Chronicles of Id

2007-04-25T15:01:00.000+10:00

Freedom In The Sky

Alone in the clear blue sky we dream of being free. Breaking the bonds of the earthly vessel to soar away from reality. That is the beginning of most dreams, to touch the heavens, swim in the sky.

The faint of heart and self absorbed never truly grasp this concept, except on a superficial level, the result of the overindulgent image. Humanity has now become an object, to be consumed, bought, sold and traded on every level of commerce subservient to fictitious notions of economics; an invention of the greedy to reward themselves in ego, holdings and social stature for the fact that they have succeeded in mastering oppression, its tool now a convenience processed by a hole in the wall.

My shell now defines me; its commodity an intrinsic part of my definition. It�s my full-stop or period; perhaps my vessel is a "period piece." As I stand in line, behind the husks of some wave of the super ego dictatorial, I wonder if this is all I am, a hanger, a piece of walking rhetoric. Within this shell though, lies a connection...

2007-01-16T13:23:00.000+11:00

Mr. Pink and his Mighty Beer

…“Why do I have to be mister pink?”… Well it would seem I have no choice in the matter; I get it so damn much I may as well just embrace it…“It’s beneath me, let’s move on, I’m mister pink”… Now if a picture is a thousand words, here is a thesis… Reservoir Dogs style! Happy Birthday Georgia!

Italy part two… stay tuned

2006-12-29T17:55:00.000+11:00

2006 Review - Operation Italy Part One

Hello faithful reader… it has been a long time coming. 2006 has been an entertaining and interesting year, however I’ve been so completely flatout this year I have had no time (and interest) to update the blog. So to make it up to all who do wish to walk a mile in my shoes, I’ll attempt to review this year as best as my memory will serve. The first few entries will focus on Italy and the rest I will try to compress into 11 entries of each of the subsequent months of the year if I can remember that well.

January was a real eye opener and got the year off to a good start. The university organized a tour of Italy for a month lead by Professor Frith and another Professor whom I was to meet later Flavia (incidentally an old uni friend of Justine). As this was my final year of university (should everything go to plan) I was not about to miss this opportunity, as I had never been to mainland Europe let alone Italy before. The first few weeks of the year were spent working to save for spending money and preparing for the trip – passports, clothing purchases etc etc.

I have very fond memories of the time I spent there, so these will no doubt be long entries. Flying to Italy was definitely a funny experience. I met my fellow tourists at the airport, a good mix of people I thought… however, flying is hell. Our first leg was 8 hours to Thailand, which was extremely pleasant as the flight was mostly empty and we got to spread out get boozed up on free in-flight drinks and hang out and get to know everyone on a better level. It felt like I was on school camp again. We arrived in Bangkok; spirits were high however I was feeling quite tired. A short stop over of 2 hours and another flight of 12 hours to Rome. This was extreme pain for me. I felt sick for nearly the whole flight, I couldn’t sleep and we were packed in like sardines; far less pleasant than the earlier Sydney-Bangkok leg.

Upon arrival in Rome, we were greeted by the stringent customs of Italy – who basically looked at you and if you looked dodgy enough they might ask to see your bag, but for the most part you could walk through as you pleased – a marked change from Fortress Australia. Stephen greeted us at the gate and we made our way from Leonardo da Vinci to Termini. A short bus ride to our apartment gave us a snapshot into the history and life of Rome. As it was winter, it seemed that knee length puffer jackets and funky looking leather boots for women were all the rage.

After arriving at the doss where we were staying and unpacking, I said to the others I was gonna go look for St. Peters as we were pretty close. To my surprise I found out very quickly we were literally 100 metres away from Bernini’s great colonnade… the arms that stretch from the portico of the Basilica. As it was close to Christmas, the nativity scene was still set up in the middle of the piazza, surrounding the Egyptian Obelisk. The largest of all the obelisks in Rome – an urban intervention used to unite the sprawling city of Rome by Pope Sixtus V, also a sign of the conquer of pagan culture by Catholicism. Interestingly the great obelisk influenced the design and orientation of the later addition to the Basilica as it was placed slightly off centre of the Cathedral, and it was deemed easier to construct the aisles of St. Peters to match the position of the obelisk than to move it.

A group of us wandered the streets of Rome that day; jetlagged but overcome with the excitement of being in such an amazing city. Lunch in the Piazza Novona – formerly a Roman Hippodrome, with an obelisk in the middle; the figures at its base carved by the master Baroque artist and architect Bernini. Our first taste of Italy’s wonderful cuisine. We then wandered the city for a few hours, looking at the shops, orientating ourselves, uncovering the history of this place. The day of exploration culminated in a visit to the Pantheon, a truly amazing piece of architecture and history. Louis Kahn would often talk of seeing the Pantheon oculus as an almost spiritual experience, and its hard to not agree.

Raphael is also buried in the Pantheon, he was my favorite teenage mutant ninja turtle, but as I was to find out later one of the most accomplished and favored artist of the Renaissance period. I was particularly keen to see some of his work, as my mother would tell this story of me at about age 4 in London, some major museum or gallery that had a display of great painters of the Renaissance. I had wandered off, naturally, and was found standing in front of a painting by Raphael completely enthralled in it. Apparently I had been standing there for about 10 minutes admiring this thing, as one of the attendants who had been keeping an eye on me would later tell my mother. Now I cant remember the incident at all, but when I try, there is some deep seeded memory of a Christ figure on a cross with the Roman guard piercing his side – a typical biblical scene that would have been portrayed at the time of Raphael, so I assume that was the painting… I can still remember it quite vividly, in terms of the action and the colours. So naturally I wanted to see if the art work would have the same effect on me as an adult as it did when I was a small child.

Later that night we went back to the hotel and met the rest of our traveling crew – four guys who I studied with, had taken a number of years off to travel and work in England, they had just returned from Palestine, the rest of the crew was made up of first and second year students, a few from third year on the year out and a couple of friends of Stephen’s daughter who would travel for all or part of the tour with us. It was a nice group to travel with, inevitably there was conflict later in the tour between some of the group, and I attempted to stay out of it all – but had some issues of my own with certain group members. Its often my way to let these things slide and gravitate toward people I can get along with not having to deal with the fall out. In all, considering the situation things were pretty calm for the most part, and we all became friends or at very least acquaintances of some substance. Those who know me well, know that I tend to get pretty loose and naturally I found a group of guys who were similarly inclined – we established a RAB (Bar backwards) and drank ourselves stupid every night in Rome (the RAB disintegrated as we moved around more) largely because our roommates were heavy snorers or whatever.

The next day we met Flavia, who would take us around for the majority of our trip as essentially a tour guide. We met her at a place called Argentina – ruins of an ancient Roman plaza dedicated to Mars where three ruined temples stand. Significantly this was the place that Caesar was murdered, it is now a bird sanctuary, so naturally there are a lot of stray cats living there. A short walk and we were at Michelangelo’s Campodogglio, a wonderfully sculpted piazza sitting atop a grand staircase of sorts. In the centre sits a bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius the patterning in the pavement radiating from the figure based in part on converging circular geometries, masterfully treated by the hand of Michelangelo.

Behind it sits the Roman Forum. A magnificent set of ruins, the details of which are an entry in themselves. At the end, sits the Coliseum which we later visited. First a quick stop at the Palatine Hill, the place where the Palace of the Roman Emperors stood. The scale of the ruins gave you a sense of just how massive these structures must have been, truly fit for a king at the height of his power. Later that evening I bumped into Professor Frith, and we had an impromptu tour of some churches in the nearby area. I was particularly fascinated by the decoration of one of the churches – whos name escapes me. It is literally a stark rectilinear volume of very little consequence; however the walls and ceiling had been painted in fresco by a man called Pozzi. He had used some amazing tricks of foreshortening and perspective to create what at first glance seemed to be real domes and vaults, only on closer inspection did you realize they were completely fake… was this the first real postmodernist?

The next day we toured the great churches and cathedrals of the city. It was at this time I really became aware of the mastery of these architects – particularly Bernini and Borromini, two great rivals of the Baroque who pushed eachother to reach amazing feats of art and architecture the like of which have yet to be repeated. Part of our assessment (as this tour was being used for credit at uni) was to keep a drawing journal of the tour. Now I am a fine sketcher of things, however I was somewhat rusty at the time, and the first sketch I attempted to do was of the ceiling of San Carlo della Quattro Fontane, by Borromini.

As you can see this is no mean feat, and naturally I completely butchered it. Unphased by this, I vowed to myself that I would improve… as the most senior student on the tour I couldn’t look like the most retarded sketcher. So as the activities of the day wound down, a few of us visited a church built on a pagan temple, which was interesting; I snuck off back to the Roman forum, and spent a few hours (actually until I got kicked out) drawing the ruins. The forum is a wonderful place bathed in the afternoon winter sun, and after a slow start I began to produce good sketches at rapid pace. Satisfied that I was up to scratch, and having attracted a small crowd of Italian girls, whom I would later become friends with, I headed home. The girls I had met, lived nearby and wanted me to come out with them that night, so I prepared for a night out. Naturally I attracted a bit of an entourage from my fellow travelers, and when they saw the beauty of the girls, those who weren’t already keen suddenly showed an interest in the Rome night life.

We went to an area called Pistachio, a park of sorts that is surrounded by “super” clubs and bars. We started out in an American sports bar, because the drinks were cheap. One of the group drank too much and after narrowly avoiding be beaten up by some French dudes whom he’d vomited on, we decided to leave. The girls and I separated ourselves from the pack in all the commotion, and went to a Rastafarian club. They told me they liked it because it played drum and bass and the vibe was very chill. I walked in there and felt extremely out of place at first, as I was the only Caucasian male in the whole place. The locals soon found out I was Australian and welcomed me with open arms in typical Rastafarian style. After we were suitably hammered I disappeared into the night, somehow managing to end up at a place called pyramid alone… I jumped into a taxi (or what I thought was one) and headed to San Pietro. Unfortunately this wasn’t a cab at all, but some guy driving around shouting out “taxi taxi”. After I asked him to stop at St. Peters he suddenly became enraged and began to threaten me with what I thought was a knife, after screaming and running for a few minutes, the police took him down guns drawn and the like and bundled him off. Unfortunately for this guy, he’d left his car running and unlocked… no doubt he’d never see that again. It still baffles me as to why he got mad… After that experience I didn’t go out in Rome again except to the local bar, where we became good friends with the bartender, Igor – he seemed to think I looked like the guy out of “Conair”, having never seen the movie I don’t know but others have made the comparison before. The first few days of Rome in a nutshell… off to Naples!

2006-08-13T17:24:00.001+10:00

Assholes...

... no I dont mean you faithful readers. Last night my car was broken into by a bunch of well, assholes. Thankfully nothing was stolen - as I dont keep anything of worth in the car. What baffles me is that, I drive a Camira, you gotta realise that a guy who drives a Camira doesnt own anything good worth stealing! These guys must be true boneheads.

Anyhow this morning I cleaned up the broken window, got rid of all the glass, and taped the puppy up. It at least gave me a chance to hoover the car a bit and give it a bit of a clean. Rather annoying though. I'll head down to CJ's Holden spares and pick up a new bit of glass and pop it in... good as new.

I'll keep this entry fairly short as I am about to go see a movie at Electric Shadows... I forget the name of it, but I'm told its good.

Next entry, some photos from Italy... stay tuned.

2005-12-30T14:06:00.000+11:00

Aesthetic Truth

As many of you would know I spend a lot of time consuming media, whether it be in the form of television, movies, music, radio or literature. Lately I’ve been listening to WebRadio via iTunes; largely due to the fact that I received an iPod for Xmas (thanks Mum & Dad). I’ve found a really good online radio station… Indie 103.1 which operates out of Los Angeles, and has many notable radio hosts including Dave Navarro (former lead guitarist of Janes Addiction), Rob Zombie (White Zombie) and the Suicide Girls just to name a few.

I was listening to Dave Navarro’s weekly show, while reading Bernard Tschumi’s latest book Event Cities 3 and on his show was a lady called Christina Dolce aka Forbidden. A little background on Christina, she is essentially a 26 year old blonde model/makeup artist from Orange County and loves Nine Inch Nails – so naturally I am in love with her. She is better known as Forbidden, which is her internet nickname on myspace.com. Essentially by loading up a profile of herself and various pictures on this website she has gained a bit of notoriety and scored a modeling manager etc. You can find her profile at www.myspace.com/forbidden

So she’s on the radio station answering some calls from people regarding her various projects and one guy rings in with what was for me the most interesting question of the night. Forbidden seems to have a certain type of guy she is attracted to, and it comes across quite clearly on her website. This guy asks “if a guy were to approach you and didn’t have the appearance of the type of guy you normally would be attracted to, would he still have any chance with you?” Naturally her response was something along the lines of “oh I’m cool with any type of guy”, the most diplomatic of responses.

At this point Dave Navarro chimes in and drops a pearl of wisdom… “It’s just an aesthetic dude, to attract like minded people, so once they arrive you can then really get to know the person; what’s below the surface. It’s the same thing that you see when you look at forbidden… you like what you see so you want to get to know her better.”

This is an interesting point in terms of my own understanding of self. How much role does the “aesthetic” play in terms of vibe? I’m not going to look to find answers; however, it would stand to reason that your self image would have an impact on ones vibe. Logical right?

If one is to give off the right vibe, their outward projection of themselves in their physical appearance must relate to the astral body (or true nature of self). What makes me wonder, however, is this an unconscious thing? Do we naturally appear how we understand our self at that time? Does “fashion” play a role in suppressing our astral body? More questions for investigation.

It’s quite fitting that this clarification of thought was stimulated by the words of a rockstar, as image is so important to the success of the rockstar. I guess my conclusion is that for one to give off the right vibe one must work to understand them self and then project the true aesthetic.

2005-12-29T13:17:00.000+11:00

Reflections

Lately I’ve found myself questioning my reality more and more… it sounds somewhat cryptic right, something that a theologian, philosopher or acid fiend would say (the three are not all that different in my experience). I’ve been experiencing lucid dreaming more and more lately – a lucid dream taking place during sleep but feels so real you can almost trick yourself into thinking that you’re awake – which I attribute to the fact that I have reached a point where I want to understand my sense of self.

It all started a number of weeks ago, when I was reading about chakras… at the time it was merely a joke; it however triggered a thought that perhaps there is some sort of truth to this “science.” Could it be that we in fact project a sense of self that is intangible, displaced from our physical being. We talk a lot about “vibes” referring to some sort of psychic phenomena where a feeling is generated by an objects existence (person, space, art anything) which we receive unconsciously. Artists deal a greatly in “vibes” I think, creating emotion through something that is inanimate, a sense of poetry of soul as Bachelard would describe derived from the shaping and treatment of a particular medium or material.

I wondered then, what vibe do I give out? I can’t simply go out and ask people… as the theory of relativity would state that while I may be seen doing the same thing by two different people they would interpret my actions in a different way thus feeling a different vibe. How then would I be able to find my vibe? I began to research Auras.

An Aura is essentially an energy field that surrounds living things and its colour a reflection of the unconscious state of being of that particular object. Thus if a vibe is an unconscious feeling we receive then the answers would lie in the understanding of what is unconsciously projected, reflecting in our aura.

As I write this particular entry, I’m thinking that perhaps this blog can become a diary of my investigations into understanding self. At this early stage, it would seem that there are some key points that require a great deal of exploration – that is auras, psychic energy, astral planes of existence, meditation, perception and reality. A reflection is but an echo… but how is the sound made…

To the non-heavy stuff… I’ve been busily trying to get myself ready for my trip to Italy. There is a hell of a lot of stuff I still need to do. I’ve got the important stuff though; heavy jacket, good shoes, thermals, beanie and gloves. Learning Italian isn’t really so hard, it’s a pretty logical language…you just have to understand the logic first I suppose… :)

2005-11-26T20:37:00.000+11:00

Rays of Light

A number of my friends have gone to backwater Victoria for Earthcore and being away from them (these are the guys I spend the vast majority of my time with), has given me some time to reflect and watch TV… Laguna Beach mostly… leading me to wonder what brings people together as friends, lovers and companions? Let’s be clear I’m talking about it in the purest form, the almost romantic notion of a relationship, not those ones built around business or subversive needs. Watching a bit of Laguna Beach made this thought pop into my head, you see Laguna Beach sort of obsesses about finding relationships, glorifying their existence, and the dynamic within these relationships creates the drama for the show. These kids’ relationships (while extremely naive and superficial) are truly consuming, at times joyful more often tragic and somewhat defining in terms of whom they are.

One could say that relationships have become a commodity (the vast amounts of money we pay to see celebrity weddings etc.)… do we only want them because we are told we need them? When I first started watching I thought this to be the case, that there was no reason for these kids to be together other than the fact that they believe they need to be with someone because it’s the done thing, and the superficiality of what brings these kids (its largely to do with looks and money)… sort of sickens you to some degree. But there is something more to it than that, once you put this all aside, which is what makes the show interesting. At the heart of it all they are together and feel some sort of bond, which is glorified in the old “we’re all going to college and this will be the last time we see each other” scene. The more I thought about it the more I began to see that this show wasn’t really about the money and the lifestyle these kids live (although it is branded as such), it was really about one of the most basic of human instincts, the fundamental need to be together, the search for friends and ultimately someone special.

I think there is something ethereal about a relationship that lies beyond the sense of the collective (as many philosophers have so bluntly put it), something deep rooted in our soul, uncontrollable, unexplainable. What makes an acquaintance a friend, and a friend into a good friend? Common interest, common experiences…? Is there such a thing as signs of relationships forming… fireworks… a common spark… something to tip us off… a ray of light?? Or are these the only way in which we can rationalize and try to explain something so intangible.

Perhaps it is a waste of time to analyze and question relationships, perhaps there is no such thing as signs, or even a sense of knowing… a relationship just is… it just happens… and its best left at that. Their mystery is what intrigues us and in turn leads to their joyfulness. Good relationships (friendships, family, and love) should be treasured and appreciated; I mean if we could explain their formation in a formulaic approach we could reproduce and sell them, which would inevitably lead to buyer remorse… now where is the fun in that?

2005-11-18T13:44:00.000+11:00

Prying open my Third-Eye

Yesterday Justine and I conversed randomly as we do, loosing some hot air on the earth and the idea of chakras became a point of conversation. A quick search on the internet revealed a site where after answering an online questionnaire (truthfully; not the Morgan trick the system way) one can see which of their chakras are open, inactive and overactive. I faired like this:

Root - Inactive
Sacral - Open
Navel - Open
Heart - Open
Throat - Overactive
Third Eye - Overactive
Crown - Open

Not bad I must say. My Root chakra isn’t open, and the site believes that this is the effects of which: If you tend to be fearful or nervous your Root chakra is probably under-active. You'd easily feel unwelcome.

Funnily, the effects of having an overactive Third Eye chakra are: If this chakra is overactive you may tend to live in a world of fantasy too much. In excessive cases halucinations are possible.

To that end I have begun to remedy the situation; and have taken up meditation using the indicated hand position (mudras) and chanting LAM… in my backyard on the lawn. I’m sure my neighbors think I’m thoroughly weird, but who cares, one has to make sacrifices in search of spiritual awareness right?

I must say though that there is a certain sense of power associated with chanting and meditation. Now I’m not a religious man in the traditional sense… I don’t count those years where I was forced to go to Chapel while I was at school (the side effects of going to a private school)… but I must say I feel somewhat better after that little session in my backyard.

A few years ago I attended a funeral for a good friend who had passed away; his family was Hindu and the mourners were asked to chant OM as part of the ceremony. There was a sense of something other-worldly about it, I don’t know if it was the reverberation or the fact that I was pretty grief stricken by the whole thing (coupled with the hangover I was sporting from the night before when drowning my sorrows)… but my eyes were opened as to the power of other religions and how the fundamental sense of Christianity has become commercialized, commoditized and somewhat lost. I’m sure that is the same with any religion, but there was something very intense about this simple act of a group chanting. Incidentally this may be because my third eye chakra is way too open and I was more receptive to the goings on…

For those of you who wish to find out where your own chakra problems may lie or alternatively, find out how damn good you are the test is located at http://www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/chakratest.php

2005-11-12T18:52:00.000+11:00

Know When To Hold Them, Know When to Fold Them, Know When to Walk Away

It is somewhat poetic that I choose to start my Blog with a quote from the Bhudda; in the context of last nights events it seems to fit perfectly.

One of the things they dont tell you when you start Architecture is all the life skills you learn that are subordinate to the prescribed academic syllabus. Spending 6 years at a University means that you spend alot of time consuming intoxicants in various forms and at various locations; which means you soon find the limits of your consumption capacity and thus can actively safeguard against making a complete fool of yourself. ...Increased fun via maximal consumption with minimal embarassment factor...

Friday night I went out to the ANU Bar (a lesser bar at a more prestigious University than the one I attend) with a few mates after work and encountered a kind of drinker that I usually tend to avoid. I'm talking about the second year arts student majoring in pol. sci. Now normally I wouldnt bother with this sort of individual, but I was feeling particularly hospitable and in need of a cheap laugh at someone elses expense so I decided to converse with this young man.

Now the thing about being a second year student is that generally they havent put in the serious bar time to that of the long time student like myself. What erks me about the pol. sci major is that it seems there is a critical level of intoxication with each one (usually two beers) where they decide that the bar is a forum for discussion about the injustices of the world and assume a stance on the nearest soap box in order to preach to "the masses" about how we are nothing but mindless drones in a societal superstructure and that it is his job to make us aware of our slavery to "the system". These two factors combined would lead to a particularly amusing few hours of action.

This particular fellow, true to form, assumed his position on the soap box and began to discuss the finer points of Derrida, Nietzche and the like - involving himself in some sort of verbal gymnastics. "The masses" (Kedar, Tas and myself) decided to engage in this discussion to essentially stir him up, where at the point of frustration he began to swear at us in various different languages (French and Vietnamese I picked out of his drivel). After a couple of hours of that, it became apparent that he had drunk twice the normal second year pol. sci. limit (4 beers) and was slipping off his soap box in a rather grand way; while his sister, who was actually involved in somewhat intelligent conversation with Tas, became quite worried. Now this guy didnt know when to stop, and insisted on buying more drinks - far be it for us to disagree with him buying us more beer - and when it came time for me to leave I offered he and his sister a lift home.

After much convincing and him stumbling and falling over a few times, his sister, Kedar and myself managed to get him into the back the 87 Camira stationwagon, where he promptly passed out. The 20 min drive home was amusing, his sister and I had a polite chat and every so often were interrupted by him saying ..."blub,blub,blub"...

On arrival at their house, I opened the back door for him and he promptly face planted on the concrete driveway. Picking him up, I managed to drag him to the front door of his home. Again he slumped to the ground and began to murmur something, which sounded like jibberish, so I assumed he was swearing at me in some foreign language again. This time however, he looked desperate to communicate with me, I leaned closer and found that he was actually trying to say "I need to vomit here" which he did no sooner than the words passed his lips. At that point his sister decided that it was ok for me to leave and I made a swift departure. Now had this fellow followed the teachings of the Bhudda, he would have known how much he could hold; known when to fold and stop consuming; and known when to walk away instead of stumbling, vomitting and passing out.

...Bhuddists in their natural habitat...

Pictured above is an example of 4 extremely seedy people on the second day of Stonefest who even though they are looking a little worse for wear, know and actively practice these principles - despite the night before walking away for two and half hours on the assurance that .."its only 15 mins walk from Bruce to Turner"...