Binnsy's Hovel

I found it interesting to hear today that a certain Australian company in a certain Australian industry is recruiting public relations interns to be involved with the dissemination of information concerning the opening of this company’s first nuclear reactor in the next fifty or so years.

This was just after a lecture proselytising the values of public relations as being ‘not about spin’. Who needs spin more than a highly controversial nuclear energy company on so touchy an issue as this?

Preach to us not about the virtues of public relations, for the enlightened shall know that thou speakest from thine backside.

Until next time…

I’d like to give a gigantic huzzah to my latest blodger, NotBean.com, a top blog concerning philosophy, dodgy Adobe products and the ’springtime of youth’. So huzzah! Go forth and click, yea.

And such fun am I having. I have to work from 8am-9:30pm tomorrow. What hilarious fun that will be, considering how stuffed I am after just one 8am-3pm shift. Meh. I get half an hour for lunch and I get an extra eight hours’ pay. Tis all good.

Except for the fact that I have to do all the university work and website maintenance tonight that I had planned for tomorrow morning before I started my usual shift at 3pm.

So I’ve done my story pitch for Journalism, as well as two weeks’ worth of tute exercises. I now have to do my exercise for Design Thinking (shudder), and website stuff.

Hurrah.

Anyway. Hope all is well with all you loyal readers and you passers-through too.

Until next time…

It disturbs me greatly when people talk about ‘dystopian futures’, or the ‘inevitable decline into the vision of Orwell’. I am not disturbed because of fear, despite the fact that Orwell’s predictions and nasty futures do frighten me. I am disturbed, rather, because of the ignorance of these people. They do not realise that Orwell’s visions are now reality. They do not realise that we are in a future where governments are corrupt, where anarchy reigns and where privacy and independence are novel concepts. Believe me when I say, my friends, that the dystopia is now.

On Sunday night I went to the newly reopened Chauvel Cinemas in Paddington, and watched Michael Anderson’s 1956 film adaptation of Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four. Screened with it was a 70s documentary called Future Shock, based on the book of the same name by futurist and philosopher Alvin Toffler. The double feature was accompanied by an Encyclopedia Brittanica educational short from the 50s about democracy and despotism.

These films startled me into the realisation that we can no longer predict or speculate as to whether or not the future portrayed in Nineteen Eighty Four will become a reality. It’s far too late for that. We live in an age where the National Census takes down each person’s particulars and files them away for statistical use and government planning. We live in a world whose status and wellbeing is dictated by a single nation, a single government, a single leader. Political correctness is the most popular government-enforced religion. Why, only today it was reported that Turner Broadcasting will ferret through over 1500 cartoons to remove scenes in which protagonists are seen smoking.

You are being controlled. Don’t deny it. Don’t run away from it. It is the truth. You need identification to get anywhere these days. With the ever-constant threat of terrorism, the media is bombarding you with images of death and destruction on a global scale. These images breed two very dangerous things – fear and trust. Fear of terrorists and corrupt dictators. And trust in the government and its authorities. In these times, we must fear and trust nothing. Fear and trust no one. Question everything. And above all, enjoy life. Turn off the television and enjoy the world. Read and watch the news with a critical eye.

There is no one, singular, omniscient truth. There are hundreds of versions of any one fact. Create your own truth, and take from that what you will. Speak your truth but not over others. Consider others in your truth. Engage with others. Discuss. Debate. Argue. Enjoy the company of equals. Be social, but only insofar as it furthers your understanding of your world.

The dystopia is now. Stop it and set yourself free.

Until next time…

Design Thinking has got to be the most redundant subject in history. It is so goddamned wishy-washy about everything. The lectures and tutorials are so vague, and the ‘design fraternity’ is permeated with design types that gaze thoughtfully at architecture and layout and comment on the ‘curvature’ or the ‘tonality’ as though their vernacular is common to every human being on the planet.

And, my god… heaven forbid you don’t know what they’re talking about. Have mercy on they who dare to question the eminent designer on just what something might mean. For have no doubt that your question will be promptly and aptly dismissed in favour of yet another vaguely surreptitious comment about form or function.

With Journalism and Public Relations, two of our other subjects this semester, at least there is some sort of obscure sense of destination, and for they who might be considering either of those two majors, there is a purpose and a point.

But Design Thinking is just academic filler (believe me, though, I hesitated gravely before calling it ‘academic’). And in two weeks’ time, I have to hand in the various exercises I have attempted to complete on my chosen ‘life situation’.

With Design Thinking – unlearn everything you have learned, and commonsense is no longer relevant. Think outside the box and then make it your own.

Until next time…

Have a list of five things that I really would love at the moment. If any of you can help me out, please leave a comment. I beg of thee.

1. A T.A.R.D.I.S. – it’d make getting to uni a lot easier, just so long as I didn’t get there more than 20 years ago, as UWS didn’t exist then.
2. A pinstriped suit and ankle-length brown coat – a la David Tennant as the Doctor. His glasses would be cool too.
3. A long red coat – a la Matthew Bellamy of Muse, with black shirt and trousers. So cool.
4. The Shining on DVD – I can’t find the bloody thing anywhere.
5. A chocolate fountain – come on, don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it too.

So there ye have it. Please help out if you can. I’m not your starving Ethiopian child (in the ad that begs money for the corporation that supposedly gives it back to the poor kid), but I’m just as desperate. Honest.

Until next time…

I feel it is time for the whole of the Internet to become aware of one of the finest pieces of literature ever produced. I found this book again whilst cleaning out various old boxes looking for things to sell in a garage sale late last year. It is a rare piece of work, very little known and even less appreciated, yet, to me, it is one of the most amazing, enigmatic and entertaining works ever produced.

I speak of the 1977 picture book The Architect, by Jean Jacques Loup.

The Architect is not so much a picture book as it is a graphic novel, but it is not a graphic novel for it is much too short. It has no words at all, merely extremely detailed cartoons. It tells the story of an architect who designs a city and has to cope with incompetent workmen and the inevitable and unstoppable forces of nature. Eventually the city is built, painted, decorated, inhabited and then becomes congested with traffic and angry citizens, not to mention a fog of pollution. The architect runs away, only to find a group of children building a sand sculpture – of his original design. The final picture is of a trampled sand sculpture and an architect walking into the horizon.

This book has always fascinated me ever since I found it at one my first primary school’s fetes. There are no words, so you’re left to figure out and interpret the narrative yourself. You’re not sure if the expressions are angry, confused, sad or a bit of everything. Is the architect consumed by what he creates? Does he regret his eventual creation? And what happens after the story? Or maybe I’m just reading into it too much.

But the fact remains that this is an amazing work of art. It astounds me that there is very little information about Jean-Jacques Loup and his works on the Internet. The only thing I can seem to find is a lone page on the Internet Movie Database, where Loup is credited in the 1978 French adult film Dragues.

So it seems that after The Architect, Loup fell into obscurity, probably retirement, where long-forgotten dreams of what might have been formed a haze around his consciousness, and he awaited the day where consciousness too would leave him.

RIP Jean-Jacques Loup.

Long live the Architect.

Until next time…

Lord.

A very long and protracted length of time has it been since the last updating of this here blog. And for that you have my sincerest apologies. I’m back at uni for the second semester, having attained two High Distinctions, a Distinction and a Credit last semester, which I was mightily happy with. This semester I’m doing Journalism, Public Relations, Communication Research and Design Thinking. I also recently had my nineteenth birthday, and much fun and glee was had therein.

So, unfortunately, that’s really all I have to report.

Stay tuned, though, I’m not going too far away just yet.

Until next time…