silly fox

your fox hero

[wordsbeforebirds]

srsly, tho?

why not? there’s time I mean perhaps there’s time? let’s try twice I’ll try text tell u times at least twice we’ve got the time there’s something sound in sense significance ten times in and, smoothly in, there’s time I mean of course, there’s not the time so try why not take time a moment or as many as u like why not it's worth the risk and wearing on there’s only time and talents and together times twice or four or something simpler why not try there’s only now and later and deciding not or onward maybe more and whether it was worth it twice or twenty times (why not?) I’ll try words in circles tempting tumbling out twice again why not? and testing space between themselves between us and between the words the text the symbols why not try? there’s not the time or, is there?  seven seconds ticked tucked lucked out or out of luck there’s time enough and space and yesterday and time to think of it and shape the way the words move in surrounding time encircling thoughts in circles out of time enough why not enough to shape to craft to make become one thought the time, I mean, become the time why not? there’s time I’ll text u twice or seven times the grating motor groaning slow to creep settle still or not or sleep cornering, like words wound well around your index or your smallest finger pieces smooth like pulp like paper crushed and burned and made anew again, there’s time there’s counting time the times there was and wasn’t time and what the fuck? there's not the fucking time.

[wordsbeforebirds]

new wave madonna.

cause of our joy.

[wordsbeforebirds]

some of those firemen need to take off their shirts and then sort that out.

me, at Taimatsu Akashi in Sukagawa last year, getting anxious about one of the fire lanterns falling off the fire-lantern fence … but also being genuinely concerned about their costumes. uniforms. costumes.

[wordsbeforebirds]

cleft or cloven whichever is right, or both doubled over to hold it in, together to keep it together

I can’t don’t care--or whatever--about much that’s going on there’s not much desaturated there’s no reward why

I think events have outcomes what’s the physics? --causality-- it doesn’t matter is physics even real? it doesn’t matter a quiet allergy I can’t care much about causality

there’s no reward an outcome achieved or whatever without you

[wordsbeforebirds]

pre-watered-down juice. I'm in the country of my dreams.

hello! I'm in Japan.

[wordsbeforebirds]

they all just float around with their fantastic topknots. like exotic birds.

me. on how, in general, boys are p heavenly. so distracting.

I am really on my game with this stuff.

[wordsbeforebirds]

dudes are beautiful and fascinating and fun to spend time on. but you are a glorious and powerful creature and they cannot devour you.

[wordsbeforebirds]

my aesthetic is out of this world. I have the face of a beautiful young boy. and I'm wearing my fighting boots.

[wordsbeforebirds]

wear your art. carve it on faces. create. if I'm dismissive, fight me. this is too important. fight me when I won't connect. use your words, your gestures. this is how we stay alive.

[wordsbeforebirds]

autocorrect. silent and atrophic manipulator of perfectly-adequate short-form prose. this is the irl tragedy of our age.

achievements today include writing this very-important sentence. because, srsly, how many instances of cultural expression need to be deleted and rewritten--how ravaged and frustrated must society become--before we address this owlbear of corruption?

[wordsbeforebirds]

my hair is unstoppable.

[wordsbeforebirds]

all boys are so young! if you scroll back more than a page or two of photos, they don't even have cheekbones!

classic Jem.

[wordsbeforebirds]

working on that code. complicated with poetics, or with autocorrect. and twistings of fiction or flippant aesthetic or ground down or whatever. dire emotion or drenching distance or, sometimes, still, only css. because, if there’s no part of you thinking it’s kind of cute I start sewing velvet in the middle of the floor instead of going to bed, there’d never be anything for either of us.

[wordsbeforebirds]

I think I've lost perspective. I just say things like this to people.

[wordsbeforebirds]

The Lake Griffin

THIS IS IMPORTANT

Jack Waterford published this confusing editorial about how Canberra should rename Lake Burley Griffin for Bob Menzies.

for background …

in 1913, Walter and Marion Griffin’s plans for Canberra won them the commission to design the city (on mostly-undeveloped land given up by NSW which, incidentally, had been taken from the native inhabitants some years previous).

sadly, the Griffin’s design would never be fully realised, as the National Capital Empire Development Commission (NCDC, now NCA) wasn’t totally into the cost of what it had committed to. it cut sections and slowed development while, for his part, Walter Griffin grew increasingly frustrated (the integrity of his vision was pretty much being compromised). the NCDC--having decided that Walter was extravagant and petulant--became quite catty, actively barring him from making the decisions that were his legit commissioned responsibility. (for the interest of those not from Canberra, basically every problem anyone has ever had with the city comes down to elements that the Griffin’s designed, but were never created). the Griffin’s direct involvement with the development of Canberra ended before it was completed, and not on particularly good terms.

years later, Bob Menzies rode in to lick the city's floundering development into shape and, when the lake was completed—such as it is—chose to name it ‘Lake Burley Griffin’. the tragic/hilarious joke is not that someone mistook Walter’s middle name for part of his surname, but that everybody knew he loathed the name ‘Burley’, he rarely went by it, and it’s just unrealistic to believe that it was not intended—at least by some—as a slight to him. after all, waiting until Griffin was dead so they could guarantee having the last word just sounds so like the NCA.

regardless, naming the lake for Bob Menzies is clearly a terrible idea. not just because it sounds ridiculous (try saying ‘lake’ with any variation of his names aloud), but because Waterford’s justification is the real heroism of Menzies for sitting on his hands and allowing the lake to be left unfinished (regardless of his actual intention). idk. naming a lake for the guy responsible for it being less-fully realised is ironic and confusing.

having said that, ‘Lake Burley Griffin’ is as-obviously ironic, as-obviously confusing and—as obviously—insufficient. ‘The Lake Griffin’ is a better option. a nice and posh way of acknowledging the vision of Walter and Marion Griffin, without being a dick.

BUT, SRSLY. if we are going to the trouble of renaming it, why not, ‘Lake Surly Griffin’? this option honors the Griffins AND Canberra’s number-one local pun/sports crossover, with the added benefit of being just postmodern enough to complement the architecture.

[wordsbeforebirds]

Canberra Peace Park

during roguish internet misadventures, I discovered that this tediously-named landmark (not to be confused with Canberra-Nara Peace Park, which is a totally-different and probably more-interesting place) has existed beside the NLA since 1990. it’s hidden—by some kind of illusion or suggestion magic—between The Lake Griffin and the elegant rise of the Patrick White Memorial Lawn (still the Patrick White Memorial Carpark on Google Earth).

the ‘park’ is this predictably-pathetic patch of scrub and peach gravel, which extends into an avenue—of sorts—with scrubby grass at either end, and all enclosed in plane trees (or whatever). there’s some kind of figure-eight or Pokemon shape or hammerhead cul-de-sac or something going on. this may be symbolic. the general idea is that peace is better than nuclear weapons, which is true, and yet … as a whole … the park confused me and I totally wanted to hate it.

anyway. it happens that sunny Canberra is a glorious wanker, and this is the worst photo I could manage. and, now I look back at it, I remember how the monument in the middle is dense and dull and bronze and rich; slowly charged by sunlight. and how the space is aesthetic with angles, even alongside Griffin’s geometry. and how, maybe, there’s something sexy about how outofplace it all is?

I never want to go there again and I’m kind of in love with it. and maybe I almost understand what it is about war that can so fascinate some people. or maybe that is part of what it’s like to have a connection to the land.

[wordsbeforebirds]

a very short photographic opinion piece on Canberra’s weather today.