Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.

Dead crab. Or maybe it's sleeping. Little Howrah Beach. January 2012.

Theme Thursday again and our minds are firmly fixed on the concept of STORM. Well, I should really say that my little mind is actually geared towards STURM (und Drang).

Typically, people have translated STURM und Drang as "STORM and Stress" and use it to describe the proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred in the late-eighteenth century. Ever the dissenter, I prefer the less frequent translation of "STORM and Urge". The implications of the difference is not a minor one.

STURM und Drang was characterised by the liberation of individual subjectivity and the embrace of spectacular extremes of emotion – i.e. ladies fainting, men challenging each other to duels/ love affairs/ adventures. This free expression emerged largely in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and its associated aesthetic movements.

An example, previously to STURM und Drang I might have been strolling on the beach and said something to the effect of

Schau mal, ein toter Krebs .... [Oh look, a dead crab...]

STURM und Drang comes along and I'm walking down the same beach and see the same dead crab and suddenly I'm collapsing to my knees, weeping, slapping my friend for looking at me oddly, threatening suicide and then going home and forcing myself onto my twelve-year old cousin.

[Ahem]

It was surely an exciting time to be around.

Sure, the German romantics were an odd mob, but there is something in the idea that the Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, empiricism, and universalism had failed to adequately capture the human experience. Humans are much more than ‘rational beings’ as evident by their emotional extremes and the inherent impurity of personal motivations.

Of course, there is a broader socio-political point to be made about the need for greater human freedom and more respect for the natural world, but that’s not nearly as exciting as all the love affairs and dueling…..

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...

But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.

Can you believe that it is time for Theme Thursday already? Today we are not talking chocolate , toddlers , mess or ignominy . No, today we're dealing with ANIMAL . Now I could have posted a picture of a possum, numbat, wombat, wallaby or any other furry killing machine that roams our fair isle, but I figure that I'd use a far more deadly creature as an example of an animal . Some people - I know them as fools - have chosen to embrace that highfalutin idea that human beans are for some ungodly reason superior to animals. Of course, what these imbeciles seem to forget is that were are simple animals ourselves ! Anyone with a baby, toddler, teenage boy or Queenslander in their household could tell you this. Look at Henry [above]. One chocolate frog in the back of the car on a sunny day and all of a sudden it's Elagabalus meets Bacchus for a quick shandy in the Serengeti and we're down on all fours carrying on like a cat in heat. Fair dinkum, anyone who chooses to ...

This will hurt me...

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