An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass.

Polite. East Derwent Highway, Lindisfarne. August 2013.

The Gardener from Ochakov, Andrey Kurkov: I had been anxiously awaiting the latest from my favourite Ukrainian author, and it didn't disappoint. A time-travel adventure (a theme this week) with a light touch, I'm not sure whether Kurkov is satirising or indulging in a bit of post-Soviet nostalgia. As we often see in Kurkov's books, there is a clash of the mundane - tracksuits, minibuses, homemade vodka - and the surreal - knife-wielding gangsters from 1950s Soviet Union. I really enjoyed it. B+.

The Time Machine, H.G. Wells: The classic of the genre, it's a surprise to see just how much the story is interwoven with Darwinian and Marxist theory. The 19th Century was one hell of a trip! I reckon that it stands up. Well worth your time. B+.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris: A collection of essays by Jerri Blank's brother (that's who David Sedaris will always remain in my heart). Some of the essays have been featured This American Life, and they are each very funny reminiscences of a fish out of water. My favourites? It's hard to top the "The Learning Curve", in which Sedaris recalls his job teaching a writing workshop or "Me Talk Pretty One Day", a hilarious recounting of the trials and tribulations of foreigners learning French class in Paris. B+.

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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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