In case you missed it, Cameron Reilly, the esteemed leader of The Podcast Network, where my Extraordinary Everyday Lives show is hosted, is leaving Australia bound for the US to try and get some deserved support.
He was on the front cover of The Bulletin this week featured in an article on how Australian entrepreneurs are being forced to leave home in search of the funding they need to become the next YouTube in the Web 2.0 dotcom boom.
Shame, Australia, Shame.
Picked this up on my radar.
Bruce Cockburn video on YouTube.
Interesting as you don’t see much of Bruce outsideCanada/US. At last a personal useful thing I’ve found on YouTube.
Now what I find interesting about the clip itself is it has an incredibly Second Life feel about it. Virtual buildings textured with the lyrics of the song, with fly arounds and yet real people inside.
If you’ve ever seen Second Life, have a look at the video and tell me if I’m dreaming about its SL resemblance. Maybe SL will become a channel for video production mashups…..machinima meets MSM.
I’ve always tended to over-analyse things. It’s just part of who I am. Songs are no exception.
Lately I’ve been captured by the song “Beautiful Creatures” off of Bruce Cockburn’s latest CD. It’s a slow haunting piece with a lot of space and full of beautiful imagery – and as always gobs of passion.
“the callous and vicious things humans display”
“the ache in the spirit we label despair”
“we create what destroys, bind ourselves to betray”
The main chorus, if you could call it that, is a line that says “the beautiful creatures are going away”.
With words like that I came to see this as speaking of human beings. The beautiful side of who we are, the attributes of our existence that make us give, care and love, are fading.
However I just read an interview of Bruce Cockburn on emagazine where he says the song is a response to the extinction of species.
“The new song “Beautiful Creatures” is a response to exactly that. I look around and I see this extinction going on. Most of the species being lost are ones we don’t really notice, including tropical insects and stuff like that. But some of them are very noticeable: the polar bear, for instance, the tiger, these creatures that loom large in our imagination as storybook characters when we’re kids as symbols of power, of divinity even. And we’re killing them off. In fact, for all practical purposes, we have killed them off. It won’t be long before there’s nothing out there that can’t survive in a zoo.”
Maybe he had the animals in mind when writing the song – “Most of the species being lost are ones we don’t really notice” – then again, maybe I am more on the mark than I thought.
Is the beautiful creature who you are, going away?
Funny things happen when you go back to work after being on leave for a week. I returned this morning to a colleague presenting me with a mystery.
Turns out one of the public computers was acting up….nothing new, they always get a bashing. However this time things typed by staff on a computer, about 8 metres away, across the other side of the office was showing up in the text boxes of the public computer.
Over the week I was away my colleague had tried many things, even a complete reinstall of XP, only to have the bizarre behaviour return.
So I immediately thought virus, trojun or spyware, and set to scanning both systems. Couple hours later, no threats but still no change.
Being nearly lunch, and way past the fifteen minute rule, I retreat to my office and call the cavalry…in the form of a mate who works in the trade.
He offers a suggestion, which he has witnessed before, yet seems ludicrous given the positioning of the computers involved, and I hasten to give it a go.
And viola! It works and the mystery was solved.
Now, given the clues, do you have any idea what it was? Leave me a comment if you do.
Dave
Just like last year, I gave my lecture about my life with disability and the things I’ve learnt along the way to a class of OT students at UNISA a couple weeks ago.
Another big group and two hours trying talk loud as I could meant I was buggered aftewards
but very fulfilled.
I changed a few slides and added some more things to the stack this year, with a renewed focus about what therapy, occupational or otherwise, should really be all about – enabling people to connect.
The revised slidestack can be seen here or from under the Lifekludger Popular page. This only serves as a guide and to give direction for me on the day – a lot more is said than appears on the preso. So if anyone wants more details please contact me.
Dave
The latest show is up – EELS 12 Coping with keeping your mind
Please visit that link for litening online or download (that way your interest as shown by our stats on TPN will show!)
The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show #012 (MP3 – 17.9MB – 51:50min)
Mike and Dave have special guest Cameron Reilly, Chief dogs body at TPN, on the show and we ramble about how to keep your sanity in this fast paced technologically connected yet humanly disconnected age.
Dave goes on yet again about his recent foray into burnout, Cam ponders what keeps someone motivated and Mike, well he just annoys Cam with his background guitar playing….at one point giving us all a glimpse into Cam’s thinking (not that that has ever been much of a problem).
Dave
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