A punny reference to A Monty Python skit – (these traffic cones are colloquially called ‘witches hats’ in Oz, just so you know)
Kudos to Goon for these… Walking down the road some years ago, we passed a crushed witches hat under a ute. In his usual understated tone he says “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” It took me two blocks before I got it. I regret not getting a photo – so Google helped me fill the gaps (cheers copyright holders!)
RIP Toaster. 2012-2013. Your candy red finish belied your no-nonsense approach to breakfast preparation. You had only two settings – warm and char – though for some reason your manufacturers chose to represent these options as a continuous dial. Some of your features will always remain a mystery, such as the defrost button and the pop-up ‘warming rack’. We will long remember how you would spark when we hit the cancel button (often because something was on fire), but you had the good will not to burn our apartment down and for this we are forever grateful. The smoke detectors will miss the attention you provided them. Unfortunately you were not with us for long, though coincidently just long enough to surpass your one year warranty. The Toaster is survived by its K-mart brethren: The Kettle who’s joins rusted, The Peddle Bin that falls over if you use the peddle and The Car Windscreen Shade which is actually quite good.
Also, does anyone know where to buy a decent toaster?
PARANOIA
I have stolen this painting and titled it “paranoia”.
At first glance everything seems fine, everyone is happily enjoying themselves… But look closer.
What about the couples dancing? The man sleeping under the tree? The couple with the basket? The small child in the hat? Look closer. What is really going on here? What exactly are they feasting on at that table? What is the cause of this celebration?
You need to look closer to find it.
Something is wrong.
But the painting is innocent. It’s such a wonderful concept, so corrupting, so self-referential. It calls us to consider something sinister, something hidden from view, from thought. If you look close enough you can find it. Right there. The paranoia. It’s everywhere. The moment you read the word the entire image became twisted, contorted as each imaginary character became suspect to your paranoia. It was not the artist’s fault, I planted the seed with that single word and you gave it life. You must share this blame with me. Together we created a new world, so cruel, so dynamic, it would be a shame to return the image to its primary banality.
Luckily this is impossible. Once seen it cannot be unseen. This is the power of your mind (whether you like it or not) and the ability of others to easily manipulate it.
It’s like being told not to think of a pink elephant, or continually asking someone what they are angry about, or fearing fear itself, or declaring war on terror. Ha! An endless smorgasbord. The eternal return of the same!
My advice is just to ignore this and carry on dancing.
– Curio
Little miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
Along came a tram
It was late, what a scam
That poor spider was waiting all day
Hello world.
This blog has been a long time coming. I remember I was in high school when ‘Web Logs’ were just taking off and while I was happy to sign away my identity for an email address, the potential to write up my thoughts and post them out to a largely non-existent audience just seemed like too much work. That, and the word ‘Blog’ is one of the ugliest in modern English and I really didn’t want to encourage anyone by being part of the emerging global bowel, er Blog movement.
During the last decade a few ‘Bloggers’ (see what I mean?) came to the attention of regular people via the new phenomenon of people communicating with one another, dubbed ‘social media’, as well as reports made in classical anti-social media. These online authors were even encouraged to publish their collected ramblings as books, official web sites and even screen plays. A new avenue was opened for aspiring creatives everywhere, while editors the world over wept bitterly, or just yelled at their computer monitors.
So is it time for me to jump on the bandwagon, maybe even make a break into the big bad profitable world beyond the Blogosphere? (Ok, I promise myself never to use the word ‘blog’ again or any derivation thereof… starting now) – No, on the contrary, now these… digital diaries (better than digital diuretics) are so popular (over 150 million exist today) that I finally have a second chance at creating a discontinuous jumble of random thoughts that nobody will read. Freedom.
I’ve been told that it is good form for a professional writer to consider their audience when composing a piece. So who is my audience? ME! If you are reading this, or any of my posts, then I must confess, they are completely self indulgent. So, who am I? A good question, but one that will have to wait for another post.
So, to sum up, these posts have no purpose. Other than making terrible puns, there is no focus or theme. Writing makes me happy. And you, my imaginary reader, I like to imagine you smiling. Otherwise simply ignore all this, it’s a big world out there and there aren’t enough minutes in your life to be wasted on inconsequential nonsense.
– Curio
C.T. Curio 