Avianto's Journal

Bush is in Ottawa today. And he got a really “warm” welcome from Canadians. More than 5.000 people, more than 12.000 people according to the demonstration organizer, are marching down the street while waving banners and posters showing their true feeling about the leader of the United Empire of America… which can generally resumed as… “Bush Go Home” and home means Texas, not United States of America.

The demonstration were mostly peaceful, a brief clash between a few demonstrator and riot police but… it’s not even a “clash” by my standard, OK I am not being fair here since I’ve seen worse back in ’98 in Jakarta. Back to the demonstration, it was very peaceful and energetic, almost like a carnival. No violence, no damaging public or private properties, no riots, everybody enjoyed venting their opinion about Dubya, which is of course oppositional opinion. This was one of the most peaceful demonstration I’ve ever seen. The police are friendly and helpful, kinda made me bite my teeth when I remember how over-acted and over-reacted Indonesian police were and still are.

There are couple of pictures if you like to read more.

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I’ve been in Montréal today. Again. This time only for a day, left early, very early,around 5:30 to catch 7:00 bus, and went back late afternoon, using 16:00 bus. Not much to do, went to CCA again to meet my thesis advisor for an hour or so then strolled down the city, walking and riding the famous underground Metro. The weather was cloudy, temperature was below zero, some flirting snow were falling down but not much.

I’ve been in Montreal for three times now. First time was when I arrived in Canada. So basically I was just passing by at that time, still have some excellent Chinesse food in Chinessetown tho. Second time was last week. There was a similarity between my second visit and my third visit, I’d lost something. On my second visit I was forgetting my scrapbook at the place where I had my lunch. I forgot it totally and came back in the afternoon but it already gone, of course. This time I lost my gloves. I took it off while going to the bathroom (It will be funny to keep wearing gloves while taking a leak , don’t you think?) and forgot it when I walked out. 2 minutes later I went back to the toilet and it was gone. Hmm, odd… The “offering” for Montréal? Who knows.

But don’t get me wrong here, I am still love Montréal. It’s an amazing city. It has “the” atmosphere that I could not describe. Some elements that build this city and give the aura of an eclectic urbanistic unique city that I like. That is Montréal for me.

I am back in Ottawa now. Montréal is an amazing city. I love the atmosphere, it is big enough for me but not too small like Lübeck. It has a some kind of European atmosphere in it. Maybe because of the French signage everywhere. It also has a good subway, called Metro just like in Paris. Interesting thing is most of the people on the sidewalk speaking English while Francophone are there but not as many as I think they are… or maybe I just walked on the wrong street.

The weather was sadly bad. Drizzling rain all day with grey and misty sky, kinda remind me of Germany. So yeah, I can’t take any good picture outdoor, too bad – there are two decent photos on my photolog, I am not quite happy with them but I blamed it on the weather grin. Being only there for one day and a night, thanks to denise‘s brother, John, who gave me a shelter for a night. Thanks a lot!, and spending most of my day at Canadian Centre for Architecture for the Devices of Design event didn’t give me a chance to stroll down the city as I used to do everywhere I go. But I’ll be back there this Saturday, only for a day, hopefully the weather will be fine so I can travel around.

The event itself was great! The presenters are amazing, they have many things to said about the use of digital technologies in architectural field. FYI, my Master thesis will be mostly about this issue so yeah, I was having a great input there. At least right now I know what is the current issue in architecture considering the use and expansion of digital technologies. The digital technologies are here to stay, no one can run away from them. I remember when I was in the university getting my bachelor degree some teacher against using computer as a tool for designing. I don’t know what they are thinking or doing right now but it seems like the digital revolution is winning the floor even though many architects were against it back then. The use of digital technologies nowadays is not just about replacement of paper and pencil is more about expanding the possibility of exploring form and experiencing space. I put this revolution into the same impact when perspective were introduced. The perspective was there to stay and so is digital technologies in architecture.

So yeah, a night and day in Montréal was really a great experience, physically and philosophically. I love Montréal and definitely will be back for more.

I will be leaving this afternoon to Montréal, Québec to attend Devices of Design event tomorrow at Canadian Centre for Architecture. The event looks promising, especially since it has an interesting topic which related to my proposed Master thesis also CCA is the place that I’ve been wanting to visit for quite some times. It will be fun and educational.

Stories, reports, photos and other stuffs will be here after I am back in Ottawa.

I like reading novels. Science-fiction and Fantasy genre are always my favorites, although I also like some action/thriller/mystery genre from author like Agatha Christie – Poirot’s series only, Dan Brown and John Grisham. My all time favorite novel is always Sherlock Holmes.

But right now I am looking for some good “Steampunk” genre novels. This genre is really an interesting one, it is so full of imagination and possibility. According to Wikipedia’s article mentioned before, Steampunk genre has two major sub-genre: Historical Steampunk and Fantasy Steampunk.

Historical Steampunk literatures are easy to find because they are basically speculative fictions set in the pre-Electric age (mostly Victorian era) and using non-electrical devices to achieve the result that usually can only be achieved by electrical devices, example is the giant spider robot in the movie Wild Wild West. Some other examples of this genre is Jules Verne‘s novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill‘s comics The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and its movie version and William Gibson and Bruce Sterling‘s novel The Difference Engine

Fantasy Steampunk literatures are difficult to find tho. I don’t think they even existed. As far as I know this genre only popular as game especially in the RPG genre. Too bad tho. I really want to read some novel based on some kind of Arcanum‘s world. It will be interesting since this sub-genre of Steampunk is basically science-fiction and fantasy in one genre. Imagine The Lord of the Rings with steam-powered tank, clockwork flying machine and spring-powered rifles. THAT would be interesting.

So yeah, anybody knows about some good Fantasy Steampunk novels, let me know.