The sudden absence of the contents of my back pocket.

Cleaning out your wallet is always an interesting trip down memorylane. You never know what you may uncover when it finally becomes too full of junk to close. Old movie tickets, receipts for clothes you don't even wear anymore, ATM receipts from wealthier days, receipts for entrances into national parks in other countries, ferry tickets from foreign cities, supermarket receipts providing evidence of the junk you've consumed. A fortune cookie note decreeing that 'You are a lover of words. One day you will write a book.' A note scribbled on the back of a receipt, the name of a song that I wanted to listen to again. In the coin puch, jingling with the Australian currency are a 1 cent piece from germany and a penny from america. Tiny, old and crumbling photographs, weary from being folded and refolded. Loyalty cards for every imaginable store, coffee shop, juice bar and cinema that clog every available corner of my wallet. It had begun to tear along the bottom seam and fray at the clasp. Far too frequently opened and therefore usually light. I don't even know how my ID and bank card fitted in. But here's something I know for certain - the fastest way to clean out your wallet? Loose the thing entirely.



This is more or less why i don't draw. But I had this a idea when a customer wanted to buy a $1 postcard... on their credit card. Seriously?

Today I’d like to share with you a few of my favourite things. (Most certainly sung in a Julie Andrews voice) 

They aren’t necessarily the things I’d grab first if my house was on fire, but they would be the things whose charred remains I’d stumble upon in the grisly ruins of my home and feel an acute sense of loss. They are those little things that decorate a life, the thing that I want to show people like we got to in show and tell in primary school. I was sitting almost despondantly on my couch when the first caught my eye, and I followed them around the house cheering up with every tiny step.

Firstly there is my one and only bike, Yellow Betty, where would I be without it? When I came home from 5 months abroad Mum had this as my welcome home present. It was passed on to me by an acquaintance of my mum’s that had decided to update (to something with real gears) and it may be the best present I ever got. If its every stolen, I will not be hold accountable for my actions. Yellow betty, now freckled with rust, was a pristine yellow with a bike pump attached (stolen) and a fancy rear reflector (smashed by someone at the train station) But we go out adventuring everyday

This chair was presiding over the porch of our empty house when we first arrived with the keys. It was donated to us, along with a doormat and an old wicker shelf, by the previous occupants.  I know yet little of this chair, but in time I hope to become well acquainted with it. After all, look at it, its demanding to be sat in idly in the late afternoon sun (cup of tea/glass of whiskey in hand.)

This hat was the fruits of a long search, across continents, for such a hat. In the end I found it in Koblenz, Germany. It is my pride and joy among a suitcase of hats and scarves and it is detested by my girlfriend. Therefore I wear it often. It represents my whole hearted belief that one can never have too many hats (screw the handbags.)



It took an eternity to take this, its oh-so-myspace.



Meet Ted, the best friend any kid could have. He smells like childhood. Prince of bears, a soldier brave and stoic in battle, how can I begin to speak of the lands to which he has travelled, the kings with which he has dined? He is the guardian of my imagination, a very well loved bear.

This harmonica was given to my Poppa by his parents, brought from England to New Zealand for him when he was a boy. I can’t play it, I’m really not musically inclined, but I love the way the harmonica sounds and it reminds me of a man I wish I had known better, and the rolling green hills of New Zealand.

Around my neck, swinging on a leather throng is a kaleidoscope I picked up at an ‘antiques fair’ in Notting Hill.  You know them toy things you look through and the colours go crazy? This ones a pretty simple affair, but you look through it and see the world. I like to think that a kaleidoscope, rather than distorting our view, opens our eyes to the way the world really is. Dynamic, varied, diverse, spinning so fast its hard to see the sea for the storm. In this way, its more useful even than a telescope. (except perhaps, to astrologists and pirates.)  



and this is the world it shows me.



My notebooks. An incoherent history of the last 6 years inside my brain. Or at least, what I decided to admit to my notebook. I have learnt that it’s a bad idea to reread them, but having them there is like a comfort blanket and an obscure, missfounded sense of accomplishment.

Lastly, this painting sits happily on my windowsill. It was given to me last Christmas, a tree and a heart. I smile every time I look at it.

These tangible possessions of worth to me alone are, I realise, only transient, material riffraff but within every grain of meaning rests a sea of stories. What stories fill your home, I wonder?

Courage; to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

The original definition of courage according to Brene Brown



Music moves people unimaginably. It is a versatile friend. It can tear open old wounds, lift you to fantastic highs, chill you to your centre, grate viciously in your ear canals and evoke any emotion known to humankind. People with severe disabilities, otherwise lost to communication almost entirely, light up and dance when music penetrates their ears. The deaf can tune into the ebb and flow of music’s vibrations and disappear into their own world. The sad and the downcast fall headlong into its warm embrace, the down trodden rise under its banner and the offbeat sing loudly in the streets knowing well the other-worldlyness of a sweet tune.

I feel like I have recently rediscovered the inherent joy of music. On the weekend I went to the Fremantle Blues and Roots festival, an expensive day long affair that featured a diverse range of music that could loosely be linked to blues or roots. It’s the kind of day were you run around with a crazy mix of people, feel the earth beneath your bare feet and hear the music reverberate into your soul. Listening to Gurrumul Yunupingu  and Michael Franti unlocked in me the kind of elation I haven’t felt since I was a 17 year old whose entire being seemed to be summed up by a few lines of lyrics. Gurrumul, a Yolungu man (from Cape York in far north Australia) has a voice that carries listeners away into the clouds. A sightless man full of vision, black like night and shining brighter than day, his music leads me to words in my head that I never knew were there.

At home I’ve been rediscovering old CDs in the small windows of time that my girlfriend is not around to complain about the type of music I like best. (We agree to disagree) I stand in our house, surrounded by all that is joyous in my life and feel my heart growing strong, growing sure of itself. The wrong type of music just wears me down but the music that resonates with me takes me back to a place where I knew who I was, and felt that deep, liberating connection with the universe. And thus inspiration, if only momentarily, re-enters my life. The time of courage dawns within me again.

Which leads me to something else that is inspiring me at the moment, wonderful people. The TED website, bursting with ‘ideas worth spreading’ has re-acquainted me with something I usually tend to stumble on without – hope. Below are links to just some of the wonderful speeches I’ve watched recently which I just want to share with everyone. Take the time, you won't regret it.

Probably my favourite - "If I should have a daughter..."

Showing the world its true face - JR's street art

On being legally blind and yet limitless

On building houses out of reclaimed waste

Pieces of Morning Moments

Morning in our new house is full of light that illuminates the dust as it dances, swept up by my bare feet on the wooden floorboards. The wallpaper, white-washed, crackles and curls in parts, the faint print of 70s flowers buried beneath. There you lie bathed in light on my bed, in our house. I watch the curtain drift up and down in a dawn spiced with the scent of a cautiously approaching winter. I wonder what it is I don’t know about you. What part of you have I not touched? You’re heart is warm against me and though you look lost in sleep, when I creep away you call after me wondering where I’m going to. The smell of incense burning next door floats in our open windows as if it’s coming from half a world away. The ants that pour out of every tiny gap in the foundations of this old 1x1 cover our sink like a plague, I spray them angrily with bleach. Watch ‘em burn in the early morning. Sitting cross-legged at the coffee table eating breakfast I search my surrounds for the point where I stop and you begin. On the porch of smooth burgundy cement we’re trying to grow plants in pots. A basil that drifts in and out of good health in accordance with our interest and a sunflower that sits gracefully at deaths door. Watering the plants, a morning ritual oft forgotten. My favourite thing about this place are the windows. Big, wide open windows with wooden sills upon which I can rest my elbows and gaze nonchalantly out at the endless blue sky. Behind me, bookshelves cover most of the wall space in our lounge, full of little pieces of our souls. The morning chill makes me excited about the arrival of gradually cooler days. I creep around the house in my grandpa slippers, and slip back into bed beside you, cheeks fresh, hands chilled, back into your all encircling warmth.

A garden in a jar,
A glass dome full of life

First stones, then tea bags and potting mix

and a Hypoestes Freckle Face







And a lot of fingers crossed

When I was traversing San Francisco I wandered into a store that sold fossils, taxidermy and gardens in glass containers, I asked, what is that? And I was told, terrarium [tɛˈrɛərɪəm] n pl -rariums, -raria [-ˈrɛərɪə] - a glass container, often a globe, in which plants are grown.

This, I knew, is what I needed for my window sill.

Some people make this art - http://www.paulahayes.com/terrariums/gallery.php?g=2&i=3

A whole new world.

Swap Meets, Verge collections and Op-shopping – A comprehensive guide to re-homing second hand wares.


1. For the Swap Meet, get ready to get up early. Very bloody early. At the swap meet we attended sellers could arrive and set up from 6am, but when we arrived at that time, it was to find everyone else already set up. The buying begins in earnest at 7am and here, the early bird really does get the worm.

2. Be prepared – people will buy things you never actually imagined someone would want.

3. Be honest – if it’s broke, don’t lie. They will probably hunt you down.

4. Don’t look around. Don’t even take a sneak peak, the object of the game is to get rid of, nay, re-home your own old shit, not acquire someone else’s.

5. This is my philosophy, and regular sellers might disagree, but if you make enough money to cover the fee for your space (about $7) anything else is a win. After all, these people are doing you the favour by de-junking your life.

6. People are going to haggle and bargain. You are going to sell a once read, $20 book in perfect condition for a measly $2. Relax and read point 5 again.

7. There are some things you should absolutely not forget

a. Change

b. Some old plastic bags – people are pains, they expect you to provide a bag goddamnit.

c. Coffee

d. Helpers

8. Remember this - kids are great, this is the market you really want to capture. They don’t have much capital, but they sure know how to work what they’ve got.

The benefits of turning a mountain of unwanted and unused stuff into liquid assets is sort of self-evident. But the joy of swap meets, 5am starts aside, is that they are a lot of fun. Toys that have been gathering dust for decades are returned to their intended purpose – making kids smile and parents cry in frustration. Bargaining with an 8 year old over the price is all part of the fun. Interacting with young and old, compulsive bargain shoppers and the casual passersby are experiences that invoke words like ‘community’ and make you feel a part of something bigger than yourself. (ie. An extremely budget conscious shopping spree.)

But why should you buy someone elses stuff? When I sold my racing bike a few months ago the purchaser said that as much as possible, she avoids buying new things. Why on earth would that be? Here’s an idea – there is so much stuff in the world, on shelves, in boxes, garages and trash mountains. Every time we buy more we use more resources and times soon change, fashions fade and the items become waste, sometimes so fast the thing has barely even been worn yet. We are a society developed beyond anything humans have previously achieved and we are wasteful beyond all measure.

Affluence directly corresponds to wastefulness.

And this is, if nothing else, stupid. It’s like craft in primary school. Think back to those days at tiny desks, fingers dirty with crayon dust. Remember being given a task to cut a shape from a piece of paper. “Don’t,” says the teacher, “start cutting your shape in the middle of the paper because you only get one piece of paper and you are going to have to cut a whole heap of other shapes.”

We never did learn did we?

Well why don’t we start to be less wasteful, and more innovative, right now. Although you know, outside the clique of snappy vintage dressers and bargain hunters, ‘second hand’ has a fairly bad reputation. Twice every year suburbia’s rejections are piled on the verge for local councils to come and remove. In the time it takes for that to occur, whatever’s on the verge is yours for the picking. The only thing holding you back is the fact you’re about to dig through someone’s rubbish and that is not a very affluent thing to do. I for one get very nervous at the idea, just as I do at the notion of digging through a bargain bin. Remember that poor kid at school who only ever wore hand me downs? So when I spotted a coffee table in need of just a little TLC, I conned my Dad into acquiring it for me, lest I be seen. Since then I’ve become a little more game, and have acquired hanging baskets, a bicycle wheel, chair for my front porch and a garden rake. I have to say, I feel liberated. It’s as exciting as the joy of the hunt in second hand shops, where (on a good day) you can emerge with 3 pairs of levis for $20, and feel more or less as though you have conquered the world and discovered its most hidden treasures.

Whilst ‘re-homing’ these items I scrambled over countless junked analogue TV’s. The Age of Digital has arrived and in home across the ‘western’ world, the humble analogue is being ousted. I am not against this but still I wonder, can’t there be a better, more useful future for these TV’s than landfill?

Had I the space, I’d build a tower sculptor from them. As it turns out, I am not alone.



[See more http://inhabitat.com/your-analog-tv-is-dead-repurpose-it-into-something-fun/ ]

So here I go again, getting preachy, but take it from me, shopping for old quality at an affordable price rather than new cheapness that’s costly all round is something I simply aspire to do all the time. As they say, not much in life is free, so we may as well enjoy it when it is.