This will hurt me...

Ducks on the move. Geilston Bay, September 2018. Hi there, long time no post! Some questions... 1. When was the last time you tried something new? I try to try something new every day! I’m trying a new vegan recipe just today. 2. Who do you sometimes compare yourself to? I try not to compare myself with anyone. I look to others for ideas, advice or inspiration, not points of comparison. 3. What’s the most sensible thing you’ve ever heard someone say? “Stop.” 4. What gets you excited about life? The possibilities… 5. What life lesson did you learn the hard way? Be careful about who you can rely on. 6. What do you wish you spent more time doing five years ago? Running and cycling. 7. Do you ask enough questions, or do you settle for what you know? I never stop with the questions! 8. What’s a belief that you hold with which many people disagree? That the signified and signifier are purely psychological, and that gett...

Duck feet (from below). Geilston Bay. July 2013. I'm back on the buses again, which ups the time I have to read. This is always nice. After The Wall , Jana Hensel: I'm always up for an East German generational memoir, which is Hensel's goal here. What differentiates this one from many of the others is that Hensel reflects on the very last of that generation, those that were at the tail end of their childhood at the fall of the Berlin Wall and whose teenage years coincided with the process of reunification. I'm not certain that this translation helped (it was packed full of jarring Americanisms), but was an interesting-enough reflection. C . Grendel , John Gardner: A fascinating novel that retells the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf from the perspective of the monster and - quite successfully - explores (among other things) the nature of good and evil; man's capacity for violence; finding meaning in the world; and the power of literature and myth. I really enj...

Duck, duck... goose? Back of Chinese Restaurant, Princes Street, Sandy Bay. September 2011. I wonder what exactly these ducks had done in order to earn their fate? Sassy talk? Collaboration? Attempted regicide? What are your thoughts?

This duck has seen better days. Geilston Bay, November 2010. Yesterday, circumstances compelled me to break routine and catch a couple of buses in the middle of the day, rather than my usual ‘commuter rush’ times. In terms of heading into the city from the eastern shore, the bus was sparsely populated. The (relative) absence of people – coupled with the fact that I forgot my book – meant that I was fortunate enough to experience one side of a delightful telephone conversation. The delightful young women at my end appeared to be suffering from a terrible affliction that meant she only had access to six words. Tragically, one of the words started with ‘f’; another, ‘s’; but her favourite word began with ‘c’. Unfortunately for the other passengers, despite her proficiency as a first-rate conversationalist, those words her brain permitted her to use were not “foudroyant”, “sempiternal” or “chiaroscuro”. Perhaps this might explain her extreme agitation (bordering on rage) at what seemed to...

Duck, duck, Goose. Geilston Bay, July 2010. What could be more relaxing on a Saturday morning than a stroll down to the bay to feed the ducks, talk to the geese, and warn your children not to fall in the water? Ka 'Ba , Imamu Amiri Baraka A closed window looks down on a dirty courtyard, and black people call across or scream or walk across defying physics in the stream of their will Our world is full of sound Our world is more lovely than anyone's tho we suffer, and kill each other and sometimes fail to walk the air We are beautiful people with african imaginations full of masks and dances and swelling chants with african eyes, and noses, and arms, though we sprawl in grey chains in a place full of winters, when what we want is sun. We have been captured, brothers. And we labor to make our getaway, into the ancient image, into a new correspondence with ourselves and our black family. We read magic now we need the spells, to rise up return, destroy, and create. What will be the ...

Note to self: Don't trust either child to hold the bread for the ducks...