Live To Win

Some years ago while shoplifting from a major hardware store I experienced a type of old fashioned security system – one that needs no technology, or cameras or electronic tags and yet has the possibility to be everywhere. I’m speaking of the undercover security guard, and I found the experience remarkable because it caused me to reflect on how systems of fascism and state control have always relied on the impulse that humans have to turn on one another. Much like the panopticon (a circular prison system designed around a central tower from which guards could, in theory, always be watching), centralised states with heavy surveillance – like the former German Democratic Republic, or the Stalinist USSR, keep their citizens in check by making sure that there could always be someone watching. Lets call this “someone”, Mr Invisible – because he is everywhere, yet only reveals himself at strategic moments. Mr Invisible is the shadow that walks just a step behind you, keep...

The air in Sydney is like a glass; clear and full of water it holds you in a crisp commercial embrace, primary colour opinions smiling inside marble television studios It’s dirty and rotten in glimpses As only a big city can be; gaps in construction facades like missing teeth puffs of smoke from the cracks in the concrete ciggie butts chucked under a bush. In Sydney, even the homeless are assertive not content to be swept into a corner they have made a camp on Martin place a free kitchen, library and beds for all who can brave the curious stares of uniformed school excursions. I’m in favour of the noise and the hustle Existentially wandering through the crowds I love people who don’t care Who you are or what you are doing there This of course is rare in small towns with the population of an extended family Christmas gathering there people notice you without looking an...