Take-off clearance

Sometimes I travel for work... To get to where I am supposed to be, it is expected that I fly there.
Right now I'm in Ramingining... It's been raining and the roads are quite muddy. It makes sense to fly right?

Well sure it makes sense to fly from an immediate needs pragmatic perspective and out here everybody does it but... It's completely unsustainable and somewhat outside my preferred mode of transport. I don't drive my car, partly because I like to ride my bike but it's possible that I got to like riding my bike so much because I'd made a decision to reduce my carbon footprint and stop driving the car... at this point it's not that important which came first, the point is that I'd prefer to burn as little fuel as necessary in order to get where I'm going.

My Youtube account is full subscriptions to amateur film makers documentaries, mostly promoting the virtues of riding bikes, sailing and generally doing stuff that is designed to reduce fuel consumption like This Go Small video:

I am actually quite ambivalent about flying. If you take the fuel consumption and pollution elements away I'd have to admit I actually love flying... It's like most things we like, things such as sweet food. We like eating it but we don't like having decayed teeth wrenched from our mouth. Flying is like that.

I used to love travel... now I just like it a lot. One thing I was looking forward to about going away is that I'd have a little free time to read (since I don't have to look after the kids). So I've brought along my new favourite book Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky, which I thought would have nothing to do with my environmental concerns until I read this:

A Pilot speaking to his passengers prior to receiving Take-off clearance:

"Incidentally, I will let you know when we get the take-off clearance and from the instant you hear those jets roar for the take-off until the instant of lift-off, we will have consumed enough fuel for you to drive an automobile from Chicago to New York and back with detours as well!"

(Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (p82)

Great!


Incidentally today was a new record in last minute booking for me. I called the airline 1 hour before take-off and asked if they had any tickets left. They did and gave me 20 minutes to get my act together and check in.
I grabbed my laptop computer and a few documents from work, sped home to get a change of underwear and a couple of T-shirts, blurted out to Sam that I've got 5 minutes to get to the airport, jumped in the car, she surprisingly quickly behind me and made it to the airline hangar just 3 minutes later than they'd advised.

We flew into Ramo over shimmering weltands through thick cloud cover and landed in the middle of a heavy shower. I stepped off the plane into ankle deep water and begged a ride into town with a family who had room in their troopy. I hope the meeting won't be too formal. My only footwear is an old muddy pair of thongs!

I love flying... ;)

Flestering for a saner world!

Have you ever heard of 'Flestering'?
I don't think I had until my wife thought to point it out to me recently. She knows I like doing stuff with junk and when she discovered the word and art of Flestering she had to tell me all about it!

I couldn't find the word in the dictionary so looked it up online and discovered only a few references to it but what I found, I liked!

Here is a definition of flestering according to this site: (Go and read some of their theory, I think it's pretty cool)
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09004/939328-109.stm

"Flester (fles-ter), n.,flesta, -am; v.,flesto, -are, avi, -um.

Attributed to Uncle Flester, presumed timeless and ubiquitous.

1. n. Defunct, discarded, things; immediately redeemable. In the post-industrial age, fragments of formerly functional contrivances.

2. n. Any "thing" in so far as one ascribes a presumptive integrity to it, often the result of a visual prejudice.

3. v. The act of flestering, i.e. making proliferative and promiscuous use of what is at hand, closely related to the practice of Bricolage (See French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss: "The Savage Mind.")"

If you've ever seen the film 'The Gleaners and I' you might remember seeing some of the fascinating people in the film who collected junk from the street and turned it into something... artfully transforming trash into objects of curiosity and sometimes beauty. The creators of the River Cube project call this kind of transformation of discarded material Artful Trash Management (ATM) and also use the term Flestering to describe the process. I like it.

There's a satisfying feeling you can get when salvaging stuff, junk, and turning it into something useful. Whether it is intended as art or not, many things transformed in this way appear to take on a magical new quality and an odd beauty! I remember the farm gates on properties back home were often made from recycled beds or other iron, which had been welded and cut to fit. The latches too were crafted from recycled iron.

Darwin has it's own examples of Flestering, some of it I have found to be absolutely inspiring! I can't help being drawn to anything created in this way, it just sucks me in!

Here's a couple of local examples of Flestering that I reckon are pretty cool.

Creative Image Gallery Tin Shed Gallery
I don't think they're showing anything at the moment but you can check out Pedro's handy work at Casuarina Square, you sit on it! (Erratum - the link is to Tin Shed Gallery but the place I'm referring to is actually the Creative Image Gallery... Oooops!)


Darwin Fridge Festival

The event came into being last year. It is produced by Darwin Community Arts. Last year it was a basic exhibition of art done on, in and with discarded fridges (from the tip I expect), In one year it has grown enormously and now includes poetry and performance art! I believe there's still time to get your entries in.

The opening of the 2011 Fridge Festival was held last night at the Darwin Aviation Institute. An awesome open air venue, that absolutely reeks of Old Darwin Town! If you weren't there you have seriously missed out on something special! No dress code, free mangoes and plenty of room for the kids to run around!

If you're into a seat of your pants Adventure Flester check out Monsoon Dervish! If you scroll down you can see the awesome recumbent bike that local adventurer (not sure he'd like to be called that) Kris Larsen has created and ridden where most people fear to drive! If you're curious about his yacht or bike and would like to know how they came into being, with a capital 'B' I recommend reading his books.

As for me I've only tinkered with small stuff, re-using things that have been discarded, and mostly things I find on the side of the road while riding to work. (you'd be surprised how much treasure falls through the cracks in a wealthy society!) There is one project I am following with keen interest though. I managed to rescue some old aircraft bits before they were tossed out for scrap metal and they are now being transformed by a wizard of recycling and his conspirator. I'll try to post a progress report soon.