Huck Walker's Blog, page 2

My Life to Date [In five sentences]

My Life to date(In five sentences)
Incubated in the Western suburbs of Sydney with my five brothers, a menagerie, a fair helping of Cathahol and a dream woven of fiction books, cartoons, drawing trees and boy’s own adventures in all the elements. My teenage years were of angst, escapism and, above all, subterfuge. Newcastle from teens to late twenties was an epoch of chaos, a labyrinthine existence in which I tested my physical and psychological parameters, became a father and husband and a Huckleberry. And then nine years in the sticks and farms of greater New South Wales, where the schools accepted that I was a teacher and the first book, The Griefing, was completed. At the time of writing I am in Canberra, the nation’s capital, where I continue to teach and also get the sense I am waiting for something that will not be my immediate death.
 Naughty Cat
[Ball point on paper... a bit annoyed that the oils from my hand have stained the image]

My Life to date(In five sentences)Incubated in the Wester...

My Life to date(In five sentences)
Incubated in the Western suburbs of Sydney with my five brothers, a menagerie, a fair helping of Cathahol and a dream woven of fiction books, cartoons, drawing trees and boy’s own adventures in all the elements. My teenage years were of angst, escapism and, above all, subterfuge. Newcastle from teens to late twenties was an epoch of chaos, a labyrinthine existence in which I tested my physical and psychological parameters, became a father and husband and a Huckleberry. And then nine years in the sticks and farms of greater New South Wales, where the schools accepted that I was a teacher and the first book, The Griefing, was completed. At the time of writing I am in Canberra, the nation’s capital, where I continue to teach and also get the sense I am waiting for something that will not be my immediate death.
 Naughty Cat
[Ball point on paper... a bit annoyed that the oils from my hand have stained the image]

A Memory of a Lie

A Memory of a Lie


I was eleven or twelve. About thirty boys of similar age were sitting with me in a neat array of wooden desks, wooden chairs with metal legs. There was a little shelf under each desk to put your exercise books into. There was a chalk board and a man with white hair and a face made of the same sinew as his hands. His eyes were pale blue and staring. He and I were the only ones standing. I had not done my homework and he wanted to know why.I don’t remember all the details. I don’t know what happened before or after the exchange. I just remember a rambling story;
‘I had band practice. I was really tired and it was late. It’s a long way home and I fell asleep on the train. The train had taken me way past Granville. I woke up and it was really dark. I had to get home and it took ages, then it was too late to do my homework.’
This is the abridged version. The one without his interjected queries and requests for embellishments, which I gave without pause. I thought if I just kept worming I could get out of it…
I remember something else. I remember that, as my completely fabricated story progressed, all the fidgeting in the classroom slowed and stopped. Everyone was listening to me as I threaded bullshit to the man with the plastic strip of black and white on his collar. (I know that plastic strip was made from the wall of a two-litre ice cream bucket. The black was a piece of electrical tape.)I suspect my peers thought I was about to be killed.‘Brother Smith’ merely stared at me for an inordinate time. It was enough.
"Brother Smith" [Pen and Paper - again]

A Memory of a Lie I was eleven or twelve. About thirty bo...

A Memory of a Lie


I was eleven or twelve. About thirty boys of similar age were sitting with me in a neat array of wooden desks, wooden chairs with metal legs. There was a little shelf under each desk to put your exercise books into. There was a chalk board and a man with white hair and a face made of the same sinew as his hands. His eyes were pale blue and staring. He and I were the only ones standing. I had not done my homework and he wanted to know why.I don’t remember all the details. I don’t know what happened before or after the exchange. I just remember a rambling story;
‘I had band practice. I was really tired and it was late. It’s a long way home and I fell asleep on the train. The train had taken me way past Granville. I woke up and it was really dark. I had to get home and it took ages, then it was too late to do my homework.’
This is the abridged version. The one without his interjected queries and requests for embellishments, which I gave without pause. I thought if I just kept worming I could get out of it…
I remember something else. I remember that, as my completely fabricated story progressed, all the fidgeting in the classroom slowed and stopped. Everyone was listening to me as I threaded bullshit to the man with the plastic strip of black and white on his collar. (I know that plastic strip was made from the wall of a two-litre ice cream bucket. The black was a piece of electrical tape.)I suspect my peers thought I was about to be killed.‘Brother Smith’ merely stared at me for an inordinate time. It was enough.
"Brother Smith" [Pen and Paper - again]

An encounter in a forest

I guess I wanted a break from the conversation. I wanted to take in the tranquillity, if only for a few moments. I haven’t done much shrooming. Just enough to know a handful of species with confidence, and enough to know not to try my luck on anything else.
I wandered away from the others. The trees swallowed their voices quickly. The light mist clamped around me until only my crunching steps and huffing breath met my ears.
The screen in my hand showed three broad sweep of a white fungus, clinging to the side of a rotting log. The white almost glowed against the deep brown of the damp wood, the bright green clusters of lichen ran in horizontal streaks below the mushrooms and a dark green wedge of rising forest crowded the top half of the shot. But it wasn’t as clear as the other two. Swiping through, this photo was better; the angle a little higher so that each fungal crest seemed a little nobler, the focus pulled more tightly so that drops of dew could be picked out on the rim of the white gills.
I discarded the other two shots and kept the good one. There were others. This was my mushroom photo collection. It’s not like I spend my life doing this or anything, I just really like taking photos of them when I see them. Poking through leaf litter, thrusting from a stack of excreta or clinging to logs at all angles, fighting their way upwards and outwards.
I should have been paying more attention to the ground in front of me. There was no path here, just a thick forest floor sloping gently downwards. The small log running length-ways in front of me seemed inconsequential. I barely looked away from my screen as I stepped over it. My boot sank, deep and I pitched forward. I wrenched my other leg under me but it was too late; the more I tried to stay upright, the faster I propelled myself out of control. What followed was less of a fall than a desperate scrabble, followed by a long prolonged and confusing tumble. 
I lay face down in the damp. The earthy smell of humus welled up through my jacket, which had wrapped itself about my head. I pictured my phone arching out and away into the forest, somewhere near the start of my fall, back when I was almost upright. I cursed myself for a Pratt, wondering at how I would be received, crawling back to the others with a broken leg and a bloodied face. I flexed and rolled upright, wondering if I would find my phone before nightfall. I slapped my sides and stretched my back, relieved that, miraculously, I seemed un-damaged. I was just dusting the leaves from my head when I saw it. 
A wizened stump. Mere paces from where I sat. Too large and old to sensibly exist in this manufactured plantation, but there it was. Wider than five times my outstretched arms, looming like a broken tooth and scratching at the canopy far above. And not dead. A single, sinewy arm stuck from its side and up, fanning out and tipped with impossibly bright leaves. Not pine, but oak. An oak in a pine forest.
I was standing then. Impressed by this preposterous remnant. I reached out and touched the leaves. The forest was so still that I could hear them brush against my skin. Some powerful awe then came upon me. I felt compelled to circle the great stump. Time stretched. My footsteps came from far away. I felt no surprise when, on the far side of the stump a great hollow presented itself.And in the dark base of that hollow, cocooned from the world lay a smooth dome of fine mulch. A dome from which rose a grand and solitary mushroom. A stalk like a ships mast, as thick as my shin, rising to a broad dome; a rounded platter the like of which I had never seen. And dimly I wondered if I had hit my head, because the colour, it was not quite blue or was it not quite yellow and now was it russet or mauve? It seemed to take on a new colour for each moment I considered it, and threatened to damage my eyes with a slight but dazzling glow.
I dropped to my knees before this majesty.
Without knowing how long I knelt, I watched a dark spot appear along the smooth horizon of the mushroom’s cap. It grew until it was the size of my thumb. A slug perhaps, or maybe a caterpillar. I bent forward, the tips of my outstretched fingers sinking in the soft humus, trying to get a better look at this smudge of a creature. The glow from the mushroom fought against my eyes. I leaned closer still, trying to bring it into focus. I saw no legs propelling it, nor any slimy trail following its journey. The slow scintillation from the mushroom wove slick patterns along its oily body.
The slug reached the top or the dome and paused. Two pale dots appeared. It lifted its front end and those dots sharpened to pinpricks. It appeared to point itself at me. My face mere centimetres from it.
“Greetings.”
I felt my body listing as the word passed through my mind. Alien and disconcerting. It was not my word. I squeezed shut my eyes then peered again at the little slug.
“Yes. That was me,” it came again.
I felt like I was too close to an immense bell. The tolling was too deep to be audible, but rather it rolled through the water of my body.
“It is alright, human. I am no threat to you.”
Although its appearance had not changed, the slug was smiling. I knew it was smiling.
“What are you?” did I say it or did I think it?
And the slug twisted and extended itself. Curling into a helix. Its eyes split away from its tip on hair thin tendrils.
“I am a Djin,” came the voice. “I am an agent of chance. Of chaos. I may grant wishes to those who find me.”
The dark helix softened. Light blue hair sprouted all down its length. The eyes grew wide and round, staring at me. Now bright orange legs pushed out and it was a caterpillar.
“Am I awake?”
“You are not. But you are not asleep,” The caterpillar lay back down, stretching out in the dusty softness of the shroom. “You are in my moment, while it lasts. My little realm.”
Out of the ramble of my thoughts came a Why.
“Even I cannot say. But I have waited longer than you can comprehend. And now I hope you will release me.”
Again, more confusion. The caterpillar that was a slug was changing again. The blue hair was showering upwards from its body, becoming a perfumed vapour. Sweet, like boiled lollies. The naked sausage left behind puckered in the middle, sucking at its own length. Four little bulbs formed, blooming like a cluster of roses. The petals were orange fire. When fully grown, the Djin shook like a tiny dog and the blooms abruptly folded and fused into a smooth hemisphere. The Djin now resembled an over-sized lady beetle.
“How...?”
“How do you know if this is real? You don’t. How long will this last? This moment will grow closed soon. So I cannot give you more time to attempt comprehension. Instead, I will tell you how we might help each other, human,” the shiny, rigid bug-body began to relax, like wax on a bright window sill. A dull film covered its lustrous body. 
“I can offer you three wishes,” the creature continued, “Three tiny wishes. Three because it is convention. Tiny, to match my form and power.” Its body dulled, becoming translucent. The suggestion of organs hung in the middle of its form.
“You must make the wishes now or they will be gone. You must make them tiny or you will get none. If you make them just right, I will be free from this form. Free to join the universe again.” I sensed a feeling of overwhelming joy at this prospect. The joy was staggering.
“How long do I have?”
A pale green thing now. From the depths of the ocean. It shrugged its blobby shoulders and continued to shift in place.
I bowed my head in thought. Thought that was panicked. Thought that was running hard with adrenaline. I spied a leaf still clinging to my sleeve from my tumble. I remembered my phone flipping from my hand and an idea came.
“I wish,” I paused, checking the wording, “I wish that I could think of a thing and know where it was.”
And I was a breath of air. I was a dust and a whisp, speeding across the leaf litter to the tree and the rock. And I was my phone, lying warm amidst the leaves. And I could feel it and me and the distance between us. I knew where it was.
“You may do this once for each cycle of what you call a day,” The tolling voice intervened.I was breathing hard. My fingers were buzzing.
“It was a good first wish,” said the tiny pearl lizard sitting on the mushroom. “Now, for your second.”
“I, I think…”
“No. You must wish.”
I thought of things a person may wish for. For riches, as money can buy an easy life. For fame, which I would shrink from. For immortality, which seemed cold and dead and most likely beyond the power of this tiny outsider.
 “I wish to stay healthy and live a long life.”
A brief pain and nausea washed over my body. I winced and shuddered as a wetness felt within my limbs drained towards my chest. My sternum pinched inwards and, like the popping of an immense pimple, a fleshy stream gushed from me, pooling in the space between me and the tiny cat that sat atop the mushroom. The flesh coloured mass became a hanging sphere. The cat pursed its lips and blew and the sphere popped. A putrid tang came and went from the air.
“I can grant you physical health, but not mental health,” the little cat was licking its paws.
“What do you mean?”
“The cost of our meeting is your sanity. You cannot receive a wish without being changed. Although the functioning of your brain will be unclouded, you will never again have that certainty you have always taken for granted.”
“What certainty?”
“That you are alive. That the world is predictable and sensible. If you complete the third wish without failing, you will become one of the un-grounded. One who walks with knowledge of the impossible.”
Precious moments passed. The new warmth of my body and depth of my breathing reassured me.
“Your second wish was wanting. But you have not wasted your opportunity.” The Djin was coalescing into the form of a rectangular pyramid. No eyes, but a pair of mites flitting about its zenith. “And now, if you can, make your last wish. If you can, make it one that will complete us both.”
I closed my eyes and tried to find that last wish. Half formed and flawed they came at me, each one a disappointment. I looked up at the Djin to find it had come to the front edge of the giant mushroom. And it did not seem to be my imagination but the mushroom’s glow was dimming. The Djin was tiny now. The size of the nail on my pinky toe. A bright red mouse. Sitting. Staring and imploring.
A solid blankness was in my mind. And then…
“Your time is…” began the Djin.
“I wish for a familiar," I cut in. "A shape-shifter. Small and unpredictable. Just like you. One that will be with me all my life.”
A long moment in which the gravity of the Earth was joined by another force. A force that held everything in expectant stasis, then an explosion of laughter.
                                       --------------------------------------------------------- 
When I awoke I was lying next to a  huge rotten stump. Long bones of bark and wood lay on and around me. In a dark hollow before me slumped the slag of a large and spent mushroom. I stood up and brushed the wet and collapsing wood from my clothes.
And I knew I had not been dreaming because I could feel the invisible cord between myself and my phone, lying halfway up the shallow rise. I knew it had been real because my body hummed with energy, the shallow pains I knew now only by their absence.
And I knew that it was real because the tiny owl sitting on the dead twig on the side of the rotten stump did not fly away when I opened my hand to it
“Thank you, human,” it said, lighting on my palm.
“Are you free?” I thought at it.
“Not yet, but I am released,” and the bird was already shrinking and turning, “For the price of your life-time, I will be free from this form forever. But until then, I will happily shift in your presence.”
I began trudging, reeling in the steps between me and my phone. In the distance I could hear my friends calling.
“Will they see you?”
The Djin passed directly through my hand, a ball of pulsing colours, circled around my arm and sat atop my head.
“No. They will not. But you will. And I will never be far away.”


  ____________________________________________________________________ (Picture coming later...)

"What advice...?"Giving advice is a significant proportio...

"What advice...?"

Giving advice is a significant proportion of my employment.I give advice to people for five days every week. The other two days I try to keep it to myself.
The pattern of interaction runs along the same general lines; some prompt from a student, the class or the content being taught. It invites a clarification and a worked example or two. Often a tangent comes next, but this is optional, and then... some advice.
For the most part the advice is about how to approach specific problems or how to think more broadly about terminology. This advice is pragmatic, specific, prying apart a concept and inserting a new perspective or approach. But then, every day there is at least one interaction where something more is required. Most of these interactions involve tears from someone young who is confused and hurt. Someone trying to meet the expectations imprinted upon them by family and peers. Someone who ultimately burnt these expectations onto their own psyche.
What do I say to them?
Each time I try to weigh what will help them most. So many assumptions are tied up in these interactions. I'm looking to understand their underlying motivations, to see how I can get them to re-align with aims that ring true to them. It's emotional field surgery; time poor, risky but vital.
I tell them, sometimes, about the promises we make to ourselves; "I'm going to get better, I'm going to be better", "This time I'm going to do all the things, make all the advances, show all the people what I can do." These promises are made in heat, when we see the barrel of the year, the term, the week extending before us with the disappointments of the past pressing hard at our backs.
These promises can turn to poison, I tell them, if they are made too boldly, if the architecture of our behaviours doesn't bear the weight of our best intentions.Time, and the tiny distractions, the little forgettings the fun alternatives undermine our goals.
Eventually we begin to question whether there was ever any point to pursuing these now unattainable aspirations. Apathy and procrastination wedge  into the gap between this higher path and the real, everyday trajectory of our lives. Guilt festers this rift. And we begin to drift.
"You don't have to be your past. Let it go. You can start now and be the best you can be from here, and every day you can choose to do the same. To let go. To start afresh and make the most of what is before you."
This is the advice I must remember also for myself.
(3/6/18 - Sunday sketchiness)

In memory of Gnocco.It is with great sadness that we mour...

In memory of Gnocco.

It is with great sadness that we mourn the impending passing of Gnocco, the vacuum sealed pegs of machine rolled starch, vaguely imitating actual gnocchi.
Some have said, unfairly, that Gnocco was a soulless byproduct of the potato growing industry; a mere vehicle for the various sauces that may have breathed some life into the powdery nubs. But I remind all here that each tiny, scalloped morsel carries its own promise of intestine clawing cramps, and significant social awkwardness. Gnocco's short existence will have a lasting effect on us all, as the acidity regulators, potassium sorbate and "natural" flavourings combine with stomach acids and the energy heavy carbohydrates to produce the kind of flatulence that makes passers by wonder if a doctor should be in attendance.
So long, Solanum's bitter offspring. May your leaving us not bring too much sorrow or wincing in the morning.

Two years of digital silence.I've nothing to say, but her...

Two years of digital silence.

I've nothing to say, but here is a picture...

                               Ex - Prime Minister
                              [rendered in ball point pen on paper]

Managers and Leaders

I was recently asked; what is the difference between a leader and a manager. I don't have a memory that provides me with perfect recollection, but  my  pithy and generalist answer ran something like this;

"A manager ensures that the system is running efficiently, safely and profitably whereas a leader will focus on the direction the system is heading."

The answer came quickly at the time because it is a topic I have meditated on. I was then asked to elaborate and qualify my answer. I can't remember what I said in response, probably because I have been responding to the question over and over in my head since then. My compulsively metaphorical psyche keeps returning to a gross characature of the extremes of management and leadership:

A pure manager in captaining their enterprise will see that the ship is neat and tidy, that the crew are efficient and that the top speed is being achieved, safely and repeatably. The enterprise might be going in circles, but it will be doing so with a minimum of down-time.
By comparison, leadership without management would see that same ship adrift on the oceans of possibility, its captain and crew starving and shiftless, all dreamily staring at some distant, worthy goal always just over the horizon.

It seems logical that an effective leader must be able to draw upon and value management skills while keeping their broader purpose in mind. A good leader should be able to inspire purpose in the minds of their fellow crew members while also monitoring and maintaining the smooth operation of the shared enterprise.

Anyhoo... here's a pic.
"Corner Creature"{pen on paper. Approximately the size of an Australian 20 cent piece}

Meanwhile, the 'lottery' ticket is being drawn this evening. I'll find out if my number has come up tomorrow.

Sleep is for Eeeeejits

I wrote this at about 1am last night, due to a complete lack of somnia;



I could blame this on a late coffee, but that’s not the whole story. It’s like I’m holding a lottery ticket. I’m in that wondrous, speculative period in between purchase and draw. A guy once said to me that the odds of winning lotto are fifty fifty; you either win or you don’t. I didn’t argue.People pay for lottery tickets thinking they are purchasing a chance to win. The people who sell the lottery ticket know that the chances of winning are astronomically thin; the winners are the pinpricks of light in the night sky that our eyes are drawn to amidst the sea of darkness created by all the dud tickets. I understand that. Heck, I teach the mathematics that governs chance (permutations and combinations). But what people are mostly paying for is the permission to imagine what they might do with the money they could win. I’m imagining.And it's keeping me awake...  [a stoopid self-portrait I dun on a scrap peice of paper][ballpoint on paper - approx A5]
1. So, I’m thinking about Conversation again. (The public speaking format.) I haven’t organised a competition for many years. I would enjoy doing so again, now that I’ve had time to consider the improvements that need to be made to the mechanics.- Open questions are the key to a good Conversation. The role of Conversation is to avoid an over-reliance on debate and bi-partisan allegiance. That is, people on either side should feel free to express ideas without feeling restricted to supporting a ‘for’ or ‘against’ stance. They should feel free to outline conflicting opinions, to express frustrations and to open themselves up to hypocrisy.-  Examples of conversation topics include; After Utopia. A good roll makes for a sound day. Feed a human a fish. How to take asylum. That’s some fine dirt. How sustainability be made more consumable. Functions of a stable ecolomy. The role of education for special humans. The intersection of state neglect and individual responsibility. How can we do (x)? - So long as the audience has an odd number, people can vote on the winning team. The team, because they are not necessarily aligned with a positive or negative viewpoint on the topic, are then separate from the ideas generated by the Conversation. This means that good ideas can exist in isolation from the personalities or the parties that created them.
2. I’m thinking about methods for teaching history, tying in developmental psychology and technology.- imagine a line. The person (student) initially has adults adding the child(s) development and activities onto the line for them, giving the line an initial scale by these efforts. The child is encouraged to visit this timeline. It may be a collection of photographs, writings, video recordings, graphs etc. placed in chronological order along the line. Once the child is capable, they may add their own information to the timeline, creating a digital diary. Once the child is ready, they may zoom out and begin to add events from before their birth. (With reference to the present, by way of when in their present they are exploring the past). In theory, if the student subscribes to commonly held theory, the timeline should grow to be six billion years long, with most of the activity occurring in the atomically thin sliver of time up one end; their lives. The aim is not to fill the line completely, but merely to continue to add to it. -As an educational tool, this allows for students to own their own version of history. To become historians of their own world view. Historical analysis and projects done by students can be recorded on the timeline, along with their own criticisms and conflicts about their own work. They can watch their own ideas change over time and compare and contrast between published works and the timelines of others.- As a personal history, it allows for the individual to reflect and add to their own experience and understanding of their place and time in the universe, potentially throughout their lives.-This model does not discount alternate views of history, as the timeline might be only six thousand years old for some faith systems. It can still be used by people with such beliefs. For some, the timeline might even branch…-I can see that it is achievable using current programs, such as Notebook 10 or One-note, however I can see that it may be a desirable to create a program from scratch. One that has an ability to zoom in and out, set scales of quick reference that can be shifted to frames of reference or fields of personal interest. It would also have to allow for easily mounted or linked file types and a large degree of storage types and search-ability.3. I’m thinking about the desert city…