flyingblogspot.com (tales from urban dilettantia)

Readers, there are Happenings baking. Happenings of the nature of a social experiment, a home, a community, an idea, a crazywonderful leap into the unknown.

Cary and I have been considering for some time the theoretical problem of introverted polyamorous beings trying to find a way to invent a household that accomodates shared space, creative space, private space and seclusion, sovereignty, sharing of labour, and room for lovers and friends and family. We’re also really interested in concepts of community and family-of-choice, and how to build these things into our lives, and playing with different models of togetherness.

Somehow, after two weeks of looking at houses ‘as if’ and ‘to get an idea what’s possible’ theory tumbled unexpectedly into launching a social experiment of fabulous proportions.

Today our unconditional approval of finance came through from the bank. We have impulsively purchased a townhouse a mere 750m from Flyingblogspot Cottage as joint investors in this madness. We’re about to move into a household that happens to be split into two separate buildings. We’ve bought it as joint investors rather than as partners in a relationship, so if our crazywonderful experiment yields a result of ‘this does not work’, it will be easy and financially sensible to rent it out as an investment.

It’s a great fit for our needs – large for a townhouse in the area, with spaces for bikes and vehicles, a garage for a workshop and outdoor spaces to work in, space for a cat run, a big bright area upstairs with light that will be just perfect for art and sewing and electronics. The cottage appears to be destined to be library and gamerspace, the townhouse (yet to be named) to be artspace and makerspace.

The second time we went to view the house we took Grahame and Nathalie with us – two people who already have keys to Flyingblogspot Cottage and a standing invitation to treat it as home as required. They were excited too, and helpfully tried to balance our judgment by providing a list of pros and cons. Unfortunately, they were not successful in finding any significant cons, and so were forced to invent a claim that they’d heard that ‘this type of carpet causes Face Death’. Bravely, we decided we were willing to risk Face Death.

Then, suddenly and unrelatedly, Sky and Jason mentioned that they were considering moving into a new house near Hyde Park in the near future and we suggested that they might like to be a part of our extended enclave-based household too, should this happen. It turned out that they liked this very much. In spite of the risk of Face Death.

A few weeks later, we had breakfast with the lovely Alexa who lives around the corner, and I quietly told her about her about the plans and how dearly we would welcome her if she were interested. And then I had a moment of ‘argh, too many people!’ until I realised that there were not too many people, but just the right number of people. (Although I am not above trying to lure Nathalie and Grahame down to Highgate, should the opportunity arise. They are special and do not add to the critical mass of people.)

I’ve been trawling the web for some time to find other mad, land-owning-capitalist-pig hippie communists who’ve tried something like this and have had very little luck in finding precedents. And so, shaping the idea of a community of islands is something of a black hole where benefits and problems are not necessarily forseeable. But it’s thrilling too, in the sense that we are inventing something new that we can shape for ourselves. I keep coming up with a multitude of tiny ideas and asking ‘what if…?’

What if my chickens and garden could help feed us all? What if someone slow-cooks a big pot of food and everyone who wants dinner can wander over to eat together? What if, when there are leftovers that we may not eat ourselves, we can send the other houses a message and say to come and pick them up if they will be eaten? What if my garden becomes a our community garden? What if we order those big mixed boxes of fruit and vegetables and share them? What if we put up a pole and share our an internet connection? What if we turn Hyde Park into our weekend breakfast back yard? So many ideas; what if, what if, what if!

However, in my nervous, over-stimulated excitement over this project, I have neglected to mention that there’s a practical (and by ‘practical’ read ‘begging’) side too. Settlement will take place on the 12th of February. In the meantime, Cary is currently living in a big old rental place in Bayswater and has been there for a decade, and is not an enthusiastic declutterer. (An understatement – in fact he is more of a compulsive this-will-be-useful-er.) Somehow, over the weekends and evenings between now and February, we will need to cull, pack and move a house filled with a decade of collected items and I think we will be in desparate need of help. And so, I thought I’d post the list of things we need, in the hope that anyone who is supportive of our experiment might be able to offer some time and love.

Packing, wrapping and taping

Putting together an ‘everything’s free’ garage sale

Supportive company – bring your study, marking, whatever

Clapping

Lifting things

Supportive nods when Cary is making difficult decluttering decisions

Putting things into other things (hur hur hur)

Hugging

Supportive lunch/coffee delivering to lift spirits

Thing-taking-aparting

Freecycling and finding new homes for things

Slapping whenever we get lost in details or culling angst

Planning logistics and problem solving

Cat reassuring (do not wear kitty ears; Zeus hates and fears that)

Cleaning up

Removing plants we want to keep from the garden

Eleventy million other things I’ve probably forgotten

It’s a big job that we’ll need to tackle incrementally rather than an army-for-a-day job. Beers, food, hugs, eternal devotion and the like will naturally be provided to anyone who turns up at any time; we desparately need our friends and family to help us make our experiment happen!

This morning I have the time to be down in Forrest Place, sitting at OccupyPerth. On the other hand, this morning I have the time to write about OccupyPerth, and things to say. Regrettably, they’re mutually exclusive options, since my netbook isn’t charged. And so I’m here writing, because I believe it’s the more effective use of my time. And so, at greater than expected length, this is my Perth. This is my Occupy. This is my why.

For those who are reading this from afar, a small and peaceful happening in isolated Perth likely hasn’t made your news. Yesterday, the CHOGM – the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – opened here. It’s something that happens bi-annually in various cities, where a staggering amount of money is spent to close off public spaces, sweep the streets of the embarrassing homeless, and to host a summit of monarchs, prime ministers and presidents, not to mention war-criminals who also fall into one or another of those categories. But that’s another rant, and one that’s been well covered elsewhere.

Yesterday morning, a surprisingly large and enthusiastic protest march happened here. People came along for all kinds of reasons – a colourful and chaotic swirl of concerns that they have chosen to raise. Corporate greed, genocide in Sri Lanka, their objections to CHOGM, democracy (or rather, lack thereof) in Zimbabwe, fractional reserve banking, equal marriage, climate change, refugee rights, deaths in custody, mining, and more. All those and a profound wish to demonstrate that the shiny, sanitised face Perth has presented to the CHOGM delegates is not the city we inhabit from day-to-day. A photograph of a protester holding up a sign saying ‘shit’s fucked up and bullshit’ has been doing the rounds for the last couple of weeks, and that probably comes closest to expressing the overall sentiment.

Riot police and mounted police lined up along the perimeter of the restricted area, watching for violence that never came. Police officers herded me into the media pack, in spite of the fact that I wasn’t wearing the necessary credentials, which was surprising and pleasing given that I’d expected them to throw me out. The local media ranted about it being ‘unfocussed’. The people were there for a multitude of personal reasons, and few people agreed on all the things others were there to say. And I thought hard about it all.

Upon returning to Forrest Place, the protest shifted from the hands of the CHOGM demonstrators to those who had been working to get OccupyPerth off the ground, and people stayed there with their concerns, issues, signs and opinions. The previous month, I’d been reading a diverse mix of commentary around the OccupyX events, and until this week I’d not managed to form a consistent opinion. This month, after speaking to a number of people, and in particular one wonderful man who’d spend time at OccupySydney, my opinion has crystalised into solid support.

Like Perth’s CHOGM demonstration, I believe OccupyX isn’t fundamentally about presenting a single, coherent and targeted message or set of demands. Its value and meaning has everything to do with the stubborn occupation of a public space, generally in the face of disapproval and sometimes violent resistance, and to control that space in a manner such that people can express their frustration, anger, sadness, opinions, hopes and fears. People arrive, sometimes with well-argued concerns, but often with inarticulate, uninformed or plain incomprehensible things to say. Things are sometimes – often – organised poorly, randomly, or even in a manner that involves internal oppression within the gathering.

But the micromanagement, the perfection or otherwise, the execution, the persistent presence of only a small group of people in some cities, these things are not really the point. It’s okay for things not to be done optimally, because the point is to be there and – ever more in the face of official resistance – to occupy and to assert that we have every right to gather and to speak. To assert that we haven’t, that we can be moved away, to be told that we’ve made our point and must return home is against everything in which I believe. Return to your homes people; your government has everything under control.

Last night, in the midst of this, I had a realisation. To encroach upon the ability of ordinary people to gather and to speak of their concerns is to move collective dialogue into the domain of the privileged. The people with homes and private spaces that accommodate gathering. The people without thin common walls, and the threat of eviction in the event of such an action. The people who have never, and will never, have the experience of university that funnels many into large groups who have spaces in which to gather, but are so often elitist and alienate the working class. The people who live on our streets and simply don’t have a home.

And so (in addition to a fundamental belief that it is right for citizens to be able to assemble in a public space and to speak) no matter how bizarre, random, or even factually incorrect people’s words may seem to me, I have spent time at OccupyPerth because I cannot watch the crack-downs and removals in other cities without a rising horror that these remove the freedom to speak and organise from the people who need it most.

There will always be some measure of chaos, disagreement and sheer randomness in any movement that attempts to accommodate the ability of all to speak. Some people will inevitably be oppressed by the movement for the views they air, unfortunate as that is. Because we are human, fallible, confused, we will do things that are peculiar, strange, poorly thought out or articulated or plain half-arsed. And that is not the end of the world. The point of OccupyX is not, in the eyes of many, to evangelise, to overthrow or to charm the media or to change the whole world. It is okay not to be perfect, because the point is not, and never has been, perfection. The point of OccupyX is to occupy, and for it to exist – tautological is it is – is sufficient reason for it to exist.