Sydney Under Attack

Brian Eno is trying to kill a large majority of Sydney’s population.

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno - it is rumoured that 10% of his will is set aside to cover the cost of his tombstone.

This is ridiculous, you say.  But it is not!  Currently in Sydney is an event called Luminous, curated by Brian Eno, and one of his major contributions to the event is an installation entitled 77 Million Paintings.  I went there this afternoon, and what I found…you’ll have to excuse me – the memories of it are so painful that it is hard to relive them.  I’ll be okay in a moment.

I shall start at the two-thirds point.  Only joking – I’ll start at the beginning (usually the best course of action unless you’re at a busy putt-putt golf course).  The scene?  Sydney Opera House:

The observant reader will notice that the Opera House's sails have been lit up by a projector - either that or God is bleeding.

For the duration of Luminous, the Opera House sails will be lit up every night – possibly for artistic purposes, possibly to cover up the fact that the sails are long due for a coat of paint (or a good clean).  Inside the Opera House, in The Studio, 77 Million Paintings lies in wait for unsuspecting members of the general public to make their way into the darkened room – completely silent except for the ambient noise that the installation generates.  Like an angry bear in a pitch-black cavern (but with usher-bears as well).  This is what was inside:

Are you as terrified as I am?  As I was?  You should be.  “Oh, it’s harmless,” you may say.  Do not be fooled!  The greatest of evils will often be disguised as the greatest beauty.  There is only one word to describe this monstrosity – hypnotic.  Hypnotic.

HYPNOTIC.

Can you see yet?  Can you see how evil this installation is?  Can you deduce Eno’s evil plot?  No?  Never mind, that is what I’m here for – to teach those of you who aren’t blessed with my conspiratorial abilities what the truth is in this world.  I can see cleary what Eno intends to do – kill everyone who visits 77 Million Paintings.  I sat in front of that monstrosity for an hour.  One entire hour.  It was only through my supreme willpower that I was able to tear myself away from it, to flee from the room, to escape the fate that Eno intended.  I left many others behind.  Let us not let their deaths be in vain.

Those poor fools were glued to their seats, watching the ever changing artwork – their bodies perfectly still, their eyes unblinking, their minds switched off.  Blinking became a conscious action for me, an action I had to struggle to perform.  And what do many hours of no movement in a seated position produce?  Deep Vein Thrombosis – DVT.  A blood clot in a vein, that can and most likely will travel to your heart, thus causing a heart attack, thus ending a person’s life.

Thus exposing Brian Eno’s malevolent mechanism for murdering the masses.  (And my abundant alliteration.)

I do not know if I have the strength of character to endure going back into that den of deceit, that cave of cardiac arrest, that studio of sin.  But I’m sure that some of you do.  I plead with you to visit this horror, to try and save others who are stuck there, doomed to watch the ever-changing, never-repeating (within 450 years), paintings in front of them.  The strong must help the weak.  But be careful – this work has power beyond your expectations, so go in prepared.  Perhaps with some type of very strong sunglasses or other protective eye equipment.  And hurry before it is too late, before the DVT eliminates everyone, before Brian Eno, artistic anarchist, completes his plan.

It is very pretty, though.  If it wasn’t so dangerous, I’d be recommending it to everyone.

Word Limits

Write a post on word limits.  Please take no more than 400 words.  You are allowed to deviate.

I’m writing a 1500 word philosophy essay at the last minute tonight, and I’m over the word count.  Do I care?  Not particularly.  Word counts annoy me.  In an ideal world, the number of words you use should be the number of words you need – no more, no less.  If someone is stupid enough to submit an essay of 100 words, then that’s their own fault.  Darwin’s Natural Selection will weed out the academic gene pool.  Just like natural selection will weed out the stupid kids from the not-so-stupid ones – that is what roads outside of schools are for, to get rid of the dumb ones!  And yet our government makes us slow down to a crawl outside every school.

The bane of my existence

And yes, once I have kids, I’m sure I’ll feel differently – but then I’ll be biased.  Just like power corrupts even the most honest of us, so do children corrupt our evolutionary viewpoints.  And no, I’m not suggesting that everyone go around targeting school children with their large SUV’s (I would never suggest that – not online anyways…), but we did survive as a country without the ridiculous speed limits near schools – it wasn’t all that long ago they were introduced, if I recall – during my lifetime, so that’s within the last twenty years (even though I’m only ten and holding).

Natural Selection in action - if you don't like it, blame Darwin

But perhaps my irritation at having to slow down is unfounded.  Perhaps I should take a “chill pill” (I hear they’re all the rage with polar bears), take things down a few notches, loosen up a bit, not worry about getting wherever I’m going in the shortest amount of time possible.

There is a simple solution, that will allow me to travel through school zones at the speed I want, and for the children to be protected – run school at night.  What else have the kids got to do?  Stay up and watch the horrendous advertisements on TV late at night?  And with the kids gone, and the parents home from work, more fun can be had by all.  Think of the boost in the population.  Think of the boost in the economy (especially with this recession).  Think of the boost to the world!  I see no disadvantages here.

Now to finish my essay…

Fluctuations

Tuesday is cheap petrol (aka “kill the planet” day).  As the petrol companies haven’t gotten around to building an oil pipeline near my house for me to siphon fuel from, I had to make my way to one of their petrol stations.  I had some problems with the pump:

An antique petrol pump - this is what people used to fill their horses up with

The LCD display that shows how much you’ve pumped, and the price, and other wonderful statistics, decided not to work today.  Indeed, the whole pump decided not to work.  It didn’t work for an entire minute – it finally “restarted”, with a one cent price reduction (so I was rewarded for my troubles).

The curious thing was, I had no idea what was happening – apart from assuming that something was wrong.  Obviously, the people waiting in the cars behind me didn’t know that the pump wasn’t working.  I knew that they didn’t know, and so I struggled with the nozzle, squeezed the trigger multiple times, checked the screens on the other side of the pump (they were working), and so on.  Everything I could to try and let these complete strangers know that something was wrong and that I wasn’t just standing there doing nothing.  Why do I care what they think?  I shouldn’t.  I don’t know if I was more annoyed at the petrol pump or my reaction to the situation I was put in.

Aim for the day: stop caring what complete strangers think about me.  Nothing they will do will affect my life, and yet I worry what they think.  If they think I’m an idiot but they can’t affect my life, then what’s the point of worrying?  I suppose this calls for a big “STFU NOOB” to all the anonymous readers out there!  God, that felt good.  Very cathartic.

That was a first for me – I’ve never had a petrol pump I’ve used not work before.  Another first – borrowing a book from the library.

Do I smell burning?

The first time I’ve borrowed a book from the library at university, that is.  Three and a half years (almost) and not one single book borrowed.  How was it?  It was beyond my wildest expectations, it was.  I enjoyed it so much that I spontaneously orgasmed and had to visit the bathroom afterwards.  The sensual swiping of the book under the barcode scanner, the presentation of the student card, the self-(abuse)service of it all!

The book?  Conversations with Stoppard by Mel Gussow.

On the way home from the petrol station, I noticed flickerings.  Flickerings.  Then the street lights went dark.  As did the street:

What the street looked like - an artist's impression

As I neared home, I drove past a tennis court.  There were people on there playing in the dark, as the lights hadn’t come back on yet.  This would be a problem for most players (myself included) – although some of the umpires I’ve played under wouldn’t see it as much of a barrier.  (I’m not bitter at all.  Sweet as anything, I am.)  I found out later that there had been a power surge.

So there have been two electronic mishaps today – the petrol pump, and the power surge.  They do say bad luck comes in threes though, so I’m anxiously waiting for the impending blackout that will shut off my compu–