Mood:
lyricalTopic: independent media
Picture: 'Best thing on Wednesdays' said the compere, referring to Sydney Morning Herald opinion writer, and author, Liz Farrelly who we do admire. Tutonic beauty, perfect posture, mild tones and girlish sunny mirth with courage and intimidating intellect. What a woman. Dire Straits put it like this on Vertigo/Wild West End "Made me feel nineteen for a while". Too shy at seat F14 to meet her gaze into the stage lights and the audience, entertaining our innocent fan-tasy. So this is the 'austere' Elizabeth in the flesh. All woman. A rare beauty of strength and sensitivity, and 'big hair'. Would she notice this fan? We felt humbled and indeed naked. Did she get our card with the Roman Colloseum heritage12 months back?
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We should be flattered. Like the 'freak' full forward Gary Ablett, famous at Geelong Aussie Rules for being a marked man, too successful at his work of kicking goals, so we felt undue special attention. I was one of several taking photos at "A Simple Life" session at the Sydney Writers Festival yesterday, including one professional with a long range lense as long and fat as our Aussie Rules thighs, right hand aisle then left hand aisle standing up visible to all. "You're the only one I saw" marshall said in high motivation. Mmm. Who was I really talking to here? The Marshall or the proverbial labor luvvies, editor Marnie Cordell implicitly embraced in her introduction referring to "dark days of Howard" ?! Does this make it a twilight?
I said "you have your lawyers contact my lawyers [me]" and "I am a guest of New Matilda" [which was true]. At this point a silent quiver of uncertainty furrowed the brow of our charming ruthless officious marshall ... and I was away out of the suffocating ambush of my free speech, in the state of ALP.
The ironies were piling up. Equal measures of anxiety, sadness, mystery here about perceptions of clumsy censorship in my own centre left green milieu.
Indeed it had been one of those strange days, involving cut phone lines mid conversation talking about web security issues with a client tackling Coca Cola Amatil whose own email is playing up, dead air air on pesky phone calls (marketers?), crashing of the Marrickville phone exchange at 10am 23 May 08 , suspicous rail officer, bag checks at supermarket.
What is this? When did I get the kick me sign? Does one inherently look subversive? One begins to see why Gary tragically turned to drugs to escape 'the unwanted attention'. Flattering then just simply intrusive and bizzare.
This is one of the photographs above yesterday we were ordered to delete by a marshall at a session hosted by New Matilda called A Simple Life. We refused point blank as any self respecting blogger would, not least for the empty chair on the stage ... at the same Writers Festival event (self awareness anyone?) and ACIJ advert on festival newspaper promoting, get this, "INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM". Well to be fair we are not a real 'journalist' whatever that is. More like a judicious critic of the sector and new media indy practitioner.
Picture: The empty chair at far left symbolic of censored, imprisoned writers. Like this blogger sought to be censored same session. Tsk tsk.
Picture: It's a toaster real estate (as below) kind of political economy in Sydney, obscuring truth and beauty, so it seems.
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Picture: The Green Party's amusing annual Bad Developer Awards' "Golden Toaster".
