Excuse me Sir – You have to Imagine it

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Engineering, Innovation, TravelLeave a comment

On entering the room, there it was, a submarine so it seemed, all big round and rusty as I recall, and really filling the space, standing tall close to the ceiling, and wall to wall, almost corner to corner.  It looked more like a massive piece of war junk, a bomb perhaps, long not exploded after being left behind.  A modern day artist had found it and installed it in this rather white room of the art gallery.  How long had it been there ? How did they get it in ? Not sure – it looked familiar, yet impossible to really comprehend as something of any use whatsoever. How heavy was it ? It kind of looked solid, but I should have been too heavy if it was solid all the way though maybe.

The room seemed too small for the object and you could not the whole thing from where I stood near the entry. I started over to the left side, and tried to crab my way down the side wall – trying to see behind the thing, to see if there was a nameplate or something.

“Excuse me Sir”, came the command of the supervisor.

-mm.. but there was no line on the floor indicating the viewing limits — I thought..

I tried a bit further in, just a peek behind it is all I wanted..

“Excuse me Sir” !!

I backed out, oh well – I would just have to imagine it, since I could not see behind it.

How will the egg remember it’s me

(who backed out with care in the gallery)

when it has to remember

a rusty old chicken

It’s laid there to be

Later I ventured into another small room, an alcove hidden from view and the only thing in it was a square hole in the wall. The hole in the wall was pitch dark.  I poked my head in. There was nothing in there.  Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dark inside the hole in the wall.  I still could not see much. I closed my useless eyes.

It smelled rusty !

“Excuse me sir !” I yelled into the void.  A dark metallic echo came back !

Now I remember what I imagined.

A short recollection – written in response to a experiencing the sculpture MEMORY of  Anish Kapoor.

Sea’Scape

On By cjx07sterIn Dreaming, Love Story2 Comments

The gravity of the massive earth sucked us on our towels into the sand of  the beach.  Our wet skin and shivering arms in the sunlight for the lifeguard to see.  Out of the seawater, streaming green seaweed locks of hair in cascades of ringlets down the side of her face.  An hour of afternoon we lay there and lazily swam from time to time aware of each others metaphoric selves. Lay pressed our arms on crushed sea shells with small sharp pricks. There was a cool breeze blowing across the bay and the scheme of things.

“when will you go back ?” I asked

“soon, I’ll go back and see how the ocean is doing”

“It’s too heavy here for you ?”

“Yes, the sky pushes down on me .. that part is tiring..”, she said.

“Everyone is looking at you… Not surprising really.. by the way it was fun !”

“I might just shift under that umbrella — do you mind ? – The sun is too strong”

“I thought of a poem about you.. want to hear it ?”

“Only if it is about home then. Ok ?”

whenever the sea belle sings

and the seaweed slings

in squeaks of massive waves

I hear your lovely voice

in the noisy shells of time

and seagulls

quark your never never name

“I love sea shells like that..” I said.

The Art of Fireworks 2013

On By cjx07sterIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

ScreenHunter_01 Jan. 01 00.17

We have fireworks in Sydney – did you see them – if not – check out this link – FIREWORKS.

Sydney is blessed with an wide deep still harbour, protected from the ocean waves and wild winds, and graced with big iron bridge and of course the opera house. Everyone’s seen it already. The whole world of cameras must have taken billions of photographs of it.

But camera’s are a minor frame looking at it all when the fireworks go off.  You find cameramen scrambling from close up to wide angle to tele tele telephoto in order to at least capture most of it.  Impossible !!

Yes the only way to see the new year with a light and a bang is on Sydney harbour when the fireworks go up !

Happy New 2013

I’m Alarmed about using Calendars

On By cjx07sterIn DreamingLeave a comment

I’ve got a couple of days left till 21st December, but the date on the modern calendar may become irrelevant when the earth as we know it may end on 21st, like the last day.  But I am so used to missing whole days, crossing date lines and travelling across time zones, as usual, I will be in the air at 38,000 feet watching movies while all this happens.

What exactly will happen ? Mayans and Sumerians seem not too consistent about the potential impact.  A rogue planet, meteor ? What’s it to be ?… If it is on one astronomical timer, then who set the timer ? God doesn’t fool around with calendars and who works in eternal timers and so it really is indeterminate when it is going to happen.  We just don’t know.

Speaking of timers, I stopped using alarms, I’m always changing them.  Instead I progressed to using timers.  Yes..  I’ve found a 5 1/2 hour timer is the most useful device.  Most things that you have to remember to do, happen in around 5 and half hours time from when you think of them.  The 5 1/2 hour timer is just perfect for sleep and other things. Independent of time zone and hotel room wake up call calculations, just set a timer to say how much sleep you should get.  If you wake up early, and see 1 hour to go, you don’t feel so bad. If you get to bed early, you wake up early.  It’s a great advance using a timer [readily available on an iPhone] than an alarm in an uncertain time zone.

So the Mayan calendar did not have any alarm written at the end of it, so I’m not alarmed about it wrapping it’s long number around on Saturday 22.  Saturday 22nd is our 33 anniversary !!  A special moment when I married my girl, who although she keeps calendars, doesn’t mind living with a guy on relative time.