This will hurt me...

This evening I present to you a nice juxtaposition of my sons, with a bit of distance to mix things up a bit in a composition sense.

Here you can see Henry and Ezra on the lookout for secret treasure. Every time we cross this patch of ground we are alert (but not alarmed) to the prospect of finding a rich booty of this very special substance.

Now, I put it to you dear World, what are we looking for?

Getting some exercise. Seven Mile Beach. September 2010.

Theme Thursday down on Seven Mile Beach back on Father's Day, and Jennifer awaits the arrival of her two sons. The nearer they get, the nearer that AGOWILT will strike.

Anyone familiar with my children will have felt the kind of AGOWILT that simply being around them generates. There is a cruel beauty in the unbridled aggression. A harsh pleasure in their simple brutality.

One typical toddler and one self-styled "big boy". Engage with them only if you are GAME...

Coy. Bashful. Timid. Shy. Reticent. Inhibited.

Not one of these words applies to Ezra.

Late afternoon and vampires start circling Royal Hobart Hospital. August 2010.

Today already feels like a living version of the first joint-authored treatise of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.A Critique of Critical Criticism. Indeed, supplementing the first draft of my critique of critical criticism will be much sweary-language and quiet groaning.

I’m in pain.

Take a look at that face and you tell me whether you think he’s up to no good or not…

This little ripper of an ad emerged out of China just as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was kicking off. I suspect that the artist might have had an idea what an angry mob baying for blood might have looked like.

The tagline for this campaign is the snappy Resolutely support the American people in their resistance against American imperialist aggression in Vietnam. I especially like how the artist has managed slip in what I expect were a multitude of ‘gags’ to impress his friend.

For example, what is Leon Trotsky doing there? In fact, I believe that they have gone with Trotsky as the primary model, and hilariously fused in Stalin’s brow as an unsubtle pop to their Internationalist cousins.

And what is with that angry French sailor (I expect he’s from Martinique)? I know that Red China was pretty much a closed state, but those Anglo features and African skin tones really do clash with the Gallic shirt…

Added props must also be awarded for sneaking in that Ukrainian kulak on the extreme left (note the irony there).

Honestly, could there possibly have ever been a scene in the whole of the United States that even remotely resembled this gathering in 1966?

Shiny happy people holding hands. St Johns Park, New Town. October 2010.

Every day I see this as I walk into work.

Every day I wonder why the sun should be so happy to look over a withdrawal unit, pharmacotherapy dispensary, nephrology unit, mental health/drug and alcohol policy unit, aged care facilities and on and on...

Two years old and he already needs a walking stick!

I blame his grandfather…

As Australian Pied Cormorant lurking somewhere between Frederick Henry Bay and Storm Bay one Spring morning. Clifton Beach, September 2010.

The pain from my tooth means that you get a meme. A meme All about Me!

What time did you wake up this morning?
6:07 am.

What do you like most about yourself?
An acute sense of loyalty and duty.

What do you like least about yourself?
My low threshold for imbeciles.

Can you sing?
I think so. I like to sing.

Can you dance?
Whether one can or can’t dance is such a subjective concept. I’m better than Elaine Benes, worse than Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Do you smoke?
No I don’t. I tell people off for smoking at bus stops.

Do you drink?
Very rarely.

Can you swim?
Of course I can. I live on island. I would be stuck if I couldn’t swim!

Year you were born?
1977, mere days before Star Wars opens in cinemas…

Favourite colour?
Blue. More specifically, the darker shades of blue. Even more specifically, I like Sapphire.

Sleep with or without clothes?
I sleep as naked as the day I was born.

What time do you go to bed?
Of late, I am in the bed at around 8:15 pm. I generally don’t try to get to sleep until 9:30– 10 pm though.

Every time that Henry and Ezra make their way down to Bellerive, and see those glorious light-towers looming over the heaving cauldron of passion that is home to the mighty Tasmanian Tigers – 2006–07 Sheffield Shield champions – they launch into a rousing call-to-arms and poignant rendition of the Tiger’s themesong.

It brings a tear to my eye every time…

The morning sun on the corner of Liverpool and Elizabeth Streets. Hobart CBD, September 2010.

Inspired by regular commenter "Me", and an afternoon spend wading through the Bowie catalogue, today's Sunday Top Five seems a relatively straightforward one: Pick My Top Five Bowie Albums!

1. Low [1977]


2. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) [1980]


3. Station to Station [1976]


4. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars [1972]


5. Hunky Dory [1971]
   

Looking upon my list, I can't help but suggest that it appears I enjoy Bowie's seventies output the best. My apologies to to you Tin Machine aficionados out there, most of whom live in Norway, I believe...

Like Scott Amundsen of the Antarctic, this little bloke will not let something as insignificant a mountain of snow stop him.

Godt arbeid Ezra.

Hold den opp!

Waiting for the sun. Sullivans Cove, May 2010.

One of the The only thing that I miss about my old job is the walk from the bus stop in the morning. Although you can still see the river from New Town, it’s not quite the same as being able to see that morning sun over the water, smell the salt in the air etc etc…

Treat yourself to a poem.

Behind, perhaps, let the sea blow…, Carlos Barbarito

Behind, perhaps, let the sea blow.
Let some word blow
outside every destination of slime, rust.
Perhaps ointments from Avicenna,
forests of embraces,
crops, swarms, humid implications.
Or, perhaps, the same.
It sits up. It gets dressed. It goes.
The grass stands up again.
At his step everything seems to find
inside itself a certain form of calm.
It can't be a great distance
- he thought.

Have you seen that film Coolangatta Gold?

Henry hasn’t, thank God…

Hungry? Bellerive Wharf, Bellerive. September 2010.

Book Club Friday again already. I finished two books this week, one Vietnamese and the other Swedish (although very much Finnish is tone and content).

The first was Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War. Apparently quite popular in Vietnam enough to be banned – this one is a mediation through the Vietnamese War (the second one) from the perspective of a North Vietnamese volunteer. Think of it as a shorter, more disjointed Vietnamese version of The Thin Red Line.

Now, I am not sure if it is a poor translation, or if the Vietnamese lyrical style simply doesn’t translate well into English, but this one was a little disappointing for me. The overarching story was remarkable, and many of the vignettes themselves were compelling and nicely drawn, but the stilted, exaggerated and overly florid description does wear you down after a while.

I am not sure that the overly elaborate and shifting narrative also helped. While I appreciate an unreliable narrator as much as the next guy, the delicate balance of an unreliable narrator and omniscient overarching structure to me is almost certainly doomed. That said, it is well worth the effort.

The second – Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi – is a lovely little coming of age story set in the Finnish-speaking far north of Sweden. Set through the sixties, it traces the adolescence of a pair of friends and reflects on the world around them.

This is an exceptionally beautiful, poignant, often very funny novel about growing up in a remote area and feeling disconnected from the main. You can tell that the author is a poet, as each chapter really can stand alone as culturally fertile vignettes of what it is to be a young bloke growing up.

One of the marks of first-class writing is how these snippets of childhood are both intensely personal and specific – the notion of manliness in Finnish culture, the sauna and the family unit etc – and universal – the first alcoholic drink, the first kiss etc.

It really is a lovely little book. I’ve read that like Sorrows of War it was a real smash hit in its homeland, and I can see why. Recognition must go to Laurie Thompson too, as the translation is excellent.

I couldn’t recommend this one more highly. Get out there and read it!