Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices

As you will be aware, those of us here in the Southern Hemisphere entered spring last week. I thought that I would allow you to revisit the dominate landmark of Hobart in order to illustrate what constitutes ‘early spring’ in Tasmania.

This was taken this morning at about 7:50 am, yet again out on the fire escape of my workplace. I have featured this same viewpoint once or twice already (well, maybe three or four times), but it looked rather pretty this morning, so I figured that I’d show you again.

And I must add my hearty congratulations to sometime commentator Tania upon the birth of what appears to be a colossal son, Will, who topped the scales at 4.7 kilos (10 pounds, six ounces). The Steenholt organic orchard empire will no doubt be short of many a pear and apple over the coming years once this fellow shifts to solids!

No word yet on the state of his hair.

Comments

Dina said…

I never get tired of seeing your impressive mountain.
Mazal tov to Tania. And congratulations to you on birthing 600 live and lively posts!

Can you tell me if this Tasmanian blobfish is for real?! --
http://zootorah.blogspot.com/2008/09/weird-animals-blobfish.html

10 September 2008 at 04:13

Kris McCracken said…

Dina, he is real, and I think that he is adorable!

10 September 2008 at 12:45

Julie said…

Gee whiz, you have a 7:30am in the morning, too! We have one of them up here.

10 September 2008 at 21:47

Dina said…

Adorable????!!
(But that fish does look like I feel from time to time...)

10 September 2008 at 22:07

Anonymous said…

Thanks very much!
He sure is a whopper... I expect he'll be on solids by this time next week...

13 September 2008 at 10:01

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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