a full circle

so the circle turns like a large Ferris wheel .. and we return to the sour dough, the glue that holds society together again, like the dust, the egg and the flour and whatever holds us together.

Like before the notion of self is indicated as the reflection off others or as the reflection of others, this must be why we have a fascination with shinny objects. albeit that we say they are objet d'art (fantastic!!! look at the one liner that came back from Google:

"The term "Objets d′art" can be a synonym, a popularized version for interior design commerce, or a vulgarism of pretension"

 all perspective, when is art ART. is food ART, is photography of Food Art? Is eating food art, movies about food can be art? 


Is the Loaf of bread ART? or is it an Art or is it artistry to make a loaf of bread? 


But I must be honest I digress, wildly from the my starting point, Quo Vardis.


we have to return to the tao of bread, but rather than returning to the starting point we will use the starting point as a reference. We cannot return to that point simply. Even on the Interweb, something so stable as DNS entry can stalk off and move away and virtualize, and never be the same, the molecules, the electrons are all different, yet they are the same?




it appears, albeit possibly unreliably that Art is defined by wikipedia as : "
A work of art in the visual arts is a physical two or three dimensional object that is professionally determined or popularly considered to fulfill a primarily independent aesthetic function. A singular art object is often seen in the context of a larger Art movement or artistic era, such as: a genre, aesthetic convention, culture, or regional-national distinction"


Bringing me to a divergent point in the bifurcation of the universal truths, or should it have been truth? When did printed matter stop or start being relevant or truthful? In the Past (sic!) we could trust the printed word, the book was truth. Maybe this is why people believe the bible to be unequivocally true. It is a Book, Books if not fiction are truthful therefore the bible is true. It cannot be otherwise. The newspapers don't lie, the politicians speak the truth of the red danger, When did the Truth dissipate and dilute? what was the cause of the dilution of Truth? I wonder Maybe Riet Willemse would know? 


You may ask who Riet Willemse is? is he real or is he a cosntruct. 


But to get back to the truth of the bread. The bread is truth, it IS. 


And the wheat fell from the growth on the green grass and it was real, even that may not be true any more. Even the most fundamental truth's are being eroded. GM foodstuffs now take away the truth of the essence or do they, are they merely a reflection of societies changes and the speed at which information and change pervades our lives. When wheat is no longer wheat, tomatoes are fishes and Goldfishes glow in the dark. 

We swim slowly in the goldfish bowl of earth, wishing, wishing .... enough sentimentality. 


Back to the truth of Bread as Art or as an artForm.  It brings us back to the essence of bread and its artistry. Is it a Cultural Artifact? Is it the Magnum opus of food? Who knows? Riet may know? Or Slats? Oh yes Slats NaaIr is also a social Construct. They are both in ways similar to Max Headroom, yet in physical embodiment of a cultural imperative or cultural artifact. I suspect we have to start somewhere and the determination of value is of utmost importance. what value does bread have in monetary terms, as a meme or even as an Artifact. To the Slow food pundits, it would possibly be the pinnacle or possibly base of a principal. Somewhere to start, something to complete and in many cases a Damn good example. But bread in Art? It exists all over.  What is the distinction between art and artistic?


But I digress once to many, as I labour on my long distance epic into my new existence as the strange bread maker in the strange land. I suspect the bread, the lowly bread is a good place to start to rebuild to restart. 


I suspect the starter culture is fairly depleted, but as in all things this can be regenerated. With great difficulty we start again, a fresh. We start a new meme. Or do we continue with a pre-existing meme? Can we develop anew? 


Oh something i was thinking of whilst standing on the train this morning:


I wonder about the stories within the stories within the photographs I take and view,
how many of them are seen and appreciated?
Of things I miss and the things I miss that I hated and hated missing and loved and of course the dream of the very big fish. The kiss of the Spiderwoman and Arizona dreaming in the time of Gypsies. The tale woven with richness of food and tastes that is my life. When counting the coins of our existence, we may often stare at apparently empty hands, without even a copper to show. But it is not the coins that remain but rather the coins that have passed through our hands. We cannot be complacent and look back at an existence without a route forward.
Even though I walk through the glades of green grass, for i shall not fear a serpent
the loneliness walks beside me
Harping beside me, pulling me slowly backwards into a pool of memories and wishes and dreams of a time gone past, these are better viewed like a mirror.
I stand aimlessly staring into the ripples formed by the wind over the crystal water hoping to see an image of my past, knowing well that it is only the future that stands in front of me and the past is behind me.
Not saying that what followed me had no value, but that what stands before me is the challenge
minute by minute, hour by hour i edge forward up the path of reconciliation with my inner self
memories lay strewn around me like a broken mirror, glimpses and fleeting images passing me by.


But Back to the bread,
More practically we definitely have moved to the land of milk and something? To be blessed (note i use that lightly) but we are to experience new tastes and views and smells and experiences.
Yesterday we had Crab, paddle crab in safron and cream sauce. And it was good
The trains stopped in wellington
The train to Johnsonville was running, that was good
The cycle to Whitby was long, the wind was wild.. that was good

So the question that remains? We have to return to needing the kneeding.

So we will try again and create a starter culture.

whilst seeking for a culture of our own.If not finding one we will create anew

enough for now more later.

is it an ism and other things

Oh yes as an afterthought this is a view only blog, those lucky enough to receive email updates will have toi actually view the pics on the page :-)

one of the many things i wonder about, over and over again, is how the hell david hockney does it ...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LMOprzsUgj4/TAxg2t0x3kI/AAAAAAAAAIM/sYDB1raerCQ/s1600/photo-montage-by-david-hockneyjpg.jpeg

the vision, or should i say the over arching vision of the smaller parts that make up the whole, how when faced with imperfection and scale differences our brains correct the image all knowing that it is wrong, or should I say imperfect ...

Oh yes the format is changing .. sorry for you who rely on the emails and who are to lazy to go to the inter web, you will be forced to go and look at the actual page as there will be pieces embedded into the pages henceforth..

so when is a panorama not a panorama or is it? Is it art? or is it an art, that is a technical skill. is the perfection the key or is it the sense that it evokes more important. I suppose that is mostly the question around photography and the presentation of the visual arts in the 20 and 21st centuries. where does the line start and end, where is the greyness's the lightest and where is it the darkest .. Aesh this is sounding more and more contrived, but i am sure i will try my best to get to the point?
We for your sakes i hope so ..

on this line i was searching for some reference to this conundrum .. and of course i verbed the action of google dot com and one of the pre-emptive searches was "is photography dead" not in my mind? But i am sure i will find out?
It appears that there are a variety of views, but one of them that i found very appealing, and for a long time inadvertently followed was that of Ansel Adams, who believed that there should be no "manipulation" in either developing the film or making the print
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adams_The_Tetons_and_the_Snake_River.jpg
.

But Mortensen said that a negative, compared with the ultimate "camera obscura," the human eye, is restricted enough in its ability to record the complete gradations of a subject, that to further rob it of that ability makes little sense. The above concept does just that.

So we stand at a minuscule crossroad in terms of the opinions of isms and technicalities. It appears that within this milieu there is the debate of the technical artistry. and then of course wikipedia throws a spanner in the works by saying this: "Art photography": "Euphemism for nude photography"[1]. VOMGL.. well i spose it is an art;-)...

then i discovered an intuitive discrimination defining the differences between: "art photography", "photography of art", "artistic photography","photography as a fine art" "aesthetic representaitons" to name but a few.. When is photography seen as a technical ability to reproduce perfectly a visual scene, is this limited to a specific framework of methods and materials. Do we draw the line between Art due to medium or to end product or to ethos? But if we look at andy Warhol, is that Art due to the thought process? Ot si the actual deliverable the piece of art. We now start delving into a philosophical debate for which i have no formal or informal backing what so ever. So i spose i will have to just leave it right there :-)
Somethings of interest around photography as an art form?

http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/photography.html

a question is this art/artistic?

http://geoffcloake.co.nz/images/E6970%20The%20Changing%20-%20Revenge%20Banner.jpg

really am not sure .. but boy it is striking.. He has a whole lot more of this. When I Look at this and see the technical artistry that has been achieved, compare that to the hockney image/collage at the top?
But what it does bring me to question or to say .. is I really dont know enough about this, and should not have written about it ... :-) something learnt I spose.

It appears that this debate is far from over or finished ...
http://fugitivevision.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-photography-dead-sfmoma-tries-to.html here is a debate from a blog called fugitive vision which highlights a debate currently (recently) being work shopped at the San Francisco Museum of Art.  A slightly older article from newsweek.com/2007/12/01/is-photography-dead
interestingly it seems to highlight a number of issues around this, but also talks of an exhibition of photographs from  brownies to instamatics, one would imagine that Cell Phone or mobile camera's would fall into the same category, albeit often not as rich. but still there ...

here is a classic adams pic :-)

Either way i suspect i may not really understand the entire argument:-) But more onto the reality of life. I went to an art exhibition this weekend just past and it was intriguing in that some of the art was for art sake, some was conceptual others just silly.

But one of the more striking pieces was merely a statement around something that i had independently notioned about sometime ago and called soemthing totally different. but in general it said soemthing int he liens of:

"I've decided that every time I leave a small town I am making an artwork. It's a sad and beautiful picture that i can never become part of and one that i can never quite finish"

In a country which is overflowing with foreigners, maybe not quite as much as in ZA, but many. The key thing being that they are a combination of transients and people who are permanently resident. But the key thing being that they perpetually create social Cairns all over the place through activity and meme. From Cairns in the hutt river valley to some of my favourite Graffiti that fills the walls.. it is there, there are foot prints.

So we went for another epic this weekend, that is brusied ribs and shoulder (a story for next time on the circular  nature of my movement through the air). I went through Belmont nature reserve with two others,,, epic'ly i went up a really big hill and down the otherside .. BUT amazing of all Amazing things .. there is this awesome thing here where all all the paths are shown on a website and are marked and there are signboards .. it is just to frigin amazing ... www.tracks.org.nz ...


but enough for now ..

oh yes free advertising  go checkout a friends page .. http://rwilliams2080.blogspot.com/
this way he will be forced to add more entries... :-)

another day for the stranger in a strange land Part 17-18

and so another few days have passed, more dull and door people on the train, but let us say life is slowly but surely starting to take form. I met my first real fringe Kiwi dude on the train the other day, The same one mentioned before.

To recap, a strange and weird individual to say the least, tall silent, with a striking red beard and single long plat and a luge skateboard. But it turns out he is more rational, albeit only slightly, than his exterior portrays. He is a mortgage conveyor at aBank, Go figure. But very well spoken, well travelled, as it appears many Kiwi's are, that is all of the prior statements. Let me not forget, friendly as well.

But this does in no way deter from my previous notion of the grey, sorry darkly dressed colourless people on the train. On the whole they tend to be fairly introverted'ly gray on the train. An interesting point to ponder is, are there many existentialistically minded people in New Zealand. That is based on the premise that existentialism sprung up from the colder, darker regions of Europe, which were bound by the rigors of bureaucracy ?

But according to my understanding of the question i posed, I seem to be totally wrong in my thought process around this?

from http://www.otago.ac.nz/DeepSouth/vol1no2/benson1_issue2.html
As the New Zealand wilderness became increasingly settled, the prime reason for the pioneers' and settlers' feelings of isolation and alienation was invalidated: their seemingly arbitrary environment had become predictable
It seems that traditionally existentialism is driven by pioneerism and not by the rigors of society...

but from a more "reputable" Sic! source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

Existentialism is a term applied to the work of a number of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences,[1][2] generally held that the focus of philosophical thought should be to deal with the conditions of existence of the individual person and his or her emotions, actions, responsibilities, and thoughts.[3][4] The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, posthumously regarded as the father of existentialism,[5][6] maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely,[7][8] in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.[9]

I may be wrong by the sense of emotionless and dark thought painted on the faces of the members of the train gang of which I am a subtle outsider. Or I may not actually be, it appears that the train is a strongly heterogeneous meshing of individuals based on chrono-synchronicity rather than on a socioeconomic or rather cultural bias. This may be due to my social bias, or should i rather say my geo-locatory bias combined with strongly driven socio-politico-basis that i believed this or even considered it. Which in essence does not specifically make it wrong, but rather massively uninformed, prejudiced and biased :-) It is a strange thing to me being the stranger in an even stranger land to experience the differences and commonalities of the individuals within the society.

So where does that leave me on this alien green landscape, as I stand longingly viewing the green hills of another land. I stand in an emotionally disjunctive state (i prefered the disjunt word.. but apparently in the context it does not exist yet?) No dont get me wrong.. this is not a depressive state, as i am sure th bulk of you are considering .. getting ready to throw the packs of pills down my throat VOMGL.

No it is a state of re-birth and potential growth of my mind, spirit and soul. bla bla blka bla fish paste..

makes me think .. you ma is ..

oh well enough of that ..

things to ponder? Have die Antwoord sold out into a frenzy of exploitative and gratuitous exhibitionism or is that the tone within the tone within? Or is there no substance, or should i say was there never any substance?

oh well i have now spent far to much time on the obviously arbitrary ..

so where to now we may ask..

fishign this afternoon, fly tying this eveing

riding the skyline Route (http://tracks.org.nz/track/show/964) on the weekend, or actually more than that .. we will maybe be doing a part of the Te Aroroa way (http://www.teararoa.org.nz/index.cfm/pageid/216) at least the portion between Porirua or should i say Whitby and Wellington?
A thought, but they do warn me of the exposed nature of the back of the beast?

Oh yes, I did mention that i had seen the fish..

is that tantamount to me saying i Saw God? or is that to blasphemous? Who knows, but i saw the fish and they were good. I saw the bible quiz.. I failed misserably.. But I suppose i was supposed to ..

I saw another face of one of the faces on facebook, I saw faces i expected to see.. So where does that leave me? To deface or not? a question i ask? I wonder? No not in the same way he wondered about how many ...

But rather I wonder about facebook and my membership? has it run its course. I wonder about the multimediahedonism that it has created? what does it tell us. I wonder about the giant german giant consuming the american portion it bought and its eventual impact on my existence in these those green hills, I saw a man standing with vine tomatoes in is hand. is this a sign the man standing with a tomato in his hand, i doubt it is biblical. I saw it on facebook. It must be true, no sorry that was wikipedia. Facebook isnt true it is a truism..

so enough for now .. let me return to the rationally disposed life that i call a stranger in a strange land ..

oh one last thing to behold is the following ..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/metservice-nz/


amazing picks

to end with

Stangely standing I stood, peering into a train
stranger than reality i pondered at the old steel exterior
rattling the mettle rails
balancing, well not, on timber of old
I dream of a time when there was nothing but trees
humans stand and kill the trees
when will the ent stand or make a stand
the stand of trees

complacency and the small mind

To say that our time here has not be a challenge would be a lie.. One thing that has become more and more evident for me is the development of new mantra's to overcome the extreme levels of complacency that time has welded into my brain. It is amazing how time develops complacency in even those who are attempting not to subscribe to the small mindlessness-ness-ness of it all. We are all so often trapped in the daily drudge and insidiousness of life and its trends. I suspect the most obvious is the way we allow ourselves to fall prey .. no not pray .. or is it .. bringing me to peer pressure and the pray, but more on that later.. we tend to allow ourselves to indulge in our weakest links or tendencies. It is the social softening that we go through from the social hardening and intolerance and tolerance.. there are things we have become soft with, us firsto/thirdo/firsto world children of the children of the trekkers and immigrants have become soft, we have lost the sheen of idealism and entrepreneurship that is in essence the key to the survival of our blood lines.. But back to the complacency and the doubt that it can bring into our lives, whence we have been left to mellow like good wine in the sun we have become little more than sour grapes and have not mellowed but become bad tasting acetic acid, where with the correct nurturing and development could have been otherwise. where is the spark, the ability and more so the willingness to learn and experience and spark gone.
Oh for I walk through the value of self doubt,
I shall not doubt
I shall stand tall
I shall not faulter, for my mind and my spirit holds me in good stead
as i stumble forward in the darkness that we call loneliness and sadness
I shall fear no evil as there are no snakes in the grass
I shall go forward and grow and be

We tend to complacentasize (a word i just created), and fear sorry for ourselves.
Is it because our boot laces are to short to strap ourselves ;- I fear it is actually because we no longer wear boots for the bulk of our lives, we have learnt to sit in the eddy and not go out and feed. whence the flow in the river changes those who are left in the eddies and cannot swim though the currents shall perish and suffer hunger in mind, soul and spirit.

But enough of the self wallowing and self pity let us us go forward, but a note to my current inspiration .. all do go forth and listen to this mindless drivel .. yes that is all it is .. but in no way incomparable to this drivel go and listen to "like a mad dog running through a puddle of gravy" http://puddleofgravy.blogspot.com/ .. this is moist excellent stuff.

But back to the pink lady, I apologize not the Pink Lady, but rather the quaint lady with the pink swatches in her hair, sounds a little like a cat stevens or shawn philips song.. But isn't. It is from people like this we should gather inspiration in instilling identity and colour in a fairly coulorless train trip. For one such as I who would be destined to the dark and dreary in the land of the sun.. the dark and dreariness of the clothes drives me to b right colours and Madiba shirts... it is just insane.

But more on the prayer at the station.. now we have a bizarre scenario where peer pressure from those who are not deemed to be peer pressuring is creating a peer pressure of its own.

Strange but true .. But more on that later.

Ah .. i have now seen the Fish, not to be confused with the light nor the people of the fish, who stand at the station and prey, not quite pray, but they almost did.. But the real fish, I have seen them.. and they are there .. most amazing thing these fish they are .. nothing like this you have ever seen before.

Ah but one last though on the people on the train, there is a person on the train, actually people on the train... there are lots of people on the train.. But interestingly a think i find is the diversity and differences in the people on the train and the way they are all so sad and somber.. it is a strain the train. But more importantly it is the wonder and amazement of the women with the Big hands that I now speak. It is freakishly strange as I sit and stare, more than i should I suppose, but it is deemed as one of the options on a train pastime questionnaire that i filled in .. but it is called "people watching" :-) insane as it may be. But there is a particular person on the train, who in specific angles looks a lot like a character in TV miniseries called Californication, but unfortunate as it is there are enigma's, this woman has the gunie-goog-goog hand, big and manly, as if they have been painted on by a child.. The people here are definitely the mixing pot of the people..

and there is so much more to tell of the crazy train people, but more of that later .. enough now .. it is time to get back to work again..

on my cursory glance of the whole piece ramble, i do believe it is time again to listen to the great words of the 21 st century poet Marshall Bruce Mathers III



My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I..
got out of bed at all
The morning rain clouds up my window..
and I can't see at all
And even if I could it'll all be gray,
but your picture on my wall
It reminds me, that it's not so bad,
it's not so bad..

and the last little bit of eminemememe

Sometimes I just feel like, quittin I still might
Why do I put up this fight, why do I still write
Sometimes it's hard enough just dealin with real life
Sometimes I wanna jump on stage and just kill mics
And show these people what my level of skill's like
But I'm still white, sometimes I just hate life
Somethin ain't right, hit the brake lights
Case of the stage fright, drawin a blank like
Da-duh-duh-da-da, it ain't my fault
Great then I falls, my insides crawl
and I clam up (wham) I just slam shut
I just can't do it, my whole manhood's
just been stripped, I have just been vicked
So I must then get off the bus then split
Man fuck this shit yo, I'm goin the fuck home
World on my shoulders as I run back to this 8 Mile Road

I think the most important being of all this rambling is to instill the self belief that we have always had about having the ability to do anything and conquer anything .. it is all about self belief
this gets translated down to the simplest thing, we have to start small..

start small , go forth, plant the seed
watch it grow
tend it, the seed grows tall


later

the lady with pink hair

in an attempt to be less procratinative (i believe that is the correct derivation of a word that does not exist) I will attempt to blog more often and publish them and not let them fester within the walls or confines of the blogspot itself.

more on the starnge pink lady on the train crawling or speeding along on the caterpillar tracks most mornings i am witness to this most amazing phenomena. The lady with the pink patch in her hair. She sleeps a lot on the train. But is also not a plain old lady, I have seen her sew,m wear crazy clothes as well :-), It draws me to certain conclusions, you are all most probably wondering where the frig this is going?

i must admit I thought i knew where it was going, but now I am wondering if i might have been wrong about what i was thinking? It brings me back to point from some time ago when i wandered about somewhere wondering about the significance of what we experience about people and how that impacts on our understanding and perceptions of them? I sit and people watch intensively on the train for the lack of anything else to do. It brings to the point of questioning what people perceive of you or others based on external triggers and criteria and features. I saw an anachronistic person, then realizing that anachronistic is the wrong word? what is the word to best describe the feeling i got whilst looking at him? maybe i should explain what i Saw .. a really tall well bearded person carrying a luge skateboard with bone carved earrings in oversized holes in his ears, with a marginally balding monks cap with a long stringy single thin braid comming out of the side of hishead, i forgot to mention he glasses and was of light complexion. But most importantly rather alternative and silently pensive looking individual that i only see if i catch the early stop at all stations train. But what si significant about this you may ask?
well perceptions as they may be i imagined a certain kind of person, only to be thrown of tilt by seeing a book he was reading, in which one of the chapters was .."why god heals people" I suspect the word I was looking for was incongruity or anachorism but neither of these is correct.. the word will in time return to the vocal or textual bowels of my brain ;-)

But to those planning journeys into the unknown.. the cold and white places, let that heed you strong.. things are never what they seem, we are not what we seem, and let that not stop you,

to go forth,
I seek the best Pizza in Naples
the best hand made ice cream
to taste more of the raw and beautiful flavours of the pear, i was tempted to say vine dying on the vine, but Is uppose Jim has little or no context other than i when walking through a magazine shop i saw an article detailing the last days of Jim?
But to capture the taste and essence of life and nature in a mouthful ?
is that not godliness ...

But on a more important and useless factoid that befell me this morninf fromt he intelligent enterprise I read this interesting article that i am still ruminating on
http://intelligence2.tumblr.com/post/1463800699/photography-is-a-democracy-a-shared-common

“decisive moment, the “precise fusion of light, shade, expression and gesture, where one moment before, or one moment after

describes strongly something I feel


questioning photography would be like questioning sight, but the motion is about the medium, not what is art.” As such, paint is more subtle, wider in “scope and variety … far more susceptible to human interference and therefore allows for a better message


no that is not what i thought , but it is a cool thought none the less!

powerful but limited in expressive range,” as it depends most of all of on technology and equipment: “photographers are ‘dominated by their medium, not masters of it.” The photographer, Bayley concluded, is “more passive, less creative. He has to wait for his great moments, he cannot create them. As Henri Cartier-Bression (the photographer in the room) said, ‘photographers are the hunters, not the cooks.

“bollocks to the motion.”


an interesting topic for debate I must admit... To me I do sometimes feel bound (photographically) by the constraints of the technique and at times its predictability (that is digital) and sometimes its ability or shoudl i say inability to transform the visual into essence and back again? You may say that makes no sense. I must contest that I feel strongly about this

the silver oxides and others gave a measure of randomness and physics and environmental inputs into the process. But i do feel there is measure for escape into the spaces between the accuracy and the distortion of the accuracy using the artifacts of the method of capture and the subsequent treatment thereof that gives us measure of life and the capturing of it in a perpetually visible chronistic perspective.

But more on that later..

but back to another question the significance of slumbering momentary recollections of reality and significant images in our past. In the distant past these has mystical appeal, post that they had Freudian appeal, now they are a curiosity? Yet they are there? They may just be a form of epilepsy for all we know :-)

enough for now.. another day another babble

another day another reality

Ok to re-encapsulate .. this is fragmented over time .. I have no idea when this started and the time periods but it is terribly disjunct and contains much stuffs from times of happiness, sadness and despair .

But to quote Eminem from "don't be afraid"

I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road

ok so this is sorta cheating the first part was written a few weeks ago.. at this stage it is much longer than that..


Here I sit half the way round the globe from where i started .. technically not quite .. but 45% of the way round the globe sounds stupid.
Still coming to grips with the similarities and differences in the way things are and people are and how different our lives will be, are, were and all the other econoclastic self .. suppose i should have written iconoclastic .. but prefer my word.. it has a slightly and more subtely different meaning, if any at all.

i·con·o·clast (-kn-klst)
n.
1. One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.
2. One who destroys sacred religious images.

from the free dictionary .. and i am not really up to destroying sacred images.. well not at this stage .. and the holy cows .. have not seen any here yet ..

how different would it not have been if we would speak of holy Fish!!!
omHF ..

somewhat more fundamental on the way we look at and experience things, here in the land of milk and honey/ no scratch that .. the land of milk, yes there is a lot of that apparently if you wiki Kiwi-land and a lot of sheep ..

and honey .. well sure there is some here . have seen people selling honey at the flea market ..

maybe the land of milk and fishes .. apparently there are a lot of them here, but soemhow have not really had the chance to partake in the activity of limiting the life of one of the creatures of this planet .. now that really sounds sad .. but that was my iconoclastic moment for the day ..

give a man a fish at these prices and he will really enjoy fish ;-)

But how bland is my walk in the valley of spicelessness, it is such an interesting place, the smell of melange, well i lie, coffee permuates the city, fancy restuarants and places..

But for frig's sake where the frigin hell do i find the spices in the shops .. it is as if these people just don't really like cooking, but like to eat nice food. We still trying to figure that one out .. and for once in our existence the value of an overtly academic take on vegetative growth in the garden may actually pay off with the absurd pricing of veggies over here .. oh have i already spoken about that ..

this piece was written now ..

yeah though i wonder through the valley of green hills and endless blinding rain and gale force winds i shall suffer no cold.
I am shivering in my new state of tranquility
i have moved from a first world third world to a third world first world..

But am i happy ..

That is a terrifically complicated question, when our state of mental happiness is relative to what? what we wished it to be, what be believe it was, to what is dimmed in our minds..

things are so incredibly different to the way we perceive things to be and have been ..

how do we judge happiness.. what is a measure of happiness?

how do we determine if we are happy or not? we often judge our state of happiness relative to where we imagine ourselves to be or where we wish to be, nothing to do with rationality. Here I stand in a state of flux .. actually better off in many ways .. yet i wallow in a state of uncertainty and melodrama :-)
i just think i need to go fishing ..
i do miss my friends .. even though i would most prob not see them all that often due to work..
i miss the3 certainty of the uncertainty in SA .. there is so much uncertainty in the certainty here .. :-)
things are predictable .. except for the weather LOL well i suppose it is predictably unpredictable

But this is not new, a lot of what i am deliberating about now is nothing different. how do we measure the quality of our life ?
there are many things
there are many measures, yet how do we judge?
are we happy because of where you are, or in spite of it?
Often we can pass blame onto the environment and not take responsibility for it? But then again there are various scales in terms of our existence.. and at least i took my towel with me ...
and i was lucky not to have to wash dishes this time round .. well in practice i suppose i am washing dishes at times .. but not as sole occupation

But enough on the self flagulation and lets get back to the real life and get happy

yesterday Anita went to the shops and we went to look for some food .. foraging like the hunter gatherers we are .. she saw some Skate wings for a good price in the fresh fish holder ..
so she went ahead and asked the kind Maori lady standing behind the counter what she thought of it? she replied .. never tasted it :-) this might have been a warning ..
i went forth and asked if she was aware of what a Skate it ..? a kind of a Ray .. etc etc .. to little effect .. so we went home .. and they are rather weird tasting .. so for all those who have never had them .. be careful ..
it is rather gelatinous in texture and taste :-) not all bad .. but as weird as you would expect something like a skate to taste :-)

but u know what they say skating on thin uys and all..

back to the whole identity thing, how important is a name? how important is our identity to us? to some it is very important to others the lack of identity is as important. The anti-identity and how much we are what we are not. Do we identify with ourselves and create our identity based on what we are or what we don't stand for.

-- ok this is totally disjunt.. I continue on from where i am now .. even though intended to cement what was done last time


But I think I'm still tryna figure this crap out
Thought I had it mapped out but I guess I didn't
This fucking black cloud still follow's me around
But it's time to exercise these demons
These motherfuckers are doing jumping jacks now!


I think I got a tear in my eye, I feel like the king of
My world, haters can make like bees with no stingers, and drop dead
No more beef flingers, no more drama from now on, I promise
To focus soley on handling my responsibility's as a father
So I solemnly swear to always treat this roof like my daughters and raise it
You couldn't lift a single shingle on it
Cause the way I feel, I'm strong enough to go to the club
Or the corner pub and lift the whole liquor counter up
Cause I'm raising the bar, I shoot for the moon
But I'm too busy gazing at stars, I feel amazing and

(Hook)

I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road



Ok so enough of that the up and down and inside out of the life down under and finding context, in a time in a land of discovery i stand unknown and lonely knowing there is a life out there to live.
I stand

I know I am alone
I stand looking towards the East the sun comes up I stand alone

The beauty assaults my senses daily

I stand alone over my mountain bike and wander in the wonder in this thing we call life in these the choices we made for good or for bad and realise that we are lucky.. the ones with choices. WE may complain and stand up tall, crawl away within the depths below, but we have choices and we have taken them all. I listen in interest of stories of other foreign nationals who have made there way to the promised land for a better life for their children splitting families only to ensure that there children have a brighter future. It is only in in our introspection and sorrow and wallowing that we sit mired in the depths of our own confusion.

enough of that crfap, back to the real world.

I discovered that there are fish less than 10 min drive from my house, including the walk down to the river, but they elude me.. but they are there ..
I feel like a pioneer not really been exposed to fishing like this ever before .. it is frigin weird and amazing all wrapped up in one .. in a little river only a couple of metres wide, a crystal clear river, there are frigin big fish ....#$%#$%#$%#

OMG this is weird .. there i stand and under my feet a few m away there are fish up to about 6lbs or bigger in 30 cm of water .. in the little crystal clear runs ..

talk about Bok - koors... Aesh .. it is amazing how paralyzed with anxiety one can become. just standing there in awe watching a huge fish bolt away because it saw you before you saw it ..
I am learning the hard way i suppose .. i should get someone to show me what to do .. but this way i suppose i am learning more :-)

more on the rest of life, our stuff has arrived.. it is super weird seeing things i had forgotten about, it kinda feels wrong having all this stuff here .. i was getting used to the spartan camping life in this new life :-) But it makes my family super happy and over the moon to see their things ..

it is weird to see some of the things that carry memories with them, both from our lives and other peoples lives. Memories are strange things, things we carry with us. Sometimes they act as the anchor, others at the drone and sometimes even the life raft that carry us through. Something so intangible yet so real.

I suppose now with the move i am no reaching the last few stages of dealing with the loss of my old life and anger is setting in at times, we have had sadness and happiness and confusion and any other possible scenario. Now we are almost done.

In context of all of this the weirdness pervades all spheres of our existence, the plumber who came to fix our tap the other day was a Zimbabwean and the MAF (the bio security people) dude who came to clear our container was also a Zimbabwean.

interesting that us as cuacasio-afrikanos feel uprooted and estranged from our homeland, I wonder how they must feel. They are now the new chiefs of their tribes, foraging further and further like the vikings, looking for greener pastures sending back riches to those who could not come along for the adventure of a lifetime, this one that is theirs and ours.

oh well i suppose i have to post this now .. and not later .. more to follow ..

i do think that i will start doing some travelogue type blogs in between

There is so much more to expect in the next few episodes ..

a dog running through a puddle of gravy,

the life of Christ in cats on a plate

my train journey

the Christians at the station.. so many more episodes to come

the peer pressure .

the adventures into molecular gastronomy,

the challenge of having a veggie garden on your window sill :-)

and much more happiness and sadness and all other emotions all rolled up in one