The Hollow Men

As I’ve watched the news events of this week TS Eliot’s words have been echoing :

This is the way the world ends – not with a bang, but a whimper.

 

However, I’m pretty sure he didn’t have the Australian Labor Party in mind when he put pen to paper in 1925

As a person on the outside it’s hard to decipher whether it is the media, the Party Destabiliser [i], or the ALP factions that have been at work . But the net result is that I am bemused, befuddled and bewildered to watch the implosion unfold.

I’ve been counting up the promises of fireworks and the delivery of fizzers: 

• The Mining tax – what began as a real attempt to deliver some of the riches to the nation and that seemingly promised to take on the mining giants, petered out into a megre few dollars that couldn’t even help deliver a budget surplus 
• Withdraw of media legislation – a week of frenzy and opposition to bills that were to be rushed through parliament and then a twelfth hour withdrawal altogether
• And of course the leadership challenges.

For a party that is rapidly eating itself to ensure that Kevin Rudd is never again Prime Minister, I’m surprised that they have not found a suitable alternate candidate within their ranks and promoted her as another option .

So while the Labor circus washed it’s baggy patched pants in public the class clown was on his feet in question time rolling out a vitriol of rhetoric referring to stopping the boats, getting rid of the faceless men, allowing the people to go to the polls and elect the Prime Minister and yelling repeatedly to the incumbent: You must go. 

I despair September.

I’ve read this week that the Queensland Government has appointed a new Director General of Education. It’s interesting to note some of the April 16 2012 comments on The Riot Act related to his leaving the top position in the ACT to move to Victoria: 

• He’s gone, almost faster than he arrived
• He was director general of the education dept for a nanosecond. 

Interesting that the announcement of his appointment in the Courier Mail lauds the grand reform agenda he has said he achieved in the ACT. They cite expectancy of great things. I say beware of another fizzer.

Eliot keeps on reverberating: 

(Here) are the Hollow Men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw.

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

 u8ddle3de together head pieces filled with straw

  

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[i] Mark Latham’s words – I’ve been reading his Quarterly Essay: Not Dead Yet. I have to say I am somewhat surprised at the insights of someone I have long held to be a bit of an idiot.

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This Week's Art Work 

 I wonder what might rise out of all these ashes?

Phoenix. Acrylic and orgami paper on watercolour paper. 500x700mm

Look at Moi

Yesterday I was listening to a program on  Radio National about selfies – those pictures you take of yourself and put up on Facebook. The discussion centred on whether it is OK to post images of oneself as one would like to be seen and whether attractive girls should be self-consciously aware that they are being looked at.

 It got me thinking: this has been a week of self-consciously aware phenomena.

It started with the new Pope. I really wasn’t that interested until I awoke early, turned on my radio, and heard the news that white smoke was billowing – and there was a seagull on the roof of the Vatican, obviously the commentators were getting restless. The buzz was still about who the new pontiff was and eventually when the announcement came it claimed victory for an Italian Cardinal. I read now that the Italian clergy were so dead sure of themselves that they had drafted and early press release and sent it out. 

When the hubbub settled and the TV cameras had panned over the boxes of waiting red shoes, lush red velvet capes and bejeweled vestments,  and  talk about the ceremony and the ritual had flagged, there he emerged in basic white, a wooden cross around his neck, and a greeting of simple good evening. 

Mmmm…what image of self being delivered here? 

Much has been written and talked about in the days following and we are yet to see whether the image of a simple Pope with a focus on social justice gets made over into the pompous head of the Catholic Church. And whether he will deal with the real issues that exist within a celibate, patriarchal,  clergy.  

I visited the Vatican some twenty years ago and the thing that  stunned me most was the Vatican Museums with  huge hand drawn and coloured maps of the new world, and  rooms of ceremonial garments designed and donated by the likes of Henri Matisse. So much wealth in such a confined space. As a child I had sacrificed pennies into cardboard mission boxes to help the starving in Africa. Couldn’t the Vatican have sold one single art work and relieved the suffering of all those unfortunate African babies I had been schooled to condescend to?

I’m house hunting. If there was ever a place where the manipulation of the image comes to the fore this is it. I have decided that the pictures and images that Real Estate Agents put up to sell houses are another version of selfies.  

Pictures are taken and posted at contortionist angles - there is no way I get the same view when I enter the so called elegant sitting room for real; peeling paint is non-evident as the pictures are taken too far away for detail to be seen; there are pictures of one or two enticing aspects of the property – flowers in bloom, a corner of a room with a nice window, and when you get there the rest of the place is a tip.  

Don’t get me started on the weasel words of agent speak like:

·         Cute- so tiny you cannot bring any of your current furniture and should start shopping for your new fit out in dolls house shops

·         Prepared for sale– we’ve only  just sprayed for fleas, so take this mask and hop about a little as you inspect the property

·         close to transport – the railway line runs by the back door and is the main route between the coal mines and the port

·         honest – has never been touched since it was built in 1940 – truly – you can see where the porch used to be.

·         spacious – room enough for two of you to be in the same room at the same time

·         renovator’s dream – don’t even consider it. Full of asbestos, needs rewiring, roof leaking, dry rot evident.

·         Can I help you?– How can I take the maximum amount of your money for the minimum amount of exertion and effort?

Most frustrating of all is the Open House phenomena and the arrival to find that either:

·         The  property has been sold in the 6 hours you have been driving in order to arrive on time for the inspection; or

·         The  property is listed at one price, but the owner wants $25 000 more than is recorded on the agents internet site.

So, I’m being careful of selfie images that are poked and prodded into a version of the object that I am meant to think is true.

I’ll stick with the artist and will rely on the upcoming selfies in the Archibald Prize exhibition where I know that what I am looking at is a manipulation – a likeness.  The artists make it clear that I am being deliberately led to see something other than the photographic surface of the image. And, as Pablo Picasso said when someone commented that his portrait of Gertrude Stein did not look like her:

  

In 50 years that’s how everyone will think she looked. 

 Now there's the self-conscious awareness I admire. 

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Art Work of the Week

Reinterpreting the visual and the literary landscape : The Devils's Marbels and Murray Bail's Eucalyptus.
Larger image can be viewed at thickerthanwater.com.au

Eucalyptus 3 Acrylic, wire, fishing flies on paper 320x280 mm

 

Rootin' for who?

I started this blog with an intent that is recorded in its name. I was frustrated with reading about how the polls were saying this or the polls were saying that. And I couldn’t remember a time when I was ever polled for any sort of political position in my whole life.

 I was similarly frustrated with the growingly obvious fact that as I aged I became part of a disappearing , but increasingly larger group of the population whose needs were being ignored or grossly stereotyped by twenty something political advisers and Gen Y advertising genii.

Recently I thought I would join the online survey community whose opinions are being sought about a range of matters.  I got one request to participate, but when I filled in the first question: Which age category do you fit?  the screen went blank and re-emerged with a dismissive message that they already had enough people from that group thank you very much. In four months I haven’t had another request to contribute.

I’ve decided I am either ahead of, or behind the times. I‘ve been searching for green boots for the last three winter seasons. No luck. I have just started to look for a new house only to find that if I had started my search two months ago I could have got what I wanted, where I wanted for the price I was prepared to pay. 

And I lived in Sydney’s West in the 70’s and 80’s before it was seen as the bell weather area for political parties. The irony there is that when I started teaching and lived in a converted single garage in Rooty Hill which was still without sewerage attachment to many houses,  no one even knew where it was, let alone cared about what the locals thought. No Julia or her precedecessors walked the streets, met with important locals, or spent the night holed up in a Rooty Hill Motel so that they could get the feel of the electorate. 

I refuse to buy the Daily Telegraph after it did a number on Mount Druitt High School many years ago and. I have to acknowledge I had taught there and felt that a great injustice had been done to the students and teachers of the place. However, I accidentally come across bits of the Telegraph on line and today I’m reading that Julia is in trouble, that her sleepover in Rooty Hill did more harm than good and the party will move on her leadership in the next two weeks.

….mummm….. dejuvu Julia.

On the other hand Tony has a plan – not just a visit!. 

There’s a slogan for the election: Tony the show pony; the man with the plan. 

He will cut the cost of living by abolishing the carbon tax, take the pressure off police through the use of CCTV in crime hotspots, sort out transport problems and address environmental issues. 

And yes, he is a changed man, he has really learnt and many of the ideological positions he held before this election really started to loom large he has now changed his mind on – truly, rooly cross my heart. He has rolled out the wife, the daughters and now the gay sister to convince us he surely is a sensitive, lovable 21^st century man of the people. 

Look at me ladies…obviously the speedos  haven’t done  the trick up to now.

So, where does that leave us?  I know what: somebody poll me where I live in the national capital having lived in Western Sydney, the North Coast of NSW and its south west. 

Here’s my advice to all political aspirants and parties:

• Get advisors who have life experience not just party and educational know-how – stop the arrogant navel gazing.
• Plan for the long term, not just for the four year political cycle – which really means we get about 2 years worth of short sighted activity based on potential personal political outcomes – ie, will I get elected next time if I do this?
• Be careful about campaigning only to the 1.6m people in one part of the country – there are millions more out here who are rapidly losing patience.
• LEAD.
• Read the definition of democracy: government of the people, by the people, for the people. We are watching you and expect more than sledging and name calling. It’s just not cricket.
• Cut the crap. Forget the weasel words, answer the question with truth and honesty based on the knowledge that any action that is being discussed has a strong ethical foundation.
•  Look for the connections and don’t think we are too dumb to understand them ; if we support wars in other countries  refugees will result. They will expect to have somewhere safe to go as a result of our actions.  John Donne told you in 1624 never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
• And finally for the Canberrans amongst us, remember when you talk about cutting the public service you are talking about getting rid of the jobs of Australian citizens equally entitled to a living as the factory worker, the fish and chip shop hand and the builder.

There, that should give you a starting point for policy.

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This week's Art Work 

A little light relief from the political rambling painted from photograps taken during my recent visit

Happy New Year Singapore. Acrylic on paper 220x350 mm

Stories of me

I’m a Paul Kelly girl.

Not the footballer or the noted journalist, but the songwriting and singing Adelaide born genius. 

I’ve go the records, the tapes, the CD’s the MP3’s and the songbook. 

I know how to make gravy, both the wine and tomato sauce type and the book that told Paul’s life story through his song choices.

If I was 18 you might say I was a groupie, but truth be told, what I have lusted after was the story, the poetry, the imagery, the memories.

All in all, I’m a fan. 

It was Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls that I first came across and Adelaide, and From St Kilda to Kings Cross entered the list of my all time favourite songs.  Listening to the latter in Rutherglen last Saturday evening reminded me of the timelessness of Paul’s lyrics and his capacity to evoke time and place.

I was often in Oxford Street in those days as I represented teachers on the NSWTF Council . I would come in each month or so on a Friday evening flight from up north with my nose pressed against the glass  never tiring of  how the city shines just like a postcard. I hadn’t been to Melbourne then, I was a North Coast girl. But when I started to visit later on, there were the landmarks: St Kilda Esplanade, Fitzroy Gardens, the MCG – every one of them more than their physical presence. They held Paul Kelly poetry and history and I came to them with greater expectations because of that.

I met Paul Kelly once. Not that he would remember, and given my star struck bumbling conversation, something I should equally forget. However, I never will. 

Here we were in the Coffs Harbour Hoey Moey – THE place for live music (and everything else you might want to experience, so I am told). It was the late 80’s. I can’t recall the exact date, but I  have a clear memory of being called out of the ladies at the end of the show  and ushered back stage for Crown lager and canapés with the band. The friend I had attended the concert with had told the barmaid I wanted to meet Paul and next thing there I was. Gobsmacked, stuttering, brain dead and totally lacklustre. No way to make an impression.

However, when you meet someone who uses words in a way you truly admire, who has seeped securely into your world, who has helped shape your understanding of it and added an incredible richness to your experience, you get over the fact that you have behaved like an idiot. 

I have all but three of the albums. I didn’t like the period with Professor Ratbaggery and the only disappointing performance I ever saw Paul give was with this band in Byron Bay at the Blues  festival. It was just too self indulgent for my liking.

I have been known to see a concert one night and then travel hours to see the show the following one somewhere else because I couldn’t get enough of it.

I loved the Uncle Bills stuff, the soundtracks to Jindabyne and Lantana. I carry the image of a buggy driving Kelly in How High the Moon. I’ve missed the A-Z series of concerts as I just couldn’t get times and locations to line up. Likewise with the movie doco Stories of Me. But I’ll get to that sometime.

What is it that makes this all so addictive? 

It’s the stories, the poetry, the melodies – the  fact that he can take the individual characters and incidents of everyday life and sketch them in such a way that they are excruciatingly familiar and about ourselves. Rally Round the Drum, Gutless Wonder…there I am again as a child.

A Day on the Green in Rutherglen with Neil Finn (supported by Mark Seymour) - I was in heaven. 

Paul:

You got my soul

It's such a beautiful feeling.

Thanks Michelle for a fantastic Christmas present.

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Art Work of the Week

 Sometimes our action's all slo-mo 

Pencil on paper 280x190mm