let me fly, far away from here... fun fun fun

There are a lot of enjoyable things about travel, less so as well.. of course, but I’m just thinking about what I like.

Things changing all the time is good, and not having to answer to anything except the bank and the cold, that’s cool too. There is a bit of me that’s designed to be on the road and to live out of a pack.. I think that lives in conflict with the bit of me that wants to stay still and drink tea whenever I want. Tea can come later.

But I’m loving having both the time and the inspiration to write and take photos too. There is so much richness in everything, and variety, and that mixed with time is so rare. There is time to spend a day taking photos, maybe you only get 10 good ones in a day, but then you can edit them and muck with them on photoshop and end up with something quite cool. And I know if I don’t do it now it’ll never happen, cause no matter how much time you have at home its so rare to actually make something happen.

And rediscovering the enjoyment in writing is fab too.. and its something that doesn’t seem to happen as much at home. I can rarely write more than a page at a time at home, and im on my 5^th page now. I wonder if I could do my y12 folio by correspondence, its so much easier and more interesting to write when there is so much to write about. Not that there isn’t stuff at home.. its just a different kind.. and sitting at a kitchen table its harder to imagine the situations that are actually reality when you are wandering around. So it’s a very different type of writing, created from consistent stimuli and the kind of thought process that wonders why trees are called trees.. you don’t have to worry about that at home.. they are just trees. Why the bloody hell would you actually wonder about that at home? At home you KNOW that everyone thinks English, everyone drinks milo and knows what ‘The Boyz’ is. (It’s THE café to people out there who don’t know.. the capitals are there for a reason)

I think the people you meet as well.. they are well. In a million cases it would be impossible to actually make up people like that, no one would believe you. Reality is a lot stranger than fiction, we all know that. I could never invent someone who didn’t think they need a passport to get to Australia. A Kiwi/American? That messes with my mind more than a Norwegian/American.

I could never have so perfectly said that you will never meet a ‘real’ American o/s because a real American would never have a passport, let alone take the time off to go overseas. You cant be American if you do that. (I didn’t say that.. it was a guy with a US passport)

I never would have thought of a mother who backpacked across Indonesia with her baby on her back or a Norwegian who spoke such good American English I thought he was an American who had learnt Norwegian (I was impressed for a moment). The world is full of the kind of characters writers only wish they could capture. Some do, I think Pratchett got it working well, I think ive seen Nobby, Captain Carrot (that was amusing.. he did smell of polish and he gleamed.. I think he was a parking inspector), the odd Agnes and a million and one Two Flowers and of course everyone knows a Nanny Ogg. But I think there are characters out their odder than B S Johnson.. and they scream out to be written about.. they are just such good stories to let them go to waste.

Then there is developing interest in less solid things.. like advertising, language, body language, similarity, difference and of course brands.

So my interest in brands, in logos and advertising has been intensified with being away. Brands can and have created a product that is sold anywhere, that is the same. They can sell normality, a dream, an idea, a safe choice.

It was when I actually went out and brought a bottle of coke that I started to worry. I have come to the conclusion that I brought it for two reasons, a subconscious one and conscious, in a sense they are rather in conflict. Subconsciously I would guess I was buying something ‘normal’ something ‘safe’ (within limits of the meaning of safe) something of home, even though I don’t drink it, perhaps the logo itself is reassuring that home and normality still exist. Consciously I have brought coke as a kill or cure idea, specifically in Peru. We came to the conclusion that if coke can rot teeth, steaks and nails then there's a high probability it will also be murder to any bugs currently giving you gyp. It worked too.. although whether or not that was just good timing its hard to tell. Could have just been a spike in blood sugar and caffeine.

Later I came back from a shopping trip and actually looked at the products id brought (pretty much everything was based on price) and realised that I had brought almost all ‘home brand’ stuff, something I would never do at home. I think (again thought in process) this was mainly because I didn’t recognise the home brand logo (it was ‘Casino’ the name of the supermarket I was at) and the products were too foreign in some cases to recognise brands. So instead of basing my purchases on familiarity, or branding it was totally on price (or in the case of the cheese if it looked like it could be cut by a plastic knife AND not go off without refrigeration) and size. I found it curious, at home I would always go for the yellow brand milk (cause that’s just what we drink..), the easy presliced unplastic cheese.. I might get homebrand flour.. if its cheapest (beware homebrand is not always cheapest.. thats just a rumour they spread) but stigmas I guess cant exist if you don’t know what to be biased against. And if you haven’t seen the advertisements.. then its harder to be influenced.

This of course led to thoughts about money, which led to the concept that money doesn’t actually exist. And how often we are sold things that don’t actually exist, people out there buy Air Guitars. I remember when I was little thinking learning about shares, and being told that say shares in ColesMyer mean you own a little bit of ColesMyer.. I had a lot of trouble understanding that although one may own a little bit of ColesMyer that DOES NOT mean that you may go into a store and take a bottle of milk. Its logical, a bottle of milk looks like a small enough percentage of ColesMyer for one person to own for $1.50. I think its interesting how long it took me to understand the idea that you could buy something that doesn’t actually exist, yet as we get older and more ‘worldly’ that seems more natural. We deal in levels of money that do not exist in gold or jewels, we sell dreams and lifestyles. We sell products that are not a thing, but a symbol of an ideal. Coke is sunny days at the beach with good looking friends, a Pandora charm bracelet is not just gold and silver but solidified memories, Kathmandu is the clothes you wear when you want to be somewhere else. As we get older we get used to the idea that we are told, that we can buy something to make our lives better. Something ephemeral, something impossible, and it’s a concept that I could never have understood when I was young. I wanted barbies because I was told to by society, not because I actually thought they might make my life better. I liked pink because I was told to, not because I found it aesthetically pleasing. As we get older it gets harder to just tell someone ‘want this’, unless of course you are living in a dictatorship, in which case you could just tell everyone to like pink.. and the world would tun to hell even quicker. But we need to be sneakier as advertisers as audiences get older, we need to sell something that doesn’t exist so that consumers continue to buy in the hope of someday actually managing to buy impossibility.

Now I want a mini because of the image associated with it, I use a pack and not a wheelie bag again because of the image, because of the lifestyle associated with it. Because people with packs are always going somewhere more interesting. (also because they are more practical with stairs and dull things like that.. but we can ignore that for the point of this exercise)

I think its all fantastic.. and I have the time to write it down too.. which is cool. What more could you ask for? Inspiration and time.

Maybe not the best writing.. but meh.. that’s all relative.

There is something from a long time ago that still worries me a bit, I do worry about our countries reputation somewhat. It is very random and not in the slightest related to the rest of this blog. Some time ago I was at a café at home listening to a conversation happening at the next table. I do rather regret eaves dropping now, as what I heard still haunts me. The man at the table referred to one of his employees as ‘not an Einstein’ and his daughter than asked him what he meant. He said something along the lines that Einstein was a very smart man, who invented things, but was rather mad and spent a few years in a mental institution. Now as far as I know, this is not true, Einstein was very focused etc. for sure but he wasn’t locked away for that as far as im aware. What I do know is that we have a movie starring Yahoo Serious called Young Einstein where we claim that Einstein was Australian (Tasmanian specifically) that he split the beer atom, did e=mc^2 etc. and invented surfing. He also invented rock and roll (well.. roll and rock he calls it) and was locked away in a mental asylum with Marie Curie for a while. Considering some of the other references this bloke used to Einstein I became a bit worried that he thought this movie was actually a historic representation and haven’t shaken that fear for a long time. It’s a scary thought that some of my country men may actually believe Einstein was Australian, let alone that you need to split a beer atom to get carbonated beer. Its also rather frightening to think that they are spreading this fallacy. We could create a war with the Germans over something like that. And all we could do in defence is bubble beer at them, dear dear me. The movie does have some good music though.

And I am still in France, progressively getting more attatched to my music.. which is some weird lynk to home. Also wondering why some euro countries only have UHT milk when they have cows.. its odd.

And that’s all folks.. the world is just as mad as we all thought it was.. admittedly possibly more interesting too.. take notes.. you never know when there will be a surprise test..

Smile™