Hayden Short

Tinbeerwah local Hayden Byrn 

doing the controlled stall and fall 

dawn patrol at a popular sandbank 

in between the river and the lake.

Congratulations on your New Dad status.

Slower

My dreams are always in colour and last night I was riding a short red board that's in semi-retirement and barely buoyant. Unlike my usual surf dreams, I was riding it badly in the wide feet apart kook stance. This might explain why I feel so tired and lethargic today. Or it could be some equatorial virus introduced to the commuting cage (aka bus). Or even last night's pumpkin soup. Or old age. Or the coming solar eclipse. The end of the financial year. A hex from an adversary. Too many variables, to pin it down. So here's a tribute to slowness.

(PS the stick thing is supposed to be a wooden fish)

Triad

In music theory you can make nice sounds if you hit three notes at the same time. So long as they have some sort of mathematical sonic relationship - like the notes C-E-G. So three strings on a home made cigar box guitar all tuned to have a special combination of notes should work. Throw in a bit of metal tubing for a slide, a couple of piezo electric pick ups, a wah wah pedal and amp and you have some crazy noise potential (aka fun). The "surf" linoprint is for embellishment only, but creates the illusion that the noise is vaguely oceanic.

Multi Tasking

I'm cleaning my teeth while the dishwasher earns it's keep, while the computer obediently batch processes numerous images into suitable formats and the washing machine again ponders the cycle of life for cotton. All this multi tasking frees up enough time for me to flick quickly through Simon Anderson's book Thrust and steal a few backward glances to those carefree days when my surfboards went from one to two to three fins.

Putting that whole "who-did-it-first?" surf board design history argument aside, this is a beautiful book. Full credit to the designer Ben Tuffy and Noosa legend Carl Tanner who made some of his collection of vintage boards available. Full credit also to the back-in-the-day film crew - Divine, Merkel, Pithers, Crawford (RIP),  McLeod, McCormack and Kidman whose shots augment an entertaining read courtesy of the heavy pounders of the keyboard - Jarrat, Fitzgerald, Hynd, Carroll and again Kidman.

And of course last word goes to big Mr Anderson:

"I've been working hard for many years.

I went to Japan three to four times a year 

for 12 years and shaped 

15 boards a day for 10 days straight.

I've worked hard over the years, 

so I want to shape less, 

but I still enjoy the creative process, 

especially when it's a board for myself"

Before it went flat

A fond look back to times of swell, before it went flat.
BIG thanks to the 20000+ visitors who have spent some time at the Brine Time blog. BIGGER thanks to those who have made an effort to comment. Your inspiring words lubricate my creative cogs.
Maintain the stoke.
Even when it's flat.

Prone to Slide

I'm not a longboarder.

I'm not a short boarder.

I'm not a matter or hand-planer.

I'm a smorgasborder.

Keen to ride a rail, carve, slide or sail.

I love vert, but I'm also

prone to slide (prone).

Night blogging

There's a video still somewhere on this blog I shot using a home made underwater housing while riding one of my boards backhand and wearing my biggest heaviest steamer suits. That session produced some great footage and a shoulder injury that has never completely healed. Most of the time it's fine. But last weekend I strained it the wrong way tieing a board to the car roof, resulting in a visit to the chiroprator and a delayed  blog. 

So I thought I might try night blogging instead of dawn blogging. I have no empirical proof, but in the blogosphere everybody seems to be at it at night causing frustrating slowness and author boredom. So I have ditched night blogging and am now pounding away in the pre-dawn dark while a 20 year old oil heater kicks out the 6 degrees cold.

- 0 -

Harry Roach gets the electric kool aid acid test treatment above, while Rando-man, gets the same at the same spot, same season, different angle. Have a great dawn patrol - Coolangatta currently 5 degrees and Tewantin a balmy 6. I'm off to do some shoulder stretches.

Weeds and wonder

Some have said 

"One person's trash 

is another person's treasure"

I add 

"One person's weed 

is another person's wonder"

Recycling and art can connect 

when form overtakes function.

Objects that were created for one purpose.

Can be given a new life 

albeit an alien one.

A new life

as a Found Object d'aRt

WWW (wood water winter)

Just a few bits and pieces 

for a cold but sunny Monday.

Kodak don't make colour 35mm 

infra red film like above no more. 

It was cold at dawn and still.

(Except fro the bird life)

Beautiful soft winter light 

Only the brave or visitors

Go without rubber

No distracting clouds

(Or crowds)

And before you notice

The sun's already going down

Road Trippin

Recycle I say. This is my entry in a local footwear comp. Road Trippin Chuck T's. The first prize is actually more than the Archibold Art Prize - our most prestigious portrait comp. Art and commerce, what can I say? The shoes win.

More Mystery of Camping

The Mystery of Camping

So why would any rational adult choose to spend time and money travelling to Nowhere to spend freezing cold nights in front of a smokey fire, when they could be wrapped up in a warm doona on a comfortable bed? That's the mystery of camping.

Surrealism for Kids

If Surrealism and Photoshop were on facebook, I imagine they would be friends exchanging seemingly improbable realities and concepts in text and image. Dada would be a lazy friend, more like a long time lurker than a regular poster. And every poet with a laptop and an ISP would be inspired by their juxtapositions. 

Art Haters would set up a counter-site explaining why P'shop and Surrealism are not REAL ART, while media pundits and bar room gurus would expound on what-it-all-means. Bombers with cans would spray slogans for one side or the other in public places. There would be a spin off project licensed to cheap third world labour to produce limited edition fashionable items and then the whole scene would descend into chaos and infighting when the key players take up the fat life surrounded by acolytes and Rewriters-of-History. I expect music to remain, inspired by the inevitable crazy change in cultural alliances.

"I met a girl who sang the blues

And I asked her for some happy news,

But she just smiled and turned away.

I went down to the sacred store

Where I’d heard the music years before,

But the man there said the music wouldn’t play."

from American Pie by Don McLean 1971 

Decades later, tax payers' dollars would be diverted away from digging huge holes on sacred sites by those with leverage (and a social conscience) and into acquiring this old skool aRt for public display - something like the current Surrealism Exhibition at our local Dirty Big Gallery - Surrealism for the whole family. Check it out. See what all the fuss is about and as Banksy would say "exit via the gift shop". Then make some art of your own or at least write a cultural manifesto.

"And if you hear vague traces 

Of skipping reels of rhyme

To your tambourine in time

It's just a ragged clown behind

I wouldn't play it any mind

It's just a shadow you're seein'

That he's chasing"

from Mr Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan 1965 

"What's this all got to do with the surf?"

I hear you say.

"There is a man cut in two by a window"

from the Surrealist Manifesto 1924 by Andre Breton

The Memphis Blues

Nobody will ever want to steal my low fi mobile phone. If they could see past the scratched screen (complete with traces of sunscreen from my ears) and intricate navigation system, they might find a few random pics from my meanderings on land and about 364 texts from friends that are clogging the tiny memory - texts like these:

16 May 2011

"Up at 6 - wind was blowing here

forecast was 4 strong winds

so bailed - 

but beautiful calm day now

think I blew it."

12 June 2011

"...U need htc, not iphone

iphone is 4 sheep

U R a goat..."

"Now the bricks lay on Grand Street

where the neon madmen climb"

from Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again by Bob Dylan 1966

Mono MOnday

A couple of unrelated images.

Apart from their monochromaticness.

And their sweet, muddy memories of the brine.

And brine brothers on a monochrome monday.