La la la la lightbulb

A security guard removes an inflatable object from the crowd during day one of the Second Test match between Australia and Sri Lanka at Melbourne Cricket Ground on December 26, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

misslouj:

my twitter feed went insane.

ily internet

How odd. I thought my neighbours the truck enthusiasts were doing something spectacular with their trucks that was making the windows shake and rattle. Never mind that there were no other truck-like noises.

WTF Melbourne? We don’t do earthquakes.

(Source: thatgirlpatty, via laenij)

erinkyan:

Okay guys, you asked for it so here it is.  This is an audio recording of my Midsumma performance.  It is untitled.  Sorry the quality isn’t fantastic, I am only working with a tiny webcam mic at home after all.

I have only listened to this recording once to make sure you can understand me and now I shall never listen to it again because jesus is there anything more torturous than listening to a recording of yourself?

There’s nothing explicit in this, but it’s probably still not the sort of thing you should listen to around your kids or your boss.

And in case of reblogs here are some more details:  This is a piece that I performed at Quippings 2012, a disability themed Word is Out performance as part of the Midsumma Festival here in Melbourne, Australia, in early 2012.  As part of the piece I also performed some simple rope bondage on a lovely assistant.  Unfortunately there was no film taken of the event, so instead I have recorded a reading of my piece for those who are interested.

Transcription of the piece for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and People Who Just Like Transcriptions is… well it’s right here beneath this paragraph because apparently tumblr doesn’t believe in readmores for audio posts.  SORRY FOR WALL OF TEXT.

~~~

Rope is a length of cord with great strength and flexibility, made by twisting or braiding together strands of either natural or artificial fibres.

My name is Erin.  I am a man of great strength and resilience, made by twisting and braiding together strands of biology and experiences.

I am a lot of things.  Disabled.  Queer.  Fat.  Trans.  Intersex.  Leather.  Aren’t we all a great many things?  Every person that has ever lived and will ever live has an equally complex world inside them.

I am a rope top.  I flag grey on the left - or rope on the left, for that matter.  I do not own a leather belt.  I only own rope belts that I braided myself.

I am spiritually, emotionally and psychologically connected to everything I do.  Rope is not unusual in that regard.

But with rope… it’s special.

I know my rope as intimately as my own body.  I know every piece.  I know how long it is just by looking at it, even when it’s just a messed up pile on the floor.  I know how old it is, and which supplier I got it from, just by touching it.  I know which piece was used on every body it has ever touched, whose body it was, where the rope lay.

Rope is an extension of me and my body.  Rope flows from me in ways I can’t describe with words, ways that can only been seen, or felt, or smelled, or experienced.  I can tie with one hand.  I can tie while wearing a blindfold.  The circumstances don’t matter, because rope flows from me in a totally organic way.  Hard, soft.  Total control, total freedom.  Safe, secure, and more precise than I could ever be with a buckle or chain.

Rope is strength and ugliness and beauty, all things that I know with great personal familiarity.  My whole life I have been told that everything I am is ugly, is worthless.  For so long I struggled with that, until I embraced that ugliness and found freedom from the constraints of traditional expectations about me and my body.  Now the bindings are mine to make, on myself and on others, with consent, respect, trust, and most importantly, love.

Rope is the gladiator pacing in their cage while the crowd screams for blood.  It reminds me of my strength and my power, and the vulnerability of others.  My continued commitment to be compassionate and kind.  To never abuse the trust and faith placed in me by others as the world has abused me.  To hold someone in rope is a tremendous power trip - but it’s also a tremendous, heavy responsibility.

Rope is the serpent swallowing its own tail.  The inversion of life as we know it, the inversion of my experiences, filtered through a lens of optimism.  Destruction of the painful into rebirth of the beautiful.  

Before, you are who you are.  And after, you are the same person you were before.  But in the time between, you breathe and grow and shift and change, disappear and reappear.  

We are all the sum of our biology and our experiences.  I, no more or less than anyone else.

thenextstation:

Physical Space

Elgin Street, Carlton.

This one never fails to make me stop and think.

(via melbournetype)

wwaavves:

Grafitti lane by J-C-M on Flickr.

(via temptationss-deactivated2012031)

thisisyourblindspot:

Brunswick, earlier.

(via thisisyourblindspot-deactivated)

thisisyourblindspot:

Stacey, watching the city.

Melbourne, last night.

(via thisisyourblindspot-deactivated)

arcadeparade:

Vintage photo of Geelong footballer J. McShane. June 1, 1895. Published by David Syme & Co.

Love those football boots.

v-i-v-i-e-n:

Hosier Lane - Melbourne City, Australia.

(Source: jaselol)