Dispatches from the Fury Road: Week ∞
Rust Cohle was right.
Time IS a flat circle. How many times have I written this blog? How many times have I sat at this computer and thought about that great year I had with Matthew McConaughey where it began with True Detective and ended with Interstellar? How many times have I written the words, “How many times…”?
Time isn’t just a flat circle. It’s elastic the way it stretches and squeezes you through life. We don’t have a proper sense of time either. We experience time in a straightforward manner because we applied rules and a system we take for granted today. As an example, imagine that time is a block of cheese. We cut time into sections and those sections are known as hours, minutes and seconds. They are the rules we applied, that time is to be cut up in this manner and therefore that is how we experience time. Yet if you took that same block of cheesy time and carved it up haphazardly with into chaotic shapes and segments, then would your experience change in the process? Would one massive chunk of time feel completely different to a snack sized piece? We do experience time in weird and wonderful ways. How many times have you caught up with a friend you haven’t seen in ages only to have one of you remark, “It feels like no time has passed since I last saw you”? Maybe no time has passed, only our rules of time. Maybe deja vu is a way of us experiencing how time really works in our limited capacity? Time exists its own way regardless of the laws we decide it should adhere to.
Does this make sense or have I finally lost my marbles? I didn’t even know I had any marbles. I would have paid more attention to that turquoise cat’s eye if I had known.
One thing I have definitely lost is any sense of 2020 normalcy as I continue to live in semi-lockdown. Poor Victoria has been flooded with new Covid cases and New South Wales looks like it is about to follow suit. It’s depressing across the board. And how tedious are the interstate rivalries that are inspired by these pandemic times? Save that shit for sport. Don’t be an ass hat and remember we all live on the same island. Let’s show some compassion for everyone and come up with solutions. Yes, we’re all scared. Yes, we’re all freaking out. I’m all over the shop. Some days I’m as serene as the silver moon but there are other days where I’m overwhelmed with dread. I literally went from a thriving career to possibly never performing again. There are all sorts of stories like this across the world. I understand the desire to fling shit against the walls and cry “Havoc!” but none of that is helpful, especially since I live alone and have to clean up that stinky mess. Let’s do our best to remember we’re all in this together.
Hang on a sec. Let me shake off this moment of fury.
I’m back!
Since we are in this together, I have a few bits and pieces for you to helpfully take your mind off dreaded things. First of all I wrote an article for Doc Play highlighting some of the brilliant documentaries you can access at their site. Click on the link here and you can score yourself 60 days free access to check out their vast library of fascinating docos.
I also have been overwhelmed with ideas to entertain you with, so much so that when I recently shared my plans with a close friend, they fell to the ground and began foaming at the mouth as they tried to get their head around my insane plans. Thank goodness I spoke to him before plowing head first into these ideas. What seemed straight forward to me made Westworld seem like The West Wing. With this new feedback in mind, I have streamlined all the ideas into bite sized chunks and beginning this week my seasonal podcast Big Squid will be going weekly. Whereas the first two seasons did deep dives on one topic (Watchmen and David Bowie’s Blackstar), this new iteration will be covering a bunch of topics including movies, TV shows, music, comic books, art, novels etc You’ll have a rotating cast of engaging guests and there will even be the occasional short story to break it all up. Our first episode in the new format will drop this week and then we’ll slowly introduce you to some new projects that are bubbling away.
Also, between you and me, we have a really great private conversation group on Facebook where like minded people gather and chat about all the things we love. If you’re not an arsehole and you like chatting about stuff, you are more than welcome to join. Would you like to be a part of our vitamin D deficient gang? I’ll have to approve you with my godlike powers, but if you’re keen to come and say hi, click on the link here. You’ll find out about these other projects before everyone else and even be called upon to help shape them. Everyone in the group is great, so bring your thoughts, imagination and ideas to share.
Let’s leave this here for now and chat again soon. I promise you we’ll find ways to keep our instincts and wits super sharp during this strangely shaped time.
Justin Hamilton
14th of July
Dreaming about different shapes of cheese