Published in Overland Issue 220 Spring 2015 · Uncategorized Young folly John Tranter It must seem like a mountain of folly to the old people, but we take our chances and we’re always on the ready. We’re on the ready, right now, and yet they think we’re just a troubled handful of trouble, just can’t go straight, can’t go straight like the arrow of time that speeds from ancient times to right now to get you between the eyes. This is the realm behind the eyes, with its whip-quick answers to how to behave, its cheap vow to be better, much better, quickly broken so that what is not better is boarding at boarding time, those giant flying machines. We take a drag, and fuck the lung. Fuck the drag of the air, the horizon’s curve. We’re all going on a summer holiday, already gone into sad age waiting, with just a wave. ‘Young folly’ began as a draft using the end-words of ‘The young’ by Roddy Lumsden John Tranter John Tranter is an Australian poet, publisher and editor. More by John Tranter 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 8 June 2023 · Technology ‘AI’ and the quest to redefine workers’ autonomy Rob Horning The phrase artificial intelligence is a profoundly ideological way to characterise automation technologies. It is an expression of the general tendency to discuss technologies as though they were ‘powerful’ in and of themselves—as if power weren’t a relative measure of the different capacities and prerogatives of social classes. First published in Overland Issue 228 7 June 2023 · Housing Taking the Rat King on tour Murdoch Stephens Late last year, Renters United and I joined together to make a new version of Rat King Landlord that would be free to renters. I had been aware of Renters United for about four years when the book came out and I loved what they were up to. Whenever the weird logic of property speculation got air time, Renters United would be there talking about the real impact on people. We were faced with two challenges: where to get the funds to make a few thousand copies, and how to make sure the copies didn’t just sit in our garages getting damp.
