Published 7 January 20108 January 2010 · Main Posts Reality Whore Manifesto Alec Patric by Steve Smart I am a reality whore I don’t need money Don’t you know that artists Eat air, breathe words The slash of paint on canvas The lull of a guitar the screech of a trumpet? Invoke the name —- —– to Locate other reality whores in your vicinity I’ll sell myself any day of the week For some small truth Truth in advertising? Truth in fiction Truth in the days you can’t tell If you’re dreaming or you’re Actually waiting for a tram The line becomes blurred It’s why we crave the visceral The nights too close to madness The unavoidable slap of next mornings Is a small price to pay to know you’re alive! We do not come in peace We come with lists of demands That can never be met We’ll find the hole in the sand You’ve buried your head in Wrench it out crying ‘Look! It’s all around don’t deny it Don’t deny this one small thing we have The knowledge that we exist That some things are solid Can be both touched and tasted’ We will fight for this knowledge To keep it safe from those Who would take it from us Take hallucinogens to prove that reality Not only exists but has many layers We will explore the possibilities As far as they stretch Want you to understand And may lose sleep if you don’t In reality we are no more or less Significant than any other speck of stardust The universe might swallow us whole without the slightest shudder we are not so important still we have been given the gift of reason the ability to search for truth and beauty created angels because we understood that we are not perfect ‘Each to their own’ the prophet said Each to the world they see around them We simply ask that you accept There is much more than what you’ve seen You said the Sun turned around the Earth and you were wrong we did not drop off the edge there was no edge to find, we continue to learn Alec Patric AS Patric is the award-winning author of The Rattler & other stories (Spineless Wonders, 2011), Las Vegas for Vegans (Transit Lounge, 2012) and Bruno Kramzer (Finlay Lloyd, 2013). More by Alec Patric Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 25 May 202326 May 2023 · Main Posts The ‘Chinese question’ and colonial capitalism in New Gold Mountain Christy Tan SBS’s New Gold Mountain sets out to recover the history of the Gold Rush from the marginalised perspective of Chinese settlers but instead reinforces the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. Although celebrated for its multilingual script and diverse representation, the mini-TV series ignores how the settlement of Chinese migrants and their recruitment into colonial capitalism consolidates the ongoing displacement of First Nations peoples. First published in Overland Issue 228 15 February 202322 February 2023 · Main Posts Self-translation and bilingual writing as a transnational writer in the age of machine translation Ouyang Yu To cut a long story short, it all boils down to the need to go as far away from oneself as possible before one realizes another need to come back to reclaim what has been lost in the process while tying the knot of the opposite ends and merging them into a new transformation.