Obviously I miss travel, but its strange some of the aspects of travel that I miss. I miss that first gasp of air when I leave the airport, away from the air conditioning and duty free perfume. I miss walking the streets of a city for the first time, gauging the vibe of the place. I miss waking up on planes, having no idea of the time or place, entirely dislocated from reality.
Trump has lost the US election, of course he can’t admit that he lost, the bankruptcies, failed marriages and his university having happened to someone who just looks and sounds much like him. To be honest I was expecting him to win. Apart from it keeping with the completely fucked up year we have been all having, the kind of people who voted for Trump the first time are unlikely to have changed their opinion since then.
The COVID-19 pandemic marches on. The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, has a ludicrously high approval rating, mostly due to standing up to other states insistence that we open our borders. This ties into Western Australian’s constant feelings of playing second fiddle to the eastern states. Meanwhile people are acting as if having to wear a mask in public is the worst thing ever, as if healthcare workers (and chemical sprayers like me) haven’t been wearing P2 masks without much fuss for years. The word persecution gets thrown around a lot, mostly by people who have never experienced it due to their white, middle class privilege.
An aspect of my personality that I wrestle with is a tendency to obsess about a TV show, a cult, an individual or a particular song. Much of this is similar to slowing down to gawk at a car accident. A typical example of this is my current fascination with the cult known as Jehovah Witnesses, im convinced I know more about this cult that its members. A more positive example is Strange Weather, by Anne Calvi, featuring David Byrne (from the Talking Heads). Something about the dueling vocals, the lyrics I can’t quite understand, and the broken flower aesthetic in the film clip keeps me watching and listening again and again. At least it makes a nice change from hours of Nick Cave and Russian folk music.
Adrian's Got The Moose 