Category Archives: Essays

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Satellites

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PATTERN GENERATION FOR COMPUTATIONAL ARTcomart

Holos, Stefan (Abrazol Publishing, November 2013, ISBN 9781887187183)

This shows the trails of some motes of colour as they emerge from satellites orbiting the members of a binary star.

Each star has sixty satellites. The colour of the motes that a satellite discharges depends on the distance separating that satellite from the star it orbits. Satellites nearest the first star discharge red motes, those further out orange ones, and so on outwards, varying through the spectrum in smooth stages to yellow at the outermost satellites. Satellites nearest the second star discharge azure motes, those further out green ones, and again so on outwards, varying through the spectrum in smooth stages to yellow at the outermost satellites. Continue reading

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Baby Mugging

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MUGGING AS A SOCIAL PROBLEMmug

Pratt, Michael (Routledge, November 1980, ISBN 9780710005649)

While waiting in a queue last year, I saw a baby mug another baby for a foam football.

The mark clung to the football for comfort as it wandered around the floor. The mugger rushed up, pushed it over and scooped the football off the ground before running away in that wobbling stagger that looks like the baby has tumbled over with each step and just caught itself each time.

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Self Publishing In The Age Of Information Overload #6

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a_christmas_carolTHE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EDITED

If you trawl through the reviews of sundry author-published works on venues like Amazon or review sites such as Good Reads, one of the most common complaints relates to the quality of editing. Unfortunately, your primary school teachers were right: people will judge you on the basis of your writing and typos, spelling errors, poor grammar and confused writing will make a reader think you are either careless or ill-educated or both.

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Thumbs up

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A SECURITY GUARD’S BOOK OF AWESOME NOTES, LISTS & IDEAS: FEATURING BRAIN TRAINING EXERCISESsecguar

Clarity Media (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, March 2015, ISBN 9781508827979)

I must’ve caught the security guard during his first few weeks on the job. He seemed never to have had trouble from anyone who refused to let him search their bag before. At first he just asked why I’d refused.

“Because,” I said, “it feels uncivilised for private citizens to search each other.” Continue reading

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Crying At Sport

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(This was written after the tribute to murdered Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh following the Collingwood v Hawthorn game)

I don’t cry at normal things. It’s always something I’ve been a little concerned about. I didn’t cry during break ups or unrequited love or sad movies as much as would be expected. I didn’t cry when my cat died. I only ever cried in pain or anger. I didn’t cry like other girls and didn’t seem to feel things as deeply. My emotional responses didn’t appear very “feminine”. In recent revelations, this has started to make sense to me. And now I’m starting to understand who I am and why the death of Phil Walsh, and particularly why the moment of the teams huddled together being addressed jointly by the two coaches, affects me as a tragedy. Why it leaves me crying in front of the tv.

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Hollows

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PROPRIOCEPTIVE NEUROMUSCULAR FACILITATIONvoss

Voss, Dorothy (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, January 1985, ISBN 9780061425950)

When he closes his eyes, Damien Moore apprehends a cavity behind the blackness. It makes one think of a savage and marvellous god. Behind the space behind the darkness lives Damien Moore.

Damien even receives a sense of this unfathomable region’s extent. It feels wide enough to hold a novel, but not a phonebook. Continue reading

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Tiririca

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BRAZILIAN CLOWN’S POLL WIN THREATENED BY ILLITERACY CLAIMtir01

Associated Press (October 2006)

By subjecting Francisco Oliveira to a literacy exam, Brazil’s National Congress only enriched the metaphor. Then, instead of a clown in congress, they had a semiliterate clown in congress[1]. For a medley of ads from Oliveira’s electoral campaign, go to:

watch?v=HK4p35wYgXI

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Crescendo to an error

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Crescendo to an errormrblo

A certain private parking area near my brother‘s apartment includes fold-up pedestals that the spaces’ owners can upraise to defend them from other motorists. Each pedestal folds up into the middle of its parking space, where you lock it into place with a key. The distance between pedestals in adjacent spaces then becomes just one pedestal diameter less than the width of the space. Now instead of just blocking your space, the interloping vehicle blocks two spaces.

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Hive pieces

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HIVEhivelayout

Yianni, John (Gen42 Games, 2001)

This shows a set of pieces with cartoon artwork for the board game Hive. To turn them into a real set, I recommend sticking them to hexagonal bathroom tiles. Each set should contain three ants, three grasshoppers, one queen bee, two beetles and two spiders (making twenty two pieces in total). Continue reading

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Motoring

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CASK WINE UNDER FIRE AS GOVERNMENT PONDERS TAX HIKEwink

Hawthorne, Mike (The Sydney Morning Herald, April 2015)

I swing into the bottle shop with just enough fuel left to reach the petrol station on the corner. They’ve invited me to dinner twenty kilometres away in Southbank. By emptying my change jar, I’ve collected together seven dollars and fifty cents to divide between petrol and the bottle of wine I’ve said I’ll bring. Every cent I save on the wine improves the car‘s odds of getting there.

I locate a five-dollar bottle of rosé and then start foraging for something even cheaper to undercut it. Continue reading

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Igloo

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DO NOT OPEN: THE DISCARDED REFRIGERATORS OF POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANSrefr

Laborde, Katheryn Krotzer (McFarland, August 2010, ISBN 9780786437894)

Colin knew the igloo would cause trouble. I’d erected it in our freezer from rings of ice-cubes I shaved so they’d lean in to make a dome. A tiny ice Eskimo kept watch near the door until, one day, Colin snapped it off to put into a drink. With its dying breath, the Eskimo vowed revenge. It placed a curse on the freezer.

After Colin moved to California to marry a woman he met on the internet, Hilary insisted we clear out the freezer so we could store food there. A hairdryer had no effect, so I started chipping out the igloo with a butter knife and mallet. Continue reading

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Stopping All Stations Except East Richmond

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TAKEN FOR A RIDEmetro_train_cut_CC

Royce Millar and Clay Lucas (The Age, January 2011)

Somewhere between Caulfield and Clayton a drunk whom the whole train watched brought his fist, without warning, down on top of the skull of a teenager sitting beside him. While the kid grabbed his head, the drunk turned towards the dumbfounded gentleman next to him and giggled that no other way existed to deal with an Asian.

At the blow, I stood at the other end of the carriage. It took me at least five seconds to barge in, plenty long enough for any of the onlookers to collect their wits and confront him. But no one did. Continue reading

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