After a long absence

After a long absence
I was warned that I would not be able to keep up writing regular blog posts. And it was so. I can’t say that I will get back to it on a regular basis, because other things are of higher priority. For now I am posting two items.

1. All of the monthly bulletins from June to November. They are all in this one post.

2. John’s Artist Statement re his current work, which appears after this blog.

There is so much more that I would like to say now that a certain putrid smell seems to be dissipating across the wide brown land. We must have all died and gone to Kevin.

–˜™—
May 2007
Hey H’lo,
I am waiting on permission to reproduce something from the Melbourne Age in my blog. In the mean time, I am sending it by email. See attached. Warning, if you like John Howard you might prefer to give it a miss. On the other hand, it is a factual analysis of a claim Howard has made about himself (and compares him with Master K. Rudd Esquire, on the same issues.) It’s worth a read.

It’s approaching two months since I cut loose. I wish I could report two months of worthwhile achievements. You might be interested in my solution to the Zimbabwe question (Blog 10/5/07) and my scheme to provide every artist in Australia (eventually the world) with $1 million each (Blog 29/4/07). There’s also a new group of photos in my Flickr account: Mystrees. They are what the poem …We are surprised is about.

The major addition since last time is the full text of Cyclone Dreaming. (There will be a few of these over the coming months until I have resurrected all of the Celebration Menus we had in our restaurant.) It is in 16 parts. The Introduction is Part 1 and explains what it’s all about. Enough to say here that it’s a meditation on “saving the world” . Just kidding. HALF. If you’re going to read it, you really do need to start from the beginning. I would welcome any dialogue that might flow from it. If you wish to participate, make comments and where you feel prompted, respond to other people’s comments as well as the work itself.

My music lessons are going well. The Maestro gave me some pieces that are infinitely harder than anything I’ve ever done before. John said that is a good sign. I hope he’s right, and that it’s not just the Maestro trying to get rid of me. Compared with his Conservatorium students I’m the equivalent of Pauline Hanson in politics. Please explain.

Have a nice day, and
Love your enemies.

June 2007
Ho Ho Ho,
Just kidding, but at the rate the year’s going it won’t be long. And anyway, it is winter – sort of – so a bit of jollity probably won’t go astray as debate hots up about who’s got the best medicine for global warming, the best IR laws and the biggest barrel of porkies.

What a strange month it’s been. Did I say this last time – I’m busier now than when I was working. Well if I did, you ain’t heard nuttin yet. Actually I need a holiday. I’ve done a time management course and have been out rounding up herds of escaped minutes, hours days and sending them to the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way where, as you know, estranged bits of space and time are stripped of their spaceness and timeness and reprocessed into quantum packages of space-time for distribution to everyone who’s short of time or squeezed for space. If that’s you, expect your package any time soon. You don’t have to apply, because the universe is like Santa Clause: it knows. (Why I mention the gentleman in red will become apparent if you read my blog.)

Fair dinkum, but, eh – wot with keyboard practice, reading for the courses I am preparing, and finishing off Cert IV in TAA (finished this coming Friday – yippee!!) I haven’t had time to write the great Australian novel, but hold your breath … no, not for it’s publication – someone farted. In relation to the latter mentioned magnum opus, I’ve just done a weekend creative writing workshop and am all fired up. And now I’m looking for the engage leaver. Not another ACE course, I hear someone saying. Well, yes, and two more to go this month. As I said to Carolyn on Sunday, I do ACE courses like other people do recreational drugs.

One of the problems I’ve had this last month is not enough time to blog. There’s new stuff there, but there’s even more on my hard drive awaiting completion. What’s been added in the last month is mainly political stuff. Some people will prefer not to look. But I commend to you two entries: Your stars as you’ve never seen them; and The Epiphany Celebration Menu. I hope you’ll get a larf out of both of them – in the case of the latter, the definitions at the end of the piece.

Ho! Ho! Ho!!!

July 2007
What a difference a (cold) day makes. It’s taken the onset of winter to finally make me start behaving like someone who doesn’t go to (paid) work every day. For the first three months I would wake up early, as was my want, and either get up or lie awake berating myself for not getting up. But the third or fourth day of the cold weather saw me not even waking up, let alone subjecting myself to the ravages of 10 degrees more or less. The first couple of days was hell. The third day I debated what to do and decided I was staying in bed. After that I threatened the cats with reprisals if they did not stop telling me they wanted breakfast. Get used to it I told them. Daddy’s taking care of himself from now on. So now instead of getting their ration of the national symbol (They like fresh Kangaroo meat, They like it served up warm, They like dining night and morn: They’re our pussies, They’re our cats, They’re the Nemesis of Rats.) at 5:00 am they get it at 7:30. Gosh! In the old daze I’d been at work half an hour by then.

For those who don’t liven in The Shire, good news. Next time you come to visit, we’ve got freeway all the way from the border to the Mullumbimby turn off. The final bit was finished last Sunday. We went for a drive on it today. It’s like living on another planet. So here to Brisbane is going to be “Beam me up Scotty.” Well, except for the Tugan imbroglio, of course, but even that will be fixed soon. South of here the freeway peters out somewhere between Byron Bay and Ballina. That’ll be next.

For the second month in a row I have done almost nothing on the blog – in spite of having decided to make it a priority. The problem is that when not going to (paid) work every day, things that “pop up” tend to demand immediate attention – and one tends to give in. But I’ve done a couple of ACE courses in Renewable Energy and Eco-Living. See blog.

Did I mention last month that I have joined the Mullumbimby choir? Singing lessons are going well. I’m in the tenor section, but at the moment I’m more like a fiver. Hope to get to the second G above middle C in the near future. We’re learning Vivaldi’s Gloria for a concert in November. I’m also being taught sight reading and performance technique. I’ll let you know when the Opera House concert is on.

I hope someone out there can help me here. Some time ago I loaned two talking books to someone and did not enter them into my loan register. I’m hoping it’s someone in this email group. If I’ve loaned them to you, could you please let me know? I don’t need them back at this time, but I’d like to know who’s got them. They’re both by Andrew McGahan; The White Earth, and Last Drinks. I’m also looking for the fifth book in the Earth’s Children series by Jean Auel. It’s called Shelters of Stone in hardback. I know I loaned it to someone but I can’t remember to whom, and someone else has asked for it.

Finally, we will be having a party here on 25 August 2007 from about 1:00 pm. If you wish to come could you please let us know by 17/8/07 so that we know how many limos to order. It’s John’s birthday on 28th. He’s back at TAFE and now in the home stretch – his final semester of the Diploma in Ceramics. His new thing is fossilised soft toys. You’ll just have to come to the party to see what that is but. Eh?

August 2007
Ah yeah g’day,
There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.
Something!??
Goll-EEEEEEEE I’d like to tell you everything,
but if I did,
I wouldn’t have to kill you –
you’d do it yourself.
Such is the burden of knowing it all.
Just ask me.

N E way, here’s the thing. In case you’re wondering how come you get emails from me that appear not to be addressed to you, here’s what I do. I put one of my email addresses in the To field, and everyone else’s in a group in the Bcc field. That way everyone’s address remains un-viewed by everyone else. I don’t know that that is necessary, but it’s what I do. It’s a hang over from a life of having to be aware of confidentiality issues. Why am I telling you this? Well, because you might think that you’re the only one getting the email, and gosh, I’d hate you to think I go to all that effort just for you. Um….. no…. that didn’t come out right…. But what the hell…. I’m sure you know what I mean.

Well another month and still no new blog posts. And so much has happened, both in the public domain and here on The Avenue, that has gone unremarked. It’s because two things have taken over my life. Singing and writing.

The Mullumbimby choir had a rehearsal with the Bangalow choir and the local chamber orchestra recently at St Martins in the Fields – well St Martins in Mullum, anyway, but doesn’t In the Fields sound so much nicer? Did I mention that we are doing one of Vivaldi’s Glorias? I have been working really hard on that – I’m not kidding, when you don’t know how to sight sing, it’s a slog. But I’m confidant that by November it will be all good, as they say. But then last Monday night I found out about all the other bits that are in the concert. So I have a significant repertoire to get my tonsils around. Consequently not much work is being done on the ACE courses. And I am doing a six week course on sight singing to catch up. By the way, I will soon graduate from being a fiver to a tenor. I am reaching the second G above middle C with ease these daze.

The other thing I am doing is getting back into the book. I was made aware of a publisher who is reading people’s first chapters and, though I really could have done without it at this particular time, I decided to take up the challenge, because, you know what they say – life is what happens when you’re making other plans. So I thought I had better… um… what’s that word I used to use … ah, yes: reprioritise.

The thing I feared most has happened as a result. As I started revising the first draft of Chapter 1 – written so long ago that it was virtually a former life – I got the urge again. No, not that urge, but it’s a feeling just as powerful. Paragraphs written in haste to “get it down” are now breaking open with rich and complex possibilities. I can be in the middle of doing something, like washing up, and I’ll be captured by an insight that becomes a stream of consciousness, to coin a phrase, and then a veritable torrent – a white water ride to who knows where. It really is like a drug. I become helpless. I have to obey. Go to your computer and write it down. Do it now! The problem is that I have other things to do. So I really DO have to reprioritise.

And that brings me to the point. As a trainer (Jump Fido! Sit! Stay! Beg! Good boy, here’s a job.) I am well aware of the organisational skills needed to get life under control when paid work is the main thing one does. But this situation is different. It’s not even like being self employed, which I was for ten years. It’s about being accountable to yourself for the opportunity that so few people have. There are so many things to do. They all need to be done. Each and every one of them could absorb my whole attention – indeed I would like each one to do so. But that’s impossible. So I have to become a lot more disciplined than I have ever been. In other words, it’s not the fun lifestyle you might suppose it to be. And here’s the punch line you aren’t expecting (if you are dragging yourself to paid work most daze): enjoy what you are doing. The grass is not greener.

May your daze be full of fruit.

September 2007
Yeehaa!! Or is it Gee Hard!!
It’s almost the end of the month. Almost time to get next month’s letter ready and I haven’t even done this month’s. Too much has happened, yet there’s very little to tell. We had a party for John’s birthday. Those who attended were a bit startled by the quantity and variety of the food on offer. I was a bit wrecked by it. Fourteen hours on my feet two days in a row gave me the worst case of shaggers back I have ever had. In spite of which we went to Gympie a week later for John’s parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. Needless to say the drive was excruciating. I’ve only in the last few daze recovered from it. While we’re on the subject of parties, the next is on Saturday 27 October – after 1:00 pm as usual. It’s not for anything in particular. We’re having it because we can. And yes, I have learned. I’m not going to do the heroic catering thing again.

The topic I wish to share with you in this letter is what I have been reading lately – which is nothing. But what I have done is listen to a number of talking books as I tread my mill for twenty minutes twice a day @ 5 kph.

The first was Dirt Music (Tim Winton) – Yes, I know it’s been out a long time, but the title put me off. Silly me. Judging a book by its title. It’s about how two men of unequal power relate to each other and the woman in both of their lives. I almost said share, but that would definitely be the wrong word for her relationship with them. I don’t know how much I should say about it, because if you haven’t read it I might spoil it for you by saying too much. Suffice to say that it is a redemption story. The bloke with the upper hand surrenders his power, and his victim surrenders to the landscape… and what a landscape. The woman, of course, is not in need of redemption, but is instrumental in the reconciliation of the two male protagonists. I haven’t mentioned music yet, have I. Well it is there throughout the story, but comes into full play, to coin a phrase, towards the end of the book. I was going to try to attach a music file to this email, but found I couldn’t. So here’s the thing. The main male protagonist – mmp – (whose name I forget) is given a lift by a couple. She is dying from cancer. At one point she asks hubby to play an Arvo Part disc. “Lets have some Arvo in the arvo,” she says. Much later, when the mmp is as far away from people as it possible to get, he hears the same music in his mind’s ear and realises he has just “witnessed” the death of the woman. The piece of music is called Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten. How do I know this? Trust me. It is. And it is on a disc called “The Best of Arvo Part” EMI. Seriously worth a listen.

Second: The boy in the striped pyjamas (John Boyne) – A nine year old boy moves with his family to a place called Outwith, from a very comfortable life in Berlin. They are important enough to have had the Fury to their place for dinner. As boys of his age often do, he manages to do the impossible (no, this is not Harry Potter) – he strikes up a relationship with a boy about the same age as himself on the other side of the fence that divides their worlds at Outwith. The outcome is breath taking.

Third: On Chesil Beach(Ian McEwan) – It’s 1961. You may not remember this, but in those days it was not uncommon for people to be virgins when they got married – as is the case with the protagonists of this novel. Though the story surveys much about their lives up to their wedding day, the timeline is their wedding night, with a very brief indication in the last chapter of what happens to them in subsequent years. Even though it is rare these days for people to have sex for the first time on their wedding night, everyone who has ever had sex had a first time. This story will not, therefore, be totally unfamiliar. Even if it wasn’t a trauma for you, you almost certainly know someone for whom it was. This is a tragi-comedy. I don’t think it’s meant to be, but I couldn’t suppress several guffaws as I read – um, listened.

Fourth: Underground (Andrew McGahan) – Talk about leaving the good wine until last!!

If you don’t know this author, let me tell you about two of his other books first. The White Earth won the Miles Franklin Award in 2005. It is set on the Darling Downs in more or less contemporary times. A young boy grows up with unrealistic expectations about his future role on the property where his father is the Overseer. He is disabused of his fantasy in the (for him) most humiliating way and spends the rest of his life manoeuvring to gain control of it – which he does, at awesome cost to himself and just about everyone else except his grandson, who moved to the property with his mother after his father dies (on the first page of the book). McGahan draws on political issues that are universal and shows how they unfold as particular stories in particular places. The grandfather starts out looking like a typical Queensland “squatter” and develops in a way that shows how simple our conception of that type of person really is. Queensland politics gave us Joh and Pauline. While this book refers to neither of them, it leaves you in no doubt about just how extraordinarily complex is the social milieu that spawns such “interesting” characters. This book is a political thriller without ever mentioning politics.

Unlike Last Drinks, which is explicitly about politics in Queensland. It is set ten years after the Fitzgerald enquiry and involves half a dozen people who were involved one way or another. It revolves around a brutal death and the attempt of the story’s protagonist to find out who was responsible. Along the way we see into the worlds of people who profited from political corruption – from Ministers and their masters in the Queensland Establishment that (still) manages to live above the law, to sleazy restaurateurs. At the end McGahan fires both barrels at the way things are still done in Queensland. I have to say that, even though I lived there most of my life, there are fundamental things about the way the Queensland operates that I didn’t know – which, of course, is the point of the book.

That beings me to Underground, his most recent book. I needed to tell you about the other two books make the point that McGahan is about political thrillers. Well they don’t get much more political or thrilling than this one! It is set in the very near future. So near that it could be happening now. Canberra is nuked and whole country goes into lock down as the very worst excesses of “security” unfold and facilitate the ascendancy of the loony right. There are conspiracies within conspiracies, and it wouldn’t be about Australia if there wasn’t a resistance movement: the underground of the title, who, like the Anzacs, lose. I haven’t given anything away here: they wouldn’t be Australian heroes if they won. Just when you think you’ve seen the twist towards which the story is moving…. Oops, almost said too much now. But let me add this: imagine that John Howard loses the coming election, and, unable to accept that the people could possibly reject so successful a government, declares that there has been widespread foul play in the election count and suspends the constitution….. Implausible? Well, a little known piece of research done in the late 80s showed that a very large percentage of the Australian military would have supported a military coup if Malcolm Frazer had not been elected in 1975. As McGahan shows in Last Drinks, Queensland has not moved on since the Fitzgerald enquiry. And while it may satisfy the hubris of people from other states to say that Queensland is, well, Queensland, let’s not forget that One Nation got a million votes – most of them from the other states.

Singing is going well. If you live locally the performances the choir is preparing for are as follows:
Sunday 4th October 2007 2:00 pm St Mary’s Church BALLINA
Thursday 7th October 2007 7:00 pm St Andrew’s Church LISMORE
Sunday 11th October 2007 2:00 pm St Martin’s Church MULLUMBIMBY
I don’t yet know how much tickets will be. It’s actually two choirs, from Mullumbimby and Bangalow, with a local Chamber Orchestra. The main piece in the concert is a Gloria by Vivaldi.

John is approaching the end of his Diploma in Ceramics and working frantically to complete work not only for assessment, but also for exhibition as well as for sale. Don’t let anyone tell you life as an artist is fun. It’s really hard work. His latest work can be seen on Flickr. The easiest way of accessing is to type “twogreytoes” into Google. You’ll probably see half a dozen links, one of which will be this one: Flickr: Photos from twogreytoes. Click on it and it will take you to my Flickr site. As of today 23/9/07, John’s photos will appear first. But as I add more they will be down the list a bit. So on the right hand side of the page, click on Porcelain fossils, and that group will open. Oh, and by the way, if you’re coming to my Flickr site for the first time, be warned: in the group called Caricatures you may see a photo of yourself that you are likely to find unflattering or hilarious. If you don’t find one and you’d like to be in there, email me a head shot and I’ll do my best to make you look very peculiar.

Bliss your followers (or follow your bliss as preferred)

October 2007
Howdy foaks!!
Here’s a story to make you wonder. A couple of weeks a go I was in the Barbershop at Mullumbimby and saw a sign: Gourmet Rabbits @ IGA. Mmmmmmmm, I thought. Haven’t had rabbit for ages, so I enquired, but, no luck.

The sign must have been one of those random items of mis-information planted by the world’s security services to focus people’s attention on terrorism. Don’t know how it works? Me either, but they get paid a lot of money to keep us safe, so it must work.

N E Way, not to be deterred, I went to the two butchers in town. Same result. So I just put it down to experience.

Next morning, I got up earlier than usual and sat down at the computer after letting the cats out, but within seconds decided to go back to bed.

Some time later John got up to investigate a noise, and woke me up to have a look at what Boofie (one of our cats) had brought in: a rabbit kitten!!

The poor thing was scarred out of its wits and was playing possum when John picked it up, but when he took it back outside it bolted as soon as he put it on the lawn.

Like I said – makes you wonder.

Did Wooli as usual at the beginning of the month. Took hundreds of photos which I am in the process of selecting and photoshopping for Flicker. Don’t know how long it will be before they’re up, but I’ll let you know when they are. I have had some good reactions from people who’ve previewed them.

In the mean time, have a look at the attached picture.

It’s a Dragonflopter parked on the Wooli Heliport.

Not everyone actually sees it.

You have to believe in faeries just to be able to see it, let alone take the sight seeing tour in it.

Little red sausage.
(Cheerio)

November 2007
Remember November! What a month! The combined choirs and orchestra had our three concerts. They went like a Harley, by the way. You know – better than a Triumph. John finished his diploma – distinctions to burn – and was selected to represent the North Coast Institute of TAFE at a state wide exhibition in Sydney in January. AND! Kevin thrashed Voldemort!! In fact, we must have all died and gone to Kevin.

There are pictures of the work John put in the Graduating Students Exhibition on Flickr. Click on http://www.flickr.com/photos/7899872@N08/ to view. If the first pictures you see don’t look like stuff in an exhibition, click on the icon for JOHN’S DIPLOMA EXHIBITION on the right hand side of the screen.

I have just finished reading Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. It is set in the 12th Century, 1123 – 1174, and the pivotal event is the building of a cathedral. I was expecting it to be much more about the design and construction process than it turned out to be. Nevertheless, it is a page turner. It is a good exposition of life shortly after the beginning of the second millennium. Civil war is raging in England and the robber barons can use the fact that there is no King’s Peace as an excuse to do what they like. A master builder is walking the roads of southern England with his family in search of work. His wife dies giving birth to a son who is abandoned by its father and rescued by a priest. The mason and his two children are starving when they arrive at the Cathedral village (sic) of Kingsbridge, where the Benedictine Priory in charge of the cathedral is about to get a new Prior. With them is a woman and her son whom they met up with along the way. That night the cathedral burns to the ground. (If you can’t imagine how a sandstone building can burn to the ground, you’re in for a treat if you read this book.) At the same time the Bishop of Kingsbridge dies and an unscrupulous cleric (is there any other kind – well, yes, actually) manipulates people in the Priory to support his election as bishop. And finally, the Earl of Shiring dies and is succeeded by his power hungry but utterly incompetent son. The mason gets the job of building a new cathedral, and the new Earl and new Bishop conspire to bring down the new Prior, who, in contrast to his persecutors, is a paragon of integrity. Compared with its predecessor, the new cathedral will be spectacular. The cathedral village flourishes and becomes a town. The Earl is jealous and burns it to the ground, but the people rebuild – and notice, incidentally, how few of them become ill after that. The Earl has another go, but… well, you know the mantra: A people united, will never be defeated!! Ah, but what does it take to unite a people? Well read this book and find out, because that is actually what it is really all about. Is power absolute or not; and who stands up to those who would presume to rule without consent? And at what cost to themselves.

Speaking of leadership that makes a difference: what about Get Up?!! Personally, I believe that it was Get Up that turned the tide. Going in to bat for David Hicks reminded those of us who were despairing in the face of the Howard Government’s blatant and successful use of lies and other divide and rule tactics, that power is not absolute in the face of committed resistance. And by the way, if you voted for the coalition and you think Get Up is only for Greens and Labor types, think again. Check it out. Get Up’s structure is actually non-partisan. It campaigns on issues of justice. It is therefore as open to coalition sympathisers, especially now that Labor is in power.

By the way, why is this November bulletin going out in mid December? Well everyone’s busier than bees at this time of year – even people who do not work for money. Singing and sewing can fill one’s day to the point where other important things get left behind. Such is life.

Hope youse are all luvinit. I am.