Anyway it started out as a description of her and I started playing with a more general topic of reality and art. The final line is supposed to be an oxymoron and represents the acceptance of imperfection, in this case related back to my relationship. There is no such thing as imperfect.

Enjoy.

Where I Call Home

Frangipani smile.
Bloodswept cheeks,
Lustful teeth.

Swollen lashes.
Forgetful hands and
Vinyl eyes.

Darkened oak,
Honeyed strum,
Tumbling wine.

Aging rivers.
Piercing lips and
Breaking kiss.

Closing wounds.
Static bliss and
Imperfect frequencies.

Bodhi’s Recruitment Drive

Need a new job?

Fremantle bakery needs packers for casual evening work.

Would suit someone in the Fremantle area.

Call Ryan on 0403 828 873

.One of the several ads placed by Mr Barter.

By Camilo Cayazaya

Fremantle Bakery advertisements doing the rounds at Murdoch Uni have gotten some attention for their humour and political slant.

The ads showing the disgruntled faces of John Howard, Robert Mugabe and George Bush all feature the caption “Need a new job?”

Ryan Barter, head of the packing department at Bodhi’s Bakehouse, says the ads came as an idea from a marketing website stating that all good ads needed a picture, the rest came naturally.

“I was just reading up on what makes a good ad and it said I needed a picture up top and then I just thought of people that needed a job,” Mr Barter said.

Included in the list at the time, Mr Barter says Troy Buswell was part of the posters because of “the chair-sniffing incident… but it turns out he never got fired.”

When asked about the political slant in the ads, featuring only right-wing figures, he says he is “definitely” a lefty at heart.

Mr Barter says the ads were designed to get as many people as necessary to cover shifts. He says “I’ve had quite a few queries but it’s still early days… I have filled one of the positions.”

“Even though the current labour market makes it difficult to fill positions it’s very important to make sure I get the right people in,” said Mr Barter. “If we don’t have enough workers it’s my problem because recruitment and training is one of my responsibilities.”

“The ads were only featured at Murdoch University due to the fact “the job is tailor-made for students – being evening work it doesn’t clash with classes… and someone is more likely to stay in the job if they don’t have to travel far to work.”

Located on Ellen Street, Bodhi’s Bakehouse has been running for 25 years, making diet and organic breads for specific dietary needs and delivering to major supermarkets around the state.

The Bakehouse became famous after being featured on Today Tonight when it introduced a new diet bread called “Slimmer’s Choice” that helped create a feeling of fullness and assisted dieters eat less snacks throughout the day.

The bakery is still hiring staff. Mr Barter says “I am looking to fill 2 positions, either with just 2 people, or more making up the 2 positions. I am willing to be flexible.”

Once again, the story can be found at eMU News with pictures and ev’rythaaaang.

Camel VHF Tracking

By Camilo Cayazaya

The destruction of the Australian environment is being curbed by WA’s environment department through the innovative VHF collaring of feral Arabian camels.

Introduced from India in the 1840’s, feral camels have become a pest that threatens wildlife, vegetation, and now rural infrastructure.

The early feral camel population was small but quickly grew after they were no longer part of the wholesale market in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Bruce Ward, principal technical officer of the Manjimup Science Division, is coordinator of an upcoming study of the camels to understand their movement, migration patterns and their responses to climate.

“We’ll be doing ongoing research as to what the impacts are,” Mr Ward said. “They’re competing with native species for water and right now they’re starting to damage some of the vegetation species. The vegetation complexes may be at risk.”

The study will involve the VHF collaring of 8 feral camels in WA’s central ranges near Warburton, tracking them through radio signals, then correlating the data with 10 South Australian camels tracked in late 2007.

The effectiveness of the research remains to be seen but Mr Ward was confident about the results to be gained.

“We’ve done work on testing the method and that seems to be holding up ok. There were a couple methods and we tested them to make sure they were comparable and we’re pretty happy [VHF tracking] works.”

Mr Ward says the camels are becoming dangerous because of their high reproduction rate and need to be stopped before they expand into rural areas.

“They are a pest species because their numbers are building up very quickly. There are about a million with expectation they’ll double in the next 8 years.”

“In addition, camels are moving off the desert into pastoral lands and they’re causing damage to infrastructure, power boxes, and wires. They’re moving into mine sites, stopping [environmental] rehabilitation work and becoming road hazards, starting to step out in front of trucks and cars,” Mr Ward said.

But Mr Ward says the threat extends far beyond WA to all the states of Australia due to growing numbers.

“Camel numbers are increasing and they’re starting to spread out. In WA they’re as far out as the Nullarbor and right down to the coast as far as Esperance,” he said. “Then from Esperance to the west of Kalgoorlie, west of Mt. Magnet and up to the southern end of the Kimberley.”

Mr Ward said the study is currently only limited by the department’s money as purchasing and applying the collars is a costly process.

“Basically, it’s an extensive operation so it’s subject to funding availability. It’s going to cost us. Just because the collars are so expensive, the collars are about $4,000 each, so that’s about $40,000 total and about $12,000 to fit them.”

The project will start in July this year and will cost approximately AU $52,000.

The stories can be found at emunews.murdoch.edu.au and you can search my name in Journalists. All my stories have been edited slightly by the editor for a more Australian style… rather, an “Aussie” style, with more slang and traditional sayings. I can’t say I’m happy but if that’s what tickles their goose, dresses their salad or shakes their martini it’s not a big deal.

Test of Strength

By Camilo Cayazaya

Cannington local, Daniel Peter Macri, is set to take on the world in early November when he competes in the World Powerlifting Titles.

Macri started competing when he was 14 and broke two national records his first year. Now he has qualified for the next powerlifting world championships and is looking to make a mark for Australia on a global scale.

Primarily coaching himself at Muscle Pit, his partly-owned gym, the 18 year-old has 12 official world records for squats, bench presses, deadlifts, and totals (the sum of all three best lifts) over three different age and weight divisions.

“My personal bests have been a 410kg squat, 225kg bench, 270kg deadlift. They were all set last year,” said Macri. “[This year] I’m looking to do a 1000 pound squat, the first in the country’s history, that’s 455kg.”

Competing in the upcoming State Titles on July 12, Macri trains 5 nights a week for two and a half, to four hours hoping to eventually qualify for professional level competitions. But he will need an 1100kg total before he can achieve his dream, and he currently stands on 905kg.

Macri was worried about the way judging was handled and corruption at higher levels of competition.

“At international level some of the pro athletes are favoured depending on their sponsorship and the money they bring to the sport. Nationally a couple of lifters are favoured but it’s not big. Locally there’s practically nothing though.”

Even with the difficulties in making it to the top, Macri says drugs are out of the question.

“Yeah I have been offered [steroids] a few times, back towards the start of my lifting career, when I used to train at a different gym. No one at the competitions has ever offered me anything though.”

“I definitely know there’s a lot of competitors that do use steroids and a lot of other drugs. [Like] HGH, adrenaline, and pseudoephedrine.”

As a new blood in the men’s division, Macri has no current rivals to keep an eye on, but his greatest fear, he says is “living up to my own expectations.”

Lightening the mood, he laughs and says he eats just about anything to make it big.

“With our workload we need to consume a lot of food otherwise we’d have no energy to continue training. That means I’ll eat anything, pretty much.”

“I want to compete for as long as I can but my other ambitions are to get my Masters degree in Strength and Conditioning, and become a professional strength coach. That’s in about five years.”

Macri says the Olympics aren’t in plans because “powerlifting is not an Olympic sport, that’s why you can go professional.”

Macri is looking to compete in the National Titles on October 14 and in the World Titles in early November. The date has not been announced.

Games in Australia Feature Story

Hands up if you believe games are for children. Hands up if you think games are mindless wastes of time. Hands up if you think video games are dangerous and will create more criminals. Did you put your hand up?

The fact is that, like any new form of media, gaming and the culture surrounding technology has long been stigmatized: “Games are for nerds.” “Games are dangerous.” “Only children play games.” “Games are pointless and will fry your brain.” Are the most commonly regurgitated ideas you might hear on a regular basis from the average observer. The truth is that none of these common beliefs about games are real.

Games these days are reaching a very broad audience and casual gaming is something that is drawing grandparents and parents to the gaming scene more than ever. Nintendo has broken records with their Wii console and DS handheld that play games that teach you mathematics or help you get fitter. According to the Entertainment Software Association website the average North American gamer is “33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years”. Now you might think that’s just one of those “only in America” anomalies but Dr Jeffrey Brand, Associate Professor at the Bond University Centre for New Media Research and Education reports that the average gamer’s age in Australia, 2007 was 28 years old.

On top of this, games are also frequently seen as threats to learning, causing hours of distraction, obsession and even addiction in some. The fact is that games have always had the capacity to educate, and with more technology are greater possibilities for creativity such as Spore’s animal creator that lets you create any animal you desire to evolve from a single cell to interplanetary conquest. The ability to educate in areas outside of academia go as far back as the late eighty’s and early ninety’s with Lucasarts and Sierra creating adventure/puzzle games that required mind-boggling logic and lateral thinking to succeed in. The Incredible Machine and Bejeweled are puzzle games that exercise your logic while still creating an entertaining experience.

Most importantly though, games are being considered a new form of art, in the same way literature or cinema are. A game like Grim Fandango that has you traversing The Land of the Dead had a plot to rival the current cinema industry. Smaller games like Passage that have you do nothing but take steps through a series of labyrinths as you age and eventually die, having found a partner to go on the journey with or not. These games are only a few bits of evidence to support the idea that ‘gaming’ is no longer the realm of children playing, but has rather become a way of interacting with an art form.

But the biggest problem the industry faces is not that the misinformation exists. It’s that it has created beliefs so popular that the people in charge of making decisions about the industry are influenced by them and, as a result, don’t understand their own industry. The games industry has a huge lack of funding in Australia. There are little job incentives and even smaller chances of getting published on a low budget. Moreover there is a serious misunderstanding about the impact of games on players. The fact that this new media is interactive has many believing that the product could be having adverse effects on its users. Yet, after many studies, none have found any quantifiable evidence that can be applied to support this theory. The reason for this paranoia is that media and criminals alike continue to use gaming as an unfortunate scapegoat. And waves of unscientific allegations for gaming, movies and music wash over audiences when popular news programs cover crime.

As a result games are feared and unfairly stigmatized to the point that Australia has no R+18 rating for games. If a game becomes too violent for an MA rating, it simply cannot be published in Australia, despite the OFLC making its first task to allow “adults to see and hear what they want”. This hinders not only overseas publishers making games according to their own creative and artistic beliefs but similarly affects Australian software developers and publishers. If their game is intended for adults alone then the product has no chance of ever seeing release in Australia. Adults do not, in fact, have the right to see and hear what they want as has been claimed in the National Classification

Code (“adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want”). Jim McGinty, Attorney General for Western Australia, was contacted for a take on the issue, as the Governors General will need to vote unanimously for the adult rating to be made available for games. Neither he, nor his media representatives were available to comment and have not answered my questions at the time of publishing.

As a result, funding remains alarmingly low for such an important market. Australia is missing a massive global market that is expanding every year. As a result, we are falling quickly behind in nationally developed interactive software. In turn, we are losing the income that accompanies that growth. Local games artist Martin Malek provides some perspective on the issue. “The competition from countries such as Canada or Singapore is quite heavy…since those countries have tax rebates for the gaming industry, just as the film industry has here in Australia. When a country introduces such a rebate it lures the game developers into forming studios, creating job opportunities for a lot of skilled and passionate gamers. If memory serves me right, the 40% tax rebate suggested [by the Game Developers Association of Australia] would expand the gaming job market in the Australian industry from around five thousand to eighteen thousand! Now that is a lot of job opportunities!” A lot of job opportunities in an industry whose revenue now surpasses Hollywood’s.

The reality is that gaming is not only an important asset to the Australian economy, but as a recreational activity and, more importantly, as a culturally-enriching, modern art form. So what can be done to stem the stigma and animosity aimed at the industry? The first possibility is for audiences to educate themselves by playing the games being demonized and to find out where the information they are receiving is coming from. Parents should also be aware that it is their job to prepare their children for inevitable exposure to illicit elements and should not resort to blaming music, movies or games so easily.

Parents are the most important part of a child’s understanding of the media. The biggest flaw in protecting children is the omission of the information they will be surprised by almost inevitably. What can take place is having parents better educated by the government. Adverts that say they need to take the time to explain to their children what they are seeing or should avoid exposure to. After all, children are not idiots, they simply need to understand the reasoning behind the rules they’ve been given. Conservatives in the government have pushed a scaremongering, rumour-spreading agenda about games for too long. As for fears that games will disintegrate common decency and spread crime, criminals are not criminals because of a single source of media and we should stop pretending that the answers to those cases are so simple.

In regards to the R+18 ratings issue, game purchases can be enforced just like alcohol and cigarettes are, with a small amount of government monitoring. Games are not that easy for children to acquire, especially as they have no source of income. It borders on irrational to believe that a responsible parent would purchase an adult game unwillingly for their child. If they so much as glances at the box of a game they will see the rating in nice big letters, and store clerks can certainly refuse the right to purchase a game if a child attempts to buy it.

Ultimately it is a tough battle for the industry in Australia to overcome the fear that comes with all new mediums of communication. But once parents take control over their child’s education, the government stops babysitting Australia, and instead, allowing an important industry to flourish, gaming will finally take its place away from “child’s play” or “Geek stuff”. It will, instead, become an important social and cultural asset for all of Australia to enjoy. So hands up, those who want to see change for the benefit of Australia. Did you put your hand up?

Nokia Morph News Story

Nokia has unveiled a new concept phone, Morph, which uses nanotechnology to bend, recharge and self-preserve.

The concept is designed to illustrate the way future consumer appliances might benefit from nanotechnologies such as the ability to bend and lock around your wrist, power themselves via solar energy or detect compounds in the air.

The Morph supposedly uses the new technology to clean itself with small frictionless super hydrophobic materials called “Nanoflowers”. This allows liquids to roll off it, while spider silks and microfibres allow the phone to stretch into tablets, wrist-bands or handhelds.

The phone’s technologies are being jointly researched by Nokia and Cambridge University and show promise in other fields such as energy conservation. “Nanograss” would line building walls and windows to solar power them locally or to analyse air pollution and detect bio-chemical traces.

“We hope that this combination of art and science will showcase the potential of nanoscience to a wider audience,” said Dr. Tapani Ryhanen, Cambridge NRC Head in a Nokia press release.

The Morph draws heavy inspiration from the Nokia 888 another concept phone designed by Tamer Nakisci of Istanbul’s Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. The 888 can bend, make videocalls, play movies and be worn as a wristband but was not designed with nanotechnology in mind.

So to begin with, let me paint you a picture of the eclectic artist if at all possible. Big adjectives are usually used to describe the sound and cliches like “poignant”, “dark”, “moody” are constantly thrown about as frequently as new Emo bands are signed. But there is something else to his music.
It has an ability to push beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy, paralyzes the listener and begins to consume them whole, like a snake swallowing its prey.

In some tracks you’ll find repetitive jazz phrases that entrance and confuse, while in others there are beasts growling, dripping taps or traditional Japanese instruments. All of the songs carry a sense of unease, tension or cinematic action, yet all are melodic and diverse enough that any listener with an open mind can play the music as a method of immersing themselves in another world.

Take, for example, one of my favourite albums, Chaos Theory. The soundtrack to the Xbox game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. It’s a fairly heavy mix of drum and bass action sequences, and cool Japanese-styled moments of calm and the stealth implied by the game. Tobin has the ability to create very full, rich instrumentation, and knows exactly how to create mood and drama specific to a genre. Listening to something like El Cargo, there’s obvious inspiration from seventies funk while mixing spy-movie classic noises, a choir backing and a heavy drum and bass beat that keeps you in the action and doesn’t let go until the final beat. Compared with a song like The Cleanup and while the drum and bass comes back, there’s an entire soundscape here that hasn’t been heard anywhere else with weaving flute and what sounds like a Japanese wind instrument.

Another of my favourite albums is Foley Room, which is almost self-explanatory. He has used regular sound effects from all over the world, as I understand it, as a means of creating unique rhythms and melodies, though not exclusively via foley. He has also employed musicians and used many traditional musical elements, the album is not noise but it walks the thin line between noise and brilliance perfectly.

The way I see it, every one of his albums reflects a very different, honest and brilliant personality, though I would say that most of them are probably deranged.

Bungarra Picture Story

*Martin’s picture goes here* (I won’t post it for privacy reasons)

Bungarra Games is a small next generation games developer based in Fremantle, and it’s fighting for a place in an American and Japanese-dominated industry.

Martin Malek is part of a local, four-man development team struggling to make a name for itself with its latest prototype, Surfers (working title), for a next-generation console.

He is the 2D and 3D artist, texturer, modeler, and animator in the team, a set of tasks that would normally be given to as many members as there are jobs.

Martin believes the Australian gaming industry has some large obstacles to overcome if it is to become a major player in the global industry.

He says development teams receive “no funding from the government because they don’t understand the industry, even though games are making more money than Hollywood.”

Australia is also one of the only developed nations without an R18+ rating for games. “At the moment, Australia is out of step with the rest of the developed world on this issue,” said Rob Hulls, Victoria’s attorney general.

Without an adult rating or funding for the industry Australia is a very difficult place for gaming to flourish, as technology improves and development costs grow. This is especially disheartening to many due to the growth of the industry as a new art form.

However, Martin believes that moves by the Game Developers’ Association of Australia to receive a 40 percent investment rebate will greatly accelerate industry development in Australia.

Bungarra are expecting approval for the prototype from Microsoft or Sony within the next three months.

But that is an active process, it isn’t just a “Let me lie here and wait to die” kind of passive process. A lot of people expect to be given the right to withstand pressure. Like everything else, you need to fight for every inch you gain. Through constant struggle, the natural law of nature, you become stronger. And that is basically what this poem is about.

In a sense, it is about the, now clichéd, Phoenix. Hence the title.

The Phoenix

The man is never defeated.
The man is never defeated.
He is simply reborn.

He considers himself a finite entity that exists outside the boundaries of eternity, because synthetics, arithmetic and cold metallic brick have shrouded his empathy for nature.

He tends to wager with regression as he looks at depression with fear and uncontrollable anxiety. Lacking piety he throws himself down into pits full of wolves and seals his own tomb, asking god to return him to the womb.

‘He’ is a man that gets angry in life and love because ‘he’, the man, is a failure. Untailored to such complex systems and vindictive vixens vying for his sexual attention. They confuse and clutter him with sexual muttering and feints and twists, clouding mist all to make him play a game for which he is untrained and in which there is nothing to gain.

He.
The man.
Is a failure.

And through all his struggles he looks back at his prior victories with contempt and shouts along trajectories of “That was nothing.” With a rancid scent, his words fall like knives of angry wives “I survived no better than an infant.” And in that instant the man begins to crumble like he really was nothing, rejecting the world’s offering and accepting suffering.

And the man, without guidance and no longer the arbiter of the growing silence, finds no answer in soliloquies of solitude. He knows that fate, he can no longer elude, and the encroaching frost that crawls up his spine and reverberates the sensation of being used over and over again intertwines with memories of a childhood that never felt true. This man was broken to begin with, why should anyone bother to make him their brother or a person to live with!

So, now a dimwit, and having failed to become the Alpha Male, he lives life like the outcast. A condition worsened by being downcast, forced to endure the exterior boundaries of personal interaction, and emotional inaction. Not party to any one group, lacking the powers of attraction, more unsure and out of the loop, the man, with no traction, falls.

And so, like a broken faucet, he drips his optimism and hides it in an emotional closet. Unsure as to what token caused it. What. Caused. This? This feeling of emptiness and repetition. The jaded inhibitions of a man that made it all the way to middle age and never once felt the gentle hand of his one love true assuage all his slowly building anxieties on his mission.

Like antibodies for the flu, the man, who’s community stacks against him, stands against him and now resents him. For he, the unmalleable product of lifetimes of cultural genocide and apologies implied by those standing beside him, was created at whim and unsuited for the culture of Yin. The man that does not fit into convenient categories becomes an allegory for the foreign, the unknown, the alien. This man is salient, unique, but nobody has the strength to seek the knowledge he offers, instead too weak to break open the coffers they pry. Hateful, wide-eyed and bleak.

Murder, despair and ignorant conservatives disparage his marriage to the land and the only guiding hand that holds him firmly to ground. And that crushing sound of failure, misery and sheep-minded bigotry brings the unique talents of ‘He’ to rest with the best of cultural dysentery!

The murdered artist, thinker and fighter. The warrior, that died at the hands of the Whiter. The man begins to decay like he never believed that he could. Because immortals and beasts don’t deserve the undying feast of the departed who’s body, cold-hearted now rests at the feet of the King of the Dead. While the long, thin fingers that tap away at his head lay this shape of a man to his spiritual bed.

The man was never defeated. He was only beaten until his body, all damaged and bloody returned to the ground to be cycled around like the repetitive sound, cry or other that comes from a baby calling it’s mother. The man was never defeated! He was simply burned at the stake, ostracized and raped until his body hung limp in the wind and desecrated, ashamed and still in the flame he was turned to a seed that would grow like a weed but beautiful as sin.

And one day this man will be reborn during the storm of cultural revolution. He will rush forward, like catalytic evolution, as he feels the warm summer rain crush and explode on his face. And through all of his pain he will further his race as he charges the gates of oppression, ostracism and sexual regression. The man will be stronger, smarter and loved in his time. He will burn armies and speak without faltering rhyme, more inebriating than barrels of wine, his words will reach millions and span eons this time.

This man was not defeated. He was not destroyed. He was an incorruptible, impervious void who struggled to become a splinter in the side of winter as he summoned the fury and light of generations enduring the jury of synthetic mentality canceling beauty. He fought with nothing but purity ‘till his death, and wrestled his sanity until his body was shattered into the winds and scattered. He picked up his pieces in the land of the spirits and for every mistake that he made he would summon increases in resolve and his power to evolve until he was much more than a man, he was a tower.

Impenetrable and untouchable.
The man is never defeated.
The man is never defeated!
The man is never defeated!
He is simply reborn.

Perish The Thought.

Some days I sit by my window and stare out at the unfinished walls we create, at the entries and exits to our own fortresses of sadness, with windows sheathed in metal, too scared to let all our work be destroyed. While rats below look into the clouds and plant beanstalks in the shadow we’ve cast.

I like to think I could one day shut off my mind. That I could sit in verdant
fields and fill myself with nothing but satisfaction. That one day I will lay my emotions to rest with a single slash from the blade of wisdom.

Some days I simply lay with you and stare at the lines in the ceiling, connecting lines with every fine intersection creating a weave of cracks until I don’t know where the lines begin anymore. Until they flow into a wave that becomes a sea that I ride past pelicans and flounder, past fishermen and whalers, until I find the shore. A beach isolated by cliffs and the fears of men. Where I reach to find you once again and we lay together and stare into the sun. And we will stay until our silhouettes are burned into the sand.

Other times you turn your charcoal gaze into mine and we place our lips
forever gently on each other. Just enough to feel the blood passing from
one body to the next.

I want to believe that the person, experienced from the outside as a complete being, is not a lie. I want to believe that all those nervous impulses tracing your brain are more than just that, nervous impulses. I want to believe that the mind, created by the supernatural force of electricity, manifested through the vessel of the human form, and expressed in language, sound and movement is not just a grand illusion.

I desperately want to believe that our religious conceit is somehow
justified in the way we have created an entire consciousness evolved out
of pure animalistic freedom.

Most of the time though, I long to turn off my mind, even just for a few moments, and become insignificant. That I could lie in those verdant fields and enjoy an existence where I didn’t have to fight anymore. That the universe I have created is the truth.

Some day the mind must cease. And with that, the universe collapses
once more.

One day I will return to that field.
One day, all thought will perish.