The Forbidden Tree short animated film

Apologies to those loyal blog readers who noticed something amiss with this blog post – I had intended to share this short film earlier, but something stuffed up in some 'email to blog' features I'd relied on.

I recommend Forbidden Tree as an interesting, compelling short animation from a film maker whom I think is Persian, with some interesting social comments on what happens when love, or lust, feel the sting of public 'moral' outrage, gossip, and . Love-crime and punishment Iranian style?

I originally found this short film via National Film Board of Canada. I think it was a competition entry on YouTube chanell or network.

Available on YouTube via webindofirst.

[Updated 8 June 2010. Sorry for the delay in fixing this.]

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Amazing big and little giants

This has to be the most gorgeous thing I've seen in a long, long while. Truly uplifting public art. And from what I can gather, celebratory and cathartic.

It is the street theatre performance 'The Berlin Reunion' by French Theatre company Royal de Luxe in Berlin on 4 October to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany's reunification. And it gives 'street theatre' new meaning!

You get a better idea of the scale of these giant puppets from this photo.

The story is of a giant who battles sea monsters and such to bring down a wall dividing him from his little niece, and on his victory goes searching through the streets to be reunited with her. 1.5 million people filled Berlin's streets to watch the performance!

The full page photographs featured on The Big Picture are truly amazing, and really capture the details, textures and size of the amazing puppets – the detail, the theatre company's technical feats, and the enormity of the project. And capture the story really well. I wonder if we would ever get anything like it in Melbourne, or elsewhere in Australia. Perhaps to celebrate reconciliation and a treaty between black and white Australia? Someday.

There's also a video of the performance.

The photos I've shown here are creative commons-licensed photos from flickr. From the top, there are by azrael74, derSven ¶ and derSven ¶.

There's also a Royal de Luxe Central photo pool on flickr.

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Another beauty on a lovely spring day

Another beauty on a lovely spring day, originally uploaded by Mark Lawrence.

I saw this gorgeous flower blooming this morning. There's a prize for whoever can correctly, or most accurately, tell me what the flower is. Comp details will be in the comments.

Update: More details on the competition, including the prizes, are in the comments. Keep your entries coming. Competition closes at 12pm on Thursday 8 October 2009. [Updated 12.00 pm Monday 5 October 2009]

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And now a red tulip blooms

And now a red tulip blooms, originally uploaded by Mark Lawrence.

The fun of getting a mixed bag of tulip bulbs is not knowing what colours you'll get until they flower.

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Celestial butterfly

The refurbished Hubble telescope has caught some new amazing images of the celestial bodies, including this amazing image that has been dubbed a 'celestial butterfly'. Apt. According to the ABC:

The spectacular butterfly-like image is of a nebula, a cloud of stellar dust and gas, created by the last throes of a dying star that once was about five times the mass of the Sun.

I could just get lost in that image if I stared at it for too long. I keep wondering if it will suck me in to a vortex in the middle.

The new images were posted on NASA's Hubble website yesterday. This image is used under the terms of NASA's fair-use policy.

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Judith

I picked up Judith’s shopping list from the footpath the other week, and I certainly hope she lost it on her way home from – not to – her shopping. I have no idea who Judith is. I was walking to the tram stop from yoga and it had just started to shower, when I spotted and picked up the rather damp note from the wet footpath.

It is a small piece of paper that had been cut from a larger sheet. It wasn’t Judith who was the thrifty recycler, but her friend Val, who had originally left this note – quite obviously with the book she was returning to her friend:

Judith
P.S. I was concerned about the library book getting back to you.
What a delightful book & a change from all the serious ones I’ve read this year.
The characters are so believable weren’t they?
Val

Val’s handwriting is that old-school, well-tutored, slanty cursive handwriting that I have often envied but never mastered, in a rather scratchy, almost faint black ball-point pen. What book did Judith enjoy so much that she was prepared to recommend, and lend her library book to, Val? And that Val so enjoyed, and found its characters so believable?

That’s surely the kind of praise every author wants to hear. If only the author could know what Judith and Val thought of the book.

And the note I found was just the ‘PS’. I wonder what else she had to say to Judith. Perhaps she’d dropped in unannounced and had to leave the parcel on the doorstep because Judith was out. Did Val have to cut the notepaper from a larger sheet and rummage in her handbag or glovebox for a pen that worked? You know what that’s like. Three pens in your car/bag/next to the telephone but none work? And you wonder why you’re still hanging on to them? I hope Val got a new pen.

Being a recycler herself, Judith must have written a shopping list on the back of the note Val had slipped in with the returned book. Judith prefers a strong, dark blue felt-tip or gel-ink pen. Liking capitals, Judith’s handwriting is more rounded – untamed. And harder to read.

Judith’s shopping list

Mandarins
Sweet potatoe
Tomatoes
Lge handful Rocket
Ginger – little piece
Garlic
Little potatoes
Avocado
Homous
Goats cheeses
and just below the goats cheese, something indecipherable in a jar (is there a brand of goats cheese in a jar called Meredith?)

And under the heading ‘Coleslaw’ are these items:
Carrots Parsley
Celery Red Onion
Red pepper
Cabbage

Flatbread

I wonder how Judith’s coleslaw went. Judging from the fresh ingredients alone, it sounds like my kind of salad. Then again, I don’t know want went into her coleslaw’s dressing.

What goes into your coleslaw dressing? What fresh ingredients do you use? Have you ever tried adding fresh apple and walnuts to your coleslaw, or should they only be used in a Waldorf salad? I’ve had a potato salad with a little apple and walnut in it, and that seemed to work well.

And would you leave a friend a note if you’d found them not at home, or would you text them?

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Say a little prayer for me

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. Inspired by Mike Lynch's Top 100 women singers.

Someone's prayers are being answered. It's raining again in Melbourne. Lovely, wet, grey, soggy rain. The clothes on the line won't dry, but the trees and plants will be certainly greener. And hopefully the catchments a little fuller.

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From the mouth of babes

From the mouth of babes, originally uploaded by Mark Lawrence.

From the mouth of babes, originally uploaded by Mark Lawrence.

Did you ever think that one day you would raise fire-breathing monsters?

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Another first

Following on from my first published piece of non-fiction is my first review! My remix story, published in the Remix My Lit project's anthology, Through the Clock's Workings, was mentioned in the review of the anthology in last Saturday's The Age A2 supplement (25 July 2009).

I was really surprised. I was reading the A2 in bed before going to sleep – trying to catch up on the paper I'd hardly had a chance to read all afternoon – when I came across the review of the anthology. I was pretty excited, I must admit. The review also examined the Remix My Lit initiative the anthology was published from, and remixing generally, so it wasn't much of a straight 'review', but I was amazed my story was actually mentioned.

I was hoping to just link to the review online and leave it at that, but of course A2 content is not online at all, is it? And while fearful that I'd appear frightfully boastful, I thought 'what the heck' and decided to publish the excerpt that mentions my story. Although, for sake of correction or accuracy, I would not dream of describing myself as a poet. I have to say, when I first saw the opening lines of the paragraph my name is mentioned in, my heart sank, but then I read on!

"…Some Remix My Lit efforts read like tame first year creative writing exercises. The best ones either develop the original in an intriguing new direction (as Amra Pajalic does with Cate Kennedy's Renovator's Heaven) or somehow intensify its emotional effect. For instance, Danielle Wood's story How to Domesticate a Pirate lyrically explores big themes such as marriage, domesticity and consumption. But in the hands of poet Mark Lawrence, words are radically stripped back and rearranged, producing an emotional subtlety I found far more moving than the original work."

Wow.

I don't necessarily buy into the reviewer's comparison of my remixed story and the original it is based on, but I appreciate the sentiments greatly. After all, it was the powerful emotion in Danielle's story that drew me to read it and remix it and play with it like on a riff at that live remixing event at Fed Square last year.

Still. Wow.

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Dancehall station

For the end of the week. Enjoy. I know I certainly did.



Via crazybrave on twitter, with thank. One of the best things I've seen on YouTube in a long time.

[Update: Had a go at fixing the embeded video so that it would fit within the width of the text column. 5.05pm 27 July 2009]

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When I grow up

What teenager didn't want to be a radio DJ?



So I can do it online instead. Song choice inspired by Ampersand Duck at Sarsaparilla Lite. Hats off to Nanny Goat Hill for introducing me to blip – via twitter. Aah, the joys of the internet.

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Something to enjoy

I found this via the New Internationalist Blog and twitter update. In case you miss them, those are kites flapping above the roofs of homes in India, in celebration of the Makar Sankranti festival, which celebrates the return of the sun to the northern hemisphere and the awakening of the gods from their six-month slumber.

Which reminds me that Australia, in the southern hemisphere, is now heading into the reverse – the fallow period of our cycle of sun and the seasons. A good time for reflection, licking ones wounds, I guess, and recharging.

The photo, by photographer Adeel Halim, based in Mumbai, India, is published on the NI blog's creative commons license, and hence republished here. Enjoy.

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Would you try this yourself?

I think the third rule of blogging is that if you haven't had time or headspace to scrounge up a blog post for a week, then post a video. So here it is.

While clearing out my old archived emails, I found this great film clip that a colleague had sent me at work. The file was titled ‘What old people do for fun'. I have a chuckle each time I watch it. Besides the Simon and Garfunkle soundtrack, I especially love the cackling at the end…

Enjoy.



You can also find the .mpg file on my divshare site.

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Wind in the Willows is 100

I have a number of abiding memories from reading Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows as a child and young teenager. Some strong themes stand out for me, in particular the spirits of discovery, adventure, fun and camaraderie that imbue the book, its critique of the excesses of wealth, and its celebration of idyllic country-river life.

Of course, as a teenager I also had a strong desire to one day be able to ‘muck about in boats’. It was only much later as an adult did I realise the extent that food was also a strong theme running both through the book and my experience of it. With this year being the centenary of the publication of Kenneth Grahame’s most famous and enduring work, I thought it worth while to revisit this theme in Grahame’s book.

In a writing class some years ago, we were all asked to bring some food with a literary theme to share, and to select and read in class a scene involving food from a pice of literature, to celebrate the final class of the year. One of my classmates (Hi, Heather!) read from a scene in the opening chapter of the book where Rat takes Mole on a picnic on the river bank in what is Mole’s first ever – and defining – experience of the River. She also brought every single food item listed by Rat to be in the picnic hamper to share at the party.

I just want to set the scene for you. The Mole has just seen the River for the first time, has just been befriended by the Rat, has just gotten into a boat for the first time, and is about to embark on his first ever River excursion with the Rat. During a quick stop-off at Ratty’s home on the river bank, Rat reappears “staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.”

‘Shove that under your feet,’ he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.
‘What’s inside it?’ asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.
‘There’s cold chicken inside it,’ replied the Rat briefly;
coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls
cresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater––’
‘O stop, stop,’ cried Mole in ecstasies: ‘This is too much!’
‘Do you really think so?’ inquired the Rat seriously ‘It’s only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut in very fine!’

In case you had difficulty deciphering from Grahame’s writing what the Rat had packed, here it is again:
cold chicken, cold tongue, cold ham, cold beef, pickled gherkins, salad, french rolls, cress sandwidges (sic), potted meat, ginger beer, lemonade and soda water.

The only thing my classmate couldn’t manage to bring was the potted meat – if only because she wasn’t sure what it was – and she compromised with some paté. As you can imagine, we had a great end-of-year celebration that year.

My classmate’s passionate recreation of Ratty’s and Moles’ river-side picnic lunch rekindled my interest in The Wind in the Willows, and reminded me of other scenes involving food in the book. When Mole gets lost in the Wild Wood and Rat goes to rescue him, they take refuge from the snow, nightfall and dangers of the Wild Wood with Badger, whose hospitality includes an ample supper and a lovely breakfast the next day.

In my favourite chapter, 'Dolce Domum', food is also the social lubricant that makes Mole’s rediscovery one winter evening of his own home the warm and joyful experience it is. First we have Rat displaying his optimism and can-do attitude to rustle up a tin of sardines, a box of captain’s biscuits, a German sausage and some beer from Mole's stores for his and Mole's supper. When the local young field mice out caroling turn up to sing at Mole’s front door, Rat soon packs off two of them with a shopping basket and strict instructions for more provisions to cater for the impromptu event. The joy with which Mole sits down with his guests to a table laden with food later that evening is a significant marker of the importance of food in hospitality and 'house-re-warming' – not only in Grahame's experience of country England of that period, but for all cultures everywhere, I'm sure.

I don't want to delve to far into what experiences influenced Grahame's book, or his idealisation of country life, animals or rivers in England. And I don't particularly want to get into the theory that suggests that food and food scenes in children's literature take the position of sex and sexuality found in adult literature – other than to mention in passing (heh!).

This is more an opportunity, instead, for me to pay homage to a book that had a big impact on my early life, and remains a favourite for various reasons – food being one of them. It is also a book that has survived a hundred years quite well, considering the popularity of the plays based on it performed at Melbourne's Royal Botanical Gardens each summer, the television shows based on it, and how children are still taken with the adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, Otter and, yes, even Toad.

The guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk have great articles on Kenneth Grahame and the book to mark the centenary, and offer some fascinating insight into Grahame and what inspired and motivated him in writing the work.The Guardian piece has the bonus of publishing my all-time favourite EH Shepard illustration for the book, which I've not shown here only because it is still under copyright. It's the one that pretty much summed up the book for me as a child. EH Shepard's illustrations are generally considered the favourites and most identifiable with Grahame's book. The illustration above (not by Shepard) was published with the Telegraph piece.

As the weather warms up and our thoughts turn to the wonderful possibilities of picnics and barbecues and their associated foods, or just enjoying the gardens, rivers and creeks near us, I hope the Wind in the Willows offers you some inspiration. I know it will me. Perhaps I'll even make it out to the Fairfield Boathouse on the Yarra River to muck around in boats.

Cross-posted at Sarsaparilla.

[Note: sorry, I've just noticed the image was not displaying - I've fixed that up. Updated 9.42am Friday 16 January 2009]

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Sunday morning funnies

John Cleese and Michael Palin in the 'Parrot Sketch' – a sure-fire antidote to any grey-cloud-blues on a dreary Melbourne Sunday morning.

There's laundry in the washing machine waiting for me to hang out, but cracking-up over this with the family around the kitchen table is a lot more fun.

Originally found via Still Life with Cat.

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Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale

We had a great time during our weekend away to Queenscliff. In actual fact, our holiday was in the Bellarine Peninusula, as we stayed in a self-contained cottage in Wallington, about 15 minutes inland from Queenscliff, and, besides enjoying Queenscliff's township, we also made forrays to Point Lonsdale for its beach and to see the lighthouse.

I have a thing about lighthouses, and you wouldn't believe how happy I was to see and photograph the one at Point Lonsdale. The current structure has been standing since 1902, when it replaced the wooden lighthouse that had been operating since 1863. I wonder if the wooden one burned down. The plaque didn't say.

I hope to photograph the lighthouses at Airey's Inlet and Cape Otway some day, and have a complete set of the lighthouses of the Bellarine Peninsula and Great Ocean Road.

The kids are train fanatics and Queenscliff is famous for its tourist steam railway, so there was no way we could avoid a steam train trip. To be able to take our younger son on a ride, we chose the shorter 40–45 minute round trip from from Queenscliff to Lakers Siding. Short and sweet, but much going for it, including passing by some lovely views of Swan Bay and the Marine Discovery Centre (more on that later).

Queenscliff station is a simple, old country railway station with volunteers running the steam trains as a 'living museum', much like Puffing Billy in Belgrave and the museum at Daylesford. Lakers Siding was just a stop with just a little old post and telegraph office. But there we got to watch the train shunt around the carriages and join up to the opposite end to take us back to Queenscliff.

We also visited the Queenscliff Marine Discovery Centre, which is a marine research and education centre run by Victoria's Department of Primary Industries. They don't have an extensive public exhibit, but we got there just in time for the floor talk and feeding time (the creatures are fed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays). It was a really good way to see some of the marine life of Port Phillip Bay, including sea horses, sea cucumbers, scallops and such, and for the kids and adults to learn of the impact of litter, plastics and other acts of human inconsideration on marine ecology and sea life. We also got to touch the seastars, hermit crabs and other hardy creatures in the touch tank.

We stayed at a self-contained holiday cottage on the grounds of a B&B in Wallington, set in a mix of bushland and farmland. It was quite easy to get to from the Bellarine Highway, which was amazing because dotted around the property were these amazing, massive and ancient grass trees.

You could tell they were old because they are very slow growing and many had tall trunks and even taller central floral spikes. The one above didn't have half as tall a flower spike, but it was stunning and in blossom. This was pretty much the view from the kitchen window whenever I was at the sink:

Not bad for washing dishes, wouldn't you say?

You can find more of my Queenscliff holiday photos on flickr.

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Homage to Analogue #1 - film photography

A photography course I took earlier this year reacquainted me with the joys and tribulations of shooting photographs on 135 mm photographic film and using old manual SLR cameras.

Reflecting on my experiences, I came to see waiting as one of the defining aspects of film photography and how it is different from digital photography. It is a slow process, and a slow technology.

And so I was inspired to write a series of posts in homage to ‘analogue’ technologies, with this, the first, a homage to 35 mm film photography.

I learned that taking photographs on film is an exercise in patience – each roll had to be finished and developed before I could see the results. However much I wanted to know immediately if my tinkering with framing, composition and exposure had worked out, I was forced to wait.

After collecting the developed roll, I would flick through the envelope of prints and flinch at each debacle of composition, focus, exposure, or colour. Many were just silly errors. It was frustrating.

When things went well, amongst the wasted shots would be a few gems where the right confluence of light, composition and subject would emerge from the emulsion. And with that would come a great sense of accomplishment – made all the sweeter by the waiting and the length of the process.

I wouldn’t discount how much of it was pure luck, though.

With film, there is none of the instant gratification of digital photography. There’s no seeing if you got the photo right on the tiny LCD screen. And there’s certainly no opportunity to plug the camera into your computer to download and view the image files, tinker with them in photo editing software, delete the duds, file the rest away on your hard drive or burn them onto CD, and, if you’re lucky, print off a few on your home inkjet printer.

Using film also requires more deliberate, intentional activity. Some of this relates to using a manual SLR film camera, where one has to turn dials to set exposures (and wind on film), turn the lens barrel to focus and pressing the button to release the shutter.

But most of it stems from the high cost of buying and developing rolls of film. With each frame costing money, I was less inclined to snap away over and over again at the same subject to try out different approaches in the hopes of getting the perfect shot – or just getting it right.

This is certainly different from digital photography, where you can take however many images as your memory card – or batteries – will allow. And where you can view and delete files and reshoot the photo to hopefully get it right. After all, a digital image is only a series of 1s and 0s, rather than dollars and cents.

Instead, when shooting on film, each frame has to count, each exposure worked out, and each framing and composition planned, often with fingers crossed. Sure, while doing the course the deliberate technical learning played a big part in slowing me down, but cost was never far from my mind. More often than not, I would not take the shot – especially if the elements didn’t come together.

I’m sure many of you would have stories to share about the photographs you didn’t take, rather than ones you didn’t. It would be interesting to compare which instances are most remembered.

Film photography is well-suited to the ethos of the Slow Movement, which encourages us to ease up our frantic, frenetic lives, and embrace slowing down and forging more meaningful connections with other people and with what what we are doing. The patience-teaching, deliberate activity of taking photographs on film, having them developed and sorting, storing and admiring the prints can still be enriching – even if all it does is get us to slow down.

For all the frustration and enforced patience of film photography, it is a beautiful form. It can be like a meditation, and for every two or three duds, the good shots shine brighter. It requires time. And effort.

What are your favourite film photography moments, memories and photographs?

Update: now cross-posted at Sarsaparilla, where I have been invited to to be a contributor! Cool! Thanks, Sarsaparilla! [Updated 3 September 6.30 pm]

[Photograph is one of mine, taken of my older son at Collingwood Children's Farm, on 400 ISO 35 mm film, on an old Minolta 100 ST manual SLR. Not one of my best, but illustrative]

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In Praise of Analogue

When I did an SLR photography course earlier this year, I was the only one in the class who was shooting on film. The rest had digital SLR cameras. Though I felt like a dinosaur at the start, I learned to appreciate many things about film photography.

It also got me reflecting on a range of other technologies and media that have been superseded by digital technology – what you could call ‘analogue’ technologies, for lack of better word. And I was inspired to write an occasional series of posts in homage to ‘analogue’ technologies.

It is not a new use of the term, of course. Many have long described pre-digital technologies as analogue, after how clocks with hands were distinguished from digital ones. Analogue has become a very handy catch-all phrase.

There is a wide range of pre-digital media: 135 mm photographic film, black and white film, cassette tapes, video, vinyl records and even letters.

And there are many more technologies that have receded into our not-so-dim past: pre-electronic SLR cameras, transistor radios, reel-to-reel audio recorders, dial telephones, typewriters, fountain pens, and even the lowly pencil. And potentially cathode-ray tube TVs.

This won’t be an exhausting survey, but an idiosyncratic exploration drawing on my own experiences and reflections. So while I am not covering things many things, that is not stopping you from doing so, either in the comments or in your blogs.

The first in this ‘Analogue’ series will be a homage to film photography, so stay tuned.

What sets these technologies apart as analogue is that each has been superseded to some extent by a digital equivalent.

More significantly, analogue technologies are much, much slower than digital technologies. The speed of digital made it so much more appealing than the analogue equivalents. Paradoxically, in our fast-paced digital world, slowness is now what is increasingly appealing about analogue forms.

I’m no technophobe. I have enjoyed the digital revolution tremendously. But exploring analogue technologies offers a richness – not only of tapping some sentimental past, but of exploring new ways of experiencing and appreciating our world today.

[Image: photograph published by Library of Congress on flickr, no copyright]

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Manga Me

This is Manga Me. It is an image I created the other day using the great site Face Your Manga, where you can create an image of yourself from some template-like faces, features, colours and bits and pieces such as hair, glasses, clothes and eyes. It's a bit like using an Identikit.

I was inspired by a rash of Manga faces and avatars going around the Aussie blog-scene lately, and it's a bit of fun. Sophie Cunningham had a go, and Kirsty at Galaxy had a couple of goes, as it's not as easy as it first seems. Brisbane blogger Matthew Smith uses it for his Twitter profile.

Adelaide's Pavlov's Cat shares her (accidentally) younger and 'mature' manga versions, as well as her previous Simposonized self. A good reminder that this is not a new concept.

I'm using it as my current Twitter avatar.

It's not quite me, but the closest I could get. And, like Manga generally, it is spookily familiar, and yet somewhat idealized, verging on the ridiculous – a bit like the secret imaginary friend I never had.

As Kirsty at Galaxy pointed out to me, these make the perfect avatars for blogging and 'twittering': "It's you, but not so anyone could pick you out of a line-up".

Any other Manga-selves out there?

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Ten things I know now that I didn't ten years ago

Something or other jogged my memory tonight of a postcard a friend of mine sent me some 15-odd years ago when I was a Uni student.

It was an HIV/AIDS education postcard asking what was the leading cause of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infections (in the world), with three (that I can remember) multiple choice answers to select from:

a) unprotected homos-xual s-x (sorry, don't want this blog to get blocked by any nanny-net filters)
b) unprotected hetros-xual s-x
c) intravenous drug-users sharing needles

After a little hesitation, I picked 'b', mainly because I thought it was a trick question designed to challenge my inner-homophobe, but also because I was sure I had learned somewhere that rates of HIV/AIDS infections were skyrocketing throughout all population groups in Asia and Africa, and that AIDS couldn't really be called the 'gay disease' anymore as it was known in the 80s. Remember, this 1992 or 1993 and such things were just filtering through into the awareness of Australians.

Of course, the answer 'b' was correct, but little did I realise the extent of the infection rates amongst the wider hetros-xual population (I don't remember the stats from the back of the postcard, but it was high). If I were asked this question today, I wouldn't hesitate with the same answer, as the devastation that AIDS has wrought throughout Africa has become so prevalent and has so entered our consciousness. If anything, I'm sure today's younger generation may think that AIDS is the 'African diseases', rather than the 'gay disease'.

But (and here is the point of this rather long introduction to the main purpose of this post) the key thing is this little memory, in that strange Proustian way, got me reflecting on the things that I know now that I didn't know 10 years ago, and wondering if I could list 10 of them.

If anything, this is as much a reflection of what I was ignorant of – or naive about – 10 years ago, as what I have learned in the intervening years, so bear with me if my naiveté is slipping. Here is what I came up with (and by no means is this exhaustive. I just wanted to see if I could list 10 things that stand out for me):

Ten things I know now that I didn't know 10 years ago

1. That the woman I was starting to date (10 years ago this month) - rather nonchalantly, but was somewhat smitten with – is the woman I still love and am spending my life with and raising children with.
   
   
2. That the earth's climate is drastically warming because of our greenhouse gas emissions, and this is leading to dangerous climate change and throwing our ecology out of balance.
   
   
3. That I don't want to be an anthropologist specialising in Southeast Asia's emerging working class, or a sociologist researching forms of working class resistance to capitalist control of work in Australia (despite 10 years ago having started a postgraduate research degree in the former and switching to the later).
   
   
4. That having children could be so bloody exhilirating, frustrating, difficult, rewarding and life-changing. Oh, and that your children will yell – loudly and repeatedly – for you from another room the way you did to your parents.
   
   
5. That Pauline Hanson and her brand of racism has become just a blip on the political landscape, and that her xenophobia and racism was so insidiously appropriated and institutionalised by John Howard's (now former) government.
   
   
6. That a geeky, spectacles-wearing, Chinese-speaking, former bureaucrat and diplomat can become Prime Minister of Australia.
   
   
7. That the Greens could become a successful (minor) political party that cares about social justice, rather than remaining a fringe, narrow-interest political lobby group/small, state-based party, and that the Democrats go down the gurgler.
   
   
8. That the internet has become so much more than a bunch of really boring, static web pages whose information is limited, out of date or somewhat suspect, or a collection of email-list discussion groups, or hand-crafted 'Home' pages with 'under construction' animated GIFs.
   
   
9. That I can be a writer and enjoy it, and break down some of my big hang-ups about writing and procrastination – albeit just. (Though I'm not getting paid for writing my own stuff, mind you.)
   
   
10. That water, rather than oil, could be shaping up as the key resource over which so much struggle, death and destruction could emerge – if we don't do something about how our industrialised and industrialising economies are destabilising the earth's climate and undermining our water security.
    

As I reflect further on this, I realise I can come up with many more than 10, and then I would struggle to pick my top ten (though some are clearly and obviously there). So I'm stopping while the going is good. Perhaps there'll be a part two. For a while, I also toyed with the idea of listing 10 things that I don't know now that I knew 10 years ago, but that started to do my head in so I gave up.

I am curious, what do you know now that you didn't know ten years ago? Drop me a comment, or write your own blog post (if you do the later, drop me a comment, please, to share a link to the post).

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