july 23, 2005
diorama-riffic!
Whenever I read The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase stories by Joan Aiken, I am fascinated by the darkness which runs through her narrative: young girls are killed and their bones eaten by a Queen desperate to remain young until her husband returns; children are kidnapped and sent to Scotland to work as slaves in mines and foundries; and minor characters are frequently mauled and killed by the wolves which have overrun England. However, despite the horror that provides a backdrop to the adventures of Dido and Is Twite, there is still humour and a sense of the absurd.
I once described that I "wriggle with excitement" in response to Joan Aiken's work. I experience the same feelings when I listen to many of The Decemberist's songs. Colin Meloy is, in my mind, primarily a storyteller, he just tells his stories with musical accompaniment. Like Aiken, Meloy often tackles similar tales of lost, wretched children in the 18th century. From Lesley Anne Levine on Castaways and Cutouts, to The Mariner's Revenge Song on Picaresque, there is a feeling of grotesque tragedy.
So you have to understand my utter delight when I entered Adelaide Central Gallery's most recent exhibition, Archer's Arcadia. Tansy, the director of the gallery said, "Go inside and have a play!" which immediately provoked the response of:
"Play? With Art?"
David Archer's work is primarily focused on Automata, or "self-operating machine[s]". His pieces are based on historical automata, and many of the machines were presented within the context of the carnivalesque freak show. The audience is encouraged to turn a handle and magically, mechanically knives are swallowed, fortunes told and The Elephant Girl's ears flap!
[From Archer's Arcadia. Also: Animated image of The Elephant Girl]
It was as if I'd walked into one of Joan Aiken's stories: I half expected Dido's father Abednago Twite to appear from behind the curtains that framed the exhibition! Ideally, outside of the gallery the rest of the carnival would have been going on, and The Decemberist's would play their songs with a special appearance by Pa Twite and his tin whistle.
Not only were there automata, but there were also paintings which reminded me of Mexican Day of The Dead images and work by Tim Burton and Edmund Gorey. Many of the pieces referenced the world of the freaks with The Human Bird being a recurring motif.
If I had the money I would have bought one of the automata, though really I could only imagine owning one of the pieces if I was much older and had grandchildren. I'd keep the machine hidden in a special room of my welcoming, yet slightly eccentric home, and when the children would come to visit they'd cry "Grandma, Grandma! Can we play with the Elephant Girl?"
Well, I don't have the money for automata, or for even a small house yet, but I've been meaning to start purchasing works by local artists. So, suddenly I found myself talking to Tansy, handing over a deposit and then placing a red sticker under a painting entitled Sweet Meats! I'll post a photograph of it in August when the painting officially becomes mine and I can take it home, but for now I'll just describe it as reminiscent of vintage Middle Eastern medical textbook illustrations, diagrams describing cuts of meat and Kate Moss's early work for Calvin Klein.
If I didn't already have a job, I would become a spruiker and stand out the front of the gallery crying "Roll Up! Roll Up! Come see the magical machines!" If you need any more encouragement or even just an excuse to play with the toys I'd suggest that you take a small child along and introduce them to the art world!
Archer's Arcadia is at Adelaide Central Gallery, 42 Osmond Tce, Norwood and is showing until August 14.
pipstar @ 03:51 PM | link | Comments:
july 18, 2005
a list of items purchased to reward myself for cheating death:
Ianto, my cycling mentor, has advised me to start praying to The Might Cyclor, for 5-10 minutes preceeding and following every cycling journey. To make up for my prior lack of recognition of Cyclor's great power and generous nature, I bought a whole lot of stuff as a sacrifice to him. Also, buying stuff gives me a short lived feeling of safety and satisfaction, and I have to admit I'm still feeling a wee bit shaken.
- An extra flashing red light to warn traffic of my feeble human presence.
- A water bottle holder.
- A puncture repair kit.
(These are all Cyclor specific offerings. I'm also going to grab some proper pannier bags when I go to pick up the freshly repaired Salt.) - A copy of Olive The Other Reindeer on DVD.
- Hot pink underwear that was on sale. This purchase may be in direct reference to the lace underpant imprint that was implanted on my butt when I landed on it in the crash.
- Prints from a mystery roll of photos that ended up being from 1997!
- Tea, some more tea and some vegan dinner from the market (consumed with Shelley and Aliese).
- Parking fee from the market (I count this as a crash related purchase, as it wouldn't have been done if Salt was ok).
- Entrance to the Jade Monkey on Friday night and a pot of peppermint tea to drink.
- Printing fee at the library so I'd have a hard copy of Memory Chips to read at the Non Stop Party Wagon Zine Day.
- Many, many zines from the NSPWZD. So far Roots and Branches #1 and 28 Pages Lovingly Bound With Twine #5 are standout purchases.
- A laptop backpack on sale from Mountain Designs. It doesn't conform to my rigid style requirements, but on Saturday my shoulders were hurting beyond belief and I'd idiotically been carrying my laptop around all day in a shoulder bag. Also, my old daypack has seen me through about 12 different countries and is about to fall apart.
- DVD+R so I can backup my laptop, two extension cords and some dvd markers.
(I got some laptop related stuff as Fighting Tiger also survived the crash. Luckily, the pannier containing the laptop (safely padded by a neoprene sleeve) was the pannier which didn't get hit by the car and smashed to the ground) - Drugs! Which sounds cooler than they actually are as the purchase was only some bruise ointment and some painkillers.
Oh mighty Cyclor, see how willingly I spend money in your honour? I beseech you to keep me safe from traffic and never again will I rashly attempt right hand turns across busy roads!
pipstar @ 12:35 AM | link | Comments: *
july 15, 2005
earning my spots
You know how they say that pride comes before a fall? Well, let's just add confidence and joy and a bike called Salt to pride before we start talking about falling.
There's been a lot of talk in the media about bikes and cars and driver responsibility... Now that I'm regularly riding a bike, I am super careful of other cyclists whenever I'm in my car. On a bike, there's very little to protect you and especially at night it can be really hard to see cyclists.
On the way home last night I saw people riding their bikes without lights. How dangerous! Oh well, I thought, I've got lights, I'll be ok.
Riding along Hutt St I suddenly became very glad to be wearing a helmet, I'd seen someone riding without a helmet a couple of weeks ago. I've been thinking about balance a lot because of attempting handstands in yoga. So, thinking of balancing and not balancing in relation to yoga made me think of falling off my bike, something which I haven't done since I was about 10. Well, I thought, at least i have my helmet.
Normally I cut throught the back streets of the suburbs to get home, but I was incredibly impatient to bake biscuits for the Non Stop Party Wagon Zine Day bakesale on Saturday. I also hadn't eaten dinner, so I was really hungry, possibly delirious with hunger and lowish blood sugar. So I decided to put Pythagorean principles into play by taking a short cut and rode towards the hypotenuse that is Glen Osmond Road!
When I was crossing Greenhill Rd over to Glen Osmond Road, a car cut in front of me as it turned to the left. I hurled abuse at them and shook my fist and thought, well, that was lucky, I wouldn't want to be hit by a car.
If you are unaware of Glen Osmond Road you should know that it's one of those big scary roads which lead to a freeway. That means that there's lots of cars and trucks and not a huge number of traffic lights or easy places to cross the road at. There aren't really any bike lanes and did I mention before that it was dark?
Further up Glen Osmond Road I needed to cross over to get to my street so I bravely looked for a space in the traffic, considered the distance and speed of the traffic coming behind me and indicated and turned into the centre lane...
Screech! Went a car which was suddenly behind me
Luckily the guy who's car my bike intersected with had started to slow down, so when he hit my back wheel I ended up sliding over the bonnet of his car and fell back onto my bike. My bike flipped around and I landed with such force on my arse that there is an imprint of the lace from my knickers on my left butt cheek. My right elbow was jarred and in super slow time I thought, how glorious is this helmet as...
Smack! Went the back of my helmet on the ground
Here's a really blurry mobile phone shot of the bruise on my leg, I promise you, it's much more hideous in real life, but I have to admit that Dan's arsemogalling bruise is much cooler:
The bruise from where I landed on my bike after the car hit me.
People stopped their cars and rushed to my aid. Luckily my house was only a hundred metres away so I didn't have to worry about getting home.
But Salt?! My glorious bike!
There's something a bit wrong with Salt, but it seems that magical insurance fairies have floated to my rescue and any repairs are covered. Now I just have to take it into the shop to get a quote and I need to take myself off to the doctor to get my sore neck and elbow checked out.
The moral of the story is that when riding, avoid major roads, stay visible and be supremely cautious. When driving, drive slowly and pay attention to any cyclists nearby because they may be on a baking mission and may want to get home right away.
Anyway, many thanks to all who've been concerned and to those people who stopped to help me.
pipstar @ 12:36 PM | link | Comments: *
july 09, 2005
Last night, while I watched the BBC news feed of the events unfolding in London I felt sad. I felt sad and I felt ashamed of being sad.
I feel ashamed that I suddenly, consciously feel sad because of bombs in London even though hundreds, no, many more thousands of people have died due to coalition and insurgent bombs in Afghanistan and Irag... That tens of thousands... No. Can you imagine it? ... Hundreds of thousands of people are dying of preventable disease and hunger in sub Saharan Africa.
However much I try to justify it and tell myself that the names of stations from last night are familiar, that they sound like the squares on Monopoly Boards and the names of local towns (my ears pricked up at the words Aldgate Station), that there are brothers and sisters of my dear friends travelling in the UK right now, that I have travelled (however briefly) on the Underground and dream of living in London for a time.... That it could have been me...
Why can I not be as shocked and incensed about the car bombs in Iraq, the suicide bombs in Israel, the slow and steady starvation in Africa, and the ineffectual treatment of HIV/AIDS almost everywhere across the world?
Was it because the media was showing continual coverage and really, what else could I watch? (I could have read a book you know - switched off the TV and ignored the news in the same way I can switch off from the terrible things that we let happen in this world).
I wonder, that if I was given the option of 24/7 coverage of starvation, disease and poverty, alongside a translated version of Al Jazeera, I would choose to watch their statistics of pitiful deaths continue to climb, [minute after minute, long after the headlines had been grabbed and forgotten] instead of choosing a book to lose myself in.
I stayed up late last night watching bad news from a city which I feel like I know, but, I feel ashamed, because given that opportunity of continual bad news from places I have no way to relate to, I'm pretty sure that after the first half hour I would have switched off over to Big Brother.
pipstar @ 02:19 AM | link | Comments:
july 07, 2005
my everyday keys
pipstar @ 10:13 PM | link | Comments:
july 07, 2005
pink purse
pipstar @ 10:12 PM | link | Comments:
july 07, 2005
implanon (warning: i write about menstruation here!)
I went up to the doctor today to get my Implanon contraceptive implant removed. I can't believe that it's 3 years since I had it inserted into my arm... That means that it's 3 years since I left to go overseas!
As convenient and efficient as the implant is, it's slightly weird knowing that your bodies natural cycle is being overridden by chemicals. (And even weirder knowing that those chemicals are leaching out of a matchstick sized piece of plastic in your arm.) Anyway, I'm going to give my body a break from hormonal contraception for a couple of months at least.
You can be assured though, that I'll use Implanon again. Worked out over the 3 years it's cheaper than the pill, I didn't suffer any significant side effects (though when I did bleed the timing was erratic) and I didn't get pregnant while I was using the implant. Best of all I was able to freak people out by making them feel the piece of plastic in my arm!
pipstar @ 02:49 PM | link | Comments:
july 07, 2005
wanted: a housemate
The house that I currently live in, aka The Dollhouse (which is how I shall refer to it in the future) is in need of a new housemate.
Non-smoking, vegetarian friendly housemate (ideally 25-30 yo) wanted to live with 3 girls and a ginger cat in an easygoing, fun house.
You'll get a big room with fireplace and floorboards in an excellent bluestone cottage in the Unley area, with huge modern living areas. We'll get the pleasure of your company.
Do you know of anyone who fits this description, and who is interested in moving out now? The other girls and I would love to meet them, so please get in contact with us...
Rent is $87.50 per week and bond is $350. Also, The Dollhouse is close to a major bus route and it only takes about 15 minutes to bike into town.
Here's a picture of the kitchen without any stuff inside it:
pipstar @ 11:53 AM | link | Comments:
july 07, 2005
post haste
I think I'm going to have to get in the habit of not giving my blog posts titles. I seem to spend about 10 minutes before writing each post trying to think up something witty, something with a subtle pop culture reference that also relates to something within the corresponding entry.
So…
Post
I now have access to a Post Office Box, so if you have some overwhelming desire to send me stuff you can send it to this address.
Haste
Maybe not hasty, but this does have a teeny bit to do with going fast (and slow). I actually rode my bike to a place other than work or the shops today, and that involved my riding to my Dad’s house in North Adelaide.
If you know anything about the topography of Adelaide and its surrounds, you’ll know that the three major roads leading into North Adelaide all contain a hill.
I was so excited by my successful bike trip that I made a memory map on Flickr to celebrate.
NOTE: All up this trip was only about 7 or 8 kilometres (from work to Dad's to mine), it's not a huge distance, but so far that's like my Tour de France or something.
© 2002 - 2007 Pippa Buchanan