is not a menacing figure. Rather he is a tense figure of survival & dreams. She explains that he is a kind of totem - some animal god - some kind of deep expression. 'the lone wolf is one who has yet to devour...' and so the wolf remains hungry, & the prey remains living. She offers some advice 'the wolf is a pack animal, if it walks alone it is not seaking to hunt but is searching... some great obsession, once glimpsed, forever desired. the wolf is strong but between hunger & desire, the reality principle & the pleasure principle, it must know when to walk alone & when to walk together.' And those cryptic words is all she can offer the passer by who seeks a clue to their future.

Caught up in a range of simple frustrations, little problems with little solutions, that i have yet to solve... that we all at times hope to solve

the drinks stay sipped

Sometimes all the moments, that we savoured for the last,
Get crushed between the good & bad, from pressures we have had,
But you know I can’t conceive the day,
when feeling run too high,
To work out all the stale terrain,
emotions try to hide, when I try,

Lately I can’t seem to colour what we’ve lost,
it all seems like bad means,
When lovers turn from lust,
then I try - try to smoke alone

These shattered ties with no comprise,
fall through this fragile hell,
The drinks stay sipped ’cos we’ve lost our grip,
too exhausted to rebel, then I try

Lately I can’t seem to colour what we’ve lost,
it all seems like bad means,
When lovers turn from lust,
then I try - try to smoke alone

lately, skunk anansie

leather me up!

After trying to convince myself to have a quiet weekend, i found myself desparately in need of clubbing... and so in an instant i was out on oxford, again.

After crashing at mr lukey's house on saturday night we went off to day club in the morning to celibrate manicle's birthday. there was a fantastic mix of people, not just the normal arq-aholics who appear on the monday morning but a whole range of gloss stars, divas & freaks. fun was had. the dance-like-crazy kind of fun. the pink-love-heart brand of fun. and the amazing-people type of fun.

a new friend of mine, aaron, came along. a friendly westy type, who me and luke had met at the newtown that week. at 18 he's alot more confident and together than i was at that age. even when his insecurities show. i got to know one of ms emma's friends, the compelling conversationer mr daniel, that is, before he ran off into the daylight. then while on the dance floor i bumped into steve - a kooky boy who quickly explained he had been without sleep since friday night. trashed, dazed & confused he could think of no other place to be besides dayclub.

To top things off i won a birthday door prize, a voucher for radical leather! considering i have no leather so far i am quite pleased that i can finally get something to go with my boots :D
any suggestions as what makes a good first piece of leather?

in other news i have been off the solain for about 2 weeks (its an anti psychotic) and all is good, with nothing major resulting. because most of my symptoms were fairly mild my psychiatirst reckons that while its recommended to stay on it for 6 months as long as i watch myself i should be cool. yay!

maybe nows a good time, while on a high, to take a relax from clubbing & focus on things like study... but considering its lukey's b.day bash this coming week i think i'll have to stay in the ruckus a little longer. ah the hard life *smirk*

Ms grace, the rhythm

I should have realised that today would be unusual. As i left the house a grace jones disco classic began playing in my head. I was in one of my day-dreamy moods, staring more intently on the horizon of roofs along king street than on where i was walking. Incesant grinnning at passers by & making brief twirls as i waited for the trafic lights to usher me through.
When Im feelin lonely, Someone telephone me, Its gettin hard to pass my time.
earlier today i had conspired to go the anti VSU rally at sydney uni. I made my decision not so much because i agreed with the politics of the action, but rather cause i needed some form of political outlet. It's been a while since i've been politically active and a rally, even one of questionable politics, seemed a good oportunity for reasurance. As i dashed through the crowd, i saw a whole range of familiar faces. Old friends, ex lovers, infamous hacks of student politic days gone by & current aquatences who i had not quite expected to be there. I met each with a small deal of difficulty & delight. It is great these things bring us together, but it is these things that we find ourselves ever more difficult being part of. its nolonger our politics, its not our communities, its not our passion. In times like these i'm sure Marx would thoroughly endorse Aufheben, some creative distruction. destroy the old to make the new, dance on the ruins of the world, if here is not possible then we will make an else where.
Well, Im underestimated, Highly underated, Can there be another way?
So as the rally came to a halt at town hall i decided to do my bit for the cause. On a whim i ventured into the local book store to see what it had to offer for the young aspiring anarchist. I came across a copy of 'queer wars'. a book about the rise of the gay right. Dynasty meets politics maybe. $50. i made my appropriation in true westy tradition. i put it down the front of my pants & walked out the store.
Gettin tired of lookin, Wastin all my cookin, Ending in a dreadful row.
Ended up at the newtown hotel, with Jon, not the usual beer buddy but was most grateful for his company. we talked of boys. we came to many agreements about the needs of people in relationships, about closeness & distances. About the importance of having multiple dimensions to your life & the difficulties to keep them. i dont think i'll be doing anything too serious in dating terms for a while. i'd like to find other boys for some scandolous clubing. (not that my current friends arnt fun, i just want something to challenge me similar to emmas current snit of clubing escapades). i also realised that i really was 'single' - and all that ment: the ups, the downs & the all-over-the-place!
Can somebody tell me, Say to me, oh tell me, Why Im feelin lonely now? oh!.
I need a man, perhaps a man like you, I need a man to make my dreams, And I need a man.

kisses

Part Expert Kisser

You're a kissing pro, but it's all about quality and not quantity You've perfected your kissing technique and can knock anyone's socks off And you're adaptable, giving each partner what they crave When it comes down to it, your kisses are truly unforgettable

Part Passionate Kisser

For you, kissing is about all about following your urges If someone's hot, you'll go in for the kiss - end of story You can keep any relationship hot with your steamy kisses A total spark plug - your kisses are bound to get you in trouble

What Kind of Kisser Are You?

think of it as a verbal tattoo

I have a new name now - puppet. Its cool if people call me davey, its still my name too, just want kids to know that i think of myself as puppet at the moment. It is not a name that i will have for ever, it will have a use by date. Its just a name, not some surmise of my identity. I was not on drugs during the decission & like getting any new tattoo i had some thought to it before i went & appropriated it for myself. Changing my name - playfully or serious - acts as a catharsis. Too often we tell ourselves 'i'm a this person', or 'i cant do that, its just not me' etc a new name is the possibility (& only the possibility) to bypass this. I knew i felt different & was changing. Mainly due to my relationship with Will & the resulting break up, that was the catalyist but not the sole cause. I went numb for a little bit post breakup - a calm before the storm. & in a flood of emotion it was done.

Why puppet? Thats a little tough to explain. The name 'came' to me intuitively, not reasoned out, but it felt right. On rationalisation the name 'puppet' could be transcribed to 3 areas of my life. In my love of dancing & my experience of the scene - cute little boy with crazy body movements. In my theoretical underpining of post structuralism (performativity, subjectivity etc). In my break up with Will (the strings to my heart were pulled). Of course there are other incidental reasons. I like performing & so lends itself to performance, its a cute
name, it gives something for my friends to gossip about, its blogesque, its fun ;)

Why puppet? Even i had to admit that i too am a puppet to my emotions. And the name 'davey' while it represents much good it also has much bad. I spent too much time refusing to show people i loved them. Refusing to cry. Always keeping people a distance away. Being 'davey' meant my breaking down in hysterics with my knight josh(cause i couldnt handle sex or getting close with anyone), then not even trying to date for ages. it meant me cutting up (or burning) my wrists, groin, & face at times in my life cause i wasnt quite emotionaly stable & didnt know how to be. this is what davey became, better or worse. challenged or unchallenged. Hopefully puppet will avoid these painful pitfalls. Hopefully puppet is a name that assists me in being more open, more honest.

finally 'puppet' is not so much a play thing, but rather can be interpereted as the motif of a little boy. a motif that haunts my writings from time to time. it is of a little boy who's own spirit is circumvented by a harsh landscape that imposes itself upon the boy. The boy's own reality is under question as he deals with forces beyond his control. But it is through this questioning of who he is that he can truly determine his own existance. He can save his self.

jamais vu

alas, davey is no more...
& how could it be any different, the forces that pulled him apart were not of this world.
dashed into a 1,000 piceces. scattering across the floor of the night club. frantic hands jerk to save what was. a hopeless task, yet an inevitable endeavour. an inadequate number of pieces are rescued. with no guide to show how to stick them together!

frantic hands work to fashion a jamais vu. davey is no more. this familiar face is something else. dreams, hopes, memory & passion are the same yet utterly different. davey is no more...

he is 'puppet', noun proper. baptised with fire. 7 scars added to his collection. davey/puppet was transformed both Willingly & un-Willingly. poor little pup, brave little puppet. not quite a little boy anymore. for better or worse. let us hope wood is less brittle than bone

woman, modern

ah, uni is about to start back up this week. I have discovered that i am enrolled in a subject called professional issues in psychological practice. Oh what fun - not. tonight is the last night of sunday/monday fun i'll have b4 semester starts. next week i'll have to go out with a guilty concious.

justin, of robot hell fame has moved in. many boxes were carried. & people say i'm not butch!

thanx to Will, i've discovered podcasts. you can subscribe via itunes music store. try 'superfag radio' for gay look at comics; the gossipy-ness of 'unnatrual acts of opera' for opera; or for some american pseudo politics 'free talk live' is good for a listen (or subscribe for regular listening).

things with me and will are bumpy. not quite good, not quite bad. neither of us has cooled scince the break up. i'm not really sure what the best thing to do is. only communicate in letters? under go 2 weeks of intensive counselling? ask a magic 8 ball? maybe i'll give him a call.

finally. in 10 pages time i will have finished reading museum of unconditional surrender. it has refuled my interest in the motif of the modern woman. who is todays modern woman - with their humor & sophisitcation? The book has spurned the idea for a movie that is now playing in my head. It is how to marry a millionaire meets the underground. Its about 3 women in a war torn town in bosnia who try to 'make it' in a crazy world. Of course their own desires eventually coincide with the larger desire of stopping the war in their village. They achieve this by making each side think they have gained control of the village. Both sides 'win', they are left alone. It will probably end with some form of insurrgence, the towns folk take control. The humor will develop from the lives of the women. They continue on with life as if they wern't in a war - e.g. running past the local sniper who has been adequitely bribed to miss. the towns folk faking their own deaths in order to get money off forigen journalists who are only after the money shot. all done by a modern woman. hair pulled up, hem above the kneees, mind & heart ever working towards success, which never turns out quite as they had expected.

another night of postwork bedroom drinks

if my life were a story i cannot help imagine it would be a sad one. My mother is no more. My father never was. my brother is on a thread. & i hopelessly try to care for my younger sister & brothers in the hours we share. At times i strugle to feel i exist. I know that this is wrong. I exist. But recognition of my existance lags. I assume that it is for this reason that I am somewhat socialy inept. i never register my own impact in the social space (how could i when my existence is so tenuous) as luke or emma so aptly do. anyways, this story begins a new chapter.

my boy of 7 months is gone. it has been a long seven months. a beautiful 7. he was so dear to me & i have been avoiding morning for quite a while. I listen to music when i am alone so as to distract & yet i choose the sad songs to hear. Tonight at work (good old Ken's) i once again had to explain the tatters of my love life. Banal. Scripted by now. Not me thinking. Just saying. When i was with my boy i cried. It has been so long since i cried. So long since i sat in some closet, weaping at my own nonexistance. But now im back in survival mode. no tears, no time to weap. Just forget, ignore, aviod.

Freud's later theories talk of the constant return of the repressed. There is a delicate tension in the psyche. The repressed always returns. Displaced or condensed. Replaced with something else or reduced to something more manageable. (funily enough this mirror freuds return to his own earlier theories). But manageable is a very tenuous thing. Now what was manageable & what wasnt is becoming blured. Im in agony - but i feel no pain. It was the right thing to do. But since when did the right thing to do require so much pain?

I've obviously grown through time. I am no longer afraid of relationships. But i still think i ran from my boy. I could have loved him. I should of. But i held back. (Don't i always do this?) Chance played its card. My defence returns to repress. Maybe i need to believe in 'love' before i can experience it. I need to truly believe that it is meant for me, for at least once in my life. & a love of the reciporical sort. Maybe this is why i admire people who bare themselves so completely. They are my apparition. a mirage in a desert. & till then i'll walk about with my thirst.

a picture of a dancing pig

i have now discovered how to add pics... presto.

the time is 1:15am...

during a period of drug induced honesty i have decided that my next zine will be part of the QPR (queen psychotic rage (its from a skunk anansie lyric)) series & not V4R (vouging 4 revolutionaries (a zine of my more political stuff)). It will still be called 'dance pig' - only focusing on the emotional side of dancing rather than the philosophical/politico side (yes there is a philosophical side 2 dance). Why the change? my emotions are in oversurge - there are people in my life who have lost their familiarity, friends i dont see enough of, people who have entered unexpectedly & others who exited in much the same way.

the people i met & befriend mean the most to me (and i feel that all those who i befriend share this ethic). I understand that while our desires to connect with others may preside, as strong as they may be they still fall under the sway of chance & circumstance in order to come to fruition. This is a little inner truth for me. A truth i have learnt in night clubs. I am a cluber - i love the dim lights & loud music. I love to dance. Dance encapsulates this play of connection. To say i'm a 'dance pig' is to state an allegory, the 'dance' pig is the 'connection' pig. I only step to the rhythm of our co-joined lives. In dim lights, in half heard words we often reveal our otherwise censored selves. Dance is an act of communication. Dancing includes the moments when i sit rest.

postscript
the body's movement transforms into dancing just as thread transforms into fabric. at some point fate deters us into a new understanding. be it selfish, thoughtful, spiteful, distant or loving - we now have something between us that was not there before. And it is always a 'something' that is worth experiencing. Near the edges the fabric remains freyed. it is an unfinised mass which can unravel just as easily as it can be reinforced. Remember that even a tango of love can end in divorce from the moving walls of a labrynth of bodies. So have you kept hold of the thread so that you may find your way?

little treasures

i pulled on a pair of jeans the other day. i had not worn them in ages. i found five dollars in the pocket. i found this small treasure on the same night that i lost another. my boy is free, i am alone. i have to smile for him even as i frown. my mind plays tricks. i imagine that i had lost that five dollars in those pants on the night that i met my boy. i imagine that my boy is some magic five dollar genie - and i have now used up all my wishes. The genie is gone. All i am left with is the original five dollars. Is it a consolation prize or a condolence note? It buys me a beer, and i drink it slowly.

quick fix

it is 2am. i have just come home from vortex. It is a club frequented by goths & other creatures. my flatmates boyfriend, leigh, celebrated his b.day tonight. It was 3 levels of fun, some cute boys, & one lingering kiss. But make no mistake, while it was good (a quck fix to my clubing needs) the venue did not live up 2 da musical & performative potential offered by the idea of a goth club... i must admit though, the organic reappropriation of goggles 4 boys rocked.

"Verica asked me for a cigarette to disinfect her throat. Another of her 'pearls' of medicine. Our Verica has a talent for everything, what would we do without her. Sometimes we get fed up with her 'knowledge' - museum of unconditional surrender.

I feel it wise to say that in my previous post (yes, it is a post that has its grammatical downfalls but hey, im only human) i drew heavily from dubravka ugresic (pronounced as oo-greh's-ich). She haunts me in her style, in her areas of topic & in her scencerity. After so much reading in phlosophy (marx, deluze, foucault, aristotle (yes, i have read aristotle, & yes he is boring), freud, james, simmel etc) i am so gratefull to finally read someone who spends a great deal (if not all) of her time writing talking about people. She talks of those arkward moments, of those sentimental encounters, of those events never to be replicated. She quotes authors she admires & speaks of those people in our lives who we never know, but still construct in our minds as 'people'; as someone who meant something. Ms Ugresic speaks in a way that i understand, with names of friends that remind me of my 'other' culture (eg. slavica, branko, mirjana, boža, & verica). With her I feel the croatian in me that has become so distant. she is y own little 'pearl'.

my next zine will be dance pig - a zine on culture, dance, community & transgression... mainly dance though.

nostalgia 1 - forgetting and remembering

A certian friend of mine has become enamoured with nostalgia. We see the symptoms in feverish utterences, 'I remember those times when we... when i...'. It is a common saying. It is seemingly certian, but infact, it is a saying that conceals a doubt. Hanging on the edge of nostalgia one can not help but wonder about the things they have not remembered. One cannot help but notice the gaps in their memory, absences that become painfully obvious when you must reply to your friend - 'really? i have completely forgoten'.

the love for nostalgia infects. it is a true epidemic - it only worsens with time, and there is no return for those infected to a time prior to nostalgia. It seems that once we know that all actions liqify into memory we cannot take action with inocence. That is: we act now with the knowledge of the present's fate. The present is to loose all its depth & colapse into the surface of memory.

We share our past with others only for them to return the favour. We could call it a Verbally Transmited Disease. My memories shall compel the uncovering of yours, even if you choose not to verbaly express them. This sweetly-sickly condition speads to yet another. And so the great epidemic of a transient past continues to walk into our present.

-

And what of that doubt? the blessed forgetting. the imposibility of 'living' without having a trace of that 'living moment'? I am tempted to believe that the anxiety comes not simply from the fact that we have forgoten. If we were to simply forget, then why the anxiety?

I look into an old photo album & am stumped to place myself where this photo proposes i was. My memory fails. I am frustrated, but why should i become anxious of this fact? It is an unmemorable moment, inconcequential part of my life i happened to record in a photo. But now it is the basis for anxiety. more is at work here than we percieve. Perhaps is the suggestion enclosed within this moment, the suggestion that we are not who we remember ourselves to be.

I am tempted to draw a link between this and Nirvana. It literally means extinction. A blissful forgetting without ignorance. A state of being without attachment or compassion. Perhaps the anxiety is the inevitable outcome of forces within ourselves to both exist and to cease existence. Where else would our anxiety appear for such an event other than in our inability to remember ourselves? At place that questions our existance. Of course this is a romantic concept. In truth the answer is likely to be much more dull, and this truth will be a chalky pill to swallow as it will remind us that our lives are no epic play of the gods.

-

A friend of mine departed recently for a year to japan. Before she left i found the act of nostalgia, of remembering our joint past, a little difficult. There was an internal refusal to acknowledge what was past, a defence mechanism enforcing a blockage. It denyed myself a sense of loss by denying the very fact that something is being lost. Instead i was left meloncholic, sad for no reason, or rather a rationalised sadness. What broke that sense of meloncholy, this forgetting - what returned me into the warm hands of nostalgia was a care package.

The package was not meant for my friend in Japan, it was for another friend who had left a while ago for a land full of faux nostalgia... America. I asked myself a question 'what would i put in such a package?' I did not recieve an answer to that question. Something else happened. It came on as if i had pulled down an album from a shelf, only to have photo's fall into a mess without order or priority. Smiles and sadness, i began to remember. thoughts floating both to the continent of america and the island of japan. i missed them, both of them.

I am glad to chose a few smuged memories over a hevenly & blissful engagement. I did not send anything in that care passage, but i imagine that recieving it would be like finding an old photo. Tattered with memories, a brief convulsion and they too spread the bable of memories further through the world.

nothing to do

now with autumn semester over i find myself relaxing - i am sleeping in, spending days at home... but these actions are so incongruent with my life up till now that i am trying to find things for me to do. I am so used to being busy.

one of those things is deciding to thematicise (?!?) our lounge room - we (me & nat) are going to convert the lounge room into an opium den. Pillows placed all over, coloured lights & ornamentation. Basically to achieve a warm feeling, somewhere to really relax, with a touch of sleaze and intoxication.

the other distraction has been considering what my next zine will be about. Im quite happy with the vouging for revolutionaries (V4R) series. I will not be making a QPR-zine to usher in my new rose tattoos. I am also putting on hold the idea of doing a V4R issue where i deconstruct myself. Its a bit difficult, if i intend to do it the way i envissioned it. At present i have thought of several different possibilities:

1. one about psychology with nat. Covering stuff about critical psych, concepts in psychoanalysis and schizoanalysis, gender, theory and practice.

2. something on dancing & clubing culture, (and possibly music). reviews & reflections. with a bonus CD? - i always love the extras, though i doubt most people would appreciate my taste if i did compose a laser disk of audio clips.

3. possibly going back to something more obviously political - oddly, what interests me the most is environmentalism, freedom of movement in local settings, the destruction of public life and policing of pleasure zones. Basically it would (respectively) be a zine about the benifit of riding bikes, the need 4 better public transport, a call for new forms of political organsing and a note on the evils of policing night clubs.

4. doing a zine on film. part analysis, part reviews, part endorsement for a popular underground for film. basically i'd really love an opportunity to have free range on my cinematic interperetation. & considering the amount of arguements ive had with my boyf. and other friends over film it will no doubt generate much chat.

suggestions, anyone?

book collections

i think i read too much, i dont think people ever truly understand how much i read because i tend to read in depth & not in breath. I once remember gilbert (an old nerd/literati friend of mine) commenting that people only ever read the first chapter of epistemology of the closet, its axiomatic - i still felt compelled to read the entire book. It is compulsion in the face of reason - in the face of need, of logic, and of practicality. The desire to read follows me everywhere.

While walking through freedom furniture it is this need that led me to notice the books acting as pure ornamentation on the shelves of the furnitures. Their titles are as follows:
Unbridled power, the measure of man, Japan:the toothless tiger & blaze. These books stood in their hard cover glory among the book shelves and the bedside cabinent's within the display room. In the study section stood an array of books covered with wraping - the faber book of comic verse, the x-files confidiental, windows manual, & the oxford history of african american art.

It is interesting to see what remains concealed and what remains in view. Books that bestow the reader the concepts of power and strength are sub-liminally placed in the areas of personhood - the bedroom - and places that denote wealth - the display case (aka book shelf). On the other hand, what is covered is books of contraversy, of boredom and books of triviality. What is displayed is the manifest of the great man [sic]. What is denied is chance and humanity.

again i wonder if i am reading too much?

we r family

i have finally finished my autumn semester of uni, it did not end as well as i had expected, but i think i am over it, uni has become a matter of going through the motions - i expect to go fairly average this semester.

during this semester i have been indulging myself in french philosophy (...yes, again) but instead of the more typical post modern stuff that i read, i have had to read about phenomenology and existentialism, topics i needed to broach for my research project. While flipping through the pages of Satre & Merleu-Ponty i was quite amazed at how diverse the schools of thought in france are, and how public the debate can be.

Satre talks about how this sense of belonging to particular ideologies is known by the people of france as 'our families of the mind'. Each family is a school of thought.

I have a strange sense of nostalgia for this. Nostalgia because i enjoy this little reminder as i read satre's book. Strange because it is not my memory, i have not lived it. I would love for public debate to occur on the streets, random conversations, intellecual mags and pulp books. While this stuff happens at the moment, in ways that are more supperior at times, it is the intensity that is just as important to take into account.

Thus this is nostalgia becuase it maintains a sense of loss - time has separated then from now. Today people to dont talk politics so readily, there are no families of the mind. left and right circulate, but with on passion - we are the step children of these families, we struggle in negotiating how we should belong to these families, to these thoughts, and not all encounters between child and adult is one of unconditional love in this family.

post inquisition chill

big dance party weekend is over... three days and i am drained... think its time for a break, back to the pubs and lounge rooms of unsuspecting friends i think.

saturday 8pm - dinner at emmas, a quick feed to ease our stomachs for the night ahead. Each of us breaking off throughout the night in order to prepare our outfits. Luke was harnessed up, Jorja was tuled up, Rachel was tied up, Will was kilted up, and Emmas bo peep had run away with the sheep, so she settled on a gothed out nurse instead.

My out fit was a rehash of my sleaze apron (take a front and back polygon of material, add buckles, belts & bits of aluminium can and you got it). Together with my kick arse boots it looked good.

saturday 10:30pm - waiting for the girls to arrive, we get a first hand view of the costumes as they enter. Apparently most people chose to go with the theme of 13, proudly displaying their goose bumps for all to see.

sat-ur-sun maybe? - we partied away. Sveta played at the start in the open area. Mike Kelly also on incredibly early in the place with the pillars. Scoping the place out, Not too wide, but many twists and turns. As the night progressed i found my dancing feet. Shaking and rolling, spinning and twirling. the music tells me to drop to the floor and wait till the count of 4... 1, only the base line, 2, felling the presure rise, 3, my ass begins to find a mind of its own, 4, im gone now into the zone.

Sex with Will in the toilets - it seems that few people had realised the luxuries that the top level had to offer - quiet bar, space to dance, and a not so busy toilet.

Hey isnt that that guy from manicle, the one when we were all really trashed off our nut? hes shaking his finger at me with a smile on his face... oh yeah! thats right, guess so, wish i could remember his name.

people, faces, names, not as seamless as id like it to be... theres Will's friends, my friends, new encounters, people to whom you will only ever get that mutual glance, huddling under the huge heaters outside while getting a breath of fresh air.

sunday morning 8am, and we head back to wills palce for a shit shower and a shave. Vodka shots latter and were off again. Ive changed - for better or worse - into something more relaxed. pheonix is dark and dirty, but its too quiet to be of use. THe $10 cover must have scared people away. We decide that manicle will be a alternative. And away we go. Another half and im back up, allittle dance, a little beer and a little love - wills stayed home, but at theres other cute boys to dance with.

sunday again - sleep, work, sleep

monday 7am - emma calls appologetic - she forgot about me, 'meet me at manicle'. Will decides to go to work, draging my sorry ass out of bed - a line or too and manicle in the best bet. The pace is slower, my vision is clearer, and there is new people to meet and old ones to converse with. what fun!

monday 11am? off to new boy davids place, hes fucked, we crash, all is fun still as we relax. I get sick - sleep - work - sleep... its over. finito, zilch. thats it. gone. ...at least till next week ;)

play up! boot up!

Inquisition is 2 days away! sucess with my shift at Kens being swaped (unfortunately to sunday 10pm but thats an improvement correct). The alcohol, fairy dust and alphabetical apropriations have been made. back has been shaved. the costume is currently under construction, A reworking of my sleaze ball costume - and - as a special gift to myself boots - black leather, cutting a inch from the knees, i am in love with them.

They are my first boots, you never forget your first boots. The heel is raised, my posture shifts in them. I stand differently. 'this must be another me!' - am i biker david? goth david? skinhead? or simply a leather comrade. I am enticed to play in the boots. I want to let the boots make me. Its a masochism without a master. The boots are neither a living subject, nor dead object. Maybe they are one of the desiring machines i have heard so much about. I have been dancing in my bedroom in them, getting their feel, knowing their style. Lifting, spinning, step 1, 2, 3 - its a sweet thing, this love, this strange love...

out of the frying pan, into the nostalga

in the past two weeks i have writen approx 10 000 words. A literature review here, thematic analysis there, and a reflectived jounal somewhere in the middle. I always feel so drained of thought after completing assesments. My intellect has earned a well deserved come down - inquisition here i come, or hope... after hours of volly work to get my ticket, i have suddenly found myself rostered on for that night - outrage and anguish - my face is red with indignation. It seems apparent that my future rests on a phonecall tomorrow morning. Here's hoping...

on the brighter side of things i celebrated the end of the bulk of my assesments with obtaining a copy of Mylo (uber cool), hotel costes (uber chill with a slice of fun) and the disasociatives (uber dan & mac). Not being one to listen to the radio, or watch telly, i find it interesting how i fail to percieve music as 'cool' or 'in' at the moment. I am blind to the technicalities of musical taste. For me it is all immediately digested as a future nostalga - music is always a little setimental, a memeory waiting to happen. Perhaps this nostalga limits me from experiencing the new. But is there ever a new, an original? ANd if there was would we know how to interact with it? As Vivian Westwood notes, in fashion what works is the strangely familiar - seeing what we knew in a different way. What today will not be blessed (or condemned) to nostalgia tomorrow? Its a bit like asking what can escape history? Even september 11 is nostalgic - where were you on that day? Watching the reruns i'd imagine.

unexpected tidings

picture it...
approximately two weekends ago, walking through the pedestrian tunnel at central with Will (my boyfriend). the tunnel opening up to the night sky. Our destination is the hippo lounge, it sits across the street. Inside animal skins stuck to the wall. Casual attire to a casual event. An engagement in this case, for Heidi - good friend, ex room mate of several years, ex politcal co-conspirer. Good food, good vibes. Heidi playing hostess. Not a chance to get any more than a couple of words in before someone else arrived. The usual faces. The closeted friend, the crazy party girl, quiet one in the conner whos name i cant quite remember. The person i want to talk to but cant because of heidi's annoying brother... just an ordinary party, or so it seemed...

then matt and heidi drop the bomb. This is no engagement, they have gotten married! I stand a little agasp. Who would have guessed, then again who could i not have? At least it has put an end to the faux humour of the speeches. Mainly derived from their romantic first meeting in a gay bar. Thats right she met him in a... gayyy bar, gayyyy bar, gay bar (gitar strumming). The engagement took place only hours earlier @ parramatta park. Its quickly a flurry of emotion. Not all good. Bet they wish they stayed in a park as opposed to this zoo. Some people leave in anger, others realise how beautiful the moment is. I personally am a little deprived of emotion - i dont really see any change. But i guess that was their point, marriage is a thing to do, not a thing to be. A means to an end not an end in itself.

'im sorry this marriage is not valid, its not how its supposed to be'

I wonder what lurks beneath the word marriage that would make significant people to heidi walk out in anger. (Although i suspect that for the ones who did, it was just an excuse). Why is marriage such a fantastic thing? Maybe it is a fantasy. One of the few fantasies you can live. Marriage that does not fit the fantasy would become aboresent - disgusting. Think a deformed birth, a intollerable moment, People personally offended at noting more that cutlural assumptions.

Im sure Slavoj Zizek (or his wife who has a different twist on this theory) would site this as an instance where 'ones fantasy structure becomes threatened by the other who finds plesure in what the self deems unpleasurable, or undesirable'.

if people cannnot see that an understatement of their marriage is an amplification of their concious acknowledgement of mutal love, then they can not be as happy as i am for them, or see what it means to do that in a crazy world.

brought to you from the state library which has wireless internet connection - making study and social life easier!

take your monthly medicine

I have been sitting on the train for the past hour or so. Completing my readings for a similar period of time. My mind distracted by the very words which require my attention. The articles are on party drugs. My mind is already begining to float with just the thought of intoxication. I love the night life, i got to boogie, preferably on the high, yeah. How long has it been since i have had a good dance, a good high? scince anzac weekend - too long to be separated from good friends.

Discoveries abound in my readings. While working through the literature, i have come up across a few facts of interest. In the short run it appears that extacy cause insomnia, headaches and irregular mood. It appears science has discovered come downs, E has shown a weak positive correlation to cognitive and memory impairment and depression in the long run. I cant help but wonder if a study of absent minded professors would show that excessive use of knowledge also leads to 'cognitive impairment'.

While i am open to the possibility of real negative side effects of E i find it alarming that the scientific community so easily panders to the present day morality. Results are printed that give no definite answers, only alarm people. Alarming people makes it a social concern. Social concerns require research. Research reinforces the moral imperitive of repressing illigitimate pleasures. it is a circuit of conservatism - building on the status quo, with more status quo. The fact that other social issues may require the research; the fact that extacy may be taken safely (in respect to a generaly unsafe society filled with pollution and chemicals); the fact that i demand the right choose my pleasure - all remain out of scope. On the brighter side of things at least E is not physically adictive.

Another interesting fact: GBH causes people to sleep for short periods (1 to 3 hours). People then awake to find themselves in a period of insomnia for the several hours. On occasion people will take more GBH to move from insomia back to sleep. People on occasion will use this technique to move 'around-the-clock'. Partying in a perpetual state of intoxication for several days straight. The little devil on my shoulder is salivating. Think crystal but without the mental giberish on the second day. It seems that the poison is the cure. GBH picks you up, GBH drops you down, over and over again. We may not be allowed gay marriage, but we can still replicate the experience on the black market. My little angel has slapped me in the face - the risk of passing out in unsafe places, the real risk of addiction (with ironically similar symptoms to alcoholism) and risk of overdosing is more than enough to keep me at bay. No GBH for davey. lets hope for a new and improved 'designer version' without the negatives to transpire in the near future.

Drug safely, look both ways before making your decision!

welcome to the sock puppet manifesto

after thirty minutes of searching for an adequite - and not already taken - blog name, i too have scumed to the world of blogging. And what a wonderous thing it is! Bits of life, reports and reviews, jokes, pics, political encounters, reflections and laments. who could ask for more?

Why the sock puppet manifesto? In an age of seriously stupid politics, we need to be stupidly serious. This is my attempt to let my inner sock puppet out. After all there is a little sock puppet in us all, and possibly even two.

why start blogging? in part due to the large number of friends already blogged on, and in part to the home internet connection - which makes it easier to do stuff like this. Oh and the proverbial 'spark' is due to thé FIONA MCGREGOR responding to my latest zine (moral terrorist) with quite a congratulatory remark, without the slightest mention of the grammar and spelling mistakes littered across the pages - good huh?!

ciao