I'm toiling away with the clipper tool, feeling like a hair dresser. I'm almost ready to print onto A3 280 gsm. I'll be interested to see what it looks like.
deb

i decided to break the convention of visuals, with a short story. hope you think its alright.
-ally

I think a lot about the best way to have a funeral. I’m not into the funeral parlor ones, no-oh, I won’t have any Stanley Stegles & sons hand my kids tissue boxes, hunching in suits of condolences, in their cheap shiny leather shoes, standing on their crappy lino, exuding their wafts of grey grey grey.

I like the stranger ones, the self-made rituals, like everybody I know, on a hill, piling small coloured stones atop of my body, until it can’t be seen anymore; it becomes just a mound of little rocks, all different colours. Then everyone just walks away. Letting the sands of my bones mingle with stone. I’d like that. I also like the idea of it being everyone I know, not just my children and my partner, but also the Indian student who works late nights at the service station on the corner of my street and always asks me “how’s your wife?” (she’s not my wife), or my accountant, who will never accept my offer of some sort of refreshment when he’s in my home, as if by refusing it he is politely letting me know, he can’t stand to relax in my presence, because he can’t possibly consider me to be someone who knows him or has a cordial relationship to him. And so, every time, I offer, he refuses, I feel rejected, he looks smug and awkward, and then we continue to plunder the taxation system for all its worth.

Did you have to buy a new pair of work shoes this year? No. Yes, you did.

I like the idea of him pressing his rock down into my hardened flesh a little deeper, than how my children did, pressing down, softly and unconsciously clenching his jaw, and in that brief moment, he is absolved of all his awkward, envious, falsely passive aggression which cages him in his every moment, and so in that passing few seconds, he is emboldened, he feels strength in his limbs, he feels purposeful. And then he walks away (without looking back)

dear reader,
i'd like to take this opportunity (i think its quite fitting as my first official post) to express my adoration for the work of louise bourgeois.

I very recently, aquired a copy of louise bourgeouis by phiadon, (gosh they're a go-gettin bunch.what a range.ah i want i want!).
sometimes i really wonder about these art books which verge on coffee table books. (My overtly anxious and pathetic side frets, "did i buy this to be cool? if so, does this mean im hip, and down with it? it doesnt, does it??")
But nevertheless, i am attracted to these gloriously well printed publications, with their rare photos + insightful interviews (ive taken to referring to them as my "textbooks" in my head. takes the edge off them)

Here is a particular favourite insight i gleaned from within its pages:
(louise had just declared to the interviewer, that it one of her jobs to wind all the clocks in her house)
You always pay attention to small details, and from there you draw major conclusions, so i would simply like to ask, why is winding the clocks back so important to you?

"Because to rewind is to make a spiral. And the action demonstrates that even though time is unlimited, there is a limit to how much you put on it. As you tighten the spiral you must take care.If you tighten too much you risk breaking it. The spiral is a metaphor of consistancy. I am consistant in my spiral."

i like to imagine louise on a ladder, slowly winding a grandfather clock.

thank you for reading.
ally