boynton has been helping Nora unpack and arrange furniture - testing boynton's bad spatial concepts. The new house is very generous with a surfeit of storage (there is no such thing), but boynton comes to the task after years of cupboard deprivation, so is still overly cautious with breaking out the crockery and spreading the condiments and cannisters far and wide. Nora wanted to place a speaker against a small cupboard, but boynton could not allow such a spatial transgression. "I can never say no to a cupboard" she observed soberly "I will never ever reject a cupboard again". A symbolic portrait of the scene could be seen here, (boynton is not quite this old) with this detail capturing symbolically poor old Abby's senile gnashing of teeth when the arthritis strikes or the blue heeler interloper nips her heels or things jump off the shelf onto her. Last defence against life's little indignities.
The pictures above were found hunting down (on a tangent) Old Mother Hubbard. This is a wonderful early (1819) illustration of the verse which makes more and more sense in ethological terms as boynton turns hubbard. Flo the blue heeler interloper - who still looks to boynton (used to the dome head and pendulant ears of a labrador) like a dog wearing a super hero mask, has already drawn first verse.
from old boynton hubbard

She picked up The Age
to give her a scare
And when she made eye contact
Flo was laughing with that c’mon hit me hit me bravado because her active brain would rather latch onto any game even one wrapped up with a baddog reprimand than quietly contemplate her existance

She went to the park
to give them a run
and when she got there
Flo rushed a walking group of elderly citizens who fortunately found her amusing I think because it was such a sparkling morning full of philanthropy.

She went to the car
To take them all home
And when she looked up
Doug was fast wandering off up the middle of the road ga ga and deaf and cringed dreadfully when boynton hauled him back by his collar at a mad trotting pace.

boynton will keep working on the metre.

An archive of found themed photos by Joachim Schmid (via Brad Zellar) Planes and girls and prams.

Some info of his ongoing project Pictures from the Street here
the more photographs l've been finding the more my way of perception changed: now I don't find photographs any more, I look for them - just like a truffle pig

Perhaps this mirrors boynton's own experience of browsing:blogging has made it more purposeful, though there's always so much to be found. It's a Pound of found...Looking for some bio info on Joachim Schmid, boynton's first link was that flubbery pidgin of the Google translation page. Joachim Schmid é a thief and mentireiro...and different escolmas dun fluxo incessant from photos produced globally is seguen to conform to base two fascinating proxectos of Schmid.

From the latest Carnival of the Vanities ( via The Talking Dog) Electric Venom on Blogging thoughts and philosophies Written in response to some delinking wars - the politics of blogging - Venomous Kate analyses the "metaphysics" of various styles of linkers and thinkers and whingers . Of course the snark tone makes boynton nervous, perhaps to link here is already a terrible faux pas, who knows. We merely blunder along with little aspiration, and an abiding fondness for the solace of the cul de sac when the noise of the highway with its traffic-chasing rush gets too much

Venus Hand Trap (via Sublimate)

In a wonderful Duoblog post Fred at Fragments from Floyd and Lisa Thompson write on the downside of Cultural tourism continuing the theme of our increasing disconnection from the natural world.
Cultural Tourism in the Southern Mountains: What's For Sale?
I am generally resistant to the idea of being 'marketed'. Call me a 'reluctant tourist'. And I'm especially vigilant when it comes to buying into advertising that sells the places where things make their homes -- people, plants and animals. In much of the marketing of mere mountain aesthetics, things portrayed are not as they seem...

Like the Melbourne sky this inauspicious bright blogosphere morn turned grey. It may be a kind of Stop the Clocks cut off the telephone sort of day. We're staying tuned.

Researchers propose a mathematical model of marriage (via Rebecca's Pocket)
In The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models (MIT Press), which he wrote in collaboration with four mathematicians, Mr. Gottman uses the tools of calculus to describe the interactions of couples with the therapeutic goal of breaking the downward cycle of difficult conversations.
Innumerate boynton wonders whether she could read dramatic scenes between distressed characters mathematically, watching out for the influence functions, the homeostatic emotional set point, the thresholds and the sudden twist of the tipping point. In terms of writing by numbers, we are of course familiar with the famous Syd Field paradigm, where you have to get the turning point in by page 27 etc, but reading a play in this way could be quite diverting. After that she could then try applying mathematics to home decorating.

When the mathematician says that such and such a proposition is true of one thing, it may be interesting, and it is surely safe. But when he tries to extend his proposition to everything, though it is much more interesting, it is also much more dangerous. In the transition from one to all, from the specific to the general, mathematics has made its greatest progress, and suffered its most serious setbacks, of which the logical paradoxes constitute the most important part. For, if mathematics is to advance securely and confidently it must first set its affairs in order at home.
Mathematics and the Imagination, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940. (source)

Update The attraction equation. (via Algebra Comics via J walk)

boynton has never really associated croquet and beer before (via Quiddity) which is just as well really, given the mallet-wielding tendencies of her siblings. Not even a shandy would have been advisable, otherwise a spectator adopting the perilous "silly point" position seen in the illustration may have lost his head or parts thereof.

Even when treated to this series of glorious Autumn days, guess there's always a bit of the Birmingham lurking somewhere in Melbourne. (via b3ta)

A recent comment by Richard Kahn of the excellent Vegan Blog – the (eco)logical weblog pointed to more research on Arctic Drilling .

Shallow wildlife documentaries and sentimental nature writing reflect a growing malaise, writes Richard Mabey. Unless we radically transform our attitude to other species, we face a dismal future. The technical wizardry, standard sensationalist motifs and distorted camera speeds are servicing a latter day Barnum Peep show
Zoology is two-dimensional nonsense if it is divorced from ecology.It is through feelings and imagination that we experience kinship and connectedness, the pain of separation and extinction, the renewal of spring and birth, not through the detachment of scientific accounts. And it is through myth, story-telling, art, metaphor and play that we make overall sense of our place in the world
This link via Fragments from Floyd - whose wonderful close observations of place are definitely biophilic. ...(just as boynton was writing of biophilia she had a decidedly biophobic moment when the house mouse ran past her foot. A natural scream .)
Mabey's call for feelings and imagination to balance scientic objectivity reminded boynton of the work of Jane Goodall, a profile of whom recently featured in The Age.
Goodall is very big on positivity, and unrelenting on the theme of "hope", but the truth, as she knows, is that the future for the chimps at Gombe is perilous...
Gombe's chimpanzee community now numbers only 150 or so individuals, leaving the long-term genetic sustainability of the group in doubt. Across Africa, the chimp population has fallen in a century from 2million to 150,000.

boynton originally messed with words
here are these weird signs

Some lines courtesy of Rob's Amazing Poem generator, which makes poems based on the content of your url (Via Speckled Paint and bluejoh). Seems to have summed up boynton pretty well:

...a heap
of those fleeting conversations between hotmailers
and even creative enterprise need some
music. They cause pause. Break the
discussion of old
tobacco
tins . And wherever

Belatedly chasing up an image of the wonderfully named Dolly Dye boynton found this local collection of grocery ephermera at the (aptly named for virtual window shoppers) Midnight Grocer.
Products of everyday life, through time, become interesting objects for future generations to appreciate. Some of the objects within The Midnight Grocer exhibition are familiar to many while other items have long since been forgotten. The items shown here are typical of general store merchandise sold from the corner store
Another product that is very familiar to boynton is Lucky Hit tobacco - (as a non smoker she owns several of these old tobacco tins). And of course Every Farmer and Lumberman needs this wonderful improved Saw Machine

Yesterday's post referred to the Sullivans, a faux family drama set in faux war time Melbourne, outdoor locations filmed in the dry time-warped suburb of Canterbury, in certain pockets a place of many (reclaimed) Cal Bungs and concrete roads. (Boynton lived there once just as Maling road was getting the heritage treatment, and the op shops held out over the virulent cafe creep.) Last night she followed one of Bifurcated Rivets' links to this talking UK map site, and coincidentally listened to Canterbury.We knew Canterbury spoke like that, even though we tend to pronounce it the way this is written. Listening to the other unknown towns is curious, place name performance poetry. Boynton loves listening to Thames Estuary talk, estuary being one of those wordy words where the pronunciation is essentially provisional.
(boynton originally messed with words here via J walk)

A wonderful treasure trove of old grocery items from an Estate Auction (via Speckled Paint). Like all such auctions, there is a bit of associated sadness within the accumlated heritage dispersing, but the eyes of ephemera enthusiasts glaze over at such visions as these. Boyntons's father once went to a similar auction at the site which was to become universally known as the Sullivan's general store. He brought home a trailer load of groceries - some archaic even then, packaging, and signs. Alas, at that unsophisticated age boynton was more interested in the confectionary items, like Metro Gums (the source of all humour), and Polly Waffles than the beautiful exhibits of ephemera, but somehow managed to gain possession of several packets of Dolly Dyes which happily form part of her own small packaging display.

J walk blog recently featured two signage related sites: Build your own Safety sign (in PDF) appeals to Boynton, who may one day import the results of her configuration, while these weird signs contain many gems. There are times when this sign pretty well sums up life as we know it, while this sign has a peculiar cultural resonance. Interesting to note that Noel Neill before playing Lois was an outstanding beach volleyball player even though she was less than five feet tall

The Jean-Luc Godard Drinking game (should be played with wine and ennui) (via Scrubbles)
Must try this after a stiff round of the Who's Afraid Of Virgina Woolf variation.

Before that diversionary exercise, boynton had been considering the whole blogging-writing thing (with a full set of vowels). Meredith recently linked to Jill's post which presents two different takes on the effects of blogging, while This Public Address has a great post about digital Style.

We've taken the Meredith E-challenge. (Very timely: we needed someone generating ideas!)
Ever since Easter we’ve been wondering whether every entry here deserves readership. Ever since the latest computer meltdown. We survived, however these events cause pause. Break the pattern. Perhaps the time’s arrived. Does ‘serious’ creative enterprise need space – other spaces? Even non-serious creative enterprise? Are these very non-private electrical spaces stealing time, stealing formative ideas, stealing the writerly process? We’ve been wondering whether everyone feels the same lately – the blogosphere itself seems less lively, even sleepy. Perhaps we’re merely projecting here, subjectively enduring the predictable periodic latency . Perhaps we merely need some breathing space? When these creative exercises take over the mind-set, they cause strange writerly voice changes, the voice often becomes exceptionally pretentious. Well definitely over E’d . We’d better revert dear readers. On-line chatter style resumes presently

Boynton was following an excellent link (among so many) at Eclogues to the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre and chanced upon this letter written by John Cawte Beaglehole to his mother in 1926.
I also (& return to Melbourne) tracked down [ unclear: Maie ] Ross successfully in the ghastly crockery department of a vast concern known as Myer's Emporium Limited, which covers about four blocks & is still building. The girl seemed very pleased to see me, in which you will agree she showed excellent taste,& invited me out to their joint for the evening meal & some music. They have a gramaphone with a few good records [ unclear: Melba ] etc; & a piano of the patent iron-foundry type; however I played my piece & she sang a bit & I moved off, in mortal fear of being stoushed on the head with a beer-bottle by one of the celebrated Melbourne pushers...

and later comes his excellent verdict:
Melbourne seems cleaner than Sydney; the trams are certainly more up to date; And it is a lot slower. They are having a citrous fruits week just now; so I must buy some
lemons to help on the good cause...

Further to the discussion of random and cut up writing techniques is a pictorial equivalent, (perhaps a visual psychoflubber - thanks Gianna)... Web collage - exterminate all rational thought (via J walk) which collects random web images and creates a shifting collage with the claim: This is what the Internet looks like...After 2 days of near cold turkey away from her station, or quarry ( in JR Terrier parlance) Boynton with a tad of detachment thinks that the whole blogosphere can be read as collage, flubber, bits of random text generated by links back and forth and wherever. Rather than exterminating the rational perhaps we seek to find the missing link that makes the random gatherings synthesise somehow. Three lemons.

After Boynton wrote that late last night she chanced upon this read at Whiskey River