A Rush of Blood to The Head

Through the blinds. The glorious view from the 19^th floor.

Shrouded in the thick fog-like atmosphere ignited by the setting sun, the regular, canted tan-coloured units of Victoria Market's roofs.

And amidst the steaming evening mist, a view beyond: the barely glimpsed, barely remembered Cobden street.

Oh the sudden rush of gravity, of emotion, of experience --

Entire lifetimes lived and perished within that tiny house on that tiny street – Joy, Ecstasy, Sadness, Despair, Companionship, Loneliness, Fun, Listlessness, Hope, Loss, Lust – a previous incarnation now (almost) within line-of-sight!

- posted by Tweck @ 1:07 AM 0 comments

 
My Favourite Delusion
I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan.

Everytime I put on Mr Children's "And I Love You" or Rip Slyme's "Sunrise Surround", I'm drowned in the sense of solitary journeys, bittersweet loneliness, freedom, discovery, wonderful wierdness, sidewalk vending machines, linguistic confusion, train-life, getting lost in crowds, getting lost in bamboo forests, getting lost.

I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan. I want back in Japan.
- posted by Tweck @ 3:07 AM 3 comments

 
ima, ai ni yukimasu
Don't know what kinda cheesy plot-device of a pseudo-afterlife the 'akaibu ten' is, but I cried like a baby got some dust in my eye anyway.
- posted by Tweck @ 12:20 PM 1 comments

 
Oh My G'Earth
the. most. insane. program. ever.
I have been using computers since 1988 or thereabouts, and this must be one of the only times I have felt "wow the future is here..."

For example, I've just returned from a trip to Japan, its mind-blowing being able to find and re-live so many parts of the trip through something like this (imagine this sequence smoothly zooming in):

Earth

Japan

Tokyo

Daitabashi Area

Where I Lived For A Week

Whats more, I can link photographs (or any media) taken "on the ground" & for me this really adds to the immediacy and sense of real-world-ness:

[mouseOver: click for Interface Img]

What about Melbourne? Bored and looking for a holiday project, I considered doing a pseudo Melboune walking tour, tracking all those lovely little side-streets and hidden cafes that I can never seem to find twice.

Unfortunately the datum on Melbourne is still pretty patchy, we can only get hi-rez images for about half of Melbourne City (eastwards from China Town and Lower Swanston it just looks like a *chunky* can of soup). Images are apparently updated continuously, so fingers crossed...
- posted by Tweck @ 7:17 AM 0 comments

 
Layer & Texture



What
about
monochrome
skin.




- posted by Tweck @ 1:51 AM 0 comments

 
Pride. Too Much.
Written Circa 1998

Today I saw two adolescent males get into a disagreement. I did not understand what they were saying, but it started getting pretty heated. Soon enough, both turn apart and stared in opposite directions, faces black as thunder. It was getting seriously awkward.

This I can understand, this I have seen. There was nothing unusual about that.

And then here comes the amazing part:
Barely five minutes passed before one guy tentatively looked at his mate, sheepishly extended a hand and muttered something that probably passed for sorry. Within the next 2.37 seconds, expressions were changed and the tension slowly slipped away; each one seeming not too sure about reconciliation so quickly with the argument so fresh in their minds, but finding the grace to deal with it.

This I have rarely seen. This blew my mind.

I have seen arguments, fights, but how many young men have actually swallowed their pride and made the first step to restoring their friendship? Very few.
More often I see it ending in physical violence, or at the very least they don’t talk to each other for days, weeks, sometimes never again. The male ego is such that being wrong is a weakness. Is it not weaker to lose a friend just because your pride does not let you admit your faults?

These guys were not mushy, soft, poofs who sit around and “validate their feelings” . They were just like you and I, with equal egos, pride and desire for male credibility. They were in many ways the same as every other gangster-wannabe. But their actions showed that they were somehow different, somehow better.
- posted by Tweck @ 9:14 AM 1 comments

 
Feral Cities
Here's an interesting paper by Richard Norton discussing the concept of "feral cities":
"The most notable difference is that where the police forces of the state have sometimes opted not to enforce the rule of law in certain urban localities, in a feral city these forces will not be able to do so."

First thoughts include the opening scenes from Appleseed (really, any apoclyptic future story would do, heh).

Real-world examples could perhaps include a very dystopian description of the immigrant slums in East? France, that I read a few years ago (this may not have been it, but is similar): "The cités are thus social marginalization made concrete: bureaucratically planned from their windows to their roofs, with no history of their own or organic connection to anything that previously existed on their sites, they convey the impression that, in the event of serious trouble, they could be cut off from the rest of the world by switching off the trains and by blockading with a tank or two the highways that pass through them, (usually with a concrete wall on either side), from the rest of France to the better parts of Paris."

In the context of modelling security / military deployment and the global connectivity model* I could see how this scenario might be worth considering, but beyond that more thoughts to follow only if I get the time...

* I'm thinking Thomas Barnett here, but thats a whole other thing I haven't gotten around to writing about.
- posted by Tweck @ 8:18 AM 0 comments

 
My Secret Vice
Like sneaking chocolates from the pantry or those midnight sips of brandy, every now and then I look forward to a dose of my personal addiction, a fix of mellow-choly…

1) Get rather sleepy or rather drunk. Work hard or play hard ; )

2) Turn on slow, slow tracks from Martin Taylor, Keith Jarrett, Tsuji Ayano, or something like Spitz’s ‘Yasashiku Naritaina’.

3) Lazily read a few chapters of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou whilst half-blind with fatigue.

That last step is really the rare and special ingredient, a discovery, an acquired taste that has become precious upon discovery of its calming effects. Read it during the hustle and bustle of the day, and its just another comic, and a boring one at that - but try it when trying to unwind. Its more an experience then a story. Unconcerned with events nor progress, you simply savor the moments that weigh heavily like the nostalgic memories of a sunnier, happier past dragged up by the music.
- posted by Tweck @ 11:25 AM 0 comments