What Meaning?

Short & Sweet festival

2009-09-24T22:26:00.002+10:00

1. Cause of Breath
Main actress seemed a little off - I quite like the idea, the progression - was almost quaint. However the shades of delivery were absent; the 'freak out' at the start was followed by laughter so that I wasn't sure if the panic was badly acted or intended to be self-mocking.

2. Vienna Syndrome
Interesting subject, perhaps predictable presentation but entertaining nonetheless. Could have been punchier, played more for the humour/shock rather than the quirks of the characterisation/the marketing environment. Perhaps I'm missing the point? Found it quite static, no build or change.

3. Eastertoon
Hilarious, shocking. Excellent presentation, mix of melodrama/absurdity and self-awareness. Good storytelling, great acting.

4. Catch a Falling Knife
Perfect choice to follow Eastertoon. Well played, enough mystery and ambiguity to keep it interesting. Good subject matter, excellent closing.

5. History of the World in 7 1/2 minutes
Light, entertaining. Excellently played. Message/subject matter bored me. Hated the ending.

6. Cate Blanchett Wants To Be My Friend On Facebook
Expecting to have fun at the expense of Facebook, instead more of a dissection of Cate Blanchett - though I really enjoyed the worldly 'respectable' characters winning one over an airy actress. Fame turned on its head? Excellently played, although Cate was more of a parody than I expected. The manager I found a bit off, nervous/not connected to the other cast. Somehow thought-provoking rather than funny - only one thought provoked though.

7. That Old Mistake
Terrible. Potentially interesting subject matter made preachy. No point, trying too hard to be funny. Almost complete lack of structure. Loud, garish, nonsensical. Student play. Badly acted, disconnected from the audience.

8. Community Chest
Excellent subject matter, surprising, thought-provoking. Funny, presented well. Structure confusing - dream sequence at start not transitioning clearly back to reality, and the sequence at the end seemed to be another memory/dream sequence without warning. Too fast.

9. Sushiwushiwoo
Great fun, good heart, surprising but not relevatory. Good acting, good characters. Enough abstraction (accordion player) to satisfy me.

10. Five Black Dresses and a Lily
Cringe-worthy until there was cake on the dress. Dull content, some good characters, mostly bad acting.

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

2009-04-02T16:53:00.002+10:00

I picked up Virginia Woolf's “Into The Lighthouse” upon recommendation from a friend, and I have to say, at first I was astounded at her poor taste. Starting the book was an exercise in patience; I remember progressing from one description of an idle homely evening to another of the same idle homely evening, thinking, dear God, when will something happen? It was quite some surprise when I realised I was hooked.

I had, in fact, been missing the point. What is interesting in the novel is not so much what happens, as how the characters think and change from moment to moment; what they focus on, how they see other people and how they react to that perspective - at the same time how they are perceived by other characters; that other people will focus on the same thing and take a different perspective – or quite a similar one. That, occasionally, one will know what the other is thinking. It's dazzling and I've never seen characters presented so well as seperate, distinct, nuanced identities.

At the same time, the way the prose dances around, its camera moving erratically from inside someone's thoughts to their eyes to an object to another perceiver to inside their thoughts, their eyes looking back at the first person - it flows and blends so much that it becomes confusing whose perspective we are now being given.

The writing is both a point of fascination and frustration in this story – it is often abstract and a tad vague to perfectly suit the mood and vision of a character; yet often this abstraction of both grammar and content completely obscures the meaning. I found myself frequently rereading passages to attempt to understand what was going on – at other times I just plowed through and let the words make their vague impressions in my mind.

Woolf uses a technique of bracketing off sections (usually small) of the text to give the impression of many things happening simultaneously, and sometimes the most shocking new information is delivered in an aside this way, as though an unimportant detail. This was used to strongest effect in the middle section, where large blocks of description are punctuated by tiny bracketed narrative-bombs, such that I found myself covering the text with my hand to keep from jumping to the bracketed bits as I saw them approaching. [It makes me wonder about the visual aspect of written narrative – whether authors consider the effect, and how it could be manipulated.]

I found many characters to like, and all characters to empathise with at one point or another, but there are two standouts for me. Firstly Lily, the painter - for her integrity, her courage, her sarcasm, but especially her abstract artistic visions of truth. I felt like she was my vessel, my avatar within the novel, and her vision was my own. Secondly Mrs Ramsay, for her ability to see what people desire and to manipulate that in order to create small moments of beauty – art out of life (what a fascinating concept). I didn't so much identify with her as admire her deeply.

Both these characters had their moments of seeing things beyond and behind reality, a sense of solid things falling away and becoming mere shapes, symbols. Perhaps it was merely because I was engaged in practicing the same vision to give life to the text, but I knew and recognised that sense as being part of me, a state I find myself in, a way I see the world that feels so much a part of me that I found myself bound so strongly and unreservedly to a being (unfortunately fictional) that sees the same way.

Into The Lighthouse is an entirely character-driven piece told exceptionally well. I have missed these aspects of art, and I can easily see now why my friend recommended it – as do I.

Thoughts on Food

2009-03-24T22:46:00.002+10:00

(written as a reaction to "Rude Food" by Alan Saunders, a reflection on restaurant critics published in the book "Critical Perspectives")

I find it strange, Saunders' emphasis on the restaurant as the 'artwork' rather than the food.
What is different about food that it needs to be treated differently to other arts?

It is time-based, for one thing - so is music and film, but unlike these you can't eat precisely the same dish twice. In this way perhaps it is more like live performance - repeated but never exactly the same.

It is similar to - or at least starts off like - visual art, the bizarre deviation being that the art is destroyed (transformed, if you prefer) in order to engage with it.

It's something of a multi-layered experience as the visual becomes taste, becomes part of your body, is digested and extruded. Food then needs to engage with digestion as part of the medium; perhaps the difficulty there is that no two bodies are identical - but then neither are the minds that 'digest' other artforms.

Food is a work that continues after you have left the venue.

Saunders mentions the trap of liking food to sex - it is a live 'performance' that engages with you physically - but unlike sex, food engages impersonally. At a stretch you are engaging with the chef, but food isn't about people. The closest related medium I can think of is instrumental music.

Saunders makes a similar connection, though for the reason that music and food are both abstract aesthetic experiences that cannot easily be analysed - their 'form and meaning are one'. I don't wholly agree, as it's not true that music is entirely without literary themes, without metaphor and imagery. There are perhaps corresponding elements to food, however rarely if ever does food attempt to express an actual story.

Does the cook imbue their work with meaning? Or rather do they play with aesthetic? I find the latter more likely, and certainly it is what most customers expect from the experience.

It is odd then, that food is a bit of an improvisation on the part of the customer - most dishes are not required to be eaten in a certain way (mouthful to mouthful), so even if it were possible for two customers to eat the exact same meal, they would not eat it in the same way. Because of this there will often be too much sauce in one mouthful, too much salt in another. I suppose in a way this is true for all art - people respond differently to the same things, taking in different aspects of a work in a different order to other people experiencing the same work (such as focusing on the lighting at one point in a theatrical performance rather than the music) - yet with food you can physically witness the art being processed, which makes it able to be controlled to some extent.

It's also usually up to the customer to choose the course of their meal, progressing from dish to dish, which could conceivably be disastrous for the overall experience (the difference similar to that between an album arranged by intention and a musical library set to random) - unless the menu is somehow composed such that all variations will blend well.

The biggest difference between food and other art forms is that food is very much functional, expected to satisfy a physical need - so who has the time or money to risk experimental, perhaps indigestible, meals that may have more 'literary' merit, more of a story, more meaning to them?

Perhaps food is more comparable to design artefacts, especially considered on a sliding scale - 'undigestible' books may be considered to have great merit, uncomfortable but fashionable shoes may still be worn, but if food is not especially edible, no-one cares what its 'meaning' is.

My soul/Silence and Motion

2007-10-09T17:35:00.000+10:00

My soul is noir:
beauty and sadness,
rain and twilight
Autumn; winds and falling leaves.
Good books and a warm drink.
Slow music.
The bizarre, the eclectic, the body moving on its own,
Expression of the spirit, bypassing the mind.
Eternity and mortality.
Fading, transitions.
Harmonies.
Silence, and motion.

Bleeding

2007-08-21T04:17:00.001+10:00

I am bleeding.
I am fucking bleeding one more bloody time.
Small cuts and abrasions picked at and healed and picked at and closed over.
Imperfections becoming less perfect.
The stink of me fills my fingernails and my nostrils.
So sick of existing that I tear myself into something worth fixing.
Fixing to bleed again.
I am fucking bleeding.
Again.

Restless

2006-02-07T22:02:00.000+10:00

Last night/early this morning, when I was trying to get to sleep so that I would have a chance of being awake at 11 for an inspection of a prospective new home, my brain decided to write a poem. Stupid brain. And then it managed to finish it, so of course I had to get up and write it down so I wouldn't forget it:

When it's missing
You begin
To lose your hold on it

You can't keep it
Touch it
Experience it

It's missing
And you are no longer sure
What it is

You forget
What it was like
When you had it

So it loses its substance
And becomes
Ideal

It's missing
Until you chance across it

And you find
That it isn't
At all
What you were looking for

Diminished, somehow

And you wonder
Was it better
When it was missing?

But, with a sigh, you realise:
When it was gone
You made it a part of you

and that part
is still
missing.

Being Irrational

2006-02-01T23:45:00.000+10:00

Today I cried.
I don't know why. Maybe it's something to do with a bad diet, or sleeping patterns, or whatever.
Don't they teach you that you cry when you are sad? And then they have to explain that sometimes people cry when they're happy. Or angry.
But there's supposed to be a reason.
Perhaps I'm lonely. It makes sense, but if so, I'm not even admitting it to myself. As far as I know, I'm fine with being on my own for extended periods of time.
Perhaps I feel unfulfilled. I wonder if this is what life is, whether there is anything anywhere that clicks, that feels right, that feels like anything.
If there is one thing that I can think of that I want to do for the rest of my life, it is to feel something. Not to do what's right, or what makes sense, to do what makes me feel like life is worth it.
This is far from a suicide note. I believe that death removes the possibility of ever feeling anything. With life there's hope of something better - I just wish I could find it.

Songs for the irrationally tearful and emotional:
Feel - Robbie Williams
Children Will Listen - from Into the Woods
Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - from Phantom of the Opera
I Don't Believe in Heroes Anymore - from Three Guys Naked From The Waist Down
Here Without You - 3 Doors Down
A Modern Myth - 30 Seconds To Mars
Peace Love and Understanding - A Perfect Circle
Another Day - Air

Without Sin

2005-10-27T02:20:00.000+10:00

I had two cups of coffee.
I've seen Sin City.
Now I'm feeling apathetic and everything that happens is a work of art.
I wonder when I'll sleep.

That Peaceful Movie

2005-10-14T23:34:00.000+10:00

IT... is a fantastic movie. I've already seen it once, and I'm not the kind of person who sees the same movie twice at the cinema. I usually think it's a waste of money. Not this time.
I've never been so drawn in to a movie before! I felt plastered to my seat and it took me hours afterwards to come back to reality. It's smart, it's funny, it's sexy, it's scary, it's full of action, and it's got great characters.
It's also got spaceships, grenades, a cartoon octopus, cannibals, swords, incense and a guitar.
It's Serenity. :-)
Come on, you know you want to!

Do you have Coke?

2005-10-08T17:58:00.000+10:00

Blog game: Type “[your name] needs” (in quotes) in Google and show the first 10 results:

Oddly enough, it turns out there is a person whose name is James Needs, which spoiled the game a little, but the remaining entries made it worthwhile:

James Needs A Hat Petition
James Needs Your Coke
James Needs to Be Protected from Development
James needs to point out the University’s policies and goals that apply to this situation.
Further, James needs to tell Dave that if he continues to discriminate unfairly, he will be obligated to contact Dave’s manager.
James needs a little help

I think it suits me well :-D

This fun-ness was found with Gyhmoreid, who was a fellow thespian in our recent performance of Titus Andronicus, and today I managed to track her down.

Have A Moment

2005-10-07T14:13:00.000+10:00

There are a few things which make a movie worthwhile. One such element is the presence of at least one moment or situation in which something completely unexpected happens - perhaps something you should have guessed but didn't, or something that was cleverly constructed in the background that suddenly leaps into place. The most effective will lead you to believe you know what where the story is going - then it abruptly does something else instead.
These moments change the course of the movie, and open up a whole world of new possibilities. They hook into your mind, and are what you remember most when the movie ends.

As an example, I watched the animated film Madagascar recently, and was quite ready to call it a complete waste of time when there was a moment. One dark, scary moment in a movie mostly full of poor humour and cliches that just leapt out, unrestrained - not presented as a joke. While this was certainly not enough to make me want to buy the movie, or even see it again, it did hook the movie in my mind - and make me not want to burn every copy I get my hands on.

The moral of the story is: Go see Serenity. And anything and everything written by Joss Whedon. ;-D

Have You Seen This Alien?

2005-10-05T21:52:00.000+10:00

The following alien (Ambassador Delenn, of the Minbari, of Babylon 5 fame) has been rediscovered on a recent hit tv series in a clever disguise.

(If you need a hint, the actress is Mira Furlan)
Picture taken from The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5

What I Want

2005-09-22T13:10:00.000+10:00

I want to help ideas come to fruition, to live and to reach people.
I want to connect people with the information they need, the skills they need, the people, the opportunities. Or to do it myself.
More than the people, I am interested in the forces that they bring to the world, the concepts, the art, the innovation, the possibilities. Perhaps that isn't particularly nice, but it's true.
I want to be able to evaluate, communicate, recommend and advise.
I want to make sure the important ideas are not overlooked or forgotten.
I want to be a catalyst, to cause or be part of the change.
I want to connect, and to make whole.
I want to help create meaning.

What am I?

What, There's Not Enough Space?

2005-09-19T22:04:00.000+10:00

I may have been too immersed in the world of science recently...

I've just finished watching the first season of Babylon 5, a 5-season science fiction epic. Although the very first episode left me unwilling to watch any more, I pressed on, and astonishingly, every episode since has been much better. The concepts presented and the questions asked are fantastic, the characters are endearing, and the scriptwriters don't take themselves too seriously :-) The episode that sticks in my mind explored the idea of medical science vs. spirituality. An alien child will die unless he is operated on, but their religion forbids having their bodies cut open like food animals. The parents would rather their child died than have his soul lost, while the human doctor can't bear to let someone die when he knows he can save them. An astonishing amount of depth is shown to the issue, as every alien species has a different take on the situation... but I'll stop ranting here. The show is very good!

Meanwhile, I've also finished reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson, which runs through just about every area of science - from cosmology to genetics - in an informal and entertaining style. If you haven't read the book, you have no idea of the problems that science has caused to itself, or the whopping great holes in what we think is certain!

This evening I started watching the newest series of Doctor Who, and my mind is currently still cycling around the second episode, in which the Doctor takes Rose to the final days of Earth, to watch (from an observational space station) the planet explode as the sun expands to envelop it.

Linking to another book I read a year or three ago - "The Science of Discworld" by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen - I recalled the way it pointed out the rather obvious fact that the Earth is not a good place to live, long-term. This was reinforced in "A Short History of Nearly Everything". Sooner or later, the climate will change for the worst - ice ages, volcanoes, global warming. Or an asteroid will hit (Boom!). None of these things we have any protection against - in the case of an asteroid, it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye until a second or so before it hit. And really, barely anyone is using equipment to keep an eye out for them.

So... unless we're all okay with the fact that Earth will kill our entire species off at some point, why are we not trying harder to leave? Learn lessons from science fiction and plain science and get out of here! I want to know what steps anyone is taking in this direction. I'm not really sure where to start looking - "leaving the earth" doesn't give anything useful on Google. I'd like to see if there's anything I could do to help out. It'd be a shame if our history finished with 'and they almost made it'.

Oh, and speaking of science fiction: SERENITY! Go see it! ;-)

The Dentist's Son

2005-09-14T18:23:00.000+10:00

I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Tuesday morning, and it took me this long to work out whether I liked it or not. In the end, the verdict is not in favour of the film. Which is surprising, as I only heard good things from people I know... which is... suspicious...

The movie was, without a doubt, fun and stylish and perfectly cast. I found myself laughing aloud on several occasions, and I loved the cartoonish style of the set and characters - especially Wonka - although at times I found the whole thing overwhelming.

What let down this movie for me was the mismatch between the story of the book (and the earlier film) and the new material injected into this version. While the new material certainly worked well, I think the charm and meaning of the original was lost. This film is about Wonka and Charlie, and about the worth of family; the original was about the five children and the chocolate factory, about bad children being punished in bizarre ways and good children being rewarded with amazing things.
Yet while the new film becomes less patronising and offers a more complex picture of the world, at the same time (oddly enough) it becomes more of a cartoon full of caricatures. How does it make sense to make the film more mature in content and less in delivery? Perhaps it gets the message across better to children, but it made the film horribly distracting for me.

In addition, the new themes all but obliterate the old ones. The horrible children and their self-induced fates are still there, but are no longer important. The four kids are not nearly annoying enough. Beyond their first introduction and cartoon-like appearance, they don't do a whole lot to make us dislike them. In fact, they barely talk. Where's the fun in seeing them get what's coming to them if they haven't provoked it? I still recall the song of Veruca Salt in the first movie:

"I want a party with roomfuls of laughter
Ten thousand tonnes of ice-cream
And if I don't get what I'm after
I'm going to scream!"

- Now that's a brat! :)
But back in 2005, not only does the lack of malice and greed and impatience in the kids detract from their own characters, but the less bratty they are, the less we cheer Charlie on. And isn't he the main character of the story?

Perhaps not. Perhaps the true child protagonist is Wonka. He certainly seems to fit the bill. But although this younger, crazier, socially inept version of Wonka is certainly more amusing, I miss the slightly scarred but benevolent genius who sees the world as a joke. He is the magician, the illusionist, the entertainer. This new Wonka seems like a selfish child.

Overall, while this story has the glitz and the glamour down pat, I think it has sacrificed its intelligence.

Coffee and Tissues

2005-09-12T23:49:00.000+10:00

This week's update is brought to you through a cloud of tissues (ok, so it's toilet paper. I'm a poor uni bum, so sue me!). It's taken me a few days to realise i am in fact sick and not just suffering from lack of sleep caused by quantum physics exams. My head feels stuffed with cotton, when it's not completely empty. Or in coffee-induced hyper-stupor.

Meanwhile, in my altered state of mind, I have come to the following realisations:
1) Microwaved pies are not meals.
2) I can't find my hat. Again.
3) I see non-existant cats. Does this happen to anyone else?

I've also discovered the possibility that if I want to feel like i'm 'doing something', I can switch my engineering course to part-time and add a social science/psychology course part-time and get a job part-time and keep doing drama on the side and circus on the other side and music and photography squished into the gaps and go completely nuts and be happy! Doesn't that make sense?

... Meanwhile, I'm going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tomorrow. I've heard only good things, which is a rare event in these times (and with these friends!). I'm very interested to see the added plot (Wonka's past, apparently), and whether Violet scares me as much on screen as she does in the advertisements.

Prayer before Birth

2005-09-02T02:06:00.000+10:00

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
      club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
      with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
           on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
      to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
           in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
      when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
           my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
                my life when they murder by means of my
                     hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
      old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
           frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
                waves call me to folly and the desert calls
                     me to doom and the beggar refuses
                          my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
      come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
      humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
           would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
                one face, a thing, and against all those
                     who would dissipate my entirety, would
                          blow me like thistledown hither and
                               thither or hither and thither
                                    like water held in the
                                         hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

(by Louis MacNeice)

I always feel moved when I read this poem. The odd little abstract phrases that convey very real fears. The idea that an unborn child may yet live life as a meaningless 'thing'. The portrayal of so many things that are done 'to' a person, and so few that are done 'for'.

I recall reading somewhere that the shape and length of each verse/stanza is related to the stages of childbirth (or something similar). I wouldn't know, but it seems to fit. The newborn coming into the world with 'Otherwise kill me' makes for a rather melancholy start to life!

But the poem also reminds me of the playful spirituality that helps make us human, and of the paths we can take that help make us inhuman.

The Opening Ceremony

2005-08-31T18:28:00.000+10:00

Howdy all! Welcome to What Meaning?! Please, come in. Take a look around. Make yourself at home!
What Meaning? is, first and foremost, the central hub for all things Draic. Here I can weave together the various strands and pages I've scattered around the internet. There are links to my deviantart account (art and photography), my fictionpress and fanfiction accounts (writing), and also to my BeyondPandora blog, which I shall be using for ramblings and essays that don't belong anywhere else and are often too specific or meandering to be of much interest here. Other links are sure to pop up as I create new (or rediscover old) aspects to my virtual life.
What I post here should mostly be artistically inclined, whether about other people's art (movies, photos, writing, books, music) or my own - or the posts themselves may occasionally be art.
But the other important facet to What Meaning? is that it is ideally dedicated to a search for meaning - within art, within society, within life. I will at times present pieces of life that have given me meaning and inspiration, and at times look to passers-by - that's you guys! - to help me find the meaning in other pieces (for example, what the heck happened in the last two Matrix movies?). With any luck, we'll hit on something profound - or at the very least, provide eachother with some exciting new perspectives.
So once again, welcome to What Meaning? I hope you enjoy your stay.

Morayfield, 15:26

2005-07-14T12:58:00.000+10:00

Coffee-dried tired tear-eyes
Drifting non-aware shifting shock
When hush before the crowd around
Fall between the lines
Corner eyebrow tracks of red
Bare chest, shell necklace
Swearing "Mother-fucking cunt"
"Your mistress" and "your family"
Toddler ears - nothing said
Calm down, sit down, train delay
Passengers: Assault.

Kick "be gentle", baby gurgle
Driver crackle mobile phone
"Move to Cairns", "want go home"
Huddle in my corner, my mind, in rhythm,
one-one-four-one-five-one-one-four
one-one-three-one-three-four-three-two
Three dollars, no packed undies, Fifteen twenty-one.
Announcement: "shortly",
Unnoticed ambulance hands of blue
Shift; Applause.