Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Yes, it is the barbed wire that can be found on the fire escape at my work site again! Yes, there is barbed wire on the fire escape, such is the genius of our dominant classes here in Tasmania. Featured here is one of the very many cruel means that concentrated power utilise to stifle the revolutionary intent of proletariat. Of course, I have either

a) had a small victory in securing the shift to a four day working week; or

b) been duped into a further - and unknowing - web of Repressive Tolerance.

Either way, I now have Fridays off!

To escape the drudgery of a further neo-Marxist critique of Australian non-government service delivery, I have turned to noted scholar (his book on Marx and human nature is well worth the effort), and proficient blogger Norm Geras, and his meme of En-title-meant.

The concept is a simple one: answer the questions using only the titles of books you've read this year and without repeating one.

Describe yourself: If This is a Man, Primo Levi

How do you feel? [like a] Penguin Lost, Andrey Kurkov

Describe where you currently live: Another World, Pat Barker

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? A Small Town in Germany, John Le Carré

Your favourite form of transportation? Night, Elie Wiesel [sleep being the only trip I take these days]

Your best friend is: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John Le Carré

You and your friends are: [similar to] The Spies of Warsaw, Alan Furst

What's the weather like? [like] When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs

You fear: Ignorance, Milan Kundera

What is the best advice you have to give? No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July

Thought for the day: Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

How would you like to die? Towards the End of the Morning, Michael Frayn

Your soul's present condition? The Truce, Primo Levi

Thankfully I've kept a list of everything of read since Henry was born. I knew that this here blog would come in handy one day!

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...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

Search This Blog