Old and invisible.

Old and invisible. The article sums up by asserting ‘you are old when someone else has to make decisions for you’. This is another way of saying you stop looking outwards. Things go in ever decreasing circles. Stop looking ahead and you fall behind? But why the neurosis over being called old? Your body does slow down, despite all the gimmicks and perks medical science can throw at it. I prefer to go with the flow and embrace the changes. As the great Cat Stevens says in Father & Son. Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

The house plays centre stage. The Glass Room.

The Glass Room A family of wealth and privilege has aspirations. There is a wealthy business man, his pampered wife and new additions of two children. The story is enlivened by the presence of Hana, a family friend and godmother to their first daughter. Hana presents as a woman untamed. Bisexual and able to seduce both male and female. She seems to chase experiences and society status. It all comes tumbling down, as Hitler’s Germanization philosophy and army marches in. What was once a whirl of social connections becomes a desperate fight for life. Married to a Jew Hana knows they are on shaky ground. The novel explores the fall of so many across Europe. That sense of this can’t be happening here. The underpinning of this narrative is the architectural triumph of the glass house. Its genesis and many lives are threaded throughout. The house plays centre stage. I was enthralled by the luxury described and found myself trying to picture it. Then discovered it is based on a real house. Villa Tugendhat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Tugendhat I connected with the Landauer family, Hana and the more minor characters. Their survival is what wills the reader on. Will they meet again? What will become of the glass house? Still reading the final few pages and still intrigued.

Home is a sacred place.

Home is a sacred place. A refuge, a place to have a cuppa and just relax. Every picture on every wall tells a story. Every plate and cup. Childhood mornings spent in the PJ’s. Running around the yard with the smell of freshly mown grass. All destroyed by the inevitable parting from the family home. I feel for Nikki Gemmell as she helped dismantle a home. (September 21st) There is the grief of a loved one leaving that home. Plus the grief of knowing you will never go back to that home again. Having had to dismantle my father’s home and by association my long departed mother who was still everywhere there. With every shelf and cupboard I was caught. The sense of betrayal is still so vivid at having to let go of so many of those everyday objects. All anyone really wants is that they go to good home again. But the logistics of somehow recreating a special place for it all is a hopeless case. It may have only been an old brush, coffee table or serving bowl. But it was home to me.

Luscious Oranges

I was only writing this week about how home is a sacred place. A good poem flicks your mind into many places, a memory, a place, a sadness. I recall taking the family to my mother-in-laws small yard to pick luscious oranges from the tree. The bought ones never tasted as good.

Poor cousin

Australia is perpetually cast as the poor cousin of the Western world.

Adelaide, likewise of the capital cities.

Go to the outskirts of the city and you guessed it, once again the poor cousin.

But make of that what you will I wouldn’t trade places.

The ecology of our resources is quite a rare balance.

The openness, food and wine, lifestyle, wonderful beaches and art on the streets is a gift people may be enticed from far afield to visit.

Ian Henschke is eager for Adelaide to get a new groove!

But do Adelaidians secretly enjoy being a best kept secret and the poor cousin?

Diana’s allure

Diana’s allure

Diana was always going to be immortalized dying at 36 while at the height of her fame. She was the people’s princess because people could relate to someone who was ‘one of us’. Not sure how this came about, as she was actually from a very privileged background.

I found Sophie Quick’s observations spot on in relation to a famous person doing kind things attracting lots of media attention. As if this was extraordinary. The thing was Diana knew she had power and directed it accordingly. Making her quite an exceptional person.

However I don’t think I can bring myself to see a karaoke version of her on film. However wise and well crafted a film like The Queen was, I get the sense that this drama cannot come close to Diana’s allure or legacy.

Many thanks to Allan Attwood and Sophie Quick for their remembrances and reflections. (big issue 441)

Old Willy Willunga

Old Willy has been around. A wily old man with a penchant for tradition, with his old stone cottage with grass growing on the chimney, which tumbles upwards. The old wood paling fence has seen better days. He delights in going to the pink church across the road every Sunday.
Old man Willunga.

Blackbird fly

Blackbird

Spring time has proven particularly vivid this year as a nest appeared in very quick time, fully formed on the top of our outside coat rack. One day I looked over near the back door and there it was. On closer inspection a bird was observed to come and rest on the nest, but often flitted off by the time I had gone and got my camera.

I was able to hold the camera up high and take pictures of the development in the nest. Tiny, embryonic, skinless creatures lay together. Four of them with big black spots for eyes.

I was able to track their progress as they reached their open beaks up looking for food when the camera appeared. No I am not your mother(!)

Gradually their heads appeared above the nest. Ever vigilant, waiting for mother and father.

I will admit I was slightly anxious about how they would survive. They were in quite an exposed position and there were four of them to manage. Would mother and father find enough food? Would they cohabitate in this small nest? Would they fall out of the nest and then what?

As of yesterday they had made test flights and seem very close to flying the coop.

It is the season of birthing.

I have seen other young birds and their parents. It is a joyous time, but fraught with dangers. Mother and father duck on a jaunt with their many babies. Would one lose its way?

In my message on Sunday I advocated getting out for a walk, breathing in, feeling the spring air and hearing the bird song.(Not everyone is thrilled about bird song, especially first thing in the morning.)

By the way I have since been put right on the identity of the bird on ‘our’ nest. As the young developed as brown and speckled I assumed they were starlings, but on closer inspection they are blackbirds. 

An apple commercial on the big screen

Got the computer, seen the movie. It may be a huge commercial for apple(!), but it works.
Steve Jobs created a desire for the home computer that is still escalating. It is really weird to see life before computers. It seems unthinkable to not be online anymore.
Ashton Kultcher is believable as Steve Jobs.
I feel like I want to know more about this man.

The Question is why?

Questions of Travel


Examinations of the parallel lives of Ravi and Laura occupy most of the book.

Laura is a motherless child, brought up by her great aunt. Divorced from her older brothers who spurn her presence. She floats in and out of jobs, countries and relationships with no real purpose.

Ravi’s life is thrown into disarray after the murder of his wife and son. This event seems to occur without any context of how, why or by whom? He then takes flight in fear of his life, but who is he being pursued by? There are vague mentions of his wife being affiliated with a political party, but no details.

Ravi and Laura’s lives coincide when they both work in the same publishing firm. There is something about writers writing about being a writer that seems quite insular. The perception given is that it is no picnic.

The themes throughout centre on observational commentary about the lives of others. Travellers, modern life, family schisms and lonely people.

In fact the book could easily have been titled the loneliness of the long distance writer/refugee.

Does the reader feel engaged by these characters? I felt like I was just floating along the top of this.

Because the observations are so apt and close to the bone, one is enthralled while sensing that there is in fact, not a lot of substance to the whole thing.

Ravi and Laura stumble on in various stages of despair and detachment. Detached from a family and country lost in Ravi’s case. Plus for Laura a bleak detachment from family, close relationships and fulfilment.

There is a sense of bleakness to this tale. There is no sugar coating or feel good prose. I am nearing the end of the book and no wiser to what really motivates either of these characters.