Events, or accounts of events, often drive my focus. I’ve always said context is important. With it you can better understand the human values at play in a given circumstance. When I heard about an orphanage for disabled kids in central Vietnam and the story behind it the thought “Must help…!” was evoked. Not that we don’t have orphans living with disability here in Australia. But I happen to know someone who got caught up ‘in the whole thing’. He’s Lithuanian, has a huge knowledge of Australian indigenous history, and now has decided to help out in Vietnam.
Visitors here and friends know that I’ve spent a some time attempting to support local community here in Australia. Focusing on Canberra was driven by the idea of ‘get your own house in order first’. With homeless and poor, those in need, in significant numbers in my home city the direction of my civic duty is clear enough. Spending the time that I have in the community service sector has taught me a few things about spotting projects that have hope and those that, while well intentioned, are likely not to make it. Some people have a conscious or sub-conscious drive, focus, that can be clear to see. It’s less about commitment and more simply about being configured in a certain way. Sometimes, rarely it seems, a particular configuration of idiosyncrasies of an individual match with a collective need and social ability is created. Financial, political and social structures, so intertwined, can be massaged at the same time and in a certain way, given the context, to produce a progressive outcome. In this case the status quo is being challenged by a small group of dedicated people in Australia. The view is to improve the living conditions for a group of orphans living with cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness and psychiatric problems in Vietnam. At the same time they will provide scholarships for education to the women that provide the care to the orphans. A remote association driven by immediate and local needs isn’t a new way of operating and in the past impressive outcomes have been the result. The ideas from this group seem clear enough to me, the level of detail and research that has gone into forming the project is sensible and at many levels impressive. Most importantly the goals are achievable!
That’s why I am proud to announce the launch of Friends of Huong Phuong Orphanage Inc’s website: http://hporphanage.asn.au.
We have an old 45 that has on it Prince’s work that was rereleased for Tim Burton’s Batman. I used to listen to it as a kid. Didn’t like it all that much, really. Born in 1985 I missed out on the Prince thing and have always wondered how exactly he became associated with the Batman franchise. It turns out that originally it was envisioned that Michael Jackson and George Michael would work with Prince on tracks to be composed for the movie. MJ dropped out early on and legal complications with George Michael’s record label saw him miss the gig. Apparently Prince got so into the movie that he went off and scored the whole thing by himself. Unsurprisingly it was never used. Instead we ended up with Danny Elfman’s score and we’re all better off for it. That’s a movie music trivia fact.
Another fact that exciting news has emerged that James Blake is on tour and performing in Australia. Thanks to James’s eagle eye while leafing through BMA we have tickets to the July 30 show at The Metro. This kid has emerged fast and he was an act I had on my list of “would love to see, but am unlikely to anytime soon” performers. He’s done some remarkable work and while Lisa informs me that he’s now well known in the UK, I’d still say this is a bit of an underground sound. Get in while you still can because you’d be silly to miss it!
I know a lot of teachers. A number of my friends are teachers, I have family who are or have been teachers. I know people training to be teachers. A hugely honorable vocation, teaching forms the cosmic line between humanity and animalism. It provides a positive, powered, position to push back against the things that are wrong in this world. Each teacher has had to deal with the best and the worst in individual circumstances, each in their own way.
What follows is one of the saddest video I’ve ever seen.
But at the same time, through the horror, comes inspiration. There’s no actual physical violence pictured in this video and I suppose that’s part of the point. How my friends would behave in a situation like this I guess I could never say. But I do hope (if you can use that word here) that it would be similar to the following:
An older album by Solar Fields recently popped up on my radar. Used as the soundtrack for the new game Capsized, ‘Movements’ is good news. Released in 2009 it sits right next to Solar Field’s soundtrack composed for EA’s Mirror’s Edge. I’ve had the Mirror’s Edge soundtrack for ages now but only recently played the game, it’s always interesting to make the connection after so long. If you’re a fan of the music in the game, you’ll be loving Movement’s music album oriented tracks. Definitely worth the buy!
Solar Fields - Movements
Meanwhile Jon Hopkins’ album also from 2009 is making an impression here at BuzzMoo HQ. The variety of styles contained in his album Insides is impressively broad. It sits in form something like The Flashbulb’s Soundtrack To A Vacant Life. The first track of Insides ‘The Wider Sun’ will take you far away. You can go as far as space, even, with Light Through the Veins. Brilliant stuff.
In other news Elroy plows ahead. There’s nothing stopping him and his weirdo movie buff friends – and I mean that! There’s absolutely nothing stopping that guy uploading stuff to the Internet. He’s been doing it for ages now. This week among other things the Remote Viewing crew cover Pirates of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. I saw it on Tuesday in 3D because the stupid cinema was making people pay more to see it in 2D. Socialised with work friends, actually. We weren’t sure it was a good idea but no harm came of it, in the end. The movie is supposed to be based on a book that is very entertaining and is the inspiration for some of the things you love about Monkey Island and the first three Pirates films. On Stranger Tides, written by Tim Powers and published in 1987, is pulp fiction that gives you pirate action mixed with voodoo mystery. Its action is pictured just before Hollywood got the technology to show it on the big screen. Pirates 4 is tenuously connected in the main plot line but you’ll be disappointed if you expect the movie to pick up and use the ideas that made the book entertaining. Darn!
Despite moving towards “getting out of IT” I have of course still had IT related bits and pieces going on. We’ve launched the ACT Chronic Fatigue Society’s new Joomla powered site which turned out to be an easy gig, completed entirely without the input of a designer. They’ve taken to the new tech very well and have started adding content already. Peter Kabaila has been in central Vietnam helping extend an orphanage for poor disabled kids and he’s taken some photos of the work. Apparently they could use help with their limited IT means, too.. He’s also published an amazing new book on Aboriginal life here in this region called ‘Survival Legacies‘. I have a copy and I encourage everyone to get one for themselves. Meanwhile i’ve also been helping Rafe out with his online presence but it’s not ready to go yet. He’s a funny kid. Our meetings generally follow an hour or so of my floundering in the pool, which still happens on a regular basis. But more on that later.
This year’s University of Canberra graphic design students have put on their final exhibition dubbed ‘Taste Test Exhibition‘. I’ve been hosting the site for the event which by all account was a huge success. The site details the student’s style and aspirations and won’t be the last web page you see them featured on.
There was more but this alone is enough to say ‘not a bad week!’ and leave it at that.
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Proud to launch new site for hporphanage.asn.au! 
Background blog post: http://t.co/mOPVfhd #fb #
