She's Lost Control

I noticed this short story in the Dominion Post yesterday, regarding the legendary Ian Curtis wall.













And it got me thinking about the original. No not the last original - this was the last one, which has it's merits - or should I say had, thanks to Wellington City Councils anti-tagging unit.

But the original original, circa 1980. I remember going to Welly Polytech and seeing it everyday. I remember having a vinyl copy of Love Will Tear Us Apart - and remembering how amazing it was as a song.

I thought to myself Ian Curtis would be about 53 yrs old. That's not that old. He could be still making music. But then so could have Kurt Cobain.



The Ian Curtis wiki page reports the wall has been repainted - last night, 17th 2009. I was hoping to make a short documentary of the subsequent repainting, too late, I guess I played my part. ;-)

mala tempora currunt

PhD update (now there's an excuse for not blogging)

Is there a rule that every blog entry should begin with a (Smiths) song lyric, or a latin phrase?

I've omitted the song lyric and I couldn't figure out the latin for "told ya so". And anyway that sounds petty and immature, and as readers, you will no doubt be aware, that I'm trying to not do petty and immature anymore. Call it a New Years resolution if you like.

Well, when I say every blog entry, I guess I mean... um, just my blog entries. I wouldn't expect that rabble of kiwi political bloggers - the boring lot that seem obsessed with blogging about current affairs and what John Key is doing and etc. That incestuous crowd that all quote each others blogs and use such tiresome bloggese like, "hat tip", or "blog roll". oops there's me going all petty again. (yes, that was meant to be so unfunny as to be funny - weird how circular humour can be)

Mala tempora currunt means something like bad times are upon us.

Upon me I mean, no I'm not talking about the "credit crunch" or the "global downturn", "banking crisis" (whatever), we "talked ourselves into this recession" don't you know. And we're now busily talking ourselves into a depression (apparently) - yippee. I love natural disasters, I remember racing off to view the Hutt River in full flood as a kid wondering what it would look like if it actually broke it's banks. I remember in my mid 20s being fascinated by an approaching "dangerous" cyclone whilst living on the Gold Coast.


Perhaps a Samuel Butler quote would work. I discovered this by reading Norbert Wiener's, Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation. Wiener is generally credited for bringing to our attention, in the 1950s, computer ethics - he contended that "machines can and do transcend some of the limitations of their designers (and today we'd probably have to add, their users) and that in doing so they may be both effective and dangerous".

However, Butler's predictions were far more extreme - in 1863 he wrote an essay which was published in the Christchurch Press, he said

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life.

I think it was, to some extent, Butler who inspired Wiener. A few years ago I walked past Butlers Forest Stream hut. Forest Stream is a tributary of the Rangitata, it runs up into the Two Thumb range, for a summer expedition i traversed the range solo - a far more satisfactory pursuit than blogging under any conditions. Which reminds me, I need some mountain time. I didn't go up to Butlers hut, it was on the other side of the river and I didn't feel like crossing it - not that it was overly dangerous, just the previous year I'd had a minor scare in a swollen MaCauley river (on the Lake Tekapo side of the two thumb range) and crossing swiftly flowing streams unecessarily (a kind of natural disaster) wasn't on my wish list.

Anyway, back to the writing. (progress report - literature review of Information Ethics)

Life, love and in vino veritas

Every day is like sunday,
Every day is silent and grey.


Happiness part 1.

There is some chimerical line that is crossed, somewhere between 35 and 45. It's the point of no *romantic* return. Mortgages, kids and flat screen TVs take precedence over "well up for it" tottie. Maybe I should be saying "real love", or maybe what idealists might call "true happiness", takes over.

But hold on a minute, "happiness", jesus what the hell is that, happiness is truely dumb. Movies and weddings end in happiness. Happiness is an afternoon nap, on a blissfully languid sunday afternoon. Happiness is something, but it's not life, certainly not a life lived. When you look back, on your one and only life, what more a tragic thought could one ponder than, i never really lived.



I'm happy with not being happy, this fact confuses people. I'm often accused of being "a little bit of a lost soul", perhaps I'd be happier if I saw a spiritual advisor, or meditated or something. Please don't make the logical mistake (no apologies however for the 98% of you that do) I'm not saying I am unhappy (denying the antecedent for the geeks). What I am saying is that "happiness" is overated.



Personally I think excitement rates higher than happiness. Forget contentment, lifes too short for that, you can be content when you are dead. The problem with excitement is that it comes barbed, particularly in your suburban nuclear family setting. Excitement is as inherently risky as happiness precedes brain-dead mediocrity. Given the choice of excitement vs happiness, You can guess what I'd choose. It's a boy thing, no fuck it, it's a man thing - nothing wrong with that is there - we love adventure. Why do I skate, climb mountains on my own etc (at 45) because the alternative sucks - I see the 30-something risk-averse-daddys with 50-something guts supervising their scooter riding kids at Waitangi Park tragically dressed by their pursed-lipped wives - that's happiness!??

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with "relationships", or kids, I have both, in fact I recommend them both - but you die one day, get that, one day you are going to die. In reality, love and death are the only things that really matter.

A Previous Comment

I did say it, back in February actually, that I thought blogging was pretty dull. As one might guess from the temporal gap between this blog and the previous, my actions are reconciled with my fingertips.

I think blogging is dull - I just felt like saying it again. It's had it's day. Please note - this doesn't mean I think all bloggers are dull, although most are, I know one that is not.

I've moved to a new more expressive, yet less precise medium. I've always been novelty driven - so call me shallow, do I look like I care.

I suppose I won't be able to help myself and pass comment as I see fit. However, currently I've stuck to minimalistic titles and left interpretation up to the viewer. Mostly this is where I hang out these days. You get the picture, follow the link.

Just fingering it out

"I look around at a beautiful life, been the upperside of down, been the inside of out, but we breathe, we breathe" Stereophonics

At the urging of a friend (I was going to say incessant urging but that would be labouring the point, not to mention exaggerating) I've decided to write an entry about - well, nothing at all, about what blog entries are usually about. Life, irritation, frustration, joy, sex (or lack thereof), drinking (are there blog entries about drinking?).

It's meant to be revealing, and honest or at least frank (there is a subtle difference) I think, therefore - something or other. But this kind of "creative" (kick) writing isn't my forte. I'm caught, my life that is, in non-fiction, and on the creative kick I'd usually resort to plaigerising Byork lyrics, like tell me the stories, play me the tunes that crack you up. Or, that I'm no fucking buddhist but this is enlightenment...

Probably that is enough, I mean above. But I haven't told you much at all. I wish I was, just for a moment a beat poet. Then I could say something cool and subliminally meaningful or at least evocative, stirring and

Maybe I need a topic - Nostalgia. There you go. I'll create a whole new blogger label for it. It's a funny thing (nostalgia) it's almost like a mental condition. He's suffering from nostalgia, which is contributing to his alcohol abuse. Or perhaps the causation runs the other way, it's the alcohol that causes the nostalgia. Don't ever drink alcohol whilst listening to this CD. That should be a warning sticker on CD's that contain ballads from about 10 years ago...

What happened to my youth? It feels like someone else lived it. Not me. That doesn't seem fair.