Lev Lafayette's journal

Three dinners and events on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night have left me feeling a little washed out, although all the gatherings were excellent. On Friday night I was joined by Des, Sim, and Robbie as we spent an evening at the Kent St Bar and Hotel Jesus. After the dinner and conversation, Sim insisted on teaching me the Auslan alphabet and a few words, the former of which is remarkably easy to pick up. The following night attended an event of the Wild Arts Club/Bohemian Adventures for an excellent Tom Wait's special event and slow friending at the Hare Hole. Again, a sort of unaggressive barroom jazz that I can tolerate and with appealing content. I loved the fact that the table questions were derived from Waits' lyrics. Finally, on Sunday night had what is coming to be a regular dinner with business partner Anthony L., and Robin M.

Another activity over the weekend is that I bought myself a bike for the coming months of sunshine ("laughs in Melbourne"). Specifically, a Trek 7.1 FX, which is really an excellent road bike and one which I picked up for quite a bargain. When the weather is suitable, I quite love cycling, it operates at a pace that is sufficiently speedy but also allows immersion into the environment, somewhere in-between walking-running pace and that of a motorised vehicle. Also, it is obviously good for health reasons.

For RPG updates, RPG Review issue 55-56 are, of course, late as usual. This issue is a special on "Law and Politics", and we're still getting a bunch of content together. I'm writing a social development system for GURPS, taking the existing technology levels that the game uses and introducing institutional and legal technologies and the scope of different governments. It's beginning to read and look like a social theory essay, but that's understandable given that technology (physical and social) amplifies our activities. In actual play, continuing sessions with Burning Wheel Thirty Year's War and GURPS Dark Sun on Monday and Thursday evenings respectively. The former is proving very entertaining delving deeply into a fantasy version of the chaos that was early modern Germany.

This afternoon I took a visit to the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings polling centre and cast my vote for the Federal election. I am increasingly confident that this will be a Labor victory, probably with a national swing of 5% or so. YouGov has published their own demographic-based poll which has Labor on-track to win 80 seats, Morgan has a predicted vote at 54.5% vs 45.5% TPP, Newspoll at 54-46, and Ipsos at a remarkable 57-43. I cannot see for the life of me how the Coalition can recover so much lost ground in a little over a week, especially by "desperate, unhinged" comments over an additional 38c per hour for minimum wage workers - I have my own comments on that which I will write up tomorrow.

From a different angle on civic involvement this Sunday I am giving an address at the Melbourne Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at 11 am at the Kathleen Syme Centre in Carlton entitled "We Are We Do: Emotions, Trauma, and Happiness". On a related matter of volunteer activities as a member of the BPD Community Carer's Committee my first practical task - the writing of a recruitment and induction process - has been completed. There is a sense in which my Sunday address I will be thinking a great deal of my old friend from the Melbourne Unitarian Church, Marg Callow who died just on Monday just shy of 99 years old. I will have to do a longer and more dedicated entry about this, as consideration of this remarkable, kind, and intelligent individual deserves a great deal of consideration.

Going backward a few more days (as my last entry was entirely about the election), I should also make mention of a couple of other "community-minded" activities I have engaged in. The most recent was writing a brief review of the works of electronic and early trance musician Klaus Schulze for Rocknerd. How does one possibly summarise six decades of work and more than sixty albums? One cannot do it justice, but the attempt must still be made. Also on the aesthetic dimension, last Friday I attended a Slow Friending dinner game organised by the magnificent Miriam G, of the Wild Arts Social Club. There were close to fifty people in attendance at Platform 28 (a boring mainstream venue, but a very nice function room) as we rotated between tables between courses and discussed challenging questions placed before us. And that's the week of civic involvement; politics, religion, and art - no wonder I'm such a disagreeable fellow!

A common element of the counter-culture that I share is a perplexing disdain for mainstream retail therapy, the act of conspicuous consumption, and commodity fetishism. For myself, I have much more in common with Bohemian quest in the opportunity shop, which is always an adventure in itself. I remember many decades ago now my adopted mother scowling about those who wear "dead peoples' clothes!", whereas my young pragmatic mind that this being in such garb was eminently sensible as it provided a use for such items that the dead would not have. It was, of course, a status issue and it is interesting that a person who lacked social status so desperately wanted the outward pretense of it when in reality it was not available. All of which leads to recalling a wonderful day last week spent in the company of my friend Mel S., where we journeyed around our old haunts of Fitzroy and Collingwood visiting various cafés and several opportunity shops. Mel and I met several years back when I had become power of attorney for my dearly departed friend Rick Barker. With clouds and silver linings as Rick slipped away, I developed a friendship with his immediate family from New Zealand and Mel, his former neighbour with whom we particularly share a love for 1980s alternative electronica.

The journey and the experience itself is an aesthetic one, and whatever is found is «l'objet trouvé», which amuses me greatly how after one hundred years mainstream art critics are still looking at the thing, rather than the experience in finding it. The experiential in art has taken a great new turn with the official founding of the (soon to be incorporated) Wild Arts Social Club on Friday night. With almost a score of people crammed into a one-bedroom flat, Miriam G. hosted the "just off mid-winter" event with a theme of Baba Yaga/Vasilisa the Beautiful involving readings, Slavic foods, plentiful vodka, music, and singing, notably from the very talented (and somewhat famous in VietNam) Floyd Thursby (e.g., Babylon Gate, You Gotta Fly, To Those in Flames). Miriam has been organising such community art experiences for quite some time now, it was my suggestion that an incorporated association be established for her endeavours. The actual business side of the meeting took about ten minutes, as it should, and I have found myself with the role of treasurer in the new body.

Following the aesthetic narrative, I must also mention that I submitting an article for the Polish Journal of Aesthetics, who have a special upcoming issue on "Bullshit Art", noting that "bullshit" in the academic vernacular (cf., Frankfurt) as intentional speech where the purpose is to the persuade, without any regard for the truth, or in this case, aesthetics. I am taking the opportunity to engage in a tirade of my least favourite art style, that of abstract expressionism. It is necessary to acknowledge the abstract art or expressionism are both highly valid forms of art, but when combined something quite toxic occurs, the elimination of the aesthetic motive altogether (to which Malevich's "Black Square" is a critically important inspiration) whilst engaging in the pretense of being part of the artistic community (all, at the same time, whilst being funded by the CIA).