After having the PC fry itself under Win98SE, well not fry itself but just stop working and be a total pain to get going again; and even then badly, I've finally got Ubuntu underway.
I got there by installing Open Suse Linux alongside a barely working Win 98 then not being able to install Open Suse, so it booted from the hard drive, and always having to boot from the CD, but it got me on the net and I limped along till Mum's friend's boyfriend was here dropping off a Christmas present for Mum and I asked him for a bootable Ubuntu to install. The CD arrived this morning and it was an .iso so I had to $uck around in windows to get nero installed to burn a bootable version which I got and then installed Ubuntu 10.04 and then waited 2 hrs for the upgrades to install.
Now I've got a few options to consider. The major one is reinstalling windows over Ubuntu and doing a complete reformat and putting on windows again and then doing Ubuntu on the leftover space once I get the win 98 programs like cool edit and photoshop7 that I know about installed and running. The other option is to just go completely Linux and learn similar programs that are available open source. What will determine this going one way or the other is attachment of stuff like scanners, cameras, soundcard stuff and suchlike. I'll try connecting it all with Ubuntu and see what works.
Maybe it's best to persevere at least for a while under Ubuntu for everything at least until I pick up a DVD writer so I can burn the versions of XP I have.
I liked Ubuntu on my laptop until the graphics drivers buggered up so maybe this is the way to go.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Resolutions?
Most years I would make some feeble sort of resolution to change something in my life but this year I've been prompted in advance to make some changes so living up to the usual resolution process is something that finally has relevance.
I may have written about my semi recent debacle at the gallery, a failure to bring expectations to bear, where the things I said I'd make couldn't be finished so the wonderful big dreams of advancement for both myself and the gallery became merely a whisper that passed by without many taking the time to listen.
I've been trying to get back up ever since and it's been a trial which came to a head last week with the PC going into a deep ditch and all my coffee grounds blocking a drain and me realising I was manifesting blocks of a negative nature and I needed to get in touch with the Universe to find out how I could remedy the situation and get back to being a useful forward motioning human.
Now I have to admit I've always been inclined to doing as little as possible, I'm lazy, which has it's advantages of course, but so much needs to be done in my life that my tendency to do nothing has ended up with a very big pile of need to do's.
I've know this for a while but still grappled with getting going with my tendency to be lazy often winning out but last week it all came to a head with the manifested blockages and it became time to get hold of a wonderfully keen psychic and get the inside line on why I've been crawling forward as opposed to a good sprint.
The long and the short of it is that I've got some karma from a previous life sittin' on my shoulders and it has to be dealt with if I'm to get where I've always known I should be.
I'fe had a few past life indications and the absolute first ones where when I was at art school and in drawing a self portrait of myself I ended up drawing two faces in my hair. One was an African and the other was Japanese. It was the sort of drawing where one draws kinda sketchily and then follow the hints in the tangle of lines. It wasn't till years later that I was in a Japanese restaurant, facing my first use of chopsticks, and had ordered a dish, which I was told was a favourite peasant dish, which ended up being a soup in a bowl with noodles... my hands just knew what to do and I picked up the chopsticks with one hand and the bowl with the other and proceeded to do something' like a native, that I'd never done before. This is how past lives become known to me. When I do something or know something I haven't been taught and just get.
There are other past life stories and they all have different levels where they apply to self. The Japanese one was always there as I'd always felt a deep and abiding love of stuff Japanese and especially their sense of enviroment with zen gardens and stuff like that. So I knew I had this Japanese pastlife and lt was close to the surface, as in being able to use chopsticks, and helping to define my aesthetic sense, but until the phone call to the 0900 psychic I hadn't realised how pervasive it was in my character of this life.
So the long and the short of it is that this character I was previously was a peasant who had to work all his life, hard word he felt was below his abilities, and always felt a sense of entitlement for a better life with work rewarded and allowing for advancement. This left him without and so these karmic burdens have passed on to me. I have an ability to work hard but the karma is such that I'll take any opportunity I can to not work, feeling it won't get me anywhere quickly, and also feel a need to grab hold of things that were denied me in the previous life. Now this may be fairly normal but for me being told of this previous life made absolute sense. This is where the reality of past lives become a reality. When the leftovers of a previous incarnation hold us back in this life and we get to a point where the knowledge of a previous existence makes absolute sense and resonates completely with the problems of self we are facing. Not only that but all the loose threads of our lives become a knot that can only be unraveled by taking heed of the injustices we feel need the light of a court of truth.
For me, then, I cannot go forward to this dream I have of being in the country and working at my art, and an artist, so I'm told, is what I'm here to do, in support of being a communicator, until I tidy up the big mess I've made here in Otara. I have to sort out the property and finish all the building, tidy up as it were, and in doing so get over my tendencies to be lazy and the collection of things I'm deprived of.
And the other way it all makes sense to me is in my abilities to build and communicate. I've always felt that building, the art of composing something, underlies everything I do, and that the reson I build is to communicate to others how I see the world and what we can do while we're here. So when I had my warehouse in Newton back in the 90's and built a house in it it was a natural progression to be here in Otara and have a property with actual land to play with and build on to further my learning in building and communicating ideas. But the land got me. The land requires so much more than what I'd learnt building on a static base like a concrete enclosure like I had in Newton. The land is always moving and redefining itself so work needs to be done that defines for a long time how things will be. The land and it's permeability creates a need that says we have to know exactly where we're going with it and start at the beginning. I thought I was doing that when I had four truckloads of broken footpath dropped on the front lawn way back in about 2001 but I was wrong, and kinda right, in doing that as well as planting trees here and there. What was mostly wrong was my thinking that I could do all the base work and then progress through it all as one big palette but time has educated me otherwise and the lesson I have learned is that land has to be broken a step at a time and built to last with on going maintenance in mind.
I may have written about my semi recent debacle at the gallery, a failure to bring expectations to bear, where the things I said I'd make couldn't be finished so the wonderful big dreams of advancement for both myself and the gallery became merely a whisper that passed by without many taking the time to listen.
I've been trying to get back up ever since and it's been a trial which came to a head last week with the PC going into a deep ditch and all my coffee grounds blocking a drain and me realising I was manifesting blocks of a negative nature and I needed to get in touch with the Universe to find out how I could remedy the situation and get back to being a useful forward motioning human.
Now I have to admit I've always been inclined to doing as little as possible, I'm lazy, which has it's advantages of course, but so much needs to be done in my life that my tendency to do nothing has ended up with a very big pile of need to do's.
I've know this for a while but still grappled with getting going with my tendency to be lazy often winning out but last week it all came to a head with the manifested blockages and it became time to get hold of a wonderfully keen psychic and get the inside line on why I've been crawling forward as opposed to a good sprint.
The long and the short of it is that I've got some karma from a previous life sittin' on my shoulders and it has to be dealt with if I'm to get where I've always known I should be.
I'fe had a few past life indications and the absolute first ones where when I was at art school and in drawing a self portrait of myself I ended up drawing two faces in my hair. One was an African and the other was Japanese. It was the sort of drawing where one draws kinda sketchily and then follow the hints in the tangle of lines. It wasn't till years later that I was in a Japanese restaurant, facing my first use of chopsticks, and had ordered a dish, which I was told was a favourite peasant dish, which ended up being a soup in a bowl with noodles... my hands just knew what to do and I picked up the chopsticks with one hand and the bowl with the other and proceeded to do something' like a native, that I'd never done before. This is how past lives become known to me. When I do something or know something I haven't been taught and just get.
There are other past life stories and they all have different levels where they apply to self. The Japanese one was always there as I'd always felt a deep and abiding love of stuff Japanese and especially their sense of enviroment with zen gardens and stuff like that. So I knew I had this Japanese pastlife and lt was close to the surface, as in being able to use chopsticks, and helping to define my aesthetic sense, but until the phone call to the 0900 psychic I hadn't realised how pervasive it was in my character of this life.
So the long and the short of it is that this character I was previously was a peasant who had to work all his life, hard word he felt was below his abilities, and always felt a sense of entitlement for a better life with work rewarded and allowing for advancement. This left him without and so these karmic burdens have passed on to me. I have an ability to work hard but the karma is such that I'll take any opportunity I can to not work, feeling it won't get me anywhere quickly, and also feel a need to grab hold of things that were denied me in the previous life. Now this may be fairly normal but for me being told of this previous life made absolute sense. This is where the reality of past lives become a reality. When the leftovers of a previous incarnation hold us back in this life and we get to a point where the knowledge of a previous existence makes absolute sense and resonates completely with the problems of self we are facing. Not only that but all the loose threads of our lives become a knot that can only be unraveled by taking heed of the injustices we feel need the light of a court of truth.
For me, then, I cannot go forward to this dream I have of being in the country and working at my art, and an artist, so I'm told, is what I'm here to do, in support of being a communicator, until I tidy up the big mess I've made here in Otara. I have to sort out the property and finish all the building, tidy up as it were, and in doing so get over my tendencies to be lazy and the collection of things I'm deprived of.
And the other way it all makes sense to me is in my abilities to build and communicate. I've always felt that building, the art of composing something, underlies everything I do, and that the reson I build is to communicate to others how I see the world and what we can do while we're here. So when I had my warehouse in Newton back in the 90's and built a house in it it was a natural progression to be here in Otara and have a property with actual land to play with and build on to further my learning in building and communicating ideas. But the land got me. The land requires so much more than what I'd learnt building on a static base like a concrete enclosure like I had in Newton. The land is always moving and redefining itself so work needs to be done that defines for a long time how things will be. The land and it's permeability creates a need that says we have to know exactly where we're going with it and start at the beginning. I thought I was doing that when I had four truckloads of broken footpath dropped on the front lawn way back in about 2001 but I was wrong, and kinda right, in doing that as well as planting trees here and there. What was mostly wrong was my thinking that I could do all the base work and then progress through it all as one big palette but time has educated me otherwise and the lesson I have learned is that land has to be broken a step at a time and built to last with on going maintenance in mind.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
Maybe my critical side is coming out these days and with the Author way off in Canada somewhere, and used to critiques of his writing, or just mostly immune to them, it'll be alright for me to have my say. I was told of this book recently and by this time had quite forgotten the life of Pi, which was quite good mostly but interrupted by exceedingly dull bits that were hard to get through. I like books where the descriptiveness is alive and interesting, or possibly arresting, that swings through words using oddities or absurdities that make extra sense because of their inclusion. Yann can be very good at this, the spellbinding effect, but in Beatrice and Virgil this effect doesn't go anywhere; it's merely cleverness in seclusion. This way with words is a useful tool to lift the reader to a place where the vantage of what is to come can be swept into with whatever descriptiveness the Author has used; a slide into a playground hopefully unlike any other but in the instance of Beatrice and Virgil the particular sandpit we always go back to play in is a dull and overly serious crutch of many a modern writer.
Mr Martel has fallen prey to that supposed sign of seriously deep writing ability; being seriously deep, and choosing playing with the ability to be disturbing and ending up just being morbid. He trucks out that great monolithic inspiration to being able to confront the depths of human culpability and disaster of store bought remorse... the holocaust. Oh the people that fall when confronting this huge barrage ballon of insipid political correctness.
This is not to say that the holocaust isn't a reality that's needs occasional address but such loaded guns should only be addressed by those great enough to do them the justice the topic deserves. And I say topic because, like any historical event fading into it's vortex of relevance, the realities can only now be second, third and fourth hand so the subtext of realism is a matter that needs careful and inspired writing to meet us in a way that leaves us with a reminder that matters. Yann is unable to do this in Beatrice and Virgil and the book comes across then as an uninspired exercise unworthy of the abilities he has shown in the past. But maybe I just don't get it?
Maybe I'm just not clever enough, or have at my disposal enough of the historical metaphors that deep people seem to collect like gas station free gifts after the buying of significant amounts of the gas of seriousness, to get his well chosen opposite of in jokes and I'm unable to swim in his chlorinated swimming pool of literary loftiness. The uneducated like myself are relegated to the paddling pool of story telling because the man is unable to get a good story together and has to fall back on the tools of every uninspired artist trying to let us know how clever they are... off the top shelf technique.
I'm sorry but this book suffers from second album syndrome; and badly. After The life of pi it's a fall from grace by someone frightened by their strengths and working through their weaknesses in public. At least Britney Spears does it with trailer park honesty. The same couldn't be said of Yann who seems to think he can grab the toolbox of the holocaust and with a few references to Dante and some slightly bizarre metaphors, a donkey and a howler monkey, tell us something we don't know in a way we haven't heard but the man fails badly and to me he,s obviously drowning in his own pool of consequence... because hes unwilling to take chances and let the story go somewhere it needs to go and, rather, relies on intellectual cliches to cover his inability to transcend his own past glories.
Oh well, one hopes the other reviews are bad, and this man decides to stop living off the proceeds of previous writers circuit bombast and take a high dive back into the waters of significance - from a place high enough to be both slightly frightening and invigorating so that he suspends his sense of his own belief and follows the hairy monster of inspiration to a place we'll all willingly follow.
So I don't mind if this really is a good book, lauded by the good and the wise, 'cause I'd rather stay stupid than fall prey to the modern disease of intellectual deceit by using the tools of massive obstruction... technique.
Mr Martel has fallen prey to that supposed sign of seriously deep writing ability; being seriously deep, and choosing playing with the ability to be disturbing and ending up just being morbid. He trucks out that great monolithic inspiration to being able to confront the depths of human culpability and disaster of store bought remorse... the holocaust. Oh the people that fall when confronting this huge barrage ballon of insipid political correctness.
This is not to say that the holocaust isn't a reality that's needs occasional address but such loaded guns should only be addressed by those great enough to do them the justice the topic deserves. And I say topic because, like any historical event fading into it's vortex of relevance, the realities can only now be second, third and fourth hand so the subtext of realism is a matter that needs careful and inspired writing to meet us in a way that leaves us with a reminder that matters. Yann is unable to do this in Beatrice and Virgil and the book comes across then as an uninspired exercise unworthy of the abilities he has shown in the past. But maybe I just don't get it?
Maybe I'm just not clever enough, or have at my disposal enough of the historical metaphors that deep people seem to collect like gas station free gifts after the buying of significant amounts of the gas of seriousness, to get his well chosen opposite of in jokes and I'm unable to swim in his chlorinated swimming pool of literary loftiness. The uneducated like myself are relegated to the paddling pool of story telling because the man is unable to get a good story together and has to fall back on the tools of every uninspired artist trying to let us know how clever they are... off the top shelf technique.
I'm sorry but this book suffers from second album syndrome; and badly. After The life of pi it's a fall from grace by someone frightened by their strengths and working through their weaknesses in public. At least Britney Spears does it with trailer park honesty. The same couldn't be said of Yann who seems to think he can grab the toolbox of the holocaust and with a few references to Dante and some slightly bizarre metaphors, a donkey and a howler monkey, tell us something we don't know in a way we haven't heard but the man fails badly and to me he,s obviously drowning in his own pool of consequence... because hes unwilling to take chances and let the story go somewhere it needs to go and, rather, relies on intellectual cliches to cover his inability to transcend his own past glories.
Oh well, one hopes the other reviews are bad, and this man decides to stop living off the proceeds of previous writers circuit bombast and take a high dive back into the waters of significance - from a place high enough to be both slightly frightening and invigorating so that he suspends his sense of his own belief and follows the hairy monster of inspiration to a place we'll all willingly follow.
So I don't mind if this really is a good book, lauded by the good and the wise, 'cause I'd rather stay stupid than fall prey to the modern disease of intellectual deceit by using the tools of massive obstruction... technique.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The stilled life of intercontinental mail dirigables; Spendours of Loneliness.
Narrator.
A kilometre and then some above the Indian ocean, riding thermals sizzling towards the dance of a mid ocean storm, a lone balloon holds its package of 88 cubic metres of air burnt to a frenzy. Below this excitement of jiving molecules, eager to be free like all things, hangs a gondola of woven hedge. And in this redefined usage of a concealment ploy lifted to the realms of personal preference in abode and environs design, the hedge woven wickerwork gondola, sits our heroine at a treadle operated sewing machine vintage to our modernist and dulled senses but the height of mechanical invention to this lone seamstress drifting through the big open skies.
Voice of Dehlia (prerecorded) as she sits at a sewing machine in concentration.
Not only does it pass the time and give me greater chance to find wonder at my surrounding which might be dulled by constant viewing but this work of repetition and its see saw nature of involvement, as the swathes get scrunched under the ratcheting needle, is myself defining the new destiny I have chosen, even as I know this new destiny is a matter of surprises and scary newness's, but I have so chosen to embark. My clothes are a definition of my search so it is only fitting, oh I enjoy serendipitous puns, that as I endanger my spirit with coalescence with clouds and secure and lock my trust to the vagaries of the trade winds I am willingly unclothing of my old selves and re-fitting this self to the nature of my dreams for a bigger and more adventurous me-ness.
Dehlia removes the garment from the machine and holds it up to purvey her good works then brings up a tube to speak (recorded for playback later).
My Dearest Cousin Wilhelm, I know, in my heart, this journey I make has torn asunder the magics of our past, the glory of scratching close heatful summers searching under lazy spent grasses the glories of twitching insects. Those infinite worlds beneath the tight and severe daintiness of our twittering mothers taking tea on lawns. Our escapes into dusty attics to play at south sea explorers as the frigid snows lay thick and bouncy upon the roofs of the houses that sung mournfully of our pasts and in staccato jabs of the rigidity of our futures. We knew nothing of this as simple walking sticks for grandfathers past became swords to thrust and old blankets, yet to be remembered as instigation for new games during spring picnics beneath wisely gnarled oaks, became the sails of our gallant ships of discovery. Those implicit hopes in the glories of innocent youth are with me now. I never let them go even as the regular booming of a responsibility to uphold and define anew the tragedies of our forebears gripped our teenage minds and tried to rip from my heart a need in the pit of me to be free again. To search still corners but in a whole world. To bring imaginings to life and feel the awakening shivers of unknowing.
I do want you here with me dearest Wilhelm but I know your choices are your own, as mine are obviously my own given the reality of this that speaks to you now, but we must gather up our sorriness's, apologies to overly garnished selves, and transform them into bravery to encounter the truisms of our desires, find courage in unspoken refusals to become as others imagined in their bored brittleness, and step warily but with strong hearts into the reality of cherished dreams. Apart yes, but memories as we share are a strength many are without and yearning for. Our luck is as big as the cumulus's that surrounds me, their bulks stretching and yawning a behemothic sagacity, and that luck can only stretch against the stratospheric constraints of flesh, blood and minds reaching for clear light.
Curtain drop, scene change to children playing and the recording plays with old radio sound. Two dancers spin round the children and are dreams.Dancers end up alone in front and curtain drops behind to remove attic set. New set of Indian bizarre... Dehlia has landed to take on stores.
A kilometre and then some above the Indian ocean, riding thermals sizzling towards the dance of a mid ocean storm, a lone balloon holds its package of 88 cubic metres of air burnt to a frenzy. Below this excitement of jiving molecules, eager to be free like all things, hangs a gondola of woven hedge. And in this redefined usage of a concealment ploy lifted to the realms of personal preference in abode and environs design, the hedge woven wickerwork gondola, sits our heroine at a treadle operated sewing machine vintage to our modernist and dulled senses but the height of mechanical invention to this lone seamstress drifting through the big open skies.
Voice of Dehlia (prerecorded) as she sits at a sewing machine in concentration.
Not only does it pass the time and give me greater chance to find wonder at my surrounding which might be dulled by constant viewing but this work of repetition and its see saw nature of involvement, as the swathes get scrunched under the ratcheting needle, is myself defining the new destiny I have chosen, even as I know this new destiny is a matter of surprises and scary newness's, but I have so chosen to embark. My clothes are a definition of my search so it is only fitting, oh I enjoy serendipitous puns, that as I endanger my spirit with coalescence with clouds and secure and lock my trust to the vagaries of the trade winds I am willingly unclothing of my old selves and re-fitting this self to the nature of my dreams for a bigger and more adventurous me-ness.
Dehlia removes the garment from the machine and holds it up to purvey her good works then brings up a tube to speak (recorded for playback later).
My Dearest Cousin Wilhelm, I know, in my heart, this journey I make has torn asunder the magics of our past, the glory of scratching close heatful summers searching under lazy spent grasses the glories of twitching insects. Those infinite worlds beneath the tight and severe daintiness of our twittering mothers taking tea on lawns. Our escapes into dusty attics to play at south sea explorers as the frigid snows lay thick and bouncy upon the roofs of the houses that sung mournfully of our pasts and in staccato jabs of the rigidity of our futures. We knew nothing of this as simple walking sticks for grandfathers past became swords to thrust and old blankets, yet to be remembered as instigation for new games during spring picnics beneath wisely gnarled oaks, became the sails of our gallant ships of discovery. Those implicit hopes in the glories of innocent youth are with me now. I never let them go even as the regular booming of a responsibility to uphold and define anew the tragedies of our forebears gripped our teenage minds and tried to rip from my heart a need in the pit of me to be free again. To search still corners but in a whole world. To bring imaginings to life and feel the awakening shivers of unknowing.
I do want you here with me dearest Wilhelm but I know your choices are your own, as mine are obviously my own given the reality of this that speaks to you now, but we must gather up our sorriness's, apologies to overly garnished selves, and transform them into bravery to encounter the truisms of our desires, find courage in unspoken refusals to become as others imagined in their bored brittleness, and step warily but with strong hearts into the reality of cherished dreams. Apart yes, but memories as we share are a strength many are without and yearning for. Our luck is as big as the cumulus's that surrounds me, their bulks stretching and yawning a behemothic sagacity, and that luck can only stretch against the stratospheric constraints of flesh, blood and minds reaching for clear light.
Curtain drop, scene change to children playing and the recording plays with old radio sound. Two dancers spin round the children and are dreams.Dancers end up alone in front and curtain drops behind to remove attic set. New set of Indian bizarre... Dehlia has landed to take on stores.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Birds of Paradise
Morag Brownlies' "Birds of Paradise", is a great little show I had the profound pleasure of seeing last night. Go along. It's at Tapac.
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