Go Aristophanes

When I was working in education I was often invited to attend various school concerts, dance festivals, drama presentations and musical recitals. Some were excellent. Some were excruciatingly painful, making the scratching of nails down a blackboard akin to Bach.

There is nothing quite so horrendous, pathetic, embarrassing or cringe worthy as seeing a child who is tone deaf perform a solo on stage in full spotlight. Unless of course it is hearing the squeaks, beeps, clamours and clashes of beginner band as little lips try to blow all sorts of woodwind instruments, or hands miss ever beat with their tambourine cymbals or drum sticks.  

Oh well….OK…Yes….beginner recorder beats everything. It’s the royal flush of school performance.

For all that, I am amazed at how many kids have a go.

I have recently been to an Arts Extravaganza at the local high school. The students did some amazing hip hop dance; a young lad played drums with a passion and expertise that indicated it is probably the thing he spends most of his waking life practicing; another played flamenco guitar like a virtuoso. OK, I did have to screen out the words of one of the songs that was a joyful praise of Jesus and the way he worked in my life and how I should be repentant etc, but the voice was worth enduring the lyrics.

This weekend I have been at the local annual dance studio concert. Miss Michelle has every student in terrified awe. They know what she expects. They know they must work hard, they know she demands dedication, attendance, effort, pride, endurance and loyalty. She is not a woman to be trifled with.

The show is always spectacular: costumes that glitter, shimmy, sparkle and bedazzle to rival anything Brynne Edelsten would ever wear; cutsey beginner ballerinas and tap dancers; stunning exposes from the elite troupe; a crowd pleasing Dream Team - the class for students who have Down's syndrome; an act by the Mothers resplendent in silky orange with twirling pleats and feathered fascinators; Dad’s doing One Direction. The standard of performance by those who have been dancing with the studio for many years is exceptional – a tribute to the effort of the student’s, teachers and of course Miss Michelle.

The one thing that really grates at all of these is the claques in the audience who vociferously offer encouragement and appreciation by whistling at ear piercing pitch and  calling out ‘Go Shakira’; ‘Go Shenia/Cheneyah/Shanniar/Chinier’ I am yet to understand where they want these children to Go!

I guess I would have balked when Shakespeare’s audiences called out and threw garbage as well.

At my age I’m expected to bemoan the youth of today and look back with nostalgia at how we did things better. In fact everywhere I look I see kids doing great things, enjoying life, with great values. Sure they make mistakes, but so do we all.

 Kids are lucky: that they have a whole lot more time to learn from their stuff ups than we do.

When I was at school I studied the plays of Aristophanes. I recall at 17 reading The Clouds and finding the following:

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

That was written in 423 BC.

I’ve only just found some more of his wisdom

Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.

I’m now going back for a re-read.

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This Week's Art Works

Still on the Tea pots preparing for the Tuggeranong Festival markets this coming Saturday.

Tea and Licorice All Sorts

 

One Man Went to Mow.

I have rarely had a ‘family doctor’ and each time I see someone new they expect me to have a long medical history of broken things, things removed, things fixed, and pills to support minor miracles medical science has performed to keep me alive and kicking to date.  I surprise them by giving No answers to All the Above. 

 I’m lucky.

I have had only three minor operations in my life: one to remove a bump that was traditionally belted with the family bible, the second to prevent further unrelated bumps, and was fixed with a rubber band.  The third was to remove a cataract and I was in and out of day surgery so fast it hardly rates a mention.  

 All of these were a long time ago. 

I don’t count the various enterprises of the dental profession who over time have taken out a lease on the digging, drilling and mining of every tooth I possess (or now dispossess). I try to forget those explorations whenever I can.

When my father came to the meal table he came with his box of prescription medication – half a one of the pink tablets, two of the yellow, one white capsule, one light blue, two beige, and a quarter of a green spotty one- OK, I did make up the spotty one.  To be fair, he hated it, but they kept him alive and fit for a long time after radical heart surgery.

I grew up in a household where if you were ill you were expected to grin and bear it. My mother suggested that if you were aching you should bite your lip until it hurt because you can’t feel pain in two places at once. She was a nurse, but I doubt that her philosophy of pain maintenance was known to Hippocrates or was based on any actual science.

But the thing I do suffer from is Hay fever. Currently I am in competition with Rudolph. My red nose could light up a small hamlet.

Wikepedia cleverly tells me that:

  Hay fever isn't caused by hay and does not exhibit symptoms of fever.

  It comes on in pollen season

....and where I live is Pollen Capital of the universe. You can see it in drifts as the trees eject what looks like a shower of sperm for weeks at a time.  It mists over my garden table making a cloth of yellow . It lurks invisibly,  waiting to settle on my hair and clothing when I venture into the garden. It gets up your nose, in your eyes, down you throat…you get the picture. 

Wikepedia also informs that:  It has a range of physical signs such as: folds in the skin below the lower eyelid known as Dennie–Morgan folds, and rings under the eyes. Whoopee, what a relief – I though all that was a symptom of my mature age. By Christmas when the winds die down and the pollen has finished spuming everywhere I will be a raving youthful beauty again. 

This week the attacks have been so bad that I have succumbed to visiting my physician. I have left with the lingering memory of the Doctor telling me I looked awful, and throwing up her hands in despair. Never-the-less I now have a stunning array of nasal spray, eye drops, pills, and directions to stay indoors for the next few days. 

And,  I’ve got steroids. So in addition to having a stunningly youthful face after all this is over, I will have the physique of a toned bodybuilder to go with it. 

Then again, if I am really unlucky I will be able to impersonate Santa  with  oily skin, excess hair growth, and a deepened voice.

I think the sensible thing to do is move to the coast where they don’t mow hay.

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Art Work of the Week

While I have been confined indoors I have been having more fun with Christmas tea cosies. This one  sold at the markets on the weekend.

Christmas Bells

 

I'm no Luddite

I might be on the other side of fifty but I’m no Luddite. 

Technology amazes me. 

The first time I got my hands on a Microbee computer I was astounded by Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago, and the capacity to draw rudimentary shapes on the screen.

My students soon had a unit of work that required them to access the few computers we had,  and create something that passed for an image - mostly using letters and symbols.  One of the final year students’ present to the school around that time was a computer for my classroom. The boss wasn’t happy – he wanted a new clock for the school entrance.

The fax was a revolution. The fact- pardon the pun- that I could stand in the post office in north coast Macksville and send documents to my daughter in a similar location in Amsterdam, and that she had them almost instantly, was just mindblowing.

Over the last few months I have been organising a memorial dinner for a very close friend who passed away unexpectedly in early June.  She was a woman who loved life: gregarious, loyal, kind, generous, neat, wild adventurous, and a great swimmer and arm wrestler.  When I decided to go ahead with the event  I seconded another mutual friend into action. We live over 800km apart, and I live that far from the venue. From my computer I could:

• Skype, email, SMS and Facebook message with my co-organiser;  
• liaise with the venue;
• contact old friends and colleagues in far flung places;
• approve the layout and decoration of the venue, the seating arrangements, the signage, the menu, the wine; 
•  send photographs for the slide show that accompanied the event, and preview it when it arrived in the mail on a  thumb drive;
• pay for the event. 

Pity I could not teleport myself to the spot for the actual celebrations and had to do it the old fashioned way.

We sent her off in fine form with great stories and laughs about a life well lived.

Over  the past week  while I’ve been away from home  I’ve:

• read  the newspaper on my phone;
• satisfied  my daily sudoku habit through another phone app;
• read my email;
• checked in on Facebook; and 
• used my instant reference library on a number of occasions. 

After a conversation in the pub, and a quick Google, I was able to settle a debate about what the original crops were on the Ord River scheme. I’ve learnt that it supports the largest sandalwood plantation outside India and that the early plantations of rice and cotton failed as a result of pests, disease, low yields and falling prices, and I’m surprised at the attempt to renew the rice industry in Stage two despite the fact that the bird problem (they eat the new rice shoots) remains essentially unsolved except through the installation of mechanised gunshots to supposedly frighten them off. 

And I’ve discovered the alternate meanings of Agape.

On the road with my hands free I could phone  a friend to remind me about the term for some symbols I had seen on the side of a memorial in the cemetery behind Clovelly Beach (the answer is Oghams) and the word to describe hatred of men (misandry).

When I was at school I had a teacher who used to tell stories about how when she was a girl she and her brother would listen to the radio: She would be the announcer; he would be the static.

We’ve come a long way.

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Art Work of the Week

Santa's Snowy Bells. Hand knit and crochet tea cosy

Created at home, photographed, downloaded, viewable in my Etsay shop, and on line in my Blog...ain't technology grand!

You can see this and others at the Rose Cottage Markets Saturday November 17.

Great Expectations.

Dickens has the capacity to paint humankind in all its raw grottiness. 

He does a great job of drawing  a Pip and his high hopes in Great Expectations.  He yearns after Estella  interpreting the actions in his world as indicators that she indeed is meant for him.  Though it is impossible that the money he ‘inherits’ is grooming him for a cold hearted woman above his station, he just wants to believe that he will be a gentleman, and she will be his.

As Horace said: Life is largely a matter of expectations

This week  I watched  Derren Brown’s The Secret of Luck. The program was part of a number of social experiments he has undertaken and filmed. In this episode he started a rumour that a dog statue in the park bought luck if you rubbed its head. As the rumour grew, more and more people shined the canine’s pate, and more and more reported having been lucky as a result. 

What he concluded was that if you think you will be lucky, then you tend to take opportunities that improve you chances of success. Even the local butcher who failed to notice any of the opportunities that were put in his way until he saw a large sign on the back of a truck telling him to call a phone number, finally got the cash.

Great  expectations  fulfilled.

I wonder what the expectations were of the parents who sent their sons and daughters off to live in St John’s College- that they would break furniture, trash rooms, defecate in the common room, cause the near death of a fellow student ?

 Probably not. 

Do I expect that the spoilt and indulged come to believe that the rules don’t apply to them?  

I am reading about all  this in the weekend press, and to return to Dickens I am reminded:  Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

The Capital Chemist Arts Award opened on Thursday. I hoped to have work selected, but I wasn’t expectant. Maybe it’s Derren Brown’s theory of opportunity that is at play, for my latest chook painting: Brutus, do you think they are watching us? is now hanging and exposed for the next three weeks. 

Art competitions are funny things. The winner is in the hands of the judges and you can never be sure what they are looking for. It’s a bit of a lottery and like rejected novelists, you could get pretty discouraged by all the rejections. But this time, they were clear: they selected portraiture, and looked for technical skills – but I didn’t know that before hand, so the chooks didn’t really get a look in – so to speak. 

And what of my expectations?  To overhear someone observing the work make a decent comment about it. 

I spent Saturday helping celebrate a friend’s 60^th Birthday. It well and truly exceeded my expectations- a bus trip with friends and champagne; prawns and oysters on the edge of the Myall Lakes;  and great frivolity.

 I have just one tip from Dickens for the group:

Take another glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose.

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Art Work of the Week

Brutus, do you think they are watching us? in situ Tuggeranong Art Centre Gallery