Andy Vervoorst

2012-01-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

2011-12-26T20:55:00.000-08:00

2011-12-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

2011-10-30T01:17:00.000-07:00

2011-10-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

2011-10-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

2011-09-26T01:53:00.000-07:00

2011-09-17T23:32:00.001-07:00

BOOK I HAVE JUST FINISH.

2011-09-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

2011-08-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

2011-06-12T17:47:00.001-07:00

More lost drawings

2011-06-12T02:53:00.000-07:00

Lost drawings I found at mum's and dad's

2011-05-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

2011-05-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

What a great day Saturday was! First had a peaceful train rail into the city Listening to IPod, something that I don’t have time for anymore (listen to Black Sabbath. Dehumanizer). Stop off at Catholic Book Shop to buy a book I wanted. Next stop All Star Comics to enjoy the friendly crowd that had come for Free Comic Book Day, and let’s not forget the free comics. Walk over to Bus gallery but did not go in, try again some other time (I now know were it is). Took a long walk to ACCA. I enjoy and feel safe in the gallery. It is a good place to see and find out about new art.

2011-05-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

2011-04-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

2010-12-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

Mistaken explanations of natural phenomena.

The new place I do my drawing.

2010-06-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

2010-06-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

2010-05-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

2010-05-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

2010-05-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Melinda for kick me ass to go to see Dan Graham’s ‘Rock my Religion’. We did not hear all of the Q and A with Dan Graham because he looked very un-comfortably

2010-02-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

2009-11-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

2009-10-31T14:30:00.001-07:00

2009-10-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get an exhibition together, with no luck. It could be because I can’t write a good artists statement or the drawings are no good. Ok I think the drawings are good enough to go to the trouble to get a show. My artists statement is not the best just like me. Maybe I have just started looking at the worry time and I just have to wait for my time to come around. I have try four galleries and I keep trying.

Which leads to the question, why do I really want an exhibition? Do I want people to tell me now good I am, make cool friends and make a career?

It is nice to have people like you, but one night is a short time. I had three years at art school to make cool friend, which never really worked out. This is one of the greats regards I have about that time. I have a good job in which I see myself doing good for people (I work in childcare) and I can see it become a good career.

Maybe it is the same question has, why go to church? I can worship god at home why do it with a group of people. People who come together to show faith in something (and lets say that is what we do going to exhibition) become part of something greater, be meeting and talking to people the group has a whole has the change to grow, even if it is just a nice feeling for one night.

Making art (drawing and printings) is a way to make a stand against DVD, Facebook and anything that takes as away form the soul, a way to try to life a life worth living. To create something for the soul. But art May only become divine if share with people.

2009-10-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Reasons why the world should be more metal

2009-10-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

2009-06-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

2009-06-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

2009-05-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

2009-04-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

2009-03-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

2009-01-31T17:14:00.000-08:00

After

Before

2009-01-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

2008-10-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

2008-08-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

2008-08-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

2008-07-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have notice that all my dreams are about the past. The dreams always focus on high school or university, girlfriends and the fear of failing. From this I can sketch a line, one side being dreams of the past and the other being the goals one sets in waking live.

But two nights lately I had a dream I lost my job, which filled my day with fear, and just last night I had a dream someone ruined my drawings, which made my cry but on waking up I was OK.

2008-07-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

Everything is going to be alright. I have a jobs which I can do and that helps people, I do not feel dread towards other people ( I have no real friends or girlfriend) I feel no shame about not having a active social life and I know a girlfriend is beyond the limit of my understanding. I am happy in the knowledge that I can walk the line with no fear or hope for the future and no great sadness about the past, Win or lose it will be OK. I am no fool I know that things may change but for the moment I am happy with my dreams and small goals .

2008-04-21T13:16:00.000-07:00

2008-02-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

Listening to early pink Floyd over the past week (thanks to my brother) I have been dreaming about what Tom Cruise would make out of Syd Barrett. Would tom have tried to wake Syd up form his day dreams to follow the dreams of being successful, of being a winner or loser? Maybe it is my age or the fact that I am a working man how, but the idea of dreams has been in the front of my mind. Be it Scientology, Hillsong or the Hip hop which I see on TV, I do not want to dream of just being successful of. The cure of Dianetics may just be worst than the sickness
“Dianetics could be said to be what the soul is doing to the body. It provides answers to the fundamental riddles of the mind with a thoroughly validated method that increases sanity, intelligence, confidence and well-being. It gets rid of the unwanted sensations, unpleasant emotions and psychosomatic ills that block one’s life and happiness. Dianetics rests on basic principles that can be easily learned and applied by any reasonably intelligent person—as millions have. It is the route to a well, happy, high IQ human being. “

2008-01-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

It looks like I will never finish Don Quixote. I can’t pretend I never start the book, and I can see a end.

2007-12-28T16:33:00.000-08:00

Angel theory and Assemblage 23 was crap, so crap I want home early. Likely something on your iPod and leaving home to see that artist are two different things. Assemblage 23 and Angel theory maybe good to listen to walking to and from work, but in real life it’s just two men with a keyboard. In future I stick to the ROCK.

2007-12-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

2007-12-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

Mum and I had a talk yesterday and ended up with is! No culture can safer in are third space people will always need to meet in groups over a long period of time. So that the group can apply fear, guilt and are blissful feel of togetherness, be it with money or time. Being free of these forces leads to people becoming culture shoppers and ends with the only culture being a personal one make from the different blissful bits of past cultures.

2007-11-24T16:21:00.000-08:00

I have rediscovered the joy of read Science Fiction over the past week. The highlight being Man Plus by Frederik Pohl, what a killer of a book no wonder it won the Nebula Award. Two things which stood out for me are, the slow building up of a feel of powers behind the project that leads to the twist at the end of the book and the lack of landscape. The earths landscape in the book is cut down to the roads between place and the man made landscape within rooms are all important.

2007-10-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

2007-10-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

Look over the internet I found this image. I believe the picture on the wall is one of my. It is good to see that my pictures can leave home and lead better life than myself.

2007-10-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

2007-09-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

Went on a family day trip to the German fest at the Immigration museum. Listen to a talk by Robert Wuchatsch (friends of Westgarthtown) on early German migration. Score six free SBS T-shirts and three SBS bags. The highlight of the day was running into Martin Luther and walking between the doors of the Scholosskirche with the 95 Theses nail to it.

2007-08-25T01:21:00.000-07:00

2007-08-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has spent time wondering around the SF / fantasy part of a secondhand bookstores will have come across the large pile of Michael Moorcock books. The hours during my RMIT days, look over the great cover art and the train trip read the books is one of the happy memories of that time.
So I was delighted to find a new SF magazine (Death Ray) that had an interview with Moorcock. In the interview I was pleased to feel that in parts he sounded more rock ‘n’ roll than literary. “I was probably the only person of my generation actually living the 60s! Other writers would tell me they wanted to meet my rock ‘n’ roll friends; when they did they were usually horrified”. But by the end of the interview Moorcock comes across more like the great middle man, not fully rock ‘n’ roll because of he’s write career, but also unwell to play the company line “Most popular fiction is conservative – witness what’s out there, from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings to Rankin’s thrillers and literary fiction like Ian McEwan. There’s something inherently conservative to genre fiction, whether it’s SF or modernist social fiction. Of course, some of the writers are liberal but the form forces them to conservatism.”
I know little about the literary world, read is something which I sent find hard. It is writers like Moorcock who has giving my energy to keep reading. I value time away for TV and internet videos, that keeps my mind open and hopefully working. “ And if my stories say one thing, they certainly drum that one in over and over again. We have to keep struggling in order to maintain justice – the balance. The price of freedom is, to quote again, eternal vigilance”

2007-08-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

Clutch - Burning Beard - Music Videos - IFILM

2007-07-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

‘Burning Beard’ by Clutch I love this video so very very much. It is able to same up what clutch has become, that being a band of old man preacher to a room of robots (like to think of as EMO kids)
Clutch - Burning Beard - Music Videos - IFILM

Mastodon - Sleeping Giant - Music Videos - IFILM

2007-07-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

Over the last two days I have spent sometime watch music video on ifilm, I even signed up so if this works you will be able to view too. First ‘Sleeping Giant’ by Mastodon, I wish some of the Science Fiction show would have has much vision. This video remind my of the AA Attanasio book ‘The last legends of earth’ in it’s able to think on an epic scale.
Mastodon - Sleeping Giant - Music Videos - IFILM

2007-07-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

Mix tape never to find a home

2007-06-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

We don't like you

2007-06-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

\
Things to do

Finish reading Don Quixote

2007-06-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

Love Ain't for Kepping = The WHO
Anybody's Window = Wolfsheim
Bargain = The WHO
This S*it Will Fcuk You Up = Combichrist
Fragile = Lacuna Coil
My Wife = The WHO
Indiscretion #243 = Aereogramme
Raped and Freezin = Alice Cooper
Stained Silver = Cave In
Profits of Doom = Clutch

2007-06-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

2007-06-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

2007-06-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

“ I think sometimes it’s eavesdropping on conversations. Or really kinda taking anything outta context and putting it in a new context. I mean, I can say whatever I want to say and if you say it with enough conviction people are gonna believe ya. I don’t know the first thing about, say, Civil War history or UFOs, but I can lie my way through that. I think that’s what any storywriter does. I don’t think Anne Rice is a vampire but she can lie her way through that too.” Neil Fallon

2007-06-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

2007-05-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Andy's Ipod Top Ten Most Played song

Anybody's Window: Wolfheim
Baba O'Riley: The Who
Fragile: Lacuna Coil
My Wife: The Who
Stained Silver: Cave In
Profits of Doom: Clutch
Play for Today: The Cure
Dulcinea: ISIS
Ain't No Right: Jane's Addiction
To the Edge: Lacuna Coil

2007-05-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some images of my old school blog (my journals )

2007-05-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

Finish watching all five seasons of Babylon 5. What a great piece of space opera it was. It making my reflect on the enjoyable weekends in which I read Peter F. Hamilton “night’s dawn” trilogy. The space battles and the five season story ark support 3 week of prolong TV watch. The bad point of the five season story ark in which each characters destiny is so clearly define in the first two seasons, is that it sometime became boring watching. Having no time to go off into new sub plots even the “Day of the Dead” episode written by the talented Neil Gaiman did not add much delight. On a personal note sometime the military under tones to the show make me feel uneasy, it is displeasing that a lot of science-fiction series take is road. I like the show but I can only wonder if the makes of the show listen to bit more hawkwind or if it had Michael Moorcock write some episode it may have injected more of a spirit of wonder and true fantasy.

2007-05-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

2007-03-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

In fear every day, every evening,

He walks into a shopping centre

Carefully watched for a reason,

Painstaking devotion and love,Surrendered to self preservation,

From others who care for themselves.

A blindness that touches perfection,

But hurts just like anything else.

Shopping centre, Shopping centre, Shopping centre

Mother I tried please believe me,

I'm doing the best that I can.I'm ashamed of the things I can’t buy

I'm ashamed of the person I am.

Shopping centre, Shopping centre, Shopping centre

But if you could just see the beauty,

These things I could never describe,

These pleasures a wayward distraction,

This is my one lucky prize

Shopping centre, Shopping centre, Shopping centre

2007-03-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

I saw a girl with a Depeche Mode T-shirt at the Shopping Centre

In your Shopping Centre

Where time stands still

Or moves at your will

Will you let the morning come soon

Or will you leave me lying here

In your favourite darkness

Your favourite half-light

Your favourite consciousness

Your favourite slave

In your Shopping Centre

Where souls disappear

Only you exist here

Will you lead me to your Food Court

Or leave me lying here

Your favourite innocence

Your favourite prize

Your favourite smile

Your favourite slave

I'm hanging from your levels

living on your breath

feeling with your skin

Will I always be here

In your Shopping Centre

Your burning eyes

Cause flames to arise

Will you let the fire die down soon

Or will I always be here

Your favourite passion

Your favourite game

Your favourite mirror

Your favourite slave

I'm hanging from your levels

Iiving on your breath

Feeling with your skin

Will I always be here

2007-02-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

2007-02-13T19:08:00.000-08:00

Why is it that if I think of the late 70s and early 80s all I can think of is thing related to pop culture? I am starting to consider that things happen which has nothing to do with ‘Pink Floyd’ or ‘Depeche mode’. Two weeks ago I pick up a copy of ‘Crass best before…1984’ and reading about the groups politically activities against the Falklands war and Thatcher’s Tories (Which I know little to nothing about). It appears that the 70s and 80s was not all fun and games. It is a shame that I know next to nothing about post war history, all the history I learn during high school was the First Fleet and Gallipoli. Maybe the important of post war history is to show people that the Second World War was not the war to end all wars.

Yesterday I was watching the ‘German news’ on SBS with mum. It had a spotlight on the left-wing terrorist group the ‘Red Army Faction’ (Baader Meinhof Group) because of the debate about the pardoning of the ‘Baader Meinhof Group’ member Christian Klar. Mum told me about what a terrible time it was, during the so-called ‘German Autumn’ of 1977. The ‘Baader meinhof Group’ was responsible for the kidnapping of ‘Hanns- Martin Schleyer (member of the ‘Christian Democratic Union of Germany’) and the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane. The group was responsible for 34 murders. Please do not think that I support the actions of the Baader Meinhof Group or that I am trying to link the group with the band Crass. Ulrike Meinhof are member of the Baade Meinhof Group is quote to have said, “Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs on more.” Crass protested by making music, the Baader Meinhof Group showed resistance by killing 34 people and putting a whole county under a blanket of fear. I think the Crass song ‘Bloody Revolutions’ says it better. “You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool/ You speck of liberation and when the people rule/Well aren’t it people rule right now/ what difference would there be/ Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me”I feel that it would be unwise of me to just try to learn ‘philosophy’ without gain a understand of the ways people used ideas.

2007-02-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

It was hard to leave the comfort of home on Sunday the 4th of February, but that is just what I did, the reason being to see the awesome ISIS performance. My normal fear of a ‘Rock’ crowd left me to be replace with a feeling of togetherness. Even if a large part of the crowd did not like the band ‘These arms are snakes’ whom I had warn feels towards. The feeling of togetherness even invade the next day were I realize that the draw on my ISIS T-shirt was out of the book I am read at the moment (Gustave Dore illustrations for Don Quixote) I believe this to be a good omen for the future.

2007-02-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

2007-02-10T17:53:00.000-08:00

I have been reading the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and one of the things that I really enjoy is the open endness of he’s tales. Unlike J.R.R. Tolkien’s middle-earth in which everything happens out of some historic reason, in Lovecraft tales the characters are more like tourist moving in and out of dream worlds full of unbelievably wonders or unnamable horrors.

Lovecraft tales are not great battles between good and evil, but places in which good looks upon evil and in turn evil finds are great unnamable evil. Creating a macabre space in which everyone is alone and lost. Lovecraft talks about the literature of cosmic fear saying, “The True weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming it subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain – a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.”
A contemporary example of this can be found in the TV show ‘Lost’. The castaways of a plane crash are place on an island on which the laws of nature are not fixed (lock being able to walk / The polar bears in the jungle). Having lost the safeguard of the outside ordinary world the castaways are alone to face an unknown force.
No real answers are giving to the islands mysteries, so viewers all over the world are using their imagination to create answers. This is giving audiences both a sense of own ship of the show and it is also fueling peoples dream life.“ The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life. Relatively few are free enough from the spell of the daily routine to respond to rapping’s from outside, and tales of ordinary feelings and events or of common sentimental distortions of such feelings and events, will always take first place in the taste of the majority; rightly, perhaps, since of course these ordinary matters make up the greater part of human experience.” The show ‘medium’ has elements of the weird but never truly departs from the ordinary. Even if the main character uses her dreams to see future crimes, the show is always about the crime and not the unknown power of dreams. The show is like ‘law and order’ with a side order of weird.

2007-01-28T17:19:00.000-08:00

I think that everyone can gain something from ‘life-long learning’. It goes beyond just developing new or better careers. It enables people to reach a better understanding of themselves and other within society. Learning can also be entertaining! This is a new insight for me because I hated high school; I repeat year 11.And at RMIT I failed first year Art History 3 times. But how instead of watching TV, DVD, and the Internet I am trying to learn ‘philosophy’. I am using the “Mastering Philosophy” textbook, which is part of the “Palgave Master Series of books. The book is good because it has an extensive reading list and questions with some guided answer at the end of each chapter. It is hard going but lam enjoying it.

2007-01-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

If I was a filmmaker and working on a scene that needed to be within a ‘Hip” gallery, I would pick the paintings of Sigmar Polke which is now showing at the RMIT Gallery. The colors are blight and expressive and would be a good background to any light-heart drama. (Ingraining but not interesting enough to draw the views eye form the mean drama) the figurative elements would make the paintings believable, and not just five-minute job of some stagehand.
Sigmar Polke was born in 1941 in Oels in Lower Silesia (mum always wants to know the time and place of people birth) In 1963 he along with Konrad Fischer-Lueg and Gerhardt Richter establish ‘capitalistic realism’ which aim to critical re-working the cultural effects, taking images from the mass media, film or historical culture, and degenerating them through deliberate mistreatment.
Sigmar Polke uses the layering of imagery to great affect. Starting with a ‘abstract expressionism’ painting atop of which he places his trademark use of ‘benday’ dots (which view form a distance make up a coherent picture) with which he imitates and derides pictures of current events reproduced in the media. The ‘benday’ dots inability’s the figurative elements to drift in and out of the abstract background, making Polke’s work hard to place within one style. Sigmar Polke outlook is hostility to the idea of a fixed style and never allows himself to be forced into an art-theoretical straitjacket. I was happy that I made time within my trip into the big city to do more than look at shops and hope this will be a start to a year in which a will try to fill my world with wonder and become more brainy

2006-11-13T15:28:00.002-08:00

"They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world. When he complained, and longed to escape into twilight realms where magic molded all the little vivid fragments and przed associations of his mind into vistas of breathless expectancy and unquenchable delight, they turned him instead toward the newfound prodigies of science, bidding him find wonder in the atom's vortex and mystery in the sky's dimensions. And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation."
H.P. LOVECRAFT

2006-11-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

2006-10-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

I have lost all hope in been hip, young or cool! In trying to put two new CD’s onto my Ipod dad mistakenly put “Love Mountain” inset of “Blood Mountain” (which is very un-heavy metal). I also now have the new Tool album on my Ipod twice, we tried and tried to change things but nothing worked.

2006-10-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

Mastodon, Blood Mountain is a Great CD!

2006-09-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

2006-09-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Looking back on my first term working as an Art teacher it has becomes apparent that I have a long way to go before I am the greats art teacher in the world. The everyday stress of behavior management made me cut corners in another areas of me teaching My Assessment of artwork came from the top of my head “gut reaction”, even if at university we learn to use criteria to mark each individual art element within an artwork. But was this altogether a bad thing Dr Max Darby in the article “Authentic Assessment in the Visual Arts” says that “ art is not like other subjects. That’s its strength. Sadly, the ‘objective means’ that are devised (usually criteria with numbers attached), always fall back on subjective decisions so any argument about their objectivity seems indefensible! And, even more sadly, the fact that what is achieved in the Visual Arts is often not rational and explainable. OR, at least, it shouldn’t be. This is so often misunderstood or remains unrecognized. Because the Visual Arts as a means of experiencing life is that way, is one of the most critical reasons for its inclusion in the education of all students. It puts student in touch with essential aspects of humanity that are primarily different to what they experience elsewhere.” (Dr Max Darby, “Authentic Assessment in the Visual Arts”) This Article outlines five Guiding Principle of Assessment in the Visual Arts. The article focus on senior secondary but I feel that most of the ideas could work at lower levers, how can we has art teachers ask students at VCE level to act like free thing artists if during the lower year are forces to do step by step projects which look at one art element at a time.
1. Assessment should be based on global judgments rather than on dissected parts.
“Breaking an artwork down into parts, such as with the use of predetermined criteria, also encourages student to work towards meeting just those things specified. The does not encourage the breaking of extending of personal boundaries. Such specificity of individual qualities that are expected during assessment, anticipates what a student will do in advance. It guides them and controls how they and what they do. Surely this in contrary to what we argue art education is about”(Dr Max Darby, “Authentic Assessment in the Visual Arts”)

I ask my year 9 Students to draw a Two-point perspective drawing of a house and
to fill this line drawing with Howard Arkley inspired patterns. I show the students a example which I had made. Most of the student copy my house to the last detail with only two student create something different
2. Assessment should take advantage of the notion of ‘emerging criteria’ and/ or ‘emerging interpretations of criteria’ and not rely on the use of predetermined criteria.
“In many instances, the nature of an artwork does not become evident until it is encountered. This can be as true of student artists as it can of career artists. The work of Jackson Pollock, for example, needed to be seen before ways of judging it could be considered. Predetermined ideas about art and about what he should have done ate that time would have failed him enormously.” (Dr Max Darby, “Authentic Assessment in the Visual Arts”)

3. Assessment should place equal emphasis on the value of the artistic process and on the value of the completed product.
4. Assessment should acknowledge there is an essential role to be played by the student, the teacher and a visiting examinerAssessment should be based on dialogue generated through discussion between the student, teacher and a visiting examiner

2006-09-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

2006-07-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

I Have gained my first teaching job for term 3 at a local high school

2006-06-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Today I look out my window to see a van had flipped on to its side on the freeway next to the house (wish I had a camera). I do not thing anyone was hurt but it was my own JG Ballard moment without the unpleasant things

2006-06-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Looking at old photos with mum on the weekend, I came across 2 photos of the exhibitions Myers used to run during the 80’s. I remember the quene runing from the bottom of the store to the top floor.

2006-05-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

It was my 31st birthday last week, so I went out and purchase volume 3 and 4 of the Sandman Library.
www.geocities.com/area51/zone/9923/sandman.html

2006-05-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

The A2, cover story in this week Age was about ‘Freegans’: people who minimize their impact on animals and the environment by living on what supermarkets throw out.

“G says he got started about two years ago when he was reading Georges Bataille,
the French writer and thinker who died in 1962. In contrast to conventional
economists, who start from the problem of scarcity and how best to overcome it,
Bataille analysed the prevailing social and economic order by seeing what it
does with its excess. So the next time G passed a supermarket’s dumpster, he
looked in. “There were about a hundred bananas in there” he said. That got him
really excited, and he has been dumpstering ever since. Now he gets all his
meals from dumpstering, living from the excess of corporate capitalism”

“Freeganism is not only about free food. Behind it lies a view about how to live
one’s life, one that rejects the priorities set by the consumer society and the
lifestyle that results from accepting those priorities. Because most people see
their status as linked to wealth and what they can buy, they are locked into
working, often in unsatisfying jobs, to earn the money they need to enhance
their statue. Freegans reject that idea of status and do not even need to earn
money to satisfy their basic needs. Freegans see happiness as something that
comes from doing things, rather than having things.”

2006-05-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

THE BREAKING OF THE BACK

on leaving schoolimmersed in philanthropic notions

(of a kind these days i find unthinkable)

i pulled my frail frame onto my charger and rode off into a sunset with agenda predictable.

Fresh faced

young dumd and tragically convinced that blind faith could make an infantile normative playground theory on social interaction positive enough to show them all

but alas!

working the tills put hair on my chest, telesales made me a man

and everywas going to be ok,

but the making of the man was the breaking of the back upon the rock of everyday hostility.

and i don't mean to seem at all ungrateful

but the air-conversation life has left me gasping for some real conversation.

and just because turing couldn't possibly conceive a machine with this little personality

i'm working shifts in veal-fattening pens and yet i'm puppy thin

because to tell the truth i was hanging on for something more

than distant dial tones and a sense of ending

the braking of the back was the making of the man.

I love this song; it is part of a small number of songs, which address my day-to-day life. Like the promotions work I had last week, promoting Roasters, Irons and vacuum cleaners at Southland. It did help to develop my people skills (needed in teaching), but unlike teaching I did not believe in what I was saying. Having to have faith in the faithless made my week empty. It is too easy for people to feel powerless, like in the big brother house. It upset me greatly that Michael said yes to being the Insider and I was happy that David told him ‘that you could have said no’.
I have been thinking a bit about Politics lately and the role every day normal people can play in building a better society. All round the world people are taking to the street to say ‘No’, the student protest in French, the May Day protest in the US and the union protest all over Europe, but in Australia nothing. I really like to know why?

2006-04-29T21:24:00.000-07:00

2006-04-18T01:06:00.001-07:00

It was thanks to my brother that I found out about Blogs, and because my brother had one I had to have one too.
My brother's blog is Heretics Anonymous
I also found a old friend who has a blog
Take everyday as it comes, brothers and sisters

2006-04-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

I have been very busy over the last two week; first I was work in telemarketing for the long time of nine days because I was not able to meet sales number. (I am sorry to all the people I called)

During this time was the Clutch show at the Corner, which was dreadfully ROCK N’ ROLL. It was loud; my ears took a day to get back to normal. It was ugly; the t-shirt came in large or extra large. It was the night; I got home at 4:00 am (which is very late for me) I think I had a good time!
Dad also started university and its up to me to help with his study. So I have been making posters planning a study timetable. As I was look over all the assessments I was happy to see the use of a journal as an assessment tool. Maybe it is my art background but I love the ideal of journals. I can see no better way for a student to become a ‘Reflective Practitioner’ meaning someone who thinks deeply about his or her professional work and challenges not only the practice, but also the theory that lies behind it. During the two (and half) very hard years learning to become a teacher it was always problematical to find the balance between the theories learned at university and the practice of the teachers during rounds. I view a journal has the link between theory and practice the ideals which I note within a journal are able to grow over time with gain experience and a better understanding theory

2006-03-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

2006-02-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

One of the TV show which I liked to watch last year was "Before the Game" so this year I am going to try to follow the football. Hawthorn is the team I have picked to follow because the teams new home is in my hood (Waverley Park) I watch the last half of the game this week and it good to see a win

2006-02-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have passed my VicRoads Learner Permit Test with a score of 84%.

2006-02-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

2006-02-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

One of the mean reasons, if not the mean reason I start this blog was to help my become more assertive. I run into a lot of problems with classes during my teaching rounds because I was not assertive enough. If I want to archive the goal of being more assertive I will have to be able to project an image of myself into the wider world (this blog).

Assertive style:
A person is behaving assertively when he/she stands up for him/herself, expresses his/her true feelings, and does not let others take advantage of him/her. At the same time he/she is considerate of others’ feelings the advantage of being assertive is that you get what you want, usually without making others mad or any more than they were. If you are assertive, you can act in your own best interest, and not feel guilty or wrong about it.

Meekness and withdrawal, attack and blame are no longer needed with the mastery of assertive behaviour

2006-02-04T20:00:00.000-08:00

2006-02-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

The CD I am listening to at the moment are
EARTH, Extra- Capsular Extraction ( aided briefly byKurt Cobain on vocals)

ISIS, Panopticon ( the best CD artwork I have see in a long time

GODFLESH, Messiah

5IVE’S CONTINUUM RESEARCH PROJECT, The Hemophiliac dream (mum like's this one