This will hurt me...

Railyard rabbit. Seen on the Intercity Cycleway, Hobart. December 2012. Do you know that I have seen eight ( 8! ) separate rabbits across Hobart in the past two weeks? Why, they almost breeding like... RABBITS! Colville , Kendrick Smithyman That sort of place where you stop long enough to fill the tank, buy plums, perhaps, and an icecream thing on a stick while somebody local comes in, leans on the counter, takes a good look but does not like what he sees of you, intangible as menace, a monotone with a name, as place it is an aspect of human spirit (by which shaped), mean, wind-worn. Face outwards, over the saltings: with what merit the bay, wise as contrition, shallow as their hold on small repute, good for dragging nets which men are doing through channels, disproportionate in the blaze of hot afternoon’s down-going to a far fire-hard tide’s rise upon the vague where time is distance? It could be plainly simple pleasure, but these have another tone or qual...

There is always one joker... Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston. February 2012. The Porcupine is a novel by Englishman Julian Barnes that was originally published in Bulgarian [ Бодливо свинче]. This should give us a very strong clue as to the identity of which post-communist country the story takes place. The novel concerns the trial of the former communist leader of Bulgaria, and its effects on both the central protagonists of that trial, as well as the broader community. The real strength of the book is the complexity of its characters. There is no clear ‘black and white’ here and the tones in which the former dictator and the new democratic government’s representatives are painted are very much grey. Barnes has done an excellent job of overcoming the certainties of Cold War triumphalism and creating human characters (especially given that the book was released in 1992, with events still very fresh in the mind). The point of the book seems to be more than exploring c...

Southern Cross SPENCER STREET railway station, Melbourne. April 2010. They can try all they like, it will always be Spencer Street to me... Morning , Deborah Ager You know how it is waking from a dream certain you can fly and that someone, long gone, returned and you are filled with longing, for a brief moment, to drive off the road and feel nothing or to see the loved one and feel everything. Perhaps one morning, taking brush to hair you'll wonder how much of your life you've spent at this task or signing your name or rising in fog in near darkness to ready for work. Day begins with other people's needs first and your thoughts disperse like breath. In the in-between hour, the solitary hour, before day begins all the world gradually reappears car by car.