Lev Lafayette's journal

Last night I hosted the annual Murdoch University Alumni meeting for Melbourne at the Arts Centre with plenty of excellent and intelligent conversation, as would be expected at such an event (well-catered too, I must add). As part of the formal proceedings, we held a panel discussion on what Murdoch University meant and how it changed us. Our panel, quite remarkably, had graduates from every decade of the university's existence, including a foundation student, Dr. Trevor Hogan, and the remarkable story from Lem Bagout, who came to Australia as a refugee from Sudan; he now teaches physics.

For my own part (representing the 1990s graduates), I made the point that the radical parts of Murdoch's original educational objectives ("the Murdoch ethos") are now accepted and mainstream: encouraging mature-aged students and lifelong learning, allowing for part-time and external studies, encouraging interdisciplinary studies, and alternative entry based on experience. I also made a point of mentioning Bruce Tapper, who died a year ago on the day; not just because he was such a huge influence on my life, but in particular, because he was such a fierce advocate for Murdoch University's progressive education and egalitarian access.

In many ways, my alma mater sometimes stands in stark contrast with my employer, the University of Melbourne. Prestigious and conservative, the UniMelb is recognised as the top university in the country, which is really due to the excellent and well-funded research sector, standing on the shoulders of giants past. At UniMelb in the past fortnight, there have been two social occasions of note: an end-of-year potluck lunch for Research Computing Services (I brought along the Polish duck soup (Czernina), and an end-of-year social event for all of Business Services, this year held on campus at the Ernie Cropley Pavilion, a better location, and superior catering to previous years.

As another example of contrast, last Saturday I attended the Thangka Art Exhibition on Tibetan Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Development hosted by the Australian ReTeng Charity Foundation, associated with the Buddhist ReTeng Monastery in Donvale. I was somewhat surprised and impressed by the sheer number of dignitaries from the Melbourne Chinese community in attendance, and extremely impressed by the artworks on display. There was some juxtaposition of this aesthetic event, and the one attended in the evening, with Carla BL, at a little bar in Fitzroy to see a group of post-punk musicians (including my favourite local coldwave artists, Cold Regards) perform. For reasons of international travel, this is the end of EoY Melbourne activities - next stop, Santiago!

In recent days, I have been engaging in my personal Project Döstädning, literally "Death Cleaning" in Swedish. Whilst the original concept is that a person should sort out and minimise their belongings in the event of their death so others don't have to sift through everything, it does have a number of broader applications. It fits with the principle of one should keep in their possessions the things that they will use, along with mementoes of their life experience, all matching a short presentation I gave to the Melbourne Agnostics Society about five years ago, "The Continuum of Needs and Wants". Because disaster can strike at any time, it is recommended that everyone, regardless of health or age, invest in the process. In a more advanced sense, Döstädning also applies to emotional content, relationships, and ultimately is very close to the Stoic principle of "memento mori".

In the past year, I have engaged in several actions on this theme. Earlier this year, I sold off three bookcases' worth of roleplaying games and raised around $15000 for the Isla Bell Charitable Fund. I have also gifted a similar-sized collection of books, initially according to academic requirements (and with a sense of motivating concern), but more recently with a more open-ended approach, and one which will have to be revisited again (I still have thousands of books). In the past week, I've taken a similar approach with my collection of LPs and CDS. Whilst I am not a music collector or librarian, over the many years I've been a reviewer for a variety of physical and online 'zines and, as an enthusiastic attendee and listener, I have ended up with a rather large and eclectic collection, and much of it can be passed on to those who are more likely to use it. Following on from my recent Lightbringers post ("The Phenomenology of Nostalgia and Record Players"), from my collection I have earmarked over 300LPs to give away, and almost 600CDs.

Rather than provide a list of everything that's available (I haven't had the time to type that out), it would be far quicker for people to simply drop me a line about what sort of material they're interested in, and we can take the arrangements for collection from there. With the music part of Project Döstädning reaching this initial stage, the next targets on the agenda are DVDs and that curious collection of oddities that makes up my wardrobe. But with regards to music, books, etc., at my next linner-soiree planned for January, I'll be encouraging attendees to gather and take whatever interests them. After that, the rest goes to charity stores. It's all about redistributing my things to those who can best use them, all whilst preparing myself for one of the most substantial changes in my own life.

I don't think many Australians fully understand the importance of China to the ongoing economic development of both countries. Many might be aware that China is Australia's biggest trading partner, both in terms of imports and exports. As far back as 2019-2020, according to the ABS, 27% of all imports came from China and 39% of all exports went to China, and this has been increasing every year. Iron ore, coal, and education are notable exports, but following the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), agricultural produce and pharmaceuticals have also become popular. Imports have mainly consisted of telecommunications equipment and household appliances. Whilst imports themselves are likely to flatten (households can only have so many appliances, a person can only have so many mobile phones and computers), China's dedication to transforming their economy means that "green steel" is on the agenda, produced by hydrogen rather than coal furnaces, and produced here in Australia - but only if we develop the renewable energy to power such facilities. Our economic future is closely tied to China's, and there is really no alternative.

I have emphasised this point in my president's report in the October newsletter of the Australia-China Friendship Society - along with writing reviews of two recent and impressive Chinese films: "Caught by the Tides" (2024) and "Resurrection" (2025). The former I saw in Darwin a few months ago, and it weaves a long-spanning and troubled romantic story with over twenty years of footage, making it part fiction, part historical footage. The latter I saw recently at The Astor as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, and combines several short period films with a time-travelling science fiction thread whilst referencing several other films in content and style. Further, in my role, I have recently had the opportunity to discuss matters with a number of delegations from China.

A little over a week ago, I hosted an arts and culture delegation from the Chaoyang district of Beijing and took them to the National Gallery at Federation Square to give a tour and explanation of the development of Australian art. They are very keen on following up with an exchange programme. Then, a few days ago, representatives of the Jiangsu Friendship Association and I, on behalf of the ACFS, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with great fanfare at the Chinese Museum, as a photo exhibition on Chinese modernisation in Jiangsu was being launched by the Jiangsu Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Creative Victoria. Last night, I enjoyed the company of the Quanzhou Trade Delegation at a wonderful dinner hosted by the Fujian Association of Victoria, and I gave a brief speech on behalf of the ACFS.

It's one thing to be cordial in a transactional business relationship. But, as I said in my speech last night, relations between people are more important than relations in business, and friendship is more important than contracts. Friendship with China means that both parties will engage in respect, understanding, and accepting differences. It means being honest, open, and inviting. The bellicose attitude of some Australians, including Australian politicians, towards China and the Chinese demeans our national character and, really, is quite embarrassing. Fortunately, through its seventy-five-year history, the Australia-China Friendship Society has stood for building relationships, building partnerships, and building friendships. We have our Annual General Meeting at the end of this month, 1-3 pm. Sunday 30 November 2025. Maybe some of you with a similar mind should come along.

Because I like to plan things in advance (it provides more opportunities for spontaneity), in six months' time I will be presenting at the Existentialist Society on "The Decline in French Philosophy" (April 4, 2026). There can be no doubt of my long-standing Francophile tendencies when it comes to the fine arts, cuisine, republican politics, and yes, especially French philosophy, at least from the Enlightenment to the Situationists. I admire the gentle spirit of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the grand knowledge and scope of Denis Diderot, and the courage of the entire body of "les philosophes" who took on the absolutism of the monarchy, the dead hand of the church and helped establish the modern public sphere through salon gatherings that, scandously, were hosted by women patrons, "les salonnières"!

Fast-forward to the twentieth century, and again I find myself delving deeply into the mathematics and physics of Henri Poincaré, the perceptual phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which would add to the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur. I have all the time in the world for the incredible contributions to feminism by Simone de Beauvoir and consider her a better philosopher than her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre. Both, along with Albert Camus' ontological absurdism and the incredible personal standards of Simone Weil, raised and established existentialism a powerful force in the world of philosophy, demanding the primacy of existence over essence, authenticity in behaviour and thought, and recognition to the tension between people as objects and subjects.

These were all great thinkers in hard times. But subsequent to these contributions, things started to go astray. Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari's were all unable to incorporate their necessary criticisms of structuralism into subject disciplines. Jacques Derrida's would engage in intentional obfuscation through words with ambivalent meaning. Bruno Latour's social constructivism would end up becoming impossibly anti-scientific. Jean-François Lyotard retreated to the sublime, and Jean Baudrillard became obsessed with the interrelationship of signs and hypereality. Luce Irigaray asserted that E=mc^2 is a "sexed equation" and fluid mechanics is neglected in engineering because fluids are feminine.

It's not as if it's all bad; Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari all highlighted abhorrent behaviours in abusive institutions. Derrida's deconstructionism is a useful method to highlight the unity of opposites. Latour does recognise the role of scientific language and practices. Lyotard and Baudrillard both hinted at what could have been a sociology of the information age, and Irigaray really does provide a political economy grounded in sexual difference. But so much of the content produced by post-WWII French philosophers is simply gibberish, ignorant, or both. This, of course, has been explored in the past as "fashionable nonsense", an evocative title by Sokal and Bricmont, who highlight the sort of gibberish that eventually led to the The Postmodern Essay generator, produced by a Melbourne-based computer scientist.

For what it's worth, I do appreciate the use of metaphors and puns; they're often not just witticisms, they can also provide some linguistic-therapeutic insight. But I do wonder whether the success of ordinary language philosophy on one hand and formal pragmatics on the other has led to a situation where much of French philosophy has become more of an art than something tied to logic, ontology, and epistemology. At least, in this context, Catherine Malabou is returning to reality with work on brain plasticity and François Recanati with conditional pragmatics. These are, at least, positive projects after decades of French philosophy providing content that was highly entertaining but ultimately superficial.

I have argued for a while that Epicureanism is a refinement of Hedonism and Stoicism is an advanced development from Epicureanism; "To live, to live well, to live better" (Whitehead, "The Function of Reason"). Each of these represents a qualitative change and, as one learns in the business of Quality Assurance, that is defined as improved precision and is differentiated as a continuum of accuracy, ultimately from "high quality" to "low quality". I find that this applies to people as well as processes; inconsistent people, who fluctuate between emotive extremes, can occasionally be enjoyable and exciting, but ultimately are hurtful and exhausting and are thus best avoided, no matter how enticing the good times are. Such people invariably are unsuccessful in life; quality requires both a degree of consistency and reflective, tested, improvement.

Over the past few days, I have been fortunate enough in life to experience a few examples of high-quality experiences. The first was an evening of music, which I attended with Kate. This was headlined by the Paul Kidney Japanese Experience, and supported by The Black Heart Death Cult and Cat Crawl. All performed with great competence in accordance with their particular style. "Cat Crawl" (who describe themselves as "a three-piece tantrum in the form of a band") provided early 1980s-style feminist punk with humour, whilst in comparison "The Black Heart Death Cult" were a gloomy-shoegaze fusion, reminiscent of the French "blackgaze" from the 2000s. Finally, the Paul Kidney Japanese Experience gave something akin to a Japanese version an extended Hawkwind space rock concert. All in all, a great night with a great variety of styles. As a radical contrast, the following day Nitul invited me to the end-of-semester Baroque Ensemble Concert from the students at Unimelb's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It was an admirable selection from Lully, Bach, Vivaldi, Schein and more, and in total included over fifty performers of music and song. I found myself, as I often do in such music, drifting off to another world.

As more culinary experiences, Kate and I attended the Melbourne Italian Festival the following day at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. The building is beautiful, but despite my heritage, I find a great deal of contemporary Italian culture pretty gaudy at best, especially in the field of fashion, homewares, and music. Of course, in food and film, it retains a very high level, the latter with a decidedly leftist influence. Apropos, last night I had the delight of being cooked for by the Minister for Climate Change Action and Energy Resources, etc, Lily D'Ambrosio, who provided an astounding Calabrian feast for some twenty individuals whilst showing off the capabilities of induction cookers. Lily deserves high praise for the quiet revolution she has led in Victoria, changing the production of electricity towards renewables and, more recently, with the phaseout of fossil fuels in domestic appliances, all with significant success. Quiet revolutions too, can be an example of quality.

It's been several months since I've written anything for Rocknerd, and over the past weekend, I put together three reviews that have been sitting on the back burner for too long. The first is a bleak review of Bleak Squad's debut performance at the Queenscliff Town Hall. The second, a review of John Schumann and The Vagabond Crew performing songs of Redgum at the Darwin Ski Club, a thoroughly enjoyable concert, and the third, the charm of Guy Blackman's album launch at the Northcote Social Club. One can also add this to the few hundred words I penned on "Command-Line CD Extraction and Formatting", which uses some delightfully old utilities and is helping me put together a selection from my own vast collection in the most efficient manner.

It all adds to what was already a bit of a rocknerd weekend, starting on Thursday night, where I caught up with Adam F., at The Retreat Hotel to see a very competent instrumental funk band, "Buttered Loaf", ply their sounds. I've never had a bad time at The Retreat, and I do enjoy a good funk band, so this was quite a delightful evening. The following night I had arranged a small posse (Kate, Liza, Tony, Declan, Carla, myself) to go to The Grace Darling and see "Cold Regards", a 1980s coldwave guitar-synth duo (Marc and Jaimee) whom I've heard a lot about for more than a year. It was really my type of music, as were the other acts, "No Statues", and "Human Intrusion". The latter group was using the night for an EP launch which they distributed, in retro-cyberpunk style, on floppy disks (with oversized floppy-disc props on stage). Said performers may all find themselves subject to me putting finger to keyboard in their name in the future.

One of the nice touches of "Human Intrusion" was their backdrop with various 1980s science fiction clips, which included part of John Carpenter's "The Thing". Unpopular at the time, it has since gone on to become the cult hit that it always was going to be. Somewhat unfamiliar with movies of this suspense-horror-gore genre, I decided that Kate R., needed to view this classic in preparation for our Antarctica trip, where it's an annual screening at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The gory special effects are more clever than terrifying these days, and the theme of in-group paranoia stands up well, especially with the ambiguous ending.

Two weeks ago, I gave a presentation on "Stoicism, Daoism, and Apathy" at the Melbourne Agnostics Society, which was attended by over fifty people. I have finally managed to compose my notes into something approximating a transcript of the event. At over 5,500 words, the presentation took about an hour to deliver and was followed by a Q&A session that ran for at least another three hours afterwards. Apparently true to their tradition, philosophers like to talk, and frankly, I was mentally quite exhausted at the end of it. Still, I am hardly going to spend this much effort if I didn't care very deeply about the subject and the potential for synthesis of these two great philosophical traditions.

However, it doesn't stop there. I've nailed my colours to the mast, so to speak, and visited the Melbourne Tattoo Company, who also did my Math-Rat-Tat three years ago. I had a couple of design pieces that combined my Stoic and Daoist interests, which were expertly compiled by my dear friend, Lara, and then etched into my skin by a talented young man named Jake. With plentiful etchings, he is a good walking advertisement for his craft. As is always in my taste, the design has many layers of symbolism which require elaboration.

The two-part taiji diagram, commonly known as yinyang ("dark-light"), represents the essential unity and inclusion of apparent opposites that are in dynamic motion. Instead of the seeds, however, I have alternating Stoic flames (a design originally from DT Strain), representing both the arche (basic state) and panta rhei (everything flows) from Heraclitus. When viewed as phase states, rather than fixed "elements" (c.f., Chinese wuxing), "fire" (i.e., plasma) was the first state of the universe. The tips of the flames also represent the Stoic cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Courage, and Temperance of Stoicism, with the flame bodies themselves the three treasures of Daoism: Compassion, Frugality, and Humility.

Finally, the taiji is surrounded by a Hellenic meander, itself named in the river in contemporary Turkey. Apart from the varied changes in direction that are part of the flow, it also serves as a border from which Okeanus, representing the great river that both encircles the world and separates our time in existence from the period outside it. Memento Mori! If you remember that you will die, you can live with purpose. Do not postpone what matters, avoid the distraction of things that don't matter, and focus on virtue. Nemo vir est qui mundum non reddat meliorem!

Last Sunday was the 50th anniversary of the "Spaghetti House Siege", and my home was probably the only place in the world that held a "linner" (lunch-dinner) recalling the event. Instead of spaghetti, I delved into my moderate Italian heritage and held a "gnocchi fest", which is certainly my favourite food. During the day myself, Kate, Mel, Terry, Martin, Nitul, and Simon attended and later in the evening Marc joined in as well, with Mayday the rat deciding to keep company (Mayhem waddled home in preference). Prepared for the possibility of a few more attendees and, as is my wont, I over-catered, which is hardly a problem. My big surprise was the dessert gnocchi with pannacotta gelato. Anyway, it was insanely delicious, the company and conversation superb, the French sparkling and Sicilian lemon cordial flowed, and really, I just touched the surface of this amazingly versatile dish.

Also thematically Italian, the previous day Kate and I ventured to the Astor, Melbourne's glorious art deco cinema, for the 30th anniversary screening of Baz Luhrmann's 1996 "Romeo + Juliet" with a live choir. I could have done without the choir, which really detracted, a lot, rather than added to the experience. The film has held up well, taking the Shakespeare classic and putting it into a 1990s American business-gangster setting with several cute hat-tips to the original, but importantly, directly using the script. It's aged pretty well; it captures violence and tragedy, for which the famous romance is a plot device and a cautionary tale. Actually, it's still a bit weird how popular culture to this day thinks Romeo and Juliet is a romance; at least six people die in three days!

In more improvised dramatic arts, Kate experienced her first session of an RPG, namely "Call of Cthulhu", which always works well for single-person introductory play. I have also been working my way through an ElfQuest article in honour of a current campaign I'm running and in recognition of Chaosium's re-release of the classic game. An excellent source on the themes of this long-running comic (since 1978!) has the evocative title by Madeline Ffitch, "How a Comic Book About Feral Elves Got Me Through Middle School". Finally, the weekend also saw me complete yet another essay for my doctoral studies on Climate Change denialism, this time taking to task one of the very few academic climatologists who has contrarian views, through some very interesting selective data choices. Apropos this, I made a little announcement at the gnocchi dinner party, which will be revealed publicly soon; every so often, one must make significant life changes, and the time is now.

A kind friend recently remarked that I write in a universal voice. That is true, albeit not by conscious intent, although it allows me to have a journal that is both public and personal without falling to the superficial culture with its self-indulgence and sycophancy. Instead, I prefer to take those selective slices of the classics which have accessible meaning and relevance: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto" ("I am human and nothing human in alien to me", Publius Terentius Afer). It does serve a challege to us all - are we capable of truly understanding the experiences of others or, to quote Conrad (and nicely adopted by the punk-funk group "The Gang of Four"), do we live, as we dream, alone? Our existential experiences: life, love, hope, guilt, fear, sickness, death, shared by all but in very different degrees and often, we can express with sadness, wickedly imposed by people upon others.

The past few days, I have been struck by a minor malaise. In my convalescence, however, I thought about how even a minor illness can be so disruptive. "This sickness does infect the very life-blood of our enterprise", said Shakespeare (Henry IV, Part I). As a busy person, I was frustrated by a number of events that had to be cancelled or modified. A Chinese arts and culture delegation from Shenzen had to be guided through the National Gallery by the Vice-President of the ACFS instead of myself. An HPC presentation to research team leaders at work had to be handballed, and other meetings were cancelled, and, alas, dinner and other social plans with friends also suffered this fate. Operational work, research essays, and studies have likewise been delayed. Needless to say, my usual fitness regimen had been suspended as well.

The only way to deal with such illnesses is rest and nutrition, followed by gradual recuperation. In this regard, I have been truly blessed by the presence of Kate R., who put her professional nursing skills to good use for this patient. As for the feeling of frustration, that is often resolved by shifting focus to something that one can control. Even in a semi-delirious state, I managed to work my way through the new Duolingo chess skill tree, along with keeping up with Spanish lessons. However, most of my sparse waking time was spent in passive entertainment in the form of the series "Arrested Development". I first encountered this show almost twenty years ago and, despite a few efforts, I'd hitherto never even managed to complete the first season. The hilariously dysfunctional family with its internecine manipulations and suspicions suits my absurd and ironic sense of humour: "there's always money in the banana stand".

In lieu of an actual pushbike (my last one fell apart) I've taken up the exercise bike in the past month. Almost every day, across two cities and four different devices (fortunately, all a Matrix U1XE), I've smashed out 40km, which is the Olympic-distance triathlon bike leg, which sits in the middle of the standard course (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run). Of course, the real challenge is doing these in succession. Nevertheless, ever a keen cyclist, my first times were around 70 minutes, which is pretty good, especially for an old bloke. After a few days and a bit more pushing, I found that I could regularly get around the 65-minute mark, and I was pretty chuffed when I got it down to 62 minutes.

Since my return to Melbourne from Darwin, I've continued the activity, and since then, I've even managed to get 60, 59, and 58-minute levels, all of which are extremely good. My method is pretty straightforward; get my speed to 40km/h and stay at that for an hour. In case you're wondering, yes, it is quite challenging, to say the least. Indeed, on a 58-minute run, I realised that my eyes were incredibly bloodshot. Apparently, I was experiencing a subconjunctival haemorrhage; that is, when blood vessels have burst and are haemorrhaging into the tissue under the white of the eye. It sounds and looks a lot more dramatic than it actually is, and one recovers fairly quickly. But by goodness, it really caught my attention!

Ever a data nerd, I have a bit of a rough habit of tracking some core measurements, albeit with a rough cut. I'm pretty happy with these results. But there's still some work to do.

October 1st, 2024: 117cm chest, 114 cm stomach, 112 cm waist. 105.7kgs. WHtR 0.62
February 8th, 2025: 118cm chest, 103 stomach, 102 waist. 94.9kgs. WHtR 0.57
August 20th, 2025: 110cm chest, 92 stomach, 96 waist. 84.8kgs. WHtR 0.47
September 11th 2025: Heart and Blood Pressure 118/75 46bpm