Kim, Lucas and I follow creeks up from the beach to the escarpment.
Lucas re-enacts materialist film events with Louise.
I bought a banjo last night from Clive in Unanderra. He was in his pyjamas.
A MANIFESTO OF FOLLOWING
What are the implications of following? Where does following lead?
Instead of trying at every instant to do something new.
Instead of commenting wryly on the past.
Instead of feeling stuck.
Instead of lamenting the disappearance of the future.
Instead of attending to a restrictive past.
Instead of strictly following.
Instead of strictly going astray.
Instead of imagining that following is a simple process.
Instead of imagining that following is especially hard.
We follow. We follow following. We follow following wherever it leads.
Please some clarity.
I have recorded three albums of material in the past year. None of it is especially innovative. I am following memories, emotions, sensations. It is not really for others to listen to – or to listen to very attentively. I make it available, but in the same manner that smoke wafts over a fence. I am cooking in my backyard. Unavoidably this will have olfactory consequences for my neighbours. But we are all cooking. The smoke and odours blow both ways. None of us are amateurs, none of us are professionals. In the same manner music circulates through the neighbourhood. I am drawn to popular traditions. I’ll play things my own way. I’ll cut corners and cheat. But I am still following.
Similarly, we don’t try to reinvent the creek bed. We follow the creek. We follow the creek as best we can. This also involves walking away from the creek at times. When the path along the creek is blocked then we follow other ways. Whatever way suits. There is some ingenuity here, but the novel turns emerge from the process of following. Following does not have to be dully scrupulous. Nor does it have to obsessively veer off track.
Lucas and Louise’s film work reflects upon following. It stages a repetition that does not actually repeat. Alongside this there can be a less attentive following, a drifting following, a semi-conscious following. All these different modes of following are valid – not that they really need validation.