Housekeeping
Three orders of business before we return to intermittent bursts of our regularly-scheduled programming:
1) New Blog Software
Disposable Words is now running Wordpress 2.5. This is neither new nor exciting, but I’ll mention it anyway because you might notice some new features pop up in the coming weeks and wonder where they came from. I say “might” because I haven’t quite decided what these new features will be, if anything. I just like that I have the room to grow.
2) Galleries
Yes, that’s right, I’ve put in my first year behind the camera and it’s time for the obligatory career retrospective. So, and in part to make up for the utter dearth of compelling new content, I’ve decided to dress up some of my old favourites and frame them on my virtual wall for all and sundry to view. Start the tour here.
3) Being Paid to Take Photos
I’ve joined the American wire service ZUMA Press as a contributing photojournalist. This is a new world for me and is at once exciting and a little daunting. Among other things this means you may see the occasionally see the byline “Austin Andrews/ZUMA Press” appear under a photo in a newspaper near you, if you look closely enough, and if I keep my end of the bargain and shoot some pixel combinations worth publishing.
This also necessitates a new age of Photoshop-free imaging, which means one of two things. Either it’ll motivate me to improve my photography skills and free myself of this magical software crutch, or I’ll get discouraged, mothball the blog and renounce this whole charade for good. Check back in a few months to find out.
Also cool: a shot of the Gold Coast I took last year has been repurposed and repackaged as the cover photo for a mass market crime novel. It’s entitled The Silver Dagger and is out now through Pan MacMillan Australia.
I haven’t read the book so I can’t vouch for its quality, but I have seen the camera it helped pay for and it’s pretty hott.
Front Pocket Childhood
I saw an early-season episode of The Simpsons yesterday that I’d never seen before. It was from the show’s golden eighth season, which is the first season I clearly remember watching during its first run, and saw the Simpsons move to the idyllic planned community of Cypress Creek. Homer is given a post supervising the assembly of what turns out to be a nuclear doomsday device, Marge’s housework is superseded by machines and she turns to drink, Bart gets put in a remedial class, Lisa develops an allergic reaction to the town’s plant life, and, predictably, the entire charade comes tumbling down and equilibrium is restored with time enough to wipe the slate clean to start fresh the next week.
The episode wasn’t a classic in the order of “Bart Gets an F” or “Marge vs the Monorail” but I was glued to the television all the same. I couldn’t help but watch it from another place, waiting and watching with childish glee trying to guess where it would go next, rather like opening the wrapper to a heretofore-unlived day as an eleven-year-old that I’d carefully hoarded and taking a big bite.
And, after ten years tucked away, it still tasted delicious.
Committing the Basket Case Nation
It may have taken a two-day standoff and uncomfirmed dozens of fatalities to get there, but with the actions of thousands of Burmese monks the lid on the long-simmering nation may have finally opened a crack.
The streets of Rangoon are under lockdown after last week’s protests turned to bloodshed with many of its long-suffering people either in prison or hiding behind drawn blinds. But unlike the 1988 student uprising, when on the day the government slaughtered 3000 demonstrators the New York Times devoted its front page to a rafting accident in Alaska, reliable information is escaping the nation’s sewed-up borders and the world is taking notice.
I don’t have much new to add to what the BBC has already reported, or to what the Guardian is inferring, but what I’ve found most interesting is the savvy use of contraband modems and mobiles by the Burmese people to deliver a different version of the truth to what their xenophobic regime would have us accept. On the same day state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported that “saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion”, the images of baton-charging and monk-beating captured by citizen media have burned their way into the consciousness of everyone who’s picked up a newspaper or turned their computer on since Wednesday.
The images and stories that have emerged show above all a government afraid of its own people, without control over their minds and under too many watching eyes to curb the dissent in the manner it had grown accustomed to. The regime won’t topple easily — long-time ally and trading partner China will likely see to that — but with the events of the past week the Burmese people have succeeded in getting the world on their side.
I’m Wiser Now
Hemma and I burned an old piano yesterday for a photo shoot. Or, more accurately, we exploded one. It was quite simple, really, and more foolish than we realised at the time.
We soaked and steeped it in petrol, walked up with a barbecue lighter and, expecting a quick-light bonfire at the most, set it ablaze. Neither of us stopped to think that the petrol might be explosive, or that in lighting it we might find ourselves inside that explosion and engulfed by flames. Her brother was smart enough to clear the scene; us, less so. Take a look:
Her mum was operating the video camera and clearly knew what was going to happen long before we did, putting on afterwards her best “I told you so” face as she examined the singed ends of Hemma’s fringe. I love the way that family bonds.
For the record, it was after this question when I closed the tab and took the dog for a walk. I felt a lot better getting away from the computer and really should do it more often.
Now, perhaps?
Scarecrow in Syndication
My friend Xander Bennett, who updates his blog more often than I do mine, recently began writing for a burst fiction website called Elephant Words. It’s pretty cool. As I understand it, the idea behind the project is that every week six different writers each contribute short story interpretations of a different photograph, inventing characters and a world around the image, then post them online for the world to see.
This week it was Xander’s turn to choose a photo and he used a shot of a t-shirt scarecrow I took in Indonesia.
I remember taking the photo very clearly. We’d pulled to the side of the road on our motorbikes because Will wanted a video of some primary school girls congratulating his older cousin on an upcoming marriage (!). While he was arranging the kids and rehearsing their lines I went wandering and came upon a colourful field with black kittens slinking around the perimeter and a ratty t-shirt keeping guard. I took the shot above, filed it with the others, then didn’t think of it again until last week.
The first story birthed by the photograph, entitled “Hairshirt in Reverse”, can be read here. It’s a fun read, and it mentions Bounty bars, which always scores a few extra points in my book.
UPDATE: The second story, which interprets the scarecrow as bait on a fishing line in verse form, has been uploaded here.
So I suppose this makes me a blogger…
In a nice (and random) surprise, Matt Clayfield has tagged me with the Thinking Bogger Award meme for “the remarkable photos”, which I find especially encouraging because when I began this blog I did so without thinking it would ever contain anything more than the occasional “still alive, thankyou” note to people I was too lazy to email.
The rules for participation are this:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (you have a choice of a silver version or a gold one).
Seeing as I’m operating with one-and-a-half feet planted outside the blogosphere, my nominees (save one) are writers who have no idea this blog even exists. First, Xander’s brand-new Childish Things for the entertaining miscellany and because he’s my only other good friend who maintains an active blog (hear that Will?); The Shape of Days, which I stumbled across looking for information about a skyscraper in North Korea and I’ve read ever since; and Digital Poetics for its easily digested theory bites.
From the Archives: Dream Logic (26 MAY 4:30AM)
I’m reading the capsule reviews on the back cover of a trashy paperback by first-time author Theoren Fleury (no relation to the hockey player). Reviews are poor: “I tell all my readers… this is not so bad” or, attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, “He’s no Robin Cook”. The publisher of the book is the same company that released Demi Moore’s tell-all first novel (she was called a novelette in a press release in the same way a person could be called a debutante or aristocrat). All this is of interest because I was supposed to that night be attending a company party at its manager’s house. En route I keep getting delayed and don’t end up arriving until 4:39am, after most of the guests had left and when those who remained are all drunk and introspective. People sit in foldaway chairs under a canvas tent, some together in nontalkative pairs, others alone and staring into their bottles. Demi Moore is alone, too, and fires me a mean glare when I first walked in. I remember I have an unread email waiting from her in my inbox.
Will’s snoring wakes me up from across the room and I look at my watch. It’s 4:37am.
Dream Logic (13 JULY 7:34AM)
I’m on a commuter train alone, finding ways to keep myself occupied without a book or mp3 player. I look out the window, it’s a cold day in a canyonside tropical city and air conditioning blows from inside the buildings out through vents before dispersing into the atmosphere. The trees and bushes near the vents are covered in built-up layers of frost and the city looks like London may have during the Industrial Revolution, only with plumes of concentrated cold air instead of smoke coming from the rooftops. The woman in the row behind me yammers on to the stranger next to her and I listen in without interest. The conversation veers toward a new movie I’m looking forward to seeing and she begins to tell him in detail how it ends. I covers my ears and am surprised how well it blocks out sound — it conveniently removes the entire frequency she’s on. While my ears are cupped I imagine that’s what my hearing would be like when I’m older if I continue to listen to music as loud as I do now. I debate whether it’s worth it — I can still hear myself talk and that’s all that matters, right? I decide I’ll continue listening to loud music.
From the Archives: Dream Logic (12 JUNE 9AM)
The trip is over and all I have to remember it by is three packages of candy: two tubes of homemade M&M minis and one tube of cinnamon mints. I give Warwick a handful to taste but hide the packages because I’m afraid he’ll eat them all and, with none left, I’ll forget the trip. Three packages. I gorge on a nostalgia trip but immediately regret it because, although it felt great to eat them, I’m down to two packages and can’t remember everything that I did before.
Dream Logic (10 JULY 8:29AM)
“Saint Petersburg once had the world’s best train system, in the 1930s, then by the 1980s had the world’s worst without changing a thing.”
Walking alone down a forested hiking trail I spot Xander, who doesn’t notice me because he’s too busy picking up the notebook’s worth of papers he dropped on the path. I approach to help and he passes me his blog (on a just-materialised computer screen) to read through instead. I start reading what looks to be the only entry then stop him, “you wrote this in high school.” He tells me there are four entries — one posted just that day — and that to access the others I’d have to scroll horizontally across the page until I came across the most recent one. The entry is several screens long and begins with an inner monologue about going into a meeting and setting a time deadline to get out of it lest he lose his entire day, talk of a gold medallion, and exploring a resort community where the paths between the chalets and nearby towns are all cross-country skiing trails.
(The previous afternoon I’d struggled for hours trying to remove a horizontal scrollbar from a website I was designing for a friend (Xander, incidentally). I’m believing more and more that dreams really are the mind’s way of sifting through new memories for long-term storage and scouring the archives for leftover misfits to purge.)
ennui
Will insisted it’s pronounced “on-we”, not “en-neuw-i”. I didn’t believe him at first, which was silly, because no amount of campaigning on my part could convince the 600-odd million English speakers who know the meaning of the word otherwise (to say nothing of the 300-odd million chatters en Francais).
Some other words I avoid in conversation — and a quick ‘n easy guide to pronounciation Austin-style:
Posthumous — “post-hoo-moss”
Superfluous — “soo-purr-floo-us”
Epoch — “e-pock”
Milieu — “my-loo”
A Partial, Unfinished List of Firsts Since January 1
FIRST football game, European style (New Year’s Day in London — Millwall — still a top-five highlight on the year)
FIRST sit-down shower (in a Warsaw bathtub)
FIRST credit card transaction (ingredients for a surprise pasta meal prepared for our hosts in Warsaw)
FIRST beer I’ve finished without wishing all the while that it was something else (once, in Poland)
FIRST water bottle shower (somewhere around Ulan-Ude on day three of our Trans-Siberian journey. It was at once the longest shower and the one using the least amount of water that I’d ever taken)
FIRST time riding a galloping horse (in Mongolia. I didn’t sit the next day)
FIRST time hand-washing laundry (in Tianjin, for the fun of it. My jumper hoodie took three days to dry)
FIRST time leading a prayer session (at bedtime in Tianjin with Kevin and Elisabeth’s kids. I felt like a liar)
FIRST (and last) dog salad (at a Korean restaurant in Tianjin. Our hosts “didn’t know” what it was until after we’d swallowed our first bites)
FIRST squat toilet (at a deserted Chinese national park. I became better acquainted with them during a bout of food poisoning the following week)
FIRST time riding a motorbike (in nothern Sumatra, Indonesia)
FIRST time unknowingly hosting bloodsucking parasites (two days ago, on a guided trek through the Sumatran jungles)
FIRST toilet water shower (today, in Bukattinggi. Travelling with an ever-frugal Dutchman you find yourself in $2/night hotels more often than you may otherwise)
A Ritual Morning Dialogue
AUSTIN, towel slung over his shoulder, crosses the hostel lobby en route to showers.
AUSTIN
Morning!
FRONT DESK STAFF
(four in chorus)
Morning!
AUSTIN
Anything from the PSB?
FRONT DESK STAFF
(four in chorus)
No! Sorry!!
Austin snaps his fingers, “nuts!”, and continues walking.
Out for Lunch
Back in 15
Wednesday Afternoon Q&A
Austin: Do you have any idea what day of the week it is?
Will: Is it, um… (looks at watch; presses a few buttons) is it Monday?
Six Ways to Cross a Mongolian Street (at a Pedestrian Crossing)
#1 – Flag down a taxi (advised) and gesture four lanes across to the other side of the street. Don’t worry about confusing the driver, he’s used to this. Hot tip from one who knows: when choosing a taxi look for one without too many dents in its side, if you can.
#2 – Wait for a lull in traffic and cross just as you would anywhere else in the world. But bring a meal or else you might starve, and watch out for rogue speeders when you finally do make your move — they have a habit of sneaking out from nowhere!
#3 – Wait for the government to build a pedestrian overpass, crossing your fingers in the hope that the first in the country will be built at the exact point you’re standing. But make sure you’re stationed next to a supermarket that isn’t in danger of shutting up shot and that you’ve brought enough tugrugs (1000 to every Canadian dollar) to keep starvation at bay for you and any potential future children.
#4 – Call that guy you know, the one who may or may not be related to the junior accountant in the department of roads, and pull a favour/make a threat get the street closed for sixty seconds the next morning, time enough for you and your fellow crossers-in-waiting to make a dash for safety.
#5 – Along similar lines, offer the driver of the longest lane-blocking vehicle a 500 tugrug bribe to park his car across the street lengthwise, stopping traffic just long enough so you’ll have a chance to cross.
#6 – Dig a hole. Dig it deep and dig it far. You’ll feel like you’re escaping from prison, and if you started on the smoggy side of the street, well, that won’t be too far from the truth.
A Partial List of Words and Place-Names Still Swimming in My Head
Zakopane
Novy Swiat
Cili Pica
Queen’s Rye Peckham
Svytury’s
вход
Zapraszamy
Last Post From West Sussex
Cream cheese is thinner here than at Tim Horton’s, I swear. But the tea tastes more authentic. And the New York bagels have more of that delicious hometown flavour we all love.
Check out Will’s flickr page (click for link) for more photos from our first few days.