Tag Archives: non-fiction

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Earlier Work [pt.1]

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PROCLUS: COMMENTARY ON PLATO’S TIMAEUS proc

Baltzly, Dirk (Three vols., Cambridge University Press, 2007, 2009 & 2013; ISBN 978-0521183888)

The masculine squalor of a man’s first share-house often owes as much to his housemates’ incompetence at housework as to their disdain for it. Some may know how to replace fuse wire or unblock a toilet, but few men of eighteen have any tangible notion of how to clean a grill trap or defrost a refrigerator.

When Dirk Baltzly moved out in the eighties, many young men couldn’t even cook. Continue reading

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Blue Oyster Cult

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THE BIGGEST SECRETlunatic

Icke, David (Bridge of Love Publications, 1999; ISBN 0-9526147-6-6)

David Icke believes in the literal truth of the postulate that the rest of us accept only as a metaphor: that the creatures who rule our planet belong to a race of blood-drinking lizardmen.

In 1991, Icke began to wear only the colour turquoise. Continue reading

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David and Goliath

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BOOK OF SAMUEL 1 Holy Bible

Chapter 17 (Holy Bible, ISBN for example 9780060649234)

A few days after Scott started housesitting at a penthouse apartment on Exhibition Street, a mob of us went around to visit him. An ancient tomcat lived in the laundry room. I remember it as Old Pukey. According to Scott, if anything startled it, it could vomit, and anything might startle it.

Old Pukey’s fur had started to fall out in patches. When it tried to purr, it made this awful gulping noise that sounded like it trying to clear its throat and not quite managing it. Continue reading

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Tour Scenic Cesta Punta

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werner_herzog_eats_his_shoeWERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE 

Dir. Les Blank. Perf. Werner Herzog, Alice Waters, Tom Luddy, Michael Goodwin, Chris Strachwitz and Phil Harberts. Flower Films, 1980. Film.

After cooking and eating his shoe in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, Herzog explains that he ranks a lack of adequate images as one of the gravest threats to civilisation. He puts it on par with overpopulation and ecological devastation.

For the man who fixes his focus well into the future, it cuts to the marrow of his fear that human progress in his society may’ve ground to a standstill. Without adequate images to knit its dreams from, can his society dream dreams of significance? Or will it spend its time perfecting the Slurpee and finding Australia’s Next Top Model, as its citizens grow more and more isolated from each another? Continue reading

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PAIRS

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PAIRSpairs

This shows the paths of some specks of colour as they emerge from several moving bodies. Each body belongs to one of four breeds: those that emit teal specks of colour, those that emit orange ones, those that emit white ones or those that emit violet ones. Each breed, in turn, belongs to one of two pairs. Each body accelerates with a constant magnitude of acceleration towards the closest body among those belonging to the other breed in the pair to which its own breed belongs.

Meanwhile, each body emits specks of the appropriate colour in the direction opposite to its acceleration. All the specks of colour move at the same speed and fade as they move. Continue reading

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Keep On Shulgin’

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myersbriggs

GIFTS DIFFERING: UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITY TYPE

Myers, Isabel Briggs & Myers, Peter B. (Davies-Black Publishing, 1980; ISBN 089106074X)

The clock showed three when the speeding person made his move. He’d stalked me since two, prowling around the edge of the conversation, waiting to detach me from the herd. The need to verbalise his jumbled thoughts to some listener beat like a fever behind his eyes.

I knew a carnivore when I saw one, but the room’s shadows made him almost invisible. I think the Goths who decorated the place must’ve concocted them on purpose. Draped in costume-shop gloom for the occasion, their apartment looked like a Tim Burton exhibit realised in eight dollars of black and purple crepe paper. When I looked away for a twinkling moment, he pounced out of the shadows. Continue reading

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Four

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FOURfour

This shows the trails of some specks of colour as they emanate from four moving masses. Each mass attracts one of the other masses and all the specks of colour that emanate from it with a force that diminishes with the square of the distance: the mass that emits specks of green attracts the specks of violet and the mass that emits them, which in turn attracts the specks of blue and the mass that emits them, which in turn attracts the specks of ochre and the mass that emits them, which in turn attracts the specks of green and the mass that emits them. Each speck of colour fades as it moves. Continue reading

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Prince of Databases

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gideons_bibleNEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE

Foundation Publications (1997, ISBN 978-1885217721)

A few years ago I attempted to rent advertising space in The Bible between the Old and New Testaments. I created a website for a fictional business called ‘Prince of Databases’ at:

http://www.sevenextraeyes.org/princeofdatabases/

I then emailed The Gideons International, who print and distribute Gideon’s Bible, at tgi@gideons.org: Continue reading

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Royal Park Reds

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das_kapitalDAS KAPITAL

Marx, Karl  (Penguin Classics; Reprint edition, 1992, ISBN 978-0140445688)

In all probability, Marxist sport associations have existed for as long as universities have funded student clubs. After nine meetings over boiled lentils, a few may even have contrived to play their first games. However one communist cricket club in Melbourne, called ‘The Royal Park Reds’, has fielded teams for more than thirty years.

Amateur cricket clubs in Australia play on two types of pitches: turf and matting. The former refers to the type of pitch professionals use: prepared strips of grass cared for by groundskeepers (often at copious expense); the latter to a concrete pitch dressed on the day with Astroturf mats brought by the teams. Continue reading

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Organisms

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ORGANISMSorganisms

This shows the trails of some dwindling specks of colour as they radiate from several energetic organisms. Each organism belongs to one of two contrasted species: those that give off green specks and those that give off yellowish ones. Each organism accelerates with a constant magnitude of acceleration towards the closest organism of the opposite species. Meanwhile, each organism expels a stream of specks of the appropriate colour in the direction opposite to its acceleration. All the specks of colour move at the same speed and fade as they move. Continue reading

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South Central Idaho

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gods_smuggler

GOD’S SMUGGLER, THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE 1990s, others

Brother Andrew, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill and Pope John XXIII (Chosen Books, 2001, ISBN 9780800793012), Thomas Knox (W. A. Wilde & Company: Boston, 1896, ISBN (reprint) 9781409970385), Peter Townrow and Ron Martin (editors) (Routledge, 2002, ISBN 9780117023659)

A wearisome ancient practice requires the journalist to begin his description of any country or region by describing it as “a land of contradictions”.

The charitable view sees this as the journalist’s admission that he hasn’t comprehended his subject. That he views the disparate facets he’ll go on to describe as contradictions, comprehending too little about the country or region to harmonise them. Continue reading

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