h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So it's coming closer, evening of August 10th at the Olympic stadium...have to keep a lid on my excitement levels. Plan to get the Park a bit early for atmosphere and photos of stuff - especially the wild flower meadow plants from around the world.

I've got all the tablets I need to cover everything I reckon. That is a worry. I stopped chemo a week early, (you take one week off in three to allow the body to recover from the poison). Dr. Ali at Guys said it'll be fine.

I bought an artist book last weekend called 'The Stadium'. Nice line drawings and looking at it culturally. Apparently the London stadium is the only one ever to be scaled down once used for the Olympics and Para Olympics.

'The London Olympic stadiumhas been designed to be dismantled. Not just adapted,altered or re-purposed, but reduced in scale and diminished in purpose. As such, it is unique in the history of Olympic buildings...' Tim Abrahams.

I like that. Like a beacon that burns brightly for a special thing and then dims to a more gentle burn. Lives in the memory though.

I've been enjoying the bits I've seen of the Olympics, which to be honest hasn't been much. Watched the men's rings over lunch today. Amazing skills those guys have.

TRiG.

Yes I've enjoyed it overall...and really loved watching stuff you don't normally get to see like fencing and table tennis...and of course it was great the other night when Jess Ennis and Mohammed Farah won in the stadium. It's a good symbolism for women, (the British women have done very well at this Olympics), and of course Muslims. I was shouting so loud at the tv for Mo that I thought I'd burst

I did a heck of a lot of sport in my youth. My school had great facilities..but also football for the local women's club. It was difficult at school though because one of the sports teachers was very old fashioned and tried to make we gang of girls into sport, behave like 'ladies'. I was suspended from the hockey team for wanting to win too much Actually it was quite upsetting the way it was done. But young women have lots of energy as well as boys..and can be subject to stuff like anorexia or psychological problems if it can't be channelled.

Luckily the other sports teachers weren't like that. In many ways sport stopped me going off the rails during the difficult period of adolescence. I'm not saying all women want to do competative sport...but some do..and shouldn't be made to feel like its unfeminine and bad, or some such nonsense.

I've suddenly felt like I've really lost interest in the Olympics, also the Mars landing. Too much yang. It's exhausting me. Both have their yin... like the intricacies of the fencing and sailing, (fencing with the wind), and the actual reality of that little thing on Mars, all alone, either in a place that was never alive or long since dead. All the bally too yang of the machos who put it there starts to leave me cold.

I've got my own REAL THING to deal with, and too much yang isn't helping.

Feeling a bit better this morning after seeing this on my twitter feed. 'Bat Eyes' - a yet unreleased Aussie film. If you scroll down there is a clip here:

http://www.artshub.com.au/au/news-article/news/arts/sydney-short-film-to-be-judged-by-ridley-scott-190901

I just got a bit in a state last night with the realisation that there is a good chance I won't get to see Rio2016, given 5 year survival stats for my stage of cancer, even though they said they got it out; they did have to remove a worrying number of lymph nodes.

And I'm worried not all my symptoms are down to chemo. I need to pack it in..no not in the ending it all sense but in the sense of living life. And not just in a demented manic way...but in a way that helps me come to terms with things if that time comes soonish..just to be on the safe side.

Brilliant morning spent in a close friend's garden. She's even taken over the bottom of next doors' garden, with their blessing..it was all brambles, and turned it into a vegetable patch. But the most interesting thing was that she told me she recently started volunteering at St. Christopher's Hospice..it is very well known and set up by Dame Cecily Saunders. The place sounds brilliant and is completely integrated into the community. Her dog, Freddie Frodo was scampering around which was nice.

***

Why doesn't he take a running jump? Oh hang on...or rather not.

Oh and back here in the life the universe and everything the eyes are always on. Us watching them watching us.

Must dash.

What an extraordinary day. And in a way I never could have imagined. The sport was an irrelevance and I cared little that 'Team GB' were pretty rubbish. Took hundreds of photos - and my eyes were truly opened to the 'corporate' and and capitalist aspects, the Americanisation, the 'big society' behaviour of the 'volunteers' and many other things.

Have to make art out of it because Art can deal with anything..and will prevent you getting too depressed by it all. It really is, 'One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them'.

I'm so glad though I went in with innocence and not a lot of preconceptions' and a cynical and jaundiced eye. That's gets in the way of LEARNING from *direct experience*; the best teacher.

In terms of online, I'm more involved with other places now where people don't keep on misunderstanding me and what I'm trying to learn and express. So I won't post more here about it.

But it was a very special experience in the most unexpected way. It's a bloody relief. Brilliant.

Effers, thanks for sharing your Olympic experience. I think you might be interested in a website called Hyperallerbic about interational art and its discontents.
http://hyperallergic.com/55415/os-gemeos-mural-boston/

Here is another site describing the above installation:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jaime-rojo-steven-harrington/os-gemeos-and-the-giant-o_b_1753267.html

Here are the stupid responses of Bostonites ---these people are the dumbest collection of dumb Irish and Northern Irish and snobbiness this side of the Atlantic. This from the city that supported the first domestic terrorists the horrible Addams brothers in colonial times.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/11/boston_mural_a_rorschach_test_for_idiot_and_racists/?source=newsletter

I hope the Brasilian brothers don't hold it against us. They got much better reception in LA. I suppose there are dumb cities in Brazil --every country has at least one. Just like there is always one stupid philistine or racist in a family.

I don't think that hyperallergic site is for me. It is ridiculing in a very stupid way many artists I have huge respect for.

As I said above I'm tired of being misunderstood here.

Sorry, art is rather subjective. If everyone communicated only on one frequency the world would be a pretty boring and lonely place. It is sad to only be able to communicate with like minded individuals, I think it limits creativity as well. Just my opinion though.

Yes art is subjective to a degree big a site promotes an appreciation of art with breathtaking ignorance of the history of art and the complexity of the language used it is in my opinion simple minded propoganda and cultural vandalism.

From the MOMA section.

http://hyperallergic.com/55313/museum-of-modern-art-gets-a-new-audio-tour/


“Yeah, these are just lines … and dots and blotches of paint of different colors,” says one girl about Jackson Pollock’s “One: Number 31, 1950” (1950). “I don’t think it should be in art museums because anybody can do it.”

The others voice general approval on this point. “I coulda made it,” says a boy. “I could just squiggle, squiggle squaggle, squiggle squaggle, sketch sketch sketch.” Another girl agrees: “I would prefer a different picture that I can’t make.”

These little kids aren't going to have any knowledge of the history. Its manipulative of people's opinion of art by using children.

These same kids would probably say the same about Aboriginal dot paintings without knowledge of its history and cultural complexity and meaning. Same as Islamic art as a lot of squiggles...same of Anglo Saxon art.

Yes Mandarin sounds like nonsense if you don't have a clue about the language..This site is yet another example of cultural imperialism masquerading as 'radicalism'. I have nothing but contempt for such unacknowledged ignorance.

**

My toleration for this kind of thing has now run out since I know I have to honestly live life to the full now and be true to myself and what I have learned in my life and studied for many years.