WATCH EPISODE 2 OF CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S FILM ABOUT KAIDIE! And COME ATTEND KAIDIE’S OTHER GIGS SUMMER-FALL 2010 (Nondon, Sao Paulo, Surrey, Singapore, Online)!
Episode 2 of a film by Kaidie’s running buddy, the wonderful Claudia Tomaz, is uploaded! WATCH AND VOTE for RUN KAIDIE RUN NOW! And if you haven’t already watched Episode 1, WATCH AND VOTE for KAIDIE AND THE MEANING OF LIFE 3.0 NOW! Thank you Claudia for the hard work! We feel sorry for Claudia for having to go through a couple of hours of footage of Kaidie’s yakking. And this is certainly not the last of collaborations between Kaidie and Claudia! Do support Claudia’s ongoing London Ground project!!
Left: Episode 1. Right: Episode 2. Spot the difference! In one of them, Kaidie yaks for 12 minutes. In the other, she yaks for 10. Kaidie is holding a (then-broken) Garmin Forerunner 405 which she is wearing for 1 year as part of a collaboration with Urbantick. This GPS gadget has been Kaidie's constant running buddy for the past 3 months. More details about this in the next posts!
And thank you all My Dear Readers/ Collaborators for writing in to advise us about places we could run to for a day or 2 away from Nondon. Some of you also wrote directly to Kaidie to share some fabulous hideouts. We respect your instruction to keep these places top secret! But if you (ie, everyone else except those who wrote to tell us about these secret hideouts) want to be tipped off about these places, do one or all of the following and we may consider giving you a hint or two: 1) send us an intense chocolate cake, 2) buy us a carton of lovely dry bubbly 3) tell us a place we can get authentic sashimi at affordable prices here in Nondon 4) share with us a lovely route to run in Nondon 5) Be Kaidie’s training buddy and run 27-35km with Kaidie as part of her training for her first Life 1.0 marathon (We are now up to 26.7km so far but alas, a marathon is 26.2 MILES, not km. The heat does not help with the physical and mental exhaustion, burning our soles/souls/sows. And, to rub in with t.m.i., at least two of our toenails are falling off)… If you find this repulsive (fallen toenails and tmis), don’t worry, we do too.
Left: venue of Blacked Out (near London Bridge station). Right: Clip by the groovy Singapore filmmaker Chew Tze Chuan of Kaidie's permanent public work in Singapore, as Kaidie cannot be there. THANK YOU Chew!!
The following is our itinerary for the next few months, in a few places. YOU ARE INVITED! Or please invite yourselves. Don’t be shy. It’s easier for us too… Nearer said dates of gigs please come back to this running blog of ours (and click on the category of itinerary and gigs) to check details. See you sooner/later.
UPCOMING ITINERARY (LONDON, BRAZIL, SURREY, SINGAPORE, ONLINE)
* 5 August, LONDON UK: Presentation about Kaidie’s travels all these lives in Dr Nick Grindle’s Art, Activity, Environment course, Slade Summer School.
* 21- 28 August, LONDON, UK: Blacked Out group show at Arch 897, Holyrood St, London SE1 2EL. Curated by Jennifer Hankin. Kaidie will be sharing a video projection, its London premiere. Private View: Thursday 19 August 18:30-21:30 hrs, WITH FREE BOOZE AND LIVE MUSIC! Invite yourself and your mates (if you have any?) on the evil Facebook. Or just come, but do wear something that befits the theme of lightness and dark. Why? Just because.
* 1 day trip away from Nondon! Yay! In a bid to travel light, we will NOT bring the memory trapper of a camera. But we will wear our Garmin to track our routes, and share that with you later. Currently we are giving each option a serious thinking through and have not decided where to go.
* 5-8 September LONDON, UK: DRHA 2010 conference (Digital Resources for Humanities and the Arts) Brunel University. Kaidie will be interviewed by a member of the audience, played by Kai Syng Tan, in A Rough guide to (The Meaning of A) Life 3.0: Author Slash Actor Slash Audience: A lecture performance, on Tuesday 7th September from 5.30-6.30pm AA109. Prominent figures like Stelarc and Steve Dixon will be present. Again, go ahead and invite yourself on the evil Facebook (This event is NOT free-of-charge to attend, however).
* September: Trip to Belfast?? We will bring the memory trapper.
* 19 September, SURREY, UK, and ONLINE: Kaidie runs her first ever Life 1.0 marathon on the historical Pilgrim’s Route, in the Farnham Pilgrim’s Marathon, Surrey, UK. Kaidie will be raising money for a charity, and you can follow Kaidie’s progress (or regress?) of her 42km race as she tweets segments from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales ‘live’! Kaidie might run dressing up as a monk (thank you Duncan for your suggestion!), nun or horse, but we will have to watch the erratic bowel movement if the latter (unless of course, we do an impromptu Paula Radcliffe). As this is our first ever Life 1.0 marathon, there is always the possibility of things screwing up (perhaps more so than if we have done this before, though experience does not guarantee perfection, of course). So, if we do not see you again, it has been nice knowing you, see you in our next lives, same time, same place, etc etc.
* 7-11 October, SINGAPORE: Skype performance + exhibition of images and maps from Kaidie’s journey + film screening at ArtSingapore: The Contemporary Asian Art Fair. Curated by Meena Mylvaganam.
* 18-21 October SAO PAULO, BRAZIL: Soft Borders conference. Kaidie will be presenting a lecture-performance. Her paper will be published in a publication.
* November, LONDON, UK: PhD upgrade presentation, Slade School of Dine Art.
* 3-5 December, LONDON, UK: Performance at Sexuate Subjects: Politics, Poetics and Ethics, University College London, UK.
* December, INDIA: Curating a South East Asian Film programme at a Film Festival.
* Winter: ‘Live’ GPS-Twitter-Nondon run: a locative performance event with Urbantick.
Left: Kai Syng Tan impersonates Kaidie's audience at DRHA, London. Right: Kaidie's first Life 1.0 42km race in Surrey. Do sponsor!
ONGOING (ONLINE, SINGAPORE)
* ONLINE: 22 minute film about Kaidie by award-winning filmmaker CLAUDIA TOMAZ (Venice, Locarno):
– Episode 1 (12 minutes): Kaidie talks about this in general. WATCH AND VOTE for KAIDIE AND THE MEANING OF LIFE 3.0 NOW!
– Episode 2 (10 minutes): focuses on Kaidie’s running. WATCH AND VOTE for RUN KAIDIE RUN NOW!
* SINGAPORE: From 17 April 2010 until forever and ever (theoretically-speaking): Nightly from 19:29hours. Permanent public display: large video projections, The Amazing Neverending Underwater Adventures, at the Bras Basah Mass Rapid Transit station (subway) of the Circle Line. Commissioned by the Land Transport Authority, this is the only station with a video art work. The 29-minute video cycle with 29-chapters and 29 riddles stars Desyphus (Sisyphus+deceive+decipher, geddit?), a predecessor of 3rdlifeKaidie, who swims perpetually in the looped line. Music composition by Philip Tan. Mayo Martin of Today newspaper has named this his favourite artwork of the Circle Line. Wacky Singapore filmmaker Chew Tze Chuan has also uploaded a clip of the work in action. Kaidie will discuss this work in here in the weeks to come. Look out for it!
Left: Kaidie 'live' in Art Singapore via Skype. Right: Kaidie travels to Brazil for the first time in (any of) her life.
Images on this page are screenshots from respective sites.
INTERMISSION: RUNNING AWAY FROM NONDON FOR A DAY OR TWO. WHERE TO? Part II.
In the previous post, Kaidie asked where she could go for a day or two, away from Nondon. As Chatwin says in his Anatomy of Restlessness, there exists an innate need in us to undertake ‘journeys of the mind and body’. Even while travelling, as we are, being on the journey from life to death, in Nondon. Reprinted here are some of the advice we have received so far. Thank you Susan, Miss Nim (a sponsor of Kaidie’s charity run in March 2010), Chuthatip aka Chutha Indigo aka The Good Pirate aka Fisherman, Aaron and Meena (who had previously helped to look for Kaidie when she was missing)! Kaidie’s running buddy, Claudia Tomaz, is also itching to have a little respite. So, do keep the advice coming in!
Reprinted from Facebook as of Sunday 25 July 2010.
* Walking around Woolwich and Greenwich for 3.5 hours this afternoon, Kaidie realised that Nondon is the one city she is not felt strange, or different, or is foreign (one of the reasons being simply that nearly every other person is strange, different and foreign, too), or out of place (what an evocative expression), or that she shouldn’t be. This is not necessarily the case of the 102 other cities in 32 countries that Kaidie has visited or lived in her previous lives, not even the one that she first arrived in. (All that said, one of the reasons why we are employing running as a navigational tactic for our 21st century reality is precisely because we do want to always feel foreign, strange, different and never settled down. We are never at home, but are out of our comfort zones at all times, and are instead invariably homesick, yearning for a ‘home’ – or an idea, or idealisation of a home. This ‘home’ is yet to be defined, and we resist and put off and postpone calling any place ‘home’, including Nondon).
** Do continue to watch and vote for CLAUDIA TOMAZ’s film, Kaidie and The Meaning of Life 3.0, Episode 1. Episode 2 coming up!
Some of Kaidie's desired next stops (in this or other lives): Iceland (where Marker filmed the '3 children on a road' in Sans Soleil), Norway (aha, a childish desire), Denmark (for Dreyer, and not for Von Trier), Brazil (this October?) (where Herzog crossed the Amazon with his impossible task), Morocco, Canada (for Gould), Algeria (for Camus), the Trans-Siberian (for ever and ever), the Taklimakan desert (ditto), Bhutan (the happiest place on earth), Dubai (one from one theme park to an other), Las Vegas (ditto) (and travels in hyperreality), Belfast (as a city of in-between), Bilbao, River Danube (bordering 10 countries - does it connect or separate them?), DMZ , Gaza (instead of viewing from the other side in Sderot), Xinjiang, Damascus (when Peter O'Toole took over her in Lean's epic that was watched 40 times in a previous life as a child), Mexico (for the amazing Tarahumara runners), Mount Hiei (for the mad marathon monks), Greenland (for Miss Smilla), the part of Russia where The Belovs was filmed, other parts of Finland (for the Leningrad cowboys and Lordi) and Suomenlinna again.
INTERMISSION: RUNNING AWAY FROM NONDON FOR A DAY OR TWO. WHERE TO?
Hair 6 June 2010, split till Kaidie's end (uncut 12.12.2009 - 09.09.2012, after Tehching Hsieh)
In Life 1.0, Kaidie lives in Nondon. Yet, as we know, any peripetetic runner must deny herself allegiances, and must attach herself to the ethos of non-attachment. Instead, she traverses multiple terrains at the same time, double-triple-crossing, happily crisscrossing her eyes, splitending her hair and curling her toes while dipping curly fries in pig’s cheeks at the same time. So, while Kaidie always insists that she loves Nondon (and that Nondon loves her?), every so often, she must run away from her, to an other place in Life 1.0 that is non-Nondon, non-non-London. We love the city, but the task of the trans-dimensional runner is to resist liking any one place or thing too much. Also, it is Summer just now. Kaidie and her all-consuming love affair with Nondon could do with a little break.
Hence, our Dear Reader, where can Kaidie run away to, for just a day trip, this Summer? Somewhere nearby, but somewhere that looks/sounds/smells/feels different enough from our lovely Nondon. A different terrain to run, with a different scenary, that would give Kaidie a different gait and different rhythm of breathing, and to urge – ever so gently – that stubborn flu of 3 weeks to please leave her system, if not for good, for a little while.
Kaidie recalls a particularly invigorating Summer in a previous life, during which she spent a month in Suomenlinna, in Helsinki, Finland. The weather was extremely crisp, dry and sunny, the flat splendidly spacious and bright (Kaidie was retrospectively told that that was an especially brilliant Nordic Summer). Upon arrival, she was filled with a dread, assuming at once that as a lifelong urban denizen across many lifespans, the fortress island would be unbearable and boring. What arrogance. For, within a couple of days, Kaidie began a month-long routine of walking along the coasts for hours at length, as well as exploring the many tunnels. Although a tiny island, the place opened up the more Kaidie walked it, as if an endless Escher print full of surprising rabbit holes. She would return to the studio to type some notes with no particular intention. In the heady mixture of liqourice ice-cream, squeaky cheese, canons facing generations of enemies, picnics at sloping hills, dipping into the sea, rocking in ferries, blond hair, blue eyes, green eyes, blue-green eyes, and midnight suns, the seeds of Kaidie’s current life, and life story, and task, were planted.
This, of course, was before Kaidie became ‘Kaidie’.
Foam with (foamy) memory. What does it recall? What does it forget? What does it selectively memorise?
Travelling to Stockholm from Helsinki on the trashy Viking Line that Summer, Kaidie recalled Ingmar Bergman’s Summer With Monika (1953). (Kaidie’s favourite work of the great auteur, however, is the shattering Wild Strawberries). This summer, one of Kaidie’s virtual running buddies, James Odling-Smee, tells Kaidie about another Summer with Monika, by Roger McGough (Liverpool, 1967). That summer, Kaidie’s hair was slightly longer than it is now. After she left Suomenlinna, to return home, or ‘home’, she had much of it cut.
In the spirit of summer, with Monika, Monikas, in Stockholm, Suomenlinna, Liverpool, London, Non-London, Nondon, Non-Nondon, Non-non-London, 1953, 1967, 2006, 2010, we reprint McGough’s poem here.
Summer With Monika
They say the sun shone now and again
but it was probably cloudy with far too much rain.
They say the greatest train robbery in history took place,
probably students,
who else wants to steal a train.
They say cabinet ministers and osteopaths
were particularly vulgar about this time,
they say babies were born,
married couples made love,
often with each other
and people died, sometimes violently.
They say it was an average, ordinary, moderate,
run-of-the-mill, common-or-garden summer,
but it wasn’t.
For I locked a yellow door
and I threw away the key
and I spent summer with Monica
and Monica spent summer with me.
Unlike everybody else we made friends with the weather,
most days the sun called and sprawled all over the place,
or the wind blew in as breezily as ever
and ran its fingers through our hair.
But usually it was the moon that kept us company.
Some days we thought about the sea-side
and built sandcastles on the blankets
and paddled in the pillows
or swam in the sink,
and played with the shoals of dishes.
Other days we went for long walks around the table
And picnicked on the banks of the settee.
Or just sun-bathed lazily in front of the fire
Until the shilling set on the horizon.
We danced a lot that summer
bosa nova-ed by the bookcase,
or Madisoned instead,
Hulli-gullied by the oven,
or did the twist in bed.
At first we kept birds in a transistor box to sing for us,
but sadly they died,
we being too embraced in each other to feed them.
But it didn’t really matter
because we made love songs with our bodies.
I became the words and she put me to music.
They say it was just like any other summer,
but it wasn’t.
For we had love and each other and the moon for company,
when I spent summer with Monica
and Monica spent summer with me.
Ten milk bottles standing in the hall,
ten milk bottles up against the wall,
next door neighbour thinks we’re dead,
hasn’t heard a sound he said,
doesn’t know we’ve been in bed,
the ten whole days since we were wed.
No one knows and no one sees
we lovers doing as we please
but people stop and point at these
ten milk bottles a-turning into cheese.
Ten milk bottles standing day and night,
ten different thicknesses and different shades of white.
Persistent carol singers without a note to utter
silent carol singers,
a-turning into butter.
Now she’s run out of passion
and there’s not much left in me
so maybe we’ll get up and make a cup of tea.
then people can stop wondering what they’re waiting for
those ten milk bottles a queuing at our door.
I have lately learned to swim
and feel more at home in the ebb and flow
of your slim rhythmic tide
than in the fully dressed,
couldn’t care less
restless world outside.
You squeeze my hand and cry a little
You cannot comprehend the raggle taggle of living
and think it unfair that death
should be the only one
who knows what he’s doing.
You are afraid of the big bad dark
which loiters in our room
the night it prowls about the yard
the wind howls in distress
The Tom-moon peeps through the window
waiting for the table to undress.
It will soon be tomorrow
there’s nothing to fear
You whisper,
‘ever leave me?’
and put your tongue in my ear.
Sssshhhhh…….
don’t open it,
it can only be
the enemy.
____________
Said I trusted you, spoke too soon
heard of your affair with the man in the moon,
You say that it’s all over, then if you’re right
why does he call at the house every night.
Once I paid the piper and called the tune,
but one afternoon returning home early from the office
I found you in bed with the piper.
You call the last waltz
and now I dance sadly out of your life.
Monica who’s been eating my porridge
while I’ve been away?
My Quaker oats are nearly gone, what have you got to say?
Someone’s been at the whisky,
taken the jaguar keys
and Monica another thing
who’s trousers are these.
I love and trust you darling
can’t really believe you’d flirt
but there’s a strange man under the table
wearing only a shirt.
There’s someone in the bathroom,
someone behind the door,
the house is full of sexy men,
Monica,
Don’t you love me anymore?
You are a woman of many faces
and the one that suits you best I fear
is the one you wear when I’m not here,
for when you wear your marriage face
boredom lounges round the place
Your finger sadly has a familiar ring about it.
Last night was your night out
and just before you went
you put your scowls in a tumbler
half filled with Sterodent
so they’d keep nice and fresh for me.
Monica,
the tea things are taking over,
the cups are as big as bubble cars
they throttle round the room,
the tin-openers skate on the greasy plates
by the light of the silvery moon.
The biscuits are having a party
they’re necking in our bread bin,
that’s jazz you hear in the salt cellars
but they don’t let non-members in.
The egg spoons had our eggs for breakfast,
the sauce bottle’s asleep in our bed,
I overheard the knives and forks
it won’t be long, they said
it won’t be long, they said,
and it wasn’t.
It all started yesterday evening
as I was helping the potatoes off with their jackets
I heard you making a date with the kettle,
I distinctly heard you making a date with the kettle,
my kettle.
Then at midnight,
In the half light,
When I was polishing the blue speckles in a famous soap powder,
I saw you fondling the frying-pan,
I distinctly saw you fondling the frying-pan,
My frying-pan.
Finally at mid-dawn,
In the half light
While waiting in the cool shadows beneath the sink,
I saw you making love with the gas cooker,
I distinctly saw you making love with the gas cooker,
My gas cooker.
My mistake was to leap upon you crying,
Monica, spare the saucers.
For now I’m alone,
you having left me for someone with a bigger kitchen.
In, October, when winter the lodger the sod,
came a-knocking at our door,
I set in a store of biscuits and whisky
you filled the hot-water bottle with tears
and we went to bed until spring.
In April we arose,
warm and smelling of morning,
we kissed the sleep from each others eyes,
and went out into the world,
and now summers here again regular as the rent man,
but our lives are now more ordered, more arranged.
The kissing, wily, carefree times are changed.
We no longer stroll along the beaches of the bed,
or snuggle in the long grass of the carpets,
the room no longer a world for make believing in
but a ceiling and four walls that are for living in.
We no longer eat our dinner holding hands
or neck in the back stalls of the television
the room no longer a place for hide and seeking in
but a container that we use for eat and sleeping in.
Our love has become as comfortable
as the jeans you lounge about in
as my old green coat
as necessary as the change you get from the milkman
for a ten bob note.
Our love has become as nice as a cup of tea in bed,
as simple as something the baby said.
Monica, the sky is blue, the leaves are green,
The birds are singing, the bells are ringing,
For me and my gal.
The suns as big as an ice cream factory,
the corns as high as an elephants eye
could go on for hours about the lovely weather
we are having,
but Monica,
they don’t make summers like they used to.
– Roger McGough
** Do continue to watch and vote for CLAUDIA TOMAZ‘s film, Kaidie and The Meaning of Life 3.0, Episode 1. Episode 2 coming up. **
Kaidie goes ON, and ON, and ON… for 12 minutes in CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S London Ground film ‘KAIDIE AND THE MEANING OF LIFE 3.0′ EPISODE 1. WATCH and VOTE NOW!
Claudia at work filming Kaidie at work. Other images are screenshots of related websites (see links below).
Multiple-award-winning filmmaker CLAUDIA TOMAZ (Locarno!! Venice!!!!!!!!!!!!) has made a film about Kaidie. This is Episode 1 of 2, in which Kaidie talks about her Rough Guide To The Meaning Of Life 3.0: Kaidie’s 1000-day Trans-dimensional Run 12.12.02009 – 09.09.2012. And talks. And talks. AND talks. For ALL 12 minutes. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Episode 2 coming soon! (EVEN) More yakking!! Take a look at the film and do vote for it! The music that you can hear is composed by award-winning PHILIP TAN (Animal Farm, National Day Parade 2008, Football! Football! 2010). The film was shot 24 June 2010, at the Slade Centre of Research of the Slade School of Dine Art, Nondon, when Kaidie was installing her meta-map wall installation.
You, My Dear Reader, are not unfamiliar with Claudia, a filmmaker-artist-writer-performer-activist who also spins under the name Cloud 9. You have seen her contributions here, there, there too, there there too, as well as here, just to name a few! And there are many more in Life 2.0! Claudia is one of Kaidie’s most constant co-runners of this quest. Her thought-provoking feedback, insights and suggestions have pushed Kaidie and her adventure in many exciting ways, making her otherwise silly journey worth travelling.
The Do It With Others (DIWO) ethos of this work also underlies Claudia’s LONDON GROUND series, of which the film on Kaidie is a part of. London Ground is a collection of films ‘made in collaboration with selected artists of different practices (music, film, art, activism) in London underGROUND 2010. The artists invited are not mainstream ones, but people with dreams and their feet on the ground,’ according to the artist.
Booked doublefaced: This week, Kaidie's Facebook profile picture is that shot by Claudia; guess who shot Claudia's picture?
SICK ON/OF SUNDAY, MORNING (watch out the worlds behind you).
Mixed signals, outside Regents Fark.
6:30am, Sunday. Nondon’s revellers from the previous evening are still roaming the streets, in search of action. Some attempt to run along with me. Fortunately, I could outrun them.
Some Sundays are easier, others less so. 2 Sundays ago, I could only manage 2 laps, instead of the intended 5, and with much difficulty, after having overcome some physical and mental roadblocks. I felt ill, or imagined that I felt ill, since one can never be certain (Do I feel hot? Do I feel cold? Am I shivering? But I am sweating buckets. Do I feel hot and cold at the same time? Is that not self-regulating and, theoretically, nice? Is this not usual? What, then, is the issue? Am I running out of excuses?) People talk about ‘listening to one’s body’ – however mine does not speak the same language as my mind, and therein lies the problem of (not) understanding.
In our fantastic(al) pursuit for The Meaning Of Life across various spatio-temporal dimensions, we come up with many more maps that attempt to articulate, define and indeed find and create our position(s) in the (grand) scheme of things. Each one of the maps/charts/diagrammes/mandalas/images/representations/visualisations invariably attempts to be an improvement (of sorts) of the previous, but all try their best, as pictures, to be picture-perfect, with demarcations and borders clearly drawn (Is that not the whole point?). But these idealisations never ever work in practice (is any body surprised?). In real life/in Life 1.0, spillages/cross-fertilisations/mix-&-matches/picks-&-mixes happen in mega-orgies that beat all tomorrow’s parties, hands down. Only mongrels/hybrids/chimeras/hyphenates exists, in a chaosmos that is calamitous as it is celebratory. There is no line, for instance, that separates happiness and sadness (or so-called ‘happiness’ and so-called ‘sadness’); feelings of strength, calm and elation exists in the very same dimension with despair, desolation and gloom. Not even a thin line. Not even a thinly veiled attempt at that. Does that not complicate things a little? (Why then, have different words, if they are [supposed] to refer to the same thing?) What are we supposed to do when they come hand-in-hand?
At this point – which is as good as any other – one is reminded that Sunday mornings, and the notion of Sunday, is a recurrent theme in many a popular tune. Our favourite on a Sunday, that are (re-)played in our heads as we do our laps, whenever we allow non-silence to interrupt, are those by Velvet Underground (although, or becuase it has been said that Lou Reed wrote this for Nico, he sounds exactly like her) Sonic Youth and Billie Holiday (and some of their derivitives).
(Speaking of Lou Reed, there is of course his Run Run Run which Kaidie can run to, in each of her 3 lives).
KAIDIE PAYS HOMAGE TO SOME OF HER VIRTUAL RUNNING BUDDIES AT HER LIFE 1.0 SHOW! #8 YOU CAN BE KAIDIE’S COLLABORATOR TOO!
These are but a handful of Kaidie’s running buddies – real, virtual, imagined – so far, whom Kaidie has met in her Life 3.0 in the past 7 months. There are many, many more! YOU can play a role in Kaidie’s life/ lives! Kaidie’s is a collaborative, open(-ended?) quest for The Meaning of Life 3.0! RUN with her for the rest of the 790 days! Here are just a handful of outcomes Kaidie has created with YOU, My Dear Reader/Contributer/Collaborator/Conspirator of Pleasure, so far, including by some of these amazing Nondoners photographed here!. Contribute, by writing in, sending her feedback here, giving her suggestions, sending her images and sounds and ideas for her to jam with, with you! Add ‘Kaidie Nondon’ as your best Facebook Friend Forever! Friend ‘Kaidie3rdlife’ on Youtube! Follow Kaidie ‘live’ on Twitter! Track her Life 1.0 tracks on GPSies! Friend ‘Kaidie Absent’ in Second Life! Help us make this the best run of our lives!
JAMES ODLING-SMEE’S GENESIS OF THE CHOCOLATE NEMESIS.
Under ordinary circumstances, Kaidie can demolish any Nemesis – especially Dark Chocolate ones, and in particular those of 70% cocoa and above (yes, ones that are 85% too) – with absolutely no effort. Including, and especially big big big ones. However, under extraordinary circumstances last week, The Chocolate Nemesis (TCM) launched a most brutal attack (Perhaps Kaidie shouldn’t have departed from her Companion For The Evening? Would CFTE have helped her win the Battle?). Kaidie did not expire before her 1000-day grant, being skillfully saved by 2 Amazing Angels. Here, we learn about the genesis of the word famous James Odling-Smee‘s Formidable Chocolate Nemesis. Mister Odling-Smee is one of Kaidie’s virtual runing buddies whom she met when running in Life 2.0, specifically, the evil Facebook. Here is THE FIRST EVER CAKE AND RECIPE SHARED ON A RUNNING BLOG OF A TRANSDIMENSIONAL RUNNER. Yes it is official!
NAVIGATING THIS BLOG LOG JOG
GETTING THE HANG OF GETTING LOST – HOW (NOT) TO NAVIGATE THIS BLOG
Many of you have complained endlessly about how impossible it is to navigate this blog. Well, allow me, the Grand Architect/Maestro/Mistress/Creator/Maker/Mastermind/Mistressmind of this blog, to enlighten you. You may be surprised, but it is not haphazard at all, and is actually awfully methodical. Many of you often judge that Kaidie and her lives are unstructured, but let me – get this from the horse’s mouth- tell you that every single move is actually calculated and carefully mapped out, and there is a grand structure in all of this. For real. Really. (Neigh. Grunt. Snort.) Or a few grand and grandious structures. That overlap and interact and interplay with one other and an other. So here is my be-all-end-all rough guide to the Rough Guide To The Meaning Of A Life 3.0, for all the lost souls out there and in here:
GETTING THERE 1:
There is a little arrow on the bottom left and right of each post. They bring you to the previous post or the next post, respectvely.
GETTING THERE 2:
Alternatively, use the site map, which gives you an overview.
GETTING THERE 3:
Scroll right down, there are 3 columns. For a chronological sequence, go to ‘KAIDIE’S PASTS, NOW’ in the middle column, and click on the archive, and just read how each day has developed since 12.12.2009.
GETTING THERE 4:
If you, like me, think in terms of ideas, you would enjoy surfing the blog using the tags/keywords (under ‘THEMES/VARIATIONS’) on the right column.
GETTING THERE 5:
Instead of tags, you can also go by categories (called ‘TOURS/DETOURS’), in the middle column.
GETTING THERE 6:
On the top, right under the title of the blog, says ‘(dis-)orientations’. You will find pages here. These pages are general notes about the blog which you can refer to for the 1000 days. This is a page. Hence you will not find the little arrows that I mentioned, which are found only in the posts. Kaidie publishes 1-7 posts per week.
GETTING THERE 7:
Well there is no ‘right’ way! Just get lost! And I am not being rude! Try it! (Or I guess most of you are already, without trying.)
WHEN ONE IMAGINARY FIGURE (who is currently run down with gastric flu) RUNS INTO AN OTHER, WHAT SHOULD/COULD SHE SAY?
Left: 27 May 2010, Museum of Nondon. Right: 6 July 2010, BBC. Kaidie feels quite underdressed and under-made-up next to Claire, but takes comfort in the observation that we share the same hairstyle- in the front, at least (although her blunt fringe is more austere than Kaidie's DIY one).
In our epic quixotic quest for the Meaning Of Life 3.0, Kaidie encounters things/people beautiful, brilliant, and downright bizzare (But of course – without all that drama, melodrama, hitting of supersensitivelysensational gspottingly-explosive landmines (ohhhh yesssssss), going on freefalls (ohhhh yesssssss) and hitting of no punchlines, how could we sustain this bloody story of our lives?!) Bizzare, even by Kaidie’s bizzare standards. Kaidie (Since this post name-drops to death, let’s go) (3rdlifekaidie) (kaidie3rdlife) (Kaidie Nondon) (Kaidie Absent) (Kai Syng Tan) first came face to face with Grayson Perry (Claire) at the opening party of the Museum of Nondon, Thursday 27 May 2010. As seen in these pictures taken by Guy Gormley (Louis Enchante), Kaidie was wearing one of Kaidie’s ‘ministerial dresses’ that has also met President Shimon Peres, President SR Nathan, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, and a few other Ministers and Ambassadors in the past couple of years in a previous life (Yes, it is time we get new costumes and not commit the faux pas of looking as if we are in the same spatio-temporal dimension with the same clothes across lives). Apart from Perry, Kaidie also ran into other larger-than-life figures such as the conservative Boris Johnson (the one nice thing about him is his huge mop of blonde hair), nasal-voiced Alfie (Michael Caine), Woman with Rather Large Hair (Babara Windsor) and Red Ken Livingston (ex-Nondon-mayor-but-to-be-Nondon-mayor again?).
Tomorrow evening, Kaidie will be running into the Turner Prize winner Perry again, in the BBC studios, in a TV programme. While Kaidie had been on TV programmes in some of her previous lives, Kaidie is quite terribly excited as this is her first as an audience member in this life in Nondon (BBC reminds us to ‘make a major contribution to the show. You may see yourself on screen and it’ll be your applause or laughter that you’ll hear’. But being quiet, well-mannered and modest people in Life 1.0, BBC may be disappointed to know that we will not be creating any ruckus, except maybe to throw some chocolate muffins at Ben Fogel when he speaks, but eat them when it is Perry’s turn to speak). When we first met Perry / Claire, we said: ‘We quite liked your maps at the Marvellous Magnificent Maps exhibition at the British Library!’, to which Perry managed a noncomittal ‘Thank you’.
If we were given the opportunity this evening, what should we say to Perry? What should we say to Claire? What should we say to Claire-Perry? Do write in and let us know! (And watch this space for our post-show report!)
(It is official, however, that we are currently struck with gastric flu, according to our local GP, which explains the dizziness during our worst-ever run last Sunday and this morning’s nausea even when only wimpishly pulling down 0.0010 minimilligrammes of weights at the wimpish gym. We just hope that we will not sneeze/puke/projectile-puke/burp/speak in tongues at our companion/Perry/Claire/Fogel, or, worse, do all at the same time [given the multitasker that we are], or fall asleep mid-show at 19:30hrs, which we have in the past 3 days, and still wake up 8/9/12 hours later and looking and feeling like a bloated pumpkinbumpkin that has been run over by a few cars at Regents Fark. ‘It will pass’, says the young female doctor, cheerfully. Yeah right, thankyousomuch – but what should I, the one who emobodies all the uncouthly syndromes – do at the mean time while ‘it’ ‘passes’? ‘Cut down on high-impact sports’, she advises. Indeed, because we swiftly get all topsyturvy. ‘What about swimming? That is a gentle sport’. ‘So long as you don’t do lots of front crawl laps.’ But that’s what we do. ‘Oh, just sit back and vegetate then’. She did not say the latter but that was the decree I got. Not having green fingers, vegetating is not a forte of mine…What can we do with all that unspent restless energy??? [The little that is left, that is])
Nice Ken says: "I really liked Singapore! I was there for the London Olympics bid". But Kaidie forgets to tell him that Kaidie will die on the last day of the Nondon Olympics 09.09.2012. We ask Boris for a new bike so that we can rest our tired toes and knobbly knees. Failing to get any sympathy (look, he is not even smiling in the picture!!), we ask the Woman With The Big Hair standing next to Alfie. Failing that, we ask the Pearly Kings and Queens standing in front of Thomson & Craighead's London Wall. Failing that, we ask Ken: 'You'd better run for the next one! We're not getting good help here. '
As of 6 July Tuesday 09:20hrs: here are the comments I have received so far. Write in (here, or on Facebook, or Twitter) if you have any more! I am writing them down on a piece of paper and will aim to raise them if the situation allows. Thank you!
FOLLOW KAIDIE ON THE BLACK PATH AND DISCOVER KAIDIE’S MULTILAYERED MIXED-REALITY: Navigating Kaidie’s Metamap Show #7
Installed at the PhD show (25-30 June, Nondon), our metamap consists of 120 images and maps that we have created so far. It attempts to draw relationships between the various maps. It is also a map/documentation of our trials and erros thus far to articulate our cosmology/cosmologies. The 14-metre map also itself becomes a landscape, with small cutouts of Kaidie (or Kaidie’s avatar) running all over the wall and floor. Hence, apart from tthe graphical representations of Kaidie on many of the A3 sheets of images, the paper cutouts of Kaidie-s ’emerge’, or rather, burst out into meatspace; and, apart from the 2D plane of the wall, Kaidie runs into the 3D real world of the Slade Research Centre (if the art world could be called ‘real’, that is), along the stairwell, lift, loo and even out into the streets. Here is one (more) map that maps Kaidie’s journeys. Follow the black lines and see where she leads you!
