This will hurt me...

Ez showcases some tip top bodyrocking moves at Dark MOFO (just before the ice creams)...

Shed. Opossum Bay. December 2012. C'mon, it's the HOLIDAYS!!!!

Morning arrives at Salamanca. Shed No. 1, Salamanca Place. May 2012. Two books this week, both Australian. The first is Helen Garner’s odd short novel-plus-two-short-story collection from 1992, Cosmo Cosmolino . Set in Jeff Kennett’s Melbourne, the chaotic communes and share-houses of the 1970s now contain bitter middle-aged people, uncomfortable in the individualistic and capitalist world they find themselves in. Drifting in and out are younger transients less tolerant of the collective temperament of the 70s. It is a tricky book, quite bleak, but never completely without hope. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but as a capture of a specific time and place that now seems long ago (despite being only twenty years old), it does a very nice job. Recommended. Second up is a book that was a real revelation to me. At the time of its release – 1976 - The Glass Canoe by David Ireland was a Miles Franklin Award-winner and widely acclaimed. Time though seems to have diminished the est...

Bike racks have come a long way of late. We are certainly of the opinion that any bike rack must ideally double (triple?) as both 'public art' as well as 'children's play equipment'.

Be very careful Henry, I have it on very good authority that there is a grumpy old troll™ living in this here shed…

Barbed wire seems to be a theme around the Battery Point area. It seems that once the middle classes decided to slum it, and they managed to shift the riff raff out, they are hell bent on keeping them out for good. Here is Shed Number Two on a grey old day. Personally, I think that razor wire would be far more effective...

" Go this way! ", it seems to be saying. They're sprucing up The Shed down on the waterfront. Quite how day-glo eighties nostalgia bits 'n pieces tacked on the what it ultimately an aircraft hanger sans aircraft is an improvement is beyond me. It's an embarrassment! A disaster! A travesty! A tragedy! I need to knock of the television news for a while...

Here you can see the shed on another gloomy morning. Very apt for this wretched building. I was going through an old book the other day and found a sentence scribbled in my handwriting in the margin. I hadn't thought about the topic in some time, but I think I still agree with the younger me (although in general I am a little more sanguine these days). "This Descartes needs a good fucking kicking." What do you reckon? Does Descartes deserve a damn good thrashing?

Sometimes you get a very dull morning, and the lights on 'the shed' are on and seem brighter than they should be. This was one of those mornings. Rather than bore you with my writing this morning, I want to revisit a moment early on in one of my all time favourite reads, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It concerns an argument between Yossarian (the hero of the tale), and Clevinger (one of the hero's foils), about the risks invloved in daylight bombing missions: “They’re trying to kill me,” Yossarian told him calmly. ”No one’s trying to kill you,” Clevinger cried. ”Then why are they shooting at me?” Yossarian asked. ”They’re shooting at everyone,” Clevinger answered. “They’re trying to kill everyone.” ”And what difference does that make?” I'm with Yossarian here, and think that the point translates well into other spheres of human interaction. That's not to say that I dislike Clevinger though. I've always liked him as a character. That said, as a similarly pragmatic...

There are so many alternatives. There is blue, there is black. There is walking, there is running. There is fish, there is door. There seems to be nothing left to the imagination any more. There is you sitting in a green plastic chair. You wear a light blue shirt, thin, yet suitable for this time of year. Your trousers are tan, but some refer to them as bone. You smile and feel pleased with yourself, You have had nature explained to you but now find yourself bored with it. There are no more questions left. I found myself perched up on the roof. It was raining. At least it felt like rain. There were no monkeys on the rooftop, only sparrows. Yet the sparrows were rats and the rats were cats and the cats all wore bright orange raincoats badly stitched up. So I jumped. This is a low. And frankly, it causes me no end of worry. I forget things all the time. Big hats. Big hats don't mean anything to me these days. The rum rebellion does not seem all that important and I'd like to k...

Also a long time ago, I knew this other guy who – despite a certain level of physical attractiveness – lacked confidence around women. Compounding this was a seemingly insatiable drive towards extreme and prolonged bouts of desire for beautiful young girls. Of course, he never had the nerve to approach these girls and usually stood across the room from them and stared intently for hours on end while drinking incessantly. He thought it gave him a brooding charm. The young and beautiful girls that I knew found him creepy. In his inebriated state, he routinely took up the challenge of dangerous dares. I remember one time when he climbed up onto a very high roof with a plastic lawn chair. At the top, he tied his legs to the chair, and hopped off the edge. On the way to the hospital, I asked him why he did it. He said, “What was I supposed to do? It was a dare.” I told him that girls weren’t impressed by that sort of carry on and he looked at me forlornly, and then he looked at his hideousl...