... and then she says goodbye

god you poor readers have been through a bit of a rollercoaster with me this year.

what am i talking about.. i've been on a bit of a roller coaster this year!  the last couple of months have been quite the ride. love and loss. love and loss.

i'm sure i'll look back on this part of my life with true love and affection, knowing that this was the crucial point in the movie - the turning point that made an amazing and obvious outcome, that redefined the character of the main protagonist from here on in.

at the end of the month, i'll be getting on a plane back to the UK and europe. the plan has always been that it's for good. well, you know, in an attempt to set up a life there - try my hand at living more permanently somewhere. that somewhere being back in berlin: a place i always felt most myself, close to art, ideas, other artists and a greater gene pool of cultural production.

but really fucking far from my lover, family and dear friends.
none of whom can physically join me on this journey for various (and heartbreaking) reasons. i'll be leaving them behind.


a few months ago, the idea that i would sacrifice relationships for my career felt right. heroic. stoic, even. the obvious choice.

today, as i sit and cry for the umpteenth time about saying goodbye, it doesn't feel so obvious.

of course i've been doing all the wrong things - like listening to a mixtape my friend will made for me years ago after i left london (full of goodbyes); watching sad movies about facing ones fate, like stranger than fiction; talking to friends about relationships that could never be reading about romance and emigrantion.


unhelpful. but oddly comforting.


it's quite lucky that i'll be in the london for my first stop - i'll be spending a lot of time in the embrace of those wonderful (free) art institutions, being consoled by the arms of art history. and by the time i get to berlin, i'll spend a destructive month dancing until daylight in an attempt to shake the last of regret, sadness and fear from my booty.

and before you all try for pithy consolations, i do know that i can come back.  i know that 'if it's meant to be, it will be'. and that i am doing the right thing.

but it doesn't mean that this kind of decision isn't fuckin' hard.



stupid pop songs that suck right now:

adele: someone like you
maximo park: going missing
peter gabriel: here comes the flood
nick cave: as i sat sadly by her side
jay-z and beyonce: '03 bonnie and clyde
billy bragg: the price i pay

Give Me Something To Listen To: Alaska (Sydney)

Wow! What a year this has been for this little work of mine.

On my way to Berlin, (via Sydney, via Melbourne) I'll be doing a Sydney iteration of this work at the ever-fabulous Alaska Projects. If you're in Sydney, or close enough, do come on down and join us for a Sunday afternoon performance of the work.

deets

Sunday 20 May, 2012

3pm - 5pm

Alaska Projects

Level 2, Kings Cross Car Park
9A Elizabeth Bay Rd, E.Sydney

And, as usual, if you can't make it, send a proxy.

Alaska projects

Facebook event

she sees red

And while you're there, you can check out the end of the current (amazing) exhibition, Empty Gesture by Sarah Rodigari.

tumblr ♥

holy mother of assumption

i've been moving around a lot in the last 2 years. in fact, i think the longest i've stayed in the one place has been the 4 months i lived in perth for the first time in 2011 (including a couple of side-trips to sydney and melbourne).

life is pretty dynamic when you don't have a sense of static 'home' and, up until last week, i really enjoyed it. i loved the excitement of being outside regular living arrangements and the challenge to the ongoing question 'where do you live?' or 'where's home?'.

i've also been packing up my life, in preparation for moving to berlin on a more-permanent basis (visa-gods willing) and reminiscing over nostalgic objects that have been packed up into boxes.

through that process, i have come to an impasse in feeling excited by my gypsy lifestyle. at the moment, i'm craving a sense of static. of 'stop'. 

and this craving had me asking about the role of assumption in my life.

moving around, constantly shifting cities, accommodation, making yourself vulnerable by having to lean on people has been excellent for shaking up my perspective of the world/my life. it has had me in an ongoing state of questioning, enquiry and analysis.

now, i feel the need to have some complacency, to not have to question, to assume certain aspects about my life (like where my belongings are for longer than 4 weeks, or the fact that i have a 'home').

it's quite an odd thing to crave, complacency, or assumption. i was always taught to think that assumptions were bad. but perhaps 'jumping to conclusions' is what we mean by 'asumption' and that, actually, having a balanced amount of assumption in ones life is good.

scientifically, progress is based on proof - one has a hypothesis, controlled experiments, proves/disproves and publishes findings. those findings then become the assumption for the next stage of experiment. you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. you assume that it's round and moves.

civilisation is also a static construct and, given that we're not all a society of gypsies, bedouin or nomads, there must be a powerful social pull for security or static place - a sense of structure and firmness outside of the regularity of seasons.

politically, how does assumption work? that, i'm not sure of.

and i guess in terms of relationships with people, we always - whether in friendship or intimate relationships - move towards that place of not having to question. of just knowing, based on previous experience.

well, a little bit of knowledge, and a little bit of faith in there too. not a spiritual faith, per se, but a faith in ones own sense of knowledge. 

faith in my own sense of knowledge. i'm sure there's a single german word for that. 

How To Do Things With Words

it's on again:

in love

ok, so i've talked a lot about love lately. and i could go into the gag-inducing details of a new love affair - kisses and romance, etc.


but today i'm going to gush over my even newer love: haught. like an erudite love-child of fitzroyalty and helen razer, jonathan has swept me off my cynical and critical intellectual feet and has me gasping with joy at his gentle caresses of cutting prose.


it all started with the repartee between him and yarra trams. including beautiful moments like this:


"If Jim Beam want to know how to make something go viral they can put aside their  incomprehensible, cacophonous clusterfuck of an ad and take a leaf out of Yarra Trams’ book"


then it escalated when i read his beautiful letter of note to jim beam. i think i fell hard.


"It doesn’t matter if the ads are annoying – as long as they’re getting people’s attention, they’re more brilliant than a peacock having sex with a bird of paradise in front of a bird of paradise (plant) on a beach on Daydream Island."


and, having read the email to disgraced wankpot, ben polis, former bigwig of energywatch, i have found myself struck - completely smitten by haught's regard for the absurd in australian public relations.


i'm already daydreaming, wistfully imagining the haught reponse to this beautiful line of fuckery from andrew demetriou (upstanding head of the AFL) and fantasising that it might be dedicated to me. like a groupie in the front row of a rapier wit gig.


"I mean they are offensive, they are ridiculous. You've only got to see them on the front page of the Herald Sun to understand how outrageously offensive they are," he said"


(um...  yes, andrew, the front page of the herald sun is the only place to see just how offensive they are)




look, i don't really want to share my new-found love, dare i sully it. but please, make a difference to your love life and read this blog.