A good conscience is a continual Christmas

A grey old morning. (Just off) the corner of Macquarie and Elizabeth Streets, Hobart. December 2010.

Christmas comes but once a year…? Thank Christ for that.

There are a few things about Christmas that I don’t mind: giving presents, a few days off, some quality time in the kitchen, a cauldron of chocolate mousse.

Regrettably, these are vastly outweighed by the things I loathe: tinsel, phony goodwill, the remorseless desire for material goods, the prevalence of fat guys in red suits with Rangifer tarandus sprinkled with snow despite the unmistakable fact that we here at the arse end of the world are in the middle of summer and you have as much likelihood of spotting a Thylacinus cynocephalus making love with a Raphus cucullatus to the tune of Mental as Anything’s Berserk Warriors than that hackneyed old scene.

It’s about time that us here in the Antipodes start seizing the initiative and make up our own ~~bunch of nonsense~~ set of traditions to ~~ram down the throats of everyone until the spend spend SPEND until they can’t spend no more~~ celebrate the… um… [ahem]… celebrate the…

What was that again?

Comments

Carola said…

Hey Kris, this is awesome. You found the right words.

We have loads of snow.
See here: http://areyouhere-areyouthere.blogspot.com/

But I don't like the Brimborium, when it all is about consum, and everyone pretands to be religious.

Looking forward to some more family time. School will be closed from 24th until 9th January.

20 December 2010 at 09:19

Kris McCracken said…

People don’t even pretend to be religious around these parts. They do cite “Christmas Spirit” etc etc, but that seems to be more about forcing yourself to be abnormally cheerful rather than any notion of benevolence or concern for those less fortunate.

20 December 2010 at 11:35

Roddy said…

I dunno. You lost me when you started on Thylacinus.

20 December 2010 at 13:00

Gemma Wiseman said…

Gorgeous mumbo jumbo that rings with raw truth! I couldn't agree more!

21 December 2010 at 11:33

Kris McCracken said…

Roddy, well...

GT, I'm not the only one!

22 December 2010 at 11:10

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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