Hi Pierre
I hope indeed that you post images of those gargoyles. And I like the idea
of exorcism very much indeed.
On 29/7/05 10:30 PM, "jorispierre" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> "the geographical markers of water sheds" -- yes, I know what you
> suggest, but I feel that whenever such a geographicla amrker is used
> to make a separation between humans (those from this side of the
> river, those from the other side) we are basically in the same old
> distinction ‹ don't really know any way around it, certainly not on
> an earth as overcrowded as this one, but hold fast to the saving
> grace of the big city's cosmopolitism -- I guess big, crowded cities
> surrounded by beautiful, inhospitable desert is what i like the best
> (i.e. no artifically watered suburbs w/ golf courses)...
I have never quite got what anyone would want to live in these "estates"
which seem to be everywhere, shiny ghettos built to honour consumerist gods.
But Melbourne is mostly suburbs, I actually don't know most of my city,
which stretches for miles and miles....I get lost in these places, they seem
so bleak and monological to me. And when I listen to conversations on the
train, between people from say Werribee and Melton, which are at the poor
end of these developments, great existential abysses open up, dreadful
poverties and violences of being, terrible inarticulate hungers. (Very few
people will admit the nihilism which lies at the heart of European
Australian culture). There are great energies against these negativities,
all the same...
Somewhere I read that the real contemporary divide is between the city and
the country/rural areas. Which strikes me as a truth. As a country lass
now become irretrievably urban I have, as always, a foot in either camp.
But I don't know what you do about the territoriality of human beings, I am
even territorial about my desk; it can't be willed away. To exist within an
ecology, rather than exploiting the natural world as if we were not part of
it, seems to me a higher wisdom. There might be more creative ways of
thinking about borders and crossings than the hefting of guns. Hard to
imagine in our present world, mind you, where borders have become the axes
of so many polarities - yes I too love the heterogeneity of cities, their
permeabilities -
All best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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