Wednesday, January 02, 2008

I' m learning to love

all the things I hate. Not like a childhood aversion to broccoli either.
I just picked all the dandelions on my backyard. I can concentrate fiercely when I put my mind to things.
I shoved them untenderly into a jam jar, and now they sit on the mantlepiece.

I did the same with some thistles growing in an inaccessible corner of the garden
I went one step further though, and tied a ribbon into a bow around their murderous stems.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Postcards from Palmengrad

While stumbling about this town today, I saw ...

1. An elderly woman in an electric wheelchair in a giveaway Tui sombrero.
2. 4 middle-eastern gentlemen smoking from an elaborate hookah in their garage.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

wellington snaps

A woman taking a break from busking on her guitar picks up a real estate give away and flicks through it. People continue to drop coins in her guitar case.

A child, perhaps four, shouts 'I love you' at people from her carseat.

An Asian family passes me on the corner, where I am smoking. They give me filthy looks as if I am selling myself.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

I liked the orchardist though

My eyesight is dimming.
I see only six of the seven sisters.
Tonight I left a party to be alone
to imagine being among a crowd.

names of the Mayans

So Mayans got to have pretty cool names, which is does not really make up for the necessity of perforating your ears, tongue, genitals using a stingray spine (Steve Irwin! Crikey!). Lots of the names seem to combine animals and a number

You get one to three glyphs for your name. Slot one seems to be for qualifiers and adjectival forms of verbs, such as great or a number, 18 for example or smoking. The second seems to be an animal or god slot (possibly the same thing) and ritual/war objects. The third slot appears to be for bodyparts including those of animals or animals. Here are some of the top ten kings' names:
Great Jaguar Paw
Smoking Frog
18 Rabbit
Shield-Jaguar
Smoking Squirrel
Lady Beastie
Lady White-Quetzal
If someone was smart they would make a 'your Mayan name' generator just like your porn name generator and etc

Sunday, December 02, 2007

visual ethnography

To



was nice and sunny and the locals got up early to mow their buildings.



Birds in the park gave us a twirl in their new summer finery.

the wow box




So last weekend I stayed down in Pito-One or Petone as it is now called. It used to be the saddest piece of real estate in the Hutt Valley despite having the foreshore. Until the closure of the meatworks in the nineties raw meaty sewerage was dumped straight in the harbour. Now it has been gentrified and feels like a little seaside town right round the corner from the Welly. My friend M with amazing foresight picked up a worker's cottage a (skipping) stone's throw from the beach for about ten bucks in the eighties. He has witness the urban renewal in the village and has participated by adding a modernist extension to the his humble abode.


Mark has an awful lot of stuff though. He is a collector which is something that I admire, but it also makes me a little claustrophobic. It won't be long until the giant modernist space is completely full.

I found love ...

... but it wasn't for me



The balloon and the note are bilingual, with Arabic on the reverse ... I'm guessing the message is the same though.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

archaeometerology - I just made that up

If you need rain here's who you have got to call
Ningirsu is the god of rain, fertility and irrigation in Sumer and Babylon. He is depicted as an eagle with a lion's head.
Baal, "the rider on the clouds," is the god of rain, thunder, and lightening.
As Indra is the god of rain, people sing songs to Indra and pray for rain.
Bushman is the god of rain wind and breath.
Mensäbäk is the god of rain; his name means "Maker of Power." Most interesting of all, Hesuklistos is Jesus Christ, the god to foreigners, who the Lacandones believe to be the son of Äkyantho', who is the god of foreign people and objects.
Tishtar is the god of rain originating from Varukasha Sea (Farakhkart) and distributing water among all countries
Rudra is the god of rain and thunder
Ilojin is the god of rain, of which the tropical Fenstre receives copious amounts. It is Ilojin who brings the monsoonal deluges for half of the Fels year.
Chac is the god of rain, and he is unhappy at the move at the WTO to privatise water, which Chac gave to everyone
Tlaloc is the god of rain, Leonardo is the god of... of... well, you decide.
It seems natural that the masks used by local farmers for rain supplication would be Ryujin, as this is the god of rain
Phya Than is the God of Rain who must be presented with shooting rockets come the sixth month of the lunar calendar
The Rato Machhendranath (rato=red) is the God of rain as well as the God of mercy.
Sabi is the god of rain.
Among the Dinka Deng is the god of rain
Dai Wong is the God of Rain and the guardian of the farmers.
The Thunderbird is the god of rain in our land. His wings are the thunder, his eye is the lightening, he spills the water from his back.

Tetnut- is the goddess of rain, moisture, and dew. She is said to share one soul with Shu.
Bunzi is the goddess of rain and fertility