The manuscript I LOVE YOU PARK is finished now after a few years...or maybe 5.

Its my attempt at distilling a day in the life in a bamboo park in China. 
My writing style started off with poems, short, something like haiku but less organised, and this is what I do still prefer.
In this way I LOVE YOU PARK is made up simply of about 40 or 50 sentences...this 'distilling' as I call it is tricky because if you write something and then distil/edit it down to its core idea you can easily get to a point where the tale no longer exists.
I try to write it as if I am always haunting non-existence...just saying enough...and as the vein of it is pretty much existential, this is what I like to do with words. Just say enough.
There is so much written all the time and yet so little of something with a meaning, so I am trying for gentle meaning without too many words.
Colours of green and red in a mist with shapes coming out of that. A piece of carved graffiti saying I Love U etc...quiet stillness at the hub of a bigger more confusing world.
That's what I wish my work to be.
personally, I am experiencing a revival of belief of a kind of Jesus not as a deity so much but as a kind of wise and helpful friend...funny business this Belief Index.

2 quotes from Michel de Montaigne, 1540AD: 1: Marriage, marriage is like a perfect golden cage where half of the beautiful birds inside are trying so hard to get out and half of the beautiful birds outside are trying so hard to get in. 2: Marriage is like going to a market, the only thing free is the entrance.

On Trump: I think that, about ten years ago, something went wrong, world-wide. The GFC occurred and this sudden change in how much money existed in the general flow of life caused repercussions across the globe. The Arab Spring arose around distribution of what money was left available (no one talks about that Arab Spring anymore) and wars were fought, here and there, but mostly there, over that. Then came refugees from those wars. At the same time, there was a shift from nation-states to large cities in terms of available money conduits. So, the major cities grew more powerful and the rural parts of countries became less able to manage. I was living in Bangkok back then and noticed the remarkable shift of wealth and hope from the country itself to the major city. It was easy to see in Thailand because there is only one major city, really, where all is invested and all is most certainly used up. The problems in the UK were not really about foreign refugees etc, or European immigrants, but rather the decrease in money available across the general public areas. Thus Brexit happened. In the USA the result was Trump. In all these upsetting scenarios the root cause was simply some bad decisions made world wide in the early 2000s, and, unfortunately, bad decisions on such a grand scale do lead to uncertainties and the rise of a kind of ‘primal over the cerebral’. I don’t think that people world-wide are any more or less racist or separatist or protectionist naturally, but they simply can’t find anyone else to blame…and nothing has been explained. The problem is that because of the impact of the GFC, no ready answers will be available for another ten years at least. These big adjustments always take at least 20 years... and no one is going to like this.

People note that the world would have been a better place if Hitler had been assassinated...but when you look at the Regime, there in the background ever-ready to take over was the even more evil, and not mad at all, H Himmler. Well worth considering when folk are thinking of a better world with Trump gone...all charismatic folk, whether good or bad, create a large shadow behind them and in those shadows strange characters lurk about. Fortunately Australia doesn't have any charismatic folk in any of the political parties. They are just all shadowy little men and women.

LIFE: Recent Highlights: 1: The Specific: The sneeze. Ever had a mouthful of hot coffee and at the same time sneezed whilst sitting in front of a large iMac computer display? 2: The General: The house. This Melbourne house is lovely although horrifically expensive to rent for the year. Rather than complain about this fact, we are just enjoying the place. The largeness of the rooms and the yards are just great. There is 'living space' or as Hitler would call it 'lebensraum?' I can imagine Hitler setting up the easel on the back verandah and painting a nice picture of the neighbour's house. He wasn't bad at landscapes and townscapes, just not very good at painting people. May well have changed his career trajectory if he'd had a nice backyard and stuck to what he did best.

People often just glance at news about North Korea, the DPRK, thinking that sometime soon the Regime will fall...but this is a very strong and supple regime....and savvy in the ways of the world, for sure, and no one disagrees that this is the 'worst human government on earth'...because it is...well, next to Saudi Arabia...and the Emirates...but they are our friends anyway...and the Emirates makes very nice aeroplane food...but North Korea is remarkably resilient and will survive many US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers, as it has done already...and it sits in the dead centre of the only region on Earth that could bring about a war that involves us all. The whole world 'power tectonics' are right there. The Middle East doesn't matter in this context...Syria, Israel, Iran, whatever...have wars, don't have wars, exist, don't exist, no one cares...they just don't mean enough anymore. The world HAS changed. North Asia is where it is all happening day by day.

Tianshu, who has just given up smoking, just walked through the writing room en route to the veranda. I noted to her that "Passive Smoking is Theft".