thursday 24 february 2000


so shirley's driving us to Makrolab and telling a bit of the history and she talks about when the island was discovered

later i go for a walk to the beach and there are warning signs everywhere about collapsing cliffs and caves and venemous critters, making it seem heaps dangerous

we fear the land it seems, us who have *discovered* this place, this paradise under the leaking ozone layer

and yeah, i'm no different, i'm scared of those snakes, i don't stray far from the path in my daggy all-season exercise sandals



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ doll yoko says: all history is pornography ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Liquid Nation says: welcome to complicity ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


i tread lightly for there are ghosts everywhere




[Le primitif d'Australie ou les Non-Non et les Oui-Oui: etude d'ethnologie comparee, Dayeris, Narrinyeris, Kamilarois, Minnal-Yangas, Yirclas, Yarra-Yarras etc., etc. [The primitive Australian or the No Noes and the Yes Yeses: study in comparative ethnology...], Dentu, Paris. Australian ethnology studied to throw light on ancient world; pp.323-354: reactions to arrival of white man (quotes Salvado on Swan River tribe), Aborigines assigned to settlers and pearl fishers in Western Australia, imprisonment of Aborigines at Rottnest Island; pp.371-391 (AIATSIS)]



[Rottnest Island has a fascinating history as an Aboriginal penal settlement, a World War I camp for prisoners of war, a place for salt gathering and processing and a World War II military installation.]

[In 1838, the island was made a penal settlement, mostly for the indigenous aboriginal people. These prisoners were used to construct the buildings which now form the centre of the Thomsons Bay settlement. Rottnest Island is now a haven for holiday-makers who come to enjoy its cooler summer temperatures and to swim, dive, fish and relax.]


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ doll yoko says: your nation is built on strategic lies and considered silences, my island girl ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ terror [nuLLius] says: did you hope to govern peoples without at first making them unhappy? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


[they were chained together by the neck]

[representations of the physical conquest of Aboriginal people and their lands are framed as sporadic 'encounters' with the 'natives', usually concerning the theft or spearing of livestock]

[at least 500 Aboriginal people died and up to 5,000 were interned over a 65 year period]

[between 1903 and 1984 the Cemetery was unacknowledged, and the area was used for a number of purposes, including recreational camping

in the early days of the prison, the 1840s, the dead came logically enough from the country surrounding the Swan River Colony and then the southwest]

[in the 1860s there is an abrupt introduction from the Murchison-Gascoyne region and the Pilbara (1880s) and then a wave from the Kimberleys (1890s)]

[the Rottnest Prison death list is a precise parallel chart of the progressive expansion of the colonial frontier]


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Profanity says: laws are made by men who fuck their daughters ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Liquid Nation says: fire walk with me ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


it's late afternoon and marko makes us markobiotic lunch, tempeh and carrots, and the conversation drifts to kamikaze sperm and borut plans the conversion of the lab into a porn playpen when marko leaves for tokyo next week and we insist that he leaves the webcam on and i go for a walk and collect quokka bones and they speak slovenian and the sounds are long and beautiful and i'm remembering sardinia and sicily last summer but i'm not a social retard like i was there and the quokkas are in the toilet drinking tourist piss looking quietly stunned by my arrival and i fuck about with the digital video camera and do some net trawling and i'm hoping that mikey's not so sad today and remember that i promised to make him field recordings and that means i havta learn how to use my mini disk recorder which i mainly bought cos its silverblue and i remember that other-marco wrote this morning and told me he was very sad, it must be the season of sadboyz and now the wind's getting louder and its quite incredible that this whole shinyfoil lab of computers is running off the solar panels outside and i'm relieved that we don't have to recycle our own shit like i originally thought