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Lo-Fi is my-fi
Tuesday 14 February, 2006
I like Lo-Fi. I like the hiss and fuzz of 'bad' recordings. I like homemade clothes with zig-zagged edges and fraying hems. I like crooked, photocopied 'zines. I like 'amateur' art. I like rhubarb and apple pies with lumpy pastry and non-perfect edges. I like to see how people got to their final product. I like hand made and home made and not 'Made In China'. I like it when people write me letters in their own handwriting, decorated with doodles and magazine cuttings, with their saliva on the gum of the envelope and the stamp on crooked infinitely more than seeing an email in my in-box. I like collages where you can see the sellotape and the crooked edges and the hand-drawn scrawls.
I hate corporate appropriation of Lo-Fi. I hate sweat shops. I hate 'perfection'. I hate the capitalist system scaring people away from their own creativity (because if you can't do it 'perfectly' why do it? why not buy it?). I hate slick and souless. I hate it that at-home mothers are modern western society's underclass. I hate it when people ask me "what I do" when they really mean "how much do you earn?" and I hate it how their eyes glaze over when I say I'm a mother, a writer, a part-time university tutor. (None of these have 'status'.)
Yigh. Can you tell I'm feeling a bit ranty today? I've been angsting about 'what to do with my life' - (as if I'm not already doing it)...and the fact is, I want to stay at home for my children (income value = $0.00), I want to write (income value = a couple of thousand a year at the most) and I want to teach creativity to people. (income value = probably less than the dole...but hey, the dole is $15,000 a year more than an at-home mama gets.)
I guess the trick is to get out of the money loop as much as possible. Don't buy it, make it. Don't 'need' it if you don't really need it. Cultivate friends who value the Lo-Fi life as much as I do...
but some days I get so mad that what I contribute to society is so 'valueless' in the current unimaginative, capitalist, consumerist, exploitative crapola system.
Anyhoo, time to haul butt off the computer and get the biggest kid to his (low-decile, underfunded) school. Then I'm off to yoga to try to stretch away the stresses this week has held. Then I'm gonna drink a pot of coffee with my friend Rachael and put the world to rights.
posted by Helen on 14 February, 2006 | 6:57am
COMMENTS
Oh, I hear ya! I can actually see other people's mind's wandering when I say I'm a mum, they get that shifty look of someone looking for someone worthy to talk to.
Of course, I must be interested in hearing all about their fascinating, rewarding and stressful job but if I dare to discuss Gabrielle's latest developmental breakthrough then I become yet another mum who can't stop talking about her children.
Oh, and don't start me on the disdainful looks of "suits" in town when I go too slow with my toddler. Clearly mums should stay in the suburbs where we belong.
Posted by Bronya on 14 February, 2006 | 11:59am
I think being a mum, a writer and a thinker/tutor is an incredibly valuable thing, more so than what a lot of suits do. So many people spend their lives locked in offices shuffling bits of paper around and contributing nothing to life, theirs or anyone elses. Think of all the lives you have touched and inspired, its worth so much more than dollars - its just a pain this doesn't pay the bills.
I'm trying to think of a better way to ask "what do you do?' because I never get the answer I want. People tell me about their jobs when I really want to know about them, their passions, their dreams, what they do in their lives.
I hate it when people only identify themselves by the jobs that they do. People are made up of so many more parts than that.
Posted by Jess on 14 February, 2006 | 2:20pm
Hi,
Funny as I was taking the dog for a walk the other night I noticed how I am always attracted to the unruly gardens-the houses that arent quite right, the 'imperfect houses' Perfection says there is nothing more to be done with me, the unmanicured gardens make me curious to know more what it hiding in the over-grown corners. There are secrets and mystery in the flaking painted walls...
I have been op shopping for most of my adult life and find shopping at chain stores really disconcerting now. It is amazing how often I am complimented on an item of clothing which is 'unique' one off from the oppy!!
As for the Mum thing Iam approaching my final stay at home year with my youngest so I have been answering that question for a long time now!! It doesnt bother me so much now-because I feel really affirmed in my decision to stay at home with my kids and feel lucky to have been able to do so as it is not a choice for some mothers. It certainly hasnt been the 'easy' option as some would say!
Hey congratulations on earning some cash whilst your at it, I have done many and varied part-time stints and would love to earn money to write-how do you do it?
Michal
Posted by Michal on 14 February, 2006 | 5:52pm
Amen!
Posted by Meredith on 15 February, 2006 | 2:41am
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