This week my column is something a little different, I've moved out of Indie Rock and it's a description of a demonstration of John Cage's Prepared Piano I saw during the Melbourne International Arts Festival, read it here.
Cate and I got a bus, the 160 that used to run from Catford to Sidcup, we got off the bus near where I used to live, on the south circular, which was near where it used to go, but slightly off route. We got off the bus and all the shops were exactly as I remembered, as we walked down the road (which was a major street for traffic) we came across a fruit orchard, trees of apples, plums, gooseberries and more, I kept trying to take photos of the fruit and Cate kept getting in the way saying 'stop that! Take a picture of me!î As we wandered through the forest we came across a normal looking house, although there was no indication of being so, we instantly knew it was a tourist attraction and went inside.
Megalomaniac had death at the press of a button, he'd declared war on the rest of the world and he wasn't backing down now. The world hadn't taken him seriously, hadn't met his demands, he'd have to show the world fear and harm.
Applecore<br>Broken Door<br>Commercial crap<br>Cat flap<br>High crime<br>Sign of the times<br>Night clubs<br>Seedy pubs<br>Rubbish bin<br>Collecting tin<br>Bus stop<br>Bent cop<br>Run down school<br>Drunken fool<br>Paedophile<br>Give us a smile<br>Traffic jam<br>Bang bang<br>Road work<br>Office jerk<br>Broken homes<br>Millennium dome<br>Drug dealer<br>Office cleaner<br>Broken bottle<br>Full throttle<br>Boarded up shops<br>Office blocks<br>Social life<br>Beaten up wife<br>Dodgy bloke<br>Being broke<br>Sick on the ground<br>Too much sound<br>Political shit<br>Hypocrite<br><br>City life, don't you just love it<br>
According to a list I read some years ago, I regularly use several words in my lexicon that are considered 'old fashioned'. As that list was published nearly ten years ago and I'm still using most of those words, my language must be increasingly old fashioned.
Take a listen (or read) to a light hearted and 'cheesy' romantic (and slightly explicit) short story I recently wrote about Doug, who bored in his office cubicle, fantasies about Julie...
Here's a quote/analogy I've been using for a while to overarchingly describe a strategy for engaging on social media that I've found helpful and descriptive.
He must works nights as I rarely see him, we've never spent a night together, just watching TV or anything like that, but he must have a set in his room, and a penchant for cheesy old horror films, because sometimes in the middle of the night I hear odd muffled shrieks and yells coming from his room.
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">As part of RMIT’s sessions in Open Access week I toddled down to “Publishing the Open Access Way: The Change in Business Thinking Towards Open Access” and a slightly small crowd… I’m a little behind with blog posts, so this will again, be a little bit of a collection of items with some opinions and thoughts.<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The speakers and talks were<p class="p1"><b style="line-height: 1.538em;">Dr Adrian Danks - Senses of cinema</b><br /><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">A quarterly academic journal around cinema culture and commentary. To me it’s approach seemed fairly conventional. Their open nature means not Peer reviewed. Their 4th largest audience is Australia, which seems to be a constant, many Australian creative organisations have to be successful overseas to make it at home. Dependent on funding bodies, how does this affect the open nature? Is it any better than an advertiser really?<p class="p1"><b style="line-height: 1.538em;">Philip Dearman - Communication, Politics & Culture</b><br /><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">An open access journal, I think the title pretty much tells you what the content is. Seems like some publications just become free because they have no other options or are forced to. Again, the journal is backed by Academia anyway, so it doesn’t have quite the same restraints others may have. <p class="p1"><b style="line-height: 1.538em;">Debbie Dickinson - The conversation</b><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> <br /><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">The Conversation is fairly well known, again with some academic backing, but seemingly looking into wider sustainable sources of funding and life. Some of the Conversations interesting features and approaches are republishing their content, sharing is positively encouraged leading to strong worldwide access.<p class="p1"><a href="https://www.rmit.edu.au/library/oaw" target="_blank">www.rmit.edu.au/library/oaw</a>
With… Cory Doctorow, Melbourne Writers Festival Director Lisa Dempster and Peter Williams of the Deloitte Centre for the Edge. A main presentation, followed by a panel discussion, which I haven't really covered here and got interesting just as it was ending.
Last week I spent time on creating some of the common elements that can be found across all of the Gregarious Mammal sites, this includes:<ul><li>Creative Commons notice</li><li>Mailing List</li><li>Financially contributing to projects</li><li>Git and version information</li></ul>