Highlight: Delete

I’ve said before that I love technology. But it does develop in one a sense of dissatisfaction. I have come to wish that real life had a cut and paste, and a highlight/delete function. 

This year is the Centenary of Canberra. One hundred years ago some bright spark/s had the idea that a capital city where the air was crisp and cold would keep the brain cells working and innovative ideas would generate. The same genii failed to register that in addition to the  winter’s frost bite mornings and fogged in airports,  January and February  bring blistering, blob inducing  30+ days with extreme winds; brittle, bursting to ignite bush; and  thunderous electrical storm that when not lighting up and felling eucalypts, are generally causing mayhem and calls outs for emergency services. Not to mention the droughts in between.

So I propose cutting and pasting the national Capital into a more moderate climate - somewhere around Coffs Harbour would be good.  By and large the effects will be positive. That tan bark that has been talked about in recent days as contributing to the embers that caused the loss of property in the 2003 firestorm will be redundant in a climate that grows green grass all year round. The 40 degree afternoons will be replaced by a southerly rolling up the coast after we’ve all been able to have a leisurely blue-green algae free dip at lunchtime with and a Barbeque minus pesky flies. We’ll make a greater contribution to reducing carbon , no longer needing to crank up the heating in winter and the air con in summer. And a drought will last only six weeks.

Naturally there will be some downsides: it will take longer to drive to Sydney or fly to Melbourne; you will have to forgo the crisp early morning winter walk for a meander along the beachfront; there will be no four seasons and the colours it brings; the economy will suffer as the need for heavy coats, boots, scarves and dressing gowns will significantly decrease.

But,  despite the fact that I will no longer be able to grow roses, I’m all for it.

This week I’ve been in the sweat shop again bringing into being the design visions of my daughter – an amazing disposable shopping bag outfit, additions to a Rambo costume for a fancy dress party, and a number of recycled fabric table runners for our markets soirées. Being able to highlight and delete unwanted stitching associated with these tasks would end a whole lot of unnecessary air pollution as I loudly explete my unpicking frustrations. 

I’m desperate to highlight and delete the introduced ‘e’ that has crept in to many an ABC  broadcast journalist’s pronunciation. It’s known, not knowEn

 But don’t let me get started down that track.

My trip to the local shopping mall today reminded me that I could do us all a service with these new found tools and highlight/delete:  all the twee Australian flags that hang off the sides of utes and cover the reversing mirrors of patriots; reindeer antlers that do the same during the festive season; and the viral white family stickers that blare out to the world that you have a wife, three children, a dog, a cat, and a surfboard.  I’ll leave the ones that indicate you are a skateboard riding, tattooed graffiti artist with anarchist intent.

Despite knowing things grow much bigger than one imagines when they are planted as seedlings, I am still prone to over-plant my garden because I want instant cover.  I’d like to be able to cut and paste some of the plants that are now too big for their space/are overshadowing others/ have been planted in the wrong place and fill up the blanks left by others that haven’t lived up to my expectations by being magnificent botanical grade specimen s with minimal attention. In the same vein, I’d like to copy and paste a new extension out the back and not disturb the garden in any way. 

And really, if we are going to get the cut and paste and highlight delete functions, why not go for the  Photoshop tool that would plug in to my bathroom powerpoint like my hairdryer, and that will permanently waft away unwanted lines/ blemishes/ flab and greyness.

OK…I’m starting to get ridiculous…. I’ll settle for being able to cut and paste myself from here to Singapore on Tuesday so I don’t have to sit through the flight.

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This week's art works

Another few hours playing with tea - taking inspiration from Major Pettigrew's Last Stand that I have been reading this week.

Darjeeling Darling

 

Raking over things

I want to be Rake

 Not your common old garden variety autumn leaf, debris collecting implement, nor the opera in three acts (with epilogue) of Ivor Stravinski. 

Neither do I want to be  Hogarth’s Rake the subject of a series of 8 pictures commenced in 1735 showing Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who wastes all his money on luxurious living, whoring, and gambling, and ultimately finishes his life in  Bedlam.

I don’t want to be the rake of Gavin Gordon’s 1935 ballet either.

I want to be the ABC TV, Cleaver Greene, Richard Roxburgh sort of Rake.

Mind you, I don’t want all of it. 

While I probably could use the sex magnet characteristic, I can’t imagine a past or present state premier that I would care to have rough and ready engagement with in the back of my BMW down behind the Hyperdome. And as for potential leaders, I really would only consider liaising with a budgie smuggler if I could be assured it would lead to the same political demise it did for the mythical Toni Colette figure. 

That would be a civic duty and I’d lie back and think of England. 

I don’t want to be the debauched Cleaver either. I think I’ve already done my share of disheveled hangovers. Forget waking up on the lawn with the governor’s sprinkler giving me a good soaking after a night on the tiles and wondering where the hell I am. Likewise I can probably do without experiences like being drunk at a public outing and making interjections loud enough for patrons to call for my ejection. Too many painful folk festival memories.

The bit of Rake I crave is the wit and erudition that comes from beautifully conceived, written and directed, ideas and language.

On reflection, I really want to be Peter Duncan or Andrew Wright -the two brilliant writers. If only I could drop in a clever line like Australians always like to root for the underdog when next I am at a dinner party and am inclined to defend  the exploits of a public figure whose weekend entertainment has been exposed (sorry the pun) as romping with the family dog. I want to cleverly use behove in a sentence, and while my friends and colleagues bandy around bawdy and scientific names to describe the male appendage I’ll happily drop in whatnot as a polite alternative.

And I want to be the brains behind the concept that so unbelievably cleverly parodies everything from dirty party politics to freedom of speech and access to information; that questions the public v the private image; that challenges nature/nurture theories, ethical behaviour, status and standing. And that is peopled by bogans, prostitutes, cross dressing lawyers, drug taking corporate cheats, manipulative school girls with  Hitchcock fixations, swingers, pseudo terrorists, ex-lovers, ex-spouses, adulterers and the mummy mafia.  

But for all my lofty desires , if the fairy godmother taps me on the shoulder with her wand, the bit I will probably get is the locked-away Rake - a victim of my own folly.

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If you missed last week's post you missed my take on Julie-Anne Davies's article The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Woman  that appeared in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.  I was just a week too early to be topical!

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  This week's Art Work

Someone else's problem

I read on the internet, so it must be true, that a Canadian company called Hyperstealth is reporting it has developed Quantum Stealth, a material that renders the target “completely invisible by bending light waves around the target.” If the mock-up photos are to be believed, Quantum Stealth basically works like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

I could have saved them the research dollars . You just have to reach middle age and invisibility happens.

Young beautiful things charge in to me in the street oblivious that I am walking the same trajectory. Ok, I’m short, but not that short. Where I once could go to the bar and get a beer or a glass of wine quite easily I now have to stand on the nearest chair rung and wave frantically so that I attract attention. You can see the chiselled, gym toned barman musing; Should I call the cops, or just see if she is lost?

Last weekend I popped in to the local shops to but some steak on my way to a BBQ. There were two lads serving. One of the fellows - let’s call him Snags - attended to the only other customer while I stood by.  The other, hereafter called Stewie, went ‘out the back’. By the time Stewie came back Snags was well into his service. But a group of people headed by a rather attractive young woman had entered and was positioned way down at the end of the counter. Stewie had to walk right by me to serve her – and that’s what he did. I looked non-plussed,  said I think I was next, and that was it – everything went on as if I had said nothing. I think I had fallen into Harry Potter’s invisibility cape.   

So I left, and bought my steak next door at the national chain where there are women of all ages employed, and who actually greet me as I go in and out regardless of whether I am in my daggy exercise gear or dressed up in my best bling.

Recently I bought a new top – served by a lovely bubbly young girl who no doubt was still in high school. When I settled on a  fluorescent  green blouse her remarks were: My you’re brave. I’m still not sure whether I should have been insulted.

I’m think I am invisible on the road. Lots of cars – particularly those driven by female P platers in a hurry to get to God knows where - drive two inches from my bumper bar for kilometres on end  oblivious to my right to be there. Others zip past and cut in front while I am doing the speed limit. The only clue I get that they have even noted my presence is the occasional finger gesture.

Despite government initiatives to extend the age of the workforce or re-engage or entice older workers back to the desk, I’m convinced that the smart young things who have shot up the ladder with no experience and even less wisdom just want us to fade off into their peripheral vision, or get assigned even more remotely to old folks homes with high walls. I can’t provide any hard evidence for this view, but I get the feeling. 

I’m now retreating to a world where instinct and nous, trumps data and facts.

I muse about whether I noticed older people when I was one of the chosen generation. Did I expect them to step out of my way? Did I run my trolley or stroller into them as they sauntered along? 

Once when I was a child I attended a clearance sale at a house not far from where I lived. I could not have been more than ten years old. An old fellow was trying to bid on a number of walking sticks. The auctioneer couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hear him. I felt guilty forever that I had not spoken up on his behalf. On reflection I wonder now if he had entered the invisibility realm.

Douglas Adam’s described SEP’s in his Hitchiker’s series…Things that you just see out the corner of your eye if you look away, and look quickly back again – like a sofa appearing on the centre wicket at Lords, you catch a glimpse of it, but you don’t believe it.  Someone Else’s Problem (SEP). You don’t have to deal with it, you just pretend it isn’t there.

I’ve determined to become an SEP. Then I can do whatever I like and no one will notice – the world will just whoosh past around me while I pointy dance on the front porch dressed only in my Tshirt.

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Art Work of the week

And now for paintings of the Tea cosies.......

Betty's Best British Brew. Acrylic on paper  140x90mm

Drawing a line

I live in a city that has injected funds into public art- albeit that the policy is coming to an end. 

Like everything that happens in a public space, everyone had an opinion about it. I’m not so sure about the gigantic owl that appeared in Belconnen only to have to be taken down shortly after for repairs as the coating was peeling.  But I love the controversial pile of rocks and logs that is growing in to the landscape on the verge of the never ending saga of Ginninderra Drive.

One of the suburban shopping centres nearby has a flock of metal mesh sheep who graze away with great consistency on the adjacent slopes. People express their approval of the benign creatures at  Christmas by draping them with tinsel. They don’t seem to mind.

Some time back a couple with land around Lake George installed gigantic animals in their paddock. They were a delight for motorists until a would-be art critic smashed them to pieces.

When I visited Egypt eons ago I was fascinated with the graffiti that had been left by centuries of tourists, travellers and invaders. 

Commenting on public art is nothing new.

But I draw the line at appreciating a badly drawn dick and balls on the giant orange moth on the Tuggeranong Parkway.

Maybe that comes from my experience as an art teacher. Badly drawn anything gets up my nose.

The thing is, adolescence has a bad habit of injecting in youth a fascination for male genitalia and female breasts, and an uncontrollable desire to describe representations of them in paint, texta and clay.

I often fantasised about the comments I might write on bad artwork had I not been contained by the need to keep my job by displaying restraint and decorum. 

I have clear recollections of examples of student work which deserved the following remarks:

·         If you have any visions of becoming and artist or an anarchist give them up. You have neither the talent nor the wit for either. I suggest you talk to the Careers Advisor and peruse the list of possible careers starting at B.

·         Derivative, mundane and bland – look up these words

·         50% of the population has/had/will have an ejaculating penis. The other half have or will see one.  What would be interesting would be to see a piece of work without one.

·         While puberty is a novelty for you, I get to experience it every year. There is no illustration of a male appendage that I have not seen before. Look up Juan Davila

·         If I see another badly drawn unicorn or fairy I swear I will poke my eyes out with a bodkin. Just because they are imaginary does not mean they do not follow the laws of anatomy. Look up Bodkin.

·         If you do manage to achieve your dream of becoming a tattoo artist, do not do dolphins. They deserve respect.  Read So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.

I’m thinking of becoming a vigilante critic. I will sneak around at night with my red texta putting marks out of 10 on public graffiti while writing my comments for the vandals’ education and my own edification. 

All I have to do is decide what colour undies to wear over my tights.

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 Art work of the week 

Writing on one's own art work doesn't constitute graffiti

Hitchiker's Breakfast. Acrylic on paper. 500x350mm