Cars - Gary Numan live with NIN - O2 Arena / London - 15 Jul 2009 (youtube)

Cars - Gary Numan live with NIN - O2 Arena / London - Wed 15 Jul 2009 (youtube)
Just stumbled across this video during some random searching on google. Remember Gary Numan and this song along with a few of his others from the early 80's.

Really enjoy this video. Love the fact that is filmed solely on stage using a Canon SLR Camera. The closest we can get to Gary Numan is a side on shot. We get a feel for what is must be like to be a performer on stage.

A couple snippets from the youtube page

• Filmed by Rob Sheridan with the Canon 5D Mark II. Audio mix by Blumpy.



• Possibly the greatest thing that has ever happened, in the history of anything, ever! (a viewer comment :-)

Gary Numan is touring Australia and New Zealand in May 2011. I remember seeing a lot of Gary Numan Concert posters in Auckland when I was there for the Takapuna Cup.

Will post another video of the same performance, shot by one of the audience members, where we can see the this video being filmed.

Cars Lyrics

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars

Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars

Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please?
If I open my door
In cars

Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars

Courage in the Era of the Micro-Attention Span (quote)

"Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is."
David Foster Wallace

From a tweet by cyclingfansanon (they had a great blog here but now only tweet's - I think I know what they are trying to say).

Just a little more context here:

Wallace's premise is that in this era of micro-attention spans, there's a great dividend in giving one's full attention to something
(Joel Stein)

Some more here.

Another great David Foster Wallace quote to follow.

Abstract - May Street / St Peters (Sun 23 Jan 2011)
If I have added up correctly, this the 400th post.

On Luck and Want (Garrison Keillor)

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon Days (1985), p. 337 (seen here)

Friday's Child by Wendy Matthews (youtube)

Friday's Child - Wendy Matthews (Sydney 1994)
"This is a song for everyone born on a Friday called 'Friday's Child'" (Hey, that includes me .. Geoff :-)
Wendy Matthews


Friday's Child Lyrics

Just when I lose my touch
you come up and touch me
Just when I can't find the words
you run up and tell me
I'm off in the distance
out of time, out of place
we always save a trace
for Friday's Child
Friday's Child

At times I drift too far from shore
you give the lifeline to me
when I fight my holy war
you tell me what it's good for
I walk in your footsteps
when the road gets too wide
you go the extra mile
for Friday's Child

I see it like a silver screen
I see just what you're like
when I can't see anything
you make the world turn my way
you make the world turn my way

I walk in your footsteps
when the road's hard to find
you stand the test of time
for Friday's Child
Friday's Child

You make the world turn my way
you make the world turn my way
Friday's Child...
you make the world turn my way
hey.... for Friday's Child.

Angels on the Moon - Thriving Ivory (youtube)

Angels on the Moon by Thriving Ivory
Don't tell me if I'm dying,
Cause I don't wanna know,
If I can't see the sun,
Maybe I should go,


Jenny wrote ..

I have always said to all of my doctors "Don’t give me a prognosis". I believe the mind is very powerful and I don’t want it locking onto any sort of timeframe. My mother was of the same opinion and she didn’t want her doctors to put any time constraints on her life. I am not silly, I know my situation is serious as through my associations with cancer support groups I have seen others with a similar diagnosis to me not be so lucky. But everyone’s journey is different. Each time I see a new doctor I say up front "Don’t give me a time".

Jenny and Jodi (Jenny's Oncologist) - St George Private Hospital - Mon Evening 22 Jun 2009
Jenny's last sunrise (see photo's below) before her heart failed around midday on Tue 23 Jun 2009. She was revived and spent the last week of her life in ICU (more here).

The photos are by a friend Jeff Grant. I have photographed this beach with Jeff and another friend Leigh Perry. Some photos will be posted here in the future.

Solstice #2 - Turrimeta / Sydney - Jeff Grant (Sunrise Tue 23 Jun 2009)
Joanne and I both remember Jenny talking to us about watching the sunrise over Botany Bay that day from her hospital bed at St George Private Hospital. Jo and I were both supposed to be at a early morning base building Aus dragon boat session at Blackwattle Bay but we were both very tired from Jenny's hospital visit to remove a 4cm brain tumor a week earlier. Jenny said she thought of us as she watched this beautiful sunrise. Jo and I often talk about this and always feel a little guilty that we were not out there on the water that morning doing what Jenny would have loved to be doing.

Jenny was always positive about her cancer and never asked for a "prognosis". I know she knew how serious this situation was for her. Liz the Sutherland Shire Cancer Support Group Counsellor told me that Jenny actually cried at the Meeting the week before her operation, something Liz had not seen before.

When I heard this song for the first time (thanks again to Charlotte, we were always bound to meet) the above lines resonated with me instantly. It seemed to describe vividly Jenny's outlook and that last sunrise she witnessed ..

If I can't see the sun,
Maybe I should go

I have sat on this post for so long. Always feel like I can never capture what I am really trying to say. I think that is just about it. Time to watch Hell of the North. Life goes on, but it is important to remember.

Solstice #3 - Turrimeta / Sydney - Jeff Grant (Sunrise Tue 23 Jun 2009)

Wind in the Willows - Qingpu / China (20 Oct 2004)

Trees are exceptional people - Wind in the Willows - Qingpu / China - 20 Oct 2004 (picasa)
"Trees are exceptional, people [..]
Belonging fully to earth but living also in sky
They have no death but only transformations."

From Future Now by Tessa Ransford

Jenny always loved this photo which I took while Jenny and Joanne participated in the 2004 World Dragon Boat Championships at Qingpu, a lakeside race course, about 50 km to the west of Shanghai. I had it professionally printed in A4 and A3 sizes with a selection of my favourite photos. Jenny always wanted me to frame it and put it up somewhere in the living area so we could remember our trip to Qingpu and Shanghai as well as enjoy the intricate and subtle details of the sunset silhouetted wind blown willow.

Whenever Jenny went into Hospital we always put photos up around her room and it was always a great way to generate a bit of conversation with the many Hospital Satff that were in and out of her room.

When Jenny went into ICU for the final week of her life, I pulled the A4 print of this photo out of the pile of prints I had had made and placed it on a column in front of her bed in the vague hope that she might see and recognise it.

On the day before Jenny died Joanne picked up the photo and moved it across Jenny's face and we were excited to see her eyes follow it - the first sign to us of some improvement in her condition. I went off to an outrigging canoe training session that Monday night happier than I had been in a long time and I arranged to see her on the way home, well after the normal visiting hours.

When I arrived into the ICU about 9.30pm, it was a different place to the busy and noisy place it was during the day. It was very quiet and the lights were dimmed apart from a soft spot light above Jenny's bed. She was asleep and looked very relaxed, the most relaxed I had seen her in the two weeks she had been in hospital. I decided not to wake her and sat quietly at her bed side and watched her steady breathing. I spoke quietly and proudly to Jenny's dedicated nurse about Jenny's life. I left Jenny that night not knowing that it would be the last time I would see her alive.

At 9.16am on Tue 30 Jun 2009 (the next morning), Jenny left us without Joanne or I by her bedside. Yet I know, Jenny was not alone, as the above photo, the one she loved so much, looked over her as she broke free from this world.

Just as the above poem extracts indicates, it might be nice to think that Jenny transformed herself into our memories:

They have no death but only transformations

It is through our memories of Jenny that she lives on.

I will frame both A4 and A3 prints once I find a place for them and myself. For the moment I am happy to have written this post (which i had planned to do for a long time) which was inspired by the above poem extract. Thanks Charlotte.

Thanks to LottieP for allowing me to find the above extract from a poem by Tessa Ransford via her post of a beautiful poem titled The White Stone of Lewis.

(My first post from an iPad while on a weeks holiday at Coolangatta.)

On Experiences, Understanding and Behaviour (Marshalle McLuhan)

Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior.

Marshalle McLuhan (from Proverbs of St. McLuhan by The Technium)