I am a frequent attendant of Women of Letters, a monthly event run by two Melbourne ladies, Michaela McGuire and Marieke Hardy.  It’s $20, it gets me out of East St Kilda on a Sunday afternoon and the stories I hear astound and inspire me.  Oh, and ultimately they raise stacks of cash to support Edgar’s Mission, a farm animal sanctuary.

Last Sunday we were met with great talent such as Chrissie Swan (Broadcaster), Emilie Zoey Baker (slam poet extraordinaire) and Annabel Crabb.  There were a few others but I felt that these three truly stood out.  Emilie and Annabel were especially enticing, it was the personal nature of their stories, the poetry with which they were told and the ability to flesh out the details without being boring.

I pondered something that I could connect my love of public story telling with the net….online storytelling. I have had some favourites up my sleeve for a while, opportunities for a long read should win over the time-wasting digital snippets we are so accustomed.  Somewhere between a book and a blog post, a long read will give you the insight about a topic or person that will help you lose yourself in a new world of words, until the period at the end directs you to again walk with purpose.

Longreads.com is dedicated to time-poor readers, it categorises all forms of writing based on word count/approximate reading time.  They are true to their name-sake too, nothing less than 1500 words.  They have a subscriber feed and they gather stories from all my old favourite news websites, journals and magazines, NYT, Atlantic, Harpers…etc.  There is a lot going on with this website, click around, type in some search terms and dig deeper.  No time – here’s one link to a biography/eulogy about Steve Jobs.

Much closer to the local hood is Meanjin, a special quarterly journal, the long reads are delineated by form; fiction, essays, memoir and poetry.  Many of the Australian journalists and authors I respect and seek out write for Meanjin.  It’s a 70 year old publication with funding from Melbourne University and the website is updated daily.  So much to read, almost overwhelming, but you can get around that by scanning one line and continuing that exercise until completion! Another period for you to look out for, the one with ultimate freedom at the end of the last sentence.

Want more, reply email.  I have a list as long as my leg!

Go forth and click!

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The internet is an ever-astounding, complex digital mammoth where every human sense  comes into play, despite the 2D.  Wednesday Website Wack (WWW) began a year ago to accommodate a culturally time-poor punter that believed the internet was other-worldly and overwhelming, I concurred.  This year I am taking my otherwise exclusive ‘web club’ public.

To kill the fear of what lies beyond, I search.  I devote hours to the cause of unravelling the treasures within; late nights, red eyes and a sore neck are synonymous with my addiction to ‘the net’.   The gold is worth it, the extraordinary and eclectic are out there, posting and prodding, photographing and prosing.

Some of the websites will be purely reference, others timely or trendy.  Craftiness might make an appearance as will shopping havens, lists and wish lists, magazine portals and intelligent banter. The abridged internet is here, every week.  More than just websites, WWW is links to the good stuff.  Bookmark (CTRL+D) is your friend.  Digital gold. Brain food. Inspiration.  Empathy.

I couldn’t help but kick this off with a music website Hype Machine, one of many a site that scour ‘the net’ looking for music that is gaining traction online through ‘blog posts’ ‘comments’, ‘likes’ and ‘favourites’.  It’s like a daily Top 40 for the digital age.  They are currently featuring a mix by Little Dragon of the best of 2011 from their radio show, it’s on SoundCloud here.  For anyone that loves keeping abreast of what’s new in the world of tunes, these websites are but one beat or lyric away from hooking you in, just listen and see.

Late last year I discovered through sheer chance the Radio Soulwax website/app, that is the brothers Dewale that sometimes come under the guise of 2manydjs. This website is a radio station dedicated to 24 x 1 hour themed mixes – based on album covers! While I wrote this I bopped around the keyboard to Celestial Voyage Pt 2. A constant stream of dance worthy music that can be downloaded as an app (android or iphone) to listen as you go. Brilliant.

Go forth and click.

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You can subscribe to the newsletter here and/ opt out at any time. It’s called the Wednesday Website Wack – A weekly of websites worth clicking.

New music, cultural insights, great art, social media, food love, how tos and why nots.  What more could you possible want from your week?

This looks like a crazy movie, almost like a Touching the Void style documentary epic.  Check out the trailer for Bicycle Dreams above. Wow.

I discovered this movie through a Radiolab podcast.  there is so much to learn through broadcasting of other peoples ideas and discoveries, it’s like sitting in lectures sometimes but only your electives, does it get better?

Since first being introduced to yoga in my early 20′s, while living in London, I have never looked back, ergo my practice has waned over the years due to motivation and finding a teacher i respect and love. Yoga is also not cheap and sometimes $20 (or more) just hasn’t materialised when it is most needed. It’s a cash practice if you haven’t noticed.

These days I am a regular at Yoga Moves in Balaclava. It ticks a few boxes especially geography, space and quality teaching, but this yoga school is not for everyone and while I love it, I feel there is a bit of a vibe missing. I have adopted Iyengar yoga as my main practice over the years because I have massive postural restrictions, otherwise referred to as inflexibility.  Iyengar allows me to manage poses with the correct posture using props.

A few years ago I tried a new yoga school, Yoga Arts Academy, a variation on Hatha Yoga.  So fuckin’ hard!  Intense, strong, exhausting and continuous.  Iyengar is stop/start but the process of learning each pose is thorough and timely.  The Sakshin Ghatastha manifesto is born from consistent, mindful practice with dynamism and strength at its heart.  Focus will come.  I fear for beginners starting here but why not?  You will be adjusted and learn fast using this style.

I have documented my current yoga drive, briefly mind you, because there is no such thing as a quality yoga review board or website and sometimes it’s hard to know where to start.  Yoga changes lives, never mind that it will challenge you and make you look a little silly sometimes.

I recommend it to anyone and everyone because the positive benefits to mind, body and spirit are what you have to look forward to. Go forth and stretch!

Eating fish is a necessity for some and for others a joy or maybe you fit into both categories. Whatever your reasons for eating our puckered pals, make an educated choice for our environment using the guide below.

Here’s a snapshot from an article by Sarah Wilson if you don’t have time to click this link.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) have developed the first online sustainability guide for seafood consumers in Australia. It was developed in response to growing public concern about overfishing and its impact on our oceans and their wildlife, and is designed to help you make informed seafood choices and play a part in swelling the tide for sustainable seafood in Australia.

The guide lists fish according to ‘better’ option, ‘think twice’, or ‘no’- which basically means don’t eat it if you have a conscience.

According to the sustainability guide, some of the well-known ‘better’ options include

- sardines,
- whiting, calamari,
- oysters; and
- mahi mahi.

We should be saying “no” to:

- tuna,
- salmon,
- gemfish; and
- farmed barramundi

Some of the ‘think twice’ fish include prawns (farmed in Australia), dory, and wild barramundi. See the guide for a full list and explanation of all fish, and if you’re interested, I’ve posted before on which tinned tuna to buy. SW

Goodluck finding fish mongers that support AMCS guidelines and can help you find other sustainable seafood species for the table, this should be an evolving list dependent on supply and fish populations.  I look forwad to your comments.

Buy The Tall Man – now, read it and share it, talk about it often.

The aboriginal death in custody that this book focuses on is that of 34 year old, Mulrinji Doomadgee.  It happened in 2004! The case was long and arduous and although the policeman in question was not convicted it was the first time in Australia’s history that a police officer, a Senior Sargeant no less, has been charged and the matter heard in court.  He was found not guilty and the rallying indigenous community and supporters were not suprised by the outcome, they had all been burned before with their rights coming so way down the line to that of their white neighbours.

There was a recent article in Frankie by Benjamin Law about his sheltered perception of indigenous communities, their law, their country and the dreaming philosophy.  I read the piece in the midst of reading The Tall Man, it felt simplistic and overt but I thought it wasn’t without its place, Frankie is a female centric mag for younger women who dig craft and fashion.  At least he was giving airtime to something he felt needed attention and what better way to start activating a policitcal mindset than writing about it in a popular ladies mag.

None of this current popularity changes the fact that I feel helpless and wanting.  Wanting to change the world and helpless to make it happen within the 5 weeks I am prepared to give to the cause before moving onto the next human tragedy.  Deaths in custody lingers heavily and this post is the beginning of a quest to open my mind and spew the contents.  History counts and the plight of indigenous people to face the world everyday is something I can only try to imagine.  I am so sorry.

Oxfam have a pledge to close the gap on indigenous life expectancy, here is the link. Indigenous community volunteers webpage with information about how to get involved/invited to help improve the well-being of indigenous Australians.

You can support indigenous culture through the Creative Spirits website, this is a great resource.

There was a Royal Commission into deaths in custody some 20 years ago, since then 269 deaths in custody have occurred, read more about that in Larissa Dubecki’s article from April 2011 in The Age.

Review by Caroline Weber for NY Times in 2006 here
A great visual book review here on Jen Fitch Style blog.
Another book I am excited about below, self help disguised in biographical philosophy.

new InsightBookReader(‘preview’, ’9781590514252′, ”, ”, ’0′, ”, ‘http://www.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin/buy_landing.php?isbn=9781590514252′);

Bikini are a 2 piece from New York (suprise). Although, at this foetal stage of musical artistry, they don’t work together. Olivier Olivier (oh yeah, the double barreled name had me at ‘O’) writes the lyrics and melodies sending them over to his old music school chap, Nigel Diamond. Diamond collates the work in the order he sees fit adding his mix of beats and verse and the musical drafting is over, sent on to be mastered and mixed. How great, raw, interesting and now!

I have been hooked on the hook of Palm-Aire (track 3) on the newly released EP for days. Nothing quite like having a nightclub moment while at your desk in a commercial law firm! Not since Radiohead released In Rainbows have I purchased an album online. Considering my environmental stance it should be the norm, I’ll get there. In the meantime, pump it here…if you like it, buy it. It’s $5, that’s it!