TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: NOVEMBER 2006

Monday, November 27, 2006

11:03 PM
Posted by jodi rose

lisa's film and video class have their end of year screening this week, the students are all a bit stressed, so after work she brought home a bottle of champagne to take the edge off (and my life is just in a weird limbo with self-imposed deadlines and a chronic fuzzy haze). we made champagne cocktails with campari, orange juice and mango sorbet, then sat on the balcony watching the sky change and demanding apple pie when the firemen went out on a job. apparently their station is being converted into ten storey apartments next year - great, there goes the view. good thing we don't own this house. lou instigated a trip to the thai takeaway, and once we finished dinner the boys got back, walked up to the house and threw our apple pie over the balcony. service! lisa decided to change the light bulbs in the hall, which seem to go within weeks of putting them in, so two of the firemen brought the ladder over with a flashlight to supervise her activities. must have been a slow night! which is good, as their job is pretty horrific at times.

still trying to make sense of it all but on the verge of giving up and just going with whatever life - god - the universe throws at me.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

10:36 PM
Posted by jodi rose

my evening of sorting and tidying piles of junk is punctuated by calls from lisa who is out at the kylie concert. lalala lalalalala can't get you outta my head right now! earlier we had locomotion and i should be so lucky. lucky lucky lucky. I like her edited highlights, although the sound quality isn't great over the mobile, and missing something without the dance routines.

I met Lola today, who has been doing some dancing over her own - high kicks mostly - in Julaine's belly and now burst forth into the world. Literally born yesterday. She's the newest baby I've ever seen, and even though every parent thinks their child is the most beautiful ever, in this case they may have some reason to. Completely divine, she has simon's big lips and julaines strength of spirit - we think also her eyes, but she's currently very attached to sleeping and sleeping, only peering out of one eye to check the room every now and then. I was totally unprepared for the baby bliss - didn't expect to love her so much. yes, it's a cliche... Birth truly is a miracle. amazing energy having a brand new life in the room.

So, I guess that's where all this animal instinct leads in the end.
hmmm. A long way to go for me yet. From here anyway. Maybe there will be some unexpected twists and bends in the road and will end up much closer to where I want to be in the very near future. Hope so.

talking with lisa when I got home from brisbane last night about our lives. tired of being a freak. need to feel normal. at least some of the time. just something stable, somewhere.

if I knew the right signals, I'd send 'em.

but, the bohemian nomadic life isn't so bad I guess. checked out the 'other film' program at brisbane powerhouse, with a tribute to mary ellen bute - amazing animator and experimental film maker in the 50's. great polka piece, and wild coloured oscilloscope animations with very out-there sound. local artists work also featured, with filmmakers and live sound from a great selection of talented women - part of 'ladyfest'. guess it's all a matter of balance...

we're all doing the best we can with the resources we have in the circumstances we find ourselves in. had another of those crazy weeks of high level professional demands juxtaposed with abject poverty - it really isn't fun getting through the bits in between, although a good incentive to stay home, focus and work hard, listening to the radio for a reminder of the world outside my ears.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

1:37 PM
Posted by jodi rose

I'm camping out in John's office at the green bridge site - he's one of the head honchos and people keep walking past looking very surprised to see the dishevelled singing bridge girl sitting here. but he told me I could use it when he's not here - and being a queen of pirate media I'm quite happy to make my base anywhere there's an internet connection. Had another rough start this morning; for the first hour no sound coming through from the accelerometers. Did I update about placing them on monday? no, I don't think so. Ok, so the first two hours were a complete nightmare, convinced that it wasn't going to work at all - then once the first one was in place, it only took about ten minutes to get the second cable miked up for good. Five of them spent trying to get the adhesive working and not finding a flat surface - I love watching a highly specialised electrical expert installing something so tiny and delicate with superglue! Once it was in place, not sure the sound was nearly as good as when I was testing it, but couldn't ask them to reposition it after all that fiddly hard work.

This morning, freaking out again with absolutely no signal no sound at all from either of them. Eeeek. What am I going to do to salvage this, thinking fast.
Tried a few different places with the trusty old $70 schaller oyster contacts (don't know why I ever used anything else... well apart from the issue of losing signal over 100m and the accelerometers being the instrument actually designed for the job) and picked up plenty of internal noise in the structure through building still going on. But nothing from my $800 each highly tuned sensitive equipment... hmm.
Finally, one of the boys who helped yesterday came over and tried a few common-sense options with me - is this plugged in? duh! Now we're getting somewhere. Listened to the sweet symphony of bridge sounds for an hour or so, from the two cables now permanently miked up. Plenty of pows and pops going on, but I can't wait to hear it go off with the buses going past. Phew, repuation intact, almost time to sign off on this and get on with the next phase. Luka wrote me a very cute email the other day, saying; Jodi, don't worry so much. You're doing great things, relax, have a fosters for me!! Ah perfect. We worked well together in Ljubljana, a day of listening to music and drinking slovenian slivovitz, hopefully to be continued in the next stage of building the bridge vj instrument. yippeee. and I wonder why people think I don't lead a normal life ;)

Monday, November 20, 2006

11:01 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Thinking about things that ground me, and one of them is definitely Cafe Giulia, possibly the best cafe in the world (and I say that from wide and varied experience). In fact I've been known to request being taken there straight from the airport on a number of occasions. It's hard to define the intangible essence that makes it transcend the everyday function of providing food, drink and shelter to become somewhere that replenishes the spirit and nurtures a community.

Whatever it is, Giulia has it in spades. Of course the food it all incredibly delicious, fresh, healthy - well, if you don't have the rhubarb marscapone waffle too often - and simple. I usually can't go past the halloumi, avocado, tomato bagel with grilled mushrooms; but when I do explore the rest of the menu it's always stunning. That fava (bean) soup is well worth the riot provoked by some friends when it was taken off the menu. And all the people working there are interesting, friendly, relaxed enough to have a chat but still getting everything done efficiently without being stressed. It's always off-putting when you get attitude or disinterest from someone in hospitality, and that has never once happened here - after a good solid few years of constant visits. The space itself is light, airy and well-designed, rarely seems crowded even though the queue at the till can stretch down the chef's counter sometimes; and has a warm comfortable vibe. If you go often enough, the other regulars start to seem familiar, and there's usually a friend in there to pass the time of day with.

So, whenever I come back from a trip away, whether it's been days or months; I don't feel like I'm really home until I've spent a few hours in my favourite window seat, chilling out, reading, chatting, inviting friends to join me. Scraped myself reluctantly out of bed after driving back from the country last week, thought I'd really better see some daylight, and the very gorgeous Stef fixed me up with a glass of shiraz (in lieu of the hot apple cider that wasn't on that day) and my bagel. Bliss. So, having sampled cafe culture over the past few years in slovakia, glasgow, berlin, new york, san francisco, london, paris, helsinki, zagreb, ljubljana, bratislava, budapest, edinburgh, barcelona, riga, tallinn, warsaw, bangkok, chiang mai, melbourne, brisbane, perth, hobart, adelaide, launceston, bega and hong kong.... I'm serious about that best-in-the-world thing!

Monday, November 20, 2006

10:30 AM
Posted by jodi rose

realised I was lost in transit for a while there, but now have developed a little more perspective and can laugh at this ridiculous insane life.
back in sydney for a few days, saw ed kuepper - vegas lounge lizard meets ny underground experimental rock in a berlin club kinda vibe - attended belinda's garden party and 60th birthday and got on a plane.

today I'm installing the accelerometers on eleanor schonnell bridge.
wish me luck!

Sunday, November 12, 2006

8:00 PM
Posted by jodi rose

rod and mum are out picking onion and pumpkin from the garden for me to make soup. finally indulging my baking desires, with apple & cinnamon muffins today (fresh eggs straight from the hens), and chocolate last week. the hills look incredible at this time of evening, deep misty blue, with ominous dark clouds scurrying over the top.

it's been a week of wildlife - spotted an echidna on our walk yesterday, wallaby staring pensively at me from the dam, dragon lizard on the path, and the best of all - whale spouts large and small in the ocean from bermagui headlands, with a flash of glistening black tail.

almost coping with being grounded again - something very comforting about mum's collection of measuring cups I remember from childhood. flour 8 oz, brown sugar, rice, lentils - all the ingredients at different heights. althouth this could be it for domestic bliss for a while, realised that I feel most alive in flight, between places and just after arriving.

not very conducive for a stable life, is it :)
anyway, needed to fall apart for a while, now finally knitting together the unruly threads of my unravelled self back into some kind of shape.

someone quoted Plato in the sunday paper, saying 'you become what you love.' I guess that makes me a bridge...

Friday, November 3, 2006

11:36 AM
Posted by jodi rose

checked out the wooden tardis in potent exhibition on now at first draft, then motorbike ride to gail's cd launch at lanfranchis for excellent night of sonic textures and julian's wild rock-star sound art set. talking about the irania woman space tourist - just need a spare 20 million for that trip - leon tells me of a picture showing the recently landed cosmonauts on their post-space couch in Kazakhstan, grinning hugely and smoking cigars while waiting to re-aclimatise after being in zero gravity. looked for it on google but instead found this selection of art inspired by Sergei Krikalyov's sojourn in space on Mir after the collapse of the USSR left him stranded. Definitely need some gravity rehabilitation myself.

After landing:

Crew should not get up quickly from their seats to leave the Descent Module. They are advised to stay in the couch for several minutes and only then stand up. In doing that, they should limit head and eyes movement and avoid excessive motions, proceeding slowly. They and their body should not take up earth gravity in the upright position too quickly.

Sergei Krikalyov on the space station Mir

In 1992, Cosmonaut 3rd Class Sergei Krikalyov was stranded on the Mir space station when the Soviet Union collapsed. The home he had blasted off from no longer existed and his new country, Kazakhstan, did not have the money, authority, or expertise to land him. While he waited to be landed he circled the planet 5000 times, spinning uselessly and trying to repair his leaky space station, all for a country that no longer existed.

Transit Lounge interweaves the stories of an eclectic group of characters orbiting the Lost and Found desk at a Douglas Adams-style Airport-at-the-End-of-the-Universe. The creation process was launched with each of the highly individual artists creating original works inspired by the plight of Sergei Krikalyov. A year later, the play's dramaturge and director Rachel Ditor has arranged this material into a constellation of stories about the quest for home.

And finally, a gorgeus poem by Jay Ruzesky also inspired by Sergei:

From: Painting The Yellow House Blue. Concord, Ontario: House of Anansi Press, 1994.

this is for those people
that hover and hover
and die in the ether peripheries
- Michael Ondaatje, "White Dwarfs"

My name is Sergei and
my body is a balloon.
I want to come down. I
tie myself to things.
My eyes try to describe your
face, they have forgotten.
My ears echo your voice.
I am a star, you can
see me skating on
the dome of night. My blades
catch sun from
the other side of earth.
Days last an hour and a half.
No one else lives here.
My country has disappeared,
I do not know where home is.
I am a painter standing back.
I watch clouds heave like cream
spilled in tea, I see
the burning parrot feathers
of the Amazon forests,
ranges of mountains are
scales along the hide
of the planet, the oceans
are my only sky.
This is my refuge. There is
no one else near me.
Do you understand what that means?
Elena, I am
cold up here.
I hang over Moscow and
imagine you in our flat
feeding little Olga
in a messy chair.
When I drift out of signal range
I do things you
don't want to hear about.
These feet do not know
my weight. A slow
balloon bounces off the walls.
I do not feel like I am flying.
I want to come back and
swim in your hair.
I want to smell you.
I want to arrive in the world
and know my place.
Think of me. I am yours adrift.
Let me describe
my universe: I can see for years.


© Jay Ruzesky

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

12:02 PM
Posted by jodi rose

finally managed to drag myself out of bed through a combination of hunger and anxiety that if I stayed there all day it could be the beginning of a long decline. Not sure exactly what I'm up for now, still challenged by my lack of structure and routine. Thrown into high relief by not having a major project or strong through-line to draw me forward.

I know that I can get wired up and do the next thing.. but this level of exhaustion underlying worries me. Feel like I need to really address some of the underlying issues in my life, not just mask it with another bout of busy projects and hectic travel schedule. Article in the trashy sunday magazine last week talked about how we're addicted to being 'busy', that it makes people feel more important, powerful, needed and less alone. A friend last night demonstrated this, with her hectic recap of past weeks - and I know her well and can see all too clearly the stress and other faultline fractures under that incredibly capable exterior of professional and social whirl. It's when you stop whirling, what then. ? Yes, I am really alone. Yes, life is this uncertain.

I know, we're all born alone and we die alone - but in between it sure is grand to share the good times and bad with people we care about.

It used to be a dream that love would anchor me somewhere - anywhere- but now I hope more to be solid ground for each other.
Even if it's moving beneath our feet - like that CS Lewis book with the interplanetary travels and an ocean-planet with land that is always undulating and floating on the waves.

Have only just discovered this very cute site, but think it's changed my life! Quirkyalone: 'A person who enjoys being single (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than dating for the sake of being in a couple. With unique traits and an optimistic spirit; a sensibility that transcends relationship status'. I scored very high on their quiz...

Then again, so much for being alone, I seem to do nothing but go from one social engagement to another... weeks of it in melbourne and starting up again in sydney. Do need to fit some work in somewhere...

Walked out of my house today and someone had drawn an angel in the sky. Beautiful use of skywriting jets - halo, wings and long legs.