Un exercice inspire par «La vie de mode d’emploi»
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LCA 2018 Day 5
Another hot, sticky day in Sydney. The climate is my least favourite thing about the place.
Surprising amounts of the city apparently close for “the public holiday”, as the organisers are referring to it, in an effort to maintain neutrality on the local arguments around whether the current form of celebrating the European colonisation of Australia is the right one.
As an aside, mentioning I’m staying in Redfern elicits the odd interesting response from people who think this is basically equivalent to checking into a hotel in a war zone; I was told there would be riots here on Friday, which doesn’t in fact seem to be the case. While the locals are not exactly Abbot voters, the only dire predictions of danger that appear to be accurate are Sydneysiders warning of aggressive gentrification.
LCA 2018 Day 4
Sydney may have a lot of things going for it, but the climate is definitely amongst of them. Still, in spite of the hot, sticky weather, I’m enjoying wending my way through the streets of Redfern every morning; with it’s tiny old row houses and narrow alleys it would seem to be more what you’d find in the heart of an old European city like York; then I exit onto some of the stunningly designed newer buildings provides a sharp and delightful contrast.
I have no idea how anyone affords to live here, though.
LCA 2018 Day 3
Another balmy day in Sydney. This is… not my ideal climate, shall we say. But hey, I saw a big ol’ bat flying around in the wild, which was cool for me and probably completely uninteresting to the locals.
LCA 2018 Day 2
I’m putting myself off-side with general sentiment in Sydney, but I find bin chickens adorable.
LCA 2018 Day 1
This year LCA comes to Sydney, marking the first time I’ve been here since I was maybe 8 or 9. The locals are shocked; apparently the idea one has not come to Sydney is inconceivable. So far I’ve been enjoying the well-integrated public transport with fast, quiet high-speed trains (20 minutes from the airport to Redfern), been freaked out by the cost of rent (Redfern, a location where there are signs asking people not to shoot up in front of children, has apartments renting north of $1200 a week), and oppressed by the weather. Sydney is vast, full of Things and Stuff, and I doubt I’ll see more than the tiniest fraction of it this week.
This year I’m offering many thanks to OSS for sponsoring my ticket.
B-Sides Wellington Day 2
Another sunny day in Wellington for B-Sides. Not that this is anything exceptional about this, the weather is alwys like this why do you ask? Someone won the badge challenge already! Influencing Meat Puppets through Memes Simon “bogan” Howard There are some Kiwicon traditions that have been carried across to B-Sides, and splendid headwear is one of those things: Simon prowls the stage is a blinged out admirals hat whose magnificence cannot be described with mere words.
B-Sides Wellington Day 1
At the end of Kiwicon 10 the Crue decided they needed a break from organising the beast - a multimedia extravanganza that catered to a couple of thousand people. In light of that much-deserved rest, some public-spirited folks stepped up to organise B-Sides Wellington to give us a security conference in Wellington. (Things they, and hence I, learned: apparently it’s easy to get permission to fly a drone aroud parliament. It’s also really easy to have seagulls attack them.
NZIFF Tranche 1
Every year there are two film festivals I make a point of seeing: the French Film Festival, and the International.
The Witches
The Salem witch trials are a modern touchstone for US culture and, by extension, anywhere influenced by it. The stuff of notable allegories it is as easy to reach for as 1984 or Animal Farm when seeking to sum up something one does not like; one of the main things that I learned from Schiff’s excellent book, though, is how little I know about what actually went on.