2008 February Bulletin

Greetings. We wish you interesting times – as …..

Chinese New Year approaches, and our Christmas is finally over. We have had a continuous stream of visitors since Boxing Day (which I am reliably informed is the day on which the first Christian martyr – St Stephen – got stoned. Stoned!??????? Oh, Stooooned – not, you know… stoned? Amazing what interesting bits of useless information find their way into these bulletins.)

We flew to Sydney for the opening of an exhibition in which John has some work. I have not included my account of it here because it’s over 1000 words. If you want to read about it, See the bolg post below.

You may not believe this, but I ventured recently into the murky business of sports commentary. I was so incensed by the stupidity of the secret monkey business that I had to have my say. See the blog if you are interested. It’s called Coming cricket or not and is about how India won the toss. It’s three posts after the Sydney trip.

There’s a new book out by the sociologist John Carroll called The Existential Jesus. So? Well, I know most people would think they are not interested, but once you know what it’s about I think you might be curious, at least. Here’s the link to the transcript of the program on which the book was discussed.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2008/2120659.htm#transcript

The choir has most of its material for Concert 2008. It’s quite different this year – no more church music. We’re doing a number of Opera Choruses, during which there will be slides to illustrate contemporary issues. For those who know about Opera, we are doing choruses from Dido and Aeneas, Nabucco, Carmen, Orpheus, and a piece in which the choir master has put music to a scene in Beckett’s Murder in the Cathedral. All very heavy stuff – even the Carmen piece (the Habanera) which is about playing with fire.

Finally, there’s pictures of the Sydney trip on Flickr. Don’t get excited, we didn’t do a systematic record of the trip. It was random shots here and there of this and that, some of which I photoshopped into… you know… um, art. Here’s the link if you want to look:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7899872@N08/

By the way, photos of our Wooli holiday will be up soon. So much to do, so few lives to do it in.

John is returning to TAFE this year to do the Advanced Diploma in Ceramics. Did I mention that he got a credit in his diploma? All the rest were distinctions. Thought I’d mention it again, just in case … you know …

Happy year of the Rat!
Bliss the day!!