AliaK's blog

the stems cake 13/09/1987, originally uploaded by AliaK

the stems cake 13/09/1987

the stems cake for my friend's birthday. myself & another friend made & decorated this 13/09/1987. it looks like the cover of their record. I think my copy of the record was stolen at a party a couple of years later (as were my old violent femmes & swampy records) :(

wow the stems are still touring overseas (2010). great to hear www.thestems.com.au "AT FIRST SIGHT VIOLETS ARE BLUE" was the record

"At first sight"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZCyWhd92WU

I hope lyocell is ok, because this tshirt I bought, 50% cotton, 50% lyocell is *the* most comfortable shirt I've had since I was a kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell says it's bleached wood pulp. so thank you trees (sorry you were cut down for this). need to get more. the shirt feels like this abba tshirt I had when i was about 8 that I used to wear every day. would rollerskate under friends house in it. the feel of 1000 washes and Brisbane summer heat & kids playing in big back yards & under-the-house skate rinks.

I don't want to wash it yet in case the feeling goes away! ha http://bit.ly/g5Ztxu if u want to try one. I just bought another

graphs of an ngrams (http://ngrams.googlelabs.com) word search in google books for "consciousness". it seems it peaked in the late 1800s, early 1900s and then again 1970s-1990s. perhaps not an exact science as it would depend on how many books (these are English books only) have been scanned & included in the source files, and how many people used the actual term in those books. but it gives a general idea of when the term was more popular in writings?

searching English books from 1500 - 2008 (I asked for 1 - 2010)

searching English books from 1900 - 2008 (I asked for 1900 - 2010)

Aaron Bady did an interesting comparison on 'race' terms on his blog : race in the 20th century

i just finished reading "on the shortness of life" by seneca. I think the main idea is that we are too busy being preoccupied and busy that even if we live a long life in number of years, we've only lived a short time in quality life terms. he suggests that in order to live a long life we should read and think more in philosophical terms.

"Life is short, art is long" a quote from Hippocrates (pg 1)

"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it" (pg 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiydz1tNLJE

a drive to bethells beach not far from Auckland, NZ on 10/07/2009. another video from the archive. this is my favourite beach in Auckland - the sand is brown and in winter the wind blows and you're surrounded by a sandy mist.

#vlomo10
day 17
17/11/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhyRAJgNxy4

I've started another MLA (maybelogic.net) class called Global Village - I'm a little behind as I joined a week late, so tonight I watched the week1 videos and read through the forum posts. I'm behind on another too - Douglas Rushkoff's "Program or be Programmed" which hopefully I can catch up on during my holiday weekend (though I think this might be the last week). for Global Village, run by talented artist Bobby Campbell, we watched videos by Robert Anton Wilson, Marshall McLuhan, William Gibson, Ray Kurzweil, Timothy Leary and more. I liked the quote from Soren Kierkegaard "life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlSOzj3BsR8 - I think this is partially what we're (?) / I'm doing with the video diaries each November for #vlomo10 (videoblogging month). I watched another of McLuhan's videos where he spoke about technology/gadgets vs the book & the return to tribalism (technology/communication gadgets/tribes) from individualism (renaissance man/books/singular experiences) : Marshall McLuhan - The World is a Global Village (CBC TV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic - this was interesting too - his predictions of the future were very apt.

#vlomo10
day16
16/11/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30-eD5k69Ao

on 08/08/2004 I went on a helicopter ride over Wiltshire and surrounding areas and saw some of the crop circles. my cousin's husband worked for the flight company (pilot though he wasn't flying this helicopter) and they were taking people on crop circle tours and there was a spare seat so I jumped at the chance to see them. there was also a crop circle conference running that weekend further down the hill but I recall it was quite expensive so we didn't go in to it. the end of the video is some footage from the same day driving through the UK countryside - England is beautiful in the summer - the colours of the wheat fields against the sky is one of my favourite memories of UK summer. so, for day 15, this is another one from the archive.

I don't think the video is online as I didn't think the quality was that good and I didn't like how shaky the camera was, but again. but I really like the colours in the footage & I even like the shakiness now too - with the frames of the helicopter windows and different shadows. am glad I didn't delete these clips now! amazing how time can change your views on things (& the world) I took many photos on this day and some of these have been included on a UK crop circle tracking website.

photos at http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=crop%20circle&w=28565478%40N00

the music is "mountain goat" from Amorphous Androgynous (who are also known as Future Sound of London - one of my favourite bands)

#vlomo10
day 15
15/11/2010

(half way there! keep going everyone!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUcPZy6ffTY

it was a hot hot hot day at the Newtown Festival today. a few clips from my wanderings. I liked the band that was playing near the King St entrance - I've heard a couple of those songs on fbi radio but I can't remember the name of the band. hula hoops seem to be this year's craze. might have to try one - good for the waistline!

#vlomo10
day14
14/11/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuo_9SOkNDE

surprise fireworks in the city on saturday night - I can see the edge of them. music is "Easy to Love" by The Jezabels http://www.thejezabels.com - I love this song and all of the jezabels cds. I was going to do a top 10 cd list for 2010 (cds I've bought this year - maybe not all were released this year) but I'm saving it for another vlomo10 day. the jezabels "she's so hard" cd is definitely on this list!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz1NtUUOGlg

I went to Saint Mary Mackillop place today at lunch - it's near my work office. I didn't get to see all the museum as I had to return to work, but I bought a few postcards, bookmarks and prayer cards. I like the screen printed cards - they remind me of Warhol. I sent some up to my friend's Mum who lives in a nursing home - hopefully she can give some to her friends. I sent some to my Mum too. the museum is very good, I'll have to go back and do the full tour (~45mins). the tour guide was quite interesting - she spoke about some of the historical period and what things were like in Mary's day - they had video exhibits, a film with Ernie Dingo speaking of Mary's work with the Aboriginal people and how they have stories with her in it now. and many artefacts such as the kits the traveling priests used to carry on horseback as they went from town to town in places where there wasn't a local town priest. apparently this is happening these days too - though they travel in cars / 4wd now instead of on horseback :) - the guide said wasn't it interesting that we seem to have reverted to the old days / ways in some ways. I had to leave before the tour was finished so I could return to work. it looked like an interesting historical museum so I'm going to go back and see the full tour another day when I have time (I think it takes ~45 mins). and who sells postcards for 50cents these days! amazing

#vlomo10
day 12
12/11/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lstd-kAuL8g

in 2004 I used to go on a lot of driving trips in NSW country. sometimes I'd shoot some video whilst driving. this is just a few clips from one of those trips. I think these trips haven't been uploaded before either

#vlomo10
day 11
11/11/2010

blog post @

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHF21Qd35Bs

in 2003 I went flying with a friend D and his pilot friend. I took some video and this is one of the clips. we flew over the beaches then into the harbour area so we saw the city and the harbour. I left the audio in this file so you might want to drop it to 0 as it's noisy (it was a small plane). I remember feeling a little sick part of the way through - maybe because I was looking at / concentrating on the camera at the same time and also because I could smell the fuel fumes more than in a passenger plane. it was a great flight though!

so it's a video from the archives for today. I'm pretty sure I've never uploaded this before - it was the first camera I could take videos with (an old kodak if I recall correctly) - I always thought the quality wasn't that good, but now i like the colours - it's almost like a lomo camera video?(!???)

#vlomo10
day 10
10/11/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI3L1v0f07I