A nativity scene without Jews, Arabs, Africans or refugees.

By dodo156 at imgur.com 

Lessons in Australian Drama

Much to my shame (if that's not too strong a condemnation) I know almost nothing about the history of Australian theatre but all that will change soon. I shall be taking a unit in Modern Australian Drama next semester at the ANU:

"The course aims to provide students with an introduction to some of the major developments in Australian drama and theatre in the twentieth century. Works by key playwrights, for example Seymour, Lawler, White, Kenna, Hewett, Buzo, Nowra, Williamson, Romeril, Hibberd, Gow and Davis will be studied both theoretically and practically. The plays chosen represent the wide range of subject matter and theatrical form that is evident in the modern Australian dramatic repertoire. In order to contextualise the plays studied, some examination will be given to more important elements of the stage history of Australia covering the last 50 years.

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to study theory through its practical application."

I'm looking forward to my late-starter introduction; particularly that last part. It seems we shall be learning by doing to some extent.

Dorothy Hewett: 1923 - 2002

We studied Dorothy Hewett's play, The Chapel Perilous, from the 1970s, as part of our 'Story to Screen' creative writing unit last semester. Although I knew nothing about the playwright (now I do) I was not surprised to learn of her Communist background (it takes one to know one, as we used to accuse one other, of all kinds of deviancy, when we were children.) Nor had I heard of the play, far less read it (although now I have, enjoyed it and secured a decent grade for my essay on the text - to my great relief). 

The play felt familiar nevertheless. It is, as some might say, 'of its age' but that 'age' - the 1970s - was my coming of age; emotionally, intellectually, politically as much as physically or chronologically. That was the decade I was exposed meaningfully to theatre for the first time; outside of the school curriculum, beyond the mainstream stage, in a Scotland that was re-inventing its theatrical tradition. It was a place and period of radical, iconoclastic, typically left-leaning drama that could be, at its best, electrifying and challenging in both its form and content. But it was also, very often, brilliant, engaging, and blissfully alive; full of fun, laughter, and music as well as piercing observation, searing critique and sometimes anger. Plays like The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black, Black Oil (1973) by 7:84 - a touchstone for anyone of my time; The Slab Boys by John Byrne performed at the impeccable Traverse in 1978; the hugely talented Russell Hunter as Jock, a one-man play for BBC Scotland; much later there were fantastic works like Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off by Liz Lochhead, anything by the Communicado Theatre Group really, or the Trav's adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Those earlier plays, however, shared much of the Brechtian, destabilising verve of The Chapel Perilous.

So ... I was pleased to stumble over an article with the (somewhat unwieldy) title, The great Australian plays: The Torrents, the Doll and the critical mass of Australian drama in The Conversation online. Helpful pre-semester reading. It should assist my exploration of a largely unknown (to me) dramatic tradition. We shall see where that leads.

Cay by Martin Pevsner

Another interesting read, the short story Cay by Martin Pevsner - winner of the 2016 Mogford Food and Drink Short Story Prize (this year's entries close 15th January 2017.) It fits with what might be the current zeitgeist for somewhat detached, observational writing. There's nothing much in the way of beginning, middle and end, in any order you care to think of; nothing at all in fact.

Martin Pevsner's web site is worth visiting.

The Human Phonograph by Jonathan Tel

From The Guardian:  Many years on... The site of China’s first nuclear weapon research base
Haiyan county, Qinghai province. Photograph: STRINGER/CHINA/REUTERS

Understated yet compelling writing. A short story by Jonathan Tel; winner of the Commonwealth short story prize 2015. Details of each year's competition may be found at Commonwealth Writers. 

The Human Phonograph can be read at the Guardian website. 

Priceless

Yesterday is the birth place of today

Marvin Gaye, 1983. Not wrong.

And he wasn't wrong here either ...

Sam Dastyari exposes the vile absurdity of Pauline Hanson

Racism is having a worrying (but minor) resurgence in Australia. Pauline Hanson is its best known flag-waver although in recent days journalist Andrew Bolt, television 'celebrity' Sonia Kruger and Norther Territory politician Adam Giles have added fuel to the flames (or been sucked into the vortex ... if you're inclined to feel over-generous when reflecting on their public pronouncements). All four have spoken up or written in favour of banning or keeping out Muslim migrants to Australia.

Sam Dastaryi, an Australian Labor Party Senator with whose right-leaning tendencies I have often disagreed, has been remarkably effective and truly outstanding in challenging attempts to make anti-Muslim sentiment the new normal of Australian political discourse. His performance - sitting next to Pauline Hanson on last night's ABC programme Q & A - is a masterclass in challenging political opponents directly, forcefully and effectively without losing either the plot or - even more importantly - the argument or the audience. You can see it here.

Today he posted a photo and comment via Twitter to highlight the absurdity, the irrationality, the mendacity of Pauline Hanson's racism. You simply cannot fault his analysis or doubt his real courage in these ghastly times. We need more people like Senator Dastyari to be willing to stick their heads above the parapet to say ... Enough, No more! And the rest of us (you know, when is a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant like me ever going to encounter such a challenge to my legitimacy and background?) ... we need to give whatever support we can to brave, decent, progressive voices.

Sam Dstyari at five years old. Pic: Sam Dastyari
Me @ 5. Never been religious (born Muslim).
Under the Hanson ban I would never have been able to come to Australia.

Some days a man could weep

From today's Guardian ...

The TV presenter Sonia Kruger has called for an end to Muslim immigration to Australia, saying she agrees with the US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stance on immigration.

Read the whole article here.

Thankfully good folk like those at Gosford Anglican Church know something about common, human decency.

Another Country

Passage III: Project Another Country. Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan (2009)
Singapore Art Museum, June 2016

A beautiful gift by Trevor Gill

Trevor Gill as Bottom. Pic: Topher McGrillis

The initial reason for travelling to the UK in June was to visit Belfast, meet old friends of almost forty years standing and catch my friend Trevor Gill play the role of Bottom in the Royal Shakespeare Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Trevor and his fellow amateur players were, quite simply, brilliant. It would have been impossible for anyone who didn't know the cast personally to tell which people on stage were the professionals, which the amateurs (accents aside).

Over this weekend the Belvoir Theatre mechanicals helped to bring the RSC Dream 2016 to a close at Stratford-upon-Avon. What a buzz. How richly deserved.

Trevor wrote of his feelings and impressions about being involved in this remarkable project for the last year. The RSC published his thoughts on the production's blog. Trevor started his short essay this way:

This Friday night, five of my good friends from The Belvoir Players and I will stand at the very heart of world drama. We will step out onto the stage at the RSC’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), Stratford on Avon in the 400th anniversary year of William Shakespeare’s death. We follow in the footsteps of the great and the good of UK and international theatre. 

Sometimes I still find it hard to believe that it’s happening.

Read Trevor's whole piece here.

Lucy Ellinson (Puck), Spike, Trevor Gill (Bottom) and me at the Belfast show after-party.

If ever there could be a good reason to fly 10,000 miles around the globe it would be to cheer on Trevor and his team. We had fun. I can't imagine what it must have felt like for TG and the Belvoir Theatre players.

An idea is forming

Death on a Pale Horse. Benjamin West (1796)

Preparing for a course on Spanish film

Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali (1928)

The course outline for my second semester film studies course (Spanish language film) arrived in my university account inbox this morning. I've been waiting for it (not entirely patiently) so I can try to get ahead of the viewing schedule. I've seen only three of the thirteen movies on the screening list previously so that's good for me in that I'll be watching films I've not seen before. On the other hand I'll be viewing most of the works for the first time so I shall need to ensure I see each at least twice if I'm going to get into them adequately. There are, I accept, more onerous tasks in life.

I was not surprised that our screenings begin with Luis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou. That's one of my three. I watched it again this afternoon (It's under twenty minutes in running time). The opening scene with the eye remains as confronting now as it was when I first watched - I don't know how long ago. Once again, I closed my eyes because it's too difficult to look at. Modern day gore and guts and comic book violence have little effect on me. The willing suspense of disbelief seldom kicks in when shock-horror violence of absurd unreality and computer-generated fakery fills the screen. But I can't follow that open razor across the character's eye, even though I know the scene was filmed using the eye of a dead calf. I've no doubt the impulse to turn away, to not look is exactly what the film-makers were after. Nevertheless it's impressive that almost ninety years later, knowing what's coming, and knowing how the shot was constructed it still retains its power to shock; I still can't look.

The film is, of course, surrealist bonkers. One would expect nothing less of a project in which Salvador Dali participated. (I did not know he plays one of the priests being hauled across the bedroom floor. I think I did know, however, that it's Bunuel himself who wields the open razor). I laughed when I read that Dali thought the film had failed his co-author intentions at its first showing. No fight broke out among the audience, which reads like a who's who of the Parisian avant garde. Freud and psychoanalysis must have seemed so revolutionary in the mid-twenties. The film-makers must have felt they were pushing the boundaries of the still-new medium of film and the barely developed idea of spectatorship. Maybe they were.

I wonder what they would make of today's voyeuristic, reality-show culture? Dali might have loved its frivolous excess of attention-seeking performance (although he may also have despaired at the dearth of technical skill, irony and intellect to underpin it). Bunuel might have thought his worst nightmares were being realised. I shall see if the course sheds any light on those, not entirely idle speculations.

It's a long way from a white Christmas

We woke to snow falling on our Canberra garden this morning. Snow - in Australia! It's not what you expect. It's certainly not what I emigrated from Scotland in search of. I ought not to be too surprised though. We live about ninety-minutes' drive from the Snowy Mountains and, I suppose, the clue is in the their title. 

Spike, of course, was happier than a penguin at the south pole. Not only was it cold (minus two last night and minus four expected tonight), not only was the ground frosted hard, it was actually snowing as we looked out of our window. Wrapped only in her dressing gown Spike went to investigate, to willingly experience the cold (I guess) and take the photograph of our garage roof (which could pass for a ploughed field on a crisp northern morning from my childhood). 

While our intrepid photographer was out capturing her shot I was switching on the fire in our study because ... you know ... it was snowing outside. I ask you, does that seem odd to you?

This does for today

Holding Back The Years by Simply Red

This song went to Number 1 in the USA on this day in 1985, apparently. I was living in my Grassmarket flat when the single came out in the UK; barely three months out of hospital after ten months rehab following my accident. Even at that stage I knew the world needed changing. Thirty-something years later there is still work needs doing.

I bought the CD, of course. I still have it somewhere. 

This'll do for today. It fits, not that one knows why.

And today's word is ...

asseverate

It's a word I never knew existed until I read it in a short story, Monday or Tuesday, by Virginia Woolf. I had to look it up. Dictionary.com tells me it means,

1. to declare earnestly or solemnly; affirm positively; aver.

from the Latin assevērātus spoken in earnest (past participle of assevērāre)

Who knew?

Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips, 1813

Mrs. Woolf, obviously. And Thomas Moore, who used it in Volume 6 of his six-volume Life of Lord Byron (1854). My guess is Lord Byron also probably knew what the word meant. I doubt that I shall ever use asseverate in any other context but, as ever, I am indebted to Virginia Woolf. 

I could be being a smarty pants here: Perhaps a year before this portrait was completed Lady Caroline Lamb asseverated that her lover, Lord Byron, was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." 

Allegedly.

A society for asking questions

Virginia Woolf. Source: AP/Getty Images

Ninety-five years ago Virginia Woolf published a collection of short stories entitled Monday or Tuesday. I read the opening two stories earlier today. The first - a short, short story - is called 'A Haunted House'. It clearly draws directly on Mrs. Woolf's life and the deaths of her parents. One can see in it the core elements concerned with families and loss as well as time and place (especially the house in 'Time Passes') presented with such accomplishment and power in the novel To The Lighthouse, published six years later.

The second piece in the 1921 short-story collection goes by the title, 'A Society'. It's a comic tale, a satire I suppose, extolling feminist Utopian ideas which, almost one hundred years after publication, remains insightful and compelling. Like everything of Virginia Woolf's I have read it also shows her powerful intellect and perceptive skill. It is witty, self-deprecating at times and sharp throughout. It's impossible not to think that a Century later we still haven't reached the point Mrs. Woolf looked forward to in her short story.

by Aubrey Beardsley, 1895

I subsequently stumbled over (yet again and not for the last time) just how much I do not know and have yet to learn when I found an academic paper on Mrs. Woolf's short story online: 'A Society': An Aristophanic Comedy by Virginia Woolf' by Lucía P. Romero-Mariscal. I vaguely recall studying one of Aristophanes' plays forty years ago at Stirling University. It may have been Lysistrata but might have been The Birds. I still possess the book of the great dead Greek's plays I bought in 1975 or 1976; one of several paperbacks to see me through the semester on drama. 

Now ... I'm not entirely thick. With character names such as Cassandra and Castalia, and references to Sappho in her story I understood Virginia Woolf was making Classical allusions as well as many other observations. But I had no idea at all of the direct reference to and influence of Aristophanes' Lysistrata in 'A Society' until I read Ms. Romero-Mariscal's short, insightful and persuasively argued paper. So I came away from this evening's set of readings with clear impressions and observations, which include:

• Every new encounter with Virginia Woolf's writing leaves me in awe of her talent and accomplishments;
• I truly do know much less than I think I know;
• I have a lot to learn;
• Writing has as much to do with reading as it does with writing.

When I was reading Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon I was struck by a suggestion of his that one should "climb your own family tree". He described that idea in these terms,

"... chew on one thinker - writer, artist, activist, role model - you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker. Then find three people that thinker loved, and find out everything about them. Repeat this as many times as you can."

I surprised myself at the time by sticking an IKEA-equivalent of a post-it note to the page in Mr. Kleon's book (page 15, as it happens). I scribbled on my note, "who would that be?" I was stumped not because I don't have heroes and role models. I have many. Instead, I struggled with selecting my number one, my person of choice with whom to begin. Since reading Steal Like an Artist, however, the question has been answering itself because time after time after time I'm drawn back to Virginia Woolf. Who would have thought so? Well, me actually; now that I think about her place in the panoply of influences and talents from which I might choose. 

It seems, then, I've found the first of my next three 'thinkers' to explore (as I continue to mine the works of Virginia Woolf). So ... Aristophanes, here I come. I shall start by digging out the creased and worn paperback volume of Greek plays I've carried with me across two continents for more than forty years. Back to the future indeed.

E Annie Proulx keeps moving

The writer's desk. Pic: John Freeman

Annie Proulx no longer lives in Wyoming (I may be one of the last people on the planet to know this fact but it's news to me). And she has a new novel out; Barkskins, which I shall add to the list of future-reads (university reading lists loom large in my current thinking; term starts in a week so I have other priorities).

I read those snippets of 'news' in an article, 'How The Writer Researches: Annie Proulx', in the online journal, The Literary Hub. The article is worth reading. It begins:

Annie Proulx is 80 years old and still not sure where she belongs. Standing in the atrium of her home in the Snoqualmie Valley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist eyes a photograph of the cottage she once occupied in Newfoundland, the setting of her 1993 novel, The Shipping News. “I fell in love with that landscape,” Proulx says, speaking in the tone of a woman describing an ex-lover.

“But ultimately, I did not belong there.”

After 20 years in Wyoming—several spent building a dream home she later sold—Proulx had a similar epiphany about that state. As she did about Vermont, and Texas, and New Mexico, and any number of places where she has lived. In an age of itinerary writer-teachers, Proulx’s boomerangs back and forth across North America are exceptional.

Now she’s made a similar discovery of the wooded idyll east of Seattle.

 If it's true that Ms. Proulx remains unsure about where she belongs there may yet be hope for a 'young man' like me, teetering on the brink of sixty-something. Write on Douglas. Write on.

Batman v Superman

If ever a movie could be improved by losing the first hour of its preposterous, pompous three hours, it's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Man, oh man what a crushingly boring sixty minutes that first hour is. After that it's a passable visual effects piece - completely bonkers - but no more than passable. Shame really.

High Tech / Low Starting Point

Spike handles one of the art works on display at Imaginarium, last Thursday at the Singapore Art Museum. It was a fun exhibition. The fact that I've been able to upload the file from my OneDrive folders suggests I may finally be following the instructions.

#OldManAlmostJoinsThe21stCentury

Poetry - a living, breathing art

Poet Jackie Kay recites her first commission as Scots Makar at the Opening Ceremony of Scotland's Parliament. (I was at university with Jackie and worked alongside her father, John, in the 1980s. Lucky me.)

Maslow ... with wifi

Source: @morten

A version of this arrived in my twitter feed this afternoon. It made me smile on a day when I'm not fully charged.

Swift

Much to my surprise, I've been working on an essay for my ANU English Literature course on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. For many critics, it's Swift's most accomplished satirical short prose work. My jury has always been out on Swift and it remains out still. But there is a lot going on with this outrageous pastiche of the type of early-18th Century pamphlets that seemed to circulate endlessly, pointlessly and much too frequently among the chattering classes of Georgian England. It's no bad thing that I'm reappraising Swift to some degree. There's plenty I can learn and it's usually good to prove yourself wrong. It suggests you're still asking questions of yourself.

Here's Peter O'Toole reading A Modest Proposal on the occasion, thirty two years ago, of the re-opening of the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. He was booed and there were walkouts. Nearly 300 years after Swift published his pamphlet anonymously, it seems his words still had and have the power to disrupt the cosy comfort of Ireland's middle classes.

A Sonnet

I completed a sonnet, which will be my third poem for the portfolio of writing that's to be assessed for my creative writing course at the ANU. It's called, 'Is There an App for This?' Here's the first verse,

No txt emoji known to man or beast,

No night spent swiping left or right,

No ‘Fitbit’-measured heartbeat much increased

Placates the sad, rejected lover’s plight.

So that's all the first draft's completed.

• Margaret and the Dali, a short-story
• Good Lord, is that the time already?, a free form poem
• Custodians, a vilanelle
• Is There an App for This?, a sonnet

Final drafts and a two-page account of my editing decisions are required by the 2nd June. But we're leaving Australia, week after next, for five weeks in the northern hemisphere so I have to submit the finished portfolio before we go. After that we shall see what's what.

Captain America: Civil War

Popcorn movie blockbuster as they are meant to be. Fun but not stupid.

I Know A Man

We discussed a poem I had not come across before in this afternoon's writing workshop at the ANU. Robert Creely's I know A Man.

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going. 

Written in 1954 or 1955 it inhabits the same world as that of the rest of the Beat poets; a world of jazz, drugs and alcohol, the crisis of confidence of American masculinity, and loss of control. Good stuff. I shall read more.

There can be too much of a good thing.

Late lunch at The Gods Cafe, ANU. Size matters. Half as much would have done. The heavy load we students are forced to carry.

Transamerica

Source: Belladonna Productions

I watched the 2005 movie Transamerica which is the film we'll discuss in tomorrow's tutorial for my Film Studies course. Ho hum. I understand irony and the place of camp and parody and it is, of course, better to have you're heart in the right place than not. But it's not sufficient to have good intentions. So what can one say? Well ... it's not an awful film. It's heart is in the right place. And it's of its time and maybe, ten years ago, it was pushing against doors that remained firmly shut. But only maybe. I wish I could say more because I admire the people involved and respect their intentions.

A vilanelle?

Today I completed the second of three poems I'm required to submit as part of the assessed work for my creative writing course at the ANU. We're asked to submit a free-verse poem and two others with more traditional, formal structures such as a vilanelle or sonnet. I finished and submitted the first, my vilanelle, this morning.  It's called Custodians, and this is how it starts:

Tomorrow is not ours to lose but keep, 
To hold, protect, and save from foolish men
So no dark days may make our children weep.

We shall see what they think.

Dylan Thomas
Source: University of Buffalo

And here - because one can - is the most famous vilanelle ever written. Thank you Dylan Thomas. The rest of us know how high we need to aim.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A Perfect Fit

The Guardian and Sir David Attenbourgh. These two cultural icons have influenced all of my adult life and more. Happy birthday Sir David.

Is there an authentic me?

For this week's reading response as part of my Digital Culture course at the Australian National University we are asked:

Is there an 'authentic' you? And if so, where? Does your online identity have anything to do with your 'real' identity, or do you make a distinction, if not, why? 

And here's my reply.

How can one know? 

Jacques Derrida.
Source: The Guardian 

I shall attempt an answer to your question(s) and mine but bear with me. There’s a risk I may be circuitous, even appear evasive, in my attempt to provide what ought to be an easy answer to a straightforward question.  Of course, there’s an authentic me, I instinctively assert (with scanter evidence than I’m entirely certain about). And yet, if I’m honest, those dead, white, 20th Century, French philosophers in Wednesday’s lecture (especially Derrida, I have to say, with his viral matrix, its two threads of disordered communication and undecidability) require me to pause, reflect, question my own assertion, hedge my bets in a way. Not quite answer.

Here’s where my problems start. 

First, there’s postmodernism. It’s not really an ‘-ism’ at all. No one really takes it seriously in the 21st Century. And yet … Second, there’s Derrida who just will not leave any thinking person alone with the comfortable, old world certainties (which I mean rhetorically or ironically) of Modernity’s Cartesian duality and the 18th Century Enlightenment, particularly (for me) the dimension one was raised to regard as its muscular, ‘ass-kicking’, let’s get the rational, empiricist show on the road variant, known as the Scottish Enlightenment (Hume, Smith, Carlyle, Watt to name but a few). And third, there is the slippery but essential method / tool / process / technique / concept (I’m never quite sure what signifier to use, which is the kind of postmodern, Derridan circularity that makes one scream at times) of deconstruction. Those threads leave an ageing Marxist floundering at times. The result is I respond to your question(s) not with answers but more questions. They may circle what looks like answer.

#1, What do we mean by authentic?

Source: The New Inquiry

Rob Horning thinks he knows. He writes (in his article 'Google Alert for the Soul') that we can no longer think of authenticity as,

fidelity to an inner truth about the self but fidelity to the self posited by the synthesis of data captured in social media - what I here call the data self. This sort of decentered authenticity posits a self entirely enmeshed in algorithmic controls, but it may also be the first step toward post-authenticity, 

I’m not so sure. So I start by turning to a dictionary to consider the different, perhaps overlapping or contradictory, readings of the signifier “authentic”. Thus:

1) “of undisputed origin or authorship; genuine”

• I possess a 59-year old document that confirms Douglas Dougan Herd was born at 4:40 p.m. on the date of his birth at 1301 Govan Road, Glasgow.
• On its reverse is written in fading ink that this Douglas Dougan Herd was “Baptised in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” on 19th May 1957.
• I also have a certificate of Australian citizenship dated 16th November 2006.
• All genuine with verifiable authorship and of undisputed origin. Am I authentically Australian or Scottish? Can I be both simultaneously? 
• I know I have no religious Faith of any sort but I was Baptised in a Christian church and raised through my formative years in the same traditions of Scottish Presbyterianism that drove the 18th Century Enlightenment. Baptised? Baptism no longer in operation? Didn’t he mention Marxist earlier? Who is this Douglas Dougan Herd? Does he know? Do we believe him?

2) “accurate in representation of the facts; trustworthy; reliable.”

• How authentic can one’s identity be if an accurate representation of the facts suggests this Douglas Dougan Herd may not be trustworthy or reliable. For example, is this definition of authentic reconciled or destabilised by even a few facts (selected from a longer list from life)?
• Twice divorced: accurate but ... trustworthy, reliable?
• Arrested at the age of 17 by two Scottish police officers, jailed for a night, appeared in a Scottish court to answer charges of drunkenness and breach of the peace. Accurate, trustworthy and reliable. 
• (I was found to be not guilty. Does that mean 2 authentic police officers lied? Yes. Most 17-year olds plead guilty, cop the fine and move on ‘cos, you know, who is a judge going to believe?)
• Arrested, age 22, after being chased by six Scottish police officers, jailed for a night, fined £50 for breach of peace & disorderly conduct. 
• (Organiser of student civil disobedience action against Apartheid rugby team tour. Pitch ‘invasion’.)
• Subject of an MI5 counter-intelligence file along with many other political activists of the 1980s. 
• (You would think MI5 had more important people to keep files on but apparently not.)

#2, Does your online identity have anything to do with your 'real' identity, or do you make a distinction, if not, why?

Douglas Rushkoff's polemic
Source: Wired

The first part of the question suggests a false dichotomy that cannot be sustained and is not helpful in the digital age. In as much as any person’s identity can be said to be real it must, in the contemporary world, encompass an online dimension as well as others that are no less constructed (see final part below).  This is one of the (several) areas in which I take issue with Douglas Rushkoff’s essay ‘Digiphrenia’, not least his rather disingenuous assertion that “people are still analog”. 

Well, yes but also no Mr. Rushkoff. Here’s how I think I know.

• Paraphrasing William Shakespeare’s Shylock, ‘If you do prick me, do I not bleed’ (real, analogue Dougie)
• Access Internet Banking (real, digital Dougie)
• Buy online (book purchases, flights to Scotland, etc.) real, digital transactions to facilitate, expand and enrich the experience of real, analogue Dougie.
• Post to social media daily (more or less) real, analogue Dougie’s construction of real, digital Dougie’s online presence, e.g.
• Tweet on issues of political engagement (disability advocacy, anti-Trump, etc)
• Facebook posts ranging from anti-Trump memes, disability advocacy, photos of tomatoes in the garden or our cat, Prince videos for obvious reasons. (digital traces and signs of the real analogue Dougie, his online networks and personal biases and preferences)
• Blog, essentially a private journal because no one else reads it.

I contend that all of the above and more are constituent parts of the currently authentic me. But that idea of me is not the same as the idea of me twenty years ago and it won’t be me in ten years’ time (if I live that long).  As Irving Howe observed over 20 years ago,

Let us say that the self is a construct of mind, an hypothesis of being, socially formed even as it can be quickly turned against the very social formations that have brought it into birth 

Or almost. I think we construct, deconstruct and reconstruct our self continuously; in real time, in relationships with real people as well as online in networks, communities and virtual worlds. It’s called life. Sometimes it’s messy and hard to pin down. That’s not a bad thing.

Donald Trump: dangerous for democracy

Spike's spuds

Picked this morning

Before ...

and after.

Purple Rain

Looking ahead ... it's not all straightforward

But I welcome a challenge.

Ashcombe Maze & Lavender Garden, Victoria
Looks like a place worth visiting

Who We Were by Lucy Neave

Order a copy here

So ... I finished reading the novel written by my creative writing teacher at the Australian National University. Here's an interview / profile of Lucy from the Sydney Morning Herald. 

What do I think? I'm not entirely sure. It's well-written - sparse, minimalist prose with a surprisingly detached tone (surprising given it's both a love story and a quasi-political thriller with spies, FBI raids and extra-marital sex on the lounge room floor - or was it the kitchen?) Maybe that tone reflects the post-traumatic distancing felt by the narrator; betrayed, back home in Australia, isolated and recalling events years after the events. Detachment is a tricky tone to sustain. 

What words would I use to describe the novel? Intriguing rather than compelling. Ambitious in what it strives to achieve, seeking to unite the personal stories with the politics and beat of another place and time. But not entirely successful in realising its commendable ambitions? 'Fraid so. It's a good, interesting read but at times I couldn't quite maintain a willing suspension of disbelief. Read it and judge for yourself because there are plenty of professional reviewers (some you can find on Lucy's web site here) and everyday readers (on the Good Reads web site here) who think differently.

Jane Eyre

The brilliant Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre

Watched a splendid adaptation of Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Anchored by a marvellous performance by Mia Wasikowska it also has excellent support from Michael Fassbinder, Judi Dench and Jamie Bell. Can a movie be better than the book it comes from? Probably not but this comes close. It's pared back, spare and manages the novel's implausible plot points well enough to keep intact your willing suspension of disbelief. Well worth watching.

Star Wars VII ... again

Rented the great adventure from iTunes. It really does stand up to watching a second time. It may even be better this time round (although that doesn't alter the fact it's essentially a re-make of the original with some clever mirror imaging between the two stories). I believe I'm now looking forward to Episode VIII more keenly than before.

A good day to enter my sixth decade

Breakfast at Local Press Cafe, Lake Burley Griffen ...

then the Great Moscow Circus ...

then ...

the flat-packed furniture shop ...

before a little bit of campaigning
for Every Australian Counts

Whatever you do ... don't mention the war?

Well no, of course we should mention it.  An article appears in today's Guardian under the headline 

Bernie Sanders' focus on Clinton's Iraq war vote isn't harping - it's necessary

It's written by Trevor Timm and, by and large, I agree with his central argument that the war in Iraq and the politics surrounding the decisions in the USA, the UK and elsewhere remain important matters of political debate and scrutiny today. But who voted which way and why is of less importance - except in the realms of history and election rhetoric in the current USA election campaigns (Democrat and Republican) - than establishing a clear framework to ensure we can deal with the war's legacy peacefully and avoid the political folly of repeating the mistakes of 2002 / 2003.

Hubris - MSNBC documentary from Rachel Maddow, 2013

All of which is by way of my apology for what follows. Mr Angry of Gilmore has been hitting the keyboard again in response to the article and some of the comments made by other readers. Here is what I wrote. 

I agree that the Iraq War is a legitimate matter to be raised in political debate today (like millions of others I marched to oppose the war because there were no WMD and the US and British governments at that time lied to their citizens). I agree too with your observations that we can trace the origins of ISIS to the chaos that war unleashed.

I'm not overly impressed, however, by Bernie Sanders reductionist rhetoric, which you quote in the article,

I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.

The politically easy and (I think) reasonable answer to BS comment is that 'we were all lied to / if I knew then what I know now, etc'. Thousands of politicians the world over voted the same way as HRC. I believe they were wrong to do so. But that does not necessarily make them unfit to govern 10 years and more later. 

The questions BS and voters ought to be addressing is this: given the horrendous mistakes and deceit (by some people in government at the time) what foreign policy lessons have they learned, how will they govern to resist the mindless nihilism of ISIS, keep citizens safe and build a peaceful future? 

But here's the thing. Bernie has to answer those questions persuasively, just as much as HRC needs to, because he wants to be President as much as she does. We need to know in detail what both HRC and BS would do with their foreign policies because we certainly know what dangerous fools like Donald Drumpf and Ted Cruz would try to do. None of us wants to live (and maybe die) in the world they'd want to bomb back to the stone age.

Mr Angry from Gilmore is back again ...

Democratic Party, USA

An article appeared in The Guardian over the weekend which set me off (as sometimes happens). I resisted the temptation to respond because - frankly my dear, no one gives a damn what Douglas thinks. But I obviously cannot control myself. I saw the headline again this morning when I skimmed the front page. It's not just the politics of the article which drove me nuts (I believe it adopts a wishful thinking position because that's more soothing than the real world, it appears). It's also the deliberate avoidance of facts (about the relative strengths in the Democratic nomination process of the two candidates) that rattles my cage. Presumably mere facts present difficulties for the author's vision of how she would like the world to be rather than how it truly is.

That latter part - the disinclination to deal with facts - has always annoyed me about some of my fellow travellers on the political Left. When facts don't fit or cause problems for the narrative some folk on the Left carry on with their first thought, simply ignoring evidence they don't like. I think our task (keeping the progressive impulses of history moving forwards) is hard enough without resorting to pseudo-analysis from which all those pieces of real world intelligence we would rather not deal with have been quietly left on the floor. It reminds me of the behaviour I indulged in sometimes as a child. When I didn't like something - a parent issuing instructions perhaps - I tried to imagine that if I closed my eyes to their presence or obscured them with my fingers they would not be there. But when I lowered my hands the insistent parent was still there. Just like difficult facts.

Here is today's contribution in response to the article from the Guardian, here:

Bernie Sanders just won his seventh straight victory. Is he unstoppable? 

2.4 million more people have voted for HRC than Bernie. HRC is more than 200 delegates ahead of Bernie in the pledged delegate count. Bernie continues to lag behind HRC in both the popular and delegate vote. These numbers suggest quite the opposite of the article's rhetorical question. 

And you write that in Wyoming

He won 56% to 44%, and picked up seven delegates

but conveniently omit the fact that HRC picked up 7 delegates too.

And your article seems to deliberately misuse the language of the nomination process when it says

Sanders has done this in the past seven primaries, eventually crossing the finish line ahead of her.

We know, of course, that there is a fundamental difference between how HRC and Bernie perform in closed primaries or caucuses like Wyoming (with tightly closed and small electorates) and primaries (with far larger and more open electorates). New York is a primary not a caucus. It has a huge number of voters from a far more diverse population. It's in such contests that HRC has been at her strongest. So even if Bernie exceeds expectations in New York the maths of the nomination process suggest his bid has already been stopped because he needed to do better earlier to have any realistic hope of winning the race for pledged delegates.