Monoculture myth

One of the Australian political debates in recent weeks has been around returning the country to a monoculture

This has been of of those pointed remarks that stupidly aims at the country’s longterm view of being multicultural because, after all, we’re largely a population of migrants.

In some ways the Australian fear of being swamped by a foreign culture is a response to our unease about the history of the nation, which formed from colonisation of the oldest continuous human cultures in the First Nations.

It’s a potent raw nerve for conservative politicians and has been exploited in fears of “boat people” and most recently been espoused as the desire for a monoculture that was expressed by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Given my parents were both born overseas, you can likely guess where I sit in this debate.

Wherever you look in the history of Australia (or the continent before that name) it was never a monoculture -- even the centuries of rivalry between the Angilican and Catholic churches points to the conflict between English and Irish migrants from the day soldiers escorted convicts onto a sandy beach.

However, I was watching a Rick Beato discussion just now and realised the notion of a monoculture is another of the “Golden Age” type arguments that somehow propose returning to an earlier time that will never be within reach because technology now prevents it.

There’s this thing that we call the monoculture that were, where hit songs back in 2005 if you had a hit song, everyone knew the song.

It was played at the stores, grocery stores, everywhere you went. It was on the radio, right?

And then the age of algorithms started happening, right?

…And there’s very little shared music because of that.

Jitterbugs

Looking around for Weaver Hawkins' art and I found this sketch for Jitterbugs

Magic Mountain's Mr Magic

Leeton's Mr Magic seems worthy of a mention

One of these days David Boyd will be almost forgotten aside from this somewhat random appearance on Google Maps.

I remember he entertained a birthday party for one of my kids soon after we arrived in town.

Mr Magic performed a few tricks for the kids, while maintaining that slightly unsettling vibe I've seen magicians use to keep small children at a distance.

A few years later and David Boyd was the sole remaining member of a writing group and asked Western Riverina Arts to help with a workshop to acquit funds.

There weren't many people at the event, aside from the Regional Arts Development Officer and myself.

David was a bit critical about the content and the outcome, which I think might explain how it was he ended up being the sole remaining member.

Later in my role as Communications Officer at WRA I wrote about Mr Magic's workshops, which were a wonderful initiative that aimed to help neurodivergent kids.

I learned a lot more about David Boyd when I read the first part of his autobiography, The Blitz Kid.

The book details his childhood experiences of WWII and was interesting for the somewhat dubious deals he made to support himself during those chaotic years.

I'd need to re-read it to remind myself of the details, but the blurb on the back cover notes:

His childhood experiences gave him the ability of spotting a good business deal when one presented itself. Or to use his favorite [sic] term "A great little earner". But unlike his child hood earners, [sic?] these would all be legit.

After I read the book I pestered David when I saw him with his dog at the local park, hoping he'd let me proofread the second volume detailing his life after moving to Australia.

Another funny detail to share is that his home used to have a sign out front saying "The Boyd Nest" and you couldn't help but read it with his English accent!

Lexical gaps

Some ideas for band names here!

English is such a weird mash of languages that I expect some of the gaps are explained by their origins.  

Giant duck?

Went for a walk at Narrandera's wetland this morning

Couldn't help noticing this tree stump near the entrance looks a lot like a duck.

I guess it must be a wood duck!

Now Stop

Recently I proposed a Junto project

I was inspired by the idea the signage outside the Leeton Rice Mill could be a creative prompt.

It then surprised me to discover my idea coincided with my 500th video response to these Disquiet Junto projects.

Then a funny coincidence happened on the day that project ended, as the Give Way sign was replaced with a Stop sign.

Season of Cool

Great news to learn that our innovative international collaboration has been extended until 24 July

The Stay Cool exhibition in Griffith Regional Theatre's Artspace explores creativity as it moves between mediums and around the world

This project evolved from writing workshops into contemporary music composition and is illustrated with stellar photography.

The collaboration between Red Earth Ecology and Italian record label Naviar builds on previous projects led by Curator Jason Richardson, particularly the 'Crossing Streams' exhibition in Narrandera during 2017.

This group exhibition includes poems that were distributed with the Naviar Records community of musicians, where each inspired dozens of pieces of music linked via QR code, as well as sharing over a dozen other haiku contributed by writers attending the online workshops supported by Western Riverina Arts earlier this year.

Many of the contributors are exhibiting for the first time and some, such as Wagga Wagga's Anne Carpenter, are new to writing haiku poetry.

"I am now so aware of Haiku that my walks with my dog now consist of me tapping my fingers against my leg or in the air as I count out the syllables to describe the ever changing morning sky," said Ms Carpenter. 

"It must look rather funny to others out for their early morning walk. It has given me a new perspective on what I see, hear and feel."

A selection of poems were distributed by Naviar Records to a community of musicians from around the world, who interpreted the words sonically.

"It was really emotional listening to the sound tracks created in response to my haiku," said Capertee Valley-based artist Leanne Wicks.  

"I knew it would be cool to participate but there's something a whole lot deeper going on with this cross-creative collaboration."

An album of music from the Stay Cool project is available to download at https://naviarrecords.bandcamp.com/album/naviar-haiku-32

"It is wonderful to be part of an exhibition in Griffith," said Marco Sebastiano Alessi from Treviso in Italy.

"I hear the city is known for its multiculturalism, so an exhibition of Japanese-style poetry that brings together people from around the world should be right at home."

Stay Cool will exhibit from 25 April to 24 July at Artspace at the Griffith Regional Theatre,

The project has been supported by Griffith Regional Art Gallery, as well as financial assistance from the NSW Government through Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW

Brown falcon with waratah guitar

 

Capcha snap

Recently I decided to stop using Facebook

One of the things that I don't miss is completing these tasks every time I logged in.
 

Let's go algae

Not my photo but it inspires me

Obviously there's a political context for North Americans, but I really like the idea of celebrating microorganisms.

Currently I'm back into milk kefir, for example, and previously I've been keen to celebrate the local cryptogamic crust.

Dreams are wild

Been a while since I wrote about a dream and my partner thought this one was significant

I was at some sort of a corroboree, where First Nations men were bringing food from a shipwreck in a river nestled in a lush, tree-filled valley and that included hot pizza. 

 

When we sat down to eat in a big venue, it was clear that I was attending with people I knew from work and saw Ray from the gallery while I was eating prawns. 

 

An older man sat down, seemed to be my manager and he said he was sorry about the death of my father and how they didn't know what killed him. 

 

I still had a mouth full of food and he said he'd come back later to talk about something important.

 

Later I realised this manager figure looked a lot like my paternal grandfather.

Jo saw this as a healing dream, where I was supported by male ancestors in a process that was still occurring through the nourishing quality of eating. 

 

She asked me to reflect on the role of prawns and, since they were being served by Ray, and I assume it is a symbol for my creative practices. 

 

I have been thinking lately on how few men engage with the arts and how my guitar-building project could be a way to interest more of a male audience. 

 

The location of the river with the shipwreck seemed to be the wilder landscape in a section of the dream from the night before, which was a journey between Sydney and Bega.

Interesting to me is that my grandfather's coast house, where I spent time through my childhood, is in that stretch of the landscape.