MCA book club

Spent another enjoyable evening at the MCA for one of its "Inspired Reading" sessions. This time we looked at the art of Yayoi Kasuma in association with Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the shore. The art is a whole heap more engaging than the book.

The crowd was larger tonight; 25 in total (thanks to advertising in the SMH). It's a bit too large a group size for much of a conversation but I guess that's a problem of success. There were some Murakami fans there, which was a bit tedious: literary or cultural studies undergraduates who've recently learned what the word "trope" means and feel a need to display their understanding of its various uses over and over again. Britney must have the same kind of uncritical adulation. Hers scream and faint. Murakami's say trope a lot and look down disdainfully upon any one who isn't quite smart enough, they mistankenly believe, to recognise brilliance in anomie and detachment. Children. Thet'll learn.

Preparation is everything

Day one of my new assignment: Getting access to the car park was a problem. The building supervisor, when he arrived, new more about my duration of stay than I did. I waited in the foyer for ten minutes past commencement time. My new IT profile hadn't been actioned. My phone wasn't connected to the system. One person said my new manager was in a meeting. My new manager's manager said my manager wasn't in yet. Either way there was no present to tell nme what my work duties were going to be. It was a joke but I wasn't laughing.
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And today's word is ...

... allegations.

There were sixteen of them contained in the letter the Director General delivered by hand this afternoon. By the end of the meeting I had been removed of my duties, relocated to head office (to protect me, he said, as well as the integrity of the inquiry) and shut out of my IT profile. It is all, of course, a crock of shit concocted by a scared, vindictive, ridiculous team member who thinks the quickest way to secure a transfer to a job she's actually capable of doing is to have a go at me. It's pathetic, truly sickly and cowardly and, as I'm sure I'll show by the end of the investigation, inept.

None of that makes me any less unhappy or annoyed. Stupid shit.

One lives and learns

My colleague and I took one of the team for a birthday celebration lunch. The three of us remaining chipped in $60 for a gift. Two of us shared the $50 bill. And the woman we dined had the gall to sit there, lapping it up as if what she knew was coming (see tomorrow) were inconceivable. What a cheap shit she turned out to be, lacking the courage even to decline a mediocre free lunch.
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On the Parliamentary record

We gave verbal evidence today to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. It's part of the inquiry into the draft Disability Discrimination Act Access To Premises Standards. I was up most of the night finishing the Chair's opening remarks, which he liked. It was good stuff. The Committee members seemed to engage positively with us. Who knows how the draft might be influenced by our input but I'm satisfied by this much at least ... we were the best thing on the day.

This is how we started:

In 1942, the renowned poet, T S Eliot, wrote a poem called Little Giddings, one of his famous Four Quartets. In it, he gave us this thought:

In 1942, the renowned poet, T S Eliot, wrote a poem called Little Giddings, one of his famous Four Quartets.

In it, he gave us this thought:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The French said something similar but did so in that way which only the French can:

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

You can read the whole session's transcript here.
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Jamie the Saxth

Became James the 1st, 406 years ago today. And there I was last night, studing the play Shakespeare wrote for him maybe two or three years later. MacB of course.

Mothers' Day, UK

Phoned my mum. Short conversation, which is to be expected. My younger brother was with her (Sunday, which it still is in the UK, being Mothers' Day). It was good to catch up, to hear about his recent trip to Jordon as part of a British Council capacity-building and partnerships course and his plans to spend Easter at his and Steph's olive grove in Italy. Joe took the photos here while in Jordan.

The art work was created by a Scottish woman, oddly enough. It hangs in the Darat Al Funun Gallery in Amman.

I don't know where the ruin is located. Good pic though.

Oh dear

Read another 70 pages of Haruki Murakami's Kafka On The Shore. It set off a haiku moment. Beware!

a rain storm surges
blows cold unexpectedly
night’s wild harbinger

(Photo of the Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu)

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Great art (and other stuff) starts here ...

Spike and I spent the morning at Reverse Garbage in Marrickville. The cardboard blocks Spike saw on Tuesday morning had been snaffled but she came away with plenty: more cardboard (for Spike's assignment), illuminated plastic ice cubes (don't ask), glue.

Good shopping followed by a late breakfast / lunch in Summer Hill then a creative afternoon for Spike. I made tea and did NOT offer 'helpful advice', the latter of which shows me to be wise beyond my years. Helena O'Connell's belated 50th birthday party at the Coogee Bay Hotel was enjoyable if slightly surreal in parts ... rocknroll dance lessons, lukewarm tea at 11:00 p.m. (whatever happened to getting rat-arsed on a Saturday?). It was our first public outing (seemed to go well-enough). Hope it's not our last!
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Bertie Blackman

After Concussion at Wharf 1 Bertie Blackman performed in the bar. We enjoyed the set: shame about the audience (most of whom seemed to have turned up just for BB rather than the theatre). Dressing in black was absatively de rigeur. Enthusiastic applause is obviously profoundly uncool if your a BB fan (the latter concept being so uncool as to be anathema). As for dancing, well puleeze ... cool BB afficiandi may raise an eyebrow in response to the beat but like dance? Dude ... get real.

Didn't stop Spike.
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Concussion

Decent script, well-acted and thoroughly enjoyable. It's very funny in parts. (Good to be at the theatre again)

Concussion at Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company

Review in the SMH.

Change your ways?

That's easier said than done when you're a quad. My left shoulder is killing me ... which I'll concede overstates matters but it is sore and is getting in the way of my independence and I'm a wuss! Sharon helped me several times throughout the day (at our Council meeting). Spike continued her TLC upon returning from Avalon (5 hour round trip by public transport). I flailed and muttered throughout the night, which makes me a joy to sleep next to.

Sore shoulder advice from Mothernature.com

If your pain is from overuse, the following techniques should be helpful.

Change your ways. If your shoulder is often sore after work or doing your favorite hobby, try to think of ways to give your shoulder a breather from any repetitive motions that may be causing the problem, advises Fred Allman, Jr., M.D., orthopedic surgeon and director of the Atlanta Sports Medicine Clinic. Don't quit exercising, though. If you pitch baseballs for fun, for example, give your shoulder a rest by riding a bike for a few days.

Ice is nice. At the first sign of a sore shoulder, apply an ice pack to the painful area several times a day for no more than 20 minutes, says Blackburn. Ice numbs the area and reduces swelling and inflammation.

Turn on the heat. After three days of ice treatment, provided the pain has subsided, apply a moist heating pad to the area. Use it for 20 to 30 minutes several times a day, says Blackburn. Heat increases the flow of blood, flushing the injured area. Even blasting the area with hot water during a shower is helpful, he says.

We'll see ...

The creative process takes its toll ...

Photo by Spike

Swimming towards sunset

The water’s surface shimmers
late this summer afternoon.
Cicadas irritate the atmosphere
as if it were not quite sufficient
to sit beneath the sun, awaiting
dusk then nightfall and the rest.

Not quite a mill pond, the bay
entices you to swim without a suit,
abandoning your dress and bag
to my safe-keeping on the shore
where two or three or maybe more
old regulars take time to talk;
to share the daily news perhaps
of who did what to whom and when
- and maybe even make a stab
at why - between their showers
and callisthenics in the park
where dogs, unleashed, chase tails.

I sit and watch your head cut through
the silvered skin of Watson’s Bay,
that youthful grin upon your face,
as if this place and time with me
were more than you had hoped for,
were maybe all you wanted on this day.

2nd class ... Renaissance Lyric

WHOSO list to hunt ? I know where is an
hind !
But as for me, alas ! I may no more,
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore ;
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer ; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow ; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt
As well as I, may spend his time in vain !
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about ;
' Noli me tangere ; for Cæsar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

(About Anne Boleyn, apparently: risky business)

Sir Thomas Wyatt, dead at 39. He brought the sonnet to England. The rest is history. Some of us still try. Good class; cleared the cobwebs away before arriving home to a warm welcome.

So this is the next Monday of your life ...

I'm just about finished preparing committee meeting papers that have to be ready for distribution by Noon today. There's a sense in which this moment sums up my dumb ass life.

It's what? Two eighteen on a Monday morning and I'm at my desk in an empty apartment working on committee papers that almost no one will read and even fewer will remember in four days time. Simply Red's Holding Back The Years has just been been followed on my PC by Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars. It's a bit fucking much when your MP3 downloads comment more perceptively on your existence than you can. When I say "you", by the way, I mean me.

And in a typically unprofessional act of public servant preparation I've included T S Eliot in my introduction to this month's report of work. It's an extract from Four Quartets, which came to mind when I had to think about how to refer to Matt's death. These words:

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Will I feel more hopeful when I wake? I certainly hope so. Do I believe that I will? Not really but we'll see. Besides, what other option presents itself? That's right. None. You get on with it because you lack the imagination to do anything more creative or courageous, which is sad in a way. A moment of less than triumphant self-awareness in a life capable of all kinds of mediocrity and under-achievement. Situation normal.
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They do not make them like this anymore ...

Lightening Bolt

Silent from this vantage point
far-distant from the very source,
the towering cause and heaven-sent
effect of lightening in the night,
it rips apart those heavy clouds
of brooding storms not yet upon us
but moving almost imperceptibly,
inexorably in this direction.

It bursts into our consciousness,
ripping through the sullen mantle
spreading now before my awe-struck
eyes, drawn towards the false horizon
where great Cumulonimbus columns
(angry-looking but indifferent, as all
wild weather must, at all times, be)
impose themselves above our heads.

No more and never less than weather
unleashed on us by laws of physics
and the ways of nature in our midst
to make us wonder at the sight: as if
the might of some celestial leader
of the cosmic paparazzi pack were
chasing stars and A-list Titans clashing
on the lower slopes of Mount Olympus.

(I've been watching the second storm of today forming in the sky far west of the window of my study in the Ashfield flat. These words came to me.

And now the storm is overhead. We're in the thick of it: rain and wind and lightening all around the building, terrific sounds of thunder drowning out the passing trains. It's wonderful to watch but one is thankful of the warmth and peace of sitting in the house and looking out.)
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Friday the 13th .... ooooo

Not so unlucky for some. Dined with Diana Qian, CEO of the Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association, at the Japanese restaurant at the corner of Pitt and Campbell streets. I can't recall it's name but it's worth a visit. We arrived shortly after 5:30 p.m. By six o'clock the place was full and a queue of maybe twenty had formed outside.

Spilled my miso soup over the table but that was as near as one got to bad news on this fearful day. I related stories of the workplace robbery, the worrplace grievance against me, the news of Spike and I. Normally, butter wouldn't melt in Diana's mouth. Today, however, I watched her jaw drop; literally. I've never seen that happen before.

By the way ... how many cliched comments can one respectably fit into a paragraph?
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The Nation's Capital

We left early for Canberra. Spike slept large chunks of the route while my trusty old Transit thundered down the quiet freeway at 80 miles an hour (except on hills, of which there are many between here and there). We met Amelia climbing the stairs in Parliament from the marble-floored foyer to the densely carpeted corridors that lead to committee room 1R3 where the public hearings of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee were taking place. Spike left me and Millie to the parliamentary investigation of the draft DDA Access To Premises Standards in favour of the Degas exhibition at the National Gallery.

We met again for lunch at the excellent Palette Cafe at the Beaver Galleries in Deakin (I would have lost my way, as usual, had it not been for Ms Starr's phone, which barked out directions). I dined on seared prawns, Amelia on squid and sausage, while Spike fended off raids upon a sublime Gruyere and asparagus tart. It's a good little cafe and what I'd say is cheap for what we ate.

Said hello to Susie and Martin Beaver, who're off to Europe soon where they'll meet up with Barbara McKissack. Susie introduced us to Jeff Mincham whose exhibition of gorgeous ceramics, inspired by the landscape of South Australia, opened tonight.

Another Day (again)

I took the sonnet I wrote last week to tonight's poetry group. The guys liked it. Ron (whose minimalist poems I enjoy very much, although I could never write anything in that style) liked it. He wrote this on the copy he'd looked at as I read ... "Beautiful. Great attention to detail. A real sonnet!" Strictly speaking it's not a real sonnet (doesn't conform to any traditional rhyme pattern or the required rhythm) but his comment is encouraging. Ron suggested changing the word "never" in line seven to "yet". I'll give it a go.

Another Day

This world spins on and on again
uninterrupted by the ways of men,
our little victories and sad defeats
within whose grasp the spirit meets
the limits that all flesh must find
in life, which being neither kind
nor yet unkind, passes as it must,
this earth to earth and dust to dust,
through sacred rituals and these rites
of passage through the faded light’s
remembrance of our highs and lows,
our commonplace, our joys and woes.
But spin it does for each new dawn
while we left here, look up, move on.

Spike had a less than poetic day (although a pleasant enough evening at the AGNSW with her parents and grandmother). Neil Gaiman's friend, the tree in Stardust, gives you a hint.

Not drowning but waving

Swam in the pools with Spike. Neither of us drowned. We both enjoyed the experience, I think. I'm hoping we'll do it again.

After that, in keeping with the evening's focus on health and well-being, we ordered two medium pizzas from Peppino's in Liverpool Road. Back home we washed them down with tea for me and a chilled Marborough white wine for Spike.

City of Sydney's Cook and Phillip Park Aquatic and Fitness Centre

The Renaissance Lyric and the foolish under-achiever

This may represent another triumph of hope over experience or Marx's observation about history repeating itself ... tragic first time round and farce the next.

So I've enrolled in an English literature course, taught at the slightly less than appealing Carslaw Building at the University of Sydney. How many times can a man fail to complete undergraduate study? We'll see.

Another day

This world spins on and on again
uninterrupted by the ways of men,
our little victories and sad defeats
within whose grasp the spirit meets
the limits that all flesh must find
in life, which being neither kind
nor even unkind, passes as it must,
this earth to earth and dust to dust,
through sacred rituals and these rites
of passage through the faded light’s
remembrance of our highs and lows,
our commonplace, our joys and woes.
But spin it does for each new dawn
while we left here, look up, move on.

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Matt makes the newspaper

It's not the finest piece of journalism but it does make an attempt to capture the atmosphere of an event that did justice to Matt's life.

Read the Sydney Morning Herald article here.

Matt's funeral today

Seven hundred turned up to say farewell wee man.

Mixed day

We had an excellent breakfast in what has become my favourite cafe in Sydney: La Buena Mesa in Annandale Street. I wrote a poem about it once, not so very long ago.

In the afternoon I sat in Parliament suffering the infantile behaviour of question time before listening to the Ministerial Statement and Opposition Statement on Matt. It's odd to hear the words you wrote spoken back at you by a Minister of The Crown. But fair doos, he did a decent job and Matt was worthy of their minute's silence.

Hansard records it in this way:

"Mr PAUL LYNCH (Liverpool—Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [3.37 p.m.]: All members of this House would be aware that New South Wales and Australia lost one of its most talented and courageous citizens on the afternoon of Sunday 1 March 2009. Sadly, Matt Laffan passed away at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, aged just 38 years. I note the presence of friends and family in the gallery. Matt was born with a rare genetic disorder of the spine, diastrophic dysplasia. Medical opinion declared that he would not live beyond a week; Matt made a life of defying such odds. In fact, Matt redefined the odds."

More ...
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Big Skills ... small brain!!!!!

So ... I stayed up until half past two in the morning to finish my wonderful, magical, spell-binding, best ever power point slide show in the history of power point slides shows for my 11:30 a.m. talk at the Big Skills conference organised by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. I arrived at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre in plenty of time; maybe eleven o'clock. It was only when I asked the techie guy to help me install my presentation that I discovered I had saved the best ever power point slide show on my PC's hard disc and not the USB drive I had brought with me.

Dummkopf!!!! As we say in my little universe called 'Almost got it right!'

Twenty frantic minutes of cutting and pasting from other presentations (which were, thankfully, saved on my USB) and some quick slide creation gave me something close to a decent talk. I don't think anyone noticed.
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Julie McCrossin sat in on my session, which she seemed to enjoy. She roped me in to the plenary session after lunch (not that it takes much to persuade me to sit in front of a microphone). Julie asked me to start my piece on the rights of people with disability with my second rendition of the day of Beethoven's 9th on my harmonica. So 400 delegate suffered the shonkiest playing you could possibly imagine but it got the point across as it always does (Beethoven never heard his own music because he was completely deaf by the time it was first performed). Not a bad day really but I did kick myself when I read the list of files on my USB. Dickhead.
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Two great shows and a decent lunch at Bodhi's

First there was the excellent Wildlife Photographer Of The Year at the Australian Museum. there are some truly stunning images. Shame the book of the show gave insufficient thought to presenting the photos ... how likely is one to buy a gorgeous scene of African wildlife with a giant staple in the third oryx from the right? Correct: not very.





















Then there was the surreal, wonderful, fun of Yayoi Kusama at the Museum of Contemporary Art. No words of mine could do justice to her art. Just go see the show.

Spike's first day

well ... I was excited simply driving Spike to the front door so who knows what the great artist in waiting herself must have made of it.

Hariet Tubman (a woman I refer to in my disability awareness training sessions) made this observation:

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

Chase that dream, girl!

Matt Laffan died today

There's little one can say about such sad news. A delightful man taken too soon.

http://www.mattlaffan.com.au