Random Jottings

section 1	back to writings page
section 2
section 3	back to James's home page
section 4
section 5

The notebooks, section 1

1. Why do we have 10, 20, and 50 cent pieces, but $1 and $2 coins? And why was an old three-penny coin called a bit?
2. The reason that synthesisers have not really become successful 'serious' instruments is that people are too busy using them to imitate other instruments. Forget the fake string and fake woodwind. A synth will never successfully replicate. The beauty of a synth is that it allows a whole new range of previously unavailable timbres and voices of its very own. Why limit it to making second-rate orchestral sounds?
3. If Black Dog do a remix of a track by Björk, who get the credit? Do we praise the original artist, or the remixer? Why has this never been a concern before? It is seen as a po-mo problem, but is it any different to the writing of West Side Story? It's that borderline between inspiration and copying, perhaps - an axis, rather than a polarity, stretching from outright plagiarism to On first looking into Chapman's Homer. And even this is no solution; we are faced with the problems of copying for the sake of stealing through to copying for effect (e.g., Warhol). Is it any wonder the question "what is original?" is unanswerable?
4. Thinking of Tian-an-men Square, the image that always comes to mind is that moment of anonymous bravery - the unarmed pedestrian who single-handedly delayed a whole column of tanks by standing in the road in front of them. Would I have that much bravery? I cannot even begin to contemplate it.
5. Article on the news about an orang-utan in Austria who has been daubing paint on canvas - the finished 'art' selling for thousands of dollars. The question, of course - "is it art?". It depends on the definition. Is the orang-utan putting the colours together in particular ways for aesthetic effect? Possibly. Are the colours being placed deliberately for effect or for representational reasons? Probably not. Are they put there to gain a reaction from other viewers? Who can tell? Run some other artists through this Turing test. Is Jackson Pollock's work art? What about Tracey Emin's?
6. Possible new word: To vesuviate - to behave like a volcano. "Her hair vesuviated from her head". Adjective, vesuvial. Noun - vesuviation. Adverb - vesuvially.
7. Were the Rolling Stones the ultimate riff-building band? One thing that seems to be lacking in music since the 60s is the riff. Perhaps that is why some groups are labelled "60s influenced" - XTC, Robyn Hitchcock and the like still produce songs with recognisable motifs; for example, "Generals and majors" and "Kingdom of love". In the 60s, it was the accepted thing: songs were recognisable from their riffs... "Ticket to ride", "The last time", "I can't explain", "Last train to Clarksville". Where has the riff gone? Or has it just become too complex? Interesting to see which songs do have clear, simple riffs, though. I listened to the intros of the songs on a top 90s album - Nirvana's Nevermind was the one that came to hand first - the two most noticeable riffs are from... the two biggest singles, "Smells like teen spirit" and "Come as you are". Coincidence?
8. "Entire double people disappeared - the second ones!" (SG)
9. Template song - one stage beyond being a standard. Standards, everyone seems to interpret in similar ways. Templates are open to reinterpretation - you can impose your will on them. Eno did that with "The lion sleeps tonight". The Sex Pistols with "Stepping stone". Template songs are usually simple ("Louie Louie", "The passenger") and almost become a canvas on which the musician paints an interpretation.
10. NZ's South Island is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, but it is a poor second to the grandeur of Alaska. And the people of Alaska... perhaps Northern Exposure wasn't so far off the track. Friendly, practical, wilderness-wise, but slightly altered by the remoteness of the place in a way I can't quite quantify. Unafraid, I think, rather than anything else, and acutely aware of life and of their place in nature. If I said someone was like an Alaskan, it would be a compliment, even if a strange one.
11. The Germans have many wonderful words for states of mind (Weltschmerz, Sprachgefuhl, Schadenfreunde, etc..). Surely they must have a word for that most piquant feeling: sadness not for tangible loss, but for the intangible loss of a potential future.
12. I question scientific method. As chaos theory states that existence is by its very nature unpredictable, how can we realistically put all our faith in methods which require replicability? The answer that we use probabilities so that everything averages out is not wholly satisfactory, since this still allows any outcome to be possible on an individual trial. Which is why so many trials are performed. But are enough trials really enough? If trial n+1 was from way out in left field, the averages would change... In scientific method, rule will always be by margin of error. And what of unquantifiable or unpredictable events? If you placed an artist in a lab ten times, would he or she be able to produce 10 masterpieces? If the masterpieces do not come, does his or her talent fail to beat the null hypothesis?
13. What would classical composers have thought about about modern rock music? Wagner would be attracted to the goth/glam/heavy metal end of the spectrum, Beethoven would probably hate it all (assuming he could hear it), Bach would be attracted by the technology of sequencers, but horrified by the lack of proficiency needed.
14. Heard a song by Stealer's Wheel for the first time in years - Fresh, catchy and raw, as if the recording had cost one pound fifty to make. Thought about the changes in the attitude of musicians to music. Now it's so important, serious, dollar driven, produced. Stealer's Wheel sounded like they were having fun. Like that interview on the end of the Byrds reissue CD. There was a loving relationship between performer and audience in the sixties and early seventies. All gone, all gone...
15. Walked along the esplanade before coming home (perfect late afternoon weather, busy beach). Surprised to see two Moslems making their daily obeisance to Mecca, on a large beach towel in the middle of St Clair beach. Realised later that it is Ramadan.
16. TV debate on the Royal Family. So many silly arguments on both sides! "They should be morally perfect" Like who? Is anyone? Or do you mean like their ancestors - Henry VIII, Edward VII, etc.? "They should work for their money" - this from someone who has no comprehension of how much work they do for the UK as ambassadors. "They tacitly support an inept, corrupt political system" Tacitly? Yes, by law. This implies that absolute monarchy would be better. The other side has equally pointless arguments: "Being able to choose who succeeds is the first step towards republicanism." Ever heard of the Witanagemot? And let's face it, England was once a republic, during the 'presidency' of Cromwell - this at a time when the line of succession was at its most strict and complicated. "Separate parliaments for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales would mean the end of the monarchy." As did separate parliaments for Canada, Australia, India? The answer may be a monarch who is not the head of any country, but is head of the Commonwealth alone - a hereditary Secretary General of the Commonwealth - with every country within it having its own political head of state.
17. Head full of art and music ideas: song title "Waiting for an invitation (that never came)". Art idea - "The Seven Sisters": seven abstract paintings with poetry, each referring obliquely to a woman that I have known in some way or another: lover, friend, student, colleague... an artistic Enigma Variations. Could do similar abstracts of a group of men: friends, colleagues etc... Could also become an interesting experiment. Do a group of seven, then invite one of the subjects in and ask them to pick which one they are...
18. Bleak urban areas could be enlivened by painting power poles and street light poles. Short streets might see original artworks on each pole (e.g., in run down suburban areas); in long stretches (like light industrial zones) poles could simply be painted each in one bright primary colour.
19. There are slow doves in the water.
20. Art installation idea - a building full of 'installed rooms': 1) a room entirely draped in imaginary flags; 2) a sunken room (steps down from door) filled to a depth of two feet with brightly coloured ping-pong balls; 3) a room full of countdown timers, each ticking down to 1/1/2101 at a different speed (and so showing different numbers); 4) The delay room - a room with closed circuit TV displaying on one picture wall everything that happened in the room three seconds earlier.

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The notebooks, section 2

1. A Japanese saying: "Sometimes the hitchhiker you pick up is a ghost".
2. Curious overseas friends ask fascinating questions - things I never even queried: "What species of kiwi is on the 20c coin? What is the significance of the carving on the 10c coin?"
3. Things that life is too short for: stuffing olives; watching David Letterman and Michael Barrymore; TV coverage of golf; and - sadly - truly appreciating music, art, literature, language, love and, well, life; making lists of things life is too short for.
4. A holiday destination TV show finally showed something interesting and very un-holiday like: Port Kembla is in NSW, and has harbour cruises. It is one of Australia's major steel production sites, so its harbour cruise is around a harbour totally dominated by huge factories. A fascinating and original holiday idea (hmmm... Is this postmodernism as applied to holidays - the scenic attractions of factories?).
5. Art idea: find a map with many small, exotic sounding place names about which I know nothing, use them to guide me in the creation of abstract work or instrumental music. A series of works could arise out of studying a map of Siberia, or Western Australia, or Lincolnshire. For example, Siberia: Zima, Angarsk, Suntar, Golets Skalisty, Chagda, Indigirka, Uka, Sanga-Tolon. Western Australia: Yeeda, Shay Gap, Pannawonica, Pingaring, and, of course, Koolyanobbing. Lincolnshire: Kirmond le Mire, Snipe Dales, Toft next Newton, Potterhanworth Booths, Wrangle Lowgate and Mavis Enderby. Inspired by news of the publication of a gazetteer of Antarctic place names, many of which are extremely bizarre.
6. Road works by the Medical School have made a very deep (about 20 ft.) hole in the road. Strange that we never seem to think about all that depth of earth beneath our feet. We "surface think" - not just about this planet, but, metaphorically speaking, about so many other things, where we take things at face value, see the end product but not the process, and never look beyond the obvious.
7. The larger the supermarket, the more I dislike it. I feel too alienated in large supermarkets. But below a certain size, they are useless, because they are unlikely to have the range of products you want. What is the optimum size? Is it different for different people?
8. Band/album names: Intestinal squonkers; Small purple universe; The null zone; Funfair for the common man; Sullen vistas; Sacrificial bun-fight; Clarissa's invisible taxi; Lacerta (great for a Goth band); Captain Fluff and the fluff stuff; The floating popes; Uncle Joe's enormous raincoat (that one sounds like a song with a 'Bo Diddley' beat).\; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (a small jazz combo, presumably).
9. My idea of a luxurious house: one big enough to have a room with an empty wall, containing no bookshelves!
10. Circular double-glazed windows made from two sheets of polarised glass. The inner one is free to rotate. This allows for an infinitely variable level of light to come into the room.
11. Why isn't a blow job called a suck job?
12. A friend is at the stage where she knows the thesis is finished, but still wants to go back and correct it some more. The law of diminishing returns must cut in though. I gave her some advice I'd once been given: 'The first words Leonardo da Vinci said after finishing the Mona Lisa were "I think it needs a bit more green."'
13. Another if only - if only society was such that it was possible to say "if I were not going out with someone else, I would ask you out". And why is that a taboo? Fear? Embarrassment? A wish not to embarrass the other person? Or a wish not to have them feel equally the disquieting sadness? Similarly, the taboo of saying "I love you", for fear that the much maligned phrase will be misinterpreted. It can mean so much and so little, and so many different things, and it is never said enough. There are a lot of people I wish I'd said it to, or wish I could say it to. I think it's possible we have a different shade of love for every person we feel something about, some tending towards lust, some towards friendship, others towards comradeship, or enjoyment of shared times. Why the fear of telling people - especially fellow men how much I care about them? We miss so much by our fears.
14. A clear moment of sanity: in a record shop when the Beatles' song Let it be came over the speaker system. Simply stopped and listened. I'd forgotten just how evocative and emotive this song is. The perfect type of song - it makes you want to pick up a musical instrument and write something yourself, while also making you wonder why you would ever bother doing so, since perfection had already been achieved. And it's not even the Beatles' best song!
15. A name for a TV current affairs program: "This week somewhere else".
16. It should be possible to utilise the latent energy in carpets. You often see sunlight slanting across the floors of rooms - if it were possible to make the strands of the carpet out of photoelectric material, that lost light could be turned into energy. It works for cats.
17. Art idea: "Cold war" - a chessboard with 64 pieces, 32 red pawns and 32 white pawns.
18. From an album's liner notes: "Art is a science with more than seven variables".
19. Useless real words: "Podshaving" - making cricket bats by hand.
20. "Canadians sing like ghosts" (AP)

The notebooks, section 3

1. Art installation idea - a building full of 'element rooms' representing earth, air, fire, and water:  1) Earth, a room entirely painted black, with hundreds of LEDs hanging by tiny threads from the ceiling at different heights, like in a glow-worm cave. Sound system set up in the room so all sounds in it are echoed as in a big cave; 2) a room that is mirrored totally on floor, ceiling, and walls, which people walk through on a perspex (or similar) bridge. Small vents around the room blow air through it so that it is like walking in a stiff breeze; 3) again a walkway, this time a grille from which fan heaters blow hot air. On either side of the walkway draped calico (making the room look like a long thin tent). Onto the calico is projected video of flames (accompanied by suitable sound effects). If it could be made to be really like a tent, viewers would have to crawl through it...; 4) the types of Christmas decoration lights that flash on in sequence one after the other - take as many strands as possible of these, coloured only in blue and green, and drape them down a wall and across the floor of a room. Possibly another walkway would be needed, over the top of this. In fact, the one walkway could probably connect all four rooms in sequence, forming a loop starting with earth and finishing with water. At either end of the walkway could be a short 'tunnel of feelers', the walls of which could be covered in the type of plastic fronds found on koosh balls.
2. Great shop names seen, no. 27: "Holier than Thou tattoo parlour", "Rumours of Eternity new age centre"...
3. ...and car model names: The Mysterious Utility.
4. We live in an 'Icarus civilisation' - we fly as high and as close to the sun as we can. Is it any wonder there's always the danger of melting our wings?
5. Art idea: two identical spades buried side by side to half way up the blade in concrete. One spade painted white, the concrete around it flesh-brown, the other painted black, the concrete around it flesh-pink. Title: Racism - calling a spade a spade".
6. Beyond the stars, there are more stars.
7. Art ideas: A diary of an imaginary year: imaginary dates, holidays, events, the works; an atlas of an alternative earth, designed and printed exactly like a real atlas; a display of flags for that planet.
8. Go far enough back, and we are all related. There is nothing as depressing as a family feud.
9. When a cat is content, it will blink very slowly. Does this signify "I trust you enough to believe that I am not in danger, so I do not need to stay alert"?
10. Different peoples look at the world in ways we only dream of. The Australian aborigine language Arrernte has a word nyimpe, meaning 'the smell of the land immediately after rain'.
11. Adventure playgrounds - or even normal playgrounds - are designed for kids. But imagine how good it might be for stress relief if a larger scale version was available for adult! Swings, slides, rope bridges - all in a park set aside to be used by those too old for kids playgrounds but who need a pressure release from the daily grind. You could put a sign on the gate: "You are now leaving the real world. Please leave all anxieties, worries, and egos here. Have fun!"
12. Critics of modern dance music say that it is nothing but beat - there is no music (in the sense of melody or chord structure) there. My complaint about it is exactly the opposite. Often you get a beautiful soundscape, and just as you are about to sink into it, the boof boof boof boof pop tappity slappity slappity beat starts up. Yet among all the alternative mixes that are released of these tracks, the beatless, drumless version is rarely to be seen.
13. Dirigibles! Much safer than in the days of the Hindenburg, due to the use of helium and safer construction of the fabric. Perfect for long distance flight, and much faster than you'd think. And if someone tried to crash one into a skyscraper, it would bounce off.
14. There are some ideas that you shouldn't run with. They have sharp edges, and you could hurt someone.
15. Is saying the wrong words a case of getting your Wernicke's in a twist?
16. It is both a humbling and a frightening thought to remember that even the most advanced human civilisation as it exists today is little more than 400 generations beyond the stone age. For most cultures, it's far less time than that. Is it any wonder that modern civilisation is a fairly thin veneer?
17. People complain at historians reinterpreting history to suit themselves. But history has never been about the annotation and compilation of facts. History is the interpretation of past events in order to explain how they affect each other and how they shape the world of today. As such, it is always opinion.
18. TACETERNITY - the length of time occupied by the uncomfortable silent gap in a conversation.
19. Black and white photos are often called monochromes. But that means ‘one colour’. Which is the colour - black, or white? Many people would regard neither of them as a colour. Surely black and white photos are not monochrome, but rather diphos - ‘two light levels’. Or can you not call black a light level?
20. I feel bludgeoned by history, thwarted by decency, hampered by sanity, restrained by gravity, and threatened by reality. I guess that's normal.

The notebooks, section 4

1. The beach is like a suburban thoroughfare with no houses on it; even at dusk, when strangers would elsewhere begin to feel paranoid of each other, passers by are happy to wave friendly greetings to each other. As soon as they reach the 'civilisation' of the esplanade, however, those friendly greetings disappear. Why? It cannot just be fear of the potential attacker - there is probably more danger of being mugged on a beach far from safety than on a street surrounded by open doors. Why does the magic of the beach disappear when you reach the town?
2. Art idea: Calendar #1: How soon is now?: a stencilled calendar of one month, with one day replaced simply by the word NOW.
3. Interesting article in today's paper. The writer, aged fifty-something, had read that in a recent British music magazine survey, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had come second in an "all-time greatest album" readers poll to OK Computer by Radiohead. The reviewer was initially amazed at this, but decided to give OK Computer a listen, and was captured by its sound. He ended his review by saying two things: 1) polls such as these are unfair, as they are alway biased towards new albums; 2) when a person reaches 'a certain age', they tend to stop listening to new music, to become stuck in their ways, and to think that new music is too extreme, too experimental, too brash; to think that new music has nothing to offer them. Older listeners stop experimenting. They settle into a comfortable rut. This is what drives 'classic radio' and other schlock merchants. But not all new music eschews the ethos of the older music - after all, that's where its roots often lie. The shock of the new should not be a shock, and the quest for the new should never - ever - stop.
4. Art idea: small brick cairn with a perspex panel at the front. Inside, a working model of a heart.
5. "I had something stuck to the foot of my soul."
6. Why should anyone feel the need to be racist? My ancestors came from Africa, if you go back far enough. So did yours.
7. Here's an idea that is - sadly - tied up in so much politics that it could never happen. Ethiopia and Eritrea are warring neighbours, many of their disputes caused by the poverty and aridity of their lands. The border area between them is largely below sea level. The costruction of a navigable 30 kilometre canal from the Red Sea would lead to the creation of a 3,000 square kilometre lake (the salinity of which would drop over time) providing a natural border between the countries, and an immeasurable boost to the region's agriculture through irrigation.
8. 90% of adults never look up unless their attention is drawn to something above them. Next time you're out for a walk, stop for a moment and look at the view you rarely look at - the one above you.
9. Listen carefully to the sounds that annoy you, the sounds which are just background noise. Don't listen with the purpose of overhearing, just listen to the shape of the sounds. Distant traffic. The coughs in the audience. Conversations in a restaurant. Neighbourhood children playing. Rain. Especially rain.
10. Next times someone tells you to 'question everything', ask them why.
11. Art idea: An unnatural history museum, filled with the skeletons of animals that never existed.
12. Any time part of the world is disadvantaged either for good reasons or for bad, part of the truth gets left out. Whether it be through bigoted discrimination (disenfranchisement through hate or fear), blind tradition (disenfranchisement through hegemony), or attempts to 'redress the balance' (disenfranchisement through overcompensation), the full picture can never be achieved. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" - it is the sound of one hand being held back. It is the silencing of a voice.
13. Whenever the Olympics come around, the Olympic flame is carried from Olympia to the host stadium to symbolise the "light of spirit, knowledge, and life" associated with the games. Understandably, it only ever travels through a few of the many, many nations that take part in the games. Perhaps the spirit of the games would carry further if torches from the main Olympus to stadium relay could be taken to a site in every country participating. By the time the stadium's cauldron is lit, each of the participating countries would also have an olympic flame burning in their land as a beacon of hope and a reminder of the peace that the Olympics are meant to bring.
14. Criticising your government is not a privilege, it is a duty. It is the most important task and principle of democracy.
15. All this fuss about ending sentences in prepositions! Personally, I prefer ending my sentences with propositions - how about you?
16. A comment seen on a mailing list (author unknown): "I love both of those... like I've said, they're crap, but they're really really really good crap. People need to understand that crap isn't always bad."
17. Seismic activity rocks my world!!!
18. A pet peeve of mine - buying socks. Sports socks you can get in any colour you want, but business socks? They assume that men in business like to wear black, grey, dark brown, and - if they're feeling daring - dark blue. Where are the lime greens and the chrome yellows?
19. We all praise those great emotion producing sensations - the smell of roses, the sight of a sunrise, the touch of silk... but what of the overlooked joys? Life would be so much poorer without the smell of rain on hot tarmac, or of woodsmoke, the sight of moonlight playing on a calm sea or a snowy hillside, the feel of a bundled package of fish and chips warming the hands on a frosty evening, the sound of the happy laughter of young Chinese women, or the purring of kittens "like angelic bees (AP)".
20. The sensory and motor cortex of the brain can be mapped against the human body, creating a homunculus - a distended image of the human body. What would you call the equivalent in the brains of other creatures? Canunculus? Felunculus? Elephunculus???

The notebooks, section 5

1. "Saddle up the wagons, and let the horses roll!"
2. Many Pacific island languages are syllabic in form - made up of consonant-vowel pairs, each of which is pronounced as one sound. They are also ultimately descended from eastern Asian languages. As such, they might be better represented by ideograms representing consonants (as in Chinese) rather than symbols representing individual letters (as in English). A Pacific-inspired script made up of such ideograms would be very impressive...
3. A Dalek a day keeps the Doctor away.
4. Useless fact no. 23: The young of turtles and lobsters are called "chickens".
5. Three facts must be constantly remembered: Information is NOT the same as knowledge; Knowledge is NOT the same as intelligence; Intelligence is NOT the same as wisdom.
6. Things to do no. 108: Write imaginary folk songs in an imaginary language for an imaginary country.
7. Annopause. n. the time from December 26th to January 2nd in which everything seems to be in limbo. The old year feels gone, the new year feels unstarted, and time seems to drift slowly and meaninglessly.