30 December 2008

Closer

As their laughs faded into the stillness of the night silence filled the void left behind. The two teenagers lay side by side on the oval - the smell of freshly mown grass lingering. At first the silence was merely a break in their conversation, a full stop after a particularly complex sentence. The dark clouds drifted overhead as the silence became ever more prolonged, an ellipsis after a sentence - the three dots leading into the unknown.

The boy and girl embraced the silence, happy enough to lie together in their own thoughts, contented knowing that they were in each others. Headlights swept over the oval as a car drove past in the distance - the two friends exchanged a smile, amused by the bizarre situation that they had found themselves in. The gaze held - a thoughtful moment as each tried to glean what the other was thinking. Another smile later their eyes were once more focused skyward on the clouds that hid the elusive stars - a softly spoken parallel between the thinly veiled feelings of the two young people.

This was not the first time the two had found themselves drawn together in such a situation - both were comfortable enough with each other to know exactly where things like this could end up. The night drew ever more still as frigid hands crept closer, their fingers meeting softly, before pulling each other in. With their hands together they broke the silence, and the gentle back and forth resumed - dotted with laughter and flirtatious grins.

They were sharing warmth - so absorbed in each other that they did not notice the devious explorations from the fingers of cold. The two young friends grew evermore daring with their flirtations as minutes grew into hours. Their interlocked fingers played silent games. Still talking their faces reached toward each.

Closer...

Closer...

Closer.


Their lips met, but whispered thoughts still leapt between the two until finally they gave into the pull of mutual affection, losing themselves in the moment of contact. The clouds drifted overhead - and the once illusive stars peaked through...gazing down on the two close friends embracing each other.

24 December 2008

Too far gone.

Lisa Mitchell (Too Far Gone) - "I wonder if you dig me too."

_______________________

Now that is just one of those expressions that I have never really understood:

"I dig those new shoes"
WHAT?

You would like to get a shovel out and "dig" them?

They look like dirt?

Those shoes make me want to dig a hole for them, so that I can bury them and never see them again?

***

And then you apply it to an actual person:

"I dig you."
"You...you what? You want to dig me? What does that even mean...which orifice are you digging? What are you digging with? ...I don't think I like you anymore..."


Thus I conclude.

Dig is an ugly and unhelpful word if you are attempting to inform someone that you feel positively about something or someone.


***


Diglet, however, was always one of my favourite Pokemon.





It was because I could actually draw it.

23 December 2008

But on the same token you can re-tell a cake.

So, over the past couple of years I've done a fairly extensive range of writing - from essays, to short stories, to editorials, to these blogs that you may or may not read.

Many times I have received feedback, and many times I have been asked whether what I write about has happened to me, as its written.

I pondered this question in the shower today - as I ponder a great many questions.

And came to this conclusion.

To make a cake, one does not need a cake - merely the ingredients put together in a certain way.

That is all. Yes. That's right.

So now you are all thinking "What the hell Chris, what is with these short entires all of a sudden, normally you write epic blogs?"

And to that I merely say: "I've got one baking in the oven."

13 December 2008

Only now I realise why white lies are thusly named.

White is emptiness - without character.

White is the symbol of peace - an empty gesture in a world of violence.

White is blank paper - waiting to be filled with meaning from ink or reshaping.

White is the light from LED torches - efficient, without warmth.

White is purity - an unattainable desire of humanity.

White is snow - cold and harsh.

White is sterility - clean and hygenic, safe.

White is incomprehensible noise -annoying and meaningless.

White is aging - a graceless fall from boundless youth.

White is the glitter of stars - the reminder of our unimportance.













White is lies.


"I'm the snow on your lips - the freezing taste, the silvery sip"
-Feel for You

28 October 2008

Point of contact.

Now here's the thing. I'm a sucker for attention. Always have been. I remember back in the day when we were getting the extension done, Dad did a lot of filming (you know, the days when no one had heard of digital video cameras, and people could actually afford to buy a slightly decent video camera without having to mortgage the house and sell your first-born to afford one? Yeah.) and I would always jump into the picture. Upon this jumping I would immediately claim that the star of the movie was present, and would inform the eventual viewer of the film that said viewing was about to become a lot less tedious. As it would happen it became a lot more tedious - as I later discovered...but hey, that's what being young is all about...right?

Or something.

Now, having proved that I have always been a sucker for attention, and that it is not just a recent development, I come to today's topic.

Being the said sucker that I am, I tend to listen to the people around me. I also happen to take great joy when people say that they read my blog...even when I haven't spammed said person with links. So, when we combine these two things, we get somebody who I respect and will probably listen to if said person suggests something to blog about.

Now this girl, going by the name of Rachel, (I would link to her blog here...but I'm pretty sure she doesn't have one...) suggested many a month ago on the humanities Sydney trip that I blog about people out bus windows.

Good idea, Chris thinks to himself, mulling over the possibilities of how to tackle something like that.

I then got distracted (for a good three months) by the memory of the hilarious workman in his van who got particularly distracted by Rachel flirting with him from the bus window, and Chris (that isn't me talking about myself in third person...for once...) banging on the window rather loudly and causing this poor workman great confusion, as he examined his van for the source of the bang.

But I decided that I would eventually pick up the topic again, albeit in a way that might not have been how Rachel imagined it. But she can deal with that.

Now, having waffled on once again, I bring you today's blog. A blog about bus windows!


***

It was a cold night in the depot. A bitter wind screamed through a slight gap in the gigantic metal doors that was supposed to seal the buses in at night. The young window cowered at the sound, afraid that if the wind got any strong it might rip off the door, exposing the window to the rage of the weather. The window's imagination went wild - it could not help it, for the bedtime stories of the older windows were still fresh in its memories. Limbs blown from trees scratching the sparkling surface of once flawless glass, corrugated iron sheets shattering their way through the soul of fortified windows, and the worst of all - the pressure of the winds outside causing all the windows on a bus to shatter as it tried to remain in equilibrium with the inside of the bus. Yes. It was safe for the inexperienced window to say he was scared of the wind.

The night wore on.

Daybreak broke over the distant blue mountains - the window could see the golden rays gleefully spreading light over the world. The young window had not slept much that evening - which didn't particularly matter...being a window and all - because the wind had kept him awake. Conveniently enough, however, the wind died down just before dawn, and the window looked forward to the day ahead of him, knowing that he did not have to endure the wind just yet. The window was new to the job, having just been installed a few weeks ago. In fact, the entire bus was only a few weeks old, and they were all keen to go on their first big adventure together. Yes, today they left with a bunch of pretentious and wanky, arty-farty students - as the older windows in the depot jokingly called them - to go to Sydney. It was a three hour trip, and the window eagerly anticipated watching and listening to the people who chose to sit next to it.

The bus was on the highway, and the window was excited as the slip steam roared past. The students were inside, not bothered by the rush of air next to them - the window proudly performed its duty to keep the air out, but the light and view in. It was fascinated by the conversations of the students - they talked about everything. They bitched and complained, praised and laughed, sang and cheered, watched and listened. The window was enjoying itself immensely, and couldn't wait to see what Sydney - the city that so many of the other windows excitedly whispered about - was really like.

Sydney is amazing, the bus thought to itself, taking in the sleek arches of the bridge reflected in the glittering blue water, and the billowing sails of the opera house. There were millions of windows - everywhere it looked, it saw its brethren. The noise from them was astounding - some moaned about how the recent rain had streaked its coat, others giggled as drivers squirted water over them, and others still sat in earnest philosophical debate about functionality - stained verses bullet proof glass. The students were equally as dazzled, there were thousands of their brethren littering the streets, making an awful cacophony of noise that the window found incredibly distracting. It was glad that it was doing its job to protect the students - he didn't want them getting headaches - as humans are prone to do - and not enjoying themselves.

It was a three day trip - and as the day headed toward the second evening, the window began to realise that it was nearly time for the its adventure to be over. So too did the students, and they began to get sillier, and much more entertaining for the window. The window laughed as the students took crazy photos of each other. It gazed longingly as they became flirtatious with each other, constantly pushing the boundaries of connection. The window then became startled as the students turned to it. They waved cheerfully through the protective glass, seeing right through the intrigued window.

Fascinated, the window studied the reactions of the people on the street. Mostly they ignored the students, preferring to adopt a facade of busy disinterest as their eyes glazed over after an initial focus. Others let a small smile of nostalgia invade their faces, a reminder of times past. Many walked in bubbles of self-sufficiency, ignoring the crowded street that surrounded them, withdrawing into busy thought. The window's favourite, however, were those that responded with genuine pleasure. In the slowly sinking sunlight, their faces would light up when confronted by the students' contagious sense of fun. They drew to their full height, proudly wearing a smile, returning their waves in generous proportions. These moments always surprised the happy students, who would immediately double their efforts to please the anonymous person on the street. Then there would be an awkward moment, as the person on the street realised they were receiving odd looks from the people around them. The students would continue waving, though their original energy had left them. Then with a hiss of air, the bus would take off its brakes, and slip through the green light. But as the students pulled away, they put in a final effort, leaving the person on the street to watch the youths disappeared down the road.

The window would always look back and see the person on the street cross the road, a smile playing on their lips.

It was then that the young window realised that it did not serve just to provide protection from the elements to those inside the bus - a physical window. The memories of the waving encounters filled its memory.

No, it thought, it was more than that. It was a metaphorical window - a window to human reactions, exposing emotions and feelings, personalities and prejudices.

A point of contact between strangers that would never meet again.


“The person whose problems are all behind them is probably a school bus driver”

-Anonymous

23 September 2008

Yeah...what was the point to that Chris?

You know how people do those things on the internet, where people write a list of their friends and then proceed to inform all the poor souls who read said list why they love their friends so very much?

These lists generally bore me, because, well, they are boring. These people who are supposedly best friends can't seem to think of anything interesting about each other to inform the world about.

Example (quoted from a facebook group that shall go unnamed):

i love her because she is the love of my life. shes my best friend and my cousin. we know everything about each other and we have talked about everything in the world. she is everything to me and i would take 129837 bullets for her. she's the greatest person i know.
I love her because she is the love of my life

Well. I guess that is correct enough...

But it doesn't tell one much, does it?

Greatest person I know

Again, the sentiment, but why? Why is she the greatest?

Now. Perchance you all think I am nit picking here. And hell, I think I am nit picking.

Just to be clear, I am not critising the person who wrote this, and I do have a point. I think its great that she is letting the world know how much she loves her friends. And I'm sure her friends appreciate being told that too. I know I would appreciate being told how great I am every so often. (Please refrain from doing that, btw. My ego is already large enough).

No. My point is very simplistic.

STOP WRITING BORING TRASH ON THE PARTS OF THE INTERNET THAT EVERYONE CAN SEE.

Hypocritical? Probably. Deal with it.

But if one is going to inform the world why they think their friends are so great, do it in a way that arouses interest. You do justice to your ability to understand yourself, and you do justice to the people who surround you, and you do justice to your audience.

And the ACTUAL point for me writing this? Well, I just wanted to see if I could actually write something substantial and interesting about why I think my friends are great.

*******

Morgan.

I have known Morgan since year seven. He happens to be one of the first actual friends I made at high school. And he got me into the nerd group (achievement much?).

Morgan had a square head, rosy cheeks, and flat feet. Now he has long sexy hair, and a voice that makes people wonder how his pants contain his testicles.

If I had to sum him up in one word, I would say loyal, though its up there with trustworthy. I'm not entirely sure I have come across a more loyal person. He is one of those people who keeps his closest friends close, and distances himself from the rest. I can't see him stabbing me in the back. If he were going to stab me, it would be right out there in the open, for everyone to see. And I would most definitely have deserved it.

Adam.

Adam is very simple. This makes him a great friend. There is no crap with Adam. He tells it like it is. If you went to Adam with a problem, he would laugh at you. He also is incredibly hilarious. More so when he is angry.

Adam is my misanthropic comic relief.

*******

I would keep going.

But I am not too proud to admit that I think I have failed. Feel free to inform me otherwise, but I think if you ask yourself honestly you will find that nothing there was particularly interesting for you. Unless you are Adam or Morgan.

Apparently it is a lot harder to write something interesting and substantial about one's friends than I thought.

See, I think the main problem here is that if you don't know the people, none of it really means anything to you. Thus the audience will not be engaged with anything that you are writing.

Thus I have a new point.

Tell your friends personally, whether through email, text, msn, phone, or face to face, why they are so great. They will appreciate you for it, I assure you.

The world is never as interested in you as you want it to be.

16 September 2008

Faces in a crowd

People fascinate me. Which I suppose is a good thing, considering I don't have much choice but to interact with them.

Now that, my friends, is a rather boring introduction...I once wrote an entire "seminar" on introductions, and how to make them work.

Turns out the "seminar" either sucked, or I just failed to listen to myself.

And judging by the huge amount that I love myself, I doubt it was the latter.

But this tangent is also boring.

Or is it?

Did you see what I did there. I started saying something, and the first three lines grabbed you, and asked "yeah, what's your point?" and you are all still hanging on my every word until I get to said point.

Now that I have mentioned the first three words again, you are all thinking, "so he hasn't forgotten, so really...what IS his point".

My point thus far? Well, its that I actually did listen to myself in that "seminar" and I have now drawn you into this entry like a juicy steak on a free buffet.

Yes. I just analogised (go figure! that's actually a word!) myself with juicy steak.

But yes, people fascinate me. (*sigh* oh here he goes)...

***

When I am feeling particularly melancholic (for that word is the flavour of the month), I start thinking about people, networks, the whole six degrees of separation thing. Actually I don't, because that theory is far too organised for my mind.

No, I tend to think about it on a more personal level.

Lets pick something mundane, something that you do everyday, when you meet someone you have never met before.

The shops.

Did you know the name of the last person who served you? What colour was their hair? What did they look like? Did you speak to them? Did they speak to you?

I know that the last time I was at a shop was the petrol station. A friendly old bloke served me, but I didnt speak to him, except to say "pump one" and "have a good evening". I don't know his name. I don't know anything about him. Except that he works in a place that charges me lots of money for dinosaur remains.

What about at school? You get to school, and you see a group of your friends. Automatically you know their name, you speak to them and they speak to you. And you know them well enough to even notice that they are wearing their hair differently, or its a different colour.

That nameless old bloke who served me has a network exactly like that. He has people that would come in and be like "Oh g'day Frank! What a surprise to see you. Are you dealing with it all okay, mate?".

Frank, as he has now been dubbed, has an entire network of people who know him, and know the details about his life. Maybe Frank's wife of 25 years just died, maybe his dog is in surgery, maybe he is working to pay off a gambling debt.

Who knows.

But it makes you think.

Well, it makes me think anyway.

You walk down the street, and every person that you see out in their gardens, driving their cars, tiling their roofs. All those children playing on the streets, the lone teen walking headdown with earphones jammed in, the elderly couple relaxing on their front verandah taking stock of the world around them.

Each one of those people is unique. They know where the weeds grow in the garden, they know the story behind the ripped car seat cover, they know what caused the tiles to break. The kids know the intricate details about the game they are playing, the lone teen knows the source of his sadness, and the elderly couple have decades of history they know about each other.

Each one of these individuals, people you have never met, people you may never see again in your lives, have a network. A mindbogglingly complex network. These people all have their own problems, their own personal adversity. They have an intricate knowledge of their history - the people that have shaped them, the people that mean the most to them, the events that stick clearly in their minds.

Just think about that the next time you go through a checkout.

And thats just for one person.

Apply that to your family. Your brother. Your sister. Your cat's crazy social life.

Apply it to the people in your street. The hundreds of screamy little kids next door. The couple who live a few houses up that are forever looking for their dog (stupid yappy little thing...).

Apply it to the people in your suburb. That overly friendly political candidate vying for community support at the local shops.

Apply it to your region.

Your city.

Your state.

Australia.

Bangladesh.

The Middle East.

The world.

Earth eh?

Its a pretty big place. For such a tiny spec in the universe.

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

-Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

27 July 2008

Dihydrogen monoxide...

Everyday I wake up and stumble my way in the cold darkness that fills a winter morning. My first objective is to become warm and so I make my way to the panel that controls the central heating. I then stumble my way to the water-closet and urinate. Upon completion of the necessary human task, I sanitise my hands and return to my primary objective. Turning in the small room that the sanitisation of hands takes place, I notice in a small brown rectangular prism in the corner. The interior is tiled and hollow, and the exterior is frosted and in a 70's shade of brown. It's just big enough to fit perhaps two people. Though granted I have only ever seen one person in it at a time.

Abandoning my shivering physical form, curiosity takes hold. I carefully open a door leading into the tiled chamber, taking in the grey hose, the colourful plastic bottles, and the perfumed odour of the air. Placed one above the other were two knobs, one with a blue sticker, one with red. Very similar to those found on the sanitation sink. Curious I twisted the red-stickered knob. A gush of freezing water raced out of a tap-like device connected to the aforementioned hose. It splashed onto the base of the prism, rebounding off the tiled floor and haphazardly wetting me. I was freezing, and began to reach for the knob to turn it off. But suddenly the water became warmer, as if by magic. I began to enjoy the gentle caress of the warmed particles on my skin. Then, just as suddenly as it became warm, the water became deadly hot. Reacting by instinct I twist the other knob, and the amount of water gushing out the tap like device increased violently. I was soaked, but the water had now become pleasantly warm.

I was overcome, at this point, by a feeling. It was a strange feeling that I don't often have - but the warmth of the water was so inviting. I wanted to strip off my pyjamas, and throw myself into the vicious flow of water coming from the tap. So I did. Naked, I flung myself through the gap in the sliding frosted side of the prism, ever so desperate for the pounding embrace of the warm water on my now goose-pimpled skin. I slid the frosted glass closed.

Steam rose from the cascade of water, thickening the air with its warm vapour. I became completely relaxed and comfortable in the noisy pelting of water - it was like a cleansing dance in tropical rain. My mind began to wander from the brown-lit cubical and into the vast expanses of the fields in my mind. They traveled from my latest work in biology, to the cute girl in maths, to the current affairs of the world. Decisions were made, solutions were found and problems seemed lesser as I lathered myself with the exotic aromas from the colourful bottles. Nothing was too sacred to think about in the secluded confines of the watery box.

As I floated through the depths of my mind the water began to age my skin. A series of wrinkles, which I poetically began to examine on my hand. A landscape of ridges....a pock-marked plain...a frenzied....


"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? YOU HAVE BEEN IN THERE FOREVER! WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?!"

The spell was shattered by the harsh tones of my mother's raised voice. Thoughts gushed out of my ears like water that was flowing around me. Just like that I was merely standing beneath an outlet of warm dihydrogen monoxide molecules, in the confines of an ugly brown room, staring at bottles of chemicals and the deflated suds of once proud shampoo. I twisted off the taps, the pleasant rattling of water on water replaced by the lonely drip of the metal drain.

Christopher.

"
Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea."
Nolan Bushnell

12 July 2008

Growing old(er)

I like writing. Many, if not all of you, will know this. Writing is, perhaps, my favourite past time, though of late it has seemed almost chore-ish. I put this down to being in a writing class at school, and being expected to meet many creative deadlines to produce a final portfolio for assessment. This is both a stimulating and stifling environment, one that I both thrive and drown in. This, however, is not what I wish to bore you all with this evening. What I wish to bore you with is one of the pieces that I completed for the previously mentioned final portfolio.

The piece in question is one that I am particularly proud of - even though I forgot that I wrote it and re-discovered it on my hard-drive a couple of weeks before the submission was due.

Now, I'm not going to post the whole thing (though it is available upon request), but the piece follows an old man exploring parallels between a human's aging and a footpath's aging. It concludes with the following lines:

New life through the gaps of broken memories – the details he was missing. The details that seem so insignificant with time, but so significant with youth.
The final sentence is what I will be focusing on.

Speaking as a teenager - I think many teenagers dramatise their lives (relative to adults). And I think this is perfectly acceptable. I'm young, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Though I have been around for eighteen years these days, there is still so much for me to discover - other cultures, natural wonders, Australian adult life, human interactions...

Everything is exciting. Everything is new. Everything is significant.

The girl that gave you a smile on the bus.
The boy that hugged you for just that second longer.
The whisper of breeze on a silent summer night.
The claustrophobia of a heavy fog.
The rhythmic tick of a cooling engine after your first road trip.
The sense of anticipation during a plane's safety announcement.
The details that seem so significant with youth.

I think as one experiences these things more and more often as they grown older, they begin to attach much less meaning to them.

She was just being friendly.
He was just being comforting.
I really want to be in bed.
Damn. This is going to make me late for work.
Finally, I can stretch my legs.
God, I'm so sick of this, can't we just get there already.
The details that seem so insignificant with time.

I'm afraid I must admit that many experiences which once meant so much to me, I have begun to just take for granted, I'm not going to be specific (I'm sure many of you can think of some). In some ways, I think this is a good thing. I don't stress every little thing. I am beginning to appreciate the differences between taking something at face value, and analysing beneath the surface - and when to apply each of these measures to ensure the best outcome.

But on the same token, I also think its a bad thing. Life is much less exciting if you think you already know everything. The latter of the examples were bland, hurried, and careless. The former of the examples were anticipatory, romantic, and genuine.

I know which I prefer.

In my humble internet blogging opinion - a lone voice in a sea of opinionated writers - there is a mindset that should be achieved in regards to my current rambling. Life is not all romantic and genuine - the human condition doesn't allow for that, and I accept that. But if life isn't romantic and genuine in some senses - it becomes bland, monotonous, and careless.

Accept those moments that seem romantic and genuine at face value.

Those moments that don't seem entirely genuine or romantic have the potential to be. See past the face value, analyse beneath the surface, and discover a hidden story.

One can always take for granted the footpath that runs along their nature strip - that harms no one.

But that path has a story, just below the surface, just as each and everyone one of us has a past just below the surface.


Christopher.

"Starting today - I'm not gonna worry about tomorrow..."
Starting Today - Natalie Imbruglia

15 June 2008

To be or not to be?

I recently attended a school drama performance. While waiting for the play to begin, attendees were put into a holding room to wait. This room, generally serving as the drama class-room, featured a rather enjoyable noticeboard on one of the walls. There was a quote on said board that caught my attention, I can't for the life of me remember who said it, or any of the exact wording, but it bought about the question: How do actors act when they aren't acting?

This question intrigued me, as many intriguing questions do, and has been something mulling around in my head ever since.

Having spent time in a drama class, and having known many people who have continued with "drama", there are a few personality traits that seem to stem from these types of people. Most are very humanities oriented, choosing to focus on the grey areas instead of the black and white in the science/maths departments. Most have incredible amounts of energy and, at times, can be hard to keep up with. Many of them are thinkers and observers, as well. They generally have a higher grasp on how other people act with each other. Almost all are very confident and comfortable with themselves. This is a generalisation, but it seems to be how "actors" act off stage. They obviously act as "themselves". But who are they?

Actors, when preparing for a role, have to put vast amounts of thought in to many different aspects of a character. Physical aspects, such as their walk, their mannerisms and the way they talk have to be construed, constructed, and practiced to the point where the actor can throw away their personality in exchange for a new one. They have to file away their personality so as to let the character come alive and be believed. Actors must know the stories, the past of their characters. The characters dreams, quirks and interests all have to be explored.

The role of an actor is to essentially abandon who they are so as to become someone else.

How do actors actually create these characters though? They have to be based upon something. Writers must draw upon their own knowledge bank and personality to be able to write about something that is completely different. So too, must actors. To convey sadness to the audience the actor must know what sadness is like and how it feels. So if actors constantly abandon "who they are" for completely different characters and base many of their characters on their own experiences it begs a different set of questions...

Who are actors?
Are all their characters a mixture of their actor's experience, or are actors merely a mixture of all the different characters they have played?

It could almost be seen in either of those two ways.

I think in a lot of ways it is harder for actors to determine who they actually are, which seems to run contrary to the personality traits they display. Many of the better "actors" that I know have very distinct character traits that stand out and can easily be described. Which raises another question. Are those who are good at acting naturally outgoing and unique? Or do they exaggerate their character traits as perhaps a (conscious or subconscious) reflection of the difficulty they may have in knowing who they are?

So I didn't really go anywhere on this, but hopefully it gave you some food for thought. I am interested to hear people's thoughts on this subject.


"Robert Cohen says, 'all people, and all characters in plays, think about their situation more than about their own personality or character.' This is almost always true about people, and is certainly the way actors should think during a performance. But actors, off the stage, must think about their own personality and character. If you do not know who you are, if your instrument is not limber and under your control for the most part, you will never be a great actor. Master actors cultivate effortless and automatic control of their instruments"
-Anonymous

04 June 2008

Broken footprints

This was a short piece that I wrote last year - I feel it goes well with my previous entry.

Beams of light splayed upon the dusty grass. Air, cold embrace upon naked skin, although warming under the mid-morning sun. The footpath was dull with age, swollen black joinery between slabs, straggly weeds in the cracks. Absent minded avoidance, “Step on a crack, break your back”. Sad chords, weathering a river toward the canals of the ear, the sad lyrics: a boat on the river. She walked in time. Rough, red, brick buildings ahead, their off white colour bond roofs bright in the sunlight, background of blue sky. The buildings of a school, soaked in past lives and crossed paths, silently resting in the peace of the weekend. Absent curiosity, longing to relive memories. Stood at the main entrance, remembered the photo taken for the newsletter, stared up at the high black fence. A new addition, the catalyst for unseen changes.

She continued her walk, her hand gently running along the fence, a deep, satisfying sound of hollow metal. Stopped on occasions, her eyes darting along the ground, remembering the footsteps she once laid there, thoughtful. Made it to the oval, once a smooth green carpet, now a beaten and worn rug. A slow walk into the middle, one hand in the back pocket of her jeans, the other brushing fringe into the crook of her ear. Casual. Thought of the sport she used to play there, games with peers, and then thought about the many hundreds who placed their mark exactly where she stood. The memories of the earth. Remembered her junior years, playing in the dirt at the base of the giant eucalypts - saw they weren’t really that giant. The perspective of maturity. Saw a small footprint in the dust, huddling under the protection of roots. Brushed it away, began its journey to all the other broken footprints.

Christopher.

"I learned just enough in school to figure out that everything is not all there is to know"
-Anonymous

Memories of the Earth

I was on my way to school the other day, as I often am. Normally I just take my surroundings for granted, but this particular morning was slightly different.

I was in a bad mood, which isn't as uncommon as some of you might think. I was ignoring my brother and father in the front seat and had my headphones jammed in. Yup. I'm a polite young teenager, no doubt about it.

So, we were driving along, and I was rather fascinated by the dips and curves of the landscape. There was a particular part that drew my attention, and started this train of thought. We were traveling on a road was going up a slight incline, and one one side it fell away steeply. All around this decline, the landscape also declined, so it formed a kind of dip. If you were standing at the bottom of said dip you would be surrounded by inclines. It made me think of those flood way signs, warning people of a tendency to flooding, and how that place would probably be one, and were it to rain really heavily it would fill up with water. This made me start to think of what the landscape would look like if you took away all the houses, everywhere.

How would the landscape have looked to the first fleet or rather the first explorers of the region. Would it have been covered in Eucalypt forests, with kangaroos lying in the shade? When the road was built, how much dirt was removed? How much was the landscape changed?

Which leads me to think about how interesting it would be if the Earth could talk. Think about the block of land that you reside on. The stories it could tell. Did a dinosaur ever step foot into where your room is? Was your kitchen ever hit by a meteor? Did people once roam the patch of dirt you now call your own? Did they live and die there? How much life has it seen? How much death has it seen?

Christopher.

"Embroidery of the stars
Undress my feelings for this earth
Send me your salva to heal my scars
And let this nakedness me my birth"
Astral Romance - Nightwish

21 May 2008

Waxy writings..

Ear wax, as many of you will no doubt be familiar with, is yellow. It also doesn't taste very nice.

I'm sure there is a perfectly logical scientific explanation for its existence, something to do with immune system or something. I sit here today, shivering, beating off a mild bacterial infection in one of my ears. And my eye. And my throat. And possibly my chest. Anyway, I am sitting here, and my ear is really itchy, and upon inserting a finger to do some scratching, a slight coating of this wonderful substance comes out too *runs to wash hands*. Oh come on, as if you have never done that.

It makes me wonder...not just because I love biology...but also because I love English. Ear wax could be such a wonderful image to play with in writing or speech. So me, being the science, English, and procrastination student that I am, decided to learn more about it.

Yes, so ear wax acts as a cleaning agent for the ear, as well as protection from some bacteria, insects and fungi. A build up of ear wax can reduce hearing ability. The wax cleans the ear, picking up foreign particles that may have entered. Dust, dirt, bacteria etc. It then makes its way out of the ear through the movement of ones jaw. Neat.

Which brings me around to the English side of things. Ear wax could be used as wonderful figure of speech to represent someone not listening, not hearing, not caring.

I told her everything - the way my parents were always yelling, the way I wished I was noticed by my teachers, the way that I felt about her - and now she comes back with this. My thoughts, my feelings meant nothing to her. They were scum, something she had to rid herself of. I was a constant annoying hum, my thoughts left dirt in her ears, trapped by moist orange wax, forming a plug that deafened her to my trust.
Okay, so admittedly it needs a little work and a lot less whining. But you get the idea.

Which I guess brings me to a piece of advice that you may or may not wish to think about when writing. Some of the best metaphor and simile can come from the strangest places. Think about everything as something that can be used to mean something else.

Thoughts wandered through her mind, leisurely, ponderous, like the yellow blobs drifting about the retro lamp next to her."
________

She spoke quickly, a blabbering stream of noise. A scrawl on paper - understood only by its writer.
________

It was as if he was wearing a screen protector, nothing I said could scratch him. And I'll be damned if he wasn't easy on the eyes.

Just little objects taken from my desk - the lava lamp, the screen protector that used to be on my phone, the untidy note that I left myself. They can paint a vivid image, and add depth to many pieces of writing - without being overly wordy.

Try it - you might be pleasantly surprised.


Christopher.

"Language is memory and metaphor"
Storm Jameson (English writer)

06 May 2008

Learning be fun!

Today I learnt something.

Actually, just by typing that sentence I learned something. See, I got a red squiggly line underneath learnt, and I'm like "Double yew tee eff??". So, I Googled it, and low and behold, Firefox, being the wonder-browser that it is (okay, so it was the Google tool bar that suggested it), suggested that I search for learnt or learned. It turns out that both are correct. But one is wrong.

Learned = American English = fail.

Learnt = English English = Australia English = win.

There you go.

Now then. As I was saying. Today I learnt something, and that is that my the crumpet setting button on my toaster is, in fact, only suitable for crumpets.

My toaster is a high-tech new-age wizz-bang-pop kinda toaster, only without any of the wizzes, bangs and pops. Now you might be thinking: 'But Chris! All toasters pop!'.


WRONG.

My toaster beeps, then proceeds to raise the bread out of the toaster and have it ready for you. Its kinda like having an electric garage. It even makes the same sound as an electric garage. And add a truck reversing into the electric garage, and you get both the sound of the beeps, and the sound of the toast rising. The toaster beeping is possibly one of the most disconcerting noises first thing in the morning while you are still half asleep. You hear the toaster beep kindly at you to tell you its done and all you can think of is "DEAR GOD A TRUCK IS REVERSING INTO MY KITCHEN!" and you promptly run out of the room screaming.

So as one would expect from a high-tech new-age toaster it has a crumpet setting. Now all of you that eat crumpets know that
your toaster never does them perfectly and always burns the bottom part and leaves the top part un-cooked.

Actually, you know what, I have never had a toaster that has done that. The wonderful people at Breville, however, clearly have. So they have designed this feature that cooks one side more than the other, thus you have the perfect crumpet.

Now, I enjoy a slice of bread with ham and cheese on top shoved under the griller. I toast one side generally (under the griller), flip it, then don't bother toasting the other side, but use it as the side I put the ham and cheese on. This, however, is tedious, so of late I have been toasting the bread with the toaster and just melting the cheese with the griller. This is easier, but just doesn't have the right texture, but then I had a thought!

"I could use this useless crumpet feature to toast one side, but leave the other a little less toasted!"

So I did.

Turns out that it turns one side of the toaster UP in heat, and the other side down.

One smoke alarm later I retrieved the toast from the toaster, cursing the wonderful people at Breville, but also wondering at their ingenuity. Never in my life did I consider that I would own a toaster that could completely crisp one side of my bread, but leave the other relatively untouched.


Christopher.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY....MY ANUS IS BLEEDING!"
-The Cloud from Rejected Cartoons

04 May 2008

Highly specific vibrations.

Last night I was listening to music. Which isn't an entirely blog-worthy statement, as I generally listen to music every night. But last night got me thinking about stories and memories attached to certain songs.

Music is a wonderful thing. Scientifically its almost ugly, a series of air vibrations that vary due to rate of vibration. A collection of these highly specific vibrations form the chromatic scale that we all recognise. Romantically, however, music is beautiful. Flowing melodies, talented singing, orchestral wonders and, for those amongst you who enjoy everyday language, bitchin' guitar solos, slamming drum fills, and wicked violin runs.

Music has this ability to bring memories forth from the depths of ones mind and let them be mulled over every time one hears the piece.

The following list is a few of my favourite songs, each with its only little story. Just a little bit of an insight as to what is, perhaps, going through my head when I hear some songs.


This song was sent to me over MSN by a good friend of mine. She is pretty in touch with the kind of music that I like.

By nature I don't like being told what to listen to, so it took me a while to really listen to it. The first time that I listened to the lyrics was on a holiday down in Geelong last year. I was walking along the new boardwalk part of the foreshore walk, trying to find fish in the water below me. I really took to the song after that - and it always reminds me of the girl who sent it to me, and that Geelong holiday.


Nemo was the very first song by Nightwish that I heard. I was at Morgan's place with him, Greg, and Adam in what would become the very first LANdom. I was sitting in front of his big TV, playing Perfect Dark Zero when Adam started playing some Nightwish. Before this point in my life my musical taste consisted of teeny-bopper-pop, and only teeny-bopper-pop. When Nemo started Adam somehow managed to, over a period of a couple of months, shift my favourite artist from Hilary Duff to Nightwish, and my music taste from bubblegum-pop to symphonic metal. Fair effort.

Nemo is the most played song in my media player library. I have lots of memories attached to it - from the story detailed above, to driving to school singing it, to sitting in the Enmore theater with goosebumps as Tuomas played the first few notes...


This is a Germany song. It's the Terri and Chris song. Every memory and story attached to Accidentally in Love includes Terri in some manner. Whether it be wondering what she is up to as I blast it in the car, or "dancing" with her at her recent 18th, or remembering the fun we had in Germany, or at music camp, or when we first became friends by letting her put make-up on me during Entertainment Night rehearsal in year eight.

I also remember the time on a train in Germany when I lip synced to it using my MP3 player as a microphone. How could I not remember. There is a video of it floating around somewhere.


This one is simple. Daniel made me two CDs full of all the Hilary Duff songs her downloaded. This was the first song that I listened to on them. I was lying in bed, with my CD player on quietly next to me. Everytime I hear this song it reminds me of that moment, and Daniel.



BBB is the second song on Nightwish's new album. I didn't use to like it much - it felt a little too heavy for me. But I remember one of the many three way conversations that Adam, Morgan and I have, when Morgan informed the gathering that BBB was, in fact, awesome. So I listened again, more closely, and low and behold...

I.
Love.
This.
Song.

When I'm not being absorbed in the win that is the musical mastery of Nightwish I remember that conversation. I also vividly remember the first of February 2008 - the Nightwish concert. BBB was the opening song. You know how at a concert the music is so unimaginably loud that it consumes all of your senses? That feeling, combined with one of my favourite songs is pretty much like what I would imagine sex with Keira Knightly would be like.



Many of you may remember this from the cult internet movie a couple of years back. Numa Numa Dance was among the first cult internet clips that I saw, and helped in sparking my fascination at the world of cyberspace. It also contributed to my "random" streak in year nine. It was first shown to me by Scerba, and promptly became one of the references commonly made by the group. The song, Dragostea Din Tei, was downloaded and spread, many unable to resist the Romanian beats. Many members of the ex-group can sing, and dance to this song, despite it being in an entirely foreign language. When I hear this song, I am reminded of so many different things. Singing it at lunchtime, playing it on Daniel's phone at high school, annoying an entire German class with it at every opportunity, and studying the lyrics in a year nine English class.

Numa Numa is the song that I have probably had the most laughs over. And the song with the most memories attached to it.

So thats my top six songs with vivid memories attached to them. The titles all link to their respective YouTube videos, so if any grab you, go and check them out.

What about you guys, what song has the most memories attached to it for you? Write the song in a comment and, if you like, let me know of some of the memories. =)

Christopher.

"Trying to catch your eye - things will never look the same"
Anywhere But Here - Hilary Duff

23 April 2008

So, this is my...

I wonder how many people start with "So, this is my first blog". That was my first thought when it came to typing here, as it seemed like a nice easy, obviously statement upon which to base the following text.

Then I decided that it was stupidly boring, so I am instead going to start with the statement "Entwined is an excellent word.

Entwined is an excellent word. I love the imagery that it provides, without a stupidly descriptive sentence (though please, do not get me wrong, I love writing stupidly detailed sentences). Entwined, to me, sparks a beautiful classical image of a creeper, wrapped complexly around something - a pole, a house, a fence - and never letting go. It can be used metaphorically "She was entwined in the thought of him," or literally "The vine had entwined itself around the statue". Thus, I like the word. Thoughts? Words that you like?

Christopher.


"Ever felt a way with me? Just once that's all I need. Entwined in finding you one day."
Ever Dream - Nightwish
 
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