fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Once upon a time a medieval philosopher told a story about a bird flying from an unknown place of origin through a mead-hall to an unknown destination. The philosopher believed that religion was able to explain the significance of the flight of that bird; the dark from which it came, it’s time in the light of the mead-hall and the dark to which it was returning. The version of the story I heard held that the philosopher was a Christian, telling his story in a pagan mead-hall, and that he succeeded in converting his audience using the metaphor of the bird in flight for the meaning of our life on this earth. I have had my own experience of seeing that bird fly through the mead-hall in which I was sitting, but the religious and scientific philosophers seeking to illuminate the glorious flight of human existence were, to my mind, perched on another cusp of the evolution of knowledge. Religion and philosophy are the explicators of the fact that for humans there is the unknowable; they are...

I hope I never learn everything there is to know about my friends. Since I experienced moving to another country and making new friends, then returning home to old friends, I have devoted many hours to understanding the quirk of fate that allows friends to step out of the stream of humanity to walk beside you. In a strange country with no frames of reference, newly acquired friends tend to be those people who connect with you through interests and personality, without reference to shared history and with a sense of a future still to be shaped. Friends from home possess strong shared history, which often blinds you to change in them, and even sometimes their deeper layers and potential. Returning home has allowed me to use the skills learnt from connecting to a new friend to reviving the intimacy of an old friendship. Most importantly, it has been the act of finding new friends here in Perth that has illuminated each individual friendship, allowing me to find extraordinary new depth...

I do not allow comments on this blog because I prefer to think I write only for the audience I know are reading - those I have invited to view my words. However there is forum for commenting and only two non-invitees have ever emailed me and told me they had found my writing in the 26 months I have been on the net - until about a week before Christmas when I got a very interesting email. It was from an Isreali webmaster who claimed that he had read my writing and wanted me to come and look at a site he thought I would like: [key words omitted so I do not get mistaken for condoning these people] Hi. My name is E** G**. Perhaps we have met online, but more probably you don't know me from Adam. I monitor blogs for S**B**, and came across your post. I'd like to welcome you to look at O** S**'s blog. O** - an anonymous Israeli politician - writes extremely controversial articles about Israel, the Middle East politics, and terrorism. S** is equally critical of Jewish ...

During work hours I deal with Civil Engineering students and academics; shear tests, torsion and suction caissons . In my lunch hours and after work I study History in Fantasy, Fantasy in History and Magic and Marvel in Early Narrative; consensus reality, subversive literature and radical ideology . In the dark hours of the night I keep an eye on the political opponents of the Bush Administration; comedians, cable TV commentators and Islamic scholars . In the last two days I have been able to hear almost 20 of our 60 students give 15 minute talks on their final year thesis' and I have been literally floored by the presentations. Needless to say I was only able to utilise basic understanding of the concepts covered to understand the content, but some of the students were so utterly gifted at explaining engineering background, method and results that even the Arts student kinda got it. The time, talent and theorising that I have been able to witness in the last two days is still ma...

My source in China tells me that this blog is now censored by the Chinese internet and he cannot view it. I just want to say ... Mark, that has made my MONTH! It has enabled me to realise a dream in a way I had not imagined, with an unexpected rapidity. For almost eleven years, from the age of thirteen when I read my first Robert Ludlum , I thought that joining a secret spy agency would be cool. Then, at the age of twenty-four, one of my friends was offered a job at MI5 and turned it down because it didn't pay so well. My entire goal of going to London was to work in a London Museum. Then I was offered a job at the Geffrye Museum and I turned it down because it didn't pay so well. After this, the aforementioned friend and I decided that we were cool for the jobs we had turned down, not the jobs we had accepted, and I discovered that goals were sometimes useful to obtain simply to teach you that your priorities have shifted a little. Lately I have been aspiring to be t...

I had been to two lectures in two weeks that dealt with the issues of fear and violence, both by men who spent 45 minutes flexing their not inconsiderable intellectual muscles to unpack the ideology of 'fear of the other' that is the obsession of the world today. In both lectures, groans of rueful liberal laughter greeted cleverly constructed barbs aimed at the beliefs of those less clever, questioning and therefore enlightened than those in the room, ranging from our boy George to anyone who has read a newspaper article that included the words terrorism, religious war or September 11. The scary thing about people with open minds (I try to belong to this group) is that we are just as absolutist, divisive and irrational as the neo-cons, the evangelicals, the jihadists and the Joe Average that we deride in our little nests of learning. We construct intricate arguments for all sides of the story, go to extraordinary lengths to qualify our remarks and use smoke and mirrors to h...

Second day at home sick, re-reading my post from yesterday , a little concerned that my 'humour'(?) may have been as logical as his 'facts', bored, bored, bored, I think I may have another crack at his ... what I would not like to flatter by calling writing, perhaps more a collection of words ..? Okay, let's start from the top shall we? Spanish Newspaper article on Judiasm (In English) Yup, sure does mention the Jews. Not sure it is an in depth exploration of Judaism as such, but it sure mentions the Jews. Great. Also mentions Muslims at least as prominently. Still, don't want to get too specific here. It is in English also. Points all round for the first line. All European life died in Auschwitz. Snappy, emotive, very self-flagellatory, good parallel between genocide and the death of Western Reason. Plenty of good, fact based arguments coming up I reckon. I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in A...

Just as my soapbox thought it was on holiday for two years as I prepare to write only for my honours thesis , I was gifted with the following annoying piece of written hokum in my inbox. All the senders that were listed on the forwarding addresses are friends, so I would like to preface this with a disclaimer: I am not arguing with anyone that sent it on, just the man who wrote the words and thought he had found the great truth of the 21st Century. Twat. Also, I am home sick with a head cold. Bear, sore head. You get the picture. *Warning - Historical Lessons Die Hideous Deaths Below* [oh, after a quick google I believe it is a Hoax as there seems to be no original source of the article. It has been bandied around the blogs and emails for months now, with so much Acclaim, that I want to say something.] Spanish newspaper article on Judiasm (In English) All European life died in Auschwitz By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discover...

I got the link to One Good Move from the Blog column of The Big Issue, and I have to admit it is my essential US Politics reading each evening. The editor is a big fan of House and often puts up clips, but the majority of the entertainment is from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, both US political satire shows. If you like the taster below, I recommend dipping into the archives, as many haha's will ensue. For my money the selections below are the two things that make One Good Move's presence on my favourites toolbar the wisest addition I have made in a long time. *QuickTime is needed* Be Afraid, This Is How They Really See Us This is a clip from The Daily Show with the silver fox Jon Stewart *reowr* He is reporting on the US soccer team, but it is his description of Australians, met with hilarious laughter by the studio audience, that made me shudder instead of laugh. Red Card In my opinion, one can never know too much about how other countries view you ... ...

Ah, NOW we are part of the Beautiful Game! In the 83rd minute we were bored and falling asleep, in the 93rd minute we were punching the air and I was chanting 'Futbol! Futbol! Futbol!' I am glad I got to see Australia's maiden victory in the World Cup. Next game ... Braaaaaaaasiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil!

Monica, in real life and on her now inactive blog Th'inkwell , is pretty much my idol when it comes to writing about politics. She sent me this article in reply to my post Baby Steps.

This is saying what I wanted to say in the last post, only better. *sigh* A speech by David Foster Wallace last year at the commencement of the Arts Degree of a major US university.

Introduction : Know Thyself When I first got to London I read all four broadsheets and all four tabloids each day for the EA's media cuttings service. This threw me into the deep end of commentators and ideologies, as I saw the same stories rendered differently for each spectrum of the British newspaper reading public, from the retired Army officers who read the Daily Telegraph to the artists that read The Guardian to the *cough* less educated who read The Sun. I developed a fondness for The Times that remains today, despite the fact that most people would assume that my natural home would be The Guardian. I found, in the midst of all that newsprint, that I have an intellectual habit that was obviously formed at home from reading The West Australian, The Australian and The Bulletin and informed my adaptation to the newspapers of Britain. I only ever take my reviews of popular culture from the journals that align themselves with my ideology because I am a fan of popular culture...

Around my birthday sometime I sold out to The Man. My boss was required for four weeks on one of our regional projects and I was left to commence the busiest and most crucial part of 2006 without his guidance, input and ability to approve my purchases. My job quickly took over my life, eating up 10 hours a day, my weekends, my dreams and my every waking hour. I was a bore to talk to because all the topics that I talked about covered my work - fascinating and challenging as it was for me, it was shop talk, and most of my listeners were not interested. The most alarming result of this bout of workaholicism is that I stopped reading, stopped watching movies, stopped going out, stopped my hobbies and my mind was caught in a treadmill of work, work, work. It was different and I loved it, but I missed my hobbies and my relaxation time. My boss is back, and because I can now hand the hard work over to him, my life is my own again! Hopefully next time I will learn to compartmentalise my ...

Thank you to Jacinta for the photos and the excellent Australia Day on her boat! This is Jacinta and I channelling our English selves with a jug of Pimms and lemonade - get an eyeful of those cucumber bits! Jen, myself and Louella in front of the Kings Park skyline. Yours truly, Jacinta and Jen with a little bit of South Perth over our shoulders.

It was The Turbanator's evening off, so the Daughter of the British Raj, The Prince of Port-of-Spain and the Captain of the Dubai International Cricket team decided to create the Cottesloe Beach Two Over Evening Beach Cricket Series. Play started at 6.50pm in front of the elegant limestone facade of the Indiana Teahouse on Cottesloe Beach, with a thin crowd of dinner time bathers watching languidly from the lawn. The bowling was consistent, the batting erratic and The Prince got The Turbanator out on her first bowl (yay me), the red tennis ball hitting the milk crate with a sound altogether different to the sound of leather on willow. The Turbanator ended up taking the series however with four overs of excellent batting, including a six dropped right into the surf. The Daughter of the British Raj came second with some steady batting leaving The Prince and The Captain in a tie for third due to flashy batting that lead to the only two catches of the game. While The Daughter of...

Some photos from my stay in Yallingup ... Look at that smile! Daphne and Jodie doing the 'beach run' thing. Daphne and I playing chasey.

It is the classic coming of age motif, that moment when you finally see your family as a looming wardrobe with the spidery, skeletal hands of your relatives’ past wriggling the door open, scaring you witless. In my arrogance and anger when I got home, I ripped that door open and looked straight into the empty eye sockets of the hatreds and loves that drive the adults in my family. There are truly impressive currents that run below the smooth waters of anyone’s life, currents set by grandparents, swum against by parents and now reaching my cousins and I as we finally see that our ups and downs are not entirely our own, but amplified by the ripples from cruel rocks thrown many generations before. My uncles and aunts now talk to me as a fully-fledged adult, and the more they reveal about my parents and my two families (long intertwined before my parents met and married), the more I see myself as if in one of those carnival mirrors, endlessly repeated in the same form, but in different d...

… but I miss feeling like I am a moving part of the structure of the city I am in. The Tube Map was as familiar as my own limbs; I knew the limits and the arcs of the joints and muscles that propelled me along the bones of the transport system (within reason of course, goddamn delays). I particularly enjoyed absorbing the intersections between all the parts of the city, separating the layers of settlement in my mind so I could envisage the melding of the peripheral market towns into suburbs and leaving them mere tube stops and mainline stations to remember their former independent glory. Perth is a created city, not an organic one. Only five or six suburbs around the Central Business District can boast the natural feel of an area grown instead of an area planned. And even these suburbs are village-like only for those on the sidewalk, because in this city of cars, you only see your surroundings in the frame of the windscreen. As I got behind the wheel of my old car for the first tim...