It is interesting how memories and what is real can be quite different, and also how something wonderful experienced a second time later in life, taking all things into account, can actually be disappointing or quite different from the first experience.
And then this idea also starts wandering into the territory of how when you travel away and then come back you can often find new appreciation for things, in the original place, on your return.

I feel like too much is shifting today with the wind that takes over the mindscape of this city. However disconnected cities are the weather has a way of penetrating though and orchestrating the way this performance unfolds.

reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, a book by Jonathan Safran Foer

"In stillness the mind travels far", I have forgotten where I collected this quote from, but someone said it to me today and I wrote it quickly in my journal so as not to lose it.

We lay, rolling around and stretching on the grass, eating strawberries. The sun fell down on our pale skin warming our wintery insides.
The tops of strawberries, its leaves and stalk, have resembling qualities to that of a moth or other insect

Slow walking through the desert of wide city streets. The sun glinting off surfaces and making us sleepy. Written on a wall, with paint, the words: THIS BOAT IS UNMOORED
That would make a good title of a book, I say.
It is a good line in the poem of now my friend says. And we both smile with the realisation.

This morning I went to an early morning performance of silent movement. The audience was asked to arrive and leave in silence. But silence is not quiet! Loaded with involuntary noises, the crackle of skin and the sound of breath. The build up to the moment of bursting. It is incredible , the amount of noises that happen and are emitted from other surfaces and sources than your conscious voice.

I am held by a strong urge to watch the sunset and so I put my things down on the sidewalk and sit on the curb, watching the yellow orange glow moving under the powerlines.

I met my friend on the street and he recited a quote, the tenth time this week, "travel only shows you the differences, staying still shows the changes," (Andy Goldsworthy) and I felt those words in my bones.

Back in the city and it seems that I am collecting

collecting books to read, and pocketfuls of twine and mandarin skin

ideas 

held fleetingly that seem to make sense for the tiniest amount of time.

I carelessly flick my fingers through the pages of a book and find this line from a poem, which I collect

I stand and listen.

Silence

approaches. A silence approaching music.

David Malouf

"He sought to save the lost and bid the oppressed go free" - Charles George Gordon. I found this statement carved into a stone statue in the city, it seemed very poignant but of mixed ironic meaning. 

I tried to record the sound, but I had no device to allow such a recording to become a reality, so you'll have to imagine it.

Ear placed close to the rim of a bowl,

a hyperactive but gentle,

fizzing sound coming from the dance of cultures.

the wild yeasts fermenting in the thickening mixture of water and flour of rice.

a sound full of crackling excitement.

I am making my first sourdough culture from scratch so that i can make my own bread, it is strange to feel such affection towards, a culture, but it is currently my best friend.

listening to Romani: a stateless language on Lingua Franca, Radio National

My intention with this blog isnt to pay homage or tell you about artists I like. But I am struck and so have to speak up about this collaboration between Alex Somers and Jonsi Birgisson, called Riceboy Sleeps. I missed the exhibition when it was in melbourne but luckily we have the internet and I like how this work has resurfaced again into my consciousness and brings relevant threads to the ideas of movement and travel I am exploring here.

The myspace has lots of images of their work and the riceboy sleeps website is here. 

listening to your stories by parachutes

It is interesting what people perceive as important at any particular given moment

and how throughout our lives this, importance of things, changes.

My friend told me about this artist (Tim Knowles) last night and I am very excited about his ideas and executions involving movement and travel and process and ways of using the natural movement of things to create artworks.
This particular work was sent through the postal service, a drawing implement and buggy were concealed inside a box and these lines show the tracings of movement as it travelled.
Tim Knowles

listening to Kozhamyk by Yat-Kha

listening to Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tiersen

listening to Yard of Blonde Girls by Jeff Buckley

Maps stained with sweat and dust, unfolding the creases in my worn hands. I am taking my plans with slow breathing and a quiet reassessment. 

But it all happened so fast and on a spur of a moment and all of a sudden im here again, this might take a little while to get used to.

All these itinerant words being flung around make me want to write poetry.

katherine gorge

Listening to Sing me out the window by múm

For some reason I am compelled to list the ingredients on the back of the tea-bag I am now drawing in a glass of hot water.
Indian Sarsaparilla Root, Organic Cinnamon Bark, Organic Ginger Root, Licorice Root, Burdock Root, Organic Dandelion Root, Organic Cardamom See, Organic Clove Bud, Organic Black Pepper, Juniper Berry Extract, Long Pepper Berry, Chinese Amur Cork Tree Bark, Japanese Honeysuckle Flower, Forsythia Fruit, Gardenia Flower, Skullcap Root, Black Cohosh Root, Chinese Goldenthread Root, Rhubarb Root, Wax Gourd, Asian Psyllium Seed.
Have you ever seen so many ingredients in one little tea-bag of standard sizing?

I am quietly settled into my tiredness, the languor of a room, warm from the burning, of dry logs of wood.

Breathing in through my skin,
the clarity of the nightair in the desert is astounding.
woodsmoke curling in nostrils from the burning of many fires to keep warm
dirt and sand and dust
the sensitivity of smell in a new place, i can trace the subtle scent of cucumber

Squishing into bananas with a fork and beating them with the juice from homegrown limes in a bowl,
olive oil and coconut
almonds bashed into tiny pieces in a stone mortar and pestle, ground down
rice, flour, sifted and sifted,
a pinch of pimento, and a few of powdered stevia.
The sensual aromas of cooking fill the kitchen.
A goldened top, when sliced, reveals its white insides, flecked with the brown of almond skin
A crumbly yet soft texture and the most beautiful tangy, almost sour flavour, with just the right amount of sweetness.
A strange collection of words describing the feeling. I am a bit tired to write but at the same time i didnt want to lose the intensity of the memory.

road back

Glen Helen

road

Ellery Creek

Standley Chasm

calfornian dates squished onto rice cakes