I think I've discovered the secret to life... You just hang around until you get used to it...

Lest you all think that Hobart is a forever happy, neat and tidy utopia, I felt it timely to inject a little urban grit back into things. This lovely shot was taken not three minutes walk from the city centre, somewhere between the needle and syringe exchange and Spotlight, the home of all things fabric and craftware. This is a spot in a nice little carpark that I like to stop with Henry and lecture him on the poor behaviour of some people.

The title today is a quote from the wise words of Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally. I've blogged before about her brother, but I quite like Sally too. One of the things I like best about her are her 'new philosophies' that were frequently developed in the latter years of the strip.

Generally, Sally's 'new philosophies' went along the lines of "Who cares?" or "How should I know?" I think that they reached their zenith when she declared that her new philosophy would be the word "No". This 'philosophy' (profound in its simplicity) was to be her answer to every question from that moment on. Of course, when Charlie Brown eventually caught her off guard with a trick question to which she responded, "Yes!" Whereupon she lamented how his meddling had "ruined my new philosophy." Much as with all universalist notions of (T)ruth, people had to come along and mess a perfectly good theory up.

Over the past month I myself have been road-testing one of Sally's 'new philosophies' with great vigour (and some success):

"What did you expect, a medal?"

As she says in that strip, "some philosophies take a thousand years... I think of them in two minutes."

Comments

Dina said…

Sally's got it right. Worked for me.

30 June 2008 at 03:32

Kris McCracken said…

She is a smark cookie, Sally Brown!

2 July 2008 at 11:02

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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