I am currently reading Milan Kundera’s ‘The Art of the Novel’. For a book first published before the end of the Cold War, in 1986, it is disturbingly prescient. In Part Two Kundera discusses the changing nature of the novel’s engagement with “the enigma of the self”. Early novelists were concerned with actions because “It [...]

I notice with some amusement that the malfunction of the flushing toilet on the International Space Station and its subsequent restoration has been given a blow by blow account in the international news. From the BBC website: Correspondents say the toilet problem had become the main topic of conversation at Nasa press conferences. “It’s unfortunate [...]

Hmmm its not turning out like it should. The instructions say: “Evaporate by a gentle heat a quantity of human urine, voided six or eight hours after a meal, till it is reduced to the consistence of a thick syrup. In this state, when put to cool, it concretes into a crystalline mass.” Maybe I [...]

Ever since I had an epiphanic moment in the laundromat in NYC I have been a little obsessed with washing machines. This afternoon I sat and watched two cycles of the front loader in my laundry run through, waiting for the moment in which it starts to spin and spit out dirty froth in jerks [...]

It is such a beautiful morning I just have to share. The city is dense with fog and everything is muted and still like the day has been packed in cotton wool. Webcam shot of Melbourne city at 11am – you can only just make out the CBD towers. I spent the early morning boiling [...]