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

Come on 2013

It’s New Year’s Eve. 

Here we are on the verge of new beginnings, grand expectations, resolutions to do better, achieve to our potential, balance one’s life, lose weight, run a marathon, eat healthily, be kinder,  be more caring, think before we act, climb Everest and achieve world peace. This is a time of grand and glorious promise. See out the old year and triumphantly toast the new. Fun and celebration, that’s how it’s sold.

For me, it has often been something of a disaster. 

I offer as examples:

·           An unbelievable summer storm that trapped me inside the house while I painted away and a waterfall of rain sheeted from the eaves.

·           Being party trapped for hours with a depressive young man some twenty years my junior who I have no doubt had been stalking the young woman over whom he was threatening to do himself in.

·           Camped out in the great outdoors in my new tent, its flaps opened to catch the evening breeze after 35degree heat, and the storm coming in around midnight and flooding everything, trapping me wet and drenched inside.

·           No end of unsuccessful parties where people flitted in and out and on to the next venue while I as a good guest/host was trapped in situ dressed in my best fancy costume.

There’s a theme developing here.

OK, I concede none of these are really disasters of the large scale kind like the tornado that killed three in Cincinnati on New Year’s Eve 2012, The New York Mining Disaster 1941 (was that even real?), nor potential Near Year’s Eve style disasters that the internet is providing tips on avoiding.   

I’m speaking more disaster in the sense of events falling well below expectations – tragedy - failure.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been some fun times. Usually with friends, food and a few bubbles, and once with sparklers and a pair of runners.

 But in general, I’ve decided this is one time of the year when the hype never lives up to the reality. Bring on Easter - at least it has chocolate.

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Art Work of the Week 

Here is the picture I was painting on the New Year's Eve mentioned above.

You Devil You. Acrylic on board 500x700mm

Larry the Larrikin

This week I heard the story of a workplace where one of the members organised a private party on the weekend and invited some work mates. One of her colleagues, not invited, raised a formal complaint with her supervisor, that she was being excluded. The upshot was that the party organiser was ordered to issue an open invitation to all colleagues to attend the party. Two things amazed me: first that the supervisor took the matter seriously and  felt he/she had a right to respond to a private matter, but more, that the party giver, a good Aussie,  actually complied with the order. 

It’s been a week where the larrikin spirit has been in the spotlight.

When you check out the meaning of larrikin, the Oxford and Britannica dictionaries describe it as a rowdy,  badly behaved youth. 

The Britannica especially reveals it as a young hoodlum or hooligan in the impoverished subculture of urban Australia. The term was applied to the large numbers of sporadically employed teenagers and young adults who banded together in gangs, or “pushes,” glorified the outlaw bushrangers, engaged in gang fights with each other, assaulted citizens and generally defied and ridiculed the authorities.

While these may be historically correct definitions they somehow miss the mark. I prefer the description given in an ANU paper (http://andc.anu.edu.au/pubs/ozwords/June_98/5._larrikin.htm which says that :

The term larrikin came to be used affectionately of a person who did not always adhere strictly to polite social conventions; a bit of a stirrer. It was used in political contexts as well—used positively as a term almost of endearment. The negative meanings gradually died out completely in Australia, and the larrikin came to be seen as someone who defied social or political conventions in an interesting and often likeable way. 

One of the indicators of our larrikinism lies in our use of language. We call redheads Rangers or Blue; one armed friends Lefty or Bandit  We add ‘ie’ to common words like bickie, sickie,  reccie. I’ve lived in towns called Bello, Lizard, Canbubble…not dignified official names you will find on any local map, but well known to those in the locality.

I travel with people who have strange nicknames . By day they hold down responsible jobs, contribute productively to their communities, raise well adjusted families and go about their chores like the mild mannered Clark Kent. But look out when they let their hair down. Larry the Larrikin looms large.

This weekend I have seen a diligent health and safety officer scale a spiked fence, naked at 3am, in order to have a swim with three others all in the pink. The pool screamed keep out from the padlocked gate. It was an authority challenge, and a good thing we had passed the full moon, so to speak.

The following morning at breakfast, one of the night dippers, who has taken to writing messages on her arm to ensure that she stays on the straight and narrow (eg: Don’t take off your clothes. Don’t drink rum) was asked if she had any new messages for herself. She opened her palm to reveal in large capitals:

Stay away from these people. They get you in trouble.

My father always said: Show me your friends and I will show you who you are.

I think I have discovered I am a larrikin.

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This week's Art Work

Sea Spray

I am still  making  tea cosies - probably little larrikins themselves