They search for food in tidy rows, first 1 then 10 and yonder goes;
They nomp and omp and chomp my stuff, until I’ve soon had quite enough;

And say to them in calmest voice, I’m sorry friends but I’ve no choice
But to ask if you would kindly leave my food my house and me in peace;

Before you aim to cause a stink, I might have washed you down the sink,
And trust me friends there’s no food there; it’s not that I don’t wish to share

But even with your tiny mouths, the lot of you will soon devour
My meat, my eggs, and all my fish, and that’s against my every wish.

So once again I ask you please!
Switch to honey and bother the bees!

A quick glance at statistics will reveal that I’m near mystic at this game of red and black;
A simple game of eight laden stacks… with four to spare – should you wish to place cards there.
53 straight games without loss – which at first sight suggest three things
I play too much, I work too little and I’m a toss…
For daring to air my love for such a simple sport – a pastime of next-to-no import
Except to those that can’t count sheep, procrastinate or think too deep
And need some time devoid of thought, where patterns reign and victories sort the trapped from the free….

Sell me but a little motivation, help me get some absentation from this most benign vocation that keeps me bound past working hours,
When F2 builds those 8 card towers for one more hit of vice… What!?! No Dice!
A junkie with a monkey on my back – one that’s swathed in red and black – a choice of four suits in which to bury me…
To end my count at 53…

Oh what the hell… let’s go one more, I’m sure as sure as sure, that I’ll be able to stop and walk away, come victory 54…

__________
[Edit - My streak ended on 72... which means the elusive one zero zero still eludes me.]

365Project

365Project was someone’s idea to encourage people to be creative and take a photo every day for a year. I’ve decided to try and rise to the challenge and am uploading my photos to my Flickr account (For those that use RSS feeds: ‘most recent photo feed‘ and ‘Project365 feed‘). You can also click through from the front page of my blaarrg.

I’ve already had to use a substitute for one day, and I’m one day behind in uploading my pic, but it’s been good fun. I’m going to see if I can get by with only doing editing using the standard ‘MS Office Picture Manager’ and its no-frills crop, colours and contrast abilities. So far so good. Storm looks like she is also keen to start and being a much better photographer than I am, I’ll be sure to not pass on her link when it’s up…. kidding.

You can check out some others here (1, 2, and my favourite, Stormtroopers365) or you can just search for ’365′ or ’365Project’ etc…

The Man from Three Rivers (Munnar)
There was movement at the station as the people milled around,
A beggar shook his cup in mournful tune.
The rubbish danced unnoticed as it fluttered from the ground
And rising sun saluted hazy moon.

The Munnar Man stood poised to write in History’s book by hand,
Every muscle in his torso set to rock.
Pensive in reflection, slowly masticating paan,
Six hours, twenty seven read the clock.

So many days have come and gone, a score of years at least,
Since raging Sanjay Gupta left his mark.
3 hours 43 he took to drive his metal beast,
From old Kochin to hinterland Munnar.

The people say it can’t be beat, with the traffic on the run,
With every thing a passing chance to hit.
But he knows that his bus is fast and skill is matched by none,
He’s whittled down the margin bit by bit.

So the people clambered upwards for a place in future glory,
Or else a death in some unknown ravine.
And last aboard the ticketman, who’ll feature in this story,
Shuffled forth collecting gold and green.

Blazing through the outskirts with his horn and screeching tyres,
Reaching speeds that only dawn allows.
Crashing through the odours of the streets and pavement fires
Dodging rickshaws, buses, cars and cows.

So to the hills he races with his lurching beast restrained,
The curves a blur for all of those onboard,
Soon will come the moment for which he’s ever trained,
The record his for now and ever more.

Round and round the corners as the bus would ever climb,
Hitting potholes, drifting left and right;
Right before the summit came a ‘clunk’ in space and time,
And for a tick the beast he drove took flight.

But nothing could deter the man on this his day of fate
3 hours 41 had come and gone,
When ladened bus with ghost-white folk did pass through Munnar’s gate
And stop outside the crowd in winter’s sun.

“Hurrah!!” He yelled “I’ve done it!” and he turned around with speed
Looking for the ticket man to say
“Congratulations Munnar Man, my watch fulfills the need,
Of proving that the record’s yours today”

Alas, it was this moment when he saw it was for sure
That the ticketman had sent his quest astray
And in this fellow’s absence were the taunting open doors
For you see he’d fallen out along the way…

{Baboom Cha}

There’s a follow up post to the Joys of Older Literature post I’d recently done, with an extended list of the novel terms and phrases encountered during my reading of Jane Eyre. By book’s end, the number of pages with dog-eared markers for later reference easily exceeded the number of ants swarming the scones we’d left out o’ernight.

Then there’s the flood of thoughts that have emerged upon commencing Hunter S Thompson’s part autobiography Kingdom of Fear. After finishing Bronte’s 590 odd pages of flourishing, refined and highly considered language and context, the effusive textual outpourings of HST came as both a shock and refreshment. Classic quotes and titbits are surrounded by random stories and occasional self-righteousness that a number of anti-establishment figures seem to be unable to avoid. Tales that seem to belie Occam and his shaving ways make me wonder whether the legend has overtaken the man or whether he truly was a badass…

There are thoughts on celebrity (however minor) and its effect on personal interactions, as shaped by a couple of conversations Storm and I had with Brisbane musician Loren at a recent gig in Fremantle.

There was an SBS documentary that Storm and I saw called Frank and Daz, about a C6 Cerebral Palsy sufferer who ran and completed the New York marathon and his Scottish friend who founded a charity to open schools in Cambodia after visiting the country.

And through these thoughts drifts a theme of ‘calling’. Thompson writes that he knew that he was to be a writer. Writing was work, but it was still ‘worthwhile work’. He had to pick a career that he could do better than most others, and writing was it. After Bronte, I don’t necessarily think him to be a brilliant wordsmith; however, he certainly does entertain. There was Loren, in a room where some patrons didn’t even have the common courtesy to limit their conversations during songs, singing and playing guitar in a manner that I could never replicate, and somehow subsisting only on merchandising sales and meagre cover charges. There’s the legacy left by the late John Martyn and the raging debate of his personal and muscial worth between lovers and haters in the comment sections of his youtube videos. And then there are Frank and Daz who are striving to do what they’ve been told they can’t, and living a life to its fullest.

Unfortunately, there’s no neat wrap to this flurry of ideas. There’s no epiphany… It’d be a mis-advertisment if there was. But at least that backlog of pre-nascent posts is out and now I can try and move on to more organised thoughts and syntheses…

And finally start work…

Unfortunately for me, the nearest Australia Post was out of the forms and would continue to be so for the next few weeks. Other branches were apparently likely to be in a similar state of depletion due to a recent spate of applications and police clearing.

Thus I was turned away and told to fill out and print the online form and return it UNSIGNED so that my signature could be verily witnessed and verified. But not between 12 and 2 or after 4 and not without unclipped ear and nose hair or a second toe longer than the thumb-toe.

Turned away thus, I set about my tasks: clipping ear hair and filing back fleshy toe ends and tracking down assorted ID artifacts. With filled form and bleeding feet I made my way back to Australia Post to have myself cleared of all ‘reported’ crimes. Luckily mum and dad didn’t report me for stealing shrapnel to play the arcade machines at the local takeaway store. Does a ‘grounding’ show up on a police clearance?

With my ID confirmed, I set about the incredibly difficult task of signing off on my application. I say this with retroflection given that, unbeknownst to me, there was an impending show-stopper lurking in the midst. You see, my (consistently unique) signature has a loop on the J and a long tail crossing said letter. It turns out that the entire signature had to fit within a moderately sized tetragon. The fact that this fact was written in bold next to my nemesis-quadrangle should have wisened me up. However, ecstatic that I was about finishing the process and distracted by a clarity of sound due to an absence of ear hair, I missed it.

And thus I was defeated by a quadrangle. The 4 micrograms of ink spilled outside those borders of black rendered the entire process null and void. The fact that these 4 micrograms of ink were wasted on mere flourishings and embellishments of my normally staid signature mattered not. And given that they were still out of forms, no expedient corrective action could be taken. Shunned by the quietly spoken Jefferey with a casual ‘Next Please’, I was metaphorically shown the door.

Good thing I’ve still got 18 days to get it done…

Ignoring the urge to read another Dickens tome at the expense of other lesser known (to me) authors, my eye drifted to the familiar orange and white backdrop of a pile of Penguin classics. I perused the pile at length, at last settling on two distinct yet equally appealing titles: ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ and ‘Jane Eyre’.

I digested the former first, assuming a pace commensurate with the goings on of McMurphy and his band of nuts. Whilst mildly discomforting and unsettling, the second half of the book was very hard to lay aside and a couple of decent sessions enabled me to polish it off in relatively short order. Storm will now have the pleasure of wishing to continue and cease reading simultaneously…

While I’m only 6 chapters into Jane Eyre, reading it has reminded me why I love delving into older literature. A familiarity with modern vernacular and turns of phrase (perhaps with the exception of the likes of David Foster Wallace and authors with a propensity to unnecessarily drop obscure, difficult words, like trophies, into their prose) means that the English language takes a back seat.

In older novels, however, the dynamism (and evolution) of the English language is brought to the fore. Euphemistic and linguistic oddities (at least to the modern eye) pique an interest in the language itself, no longer consigning it to the analogous equivalent of a ‘Coolibah tree’ in a primary school theatrical rendering.

We’re (or at least I’m) encouraged to think about the roots of words that we use mutliple times in quotidian life. Once firmly established linguistic pairings, where one has now fallen into obscurity, become reunited and illuminated.

The simple example that dragged me down this path of drivel is the word ‘ruth’. I have no memory of reading or hearing or using this word in isolation yet it abounds in the form ‘ruthless’.

“ruth – /ru?/ [rooth]
– noun
1. pity or compassion.
2. sorrow or grief.
3. self-reproach; contrition; remorse.

Origin:
1125–75; ME ruthe, reuthe.”

Other examples include the use of dread as an adjective “a dread place”, the use of ‘quail’ as a verb, and the employment of words such as ‘opprobrium’ and ‘animadversions’.

In other instances, I’m happy to see that words like ‘dingy’ have a heritage much longer than I would’ve presumed. Who knows what other gems will be turned over in the course of the next 500 pages?

On the topic of language, I did notice the phrase ‘they’d of’ in Cuckoo. Would there be anything wrong with taking two well entrenched abbreviations ‘d and ‘ve and making a triple composite “they’d've”? Is there a precedent, or a future, for such a contraption as this?!? Or will it meet with a tumult of insuperable animadversions and dread opprobrium?!? Ummm… ok…

Fortuitous timing has enabled Storm and me the opportunity to catch up with a number of rellies and say some fond farewells to family and friends. Fortuitous weather also enabled us to head to the beach and catch a few waves in pseudo-antarctic waters… Borrowing my cousin’s waterproof digi-cam, I was able to make a stupid videos of mah bodysurfing stylings! So if you’re bored at work or home, have a squiz and hopefully a chuckle

Next stop, Sydney, tomorrow!

Video 1

Video 2

Sitting; shifting; in an out and in again.
Attention wavering as the hum-drum of paid-up people drifts me by.
The sky’s not seen here, but a thousand lamps attempt to replicate,
as the meek seek to become great in the eyes of peers, playing the seers of industry.
Talking, keynoting, bignoting one’s self, one’s company, one’s image.
For the sake of more more business, money and, alas, happy hour drinks.
In and out I go again to the brink of inattention.
Abstention from the right to think should take me through to evenining drinks…

The Big Bull has held a special place in my heart since the Primary school excursion into its fibreglass interior. The bull, irrespective of the weather, would stand like a beacon to guide our way to Wauchope (pronounced – SHIT-HOLE) for whatever reason dragged us there – be it soccer, netball, golf or spot-the-bogan day.

So, RIP Big Bull, we’ll see you in that big abattoir in the sky…