A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

The waves churning in at a beach somewhere. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. February 2011.

The other day I was fortunate enough to move desks at work. I’ve moved away from strip florescent lighting, a main street-type thoroughfare and some noisy neighbours to a big picture window, with a million dollar view of the river and (best of all), no florescent lighting.

I’m prepared to tolerate the effing and blinding of some of the clients down below.

We might have to talk about all those car horns though.

Onto books!

Circumstances have seen me pressed for time this week, so I only finished the one: Victor Pelevin’s collection of short stories, The Blue Lantern.

As a fan of post-Soviet black comedies, Pelevin is right up my alley. The Blue Lantern appeared in 1992, and is infused with the kind of disorder that you’d expect to find in the confusion of the collapse of the USSR. Very ‘Russian’ in tone, this is a fantastic collection well worth checking out.

Still more waves. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. February 2011.

Comments

Dianne said…

Fabulous photos of the waves Kris - Now if I were a tad younger I might try some beach surfing.
"Adelaide and Beyond"

4 March 2011 at 09:29

smudgeon said…

I read Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Pevelin last year some time. I think I might have been missing something, but it had all the post-Soviet bits & pieces (oil barons & new rich, hitmen, crumbling architecture, etc), and it wasn't too bad.

Congratulations on the desk move - in relative terms, it's one of the few true joys of working for the Gov!

4 March 2011 at 09:44

smudgeon said…

Pelevin. My mistake.

4 March 2011 at 12:27

Kris McCracken said…

Dianne, well worth it at any age!

Me, the Blue Lantern is well worth having a look at.

8 March 2011 at 08:40

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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