July 30 2011

On the 211th day of the year I drove 55 km each way to see a friend’s contemporary dance work in a shiny new Arts Centre in the outer suburbs (which was a great show and worth the drive). All advice was against taking the train late at night so instead I filled my car with passengers and hoped that was one less car on the road.

Turmoil and disarray continue in Libya. The shooting of rebel military chief, General Abdel Fatah Younes, has left a power vacuum and questions over division within the rebel opposition, amid conflicting accounts of who’s responsible for his murder. Civilian Libyans also have plenty to stress them out: food, electricity and water shortages, soaring prices, sanctions, NATO air strikes, rising summer temperatures, the fate of loved ones engaged in battle…

July 16 2011

NDT well lived up to its expectations, even tho the only Jiří Kylián piece was a 12 minute solo, and I note that at 20 years old it has not dated. Marvellous. Thank you NDT.

Obama pissed off China by meeting the Dalai Lama at the Whitehouse.

May 11 2011

On the 131st day of 2011, rugged up on my bike against the sudden cold that’s landed on the city like an iceberg, I thought the huge mobile phone advert on the side of a bus, inviting us to get “summer proofed”, was stupidly incongruous. Old ad? or is the phone company confused about which hemisphere we are in? And I enjoyed Chunky Move‘s Connected tonight – especially the mesmerising kinetic sculpture by Reuben Margolin.

Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for human rights, announced the US plans to fund technology that will fight internet censorship by regimes including China and Iran, to increase civil liberty online.
Artist-activist Ai Wei Wei has been detained (i.e. disappeared) by Chinese authorities since April 3.
Writer Liao Yiwu, whose books are banned in China, has been banned from travelling to attend the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
And pressure from foreign activists (1.5 million signatures from Avaaz) prevented a bill proposing the death penalty for homosexuals from coming to vote in Ugandan parliament today.

April 17 2011

On the third Sunday in April 2011, I rested my body, wrestled with PayPal and saw Incendies. I sat through the whole film not knowing which middle eastern country they were in – which seems pretty shameful. I later learned it was filmed in Jordan – but I don’t think we were really meant to know.

In Cuba, The Communist Party is holding its first Congress in 14 years. The 79 year old President, Raúl Castro, made a surprise proposal that top politicians and party officials – including himself – should be limited to two five-year terms.

April 16 2011

On the one hundred and sixth day of 2011, after checking the BOM radar like someone with OCD, I decided that it was safe to take the bike rather than drive. 10 minutes into my ride it started raining. Then in the afternoon, 10 mins into my ride back home, I got caught in such heavy rain I had to stop and wait under a pub awning. But I guarantee you, if I had taken the car instead it would not have rained a single drop. And in the evening I saw a contemporary dance/modern ballet piece by Frances Rings. I rarely see work by Indigenous Australians so two in one week is pretty marvellous.

But who cares what the weather, or the arts, are doing? Libyan rebels and Human Rights Watch report Qaddafi’s forces are using cluster bombs – nasty little fuckers that are widely banned and “pose a particular risk to civilians because they scatter small bomblets over a wide area.” Medical teams in an overflowing Misrata hospital say more than 80% of their patients are civilians.

The Libyan government’s near siege of Misrata has not prevented reports of serious abuses getting out. We’ve heard disturbing accounts of shelling and shooting at a clinic and in populated areas, killing civilians where no battle was raging.”
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch

January 30 2011

On Sunday, the thirtieth day of 2011, my neighbour told me the beach was quiet, which surprised me and I soon realised he’d been speaking comparatively. When I got there It was only crowded, as opposed to the freaking circus that it was on Australia Day. Later, Power Plant was a nice way to finish off the Sydney Festival.
Meanwhile in South Korea, five Somali pirates arrived in Busan to stand trial; in Manhattan left wing academic Frances Fox Piven spoke of receiving death threats as the result of Glenn Beck’s hate campaign; and in a desperate search for some non-upsetting news for a change, I found a report of a flying car – I’m sorry, I mean “Transition Roadable Aircraft” – except it runs on fossil fuels. So… I’ll be more excited when they develop the electric version.

Photo by Matthew Andrews