This will hurt me...

What lies beneath?

Go-to-sleep-forever-berries? Geilston Bay, April 2011.

Today, a poll...

No.

No snakes there...

This monolith thrusts confidently and proudly out up the heavens. St Johns Park, New Town. April 2011.

Everywhere I look the phallus. Phalluses to the left of me, phalluses to the right, I am even seated right inside a phallus as I type! I look out over a vista dominated by (you guessed it) the phallus!

It doesn’t make a man half uncomfortable…

Little Howrah beach isn't a biggun', but it's a good 'un!

Best crabbing beach close to Hobart.

House rules. The living room, Geilston Bay. March 2011.

We do have more rules than this, but the chalk was fat and the blackboard is small so this is what Henry and I came up with when we work-shopped it.

Do you have ‘house rules’?

Are they displayed where the natives can see them?

Four million push-ups?

No problem.

Stay in bed all night?

No chance.

The view from down low at the flower clock. Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens. March 2011.

Think of this as a complex Where’s Wally challenge. For you American folks, I’m talking about Where’s Waldo. For some reason, the Yanks struggles with Wally and called him Waldo. If anyone xan explain, please feel free…


#2 from the flower clock. Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens. March 2011.

You might have better luck spying the hidden characters in this one…

On the farm, every Friday
On the farm, it's Henry pie day.
So, every Friday that ever comes along,
I get up early and sing this little song

Run Henry run Henry Run! Run! Run!
Run Henry run Henry Run! Run! Run!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Goes the farmer's gun.

Run Henry run Henry Run! Run! Run!
Run Henry run Henry Run! Run! Run!

Don't give the farmer his fun! Fun! Fun!
He'll get by
Without his Henry pie
So run Henry run Henry Run! Run! Run!

Hobart in the Summer! Mount Wellington, as seen from New Town, February 2011.

Quick, I need a Sunday Top Five!

Ummmm….

How about Top Five Statistical Details About Tasmania That You Might Not Be Aware Of?

• Most Tasmanians live in urban centres, with nearly 90% of the total population living in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Devonport.



• Over the next twenty years the proportion of Tasmanians under the age of fifteen is projected to decline by approximately 7% while the proportion of people aged 65 years and over could grow by almost 60%.



• In the ten years to 2006 there was a 10% decline in the number of households with children in Tasmania, while the number of childless couples increased by 17% and the number of people living alone increased by 15%.



• Although the proportion of welfare-dependent households has declined in recent years, Tasmania still has the highest proportion of welfare-dependent households of all states and territories at 34%. Of these households, the majority (52 %) were in receipt of retirement pensions and benefits.



• Tasmania had a significantly higher percentage of its population that are rated as ‘low socio-economic status’ as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics at 55% of its population. The next highest is the Northern Territory at 28.4%, with Queensland and WA hovering around 23%. The Australian Capital Territory has just 0.3% of its population rated as ‘low socio-economic status’.

Ezra keeps a keen eye on proceedings at the Royal Botanical Gardens, while Henry chases seagulls.

Hold on the the bright flowers while you can. Seven Mile Beach. March 2011.

I have been awfully busy of late, so must apologise for my brevity. In fact, when this very post appears, I shall be otherwise occupied donating blood.

And do you know what? YOU should donate blood too...

To Be In Love, by Gwendolyn Brooks

To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there_
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.

Here’s one from a few weeks back: Henry’s first day of Kindergarten.

The wonderful Lindisfarne North Primary School didn’t know what hit it. It does now!

The morning sun of the office desk. No more shall be said. Curruthers Building, St Johns Park, New Town. March 2011.


Another day, another too books! This week, the theme is depressing, albeit for quite different reasons.

Book one is Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore. I’ve read a few of his books, and although he’s not the most refined of writers, one thing that Caryl Phillips can do is tell a story. This story is one of two people, both lonely and exist largely outside the mainstream of society. One is a retired teacher and the other an African refugee.

Stylistically, the book's sections jump between the perspectives of the two main characters, and the story is relayed in a non-linear, broken fashion, so the reader is often caught on the back foot in terms of the narrative. This isn’t too frustrating, although the emerging fact that one of the central characters – who increasingly narrates in the first person – is unreliable, throws in a bit of a twist.

Most novels of this kind would construct their story around the relationships between the two characters. This one is a little different, as it is largely built around the lack of a relationship between the two main characters. Much of the interest – and indeed the novel’s central theme – is around the concept of isolation, and the fact that two – ‘Soloman’ and Dorothy – are desperately isolated, yet convention and manners compel them to maintain the formality of distance between each other, despite their interest and intentions.

In Solomon, Phillips has constructed a character that has shut down much of his emotional repertoire after his experience of civil war and hardship. For very different reasons, Dorothy’s life has led her down a path of emotional disengagement, isolation and mental illness.

Part of the real craft of this book is how the most brutal aspect of the novel is actually loneliness. Despite the terrible things that he has seen, loneliness that was the thing that Solomon notices most in England:

It is strange, but nobody is looking at anybody else, and it would appear that not only are these people all strangers to one another, but they seem determined to make sure that this situation will remain unchanged.

Moreover, any one way that we might know someone is bound to be erroneous; in the sense that identities are interlaced assemblages of experiences, often traumatic, that defy a single, settled view; especially when survival often requires leaving them behind.

I think that I enjoyed – which is the wrong word entirely, but I can’t think of a better one – this novel so much because of the way that it breaks down the distinction between the ‘placed’ and the ‘displaced’. It explores (without seeming trite or forced), our sense of security and – if you’re lucky enough to have had one – about safely ‘belonging’.

Phillips seems to say, whether we know it or not, that ‘we are all adrift’. What is more, this aimlessness is not a product of ‘race’, ‘nationality’ or ‘geography’, but of the human condition itself. Please, do not read this book if you're looking for a light, upbeat little pick-me-up. However, if you’re up for an emotional wrench and a thoughtful mediation on alienation in modern society, this is the book for you!

Highly recommended.

Second on the agenda this week is Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. I’ve heard a lot over theyears about what a great novel this was, and I finally got around to reading it.

First mistake.

I get that is this an example of groundbreaking postmodern fiction, but I also get that a lot of groundbreaking postmodern fiction is rubbish. Consider this a good exhibit. I’m sure that at some point in the 1960s Pynchon’s style seemed defiant and exciting, but it just strikes me as dull and silly. The tale itself is interesting enough, but honestly, with such comic touch as a central character named ‘Oedipa’, drawn into the town of ‘San Narciso’ with a therapist called Dr. Hilarius, and a host of other such gems (i.e. ‘Genghis Cohen’, ‘Manny DiPresso’ and ‘Mike Fallopian’) it’s a bit hard to be anything but contemptuous.

Look, I appreciate Pynchon’s point about human beings' need for certainty, and the tendency to construct elaborate conspiracy theories to fill the vacuum in places where there is no certainty; and he did manage to draw together the story for an interesting-enough ending, but I found it cringe-inducing.

Maybe you won’t, but if you do read it, don’t blame me.