TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: SEPTEMBER 2003

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

5:41 PM
Posted by jodi rose

finally got to look at mars through a telescope on saturday night, a little late for the spectacular closer-than-ever-in-56thousandyears viewing, but still fantastic. could almost see the polar icecaps, but the mind-blowing thing was watching the planet disappear out of view every few minutes as the earth rotated. very cool. no doubt basic astronomy of physics, but I had no idea you could actually see the earth turning like that - here we are, spinning in space. gave everything a whole new perspective.
reading the michel serres book on angels, which takes the form of a dialogue between two vaguely mythological characters at an airport, gorgeous ideas about the fluxes - currents of air, water, wind, lava etc - creating subtle codes written onto earth and the ocean, exchanging information and transmitting messages. I'm not doing the text justice, but it's very inspiring and relates to bridges somehow.
finding my way back into the ideas that excite and intrigue me, I'm over being told how to structure the work by other people - all with excellent intentions and trying to be helpful, but ultimately it's my project and the writing has to be in my voice. hopefully it will be relevant to someone else along the way, and make sense, but at this point I need to let go of all that academic structure form-filling and really take flight with ideas, expanding out into the universe and finding my way back down to earth along invisible threads, which may not even be there until I reach for them. yes, Monsieur Serres has made me come over all poetic and existential, I love that in a philosopher. I get so bored of having to try to live in this world and be rational and sensible and practical. Which, as anyone who knows me will attest, I only manage to do very occasionally (and ungrammatically) in random bursts of pragmatism that are inevitably eclipsed by more ephemeral states. In one of the former I have actually joined the gym this week, after years of considering it to be the cesspit of evil inflicting a kafka-esque nightmare of conformity and social order onto the chaos of human flesh and existence. But actually, it's kinda fun and I like playing on the machines with weights - hoping to achieve a more streamlined state and maybe some mental focus along the way.
Ready for all those adventures next year which I am currently daydreaming into existence. Doing a lot of staring into space, the front porch is lovely this time of year, all spring sunshiney bursting with newly green leaves and freshly puffed clouds - and no doubt it will turn out to be productive at some point, filtering ideas and information......
spring cleaning my room - it's an on-going process, at least I can get to my desk now! finished editing another bridge track - the F60 from Laustiz, Germany, heavily sampled into factory-like machine noise - and sent the CD off to an independent record company guy in london who may have some artists interested in doing remixes. Also tracked down the wonderful Fraser, who has been minding my korg polysix for the last.... 9 years or so, and is happy to return it to me. Very exciting, can't wait to f&*# with the bridge sounds on that. fabulous 1981 analogue synth and effects, getting more psychedelic by the day (due to battery leaking problem).
all for now must go and reprimand the dog, it's time for her afternoon barkfest.