Wednesday, May 27, 2020

#wordlesswednesday Wish I may; wish I might; why are these images so very bright?

Twist of an Arthur C. Clarke quote:

Any sufficiently differentiated teenager defies the science and creates magic.
When an emerging writer met Frank Herbert when she was 13 - that was a magic moment which took her into a literary stratosphere and made it more approachable.
[let me think - the emerging writer was Catherine someone and she does speculative fiction].
And today's teenagers would have you LISTEN TO and FOLLOW the science.
Isn't that right, Greta and Beata?
#ourhouseisonfire

"As long as you wear your flippy-floppy hat and clean up after the dogs and don't have the dogs clean up after you;
you can go to the beach".

Geology in the garden: shells and rocks of every sort as well as leaves and flowers.
It is a great garden for science and for humanities and both of those sorts of learning.
#thetwocultures #cpsnow

Skating on roller skates.
Facing in the other direction, meanwhile ...
There were some waves which made the young ladies feel like celebrities.

"Keep your friends close and your animals closer!"

When tiredness passes over into overtiredness
it can be very unpleasant for one and one's friends.
Especially as it was past midnight.
Would they get the explorer into the blanket before the witching hour?

"It's not THAT he's frantic - it's what he is frantic ABOUT".
In this case - it was about a puzzle and putting it back from the floor.
"A place for everything and everything in its place".
The little fellow was taught some version of this.

A very sportive pair those two.
Lots of pennants; medals and ribbons.
And jodhpurs and boots in the case of the young lady on the right.
Some look forward to kicking their new footballs; others like to throw balls on or near a wall.

The Gingerbread Kid and the gingerbread cake - along with the gingerbread kid's biggest supporters.
Sometimes people are just too good to eat. Sometimes all you want to do is eat them.
You can do this in a dream.

Our youngest explorer in his grey nightgown and slippers.
It had been a very rainy week and the ground was uneven.
So someone put out the welcome mat.
What was behind the door? Was it a minibar? a refrigerator?

Flowers and balloons and pull-along ducks.
The kind that waddle.
Sometimes you can't choose your nicknames - they choose you.
For example - if people see you waddling like a duck - you get called "Waddle-duck".
"Coursework first - then celebrations!" said the lady in the purple hat and the green dress.
Not many people know that to swoon is to faint.
And f a i n t - one of these young ladies did that
when she was at the most central of Central Stations in Warsaw to meet her friends.
The other young lady is insouciant. As you would be if you travelled first class and expected Firsts in the coming five years.

Dreaming clouds and dreaming stones.
Everyone is supposed to be three stones apart.
And each one has their own cloud.
I believe Dibs said:
Every child should have a tree that is all its own.
Every child should have a mountain that is all its own.

Across from the Bodhi Tree and the misty mountains.
Sometimes the world can be so misty and so frosty.
That is when your shadow self steps in.

Chipotle on the brain! And tomatoes; avocado and so on.
Even malt from the malt shop.

Dreams are very strange things holding them in space and time.
And I don't know how that red got in there.

Some of these animals went on the live export journey
and from the United Arab Emirates to the Fremantle Port Authority they had to come.

Hands and feet and new friends.
If you look very closely you will see the Central Station young man
perhaps when he was very very young.
I think it's the eyes.

Rice paddies are full of work and love, very often.

There are four children and two animals.

And we will end today's adventures with a spa bath or the kind that comes in jets and has towels.

Saturday, May 09, 2020

Schuman Day [8.v.2020] / Victory in Europe - Liberation Day [9.v.2020]

8 May 2020
Schuman Day

Did you know that
Pink Floyd
does
Friday Fundraisers?
#pinkfloydfridays
#stayhere #withme
#pulse #runrabbitrun

Good writers do backgrounds when they can.
Better planners do the background FIRST
and respect it and put it in due proportion.
That way the foreground and the middle of the field can pop out
or stay disguised/camouflaged depending on what you want to do.

Such was the German President's speech
and Queen Elizabeth the Second's
on the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe / Liberation Day.

Orientation, too, is important.

In the theatre set design can be very abstract and symbolic.
So, too, in music videos and their staging.

Such was the case in The Eddy
which was released on the 8th May in the Netflix world.
It was done by the director of LA LA LAND.

What a wonderful first episode.
I needed something to keep my hands and brain busy.

The drawings come in three by three.

I used five colours and/or shades.

The bottom is a sunset-type image and there is much showing through when it comes to yellow and pink and purple.

The top has a two-toned brown background and then there is red green yellow and blue.

And I wouldn't be me if I didn't do all the colours at some point.

The middle illustration reinforces the point about backgrounds.

There are people walking all over the pile of rocks and other people floating in fine-tip pen.

One of my more amusing philosophical moments this May
when I was reading the Oxford Companion to Philosophy [the 2005 edition which I acquired in 2012-13]
was about SLIME - not the Internet phenomenon precisely
- how SLIME is applied in philosophy.
It takes up this third space between what is concrete and what is abstract.
And it often connotes feelings of disgust and of fascination - this emotionally ambigious space which is a sense of productive uncertainty.
A sense - too - of sensoria and qualia.

I had some more serious moments too.
On the 29th April 2020 for instance when I spent time with Makers of Modern Culture
and I wanted to know more about the speech act as one of the UK's greatest philosophers has it.
This philosopher is J. L. Austin and he disseminated these ideas about the three forces
[well, these are the three forces which are the most famous].

Illuctionary which is defined as what is done IN saying something
[Anthony Flew: 1981]
Locutionary which is the act OF saying

and finally perlocutionary - what is EFFECTED IN OTHERS by the saying.

These are applications of performative utterances

Quickly summarising: we have in, of and by - "little words that pack a big punch" [I seem to remember an almost preternaturally verbally agile young man called Billy in Beautiful Child {T L Hayden 2002} who said that - and specifically about the word bad

Could easily have been his classmate Jesse - probably unlikely to have been Gwennie because she only came to the class sometimes - and the others Zane and Shane and Venus].

In philosophy - and especially in analytical philosophy - you have to look after the pennies. Even then you have not the guarantee that the pounds will look after themselves and grow interest.

I credit/blame Stephen Toulson and his definitive logical text The uses of argument [1959].

That same day was the 250th anniversary of Yorkshire merchant seaman and explorer
James Cook
and his coexplorer Joseph Banks
when they arrived on the east coast of the Australian continent.
You can read more about James Cook and Joseph Banks in The Conversation.

Also in the Conversation's CURIOUS KIDS section there was an 11-year-old who wanted to know

CAN THE WORK ON CORONAVIRUS STOP WAR?

Good question! And never too soon to learn about the roles of multilateral organisations!

For those of you who can read on the side ... and especially the green highlighted bit ...

The legacy, of course, was and continues to be deeply contested.

During the beginning of May I was pointed to a review of a movie called In Deed which was about a young boy called Benny and how he and his mother Melva meet Abe.

Abe is a churchman of the evangelical persuasion [that issue of the Monthly: Schwartz Media was kneedeep in evangelicalism and charismatics - Shane Danielsen was not immune!] and essentially he thinks/hopes/wishes his church can cure Benny. #mentalisation #filmmaking

A lot of my neurodivergent friends and interested and interesting people will probably have perceived and conceived where this is going.

Unfortunately [?] I did not get to that bit.

I did see scenes of Benny in his school - Abe is a cleaner there - and how he and Melva interact in church - and some attempts at exorcism and getting the demons/spirits out.

And how the rest of the family is - like the sister - and the woman who visits after an interaction in the waiting room.

Another interesting movie I watched - and had wanted to watch since January 2019 -

was Marwencol

which was an artistic and technical paracosm very relevant to this weekend - the macro and the micro ones.

Marwencol is this Belgian town which became a stopping place for veterans and travelling folk who are represented in the form of dolls - Barbies for the women and action figures for the men.

It grabs the viewer and never lets them go in the central dilemma between worlds.

Photography plays a role in disseminating Mark's universe of World War II figures that are based on people in his life that he imagines and reflects on and remembers.

People like Wendy and Colleen and Anna and various of his male friends from before and after the cataclysmic attack which results in brain injury and the associated effects.

There are moments when Mark walks on the streets of the real world with a well-modelled and sturdy tank.

There are so many swirly feelings and swishy feelings [the latter my invented set of concepts for dress; costume and genderplay / genderbending and exploration].

Thank you to the maven who recommended Kanopy.

One can watch 15 movies standardly - that is one movie every two days if you are sensible and/or use the credit-free work.

I noticed there was one on Valued Roles and Normalisation and another musical one.

Lots of sporting interests covered/explored too.

Was looking for a book about The death of the Fitzroy Football Club ...

That was one of those slimy moments of machination and Machievellian feeling - Holmesby represents it so well and so objectively.

One of the more wonderful sporting and human interest moments was when Adam Scott called up a fellow golfer and turned up to their club through the help of a significand ...

A very lovely Tete-a-tete. Probably not like the ones in Paris cafes between 1929 and 1979 between de Beauvoir and Sartre and their circle - which are so well covered by Hazel Rowley #goodthingscometothosewhowait #andtothosewhosurvive #thriving #flourishing #copology #continentalphilosophy #existentialism #riversideoaks