Hospitals and all...

Sharyn went for day-surgery today, into Royal Newcastle Hospital. We left home 11:30am; got home 8:30pm. A long day, tiring for all, but had to be done. Don't know the results of her arthroscopy on her right wrist joint, for TFCC, ie. Torn Fibro Cartilage Complex -or some such fancy named thing, which has given her a lot of pain and trouble for about two years. She's asleep now with her hand all bandaged up, but went to bed with a good spirit. It is to be expected she will be in quite some pain for a while. Will update when more infor known. We thank God for his enabling today, and for daughter Keren being with us from 1pm and staying for a few days. I'm tired too so am off to bed.

Tuesday Mountain Morning

Cool this morning and the valley is partially filled with a lazy fog lacking any great intention to smother as it could. Powdery grey clouds blend into this other-worldly mist as though they have risen from the earth, or are getting swallowed by it. Who knows a thing about the limits of fogs and mists and clouds? How can you? They have no edges on which to grab, hold. Surely these measureless marvels have to be masters of their own mystery. I saw a cloud, once, but it disappeared never to return, and I lamented its loss. I saw the valley disappear on another occasion, it got swallowed up into a fog-filled morning and left me thinking the world had disappeared and abandoned me. But the valley returned to reassure me that we are still friends. And the hill on which I sit keeps its place. I will be here for a season and then down into the valley where the mist and plain hold hands, and I wonder who will meet me there.

Blow-flies... Who would have them? You only have to open the screen door and they are in faster than you know, pesky little bustards. What is it about them that they are so immediatley opportunistic? Then the stupid little buggers go buzzing crazy at the window wanting to retreat. Sometimes I think I go through life like that. I am only pleased I don't have wings.

"Piratanical Pete"

This image is real.
Do not adjust your screen.
Do not pass Go.

This is my current driver's licence photo: As no one is ever rewarded with a good driver's licence photo why not make a bright moment of something so dull and boring, especially if it will turn out really disgusting anyway? I am thinking that next time I will swap the eye patch to left eye.

This picture supercedes the previous 'ganster' look I had going, with slicked hair, puffed cheeks, and sun glasses. I used that previous licence as a photo-ID, at the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority to change my licence address, and the service guy behind the counter cracked-up and asked his work collegue to come have a look, and they both laughed their heads off! I thought that sort of thing only happened on a Comedy Skit show on TV, as I once saw.

My Primrose

I was out running, this morning,
My hands freezing at the end of my t-shirt,
Just as the delicate primrose bravely shrugged off the cold,
Stretching in bloom in a glimpse of the early sun.

The crocus and daffodil are just appearing, and
Proudly stand in the lanes among my primrose.

Sue has had the last of her chemotherapy.
Whilst she is still suffering, and very bald,
At least that part is over, and
We look forward to a steady improvement.

For the last three months it has been cold and wet.
We are looking forward to Spring with the sunshine.

Profound in her abounding beauty, She, who I love,
Reminds me that life is unfolding, just as it should.
The cold will soon be a distant memory,
It will never have its way forever.

Of them all, the Primrose is my favourite. She smiles,
As She marks the end of winter, the start of new life.

~~~~~
Written by Peter Johnson, February, 2004. Newcastle, NSW, Australia,
Inspired by and adapted fro the writings of Richard M-P
And by the strength of his beloved wife, Sue.
… for them both and for their children.

_________

“It has been cold and wet for the last three months and we are looking forward to Spring. The crocus and daffodil are just starting to appear as are the primroses in the lanes. I was out running this morning, my hands freezing at the end of my t-shirt, admiring how the delicate primrose shrugs off the cold morning to get a glimpse of the early sun before it gets swallowed by the grey winter clouds. The primrose is my favourite flower because it marks the end of winter and reminds me that life is unfolding just as it should.

Sue (wife) has had her last chemotherapy treatment and whilst she is still suffering and very bald, at least that part is over and now we can look forward to a steady improvement. She has been mighty brave and is an inspiration to me and her staff. She decided quite early on to stay at work, and brave the looks and stares. She occasionally comes home early for a sleep but has been very resilient. We're both fed up with talking about cancer and look forward to a time when it is a distant memory. …[she is] Still smiling, bless her.”

(c) Richard M-P 2004, email to Peter Johnson, 18 February 2004.

Aussie Convicted about Convict Australia Convictions

I am dragging the chain, so much, as I try and complete my 1500 word assessment on "Convict Australia". Maybe, just maybe, dragging the chain is a natural consequence of this topic. It is hard for me to study when my mind cannot settle and focus. Doesn't always happen but when it does it feels like any idea of maintaining the necessary cogent clarity of thought and mental application seems a lost cause. Dang, this is hard. Maybe the meds my psychiatrist had me on, all those years ago, fried my brain somewhere. Maybe I am an idealist who won't co-operate with reality.

I have asked myself, why is it seemingly hard for me to study new stuff, i.e. apply myself to it, while at the same time I can happily and "cogently" get along with doing other stuff which requires a good deal of mental acuity? Sharyn reckons it has to do with my creative bent: only those things that allow me to explore and to express my creativity get past the starting block. I know those things that are rote and 'done to death' bore me to tears. Rehashing all that stuff that other stuff historians have said doesn’t seem to do much for my sense of personal value and worthiness of the task at hand. What I do know is that there seems to be a vacuous anomaly that simply leaves me blank and disinterested. Whatever the case, at the present, the chains of "Convict Australia" have me bolted to the wall awaiting execution: either I execute it or it will execute me.

What I have chosen to do is to stay offline for a day and get my head down and my down up. Today is the big day. I either will or I won’t. Hopefully I can get into it with some conviction. So, it is just after 6am, and here goes…

(Those 300+ words were a snap! Now do it 5 times over).

Planetary Explorer & Mars Rover

Rear view of the Business End.

An amazing craft NASA finally has a competitor worth noting!
This is a full-size working prototype which you may have seen on trials in and around Croydon, Sydney. It is rumoured to be powered by a new propulsion system, called a DEEJ. i.e. "Direct Energy Elmo Jallopyfier" (Patent Pending #19810806).
It would be nice to get an update, sometime, on the rest of the specs by the Designer, Dr. Dee Eejh. NG. BA.

The Reevoolooshoonree "DEEJ PEMR 001"

Side view ... Clever Huh!

"View my sketchy, bare-bones, blurry, limited, veiled and incomplete, profile",

"View my complete profile", it says. In reality it's a bit of a joke.

As usual there are the set boxes to fill in, provided you do it completely within 1200 words, or whatever. There is no place to list my dis-interests and dis-likes, for example, for what I don't like says as much about me as my likes. Besides, who is or who can complete such a completeness? Completely no one, I would suggest, for we are such complex persons, with much more to who we are than what can be said in a few lines. Try, "View my sketchy, bare-bones, blurry, limited, veiled and incomplete, profile", instead.

Who are we?
From where did we come?
Where are we going?
What is our future?
In whom do we put our trust?

They are the big questions, in my view.
So, if we have to have boxes to fill in, why not those questions as prompts?

There.. that's my rant for the moment.

Hand-written Journaling

... has been a practice of mine and here are the what's for and why's that on the subject... poke you mousey thing right here

My pic

This is my so-called "Russian Mafia" look which came about rather serendipitously. With the help of my complicit son, I shaved my head entirely for the first time 'as a gift' for my beloved wife, Sharyn, for Christmas. I fronted up to her with a gift bag over my noggin and said "Merry Christmas".. You can figure the rest on that score... Next day we went for a family picnic and Dad gave me this hat as a gift-joke, and this picture is a result. It was my daughter who first used the term "Russian Mafia" to describe this look. No offence meant guys, Really! I might try it for my next driver's licence photo. I have since regrown my gorgoeus locks and am back to a full beard, as usual.

"JEWEL"

(click on photo to read enlarged photo-text)

I went opal mining with this new friend, Mark, during the Olympic madness of Sydney 2000, where I lived only two suburbs away from the Olympic Stadium at that time (but that is another story). Mark lived at Lightning Ridge, about 12 hours drive up to the start of the outback. It was such an amazing experience to go opal mining and find these small pieces of light amid tonnes and tonnes of earth.

Poemic, and its cognates

I have been excited and inspired in reviewing the work of Geof Huth, especially his Visualising Poetry and Pmoermds (see blog links).

This lead me to invent some pwoermds of my own....

Poemic + Poeazmic + Poeazmus

Below is the beginning of my exploration of these concepts.

-- "Poeazmus" --

poeazmus, poea-zmus n. 1. an integrated entity combining an essentially poetic 'text' with a visual 'muse' (or pic/ture), centred on anything from A - Z on which the poetic text focuses; where 'mus' (or 'pic') can be a pictograph, topic, picture, graphic, music score, musical note, object, texture, image, etc, etc, but not an artwork devoid a textual component). 2. a pwoermd, the root of which is the pwoermd poemic. 3. any homogenous artistic entity centred on a singularity presented for interpretation, including a three-dimensional object, provided it has an unambiguous textual component. 4. poeazmic descriptor: that poeazmic subset pwoermd describing and focusing on the kernel of the poeazmus. --poeazmic adj.

poemic n. The root word and typograph base for any poeazmus, made up of two fragments poe + mic, from which other poeazmic pwoermds are developed.

Discussion

At a philosphical level, a poeazmic entity focuses or centres on a topic, or item, or thing. A Poeazmus, therefore, is not convoluted and/or complex, unless of course convolution and complexity are the prerequisite singularity being examined.

A Poeazmus is direct and immediate and readily apprehendable. The poeazmus aims at drawing the viewer, the interpreter, with ease into the singularity tendered for exploration, In a manner similar to a "black hole" the interpreter may 'get lost' in the thought or idea being offerred for meditation. While any form of poetics or poetic verse or poetic text can be used, the poetic textual 'device' so used needs to be readily apprehendable, as above.

At this early stage I am unsure as to how the idea of Poeazmus fits into the various concepts of Visual Poetics. Some early thoughts lead me to believe that there is most probably some overlap. But, I think, poeazmics has a particular focus and that focus is the focussed nature of the poeazmus itself -- It is about the point rather than the array. I welcome your discussion on this matter.

Rules for Poeazmus.

Rule 1: A true poeazmus is where subset pwoermds are developed by modifying only the centre of the root poemic.

Rule 2: The typography of a poeazmic pwoermd descriptor generally maintains a visual balance about the centre of the word, although this is rather subjective.

Rule 3: The fragments poe and mic are never dispensed with and always envelope the modifying fragment of the poeazmic descriptor. The fragments may function as part of the modifying central fragment used to create the descriptor.

Rule 4: Text, words and pwoermds may be the singularity being explored.

Poeazmic Pwoermds as Poeazmus Descriptors

Subset poeazmic pwoermd descriptors can be generated with ease and because of this the list of potential descriptors would be infinite. Their design for their own sake as pwpermds, therefore, is rather meaningless unless, of course, they then function as a genetical prompt for the artist-creator. In a very true sense, a poeazmic descriptor is a poeazmus in its own right (Rule 4), but its primary value is centred in its use as a tool for the creation of a a poeazmus.

Principle: The primary role of the poeazmic descriptor is to focus the poeazmus creator onto the singularity. It thus presents the kernel of the poeazmus being/to be explored.

Below are sample descriptors, invented today, from a potentially limitless number of poeazmic descriptors:

poeimic = centred on self.
poeumic = centred on the third person/s.
poeusmic = centred on us.
poeXmic = centred on a spot, or place.
poelemic = centred on controversy.
poeabbamic = centred on father/s.
poebqpbmic = centred on bqpb.
poeatomic = centred on the atom, or the atomic.

Example of Poeazmus

The post below "Ancient Warrior" is offerred as my 'first' poeazmus. It uses a very traditional poetic form of verse. I wrote it years ago and realize it fitted this concept of a poeazmus I have been developing. Another, "Jewel", above. Neither are Visual Poetry, per se.

Generally, my poetic background has been traditional and self-taught poetic forms, but I think that is about to change!!!

I would very much appreciate

your comments on

the idea

of

' poeazmus '

Thank you for taking the time...

PeTeR

(c)PLJ 2004

Poeazmic: Ode to the Ancient Warrior

(c) PLJ 2004

"Ode to the Ancient Warrior"

There was this cranky old jib-crane truck standing derelic on a farm. I just had to capture it in someway, and it lead to more than just a pic.

My View from Home

(c) KEZMOZ 2004
Paterson Valley, viewing north east from our balcony, with Mt. Brecon in the middle. The mountain range beyond is 50km - 60km distant. We are at an elevation of about 130 metres. Composite Photo by KEZMOZ, used by permission.

Our Wild Neighbours #1

(c) PLJ 2004
Red-necked Wallaby, Macropus rufogriseus
Wallabies are marsupials, i.e. they have pouches. "Joey" is the name for their suckling young. These two and a half are Wallaby-mums that vist our home, this time at our back door in the evening. Sometimes we have ten hanging around, but only a couple of these locals will allow hand feeding, which we do sparingly, because they are very shy and skitty. It is great having them around. Our little cat "Eddy" must think the mice are real monsters here.

PLJournal 7.71: Storm

My personal Journal entry, Vol 7 p.71, made about 10p.m. on Sunday night 20040919. It was entirely written in the dark of the storm. See also next two posts below.
(c) PLJ 2004

The storm that rolled on, and on, in the air waves ...

Keren, my 25 y.o. married daughter, and I had a pleasing email exchange in the early afternoon of Monday. She lives in Mortdale, a suburb of Sydney, about 3 hours drive south of here. Below are edited portions of emails she sent me, during our conversation over one-hour. My responses are not included.

Earlier in the day, about 9am, I phoned Newcastle's ABC Radio during a talk-back segment with Paul Bevan. They were discussing the storm of Sunday night, and its aftermath, and inviting comment from listeners. So I gave my two-bobs worth…

~~~

Hi Dad,

Did you call into ABC radio this morning about the storm last night?

The Sydney ABC radio here this afternoon was just speaking to the Newcastle ABC morning guy who was telling a story about a man who was sitting on his verandah on the side of a mountain looking at the storm across the Paterson valley and writing about it in his journal... It all sounded familiar...

The Newcastle guy didn’t play the audio just re-told the story - James Valentine in Sydney thought it was quite novel that you didn’t take and photos but wrote in your journal - he said it was very 19th century...

It was weird when they were talking about it - I thought, Hold on…. That all sounds familiar - the storm watching, verandah, journal, mountain and Paterson valley...

The storm sounded pretty bad - up to a metre of hail in some places - we have missed both of the big ones lately, they didn’t seem to make it down to Mortdale.

They (JV and Paul Bevan) were mainly talking about the damage to Newcastle University (they have closed it for the day) and just at the end, in passing, they were discussing how far up north the storm went.

Bevan said that the man he spoke to was sitting out on his balcony in Paterson etc, etc, and said it was spectacular (or something like that) to watch. I think JV asked if you took any photos and he said no you were writing in your journal etc, etc. I think they liked the idea of writing in the journal in the dark.

~~~

It was quite a novelty for Keren and she was happily surprised in discovering they were talking about her Dad, on the radio! It was a serendipitous moment, to be sure. I have since emailed James Valentine and asked whether he could be interested in having an afternoon segment (on Sydney ABC Radio) on journaling. I would be happy to be involved, if he wanted. Let’s see what happens.

My semi-charred remains with stumps for fingers..

The weather here took a turn for the worst late last night, a brilliant and massive storm centre compelled me to sit on the balcony. It sucked me in to its charm to become totally absorbed as the whole valley was lit-up by intense lightning of different types, everywhere, even way into the distant mountains 60 km distant. It is sooooo dark in the countryside at night, with no city-light pollution, and I sat there in complete darkness with my journal on my lap, and wrote what I saw, heard, smelt, felt and experienced. It was the most amazing ten minutes.

My only source of light was the lightning itself. It flashed its power onto my page and gave me some hope of making a readable entry. But those flashes were so glary I couldn't see so well due to momentary flash-blindness. In the end it worked out nicely, with a great deal of texture and tone not normally evidenced in formal journalling. It was such a buzz! Exhilliaratingly fantastic.

It was a risky thing to do, I suppose, for I did think it possible the house might get hit by a bolt from the heavens. The house is isolated and situated so high up on the hill. It also has a metal roof, steel posts and verandah railing (which I had my feet rested upon!). 'Spose I could have got fried but I didn't. My semi-charred remains with charcoal finger marks on my journal would have made an interesting photo-study for CSI, and the journal entry, most probably my last, being primary evidence. Must do that again, sometime.

Two interesting characters...

Saw a dirty-big snake today, our first on this rocky, hillside property. It was a brown snake, possibly an eastern brown snake, probably about 5-6 foot long. I believe both species are deadly, the eastern variety just does the job a whole lot quicker, a few kilometers shorter.

Mr Snake was slithering his slimy slenderness toward the house, just 20 feet away, but the car I was driving frightened him off in another direction, thankfully. We could have collided. It is rather wierd thinking I live amid potential death, all around waiting to be stepped upon or run into.

Such is life, yet, I think the roads are more dangerous, especially if you met some crazy dude racing wildly to hospital, poisoned out of his brain by some random snake bite, trying to get there to casualty before he carks it. Remind me to make sure I miss them.

Came across this guy in blogsville today, Geof Huth, he is definately worth checking out...

http://www.blogger.com/profile/1372574

I know there is someway to put his blog into a list of links but I'll be bloggered if I can concentrate enough to do that, at least at the moment.

In the beginning was the

Word. That was my first word in this here first blog.

Not sure about this blog business, not that I don't mind writing, or even journalling, its a time thing. Besides I already do hand-written journalling, life-writing as some call it, have done so since May 2002.

I've had a look through quite a few blogs here. Some are quite impressive, others are mundane and boring. There are those that rant and rave while some write thoughtfully and reflectively. There are those that live scary lives, while others are the scare-ers.

Me, I am just whacked in the head, but, hopefully, I can get to a new place of mental well-being. Otherwise I will just have to live with it, and so will you.

In the end, God is all I have and I am sticking with Jesus.

~~~~~~~~

I am just on 50 and live with my wonderful wife and forever best friend, Sharyn. We have two great adult children and a fine son-in-law. Got a cat, Edwina, with psychological problems, but we love her anyway. I am also a daily survivor of chronic major depression: Yes, that is possible; and, No, having depression doesn't mean my faith in God is weak. Consequently, amid the suffering I am learning to find contentment in whatever is before me, and enjoy the simple things of life; perhaps you can identify. Hope you enjoy my clumsy effort at de-blogging my brain onto this here electronic canvas; please excuse the mess. I would love to hear from you, too, and so I welcome your comments and emails.