TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: JULY 2007

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

9:55 PM
Posted by jodi rose

it's a whole new genre. sweet trainspotting. freight train and pavlova.
who could ever guess that after 400 years the australia/netherlands connection would blossom into this?!?

making room for something new and exciting in my life. or at least that's what I'm telling myself. or it all gets too dreary and repetitive. stuck on a loop, can't get out, need some kind of circuit breaker. barcelona, maybe.

walking down the street in the pouring rain two days ago, saw a huddle of soggy hari krishna devotees, attempting to impart blissful grace to the world through their chanting and tambourine rattling. mostly they just made me glad to be in my life again, someone even more miserable than you can do that. on my way to worship at the shrine of hema, a kind of dutch designer version of kmart with the best fold out flower party decorations in the world. finally had an excuse for them.

woke up this morning to horizontal rain, flowing past in sheets. a few days peace and quiet has brought no focus, just an addiction to trashy tv that had been rekindled by the wonder of hispeed wifi, and a gnawing sense of guilt at all the wasted hours. oh well. time to watch the secret - finally - and hopefully unlock the mystery of life.

Friday, July 20, 2007

12:16 PM
Posted by jodi rose

I just plugged my power cable into a wall socket here at pacific parc and it popped with a loud blue spark. eek. the waiter came over and said, 'Yes, we had a lightning strike here a few days ago, and some of them are not working'. Although I had asked someone else if it was ok to use it, he obviously didn't know that there was electrical damage. Lucky it wasn't already plugged into my computer, I can't even begin to think about the trauma if anything happened to my other brain. Yeesh.

It's that kind of day. Actually, it's that kind of month.
That Scottish fairy tale came to mind again this morning, reflecting on recent turns of events. The one where you choose a bright sunny path through a gently sloping meadow, and it becomes the most twisted dark route through obstacles, tree roots, broken boulders, swamp, and menacing eyes in the darkness. Waiting for the moment of breaking through to the light sunny path, when you realise all the forms you have been seeing through the convoluted trees and brackish water are only shadows. My collection of sunshine was completely unappreciated.

Something about being in transit again on such a micro scale is doing my head in. Especially this time. After that lovely deep feeling of belonging and finding a sense of home with this community... to feeling a bit stepping on everyone's toes and having outworn your welcome is an unwelcome shock. Of course everyone has their own drama going on, and although I'm doing my best to bring light and joy, just being here in the situation is also creating a little additional stress. That's the thing when you stay for a while longer I guess, that somehow you get involved in people's lives, and however much I try to live responsibly and be clear and open and honest, somehow it all gets murky and strange again without any provocation or reason.

Still, it's teaching me not to take everything personally, which I have always done - surely there's some research on children from what they used to call 'broken homes' where the loss of a parent is always something the child feels responsible for, and that filters through the emotional life in other ways that you can't predict. When really, no-one else is thinking about you that much, let alone being affected by you!

For example, I saw a child fall off their bicycle yesterday, after hearing an american voice call 'watch out', and felt personally responsible as they may have been riding that way after reading my travel blog. Which is patently ludicrous, the bumps in the path aren't my responsibility, neither is how closely the people who are riding on it are paying attention - but still it feels like somehow I caused that to happen. Like the butterfly wings and the tornado. You get the idea.

'Tidy up' said the oblique strategy today. Since I don't really have a house to tidy, am working on the loose threads flickering through my mind these past weeks. Definitely need to snip and tie some of them.

There are moments of joy and beauty, like the expression on all the faces of my dutch/greek-english/brazilian-german/american friends when they first tasted the pavlova. And then kept tasting, in fact I had to confiscate it at one point so that some would be left for the late arriving Australians who had been promised this at the end of their long trek out through the industrial-office wastelands of Westpoort. Luckily I made two, as the first one became 'shattered pav' on our long ride from riviereburt in the south east, through the jordaan and up to the westerpark. In fact, we're thinking of turning it into a book, 'Cycling through Amsterdam with a Pavlova', telling the story of that one day, the many adventures and passing characters, such as the man lounging in a hammock by the canal (we wanted to adopt him on the grounds of extreme lushness) and extrapolating cultural differences through celebration and conversational anecdotes. If that guy can do it with a fridge....

At one point I had to invoke my art education when someone got stuck on a loop about how art is fake, and I felt compelled to point out that it's hardly a new idea, in fact has been part of the discourse around art for at least 100 years. People looked a little surprised at my suddenly reeling off dada, the viennese actionismus, fluxus, the situationists and sophie calle... Not that her art is fake, more about the art/life axis. That woman rocks. A friend compared my work to hers - as in 'you're more like sophie calle than any of the other artists at the venice biennale' - I was thrilled. there are some people who it's more than ok to be linked with conceptually, she is definitely one of them for me. I would go to Venice just to see her piece with a hundred and something people interpreting an email from a lover dumping her. The Indian dance video sounds particularly good, and lots of annotated writing on the walls. Which it certainly is now...

You know that thing where it's your party so you never quite relax, and everyone else has a really good time? That and a slight disconnect, where suddenly I became invisible to almost everyone for about three hours were a bit weird. But on the whole it was a great evening. Had a brief night ride to collect the lollykids from down the road, and it was beautiful being out in the dark with this eerie emptiness all around.

We also devised a convulted horror-film scenario, using the train tracks, both basements, the cats, a light fitting, children's toys on the windowsill and other spooky atmospheric devices. There was some debate over the dark secret lurking under the house; at one point something archeological with mysterious powers from 1907 when the place was built, then after the swamp-mummy slaves appeared it all got a little out of hand. I can't remember much more of the details, but stay tuned for Slaughter in Sloterdijk or some other thriller.

Pilippa gave me a 'money detector' from blokker as one of my birthday presents, and it elicited great amusement at the party. We thought we could take it to bars and find rich men, or else wave it over grant applications to find out which ones would be successful. But it turns out to be far more prosaic than either of those applications, and simply highlights the watermark on euros with a uv blue light.

Was a little worried at one point, that what is actually extremely ironic and obviously joking was coming across in the light of a manipulative, scheming, gold-digging, charlatan. Then I thought, well, anyone who doesn't know me enough to get that this is the complete opposite of my character is probably not really worth worrying about.

Anyway, so much for having a personal life.

It's evidently time to get back to obsessively working on my career and spending every waking moment planning and creating the art projects, at least you can see that it's developing and growing into something.
Great things happening behind the scenes, have to wait and see now. So many threads to pick up and follow after the last few months meeting and connecting with people, time to weave that magic again!

Friday, July 13, 2007

3:49 PM
Posted by jodi rose

... is all we have right now

the idea of sunshine
amsterdam 2007
jodi rose


collect in jars
one hour a day
more or less

sunshine*
*eternal

sunshine*
*portable

sunshine*
*the idea of

sunshine*
*and rain

sunshine*
*store in a cool dark place

sunshine*
*for the soul

sunshine*
*you are my


enjoy your preserved sunshine anytime

Friday, July 13, 2007

3:41 PM
Posted by jodi rose

I'm always giving up..... something. Only to find it again in another form. Experimental sound art and bridges - again - today. They'll be back, I know. Decided that I need to approach this next stage as a performance art piece, and create it through sheer willpower and self-belief.

Philippa and I explored the local swimming pool around the corner from her place, and discovered the magnificent personal spa baths and turkish steam huts. Very decadent and only 1.50 euro each. Luxury on a budget.

Met up with a friend to have dinner last night, which led to a hilarious hour riding around the city in the rain, finding the Eritrean restaurant had no water, Eleven bar/club way too expensive, although they gave us delicious bread and olives with our drinks, and the soup bar a block from where we started had just closed. 'I feel like we're going in circles' I remarked at one point... aha.

Ah well, time to contemplate the daisies. Hopefully life will make sense again soon. And I have a new job as Business Development Officer for a fabulous workshop/retreat place on Corfu. More soon.

Monday, July 9, 2007

9:42 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Everything is still so up in the air, still waiting to see the new pattern from the latest twist of life's kaleidoscope. Finding plenty of joy and distraction until then, and slogging away at getting words into shapes that make sense. Or at least aren't completely incoherent...

As Philippa said at the Bjork concert last night 'If I was Dutch and you were Icelandic.... I'd be tall and you'd be famous!' Her show was very low-key until the last few songs, but gorgeous, such a kooky wonderful singer with the most childlike dancing style, beautiful to watch her pink and white kimono style sleeves flutter in the wake of her movements. And that crazy voice, very very fabulous and played some of my favourites.

We had an impromptu trip to the beach with Marcelo as he forgot to bring the ticket with him, so took us out to Haarlem and we lounged by the sea for hours. On the only sunny day all summer, or so it seems. Found the sweetest old-wood panelled cafe on the way home, with huge fresh plates of delicious schnitzel or salmon and salad. Very happy and sandy.

Picking up my fragments and reconfiguring life for the next few weeks, then heading south. It's not so bad really, just one stable thing would be nice. One.

Threes took me out to NDSM, the old shipyard which are now theatre spaces and fancy offices, amazing architecture and beautiful old boat docks. She directed a performance there in the mid-nineties, which famously flooded the actors and musicians, and in exactly the same spot another group was doing something for the festival out there this week.

Having fun with the visiting dancers next door, although I didn't make it again to the performance tonight - sad, as troupe from Burkina Faso, but will try to get to their workshop on wednesday. Bringing back all those African dance classes with mum at the STC. back in the day.

Filled seven jars with sunshine cameos during the cold wet rainy days.