Snap!

 

Chase bliss where you find it

Recently I put a Chase Bliss sticker on my vacuum cleaner

While that adhesive message came with a guitar effects pedal, it captures something of my recent experience undertaking domestic duties.

My vacuum cleaner has been providing many weirdly joyful moments.

Last year I made the decision to stop buying paper bags for the Miele model that had been cleaning my homes for nearly 30 years.

It had seen my transition from being a university student living in government housing through to my third or fifth career and then co-owning my own home.

One thing I admired about it was the long steel tube that gave resonances to the particles being drawn into the bag.

There was a sense of satisfaction in feeling the work it was doing.

This is close to the pleasure that is even more pronounced when emptying a bagless vacuum cleaner.

Being able to observe the debris fill the clear plastic catcher is a strange form of positive reinforcement.

It has spurred me on to finding new areas of the house to clean.

First I was vacuuming mattresses, then couches.

Before long I found the brush attachment was good for taking the dust off the blinds that line our windows.

I'm now beginning to wonder if the vacuum might provide an equivalent amount of bliss as my guitar playing, although Chase Bliss Audio have been a part of that enthusiasm recently.

It's been said that nature abhors a vacuum, but I am really into mine.

They/them

Pronouns never interested me and now they make my conversations stumble

Perhaps this is a statement that reflects my age, but I'm prompted by seeing another friend declaring they are now them.

It brings to mind a funny exchange with my partner when the high school sent a letter home about one of my children.

My partner exclaimed that our offspring must have changed their pronouns as it referred to they and them.

There was a laugh when I realised the school had a letter template that moved beyond the unwieldy s/he and, with it, any reference to the concept of biological sex.

Anyway, I am happy for anyone to promote the language that best suits their identity.

It's one of those aspects of contemporary life that is so fascinating and warrants deeper reflection.

For example, recently I read this observation in an interview with poet Forrest Gander and it's given me a new appreciation for taking a non-binary label:

As people are choosing the pronoun “they” to represent themselves, it has occurred to me that beyond the specifically gendered notion of what that means… I think that we have to admit how much we’re composed of others and how much that “I” is changing constantly.

In our lives we assume many roles and very few of them have anything to do with gender.

Just as feminists rejected the idea of being defined by their marital status, I think there's an opportunity to embrace pluralism.

The identity that I hold as a parent often collides with the immature posturing that I adopt in social situations.

Increasingly that model of authority I have as an older human conflicts with the carefree attitudes I have been disinterested in maturing.

These have been strained by the role that I am learning to fill as a teacher, particularly if it involves keeping a straight face while disciplining colourful language.

Being they/them seems an authentic reflection of feeling that the roles assigned at birth don't capture the person you grow to be.

We each contain so many identities, possibly wearing different masks to do so, which means it's a great step for society to embrace this kind of pluralism.

If that's "woke" then I'm happy to be awake!

There is a further dimension to recognising plurality and it goes beyond our roles or even the binaries with which they are usually framed.

In his book Entangled Life the author Merlin Sheldrake describes human as composite beings:

...we all inhabit bodies that we share with a multitude of microbes without which we could not grow, behave and reproduce as we do. [...] A growing number of studies have made a link between animal behaviour and the millions of bacteria and fungi that live in their guts, many of which produce chemicals that influence animal nervous systems.

Maybe, in addition to redefining the notion of the individual, we also need to reconsider freewill?

It takes The Village People to raise a child

If there's one thing that I like about Donald Trump it has to be his enthusiasm for The Village People

I expect he also responds to the upbeat energy in their music which, aside from tempo, often uses composition tricks like minor key verses to make those major key choruses really pop.

It reminds me how 'Gloria' by Laura Branigan was used by Alan Jones, the conservative radio "personality" who opened his show with the song but defined himself as a disgrace for agitating for violence in the lead up to the Cronulla race riot of 2005.

Anyway, before we get into that sort of ugliness behind the tunes, who can't help but be moved by the Village People's well-crafted hits? 

The sight of him dancing to their gay disco music something that I find myself enjoying about the recently re-elected US President.

I am of the option that it takes cultural forces like the Village People to raise a child and will share my own here.

When The Empire Strikes Back arrived at cinemas in 1980 (or maybe 1981 in Australia), I was seven years old.

That film doesn't remain in my memory for reasons that I'll explain, but it was impossible to avoid the impact of George Lucas' franchise through my childhood.

Many, many hours were played with figurines in the likeness of characters from the Star Wars universe.

In fact, I recall getting my first lesson about sex from watching my cousin acting it out with a Princess Leia figurine.

Before getting to the disco, I remember the triumphant feeling of leaving the first Star Wars movie about three years earlier.

While I would've been four I remember ascending the stairs from Canberra's Civic cinema with a feeling of excitement.

It was the same screen where I saw the original James Bond movie Dr No around the same time.

Maybe I'd had a birthday, because I came into possession of a Han Solo hand-blaster that I put into my little orange lunchbox and remember pretending to be the famed British spy while being babysat.

So when the sequel to Star Wars arrived a few years later I was enthusiastic to see it.

However, I wasn't alone.

The first opportunity to watch the Empire film came while I was being babysat by my aunt, who lived in Sydney.

All through my youth the movies released would be staggered and it wasn't something I really understood until I was writing film reviews while at university.

There was a limit on how many screens could show a new release film that was determined by the number of physical copies of the movie.

So films would arrive in Australia and screen in the state capitals, like Sydney, before moving on to the regional centres, like my hometown of Canberra.

The new Star Wars movie was hugely anticipated and, when my aunt asked about seeing a film, quickly became the focus of our plans.

I think we might've gone to the cinemas in George Street and joined the queue leading toward the box office.

At the point of buying tickets where we learned there was only one available and three of us needed seats.

The next screening was going to be too late for a seven- or eight-year old.

Since we had travelled into the city and didn't want the trip to be wasted, my aunt and her friend asked what else was showing.

I don't know what the options were but they bought tickets for Can't Stop The Music.

Although I've seen the film a number of times now, I still remember how quickly my disappointment shifted as Steve Guttenberg roller-skated through New York streets singing along to 'The Sound of the City'.

It would be a couple of years later that I gravitated toward the Police Academy movies from that familiarity with Guttenberg, but it's interesting now to see his resemblance to Jacques Morali.

Morali was the producer who developed The Village People concept and shaped their material:

While in New York, Morali attended a costume ball at "Les Mouches", a gay disco in Greenwich Village. Seeing the types of costumes and some common ensembles worn by the party guests, the idea came to him to put together a group of singers and dancers, each one playing a different gay fantasy figure.

The film somehow manages to make the story quite wholesome and Americanising the role of Morali by making him Jack Morell, as well as heteronormative with the addition of a love interest played by Valerie Perrine, who I recognised from Superman.

While Princess Leia might've acted out those early lessons in sex education, it was the pneumatic way Perrine's breasts appeared to float in a hot tub in The Village People movie that might have been the moment that I knew I was straight.

It seems ironic in hindsight that a camp movie celebrating gay subculture gave me this personal insight.

Now that I read about Perrine I can appreciate her figure has played an influential role in the representation of American sexuality.

She is credited as the first actress to appear nude on American network television by intentionally exposing her breasts during a PBS broadcast in 1973.

Can't Stop The Music is a musical biopic that reflects a version of history through the lens of what was considered palatable for a mainstream audience at the time it was produced.

This is to describe that the film fails to capture accuracy, but as a musical shows the kind of fantasy where characters burst into song and sets change to show desires beyond the scope of reality.

It's the kind of energy and representation that offers relief for those who are unhappy and reflects a kind of delirious enthusiasm totally in line with the crowds I see surrounding Trump.

Even though there's a dissonance between the increasingly overt homosexuality that a contemporary audience recognises in The Village People and the conservative Christian ideology that's defined the US Republican movement since around the time that the film was released.

It's that dissonance which defines our post-truth and "fake news" era, where so much doesn't make sense while explosions of colour (or colourful rhetoric) provide distractions.

Just as the film Can't Stop The Music glossed over the details that defined its origins to sell more records for The Village People, we're seeing their music continuing to be used by businessmen to dazzle audiences.
 

Love my spuds

If eating potato was an olympic sport I'd have eaten them in record time

Still amazes me that half a spud is considered a serve of vegetables. 

Making it by faking it

AI is coming for music videos and I'm here for it

Giving the finger

Late last year I was pulling up the grass that grows around the house and thinking that I should be wearing gloves

The next day it started, an ache around the end of my left index finger.

I thought it must be one of those spider bites that I've had from pulling up the grass.

Then it continued.

The feeling was more of a burning sensation and within the finger.

It seemed inconsistent though, like not always aching and there was no visible sign on the skin of a bite or redness.

Recently I consulted Dr Google and, while I don't put too much faith in getting the conclusive answer, the results suggested my ache might be early arthritis.

I am surprised it's in my left hand, although I did switch to using that finger for mouse-clicking after getting a raised bump on the tendon that runs along the back of my right hand.

This is the finger I also rely on for fingering the deep notes on my bass guitars.

At present it aches when I bend the finger so the first joint comes down past the second, which means it's mostly noticeable as I make a fist.

However, it's a little reminder that I'm getting old and joins a knee in triggering a kind of "go slow" response.

These are things that I find more confronting than spending time around small children at school.

It might make me reflect on my behaviour though, and stop the tendency I have to join in their games and activities.

Feels like getting old, I guess.

An incomplete known

"...there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."

The popularity of the biopic can be traced back to the first feature-length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). It feels as though in recent years this genre has gained pace and I suspect that it is the format through which an increasing audience engages with historical narratives, which make sense of contemporary times.

When I was at university my interest in studying history came from the film studies major that carried me through my first undergraduate degree. The unit called History On Film forced me to sit through Forrest Gump (1994) and allowed me to write an essay on The Elephant Man (1980), which was an early David Lynch movie that impacted me as a child. That latter film was analysed through the lens of narrative to show how it referenced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein story, for example.

Storytelling has always drawn on the significance of other narratives to give meaning and resonances and there are so many ways, from explicit acknowledgment through to allusions or Shakespeare's famous plays within plays. Soundtracks are also employed to great effect and there are songs that have become cliches in movie trailers from overuse in creating meaning. The musical biopic uses these techniques with the added benefit of blurring diegetic and nondiegetic songs, through having music performed by characters transformed into overtures.

An aspect of storytelling in contemporary films, particularly those influenced by Hollywood, has been a preoccupation with structure and, I think, biopics often suffer from feeling like they've put a lifetime of experiences into a mold like a biscuit-cutter to give them a certain shape from the pacing of emotional beats. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt has discussed a structure that is widely used beyond biopics to create a satisfying ending through linking character and contextual arcs —although, I'm not going to elaborate too much on that here.

All of this leads me to reflect on A Complete Unknown (2024), which I watched last night at the request of my youngest. Elsewhere I've mentioned his interest in Bob Dylan and my own, so it was fun to share the film. 

 

It does a good job of explaining the outrage that accompanied Dylan's move to electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, although I get the impression from reading reviews from younger viewers that this is possibly not as remarkable these days. In the film you already see Johnny Cash performing with accompaniment from an electric guitar.

In some ways I think the film's focus on concluding with Newport fails to achieve those arcs mentioned earlier for character and their context. Maybe this is part of what led one reviewer to write that the film "lacks purpose," which surprised me as I found it gave me a new appreciation for what Brian Eno calls the "scenius" -- where the milieu of an artist becomes a focus, rather than the individual. 

In the cinematic version of Dylan's origins a good deal of the events shown include those roles played by Joan Baez and a Sylvie Russo, who is largely based on Suze Rotolo and she was significant for politicising the folk singer. It's hard to imagine that a song like 'Blowin' In The Wind' could've pushed his career along without either of these women. It's their place in the film that prompted me to write, as I think the equivalent of the Frankenstein moment in The Elephant Man is a bit early on where Dylan and Russo/Rotolo discuss Picasso. The film could have shown that Dylan made his own visual art in the 1960s, but I feel the brief reference to the famous Spaniard is highlighting how we view that painter's career through the influence of his muses.

A Complete Unknown is a fun film and I found the music particularly good. It left me feeling like clapping throughout! In particular I thought Ed Norton brought a great dad-like energy in his role as Pete Seeger. There weren't many people at the screening I attended, so go see it soon if you want the cinema experience.

Worlds within worlds

Some years ago my partner made a prediction that, as the natural world declines, people would retreat into virtual worlds

At the time I had an image that would involve wearing goggles and living among pixels.

These days those virtual worlds are on hand everywhere you want to go.

For example, recently I was in a public library working on an assignment and it amazed me how many times people would have a conversation on their phone.

Right there in the middle of the area where a librarian would glare and even silence people with a finger to their lips or utter "Shush!"

Yet there I was listening to personal details, at least that's what I could discern from those speaking English.

It's something that came to mind as I pondered an article about Spotify recently:

Pelly cites a former employee who recalls CEO Daniel Ek musing that the company’s “only competitor is silence,” illustrating the hubristically expansive terrain that Spotify views as its entryway into the consumer’s life. The statement reflects Spotify’s totalizing ambitions, echoing a rather similar thing Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos made back in 2017, gassing up the platform’s potential to investors: “When you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night,” he said. “We’re competing with sleep, on the margins.” This echo makes sense, as Spotify and Netflix are specific expressions of how tech platforms in general have successfully colonized our entire lives.

Given the importance that I place on having moments of silence in my day and, of course, sleeping as close to eight hours a night as I can land, it's initially surprising that companies would be trying to undermine these aspects of consumers' lives.

Then again, there are many companies claiming to sell food that has been demonstrated as hazardous to health.

A doctor once told me there was more nutritional value in the packaging of a popular fast food brand.

We've always lived in a world where other humans are threatening, but it's diabolical to see the difficulty in promoting health habits when the marketing budgets for products that could harm you far exceed the investments in nutritious alternatives.

Ideas are like fishes

Clothes peg

Yesterday I was bringing in the washing and dropped a clothes peg

It was usually insignificant but for some reason at that time I realised this was an uncommon event.

Over the years I've gotten a lot better at throwing the pegs into their container as I bring in the clothes.

In so many backyards I have honed my skill at landing these items within various repurposed containers.

I remembered when I was younger a scattering of clothes pegs around the ice-cream bucket used to hold them between washes.

There used to be a handful of them that missed when I collected the washing at my Father's home.

I recall that the washing lines of shared houses was where I began to hone my skills.

Sometimes the ice-cream buckets were bigger, then my in-laws had a metal container that was narrow -- so maybe that helped in my development too.

However, yesterday I realised how long it'd been since I dropped a peg outside their container.

It struck me how, even without trying, the repetition had contributed to developing this somewhat useful skill.

Then I began to wonder what I might be able to achieve if I consciously applied myself to practicing something each week.

Or even if I took moments during the day to chuck pegs at a small target.

Obviously I could be a bit more ambitious but that seems like a place to start.

Dylan still chillin'

Last year my son started listening to Bob Dylan

It followed from playlists of Dr John, which apparently had my teenager badged on Spotify as the late musician's number one fan.

I know Dylan is having another of his moments at present with the biopic movie, but my son was ahead of that news.

I also know that I got interested in Dylan when I was a little older than my teen is now, when I wrote a 10000 word essay for my English class in 1991. 

While I still appreciate his writing, my favourite of Dylan's catalogue is the reggae album Infidels for the grooviness of renowned rhythm section Sly and Robbie.

Anyway, it was still surprising that the usual pop hiphop like Kanye and Kendrick Lamar had shifted to music older than me. 

On the weekend my youngest and I were talking about the author SE Hinton, as he'd recently enjoyed The Outsiders and I'd given him Rumblefish for Christmas, and I had an idea.

There's an interview with the author where she's asked why her books are so successful and continue to be assigned to high school English classes.

Hinton recognised that she was still young at the time it was written and still had some of the idealism of youth, which resonated authentically with her audience.

Now it's left me wondering if that's part of the appeal for some of that enduring music from earlier decades? 

Then again, looking at this graph just now, maybe it's because Spotify promotes old music?

Advice for artists

Do you talk with your elected representatives?

I know it's not something that I thought to do, but my mum recommended it and last year the Google Alert I have for my name had a link to NSW Parliament's Hansard.

It led to a Community Recognition Statement about a CASP grant from years ago and Mum was chuffed to come along to the morning tea where this photo was taken.

We know the arts need more recognition, so consider sending your MP an email next time you're promoting a project.

Do you remember that internship

 

Thanks David Lynch

If there's a silver-lining to waking up to a newsfeed talking about the death of a hero it is the opportunity to read more about them

So this morning I'm looking forward to reading about David Lynch for coming weeks!

I was 16 when I read about Wild At Heart and convinced my cousin that we should see it rather than use a fake ID to buy alcohol.

Lynch's use of sound and looping narratives, as well as the deeply romantic ideals espoused by the characters -- so wonderful.

The terrors in Lynchian nights were so dark, yet somehow you get to walk away from those dreamy scenes feeling like everything is going to be okay.

Sacrificing children

Hard to believe that we're in the fifth year of a global pandemic 

(That might be because people seem to be in denial about it!)

One of the things that worries me about becoming a teacher is that Australian children are mostly unvaccinated against Covid-19. 

It seems ridiculous given they're immunised against a range of illnesses that aren't as deadly and, in some cases, parents find they have no choice with all those 'no jab, no play' type rules for services or even to receive financial support.

When you hear people describing this potentially fatal disease as a "spicy cough" it shows we're not taking it seriously. 

As the long-term implications of this Coronavirus are being documented, 'long Covid' is known to have a range of potential impacts and little prospect for remedy.

I feel the Australian government has failed its 'duty of care' by using commissioned reports to drive policy decisions, rather than basing decisions like "living with the virus" on the advice of medical experts.

We might be on the cusp of a generation of young people with higher rates of dementia.

Thanks to Nick for sharing this information.

Kojo yakei

One of the things I like about my suburb is the industrial aesthetics mingling with gum trees

Every now and then I'll go out on my pushbike at night and come home with photographs.

So I'm excited by the Japanese term ‘kojo yakei’ meaning "factory night view" that has become a tourism phenomenon:

"The trend all began in 2007 when a book called Kojo Moe, meaning ‘factory passion’ was published. It featured photos of Japan’s factories, and gave details of the best places to go to see them."

 This could be a project for me in 2026, I think.

Emily Dickinson

They named the Em dash after her!

Each blending is a new beginning

Being a reformed wine wanker has made me a coffee snob

These days I can’t buy a takeaway because it hurts too much to pay for an unsatisfying brew.

The result is that I experiment with blending beans and find that the lesson of complementing hard and soft characteristics holds as true for coffee as it does for wine or microphones.

Tan lines

Each year I embrace the swimming season more

My tan lines are one measure that might be regrettable, but I did two consecutive lengths of butterfly today and feel that satisfying swollen tenderness.

Floral pedals

When I tried to ask Google how did floral pedals become a thing, it led to "petals" and it made me appreciate there's some kinda pun happening here

Anyway, I'm a fan. It's great to see this idea blooming!

For a long time I didn't buy the Melee pedal because it has an angry skull on it, but I've been playing with it again recently and it's fun.

Christopher Haworth Strictly Plein Air

Looking forward to seeing Christopher Haworth's solo exhibition

He's a plein air painter who spends a lot of time in the Riverina landscape, which leads to many observations about regional life.

The video above shares some of his creative practise and was part of the Ngurrambang exhibition that I curated at Griffith Regional Art Gallery, where he's now holding his first solo show.

Slice of the pie

Musicians gained a lot of independence with the arrival of the internet, as well as a lot of competition

Given that Spotify offers very little financial return on investment for most musicians, you've got to wonder why it's being used to judge the success of local Australian artists.

This is the experience of Emmet Prime:

"He said the industry's emphasis on social media following, engagement and listeners on streaming services often made him feel like it was a "waste of time" to put so much effort into the craft of performing."

Peak industry association Music SA had used the Spotify metrics to evaluate which bands to include on a line-up:

"The artist has to be able to show that they're ready to maximise any opportunities that might come out of that, which includes a really strong media and social media presence, and for example, that is one of the criteria of being selected as a Scouted artist," said Music SA CEO Christine Schloithe.

To get any financial recognition from Spotify you need to stream past a threshold of a minimum number of times your content has been heard, but you also need to get past the number of phantom musicians whose content is crowding out original music.

Critics like Ted Gioia have pointed out there's an increasing number of shadow artists padding out the material on Spotify and it's not clear if it's a further inequity for musicians trying to be heard.

So it seems inappropriate for an organisation promoting music with South Australia to rely on a company that is not in the business of promoting these kinds of bands and musicians.

There probably are questions to explore on the role of metrics in decision-making for an organisation and it's here that Spotify looks like a potential benchmark.

Succumb

Summer is here and I've been succumbing to ice-cream

Usually I'm a fan of a small scoop to add that sweet and creamy mouthfeel to a piece of warm pie.

Sometimes a scoop goes well in a coffee too, particularly if you add extra milk.

It's a simple approach and feels in balance with the rest of my diet, I like to think.

Then I started looking at the varieties of ice-cream in those freezer cabinets and suddenly my tastes aren't so vanilla.

There are two in particular that appear when my mind turns to visiting the supermarkets.

At the European brand shop there's a Magnum-style knock-off that's white chocolate with raspberries.

(I know white chocolate isn't really chocolate but it melts better for not having the paste-like character of cocoa.)

The tartness of the raspberry is easily overcome by the vanilla and then the sweet hit of that sweetened condensed (misnomered) chocolate.

This same brand with a NZ-sounding name that I can't remember also has a passionfruit ice-cream but the second ice-cream I've been enjoying most is the one pictured.

It's nuts and outrageous, just like it says.

There's really no stopping once I hit a seam of the caramel that runs between crunchy peanuts and different flavours of ice-cream.

Otherwise I'll run the spoon around the edge of the packaging where it's melting and the sundae all blends together like a gritty sticky mouthful.

I can feel my brain doing these cartwheels while I'm eating it.

The peanuts probably aren't appropriate for everyone, but if you need to grab an epipen then consider giving it a go.

Vice-versa

Sometimes the Disquiet Junto projects really surprise me

There have been many examples over the years, such as the "layered sameness" exercise that led to a revelation when I heard all the takes together.

Late last year there was a Junto activity that gave me a glimpse of a different depth in my recording.

It was the "switch back" direction to "Make the quiet part loud, and vice-versa." 

Listening back to it now and I'm surprised at how much I enjoy the spaciousness around the instruments.

I can hear a place that I'd like to visit again.

Are you chicken?

I have simple tastes, so one of my favourite things is finding the chicken has been discounted at the local supermarket

Admittedly, it's not as exciting as finding cheeses on special but it's still pretty special.

Their chicken is often given a marinade, either southern style or honey and soy.

They're both good and I like the wings best, but they also have good deals on unseasoned meat too.

Our town doesn't have a KFC, some swear by the Golden Chicken but I think the IGA supermarket has great fast food.

Okay, it takes an hour or so to cook but it's fresh.

In fact, the chicken was likely from the nearby town of Hanwood, where the largest chicken processing facility in the southern hemisphere is operating.

If you drive that way to Griffith, you can see there are many chicken farms in the region.

It's actually an interesting story about how a boy named Peter Bartter started a business with 100 birds and sold eggs to local restaurants.

Along the way they built an empire and you can still recognise a lot of their farms by the oleander bushes planted out front.

 

New year new

Made this poem from my senryu/microjournal habit

The creative prompt shared by Naviar Records led me to revisit a process from previous years.

I sampled my daily writing practise, then quickly recorded a reading to go with a piece of music.

The words are below, since you can't really hear them:

Clear a space for truth

put demons on the table 

we all have monsters
The familiar

our lived experiences 

we never escape
Preoccupation

knowing unmentionables 

hiding maligned forms
In these descriptions

old paraphernalia 

wrestling for new life
Anchored ideas

peppered onto bathroom walls 

I read the comments
My steps unbalanced

finding a new way forward 

these steep learning curves
Personal essays

images that resonate 

using metaphors
It leaves me beaten

along branches of wisdom 

stick with what I know
Dulled by the moment

anything is possible 

love profound boredom
Title on the door

master procrastinator 

holds me to account
I don’t play tennis  

when the ball is in my court 

I’m hitting it back
The role I’ve taken

allowed to fully occupy 

where I’m meant to be
Sometimes giving up

letting loose parts of myself 

and it’s positive
I’ve backed myself in

wet paint around the corners 

I’ll spend some time here
A love of the thing

not really a career 

expert of nothing
Enjoy the journey 

it’s different for everyone
like so much guidance



interpretations vary 

so I guess words will travel
Robust narratives

explaining our lives away 

it’s not magical
Without little words

sensibly made into thoughts 

would I know myself
Finding small spaces

unused outlooks on the day 

to make a window
My opacity

hiding in the everyday 

beliefs are porous
We can save those gifts

people don't want those insights

lies are easier
We hold opinions

underestimate vastly 

how truths destroy us
That crushing feeling

to hold a sensitive heart

wishing it weren’t mine
Something in my chest
resonates with emotion
reciting your words 
It’s the easy thing

seeing only what I know 

can you really blame me?
A slippery slope
I can go down a wormhole
lose myself a while 
These are summaries
so when revisiting them
I'll find my own words 
Thinking of my poems
as conversation partners
go let them mingle 
We sometimes struggle
as our own brand of magic
fails to charm ourselves 
Sometimes I’ll look back

some will say I’m different 

but it’s just I’ve grown
Through a world of sound

the only filter I have 

my discerning ear
Scanning the dial

your radio call signal 

I’m the antenna 

It seems obvious

that lozenge rhymes with orange 

but maybe that’s me

Mechanical massage

Not sure where this massage machine came from

However, every few years or so since it arrived I will return to its embrace.

The rubber skin covers a series of mechanical fingers that work up and down either side of the spine.

This means that you can position yourself for it to focus on areas that need massaging, but it's weird.

Usually when I am receiving a massage I will be moaning and thanking the person.

So it's embarrassing to be trying to hold my pleasure in as my family goes about their days around me. 

There as I am writhing and gasping, the machine whirs and I'm left feeling like I'm using a vibrator at the dining table.

It surprises me how the motorised noises contrast with the sensations and thrills.

Foot rubs

One evening last year, for no particular reason, I thought to ask my partner if she'd like her feet rubbed

After attending to both her feet, she reciprocated by rubbing my feet in turn.

I didn't think much about it until afterwards, when she said we should do this more often.

At that time I remember thinking that I felt my feet get rubbed when I have a bath and that's all good.

So I was surprised within a few days when the topic of rubbing feet came around again and this time she was saying it should happen every night.

It seemed remarkable that after living together for decades, we've found something new other than the occasional TV series.

That's a lesson from 2024 to share.

 

Looks alcoholic

Should I try this first or chuck it out?

Top five

Each year, when I remember, it's interesting to share the top posts on this blog

1. Everything exists in history
2. Asleep at the handlebar
3. Night At The Museum
4. Fore(gone)sight
5. Gentle Sentinel

These results reflect the popular additions during the year and I acknowledge that some older material might have had more visitors than current preoccupations.

Admittedly, it doesn't look like I compiled a top five here since 2016, but maybe I should blog more?

My year in one minute

Holiday break

In popular music the notion of a break is an improvised section or percussion feature

So the idea of a holiday break being a drum interlude is cool

I also like the approach of taking a break during the holiday, as in withdrawing from regular activities to focus on more intimate ones.

The break that I'm improvising over here is, of course the most-sampled song in electronic music: the Amen break by The Winstons.

This cornerstone of contemporary music features a snare drum performance by Gregory C. Coleman which has become a defining feature of genres like jungle or drum and bass.

It really is remarkable that such a potent piece of art did not get the recognition it deserves, yet has influenced so much and appeared so broadly through interpretation and transformation.

In this way I'd like to celebrate the end of the year with a break of my own and wish everyone a good one.

Community recognition statement

A few weeks ago there was an invitation in my spam folder

Today I ventured into the Soldiers Club to be formally recognised by the local member.

It was surprising to be remembered for a project from four years ago, but really excellent to be bignoted to parliament and quoted in Hansard.
 

Feeling the spirit

So I cut down a tree

Auslander

The class was drawing robots

Meanwhile, I was thinking about the Labor Government backing out of their deal with the Greens to do more to protect Australia's environment.

Man bites dog

This was unexpected

I was looking at the shelves in the library of the school where I'm working and couldn't believe they had Man Bites Dog.

Then I saw it was released by Moog!

It's like the wildest idea for a crossover, an influential and very adult movie from the '90s with one of the big synthesiser brands.

But, it's not.

This seems to be a game for kids.

Darkness

Darkness
damp smell
a hum in the air
arrives from all directions
as reeds warble
we walk apart
along a gravel path
our footsteps breaking
into the swamp
among cumbungi
glimpses of water
families in feathers
the bird hide a misnomer
when ascended we are seen
a stage for a splashing applause
pelicans remain unmoved
unwilling to leave the sparse roosts
their heavy beaks return
to rest on folded wings
a humming intensifies
on a breeze cool with night
as dawn approaches
behind the Brobenah Hills
our hands touch
while passing binoculars
distances are overcome
glowing spoonbills stride the outskirts
swans effortless
sunrise passes
we return to our lives

Highly commended

Third time as runner-up in the Murrumbidgee Short Story Competition

Now online, see Music from the Age of the Internal Combustion Engine by Jason Richardson — Western Riverina Arts

Gradations with u

Normally I hate graduations and have skipped them whenever I can

There's long been a sense for me that they're fake and, while wanting to be well-meaning, they offer empty platitudes with small slices of bland sandwiches after a flavourless ceremony.

Maybe that speaks more to my own experience, as it probably began when I spoke as Chair of the School Board at my graduation and then went on unemployment benefits for four years rather than finding a world of opportunity.

Then, four years after finally accessing the financial support to study, I refused to wear a gown to my uni graduation and found that lots of people told me that I looked better for dressing differently.

It was an experience that might have hardened my aloofness and desire to be distinct from whatever everyone else was doing, which honestly mightn't have worked out so well in the long run.

I've changed careers a handful of times and it feels like that restlessness has been speeding up.

If there's one thing that's kept a sense of regularity since I stopped owning a dog, it has been being a parent.

This role has provided so many opportunities to revisit those difficult memories of being a child and find a new perspective that's sympathetic toward my own parents.

Therapy would have been cheaper and now I wonder if my own children will begrudge me for moments of selfishness or recognise the struggle to keep sane as obligations multiply and come into conflict with our lives together?

Anyway, today I went to my child's graduation ceremony and came away with a very different experience.

My daughter wasn't the first of my kids to finish high school, so I didn't have the shock of wondering why her class was so small.

At our regional high school it seems more than half the class will leave at the end of Year 10 to find jobs, apprenticeships or maybe they move away for opportunities in a city.

My daughter didn't get singled out for achievements, although academically she is as capable as her older brother, who was awarded cash prizes at previous ceremonies that I'd been dragged along to watch.

The Principal spoke predictably about how this class of students arrived five years earlier as children and were now leaving as young adults.

Ha, I thought, what a world they’ve got to find their way through.

Then she recognised that something significant happened in Year Eight, when everyone had been forced to learn how to study online.

There was a worldwide pandemic that saw the stocks of Zoom rise and gave me a firsthand observation of how differently my children approached their studies.

My oldest child struggled without the face-to-face opportunities to be assured he understood the expectations of an assessment.

My youngest seemed to get everything finished within an hour and spent the rest of the day in Minecraft.

My daughter, a middle child, was often so quiet as to be unnoticed.

She would retreat to her bedroom and I began to recognise her resourcefulness, as she never asked for assistance and clearly had observed that Google had all the answers.

When I enquired about assessments she showed me how a group of friends negotiated in a messaging application to divide the workload.

I saw this chat group was named "Boomer remover" and callously admired the dark humour as the casualties began to rise.

Now at her graduation, I listened to people occasionally coughing around me and wondered if I was going to catch COVID again.

Many don’t acknowledge the pandemic continues.

My reflections were disrupted by movement on the stage as the speeches that blah-ed in the background came to lull.

A couple were moving with long hair that looked like something from a time before I had hair of my own.

A young man with a mullet, then a young woman took to the podium with flat long flowing centre-parted hair, that's the style of the day again it seems.

Young Mullet recounted how they'd been told they were the worst Year Seven in 25 years, while Centre-Part spoke about how they had been able to observe changes in their year advisor as he found love and got married.

There was a weird sense that something shifted in me, as I realised the kids had been watching as the world stopped and was restarted.

They had likely also wondered if anyone knew what they were doing while a defining moment in our lives entered every house and then was swept aside by the rush to resume regular life.

Often it seems a dissonance to hear people minimising the risk of lifelong debilitation with a phrase like "spicy cough" so their aspirations can fly again to holiday in unimaginative destinations.

And it occurred to me that this is the way of things, like seasons changing, inevitably cycling through changes that feel like gentle progress while really remaining on the spot like pedalling on an exercise bike.

My cynicism concluded that classes keep graduating and people keep standing behind podiums telling people there is something to look forward to.

Then the most unlikely thing happened, the graduating class danced out of the auditorium.

I don't know when choreographed dancing at graduations became a thing and I suspect I might have seen it at a previous ceremony and thought it was naff.

However, today I looked into 41 joyful faces and didn't see a single cynical outsider pretending to go through the moves.

It was remarkable that a group could agree on music, let alone the steps to go with it.

The graduation program listed names of students that I'd been hearing since my daughter joined kindergarten and, as I looked around, the parents' faces I'd known from attending assemblies all looked older.

That's one thing that's different from my schooling, I went to five different schools and my daughter has only known two.

I wondered if this little community in the Riverina had provided something more than being little.

We walked outside into the sunshine to find the students talking excitedly in small groups.

People posed for photos and I had the strangest sensation of excitement for the possibilities these young people have waiting for them.

So much is changing and there have been challenges, yet the kids have grown up and I realised that I had too.

My own relationship with schools is about to be approached from a new angle, as I prepare to enter classrooms as a teacher.

As I reflect on how much I've resented sitting through school assemblies and speeches for decades now, it comes as a shock to realise that I will have opportunities to be that blahing voice at the podium after I graduate.

I hope to have the same enthusiasm and excitement that I have seen on the faces of students.

Maybe I will know that mask-like smile that I see teachers wear during public events at schools.

Or perhaps I should recognise the times have changed and learn to dance?

Time really does move in circles, lapping seasons and ticking over years.

Each revolution brings a new perspective on the next.

I just need to keep learning new moves to stay relevant.

Yes, Minsiter

First they came for the subeditors, and I did not speak out—because I was illiterate

That look

I was hanging washing on the line this afternoon

The sparrows in the yard sounded agitated, then I saw this one caught on a branch.

I took a few photos since normally one doesn't get close to these flighty birds.

Looking over them and it reminds me of Howard Arkley's Nick Cave painting in the National Portrait Gallery.

The way everything is soft except the light reflected in the eye.

It is dizzying to stand too close to Arkley's work.

If you let it fill your outlook, one's eyes try to reconcile the depth of field.

Something about that uneasiness always seemed poignant while remembering Arkley died from an overdose as his career was taking off.

Just as it now was unsettling to watch the sparrow spinning around trying to take flight.

Don't let your dreams give up on you

Collage by Austin Kleon — who doesn't credit the fourth grader that allegedly spoke these words

Although, now that I think about it, Kleon has a book called Steal Like An Artist so he's probably on brand and practicing what he preaches!

Roo Cop

By brb