Converse Comfort: Old, New, No Hassel

Virtual Scuff on Converse, Gunning NSW 8 April 2020

The 'virtual scuff' - isolation has created new ways of expressing envy, it seems.

Can I help it I look this cool when wearing Converse?

Desi on the catwalk in country flannelette and denim

I've had numerous pairs of Chuck Taylor Hi-Top Converse, but always in black. My Converse have met some awesome people.

Converse with the Hoff, Berlin, November 2019

I've learnt a lot from my Converse. My Converse taught me how to greet people while social distancing.

The Hoffshake

I try not to Hassel the Hoff but my Converse keep leading me to him.

Don't Hassel the Hoff, Berlin November 2020

Sometimes I need a little more than just my Converse for support. I recently turned to the catwalk for assistance with my home office WHS compliance.

Desi, WHS consultant, Keswick, March 2020

My old Converse started to get really comfortable in Germany. They enjoy the life of the mind.

Hannah Arendt Street, Berlin, November 2020.

When one's Converse start to feel really comfortable, however, they are on their last legs.

Converse@Keswick, March 2020

When Converse get old, they feel too comfortable.

Lenny@Keswick, March 2020.

So now I have new Converse.

New Converse at Keswick, Day 1 (today).

They are comfortable in a different way.

Valentine@Keswick, April 2020.

Alas, a virtual scuff from envy. But new Converse bring the perfect mix of glamour and grunge.

Desi@Keswick, March 2020.

Bukowski on Belonging and the Cost of Freedom

Louis Pasteur, oil painting by Albert Edelfelt (1885) at the Musée d'Orsay,  (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons).

Factotum by Charles Bukowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's hard not to enjoy Bukowski's writing. Like with Hemingway and others, why we find it fascinating to read about the shenanigans of people who struggle to write is beyond me. Is it because secretly anyone who reads wishes they could write? Is this part of Robert M. Hutchins' Great Conversation? I don't know.

Yet while some would suggest that Bukowski is the world's greatest misogynist, he doesn't depict anyone else in this novel any worse than he does himself. His mention of ending it all early in the novel hints at the level of self-deprecation that just didn't seem to come through in my reading of Post Office.

In this novel, I feel Bukowski's sense of dereliction of duty but from a sensitive soul who is otherwise intelligent. The constant references to Debussy and Mahler indicate someone who is far more than the alcoholic bum Bukowski portrays in this novel.

Yet it is believable (I am cutting out my adverbs as I write - Bukowski reminds me of a combination of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, hence my hesitation to add "entirely" - he's either believable or he isn't). The protagonist moves from job to job, surrounded by others who share his sense of despair at the world - a world they are part of yet cannot belong to without giving up their sense of identity.

I identify with Bukowski for this reason. Not so much the "beer-sodden" bum who wanders about aimlessly. But the soul who cannot ever belong but is stuck in present company that somehow can turn off their own bullshit meter sufficiently (damn those adverbs!) to carve out an existence of what is essentially living for somebody else.

I find Bukowski's characters admirable because they give up hope without giving up their freedom. Although Henry Chinaski is made to feel as if he doesn't belong because he is excluded from the World War II draft, he still lives as the intelligent loner who doesn't fit in but is stuck anyway.

But the struggle is admirable. Struggle is what we were put on this earth to do. We either struggle against what we do not want, or we struggle for a better life. Henry Chinaski is a drunken, no-hoper bum but he gives me hope - hope that I can live as I choose and not how others choose for me, even if the consequences are high.

And that is why I enjoy Bukowski's work!

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PPN 2020: From Globalization to Globalism

Dr Michael de Percy presenting at the Public Policy Network 2020 Conference.

This paper was the precursor to my chapter 'Populism and a New World Order' in Jakupec, V., Kelly, M., & Makuwira, J. (2020). Rethinking Multilateralism in Foreign Aid: Beyond the Neoliberal Hegemony. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367853808.

The abstract and slides from my presentation at the Public Policy Network 2020 Conference at the University of Queensland on 30 January 2020 are below:

Abstract

Institutions tend to be stable for extended periods of time, punctuated by exogenous events that can lead to institutional change. If institutions tend to reinforce their own rules and routines, it can be said that institutions cannot then change themselves. While wars and other major exogenous events can lead to institutional change, ideas are also powerful, and relatively peaceful, drivers of change. Since the establishment of an international trade regime at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, new ideas about the best way to organise the economy have influenced global trade, resulting in the establishment of the World Trade Organisation in 1995. The idea of free market economics led to a new global trading system, coinciding with the end of the Soviet Union, and this system has remained relatively stable since the end of Keynesianism on a global scale. Recently, however, the rise in populism and the re-emergence of nationalism have challenged the existing world order. This chapter examines the impact of the rise in populism and the re-emergence of nationalism on the international institutions of global trade. Using theories of institutional change, the chapter examines the extent that populist ideas about free trade versus protectionism are leading to a new world economic order.

From Globalization to Globalism: The Impact of Populism on Multilateral Institutions from University of Canberra