Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
Due to popular demand, here’s a new photo of the abandoned women’s knickers I wrote about last week.
As you can see, they’ve been swept to the side of the laneway by passing traffic and, perhaps, the wind. And they’ve started to intermingle with dried leaves and other detritus.
I took the photo this afternoon. I’ve declined Cassie ST’s suggestion that I wear them on my head.
Do you have One True Identity? Or are you a federation of different identities for different occasions? Stephen Wilson argues that we may be in the midst of a true paradigm shift away from one true identity to a new worldview based on a plurality of identities.
’Pong’s movie Bangkok Express slices through the city at the height of the motorway. Yes, you can see urban decay, but it’s abstract, in the distance. The train slices the city differently: just above human eye level.
The photos I took from the train in Bangkok reminded me that a sign at Ashfield Station in Sydney has got it all wrong. That sign tells us that railway stations are for catching trains — and if I’m not catching a train right at that moment then I’m not welcome. I might be a terrorist. Move on, nothing to see here.
Bullshit.
A pair of purple women’s knickers lies discarded in a laneway in Enmore, Sydney. “There you go,” I say. “Give ’em a wash and you’re right!”
“Ewwww!” is the reply. But why? If the knickers are washed, then they’re clean. Can there possibly be anything worse on these “found” knickers that isn’t already in, say, a 3-year-old’s poo-filled pants — which likewise get washed and worn again? In with the rest of your washing, no less!
At first I thought this essay on lying language would be the usual stuff — war deaths called “collateral damage”, that sort of thing. It does start off that way, but takes a delicious turn mid-way.
I really like what Alex Willemyns has said in response to Guy Rundle’s article about Australia’s search for an identity. “Who are we? Who the heck cares? I’m Alex Willemyns, and that’s all I need to worry about… How we define ourselves to others doesn’t have to be based on anything else apart from who we are, at any one point in time.”