slightlymoving

damn it

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:52:13 +1100

why can’t i rotate my photos in tumblr?

These photos were all taken by Douglas Hockley and are a...

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:48:40 +1100

These photos were all taken by Douglas Hockley and are a post-installation documentation of the work Jacob and I created for the Natimuk Frinj Festival at the end of October/start of November.

Each coloured square was hand cut and tacked to the wall with a pin - no sticky notes for us. The writings are from people who visited us in the old lock-up, where we would sit and share stories about movement and memories and then ask them to write something.

That is all for now.

elvis costello performing sulphur to sugarcane in canberra last...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:54:07 +1100

elvis costello performing sulphur to sugarcane in canberra last month…

getting on

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:08:35 +1100

i spent this morning with the local ACAT (aged care assessment team). and i really enjoyed it. i think geriatrics and palliative care are two interesting areas of medicine that (in some ways) get overlooked.

as part of the morning we saw two potential clients for assessment. they had markedly different reasons for the assessment being requested. one was a 75 year old man with progressing dementia who is being looked after by his son - and the focus was primarily on respite care. the man had become more verbally abusive and difficult and the son needed a break. the second was an 80 year old woman who had had shoulder surgery and needed some assistance with ADLs when she returns home (which she was keen to do asap) from hospital.

there was a moment during the assessment with the woman where she talked about sometimes feeling lonely (her husband had died a few years ago), particularly in the early evening. she is able to occupy herself during the day by going to various groups, but now that she’s living on her own it’s the time between eating dinner and going to bed that make her saddest.

and, while residential care would offer her more social contact, she is not nearly ready for it and wants to maintain her independence as long as possible. it made me feel that we get so locked into the idea of couples and nuclear families that when it gets to this stage, we become limited in the possibilities. i’ve always been interested in co-housing, and it seems to me that having a situation where you live and share with more people than your immediate family would be beneficial at all stages of life. something to consider for the future…

watch these guys dance. i love the wide based stance. and check...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:50:56 +1100

watch these guys dance.

i love the wide based stance. and check the woman flipping the man at 3:58
looks like so much fun

limited

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:35:26 +1100

yep. time has me by the short and curlies.

exams are looming.

and movember has started. so, if you want to support a great cause and donate to motivate me to grow my Mo, then here’s where to do it:
http://au.movember.com/mospace/74246

i’m sure you know what movember is. might be my last year for doing it. 3 years running now.

i should write something about the project jacob and i did on the weekend just gone, up at the natimuk frinj festival. but i just haven’t got the… time.

another list

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:28:58 +1100

in medicine, there’s an incredibly embedded hierarchy and tradition that often means teaching methods are slow to change and knowledge acquisition is, in some ways, made a goal in and of itself. part of this system involves memorising long lists… of conditions, side effects, drugs, outcomes, risks, limitations, benefits, statistics, anatomical features… to name a few. some of these lists are useful and are worth having at immediate recall - but many of them are almost pointless to remember because of the detail, the lack of use, and the utility of them.

recently, at a grand rounds presentation, a young fresh-out-of-medical-school intern condescended half the audience by stating he was dropping the topic down to medical student level and briefly discussed the mechanism of action of steroids. he then proceeded to ask each student present to name one side effect of steroid. i think i was about 6th in line and when it came to me i couldn’t think of anything, so i said so. it caused a little uproar in the room, which was fascinating in a number of different ways.

firstly, there were a few encouragers, suggesting that i did know more side effects and could think of one. there was a call for nudging my neighbour to get a whispered answer - accompanied by some whispered answers. there was a scornful call of that’s just not good enough. and finally a plaintive voice saying it was important to know as it will be on the exams and you’ll get asked a lot as an intern.

amazing really, to get such a varied and active response.

for me though, it highlighted some of the things that concern me about medical education and the lack of thought behind such methods for consolidating knowledge. the assumption here is that the intern was attempting to help us learn and not simply assert a knowledge hierarchy - and i’d like to give him the benefit of doubt.

the main concern for me is about equating immediate recall with knowledge. if you can answer a question with a list then you show you know something - when of course, that’s not necessarily the case at all. i often see some students reeling off a list in answer to a question but most of the list having absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. i suppose it comes down to ways of thinking and working. a computer might be good at processing through lists to determine appropriate choices according to set criteria - but most humans are not. the best clinicians i see are attentive to their patients so that when they give them steroids, for example, they don’t reel off a long list of possible side effects (mind the buffalo hump won’t you) but engage with the patient about observing changes and symptoms.

a list will always be written down in a book. or on your iphone. or on wiki.

there’s more to this post but i’m a bit tired after that effort…

resilientrabbit: Eddie Izzard, 2007 AV Club Interview, on...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:03:45 +1100

resilientrabbit:

Eddie Izzard, 2007 AV Club Interview, on working stream-of-consciousness:

“… all you got to do is keep the gate in your mind open, you’ve got to. If you ever get fear in your brain, then you think, “Oh, I’m not going to be able to do this, it isn’t going to work any more,” and it suddenly stops. You think you can’t do it, and you suddenly can’t. And then it stops and you get fear and then you’re just stammering. It’s a little dodgy, it’s like walking a tightrope and having a conversation at the same time.”

eddie izzard is a genius. no doubt about it.

Back in th saddle

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:31:17 +1000

Jacob and I performed tonight. First time together since the start of the year.

We had a fairly short warmup time, which served to show us just how little stamina we have. And during the day we’d been discussing our practice and teaching and thoughts about improv process. Entanglement.

The performance went reasonably well and in reviewing I think that while we have a strong performance ‘muscle’ our dance and compositions ‘muscles’ have atrophied somewhat. I’m keen to see what happens over the next few nights…

Earlier in the day I’d listened to the Hon Nicola Roxon talk at GP’09 conference about national health reform. The Q+A that followed was interesting and was recorded as part if their ‘consultation’ process. I like to think that the reforms are being approach in an open and strategic manner, but it’s hard to tell right now.

Oh oh… Starting to mix my posts…

breathing shit

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:22:00 +1000

subtle title, i know.

but right now i can still smell faeces. this morning was my second major involvement in a MET call. i’ve been to a number this year but mostly just as an observer (or contributing in very minor ways). this time though, i participated and gave closed cardiac compressions to a man in his 60s who had gone in to arrest following thombolysis for an AMI. in the process of trying to help this man by breaking down the thrombus causing the MI (using retaplase for those who want to know), he’d gone into a reperfusion injury arrhythmia and was in VF. (as a side note, isn’t wiki great)

we’ve been going over ACLS and i knew this was a witnessed and monitored arrest so according to protocol he should have been given 3 defibrillation shocks as initial management followed by CPR. he did get two, but then there seemed to be a delay while waiting for a senior clinician. in the meantime cardiac compressions were commenced. he had no output (no pulse) and was being bagged and the monitor continued to show VF. once the senior was there another shock was given and CPR continued on… but then, despite staying in VF for the next 15 minutes it took that long for another shock to be ordered.

now, i know i’m not that experienced, but all evidence points towards early defibrillation being the only intervention that makes a difference to outcome in arresting patients. some reading on the efficacy of a MET if you’re interested. and he did get early defib, but not according to protocol. it’s possible a 3rd early shock would have depolarised the heart enough to get it back into rhythm… but then, i don’t know if the protocols are based on level 1 evidence - it would be difficult to perform a RCT or get ethics clearance.

so, this guy did eventually get back into sinus rhythm but was intubated, put on a ventilator and then transferred by helicopter to a major sydney hospital. he wasn’t looking good, and if you read that article above only about 17% of arresting patients survive to discharge. in the midst of the ACLS (oh, he wasn’t sedated initially and was reflexively/voluntarily responding to the pain of the cardiac compressions) he defecated.

the smell has stayed with me all day.

if you don’t want CPR, make sure you have an advanced care directive. have a read of this article for one doctor’s thoughts on CPR and why he doesn’t want it.

This is the Mono Lisa done in Beados. Is she smiling or not?

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:19:31 +1000

This is the Mono Lisa done in Beados. Is she smiling or not?

Disorganiser (2007) - Jaka Železnikar

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:50:56 +1000

Disorganiser (2007) - Jaka Železnikar:

left-luggage:

Technically, the work is executed as an add-on for the Web browser Firefox (v. 2.0.0.*); its execution involves the use of a number of Internet or computer technologies. I myself have…

i love this sort of tech/art work

reminds me a bit of christian capurro’s magazine erasing - removing information

The colours of spring… flower arrangement by an 8 year...

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:08:00 +1000

flower on flower action

in the bowl...

The colours of spring…

flower arrangement by an 8 year old boy. nice.

Love a cup of cha. Maybe, when I get time, I’ll sit down...

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:56:26 +1000

Love a cup of cha. Maybe, when I get time, I’ll sit down with a cuppa and update this blog with some bits and pieces. In the meantime…

fundable?

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:34:40 +1000

fundable?:

i got an email that was someone trying to raise $100,000 grand to buy an island. i thought it sounded like crazy spam but i went to the website for a look anyway and found fundable.com one the main page one of the case studies (linked to above) is for Misnomer Dance Theatre in NYC. they used a target of $800 on fundable to raise money for a show. to quote the AD

In the long run, we want our company to serve as a case-study for creating a method of distribution techniques that build wider, more engaged audiences and new models for performing arts companies to generate support. With Fundable, I want to see if fundraising can also be part of this effort, by harnessing the contributing powers of people who discover us online. Your gift will go directly toward commissioning a new work of art: paying the dancers fees, designing costumes, and renting rehearsal spaces.

laudable i suppose. attempting to move back to a patronage system for the arts. and why not? when arts funding bodies have less and less money there have to be different models for finding ways to develop work and sustain companies.

features adelina larsson dancing. shot in a black box studio as...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:28:01 +1000

features adelina larsson dancing.

shot in a black box studio as an exercise in handheld filming, relationship between camera and dancer, and editing to create the choreography.

Animate Inanimate

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:16:20 +1000

Animate Inanimate

What a 7 year old finds interesting in the back seat of the...

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:01:00 +1000

What a 7 year old finds interesting in the back seat of the car.

Testing the photoset function of tumblr.

Bourke street with a tilt shift.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:59:23 +1000

Bourke street with a tilt shift.

the last ride

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:38:21 +1000

ive just come back from an evening session of The Last Ride at Cinema Nova

i’m a bit devastated. i went on my own and think i picked the wrong seat, because there was a cold breeze blowing over me the whole time. that’s not why i’m devastated though.

it’s a beautiful looking film that is heartbreaking in the ugly reality it portrays. there is such attention and care in every image and sound that appears, it is truly stunning.

the story though, is what made me feel so devastated. from a sparse beginning the story and relationship between the two main characters is slowly revealed. the inevitable ending seems natural, but made me feel such a sense of loss and lack of hope without any chance of redemption. it deals with the complexity of love and family and the cycles of dependency and despair that some people get trapped into - and in writing that, i realise there actually are moments of hope, and joy in the story as well.

walking home i cried. i was, still am i think, upset by the fact that some people have such fucked up lives that we think to write books and make movies about them. hopefully as a means to an end of creating more understanding about why fucked up things happen and hopefully allowing the chance for things to change. at least i hope so - because if not, i can’t bear the thought of such talent and energy being used like this. that’s probably a little more hardcore than i meant.

i was moved by the film. it was compelling. and powerful. and a bunch of other adjectives that get overused in film reviews. and it covered a lot of ground in it’s 100 minutes.

it’s definitely worth seeing.