anacoluthia

The Gap

20 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment

by Craig Lawton in Uncategorized

There was until recently a giant photo of bikini model Jessica Hart in the shopping centre near my work. The image flaunted her amazing physique and the giant gap between her front teeth. It looked contrived and confronting at the same time.

I walked past this enormous poster every day and became obsessed by the flawed smile.

Jessica Hart is apparently the perfect poster girl for the new model trend casting directors are calling “characters”… models with unique characteristics including tattoos, piercings, scars and even albino colouring.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago

The poster reminded me of Belladonna, a successful porn star, also famous for her gap-teeth. On her blog she once wrote: “Did you know a lot of people did not want to shoot me in the beginning because of my looks, tattoos and what not?“

Now I see gap-teeth everywhere.

I’m not sure how this all ties together.

Is flawed beauty more satisfying than pure beauty?

Am I looking for authenticity in the right places?

Red Eyes

10 Nov 2010 1 Comment

by Craig Lawton in Uncategorized

I awoke with red eyes this morning and it occurred to me that the same thing happened exactly two years ago…

On that morning my eyes were red because I’d balled like a baby the day before. I’d taken Abbey, our silky black labrador, to the vet to be put down. I remember walking through the car park with tears streaming down my face, leash in hand, back to my brother’s car. I went home and slept alone that night. My wife was in hospital in labour. And that was why I awoke with red eyes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flickrohit/3206570218/

Three minutes after noon on that same day I became a father of beautiful twin boys.

Today is their second birthday and I celebrate with red eyes again, this time due to the relentless joy, sleeplessness and shared conjunctivitis.

Good times always.

My beautiful boys.

Fear

07 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment

by Craig Lawton in Uncategorized

Out in the north-west of this country, somewhere between Kununurra and Wyndham, there is a swimming hole called The Grotto. I’ve swum in The North before, but always in clear water, and blessed with the advice of locals.  The water was murky the day we were there. So murky.

It reminded me of the the Rockhampton Crocodile Farm. The brown water: so still, no movement, no bubbles then… an explosion of snout, teeth and “pre-hysteria” as a 1-tonne croc propels up on its animal carcass dinner.

That memory returned to me the moment my wife and I swam out across The Grotto. It fixated and swum around in my head. Rationally I knew the place to be safe, but out here in the beating, silent heat, reason held no currency. I fell silent. Then I meekly confessed my fear and we left.

It’s the same with flying. I know I’m safer in a steel tube shooting at 1000 km/hr through the thin air than when I’m out piddling around on my scooter. I know the statistics, the facts. But I have hundreds of movie memories involving plane crashes which pounce on my reasoning and smother it.

Fear make us do stupid things. A Cornell University study estimates that an extra 2,170 people died on US roads after September 11 because they chose to drive rather than fly, and driving is well known to be more dangerous.

Christie Barnes, mother of four and author of The Paranoid Parents Guide, found that the top 5 worries of US parents were:

1. Kidnapping
2. School snipers
3. Terrorists
4. Dangerous strangers
5. Drugs

But how do children really get hurt or killed?

1. Car accidents
2. Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
3. Abuse
4. Suicide
5. Drowning

(ref: NPR)

So I guess my thought for the day is, be careful what you read, watch and listen to.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.” and I think this applies to all forms of media.

Keep it real.

Men

09 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment

by Craig Lawton in Uncategorized

I’m reading “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working” by Tony Schwartz. It discusses the four energys: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual. I’m in the Emotional chapter.

Apparently we feel negative triggers a lot stronger than positive triggers. If something positive happens such as winning an iPad we have a weaker trigger (positive) than if we had the same iPad stolen later (negative). Some other negative triggers include: not being listened too, being spoken down to or being treated unfairly.

Or lack of respect.

In Japan, men who have given up on a normal working life are called “freeters” combining the English “free” and the German “arbeiter”. They travel, have hobbies, live at home and earn about a third of what their fathers did.  These young men are derisively called “herbivores” or “grass-eaters”.

Image by epler

In the USA the current recession has seen about 80% of the job losses hit men. The unemployment rate for men is 2% higher than women.

My grandfather always said it was a bad thing that women worked, and I thought he was old fashioned. I still do. I speculate that what he really disliked was the hollowing out of men’s work, driven relentlessly by the economics of our time as automation and offshoring took hold.

If a man doesn’t have pride in his work, doesn’t have respect, what does he have.

Back to Tony Schwartz’s book:

An inmate suddenly stood tall and replied … with absolute clarity: “Pride, Dignity. Self Esteem.” Then he added, “And I’ll kill every motherfucker in that cell block if I have to in order to get it. If you ain’t got pride, you ain’t got nothin.’”

Accept and Offer

04 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment

by Craig Lawton in Uncategorized

I’m reading Impro by Keith Johnstone. There’s an interesting passage where he talks about a type of improvisation called “accept and offer”. The “accept” is to take your partners line and involve yourself, and continue, with it, the “offer” is to add something to the dialogue to move it somewhere new. So I thought I’d try it:

Image by easylocum

OFFER: Me (after eating at cafe and having to settle the bill when leaving which they let their preferred customers do): “Well I thought I’d try a runner to see how quick you were!”

ACCEPT: Waitress: “Well I’m pretty quick!”

BLOCK: “I bet you are!”

Awkward silence….

Fail.