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Monday, August 31, 2009

Beloved part 1

First of two classes on Toni Morrison's Beloved. I said it is one of the finest novels I've ever read; a truly great work of fiction, which is a very rare thing indeed. Dr Morrison did not disagree. Some in the class talked a bit about the movie version, which I've not seen. It's hard to imagine Oprah Winfrey carrying off the Sethe character but Fiona M reckons she does a decent enough job but that Thandie Newtone is somewhat less than spectacular as Beloved. I'm surprised by both.

At the end of my class we received our second essay marks ... 17.5 out of 20 for my piece on Pride And Prejudice. That's the high distinction I was aiming for. All I need to do now is keep up that standard, improving on it if I can.
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Sunday, August 30, 2009

Hip hip hooray

I don't have an essay to write today for submission tomorrow. I get an essay back tomorrow (Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice) and have at least two weeks to write the third and final assessment of course work.

Hip, hip, hooray. (Card by Alice Carmen here)

Spike, I'm sorry to say, does have an essay to submit tomorrow. We can't all be lucky all the time ... or can we?

Lazy start, lounging in the sun, followed by toast n mushrooms n tea n juice. I continued with my re-reading of Beloved (subject of my third essay). Spike wrote ... slowly, as she describes it ... at her speed, is how I think of it.

Track work on the railway lines below us drove me past the point of distraction. I'm sure it's necessary. I understand it can be noisy. But guys ... please ... it's been two years. Aint it fixed yet??????????????

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Sydney College of the Arts Open Day

We attend the College Open Day. Can it really be a year since the last one? This time Spike is a student.

The van is still off the road so we were required to catch buses, which is not without its challenges when it's essential they have wheelchair access. Our first bus (7:05 a.m.) was scheduled as accessible. It was late (of course) but accessible as promised. We anticipated a forty-five minute wait for the connecting accessible service ... not quite long enough for breakfast - too long to make hanging around much joy ... but lo and behold the first bus to come was also accessible. The whole journey took 45 minutes. We'd feared twice that time.

Breakfast in Rozelle, La Grande Bouffe in Darling Street. Good eggs. Pushed to the college in light rain for which neither of us had prepared; promised (as we were) 28 degrees and sun.

I don't mean to br critical ... but ... Ok ... it's an art college. They're creative people; talented I'm sure. To be frank (but diplomatic) organisation is clearly not their forte.

Whatever ... the open day started ... eventually, sort of. Stuff seemed to begin; people arrived (exhibitors at least as puzzled as the visiting public). But the clouds cleared from the sky, the sun warmed up the windswept precincts of the former asylum, the day unfolded pleasantly.

Spike gave a tour of the glass studio, sold earrings at the market stall (6 pairs) and gave a demonstration of lamp work to genuinely interested passers-by and an enthusiastic in-house video crew.

I watched a woman called Stevie (in the left of this photo) spin a platter, which I subsequently purchased. It's cooling in the kiln. At the end of the day, after the public had gone, students and staff of the glass studio tidied up, shared some beers and crowded in to the hot shop to watch a team pour molten glass in giant ladles into a sand-filled casting box. Hot stuff.

We had a long wait between buses on the return journey but not (interestingly enough to me) because buses weren't accessible. It's just that public transport ... as much as one wishes it could be otherwise ... is sometimes less than wholly convenient. There can be delays. Those are understatements.

Finished off the day with pizzas. It's been a more than decent Saturday.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Settlement

So, the flat became mine today at Noon. At least the mortgage became mine, which is not quite the same thing. I'll be working until I'm 82 to pay it off!! Does that mean I'm not allowed to die before then? Even then I'm sure that banks have worked out ways to keep sucking the blood right out of you. But what a funny old day it's been (by which I mean peculiar as opposed to comical).

I took on a debt of something close to half a million. I visited the bank to personally authorise the transfer of 25K from my bank account ... as if I actually had $25,0000 ... to my layer's account. I activated a new credit card ... as if I really need another one of those! Still, once the transfers are completed I ought to be able to ditch the Amex thank God. Withdrew some cash for me to spend and here we suddenly are returned to the real world: 250 bucks and most of that will go on food and travel.

And, of course, there's the whole back-story that makes all this wheeling and dealing necessary. That's the serious part of all this to-ing and fro-ing ... 4 banks, two mortgages, lawyers, mortgage broker, credit cards, loans, binding agreements, deadlines, settlement. Shit is what amounts to. Not my finest hour and not the best day of my life.

There is always Scarlett O'hara, of course or the irrepressible Suggs and the boys in Madness. Take you pick Dougie. Either way, the sun comes up.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

I'm a quadiplegic


I know how to sweat for no apparent reason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Parliament in the morning (my thoughts came together, which meant my session did too) then Chairing the Lifetime Care and Support Authority Advisory Council in the afternoon. I ambled down Macquarie Street to Hyde Park where I paused for a while by the fountain, in the sun, watching lunch time unfold in the heart of the city. Lovely.

When I decided to move on through the trees that are doomed by some blight (apparently) I headed first to galleries Victoria for a Laksa its makers claim is the best in Sydney. It's not but it did the job. After that I was drawn to Kinokinuya, as I always am when in that space. I Bought Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence for me and Rooftops, a graphic novel by Mandy Ord, for Spike. That book store is an irresistible treasure trove.

Naturally, at least in my universe, travelling through the underground mall adjacent to Town Hall station necessitates a detour to the German bread shop. It IS a hard life I live, isn't it?

Noodles with Spike in the evening. The second glass of cheap wine is ALWAYS a mistake. (Actually, even one glass of cheap wine is a debatable decision ... but we're human; we forget or live in hope. We should learn, however, that hope and cheap wine never meet).
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

And today's word is ...


... SAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... as in save your unsaved notes for tomorrow's presentation before Sike's Asus freezes. I guess another word could have been lost ... or irretrievable ... or aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhh!

Spike tried to assist me. It was beyond both of us. Besides, the clock is ticking on her own deadline for tomorrow's assignment at the college.

I would just like to make this point. Of all the questions one could ask when it's clear the computer is not going to unfreeze I suggest not uttering this one ... have you saved your work? Not a good question: no, no, no, no, no!!
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Monday, August 24, 2009

Why let work benefit?

I have no university class this evening; this being week three of a three week break. So I stayed in the office, working late on draft policy papers including my thoughts on notes that I'll use to lead a discussion on legal capacity with members of the State Parliament's Social Affairs Committee. I can't quite get my head around how I should approach the subject. Maybe it will come together in a coherent thought soon. Maybe it'll be one of my more embarrassing moments.

I do wonder (but only a little) why I give the free time I've gained with the university break to my employer? It's because I always do, of course. But why not give it to my writing - to my second novel that I still haven't a real grasp of or my poetry, which still lacks the transcendence good poetry needs. One day I'll learn. Or not, as the case may be.
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Sunday, August 23, 2009

First day of Sprinter?

It has been warm and pleasant today - more than warm; positively hot. Just the kind of day for a 3 or 4 kilometres push through the undulating back-streets of Summer Hill. There's an appropriate name for a suburb, if ever I read one.

We made our way by taxi this morning to Hoskins Park in Dulwich Hill (via Hensons Park in Marrickville). Only when it became clear we were not in the vicinity of the correct destination did we learn that the venue for the farewell brunch for Kelly, David and their son Jara had moved north west by one suburb. Hoskins rather than Hensons; Park is the same word wherever it is; Dulwich Hill is a subdivision of Marrickville, so I guess that technically speaking we weren't wrong there either. It's not important. Worse things happen at sea.

We joined a group of mostly thirty-something parents with a varied selection of children - mostly boys, as it happens - between the ages of two and four. Spike asked, jokingly, if we were the only couple not to have brought offspring. Yep. At least Spike fits the demographic. I could be a parent of the demographic; grandparent to its next generation. Who cares? Correct - no one.

Suriya Lee was there with his twin sons, Akira and Oscar. Lousie (their mother) arrived not long after. It turns out that Kelly, David and Jara (with whom Spike shared a house in Croydon Park for a year) are camping out in Suriya and Louise's house until they drive north to Bellingen on Tuesday to start the next phase of their lives together. They're lovely people on the edge of an adventure. Let's hope it works well for them. It should.

I've not seen or spoken to Suriya since his departure from our office in March. He seems well, content with life and enjoying the surprises and satisfactions that come with his new set of circumstances. That's good news. We spoke briefly about my own less than perfect time at work over the last six months. I observed that I do not give a shit about the pantomime horse behaviour of others. I truly, truly don't. They are not worth the effort of worrying about what mad scheme they might come up with next.

Spike's contribution to brunch was a berry compote with ricotta cheese and organic honey. As Spike prepared the treat she noted that the honey came from a producer that turns out both organic and non-organic varieties. How, asked Spike, does the bee-keeper know their organic bees have not been nipping over to some non-organic bush to gorge themselves on chemically enhanced nectar? I have no idea. It's one of life's mysteries. Maybe they have a very skilled team of bee herders who ride bare-back dragonflies to keep the hives apart. Maybe the bees are given an organic farmers manual on identifying phosphates as part of their induction. Maybe they're just really, really clever fucking bees who sit at home doing crossword puzzles and sudoku squares between shifts. Whatever, Spike's berries, cheese and honey went down very well with all.

We pushed home. It was probably the best option; the right idea. But on the exposed parts of the route between Dulwich Hill and Ashfield it was, as I said at the beginning, hot. See ... I'm beginning to repeat myself. That's how hot it was / is. I'm becoming incoherent.

"Sprinter" by the way. I read an article on yesterday's Independent web site. Dr Tim Entwisle, who is the Executive Director of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, says the idea we break down the southern hemisphere year into four seasons based on northern hemisphere climate patterns and ecology makes very little sense. He reckons we need 6 season descriptors for Sydney (apparently the Jawoyn people of the NT have six that correspond to what the weather is actually doing in their neck of the woods). Makes sense to me.
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Saturday, August 22, 2009

A reversal of fortune

SO ... I lost my mobile phone somewhere in the Red Rattler; confirmed at the bus stop that we'd missed the last wheelchair accessible bus of the night back to the city (last bus of any type, come to think of it); couldn't remember the first four digits of the wheelchair taxi booking service; couldn't get the phone number from directory inquiries; couldn't book a wheelchair cab through the voice-recognition system; headed-off in not quite the right direction in what might have been a naive attempt to push home then the solid tyre of my front wheel came off the wheel entirely! Perched with one front wheel up on a drain cover while Spike worked hard without tools to re-fit the tyre I thought ... this is an unexpected end to an otherwise enjoyable evening (except that may not have been quite how I ran over the words in my mind!!)

Events turned for the better though, quite suddenly. Spike got the tyre back on. We were able to book a wheelchair taxi directly through one of the co-ops and miraculously when I asked Spike to call my mobile phone someone at the bar answered the call. It had been found / handed in as the staff cleared away the debris of a good night. Spike ran back to the club. A taxi came. The driver loaded me then we went off in search of Spike. We were home fifteen minutes later and in bed by 3:00 a.m.

Not surprisingly, our Saturday started late and has progressed at a sedate pace. Spike has made earrings to sell next week and a cake to be eaten immediately. I looked at the papers I need to read for a submission I have to write by Monday but decided work can wait. Tea, cake and a good read of the online newspapers is about as much as I'm any good for.
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Friday, August 21, 2009

Friday night is music night

(Eventually) we caught a bus to Marrickville and the excellent Red Rattler club ... highly recommended: accessible (which always helps); delightful (truly) bouncer on the door; texter drawn musical notes on one's wrist as proof of entry; red ... and I mean postbox red decor throughout; chairs and sofas that might have been rescued from a nineteenth century Parisian brothel and a decent, friendly, enthusiastic crowd (rather more black top, black frock, black stockings and black boots than one might have hoped for in an 'alternative' bunch but maybe there's still time for them to become confident enough to believe that colour can be cool also ...)

Spike had been drawn to the evening by the promised appearance of the Crooked Fiddle Band. They didn't disappoint. It was my first encounter with the band. I liked their set very much.



The headline band were the Barons Of Tang whom we saw play in the Sydney Festival Speigeltent in January. They were just as raucous at the Red Rattler, looking as if they were having a great time. They're a lot of fun.

The surprise of the night (at least to me) was the first act: the woefully named Captain Kickarse And The Awesomes. But what a trio ... drums, lead guitar and bass guitar; no vocals, just lots and lots of solid rock with the rhythm and blues undertones you'd expect from a buck of lads that were closer to Cream than Status Quo but had their very own charm and style. Good music.

As we waited for the bus Spike said she might not dance at the club. She was tired. She might just sit and enjoy the atmosphere. Ha! She was on the dance floor in time for the second number by the first act. She didn't sit down again for the best part of three hours.

Good night.
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Thursday, August 20, 2009

A return to normal business

I participated in my first Council meeting since February. Six months of wasted time and missed opportunity. The stupid people of the universe have such a lot to answer for. The rest of us are required to put up with their stupidity and let it neither depress nor detract us. At times, though, that's easier to say (or write) than do. Still, everyone seemed truly pleased to have me back. That's never bad.

I'm with Goethe who wrote: "There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity." How could he have known about my start to 2009?

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Beloved

Finished it. Truly wonderful writing. It has to be one of the finest novels I've read and genuinely an important one too (and it's not often that that can be said with justification).

What can one say? Read it.

Here's what the much-maligned Wikipedia has to say on the novel.

These are some surprisingly perceptive Sparks Notes on the book.

And this is a link to Toni Morrison discussing her novel on the BBC Radio World Service Book Club.

I love this story from the New York Times:

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. — Toni Morrison has said that her acclaimed novel “Beloved,” which features the ghost of a baby killed by her enslaved black mother, came out of the need for a literature to commemorate slaves and their history. “There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath or wall, or park or skyscraper lobby,” Ms. Morrison said in a 1989 magazine interview. “There’s no 300-foot tower, there’s no small bench by the road.”

This weekend, on Sullivan’s Island, off the South Carolina coast, Ms. Morrison, the Nobel laureate, and some 300 people held a memorial ceremony to dedicate her long-awaited “bench by the road.” (read the rest)

(Photograph by Anne McQuary for The New York Times)
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

An early evening stroll

The van is still off the road. That irritating fact has some compensations.

I attended a Board meeting of Accessible Arts NSW at its office on Wharf 4, Hickson Road. Rather than call a taxi to take me home, I decided to push round the bay to Circular Quay then catch a train. The push took about half an hour so that's no bad thing in itself. It was a lovely evening stroll. There was just the faintest hint of a breeze off the water. The bridge imposed itself upon the view across the harbour and it was impossible not to concede that there are many other, much worse ways to bring a Tuesday to a close.

Photograph by Robert Fleischhaker
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Monday, August 17, 2009

It was 40 years ago today ...



I was 12 years old, living 3,000 miles from a defining moment ... the end of the summer of love, the birth of a new consumerism. Everything changed. This is the voice; this is the song that carried a message I was too young to understand. It's still an electrifying moment.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Beloved

I've spent most of the day sitting in the sun with cups of tea, a bag of crsips, cheese & tomato sandwiches and one of Spike's sponge cakes reading (aloud mostly) Part 1 of Toni Morrison's novel. Fiction ... writing of any sort ... just doesn't come any better than this. I am in the presence of greatness; transported out of time, place and body. The past is, indeed, another country but a text this good can take you there.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

The scent of a woman

The advertising blurb says:

"Inspired by the artistry of flamenco, Blue Agava & Cacao is an impassioned scent. Notes of blue agava and cardamom are sharpened with sea salt in a lush introduction. Sensual cacao underscores the scent, creating a pulse that provokes the senses."

Believe me ... it's true

Jo Malone

Friday, August 14, 2009

Coraline

It's very sweet, gently amusing and not too terrifying. I was curiously not engaged by the movie, although I admired its style and the technical skill that clearly lay behind the production. I couldn't suspend disbelief so I watched as an exercise in 3D movie making rather than simply enjoying the story. The cat was interesting with a wonderful voice but it was underused. The Scottie dogs were, however, wonderful; the best joke in the piece by a long, long way and most definitely the scene stealers whenever they appeared. Seven out of ten maybe because this version of the story lacked heart. I'll read the book.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

There is no returning to the seventies hair cut



Steeleye Span are coming to Sydney's Seymour Centre. Is that amount of nostalgia worth 88 bucks a seat? I can't say I know the answer.
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Lift up your eyes

Let me step into the light, emerging
from the darkness of a life
converging with another thought,

not of how a man might be diminished,
of how we fail and fall or fumble,
of how we drop the ball or miss the boat
or tumble into minor tragedies
as if, asleep behind the wheel,
which some call fate and others
happenstance, we did not see ahead
because the road will sometimes bend

but this: the better, brighter, bolder
half idea that we are never truly lost
nor on our own and need but look to see.
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

There is mildly stressed and there is barking mad

We're dealing with the latter.

Karl Marx wrote, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

The truth is that public service employee relations are neither tragic nor farcical; just a pain in the arse. It's almost impossible to believe that all of a sudden I'm back in a workplace drama of truly bizarre proportions. The simple fact of the matter, however, is this: a manipulative or mad woman gets to make wholly unfounded allegations against her supervisor (this time not me but I'll get sucked into it ... just wait and see) then leaves the office (never to be seen again, I'll bet). She'll get an insurer financed pay out. We'll cover for her absence and be left with the shit. The only thing that matters is that no more damage is done to Miss Millie, who is a more than decent person.

Monday, August 10, 2009

The revolution has been postponed

I can't recall the last time I quoted Mao in a speech. Today, as if 30 years had not elapsed, I offered this to my polite audience: “We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.” Some smiled in recognition. Some nodded. Next week the Chinese delegation visits Sea World.

Throw me a fish!

This the group whose leaders I was speaking to. Tell the truth, it was a decent presentation.

China Disabled Persons' Federation

Saturday, August 08, 2009

there IS a pot of gold beneath the rainbow

Spike's knitting is complete. This is a face that only a mother could love ... and there might be a question about even that unconditional maternal urge!

Friday, August 07, 2009

No rubber chicken, thank God

We were invited by Diana Palmer of IDEAS to join her at tonight's 2009 Fellows Dinner of the NSW Association of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. I was a referee for Diana who has succeeded in her application to visit the USA, the UK and Hong Kong to research tourism and people with disability. I'm a little surprised that it turned out to be an enjoyable evening (which tells us more about me than the evening).

The food, surprisingly, was quite decent really, given the nature of the event. Giant wedges of beef for most diners; mushroom risotto for those of us who have renounced raw flesh. The chocolate desert was good enough to have the less cultured among our number ... that'll be himself ... lifting its dregs from the plate with sticky, licked fingers. Spike tells me that the Shiraz was better than decent enough.

Our companions at the table (a vast rectangular affair in the middle a small sea of otherwise round tables) were genuinely pleasant and interesting folk from Tumut (where Diana's office is based) and Gundagai. Chris and Janelle Becker engaged enthusiastically about glass art with Spike. Narelle and Robert Mac??? who talked of their busy lives in the town of the dog on the tucker box. Narelle struck me as something of a force of nature ... leading the development of supported accommodation in a region of rural NSW for people like her adult son Christian; experimenting with sculpture built out of eld machinery parts; painting and poetry. Someone who lacked imagination might describe them all as 'the salt of the Earth'. I may lack that imagination. I'm glad to say, however, that I overcame my characteristic taciturn nature and may even have come close to being personable and chatty.

The short speeches given by each of the 2009 Fellows were at least genuinely interesting and sometimes quite moving. Each of the speakers seemed truly humbled by the experience and the very idea of having been awarded a grant to travel the world to purse their, at times highly idiosyncratic, dreams. There was a young man who spoke lovingly of an 18th Century instrument I'd never heard of before - the viola d'amore; a special school principal off to sub-Saharan Africa to follow the refugee trail taken by the likes of one of his pupils whom he described as the most traumatised child he'd ever met; a hip young City of Sydney official off to London, New York and Paris to look at different ways vibrant city night-life can be made less prone to street crime; a man who rescues large animals trapped in unlikely places ... a horse beneath a house, a horse stuck up tree?

Diana was obviously enjoying a good night out, as were we. She deserves it.
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Thursday, August 06, 2009

The Sesqui Show?

No, I don't think it's a brilliant title for an art show either. Never mind. We visited Gallery Adagio in Glebe Point Road this evening to attend the opening of an event described as The Sesqui Show - 150 Year Celebration: A response by artists to the history of Glebe. Maybe it was, Maybe it wasn't. That hardly matters.

Our friend Craig was exhibiting four of his vividly coloured works; Fauvist pieces that begin with a photograph. I was able to catch less than half of the show, most of it being upstairs in the small gallery. Not to worry. I may not have missed much. I did like some of the Peter Travis ceramics on show. I suspect they may have been the best of all that was on offer.

Dinner after the show was, to say the best one can, thoroughly ordinary. We joined Craig and a few of his friends at a cheap and cheerful pasta, pide and pizza place called More's a little farther along Glebe Point Road. Not the best in the strip. Not by a long chalk.

On the way back to the bus ... yes, the van is STILL off the road ... I ignored a dog that barked at me from a pavement cafe. I was aware that Spike paused, I thought to pat the dog. It turns out that her glass-blowing tutor Uri was sitting with the woman who owns the gallery in which we bought our Holly Grace. I pushed on regardless while Spike chatted, thereby missing an opportunity to maybe be sociable and meet some people of importance in Spike's life. I can be an insufferable and stubborn old fool at times. I will NOT be that rude again and just because I was not aware of who the dog's owner was I have no damn excuse for being a dickhead.
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Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Second city blues

So, I took a mid-morning QANTAS flight to the nation's second city. Co-incidentally, the Disability Discrimination Commissioner boarded the same flight. I sat in 5D. Graham and his guide dog occupied 5A & B. An airline employee placed two incontinence pads on the floor in case one of the most intensively and comprehensively trained assistance animals known to man spontaneously peed at 35,000 feet. Still, at least the unexpected co-incidence of us being booked on the same plane meant I had someone to chat with as the taxi sped towards St Kilda Road.

The less said about the dire event that drew me to Melbourne the better. What a ghastly exercise in self-aggrandising pomposity it was. A truly woeful report (which plays perfectly to every sloppy thought, over-statement, contradictory posture and ghastly stereotype one could conceive) was presented and received as if it were a reflection of the real world. Shut Out (as it's entitled)? Shut up ... please. I will be in the minority, of course. The conventional wisdom will develop (has already formed) that it's an important document of historic importance. It simply isn't so.

I was glad to leave to catch the 4:30 p.m. flight home. Spike was attending a couple of openings (one at the SCA, the other on the university's main campus). Rather than hurry home to an empty apartment and some toast I bought some hot & sour soup and a plate of noodles with tofu vegetables before leaving the airport. A young woman joined me at the table. She wolfed down a carton of fried rice with chicken (I think). About half way through her fast-food meal at the end of a working day, the woman sat back in her seat, looked up and over to me the said , rather guiltily, "this is SO good!" She dug her fork back in to the spined rice without another word.

Wok On Air at Sydney Airport's Terminal Three. The surprising highlight of a dull day until, thank whatever lucky stars shine in my universe, I was drawn to a shelf at home by a vision in black.
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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Ovid

The Creation of the World

Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lye:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.


The beginning of Book 1 from the version
translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al
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Monday, August 03, 2009

David Malouf

Tonight's university class was the second of two on David Malouf's An Imaginary Life. I read it for the first time about two year's ago (which is the last time I thought about preparing to return to university). I have to admit that before then I had never read anything by Australia great Romantic; never even heard of his imagined life of Ovid. Well, now I have.

It's an impressive read. I've no idea if the text takes me inside the head of the exiled Roman poet. Who could know such a thing? But the short novel certainly did take me inside the head of some imaginary other. I believed I was with someone crossing the frozen land of a hostile Black Sea hinterland. I could picture the Shaman drifting into a trance. I felt the scorn and suspicion of hard-working woman who felt the arrival of the wild child posed some kind of threat.

That seems even more impressive to me (as a late reader) given that so much of the novel evokes the tensions of post-colonial Australia. In some senses only an Australian could have conceived and written the text. Good stuff. Well worth the read.

I let loose my worse nature in tonight's class (although I doubt that anyone noticed). I struck a pose; made an observation about sentence construction in the novel and asked a question that was too clever by half (about what constitutes good or bad writing ... as if I didn't already know what ideologically loaded terms those are). It would have been better for me and more interesting for everyone else if I'd used this brain of mine (size of a small planet in a far off galaxy) to real effect. There is no need or benefit to underplay one's interest, intellect or perception. Why bother Dougie? You'd still have much to learn by asking questions that you don't actually know the kind of answer a tutor is likely to give (which she did).
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Sunday, August 02, 2009

Yum Cha

There was me, Spike, Liana, Sharon, Ken, Stuart, Patrick (Ken's teenage sons) and ten squillion little dim sum trundling around the vast cavern that is the Pheonix restaurant at the Rhodes shopping mall. Us, several million other customers, ten thousand busy waiters, trolley pushers, floor walkers, bill takers plus several bored-looking carp, a dozen or so irritated lobsters treading over one another and a solitary crab in a bank of wall-mounted fish tanks. Sunday morning in Sydney. There are worse ways to live a life (unless you're a bored carp, an irritated lobster or a solitary crab).

Can you irritate a crustacean?
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Saturday, August 01, 2009

A work in progress

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

(Franklin D Roosevelt)

The world seemed younger then ...