Talk

I wanted to curl up on the soft sofa, but the yurt is always packed. People shuffle up and perch on armchairs, always room for one more the merrier.

I sat in the tent with my hazelnut milkshake, and listened to the girls sing. It was an Irish song; close vocal harmonies, flowing up and out of them in cyan and green.

The stories were sublime tonight. A man and woman from Bristol sat or stood at the front. Him, reciting stories about Old Tom, his grandfather; her, playing vivid violet violin or her acoustic guitar, which sang in a deep sonorous blue. And the man from Bristol, oh, he built pictures so carefully, neatly alliterating the pictures in our minds. I wish, I wish, I could do that.

I am not a storyteller; I am a writer. The difference is tangible and harsh. I want to be a storyteller; I want to have the stage presence to take a roomful of adults on a journey; but I have seen my face when I speak and it is still and lifeless. I have seen my body when I move and it is awkward and girly. I have heard my voice when I talk and it is unclear and lazy; my once-sharp-cut vowels atrophied through years of misuse. I no longer talk to myself. That's where I lay the blame.

Spoken-word poetry is an art form. I have watched enough online in the past couple of days to stir up a longing in me. I want to be a performer. I am a poet, but not a performance poet. So what's it to be? Well, Anna? Are you going to sit behind your screen and write dead words for others to read? Are you going to spend your time alone? Or are you going to learn to eNUNciate! DRAmatise! emphasise! Are you going to learn to speak?

Life is a mystery, everyone

Not sure what to say, really. That's never a good sign with me. Usually I either have something to say, or simply go without blogging for a few weeks, but these are special circumstances.

I'm feeling pretty down lately, for numerous and complicated reasons. If you're of a praying persuasion, I suppose you could pray for me? although I'm in two minds as to whether that actually works

Nothing is ever simple, is it.

Hope you're all well, I promise to think of something interesting to say once the blues have passed.

Where are the women?

Is it so hard to have interesting, complicated female characters? Women who think for themselves? Is it so implausible that we might discuss something other than men in our free time? Ugh.

I've recently discovered something called The Bechdel Test. To pass, a movie has to fulfill these three requirements:
1) It must have at least two women in it,
2) Who talk to each other,
3) About something other than men.

Humble aspirations, you'd think. Half the world are women, surely most movies pass this test without even thinking?

Well, this video contains a list of movies that fail, I think you'll be surprised.



Yeah. They're not all pure testosterone movies. Ghostbusters? Wall-E? Toy Story, the Princess Bride, the Wedding Singer for goodness' sake! Are we that uninteresting?

Interestingly, one of the movies that passes this test is Legally Blonde. If you haven't seen it, it's about a beauty- and shopping-obsessed sorority girl who adores the colour pink. So far so blah, right? Especially given my feelings about pink. But this movie is possibly one of the most feminist mainstream movies I've ever seen. If you haven't seen it yet, UK types can watch it on iPlayer until Sunday. If you can overlook the fact that the main character has every advantage in the world (being insanely popular, pretty, and rich), it's actually pretty empowering (yes I just used that word) to see her surpass everyone's expectations and defy stereotypes. The sequel is more fluffy, but still passes the Bechdel test with flying colours.

Anyway, enough ranting from me. Todays interesting thing, although I give no guarantee that you will find it so, is the latest Nexus - an online magazine for creative writing. I've got one story and one poem in there, and I'm very pleased with it!

The peasants are revolting!

Today, in Cardiff, there is an awful lot of protesting going on. The Welsh Defense League are protesting against Muslims, and Unite Against Fascism are protesting against the WDL. Taxi drivers are considering striking over the whole situation, possibly because they feel left out.

I was sat in the park reading my book, and I phoned my friend Ben to see if he was free. He wasn't. He was at "Well, sort of a riot I suppose" - said in the surprised tones of one who never expected to find himself at a riot, today of all days. I was not surprised. Ben has Political Opinions, and isn't afraid of voicing them. "The Nazis are in town," he continued, "and we don't like them." Well, quite.

I wished him luck, and went back to reading my book. Not because I don't care, you understand; I do, very much. In fact that's precisely why I wasn't there. You see, while other protesters may feel free to shout and throw things, I wouldn't. I'd be very quiet and polite about it all. In many ways, I concluded, that would be worse than not showing up at all. So I didn't.

So instead, I'm going to read up on the history of the two groups, go through the news coverage of the event, and formulate an opinion. One silly little opinion among thousands, of course, but mine nevertheless. I already know where I stand on the big issues (hint: racism is bad, mmkay?) but it doesn't hurt to do your research.

I love that Cardiff is full of people who care about these things. In fact, for the past couple of months the political graffiti artists have been out in force. Rather than the usual type of graf that gets hidden away in alleys and corners, this stuff is springing up alongside main roads; usually stencilled (quick and neat) or scrawled (angry red pen). Some of it's been up for a couple of months, but I've only just got around to sharing them, because... uh... I'm quite crap.

Loads of these are around; they were pre-election.

Also a few months old, quite poetic

Brand new, and accompanied by lots of anger and swearing. Worthy of inclusion for referencing 1984, which I only read the other week.

Similar style to "let hope rage", but different lettering.

Referring to the shops? The city?

Ending on a positive note. I know this graffiti artist has been in Cardiff for some time, but I can't quite place his characters.

No spoilers: LOST

There will be reviews of the finale springing up all over the internet in the coming days. They will range from "It was AWFUL" to "it was AWESOME," but that's not what I want to cover here. I want to talk about the part it's played in my life.

One of the main reasons I'm sorry to see Lost go is that it has served as a very effective, if transparent, excuse for hanging out with people I like for many years now. My family got me into it, having decided after the first three episodes that they liked it. I'm sure that, for them, the novelty wore off several seasons ago; and perhaps I'd have lost interest too, if it weren't for Stephen.

Stephen Wills is my honorary big brother. I've known him for my whole life, and craved his approval for about as long; in fact I'd say he was pretty instrumental in inspiring my lifelong love of geeks. I knew him when he was a blond-haired little boy playing with marbles, when he discovered Sonic the Hedgehog, when he was learning to drum and getting girlfriends... I'm a couple of years younger than him, so there was quite a while when we didn't really talk, but then we found out we had Lost in common. For a couple of seasons, my brother and sister and I would go to his flat to watch it with him. Then when he moved back to Newport, and I started doing my gap year work there, I'd watch it alone with him (and believe me, if I'd known how to hit on guys when I was 19, I would have done).

I grew up and moved away, although possibly not in that order; first to Plymouth, where I was alone, and then to Cardiff. In Cardiff I met Dan X. I picked up more or less where I'd left off with Stephen; going round to see him on a weekly basis and watching the latest episode. That's continued, sometimes with more people and sometimes not, right up until tonight. It's one of the things that helped me get to know a few people in Cardiff, so I guess it's one of the reasons this feels like home now.

This obsession has fuelled many discussions with my friends, ranging from vapid soap-opera style drama conversations through to philosophy and metaphysics. I'm helping to indoctrinate my friend Ben into the world of Lost, through which he's getting to know Dan as well. It's good to know that it's still doing that.

So I suppose it's time I found something new to obsess over. Any suggestions?

Kawaii LOST - Hurley and Smokey, originally uploaded by Jerrod Maruyama.

Today

Today I woke up. Today I bought a new skirt, from a charity shop: drapey and interesting, £2.99.
Today I went to the park and sat in the sun with friends.
Today I read some more of American Gods.
Today I had dinner and drank cider with friends, and played a Cardiff-based game of Monopoly that I lost and enjoyed.
Today, on my way home at midnight, I didn't so much as shiver. Barelegged and still warm in the middle of the night.

Summer days really do last longer. That's not nostalgia, that's the light. Today, there was so much light.

Copyright and the future

Information wants to be free. Copyrighted information, government information, my information.
I can't locate the quote, frustratingly, but someone once said that computer memory will never get more expensive, slower, or less convenient. The world is opening up for people to share ideas, books, movies, and personal data across the world almost instantly.

To do so in the case of movies, for example, is definitely illegal; arguably immoral; but still very easy. And likely to get easier.

Did you know that copyright law, when first invented in 1709, applied for 14 years? By contrast, Paul McCartney (and thousands of other artists) hold the view that 50 years of royalty cheques aren't enough. (Please discount my opinion, but if you're not currently earning, maybe you don't need to live a life of luxury.) Most performers around today are aware that customers have the option to pirate their songs, and their responses range from the overzealous ('let's sue them into the ground as an example') to the cool ('I make this awesome stuff you might like, oh and also I need to eat.').

This blog is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Creative Commons license. Click on the CC license at the bottom of the page for more info.

I bring this all up because I'm trying to picture the future. It seems to me that, whether the privacy activists and lawyers like it or not, our society is tending towards total freedom of information. Everything about us will be available to anybody who cares enough to look. It will fundamentally change the nature of our society. It will change how we treat others (because we'll know we're being 'reviewed' online); it will change why we create things (because anything we write or film or draw will instantly be available to everyone); and it will change how we keep secrets (if we even have them at all).

I'm not trying to present some horrendous dystopia here; nor am I condoning illegal downloading or the abolition of copyright law. I'm only trying to sort out, in my own head, where I think the human race is going, and (accidentally, in the process) who's stopping us from getting there. If I knew no other life, would I really mind living in a world like that? I think my answer is no.

What do you think? Where are we heading?

Home

I feel oddly restless when I come online. There was a time I'd go to a forum, but I've more or less abandoned those. Or I'd log in to IRC, but I don't do that any more. And since I restarted my twitter account (foolish, foolish me), there aren't many people to talk to there either. So I fire up my laptop, open firefox, and feel...

Unsettled. Unhomed.

My dissertation is going to be about home, and what that means. As a student, I move from house to house every year, so that's not home. My parents' house isn't home, not any more. Home has become something a bit more elusive, a bit less defined.

So, I suppose part of me is looking for something to get obsessed about. A website or event or group of people I can relate to, connect with, belong with. Likeminded people. Ah well, I can keep dreaming. There may well be thousands of people with minds a lot like mine, but I wouldn't know where to find them.

Who am I and what have I done with me?

I have a rad dress!

My boyfriend, Gavin, had been keeping a secret from me for weeks. He insisted that I keep last Saturday free, and it wasn't until the morning that he told me why: he was paying for me to go on a shopping trip! His sister-in-law, Leonie, is an awesome lady and she was my style guru for the day. I got lots of lovely things, but I was most excited about the dress. Here is a picture of it on someone who isn't me:

It looks better on me. Sorry for the tiny pictures, these are literally the only pictures of it online as far as I can tell! I guess it's new. Makes sense, one of the girls who works at River Island asked me how it looked on. So: yay! Rad new dress!

I'm now looking for shoes to go with it (sorry guys, I'll talk about something a bit less fashion-based next time), and I'm getting hugely excited by a range Leonie introduced me to called Irregular Choice. They're very unusual. Some of them are just plain bizarre, but I am getting unfamiliar twinges of shoe-lust for some of their designs. Looky:

The best kind of weird, in my opinion. I know some of you may be thinking "Wow, she says how much she hates fashion disasters, and then says she likes these?" in which case I would formulate my reply thusly: LOOK! Look at the pretties!

So anyway I'm just going to hold my head in a bucket of ice water until I clearly see what I've become.

Ooh, I nearly forgot. Links.
River Island
Irregular Choice

Nellie the Elephant

I'm rereading Unseen Academicals at the moment, by Terry Pratchett. The main character, Nutt, is obsessed with having Worth. He creates things, and he learns, and he helps, because he needs to be worthy. I understand how he feels.

I restarted my twitter account today. It was complicated - I had to change my username and details and delete that account, then start a new one with my original information. It was a bit of a snap decision, but I decided that I've let it matter to me far too much. Twitter doesn't matter, not really.

I'm relieved that I've been able to let go of that obsession with rank. I no longer care how many people read my blog, to be honest, since the only important thing for me was to write it. I wanted to prove that I could keep it up, and I've done that, by my standards.

I'm hoping that, once I've finished uni for the summer, I'll be able to spend the summer doing worthwhile things. Not spending all day on twitter; not reading dozens of blogs; but learning things, and doing things, and meeting people. That's what really matters to me. I want to practice playing the ukulele more, and I want to get better at calligraphy, and I want to read and write more. I know I say these things fairly often, but that's because it's good to remind yourself where you want to be heading once in a while.

And above all, I want to be ready for the adventures when they happen. A couple of weeks ago (I intended to write more about this, but the time has passed), I went to the beach. My friends asked if I fancied going. I was at Gav's, but dressed for adventure: jeans, trainers, everything I need in my rucksack; so I said yes, and we went.

I splashed about in rock pools, went paddling, sat on rocks, climbed into a cave, found spiral fossils embedded in the rock floor, and had maybe the best day I've had for many years. Because I was ready for adventure.
It's all very well to wait for these things to happen, but I think it's time I started doing random scary things again. Goodbye to the circus of internet drama, hello to making the most of my free time. Fingers crossed.