A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.

Gulls as flags. Sandy Bay Rowing Club, Marieville Esplanade Sandy Bay. June 2011.

For some reason unbeknownst to me the two excellent, substantive and thorough book reviews I’d drafted this week have disappeared!

Thus you are stuck with the truncated versions.

Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya: a fascinating rendering of the effect of Stalin’s Great Purge on one woman, written at the time by an author who similarly suffered. A decent read and a fascinating historical document. Well worth your time.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck: based on a Mexican folk tale, an interesting story of the risks of bucking established patterns and roles in life. This colourful reconstruction on life as an indigenous Mexican pearl diver won’t challenge you too much, but it is worth a read.

Comments

Tash said…

...however, all reason will still be lost during the teen years.

1 July 2011 at 10:11

Tash said…

Cool gulls ... great colors ... teriffic photo.

Bummer about the lost reviews. I speed read The Pearl in high school, just before the class in time to take a quiz - which means I got zilch out of it. Will re-read. 3 of my favorite Steinbecks, in order of preference: Sea of Cortez (felt like I was on the boat/shore with them), Travels with Charlie, and East of Eden.

1 July 2011 at 10:17

Kris McCracken said…

Tash, poor old teens. I can see why The Pearl might not resonate with a teen.

1 July 2011 at 15:51

Roddy said…

Isn't it great when you have spent days compiling a vast array of facts only to come back later and find nothing. It happened a couple of times to me. Extremely frustrating. The redraft looks nothing like the original.

1 July 2011 at 16:03

Kris McCracken said…

It never does.

5 July 2011 at 09:17

Mad as hell

So there I was, arm hooked up to the machine, watching my plasma swirl away into a bag while the morning news dribbled across the screen like a bad fever dream. And what were they showing? A "riot" in Melbourne, allegedly. The sort of riot where the real thugs wear body armour, carry pepper spray and look like they just walked off the set of RoboCop. The people they were beating? A ragtag crew of teenagers and old hippies—probably fresh out of a drum circle, still smelling of patchouli. But sure, let's call it a riot. Now, here's where it really gets good. I mentioned this spectacle to a few people later, thinking maybe they'd share my outrage or, at the very least, give a damn. But no. What did I get instead? A smirk, a chuckle, and—oh, the pièce de résistance—"You should really just let it go." Let it go? Yeah, let me uncork a nice, overpriced cup of coffee, sit back with my legs crossed, and soak in the latest reality TV trash. Why bother caring when ...

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. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

This will hurt me...

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