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Jan. 26th, 2007 06:48 pmEvery city has its own personality.
Canberra has always struck me as being a palimpsest. It's one of those manuscripts that has been used and scrubbed over and reused. There are always more layers to discover and explore, and each layer has its peculiar personality. (As an irrelevant aside, this is so not the way my mind-map configures Australia that at first it gave me a shock. I was used to the idiot notion that Australia has no history and that palimpsest places here are impossible.)
This year is all about me playing games with the notion of palimpsest Canberra. That's why I'm creating a map within a map and slotting Canberra into a version of Ptolemaic reality.
My mathemetical uncle was a bit bewildered this morning when I bounced into the kitchen and proceeded to wax enthusiastic about the application of localities and Pythagorean systems to ghost stories. "Maths!" I could see him thinking. And as I explained what I was doing, "But not as I know it." Everything has a mathematical base, but I'm relying on great minds of the past and not calculating a thing. The most maths that has come into anything so far is a well known series involving the number sixty. I mostly base my map and its meanings on the patterns and relationships described mathematically by astronomers and other science-types, not the maths or science itself. Canberra by numbers, but described using words and pretty diagrams.
What does all this lead to? I will have a rather strange little street directory, where places have qualities and where changes in seasons can bring forth rather interesting events. At least one and possible several more layers for the palimpsest that is Canberra.
For the rest of 2007 I expect to walk in this alien landscape with all its familiar features, and to write fictions set in it. If I enjoy myself too much I will extend to 2008. Either way, it's going to be a tremendously fun thought-experiment. Anyone who wants to share in it is entirely welcome.
And now you know what yesterday's post was all about.
Canberra has always struck me as being a palimpsest. It's one of those manuscripts that has been used and scrubbed over and reused. There are always more layers to discover and explore, and each layer has its peculiar personality. (As an irrelevant aside, this is so not the way my mind-map configures Australia that at first it gave me a shock. I was used to the idiot notion that Australia has no history and that palimpsest places here are impossible.)
This year is all about me playing games with the notion of palimpsest Canberra. That's why I'm creating a map within a map and slotting Canberra into a version of Ptolemaic reality.
My mathemetical uncle was a bit bewildered this morning when I bounced into the kitchen and proceeded to wax enthusiastic about the application of localities and Pythagorean systems to ghost stories. "Maths!" I could see him thinking. And as I explained what I was doing, "But not as I know it." Everything has a mathematical base, but I'm relying on great minds of the past and not calculating a thing. The most maths that has come into anything so far is a well known series involving the number sixty. I mostly base my map and its meanings on the patterns and relationships described mathematically by astronomers and other science-types, not the maths or science itself. Canberra by numbers, but described using words and pretty diagrams.
What does all this lead to? I will have a rather strange little street directory, where places have qualities and where changes in seasons can bring forth rather interesting events. At least one and possible several more layers for the palimpsest that is Canberra.
For the rest of 2007 I expect to walk in this alien landscape with all its familiar features, and to write fictions set in it. If I enjoy myself too much I will extend to 2008. Either way, it's going to be a tremendously fun thought-experiment. Anyone who wants to share in it is entirely welcome.
And now you know what yesterday's post was all about.