Live To Win

At the front of Ernesto’s tattoo design folio there is a A4 sized graphic of an indigenous elder in ceremonial dress, with added text which reads “Preserve Iban culture – Get Tattooed!” This cheerful and yet devoted attitude typifies Ernesto’s approach to his art form. During our conversation he explains that when he came to tattooing some 15-20 years earlier, the traditional customs and designs of Borneo’s tattooed tribes people were all but gone. Had he been even a few years later in beginning his research, via travelling to longhouses and collecting stories from tattooed elders about the meaning and techniques involved in creating Borneo’s instantly recognisable strong black imagery, it may have been too late.

My city is textured. Every street and corner, every skyline, every space, it seems, brings to me a memory of another event or time that was violent or emotional enough to imprint itself on my consciousness. I walk past a tram stop where I once sat watching for cops as my comrades hung a banner from an empty building. I see from the window a street that I used to skate along on my way to Uni classes. I shiver as I remember punches and arguments thrown in a park. This week I have added a few more memorable moments to my mental map of Melbourne. And after Friday I will never look at the City Square in the same way.

I like airports. It's the sense of their potential, alongside their transitory emptiness that makes a strange poetic harmony. They are waiting to be filled with meaning. Which gives you the sense that anything is possible in an airport, that every choice you make has significant effect on what comes next. It's usually with hindsight that we identify the moments or spaces where our lives change. It's hard to be inspired by these moments because seen in retrospect this is where possibilities die, where futures are locked into place and where unchangeable reality is formed. Everyone has played the 'what if' game at some difficult point in their life, but at some level we all know that it's an unhealthy exercise. The events which have led to a situation can't be changed, although the readings of them can, so generally it's better to accept the present and focus on planning for the future. So what do you make then, of a situation where the present could ...

(This is an old post from around the 20th of May. It originally appeared the day after I got refused entry from England. A few days later I ended up in quite a lot of trouble in Turkey, more posts on this to come, and my family had to take it down for fear of it influencing events. In the interests of keeping this blog as a record of my travels this year, I'm reposting it so that the chronology remains true. On another note it now seems desperately ironic that the English wouldn't let me in for fear of me being a trouble-maker, given the horrible eruptions of their fragile society and the pissed off underclass in the last few weeks. Serves em right.)

While travelling across India and Iran I have been trying to observe the life, history and politics of both countries from the perspective of locals, partly from a desire to understand their cultures as they relate to long stories of struggle and national identity, and partly to give myself a better perspective on the life experience of being born in Australia – a new nation, yet one with opportunity to develop in many exciting directions. So far while learning, meeting people and asking questions, the dominant theme of my thoughts has been the tension within Iran and India between traditional cultures and the pull of globally accessible information about modernity and consumerism in the West. This is particularly felt by Iranian young people living in cramped, repressive situations, but it also expresses itself in the rise of the ambitious and modern Indian middle class, something which seems incongruous or unfair in a country where traditions and also poverty are so vividly visi...

There is a cold wind blowing along the long boulevard, as i disembark from the bus which has brought me to the far western suburbs of Mashhad, one of Shia' Islam's holiest cities. The streets are wide, with scattered shops and barred windows. It is a friday, the holy day in Islamic countries, and naturally nost businesses are closed. I stand on the corner and zip my leather jacket closed to the collar, waiting for my friend made from a tenous internet connection to arrive as promised. He soon appears, leading his little brother by the hand. He has invited me for lunch at his parents house, and we make out way through streets populated by undecorated yellow brick buildings, sparse winter trees, and grey skies. I feel that i have somehow entered a different Iran from the bustling city centre of Mashhad, or maybe this is in fact the true face of the city, just as the outer suburbs of Melbourne can give you more perspective on the demographics of a place than it's urban hear...

I think one of the best pieces of advice that i've ever received came from a Circus Oz rigger. We were 10m up in the truss above the stage, discussing equipment, safety and techniques of clipping on. My questions must have either been tiring or amusing, because after some time the rigger turned to me and said that yes, safety equipment was important, but; "Just don't let go". I feel that i've carried this brave and possibly naive piece of advice well. When in dangerous situations, take all possible precautions against accident, but at the end of the day - just don't have one.