To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation.

Oh to have a deck by the ~~ocean~~ ~~sea~~ ~~river~~ estuary! Little Howrah Beach, Howrah. April 2011.

A busy week, but a number of books churned through nonetheless.

First was I Am Legend, a scary tale from 1954 by Richard Matheson. You might know it better as a film (it was made as The Last Man on Earth in 1964; The Omega Man in 1971; and I Am Legend in 2007). As well as being a cracking read, it seems to be a key text in both the development of the zombie genre and in popularising the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease.

The novel is essentially the tale of the sole survivor of a pandemic – whose symptoms resemble vampirism – as he goes his daily life in Los Angeles. It’s strong on the science as Robert Neville attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease that killed mankind, and to which he is immune. Neville's past is fleshed out through flashbacks, which explores his inner turmoil in coping with both the loss of everyone around him and his own loss of humanity. He deals with this through a combination of rigid daily routine interspersed with heavy bouts of drinking at night.

Rather than give the story away, I will stop now. It’s more an exploration of humanity and loneliness than it is a book about sci-fi, horror or vampires. Don’t let the genre snobs put you off! Get a copy of the book and read it for yourself, it is well worth the effort. Highly recommended.

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton was first published in 1911 and set in the [then] remote hills of New England. Continuing on a theme, Ethan Frome explores ideas on loneliness, desire, love and duty within a stark winter’s setting.

The story is told primarily in flashbacks as we discover how the titular character got to where he is in life (i.e. broken physically and emotionally). Not lightly do I say that this is one of the more depressing novels I have ever read. A study of the consequences of the repression of desire and the quiet submission to life’s circumstances, the novel’s exploration of the rural working class at the time must have been shocking to readers.

There’s an awful lot of suffering in this book, but the central moral quandary of the book does offer insight on the moral, economic and social realities that generate such suffering. As a passionate fellow, I found the intense (crushing) suppression of Ethan’s desire particularly devastating. A lot of people don’t like this book, but I think it’s a ripper.

Highly recommended.

Just for a change, Carson McCullers' The Ballad of the Sad Café explores themes of gender roles, isolation, loneliness, and love in small town Georgia through the lens of the unfortunate lives of the calculating and mannish Miss Amelia, the hunchbacked dwarf Cousin Lymon, and beautiful but sociopathic Marvin Macy.

It’s a fantastic little story crammed with colourful characters and lots to ponder. I zipped through it at a cracking pace, so if you’re after a quick but satisfying read, you could do far worse that this beauty. Double thumbs up.

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...

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