A rare sighting of the Ampersand Duck

Duckie@work*, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

I'm so bored tonight. I haven't had a proper weekend yet and I've been hard at work writing speeches for my boss to give at various book arts thingies around the country. Writing, words words, blah blah blah and constructing frigging powerpoint shows. I'm so BORED.

So here's a photo of what I'd rather be doing in a work sense. What I'd actually rather be doing is sleeping, but that's a few tedious hours away.

This weekend I'm going away from computers and presses, down to the farm for a long-awaited rest where I can sleep, eat nice things and watch the kittens run free with the chooks. Hooray!

*This is me, hard at work, having pulled off a proof on my work letterpress. I haven't pushed the button yet to make the press go back to the start, so what you're seeing is the inky underbelly of the press, plus a storage tray thingy full of scraps of paper and bookcloth.

Who, me?

Laura has passed me a meme which startles me, as I have never really thought about my autobiography, believe it or not. After a tiny bit of thought (not much, really), here goes:

Who would I like to play me in a movie based on my life?

Who else? He fits every criteria... Yes, I know I'm a chick, but I could do a lot worse.

But come on, who would probably really end up playing you in a movie based on your life?

Oh, all right. I wanted to find a picture of F O'C (great acronym) that wasn't in period dress, but when I think about it, all my aspirations revolve around rejuvenating dying arts, so maybe the movie could be done totally in period dress, as a metaphor for my luddite tendencies. Sans corsets, of course.

Passing it on to: crazybrave, Kate, Mindy and Harry.

I heart movies

It was an Albatross* weekend this weekend, so besides slaving at the Open Day and beavering away on the computer today, I did actually have some child-free fun moments. One was the Wigging and Penning of Canberra Bloggers on Friday night -- apparently some lurkers were there, not able to identify our group even though we had our fair share of delectable Amazons and obviously intelligent people... better luck next time, peoples. I think next time we should all be carrying red pens or something. I really enjoyed putting some more faces to names, even though one of the faces accompanying a blogging face was an old regular from a bar I used to work in over ten years ago, and he proved the point that old barflies never die, they just go and prop up another bar! He provoked major memory flashbacks for me, which were very distracting. Consequently I drank too much booze, and ended up very sore-headed for Open Day.

The other fortnightly child-free activity is, of course, seeing movies. As we are in endurance training for the upcoming AFI voting sessions (where we will get to see most, if not all, of the nominations for not only film but documentary and animation categories), we decided to see two in a row, albeit one in a cinema and one at home.

The cinematic experience was The Jacket, which for some reason has been promoted, at least in its glossy fliers, as a horror/sci fi. Not very scary, but sci-fi in a 12 Monkeys wanna-be sense. I quite enjoyed it, because I went in expecting something really bad thanks to the reviews I'd read. It wasn't offensive, and it wasn't boring, but it also wasn't terribly ground-breaking. I like the flashy bits when he was stuck in the jacket. But it definitely wasn't as good as 12 Monkeys.

Then we went home and cooked a splendid pork-in-mustard-and-plum-sauce meal and enjoyed I Heart Huckabees, which I'd missed when it came out. Thank you, crazybrave, for the recommendation. I REALLY enjoyed it. I haven't paid that much real attention to dialogue for ages. Usually I'm too busy watching the background. I'll have to watch it again now, for the background incidentals! Thumbs-up to Mark Wahlberg for a good piercing stare.

An open apology for anyone leaving comments now. I'm making you jump through the typing test hoop because I had an infestation of horrid blog spammers this afternoon... dirty little monsters.

*see the Sidebar Glossary.

Kit's cats

A few years ago the Canberra School of Art used to have fabulous open days. Live bands, a market atmosphere, radio coverage, fun for all. Then the school was swallowed up by the university, and then the university open days were swallowed up by an amalgamated Canberra Institutions Open Day. That means that for one day of the year, all the institutions open to the public. Each place has enough activities to keep a visitor happy for an entire day. So the audience that used to spend a few days a year checking out what Canberra has to offer now has to dash between campuses, or choose one place to devote time to. Thus nobody gets the attendance numbers they used to and everyone questions the value of organising such events. Granted, it means that those coming from interstate don't have to make more than one trip, but I personally don't think that they make up the bulk of the visitors. I think local people like a chance to explore something local (sorry, sounding like the League of Gentleman here) on their own doorstep, and will happily spend their money on all the fun fundraising events. Now the focus is blurred, and everyone loses out.

And it would help if the Australian National University started appreciating that they have a world-class art school within their grounds and actually spent some time and money promoting it. Yesterday there was absolutely NO mention of the art school in any press coverage or ANU material. Shame, ANU, shame. Because that was where the action was.

As far as I could see from my attic window, grinding out artworks for my slave-mistress, it looked like a great Open Day, apart from the huge spaces between people. In the room across the corridor was an exhibition of student works, and I fell in love with these:

Kit's Cats, not to be reproduced please!

The artist's name is Kit, and I will update this when I find out her last name. Don't know the title of the piece, but I'm sure I can find out.


Detail, not to be reproduced please!

Plenty of people came through the Studio while I was working, a small proportion of them the maddies I usually get. It's always fun to talk to people about artist's books and printing.

One woman wanted to know the point of making artist's books, and how much people usually sold them for. I asked her (nicely) what was the point of getting out of bed in the morning and said that I've bought artist's books for as low as $3 and we're selling the studio's next production for $10,000. She walked away looking a bit stunned.

Then there was the woman dressed like someone's Easter-show-winning quilt who told me that she was more creative than anyone else she knew and that people didn't understand her. Hmmm, I said. You need a studio. I've got one, she said. I bought the building next to my husband's business. I bet he was glad to get her out of his hair, if only next door!

Gorgeous day, too. Pity about all the noisy jet planes circling overhead for the Australian Defence Force Academy's open day...

Student Art Fest

The other thing happening anon is the ANU School of Art Open Day. Tomorrow! 9 until 4. Don't worry about visiting the rest of the ANU or UCan or ADFA. Art School is much more fun.

This is a really good chance to see cool things like glassblowers blowing glass! Eat a wood-fired pizza straight from a kiln! Buy cheap art by people who just might get famous one day! Buy a ticket for art raffles with better odds! Look at the excellent exhibition of design in the ANU Art School Gallery (I'm in it!)! Buy a t-shirt or poster from Printmedia & Drawing! Not sure what other activities are happening, but there's usually HEAPS happening, and it's a great day for the kiddies (both yours and the ones who go to art school)!!

I'll be there, making art (for someone else, of course). I'll give a chocolate to anyone who correctly identifies me as Ampersand Duck. What fun!

Smashing elbows

Canberra bloggers meet tonight! 7 for 7.30 at the Wig & Pen, Civic (that area that has a big sign on the highway saying 'City Centre'. Only Canberra needs to tell tourists that).
Mick from to blog or not to blog will be there early, saving a table and wearing this (in spirit), and I'll be the one not wearing this. Although I'd like the scholarly edition version that would quote both editions and page numbers on the same t-shirt. Maybe I should make one.
Other attractions include Zoe! TJ! Dean! Michelle! Possibly a rare but welcome sighting of Steev!

Be there or be in another place.

Vale Lenny

This post is dedicated to a friend's cat Lenny,

who was the founder of the only-recently-established cardboard club.

I say 'was', because poor Lenny has recently gone to kitty heaven, having been rudely and very sadly converted to road pizza by a horrid car a few weeks ago.

I'm very sad that I only knew Lenny in a virtual sense, because he looked like someone that Mr Pooter and Mr Padge could really relate to. And such a handsome puss, too.

Mr Pooter and Mr Padge wish to convey their condolences to Lenny's family and friends, as do I.

RIP LENNY

Clown

Michaux's Clown, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

Some day,

Someday, soon maybe,

Some day I will root up the anchor which keeps my ship far from the seas...


(excerpt from Henri Michaux, translated by Richard Ellmann)

War Rugs

A few years ago I was involved in producing a catalogue for an exhibition of war rugs. It was a fantastic project, and I got so interested that I ended up buying a small cushion cover featuring tanks and helicopters among a traditional design, which now hangs in my loungeroom and reminds me that conflict in the Middle East affects everyone.

Apparently these rugs have been made for decades, firstly documenting the Russian involvement in Afghanistan, and changing subtly to comment on the developing interests of the invading/occupying forces moving through. At first the weavers would just add a machine gun here or there to the traditional pattern, or maybe some mortars in amongst flowers. Traditional carpet sellers (by this I mean all those people in western countries who sell persian carpets for a lot more than they purchase them for) would't buy these carpets because they saw these images as abberations that decreased the value of the carpet.

Tanks, machine guns, Kalashnikovs within a Persian influenced floral border, Late 1990s.
Baluchi style, knotted woollen carpet, woollen warp, 1180 x 1985 mm, Collection Peter Bellas, Brisbane

However, even though the dealers wouldn't buy them, people still made them, and used them for their personal rugs, like prayer rugs and house rugs. In time soldiers and tourists bought them as souvenirs, and now war rugs are a whole new industry in war torn countries, and are increasingly appreciated by rug dealers. They can be found on Ebay constantly, just type 'War Rugs' and see what comes up.

They've stopped being so subtle. I find this one fascinating:

World Trade Centre, September 11, 2002, 2002, Afghanistan. Knotted woollen carpet, cotton warp, 610 x 810 mm, Collection Peter Bellas, Brisbane.

Not only because it is a comment on something that happened across the world from the maker, but because it takes a long time to make a rug like this. They're not produced on machines, they are hand-woven, by people who don't have a lot of disposable cash. And that's a lot of energy to put into a political message. I'm intrigued by them, and luckily there's a place where I can find out more about these rugs:

The authors of the catalogue decided to make war rugs their major research focus for the next XX number of years, and are planning further exhibitions. They've been writing a brilliant blog documenting their research and asking for contributions. It's well worth a read, and the rugs themselves are absolutely stunning. Check it out.

Remember to breathe

Here's something beautiful to do for a week:
1. Go to your local grower's market, flea market or florist and buy a bunch of poppies that are still in their pods. Mine cost $3.50.
2. Put them in a sympathetic vase and sit them somewhere that you can watch them out of the corner of your eye.
3. Don't forget to look at them.



Kids and cats love poppies. So do I. It's not until you spend a week with them that you understand why we call them poppies. They pop! They perform! They split, unfurl and then stretch themselves, and if you spend the time you can actually watch them do it.




My pods sprouted strands of cat hair as Mr Pooter and Mr Padge rubbed themselves against the prickles. Noone could resist fondling the pods, so soft and rough, very masculine, reminiscent of what Dame Edna would call 'a lovely pair of kiwi fruit' (you know, possums, when you hold a lovely pair of kiwi fruit, one is always slightly bigger than the other...). And then when they split, they seem to change gender and become amazingly female. Such sexy beasts...

I put the bunch on the centre of the table for a breakfast party. And made the guests stop dropping public-service acronyms as the first poppy broke apart dramatically in the middle of our egg-eating. They did stop. They were awestruck. Priceless.

Bumblebee and I open the front door everyday and rush to the vase to see what has changed. Usually a lot! And after 6 days, the bunch is still going strong.


The best $3.50 I've ever spent...

It does what?

I went to the dentist today. She not only cleaned, polished and remineralised my teeth, but she also fashioned a weird little passion-killer that snaps onto my front teeth at bedtime and keeps me from grinding my teeth in my sleep. I really hope Best Beloved can channel some lusty thoughts towards rabbit-like things because that's what I look like with it on. (Playboy bunnies? good start. Watership Down? Ergh. Easter bunny? mmmm... chocolate...

ahem.) Anyway, as I sat there trying it out for size, the dentist-lady said 'my patients tell me it glows in the dark.' It does WHAT? I had wild visions of not only looking like a deformed rabbit, but glowing like one caught in a radioactive spotlight. OMFG. 'Not the splint, the box it goes into,' she said. 'That can be very handy when you're trying to find the box in the dark.' Well, there's somewhere else to put the condoms.

Sigh. Think of me tonight, looking dorkie but hopefully waking up without sore jaws.

A case in point

california_typecase, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

The other day I sold some type to a visiting American ceramics artist. She wanted to press letters into clay and wasn't happy with the choice of old type from the dissing bucket at the art school ('dissing', in letterpress, doesn't mean being rude to your girlfriend; it comes, I think, from 'discard' rather than 'disrespect'!). I offered her a full alphabet from my personal collection, and as she watched me pick out the letters she commented upon the order of the alphabet in the typetray.

It is a strange way of arranging the alphabet. Doing a bit of research, the most plausible explanation is that the size of the boxes represent the amount of times that letter is found in the Bible. This may be spurious, but I don't think so. The reason why I believe this is that on the right side of the tray are the capital letters, and they are laid out to reflect the fact that the Latin alphabet didn't have the letters U and J, so they are included down in the righthand corner beside Z. And, of course, type was developed to make production of bibles easier.



[Of course, the amount of type that can fit in a tray really depends on the point size of the type. 10pt type can fit a lot more letters in a tray than 36pt. After 36pt or 42pt you really have to move to wood type, as lines get too heavy. These days, of course, you can just cast polymer plates and print them rather than set type, which gives far more font freedom in letterpress.]

My beef is that this style is called a California Type- or Job-case. Obviously this particular style of type tray has been redesigned to suit the needs of someone in California (there are MANY kinds of tray layouts, as this site will show you), and California came into existence way after we stopped typesetting purely in Latin. So why have they kept these odd conventions?

"I have one word for you, and that word is... TRADITION!" [Bugger off, Topol]

Of course, now that I have learned the layout by heart, and can set type the way other people can use a QWERTY keyboard (I'm still a three-finger typist), I'm rattled by any change. I bought a stack of trays of type from a nice man that I instantly dubbed Mad Merv from Mittagong, and he had refilled all the trays in straight alpha order, which made my life hell. I haven't got time to redistribute the type, so now I have half my trays in this layout, and the other half in his. Quel merde!

In my quest for knowledge I also found some mnemonics for the layout:

BCDEISFG
Be Careful Driving Elephants Into Small Ford Garages

LMNHOYPWcommas
Let Me Now Help Out Your Punctuation With commas

VUTAR
Villains Usually Take A Ride
(or, Villains Usually Take three-ems And Run)

but since my memory is visual rather than aural, I have a little map in my head like a line drawing of the above graphic. So they're wasted on me, but they could be good for you.

The other thing about this visiting artist was that she asked me specifically for an ampersand, as her husband's business is called Ampersand [something] (sorry, told you I can't remember aural stuff!). It hurt, but I did part with an ampersand. I hope he (and she) enjoys it... All hail to those who use the mighty ampersand.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

B_Anakin

Yes, my master..., originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

I'm so proud of myself. For every mistake as a parent, there's something I do right. No, I might rephrase that. For every clutch of mistakes, there's a winning moment. This, my dears, is one of them.

I didn't let Bumblebee watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on the big screen because I thought the Anakin/lava scene was just a bit too much, and obviously the censors thought so too, seeing how that that scene was about the only thing I could see that deserved an M rating. I'm sure lots of other parents curse George Lucas too, for making 5 movies ok for kids then making the final puzzle piece a bit too much for them. I made a deal with BB: when it came out on DVD, he could watch it on the small screen.

Then a friend offered me a pirate DVD of the movie. It felt a bit like a drug deal, but the short story is that BB got to see the movie not too long after the release. All the violent bits look much more harmless on our very small tv (my computer screen is bigger than our tv!) and we could skip through the burning bit -- at his request. One happy boy.

Anyhoo, that's not the good parenting bit (quite the opposite, some would argue!). Bumblebee has, as I've mentioned before, 3 lightsabres. Blue, green, purple. He still hankers after a double red one, so he can play Darth Maul.

Bumblebee had a dress-up school disco on Friday night, and we always like to make a dress-up effort in our household (last year's effort was Lord Voldemort). We'd had a miserable week preceding it, trapped in the house with a bad bout of gastro. I woke up one morning with a brainwave. A Jedi cape. If I could find it on the web, I could make one and BB could be Anakin, just before he becomes Darth Vader. Because in the movie, Anakin has a BLUE lightsabre, and that FINALLY made BB's blue one cool and brought it back out of the toybox.

Thank you so much to rebelligion.com for the excellent instructions on Jedi robe making. I just followed the wordsa and pared down the measurements to fit a skinny 8-yo kid, and look at the result. A bit of eyeliner pencil to draw in the eye-scar, some broody grey eyeliner around the lower rims, a bit of fudge in the hair, and a black glove (right hand only), and my mini-Anikin sprang forth. It was is a huge success. I don't think he's spent more than 6 hours without the robe on in the last four days.

Hooray!

Nobody Knows

Childfree weekend, so as usual we went to the movies. Nobody Knows is an exquisite Japanese movie about abandoned children. Quiet, poignant and full of long silences, there is no resolution, no answered questions, just pause. I'll be dreaming about this for weeks. Mind you, the lyrics for the song towards the end were a very strange translation -- made me giggle in a very inappropriate moment. Highly recommended.

Touching elbows

Every time bloggers talk about touching elbows, this is what I think about (sorry if I've doubled up on any images!):











Taken (with many grateful prostrations) from It's Pickering's Best, (Australia: Pickering Promotions Pty Ltd, 1976).

Something Awful

The three of us came down with a nasty bout of gastro on Monday night. No need for details, just suffice to say that although things have stabilised, we're a tad wobbly today. I've been cruising the internet in quest of distraction, while Best Beloved's choice of distraction is a hot bath with a book (I know, so bad for the book!) and Bumblebee flakes out on the couch with a movie, currently Superman I.

I found a place called somethingawful.com, which seems to be the source of many of the odd things that circulate around the internet. Lots of whiffy things, but I did find their Photoshop Phriday segment, and it is fun, lots of movie photo fun, and sci fi image fun. They mount a picture and encourage people with photoshop to make up their own variations and send them in.

Here's one from a section that played with fad-diets:


And these are from the Dick & Jane section:



They have Lord of the Rings, Superheroes, ads, you name it, they encourage you to tinker with it. Very tempting to join in, but it would be a huge timewaster on my part. Fun to check in on occasionally, though. Much more fun than gazing at the photoshop work in mainstream newspapers and magazines, and far more believable.

(I also found my Pickering 'elbows' cartoon, so I'll put that up later today.)

Feeling the bomb

I thought, since it's that anniversary, that I would share one of my favorite graphic experiences with whoever visits this site. When I was significantly younger than I am today, I discovered Speigelman and Sacco, but my favorite discovery was Keiji Nakazawa. His Barefoot Gen rocked my world.


[Barefoot Gen (UK: Penguin, 1987)]

Barefoot Gen is a Japanese manga about Hiroshima, drawn and written by a man who had lived through it and was determined to make his fellow countrymen think about what had happened.



According to the introduction of my edition, it was first serialised in 1972 in a comic magazine with a circulation of over two million. Apparently it has been made into a full-length animated film, but I haven't managed to catch that yet. The story has, over the last fifteen years or so, been translated into English by a group called Project Gen. I've collected all four of the volumes: Barefoot Gen (above),

Barefoot Gen: The Day After (UK: Panguin, 1988),


Barefoot Gen: Life After the Bomb (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1989),

and

Barefoot Gen: Our of the Ashes (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1994)

If you have teenage children, I really recommend these stories. They don't preach or moralise, and they present the facts very clearly. He also goes into the structure of the Japanese family pre- and during the war, and has a hard clear look at the militaristic nature of Japanese society. Gen has a big brother fighting for Japan. He is forced to watch his younger siblings die in the firestorm after the bomb drops, and he witnesses his mother's mental deterioration and death. He then has to look after his infant sister through the whole ordeal. For added political interest, there is a Korean neighbour, who allows Nakazawa to explore the troubled Japan-Korean relationship.

This must have been terribly confronting stuff to post-war readers; Nakazawa wrote it because he was distressed to find that twenty years after the war most students knew nothing about the atomic bombs and many teachers were also too young to know anything. Drawing these images must have been like pulling out his fingernails, or picking at scabs. But he did it, and the books have made a huge impact.

I pick them up every few years to read; they stayed burned in my brain in between times. Together with John Hershey's Hiroshima essay, these are mandatory reading for anyone who wants to know what it was like to be in or around Hiroshima when the bomb dropped.

PS After I wrote this, we turned on the radio to find Radio National's The Night Air was featuring Underground Comics and Manga. It was great. Funnily, the website doesn't mention it at all, concentrating on last week and next week's show. If you can catch the repeat of the comic show, it's aurally over-stimulating, but inbetween all the effects are some good comments on comics by those creating them, including some Australian artists.

Travel Warning Upgrade

Today, for some obscure reason I won't go into now because I'm fairly inebriated and I could end up digressing majorly, Bumblebee and I were discussing job prospects. Being an 8=year-old, he wants to be something that involves telling the rest of the world what to do, preferably with a weapon or two. I.e., soldier or policeman. I refrained from mentioning that he could just be the head of a multinational corporation. I did, however, being the mother of an 8-year-old boy who promises to be a gorgeous man, mention that both jobs involved a large element of danger. He asked what sort of jobs were safe. I replied that Best Beloved's job, while not something I would recommend to Bumblebee as a career, was perfectly safe (Public Servant).

'But what about the tourists?' says Bumblebee, 'What if the tourists get into his work?'

'Tourists?'

'You know, the ones with bombs and machine guns... what if they break into his work and blow up everyone?'

I had this vision of a bus pulling up in front of the Department of Hem Hem and a mob of hawaiian-shirt-wearing dudes flocking in to blind everyone with their camera flashes...

Bumblebee is right. Tourists are a danger in this world. We should be alert, and alarmed. Everywhere.

Daily aversion therapy

I didn't know goodtimes was one word... all that design effort and there's still a typo, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

For years now I've made phone calls from my home, said goodbye to the person concerned, and walked away humming something to myself. Halfway down the hall from the phone, I'll stop and think 'what the frick am I humming?'. It'll usually be something I haven't heard in years, something really annoying that won't get out of my head.

I couldn't work out why this happened EVERY time I got on the phone. Was my memory jogged by what had just passed on the phone? But it happened even if the other line didn't pick up!

The I gave my phone a good listen and finally understood. On my phone line is a faint echo of music, as if someone's put me on permanent hold. But it's not just muzak; it's Hits and Memories music. I'm tapped into Canberra's only radio station that plays music from the 50s, 60s and 70s. ARGHHH! Let me demonstrate. I'm going to pick up the phone right now. [does so] It's playing that song which goes something tells me I'm into something good.... If I turn on the radio and tune it in, yep, it's playing.

DOUBLE ARGHH!

I found out at For Battle! today that these annoying songs can be called 'earworms'. So now I know what's wrong with my phone. It's infested with earworms. And it's a bit hard to sing 'Only For Sheep' (suggested failsafe cure) while you wait for someone to pick up their phone because you sound like a complete berk (or you've forgotten why you've rung them and sound like you've finally got that demensia that has been on-setting for years).

Mind you, once I do get off the phone, 'Only for Sheep' by The Bureau works fine. So does the start of Vince Jones's 'On the Brink of It', which is what I was experimenting with before today. Anything to switch brain channels.

The thing that worries me the most is that my brain is being secretly stashed with all these crap songs, and who knows what will emerge in moments of stress a la 'Touching The Void'. I don't plan on getting stranded on a mountain in the near or distant future, but anything can happen, and if it does, which particular horror from this station will come whizzing back ad nauseum?

Do you think I've got grounds for a mental torture case against the radio station?

Speculative queer-y

Riding home today I started thinking about a speculative fiction short story I read years and years ago and I've never seen since. I would dearly love to read the story again, and so I'm hoping that if I mention it someone might be able to tell me if they know it. So, here is as much as I know:

-- I can't remember if I read it in an anthology of short stories or the original volume, or if I was reading it from the actual book or from photocopied pages. I did a huge essay during my Masters in English on women's speculative fiction, so I'm assuming (although I could be wrong) that it was written by a woman.

-- My course was between 1990 and 1993, so I'm guessing it was written in the 80s or earlier.

-- It is all about rich people in the future pushing cosmetic surgery to the point of perfection and then finding that really boring, so then a trend started of finding really ugly people and transplanting the rich person's personality into the ugly body. They would change appearances every 'season' and try to outdo each other's ugliness. There's a lot more to it than that, as usual, but that's the part that really sticks in my head.

Does that jog any memories? Also very happy for suggestions on dystopian fiction to read, published in the last ten years or so, preferably human/soft/personality-based, not hard-techno.

Remember to breathe

from www.thesunmachine.net, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

Too cute? Probably.

Can you tell I'm bored at work?