Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.

Who (or what) is being protected? Ford Parade, Lindisfarne. January 2012.

Two books this week, with one departure of the norm and another collection of short stories from an unknown German.

The first is Tasmanian Tiger Ed Cowan’s In The Firing Line. Essentially the diary of the Australian domestic cricket season as seen through a player [then] on the periphery of the international game, Cowan struck lucky to decide on this endeavour the year that Tasmania won its second Shield title.

While these books are often dry affairs, Cowan is both brutally honest in his assessment of himself, his cricket and the impact of his chosen career path on his loved ones. Moreover, he offers great insight with some considered and oft-unspoken views on the state of State cricket in Australia and the future of the game. I was particularly drawn to his observation on the effect of Twenty20 on both the domestic and international game.

His frank and portrait of life as one of the invisible ‘not quite top-rung’ cricketers is a poignant one. Of course, the happy ending of a Shield victory and subsequent surprise call up to the Test team doesn’t hurt! The book was not ghost written and it’s refreshing to read an honest sporting account by someone in the moment that reads so well. There’s no doubt that Cowan is a thinker. If you’re a cricket fan (especially if you’re a fan with doubts about where the game is headed), you’ll find this a great read. Highly recommended.

Second up is a collection of short stories by German literary sensation Judith Herman, The Summer House, Later is subtitled A book about the moment before happiness. This collection of melancholy, quietly-spoken mediations is a varied lot. For the most part, not much happens.

Characters drink (tea, coffee, vodka), smoke (cigarettes, pot, hash), go out, stay in, get together, break up. If there is one discernible thread it is the almost intangible air of discontent.

There is great craft at work here, but I must admit that I think that Herman’s style might be better suited to a longer form. She has a great skill at capturing the ordinariness modern life (particularly its tedium and loneliness) and manages to hint that there is always something more is stirring beneath the surface. The problem with the short form is that for all of the set up and building of characters, nothing happens. There is no climax, no dénouement or hope of resolution.

Ultimately – for this reader at least – it makes for dissatisfying reading. Recommended only to the keen.

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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