Surreptious Voyage of the Gallant Lost

Picking up posting after a long pause is always a bit difficult, especially when there's not that much really really exciting stuff to say. I've stayed in Melbourne for the last two weeks and borrowed friends apartment in Sydney for a week before that. Both stays have been excellent and the people very nice. I'm hoping I can return the favor at some point.

My arrival (well, second arrival) in Melbourne coincided nicely with the Melbourne Internation Arts Festival. I saw 4 plays / shows from the latter part of the program, the highlight being Merce Cunningham's dance piece with music composed and performed live by Sigur Ros. By the end of the set, the Icelanders with their inscrutable instruments (I think one was a music box driven through a distortion box) had created a pulsating massive wall of sound, noise with a will of its own, which seemed to drive some of the elderly culture crowd in the hall into agony. I loved it (the noise, not the agony of strangers around me so much).

There were disappointments too - a Barcelona-based troupe threw on European House, supposedly a modernized prequel to Hamlet with a three-storey set of a house complete with a functional warm shower on the third floor (this is all on stage). Unfortunately, nothing happened in the play and the complexity and completeness of the set greatly deducted from the minimalism and muteness of the performance itself. As a soundtrack they used overplayed Radiohead and the theme song from the movie Piano. If I would've been 14 years old, I would've probably found it profound and provocative. Now, well, that's enough said.

But other than that, it's mostly been routine, good books, great coffee, great music - just living in one place for a while. It's also helped rein in some more megalomaniac plans, and to engage in things that ensure I won't find myself home empty-handed. And as this happens, as time goes by, there's also the chance to enjoy it as it passes and to study its subtle path.

I don't think I'll be posting a whole lot in the near future - there's some work, some long rides and a longer retreat in nature in the cards next. I'll just let all of this oscillate in silence.