Paul Cocksedge (great name) has created the most gorgeous speaker for an iPhone.

He uses an old record and heat moulds the plastic into a funnel shape which amplifies the sound.

http://www.paulcocksedge.co.uk/paulcocksedge.html

I went online and tried to order one but thought better of it…the cost, the postage, the wait…

So we made one.

Here is an image of our unattractive, yet highly effective speaker made from a camping mug and a sheet of A3 paper.

A more attractive version would involve a groovy music poster and a bucket.

They were a lot more prolific before the blog took over as an updatable online version but they are cute and serve as a great reminder that a fan of anything deserves to be revered.
The Outpost (5 Winn Street Fortitude Valley) sells zines.
Melbourne has a great zine shop in Campbell Arcade, which runs beneath Flinders Street..Sticky Zine Shop.
http://blog.stickyinstitute.com/
or order some online just for the hell of it…and especially if you like the smell of hard work and photocopiers!
http://smellslikezines.bigcartel.com/
and finally…a great blog with a beautiful zine…
http://www.coolhunting.com/design/space-is-the-pl.php

Did I say I was expecting little more than a strange experience to fill a Monday evening?

It certainly began that way…one of the expected septuagenarians waxing lyrical about how much she enjoyed a FREE PEN on entry; only to be told that they were JUST for loan if needed.There was however small wads of paper on offer….but our pen collecting lady proudly stated that there was no need as she held aloft her own notepad..’PLANNING YOUR RETIREMENT LIFESTYLE’ -  a slate grey logotype emblazoned across its base.

At least I could set aside any previous thoughts that I had unknowingly signed up for a Scientology Recruitment Drive..has that been the case, the pens would have been FREE!

The microphone didn’t work; which was fine because our speaker began delivering the  history of his working life..so I arrogantly began to doodle.

“Who would like to be a successful writer”…I stopped doodling and looked up – he had a glint in his eye. 4 hands went up.
He began by telling us about first time writers who were not university educated in creative writing but who did succeed…and then some!

J.K.Rowling and THE FLOW that led to a multi million dollar series of books.

In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry “came fully formed” into her mind. She told the Boston Globe that “I really don’t know where the idea came from. It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head.”Back at her Clapham Junction flat, and later at the now famous cafe…she simply transcribed what she called THE FLOW.

Stephenie Myer..

The Twilight series.Chapter 13 apparently “entered her mind like a conscious dream”…
NIcholas Evans – a 10 page overview of a gypsy that talked to horses that he remembers from his childhood became a $4 million advance from Robert Redford – later to become the Horse Whisperer that grossed $187 million whorldwide.

There were more…Robert Mawson and The Lazarus Child; Philip Kerr and Gridiron….a novel about a high-tech building that eats its occupants….and who bought the rights for 2.2 million? Tom Cruise of course!

He then began to discuss our psychological make up…the personality being just a persona that is the mask that we create for society. Beneath that lies our plethora of sub personalities and that is what makes us each unique.

Yeah yeah….I started doodling again.

I started half listening again as he discussed “which mind should we use when we are writing?”

I was about to get out the oil paints but he seemed excited so I got lateral and listened….

“You can write with your conscious mind but that will be pedestrian at best. You can write with your sub-conscious mind; your reposition of memories past; but that will be dark.You MUST try to write with your SUPER CONSCIOUS mind…your intuition, your genius.
Your MYTHOPOETICA.”

I must have frowned with the cocked eyebrows of open disdain at this point because he glared at me and stated this salient fact..

“WE ALL DREAM. Each time you sleep you create characters, emotions, locations, well written thrillers and documentaries that are all YOU. Your dream. Each and every character is a sub-personality that is part of you. It has to be because the dream is from within your own mind.”

Oh My God…that is so bloody true. What a magnificent thought.

“ Your mythopoetica functions constantly,” he continued, “so let it drip feed. Download it. Receive the flow. Allow the super conscious to give it to you and simply write it down.”
Apparently Robert Louis Stephenson is quoted as saying, “I am not a writer, I just take dictation”

He then talked about the ‘alarm clock syndrome’ as proof of our super conscious.

If you set an 3 alarm clocks for 4 am…you wake at 3.55 am, before any of them has begun to ring.

So which part of us is awake when we are sleeping? The super conscious.

Next followed the obligatory BUY THE LECTURE SERIES and so I went back to the doodle but with intent.

Will I buy the supporting lecture series?

Who knows but I will be looking back over countless diaries of thoughts and dreams and travel stories that could become a bestseller when viewed through such positive binoculars.

Do I have more faith in myself as a writer or an artist?

Yes I bloody well do because I have incredibly detailed, convoluted and humorous dreams; see monsters and clowns in the every day; create characters out of driftwood….

I am now trying to find a diary from my early 20’s …taking my lascivious grandad on a trip to Morocco..think drugs, midgets, nude men in elevators, human trafficking, corruption, lesbians and abysmal hotel foyer bands!