I thought I would take a break from preparing the Xmas Spurkey for tomorrow's festivities to do some blogging As you probably already know, a spurkey is a mock turkey fashioned out of turkey flavoured spam that is stuffed with a variety of other flavoured spams, devon, and canned corned beef and which is basked in butter, margarine, lard, and vegemite and lovingingly drizzled with a delightful beer, summer wine, and tomato sauce dressing. Believe it or not the Xmas Spurkey finds it origins in Pre- Christian pagan times. But, unfortunately, because spam had not been invented yet, the pagans had to sustitute a real turkey for its spam simulacrum.
Anyhow, readers, friends, I wish you a safe and merry Christmas and a prosperous and wondrous New Year that's filled with a serendipitous,salubrious and sanguine alacrity that is unsullied by any and all sadness, sorrow, remorse, or regret. May you enjoy an absence of shallow, preposterous popinjays. May you partake of a plethora of pleasures, a cornucopia of kindness, a stupendous stipend of serenity, a sonorous summation of sundry saliences, an epitome of effervescent and exquisite ecstasies. May you have an abundance of ambrosia, may you wine and on Dionysian delights. May a loquacity of gregarious and beatitudanous beauty bestow upon you a paragon of perpetual possibilities and positivities and above all may your new year, all of it, be happy.
Tuesday 23 December 2014
Saturday 20 December 2014
Simmer Down
The Skatalites did not disappoint last friday night. They were DYN-O-MITE!. Such a joyous band. The world needs more joy. It needs to simmer down.
How it comes to be that someone stabs a child, let alone children -plural-, to death is beyond my mental and emotional reckoning. Poor children, how terrified they must have been. How painfully must their family and be grieving.
Christmas is a time of joy, family, friends, stress, and remembrance. We remember those loved ones who are no longer with us. The empty spaces at the Christmas dinner table.
When my mum had cancer. The doctor told us that it was terminal but could pinpoint a time frame other than it could be months or years. I remember once when I was visiting her in hospital. She told me that she would prefer that one particular lady did not visit her.
"She's such a misery guts, you'd think I was already dead and that she was at my funeral the way she carries on -she makes feel worse".
So, whenever I visited my mum and when she came home. I did my best to act 'normal' -not too sad and not overly and falsely happy. I cried in private. Life went on.
One day my zia (aunt) Bruna, my mum's twin sister (may she rest in peace) noticed my sadness and took me aside and told me that despite everything that I should go out and have some fun and enjoy myself. And I did. I went to pubs with friends to see bands.I went to clubs. I went to I went to restaurants for celebrations. But always. Always. At some point I would be reminded that I was enjoying myself while my mum was at home, dying. And I would feel guilty.
A couple of nights ago, I was channel surfing and ended up on a show on SBS, 'Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll - a bio pic movie of the life of Ian Dury. He and his band 'The Blockheads' are favourites of mine. What a great movie. What a life, so filled with hardship and heartbreak but also so full of love and joy and reasons to cheerful.
My reasons to be cheerful and grateful:
1) I live in Australia, a free and democratic country with accessible clean water and where people are outraged when outrageously terrible things happen'
2) My family and friends
3) My mental and physical health
4) My Italian heritage
5) The simple things in life -to walk in the sun, to have a coffee at an outdoor cafe, to read a book, to listen to music and simmer down.
Tuesday 16 December 2014
Christ, Asked The Monkey
"Christ, asked the monkey
has the world gone mad"?
As he snips flower gardens
off golden kite blooms.
"Don't schlock your frocks
he says to the cockroaches".
"Are you pleased with the moon"? he asks.
His tummy is sore.
It aches. He ate too much
mulch. Oh, the pleasures of dirt.
"Sweep the floor with your dreams
Turn your mind into the sea
I swim in the sea.
I like to climb trees".
has the world gone mad"?
As he snips flower gardens
off golden kite blooms.
"Don't schlock your frocks
he says to the cockroaches".
"Are you pleased with the moon"? he asks.
His tummy is sore.
It aches. He ate too much
mulch. Oh, the pleasures of dirt.
"Sweep the floor with your dreams
Turn your mind into the sea
I swim in the sea.
I like to climb trees".
Friday 12 December 2014
Puppy Attack
As I walked to the gym at the end of the street where I live, I passed a house and two puppies came running out from the front yard. The gate was open. The puppies were tiny, not much bigger than each of my hands. One was a pomeranian. The other one looked like the scampy, scruffy type of puppy that you'd might see in an illustrated children's book.
They started running and darting about me in a frenzy of barking, yapping, and snarling. I admired their courage and motzie. The way they were fearlessly defending their territory. I could have squashed them two stomps of my feet. Instead, I said "hello" to them and asked them what was wrong. But they were to have no truck with my attempts at friendliness.
So, I continued on my way. The puppies followed at a distance, barking, for a while -running away every time I turned to face them and then continuing the chase every time I turned and went on walking.
Just before getting to the gym, I passed a house that had chickens running around the front yard. And a rooster. It was a big white rooster with a red crest. I don't know if we have Long Island Red roosters in Australia. But he did remind me of Foghorn Leghorn. The hens were busy were busy scratching about the yard. Looking for worms and bugs, I guess. Foghorn stood still and silent. Silent. I felt in in my waters that he was the loud mouth snook who had been doing all the random crowing that I've mentioned in an earlier post.
The pool at the gym was too crowded to swim laps.
They started running and darting about me in a frenzy of barking, yapping, and snarling. I admired their courage and motzie. The way they were fearlessly defending their territory. I could have squashed them two stomps of my feet. Instead, I said "hello" to them and asked them what was wrong. But they were to have no truck with my attempts at friendliness.
So, I continued on my way. The puppies followed at a distance, barking, for a while -running away every time I turned to face them and then continuing the chase every time I turned and went on walking.
Just before getting to the gym, I passed a house that had chickens running around the front yard. And a rooster. It was a big white rooster with a red crest. I don't know if we have Long Island Red roosters in Australia. But he did remind me of Foghorn Leghorn. The hens were busy were busy scratching about the yard. Looking for worms and bugs, I guess. Foghorn stood still and silent. Silent. I felt in in my waters that he was the loud mouth snook who had been doing all the random crowing that I've mentioned in an earlier post.
The pool at the gym was too crowded to swim laps.
Wednesday 10 December 2014
My Lounge Room
It's 9:31 am. 10/12/14. It's raining. I'm in the Sydney Suburb of Canley Vale. I am inside. It's a pleasant place. Birds and cars, the garbage truck can be heard. I see my TV, my papers, my clothes, shoes, very messy. I can't smell anything. LM guy knocks and enters - loud and cheerful.
My lounge room isn't very lounge-roomy. It's big white and sparse.with messy messes all over - which aren't so bad because I was up at 7 am or so to tidy it up. I have all my reading and writing pages are in neatish piles in the far right hand corner of the room. There is a great big window. My lounge room has white walls. Hanging on one of them is a Korean mandala. Too be continued (possibly).
My lounge room isn't very lounge-roomy. It's big white and sparse.with messy messes all over - which aren't so bad because I was up at 7 am or so to tidy it up. I have all my reading and writing pages are in neatish piles in the far right hand corner of the room. There is a great big window. My lounge room has white walls. Hanging on one of them is a Korean mandala. Too be continued (possibly).
Monday 8 December 2014
The Purpose Porpoise.
What is the purpose of my life? Purpose -that's a funny word. It reminds me of porpoise. Forget the purpose of my life, I want a porpoise in my life. Not as pet, but free in the ocean. I watched a documentary about dolphins and whales in captivity. So cruel. Magnificent,intelligent sea creatures in pool doing tricks.
I always hear about how smart dolphin and whales are. But never about porpoises. I might be wrong but they never seem to be part of shows. Does this mean this them not as smart or smarter than dolphins and whales?
When I was at uni, I Emily Dickinson's poetry. My lecturer- tutor was a postmodern deconstructionist - so, of course, when he was doing a close reading of I Cannot Live With You (640) his reading took him to a discussion of octopuses (or octopodes for my more pedantic readers). Apparently, octopuses are really intelligent -much more than whales and dolphins. They are capable of vicarious learning. For example, if you put an octopus in clear aquatic skinner box and have another octopus observe the octopus in the box trying to and finally escaping -when the observer octopus is put in the box - it solves the puzzle straight away because it has seen the first octopus solve the problem.
Maybe its the same thing with porpoises. They see the dolphin and whales being captured and they think
"F*ck that for a joke. Let's pretend to be stupid"
Anyway, back to the purpose of my life - maybe like that Gary Larson character, I'll find it at the back of my lounge.
I always hear about how smart dolphin and whales are. But never about porpoises. I might be wrong but they never seem to be part of shows. Does this mean this them not as smart or smarter than dolphins and whales?
When I was at uni, I Emily Dickinson's poetry. My lecturer- tutor was a postmodern deconstructionist - so, of course, when he was doing a close reading of I Cannot Live With You (640) his reading took him to a discussion of octopuses (or octopodes for my more pedantic readers). Apparently, octopuses are really intelligent -much more than whales and dolphins. They are capable of vicarious learning. For example, if you put an octopus in clear aquatic skinner box and have another octopus observe the octopus in the box trying to and finally escaping -when the observer octopus is put in the box - it solves the puzzle straight away because it has seen the first octopus solve the problem.
Maybe its the same thing with porpoises. They see the dolphin and whales being captured and they think
"F*ck that for a joke. Let's pretend to be stupid"
Anyway, back to the purpose of my life - maybe like that Gary Larson character, I'll find it at the back of my lounge.
Wednesday 3 December 2014
Things Of Interest, Interesting Things.
Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers when he was 24.
He wrote Oliver Twist in the mornings. And the Pickwick Papers in the evenings (or perhaps it was the other way round.)
I saw a young guy at Cabramatta library who had sleeve tattoo that would have been awesome...if it had been done by a better tattoo artist.
When Jacques Derrida went to the Far East, the scholars said to him: "Deconstruction, you say? We've doing that for centuries".
Standing outside Cabramatta Woolworths, a woman who looks to be in her mid to late 60s. The day is hot.
She wears dark blue shorts and singlet. She is covered in old, faded, amateurish looking, 'prison' type tattoos. She looks serene. She would have gotten those tattoos when the world was a different place -during the first wave of feminism. She'd be a great guest for that old TV show 'Front Up'.
I recently hear that it is an African tradition to reject dualism and embrace contradiction.
Back in the '90s, I knew a woman who had an elaborate back tattoo. From shoulder blades to backside. Her friend (a woman) was a talented tattoo artist. She told her friend to "grab your tat gun and doodle whatever you want on my back." So much confidence. So much trust.
The end result looked like a magnificent doodle done on notepad while the artist was talked on the phone.
I guess her back was a flesh notepad and they (the friends) probably did chat while the tat was being done.
Immanuel Kant was 57 when The Critique of Pure Reason was published.
I listen to an interview with the Australian poet Les Murray. He spoke of how traditional Australian Aboriginal poetry is part of an oral tradition. And that can't hear most of it unless you've been initiated.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novella, 'Herland' was published in 1915 when she was 55.
“Please, sir, I want some more.”
He wrote Oliver Twist in the mornings. And the Pickwick Papers in the evenings (or perhaps it was the other way round.)
I saw a young guy at Cabramatta library who had sleeve tattoo that would have been awesome...if it had been done by a better tattoo artist.
When Jacques Derrida went to the Far East, the scholars said to him: "Deconstruction, you say? We've doing that for centuries".
Standing outside Cabramatta Woolworths, a woman who looks to be in her mid to late 60s. The day is hot.
She wears dark blue shorts and singlet. She is covered in old, faded, amateurish looking, 'prison' type tattoos. She looks serene. She would have gotten those tattoos when the world was a different place -during the first wave of feminism. She'd be a great guest for that old TV show 'Front Up'.
I recently hear that it is an African tradition to reject dualism and embrace contradiction.
Back in the '90s, I knew a woman who had an elaborate back tattoo. From shoulder blades to backside. Her friend (a woman) was a talented tattoo artist. She told her friend to "grab your tat gun and doodle whatever you want on my back." So much confidence. So much trust.
The end result looked like a magnificent doodle done on notepad while the artist was talked on the phone.
I guess her back was a flesh notepad and they (the friends) probably did chat while the tat was being done.
Immanuel Kant was 57 when The Critique of Pure Reason was published.
I listen to an interview with the Australian poet Les Murray. He spoke of how traditional Australian Aboriginal poetry is part of an oral tradition. And that can't hear most of it unless you've been initiated.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novella, 'Herland' was published in 1915 when she was 55.
“Please, sir, I want some more.”
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