The art of being ‘easy going’ is understood by male kangaroo.

The old boy at rest.

We noticed the familiar sight of kangaroo droppings walking around the bush on our way to the beach. They are shaped almost square. The wombat’s dropping too are square shaped. It makes one wonder. Nature is so surprising. I doubt they have square shaped bums but the question does crop up. Both animals are vegetarians so there is nothing unappetising about the droppings of those Australian native animals.

We have different habits of observation. While Helvi scans the tree tops or heavens, my sight is mainly downwards. It often matches my mood. Hence the discovery of animal droppings, if nothing else. In cities it has paid off handsomely by finding money, mainly coins. One of my grandsons has the same gene.

When around six years old or so, Max used to crawl on shop floors to look underneath soft drink or chocolate and chips automat dispensers finding money to supplement his pocket money. I encouraged him as much as possible. He has now progressed in buying bulk six packs of small soft drink cans from Aldi and selling them each at his school at a hundred percent profit. The only draw-back is that his schoolbag is now loaded by soft drinks more than schoolbooks.

As we wandered through this lovely Bendalong national park I nearly stumbled on this large kangaroo. His colouring was so in tune with the surroundings. A perfect camouflage between beast and bush. As you can see, he is large. Like the lorikeets, he seemed at ease with humans. He did not jump up and make a run for it. Kangaroos are normally very alert to humans and leave us well alone. Good reason too. Many a kangaroo has met his end by men fired bullets. The news must have got around that people here are nature bound. Hence the relaxed pose by this huge male kangaroo. One almost expect him to light up a ciggie or perhaps read a good Tolstoy,(Anna Karenina, Book one.)

Another reason for this relaxed pose was the presence of a mob of smaller females a bit further on. A couple of females had the feet of gangly joeys sticking out of their pouches. They were his wives. It is not easy to become a good husband to kangaroos. Males put up fearful fights with other males to win the honour of gaining the love and attention of females. He had obviously won this battle, been very busy, and was now simply having a restorative post-coital nap in the shade of the eucalypts.

It is not easy for males.

Moscow and overnight train to St Petersburg.( valley of Lily)

The red square with queue from l/r to see Lenin in his mausoleum.

( About 1985) After a week or so in Moscow with the obligatory viewing of Red Square with the mile long queue at the Lenin Mausoleum,  the Stalin built but magnificent underground railway  with marbled statues and chandeliers,  an evening at the theatre watching ‘An American in Paris’ by American composer of Russian parentage, George Gershwin, we all took a late evening overnight train to St Petersburg. It was in July, very hot and days were interspersed with short but violent lightning storms. I was surprised that the giant  down pipes of those large buildings jettisoned the pelting rain straight onto the footpath whereby pedestrians had to perform large leaps into the air not get washed into the kerbs. I was astonished how high the Russians could leap but it did give me a better perspective on The Bolshoi Ballet phenomenon.

The overnight trip to St Petersburg has been covered earlier but is now buried at the bottom of this pile and in any case, my memory might well have shifted to even greater heights.  Here another retell. After getting on-board we were given the seats as shown on the pre-booked tickets. My compartment had a couple and a woman of typical generous Russian proportion and spirit. The two compartments behind me were taken up by an American group of singers who had performed in Moscow and now on their way to St Petersburg.

The Winter Palace (Hermitage)

We soon settled and when I took a walk around my wagon I noticed the Americans who after introduction told me they were part of a choir. As I told them I was Australian they were keen for me to give an impromptu performance of  a Paul Hogan ‘Crocodile Dundee’ and several versions of   ‘Goodyaj, howszego’en maitey?’. I obliged but quickly escaped back to my cabin.  I can only perform on my own without an audience or mirror.The woman and couple introduced themselves and so did I. The Russian woman’s name was Lily and she could speak some German.

One has to understand we were all going to sleep together so a kind of bonhomie and familiarity might ensure a reasonable and peaceful slumber later on. Russian trains do not segregate and at least in USSR sleeper trains, sleeping is not fraught with fear of an opportunistic sex maniac creeping in. That seems to be more the domain of those cultures that believe men and women are  so entirely different they ought to be separated from birth whenever possible.  For some, to attack remains the only option to get together.

Lily became instantly the epitome of what their race is known for. A socially, inclusive and talkative person. Friendly and keen to exchange talk on almost anything and everything. It was easy for me when we could also talk in German, but I am sure that even without a common language she would have seen that as a minor obstacle, easily overcome by gesture and body language, facial expressions. It was a hot and somewhat brooding thunderstorm threatening train journey. We were all sweating profusely and while talking Lily would pat and dab in between her generously forthcoming bosom with a crocheted hanky. ( I remember it well) that she kept sprinkling with  Eau de Cologne number 4711.

The Hermitage.

We exchanged small talk the best we could of which I have forgotten most but not all. What I did not forget is what ensued after she asked me what I did. “Ich bin ein Kunstler (..) und Lehrer. I answered”. I am an artist and teacher. Well, it was instant pandemonium.  You would know that teachers in Eastern Europe and especially Finland and former USSR countries are regarded and revered like lawyers and doctors, if not a new Dostoevsky or a burgeoning Tolstoy as well.   To be an artist and teacher is like being 2 doctors in one. She took out a small bottle of a greenish colour and poured some of the liquid in a metal beaker. The cabin immediately smelt strongly of aniseed.  She also had a packet of sugar cubes which she had opened earlier and given me some.

She went around the wagon telling all that here was, an Australian artist on board, while sharing the aniseed dipped sugar cubes all round. They all came and wanted to inspect this Australian ‘teacher – artist’. It was my moment of fame. When things calmed down we retired back to our cabin while she kept up the talk while  dabbing and giving  absinthe laced sugar. Around midnight we had enough and  as the aniseed euphoria and drowsiness was starting to wear off, all decided to go to sleep. The couple and Lily promptly pulled the beds of the wall.  We all took turns going to the corridor allowing ablutions and getting ready for bed. I took the top bunk and Lily the bottom one.

We were woken up early by the train lady conductor and given tea and sweet bread which famously gets served in a large very ornate silver  teapot with drinking glasses held in equally ornate silver holders with swan-necked ears.

We had arrived at St Petersburg.

St Petersburg Fortress which had held some very famous people including Trotsky.

Is this the new Tosca or Weiner’s wiener?

Is this the new Tosca?
The romantic tragedy and passion of Puccini’s Tosca is palpable. She, who sacrificed herself to the man she hated in order to save the man she loved. Could it be any more beautiful and yet also be so tragic? In fact when it comes to love, perhaps they are the same. The tearstained upturned faces of so many, more likely from women than men, feature thickly in operas, paintings and leather-bound books that litter our history like so many autumnal leaves in Finnish Forests or so many tears having seeped down into the deepest oceans. Tosca was no ordinary woman. She made grown men weep.

One wonders if the beauty and tragedy of unrequited love has waned and if so, can we blame sexting? Of late this new form of romance has taken a strange twist. A potential mayor of New York has confessed of having sent many pictures of him-self to suitors of the opposite sex. Leaving behind the morals of his conjugal state and our urge to judge others let’s just stick to the subject of modern romance. Is sexting a new form of seeking romance and is it a kind of natural progression from the days of Puccini or Tolstoy? After all no one goes around sticking knives into people whilst singing in Italian like they used to. While unbridled womanizing still has free rein as proven by Mr Weiner in New York, none still happens to involve carriages with galloping horses over Russian tundra.

The one thing still shared between those former strategies of romance and the present is the age old matter of ‘vengeance’, always vengeance. No tale of romance could exist without retribution ‘vengeance is mine’ could be written on many a tombstone resting under the countless Elm trees of history. It descends on the hapless victims like the sword of Damocles with no escape.

Poor Mr Strauss- Kahn, a future president now being described as nothing more than ‘a rutting chimpanzee’ only knows too well the vengeance of unforgiving amoureuses still circling the carcasses of his previous stature. Even so, he is hesitantly and ever so slowly recovering and was seen last week at the Cannes festival with a new love tugging at his arms. Those DNA spots on the hotel carpet receding and the maid happy with a settlement.

However, the New York future mayoral attempts at romance through texting explicit photos of him-self seem to have brought is to a completely new level. The past always involved the complete features of the persons. This was the way people made up their minds about any possible entanglement and involvement. The visual prospect was one of many that people consciously or otherwise helped to make up decisions, often foolishly so, but, what the heck, that’s love for you. However, just to see pictures of genitalia seems to have done away with that form of initial introduction.

I fail to see what criteria one could possibly surmise from such limited pictorial imagery. Is the photo of Mr Anthony Weiner’s penis sent to one of his suitors an indication of his determination in achieving an outcome for the rubbish collection from the Streets of NY or a push in lowering parking fees? I don’t see that but then again I don’t have photo of his penis either. Women also send intimate pictures of themselves to future lovers and again, I fail to see how one can possibly scan anything out of looking at their private parts. What can you possibly scrounge from a vaginal photo? Can she reverse park or is she good at making gravy? The mind boggles.

A politician’s worst nightmare came out in Canada when a Twitter account showed up a politician’s penis. A spokesperson defended this by saying his BlackBerry went off in his pocket and later on confused the issue even further by saying that it was somebody else’s penis. He was a candidate for parliament and lost by over 500 votes. People are unforgiving and remember ‘vengeance’ is still around.

We have yet to see if Mr Weiner will survive his weiner.

The Dilemma of an E-Reader

We all know things get worse as the years creep by. We don’t become wiser nor do we get any closer to the truth that we were so keenly after. In fact, it all becomes hazier not unlike a glass of iced water with the Pernod anise added to it but without the benefit of its sweet unctuousness. Perhaps that’s why, as we get older, we tend to throw caution to the wind and indulge in the Absinthe more often than might be good for us. Who cares? Does it really matter afterwards? I mean, we can never discount the possibility, no matter how distant, we would regret not having indulged even a bit more. So, let me be wise at least in the ‘reckless’ department.

I used to wear glasses which miraculously became superfluous in my middle years. Was I being rewarded for having been good? Who was looking after me, when I was told over and over again, that if you persist in doing that, you will go blind and encourage hairs to sprout on the inside of your hands and everybody will know!  Always keep hands above the blankets, think of ice bergs and what happened to the Titanic. Failing that, think of an approaching train with your head tied to the rails.

You are at the beginning of a calamitous journey into blindness with your right eye showing a clear stage of ‘degenerative macular’ disease. Well, not exactly in those words. But the eye specialist comforted me, with ‘it is quite common in getting older’ that eye sights might diminish somewhat. The ‘somewhat’ is something the specialist had been trained to say, depending on the level of alarm those first words of a more sinister ‘macular’ and ‘degenerative’ might cause.

Fortunately my left eye is needle sharp and I could even read the smallest print on a Jaguar car catalogue he was showing me.  I bet he had just bought a Jaguar. No doubt earned from his lucrative specialists business. I noticed his waiting room was full of patients with thick glasses, all at different levels on their macular degenerative journey! Perhaps, he was flipping through the catalogue in between patients. Good for him.

With my left eye being still close to perfect, I briefly thought of it perhaps being related to being right handed and therefore having spared my left eye in conjunction with hardly ever using my left hand. Who knows? Science sometimes brings out surprising results. If something is still working, let us still cling to the wreckage of our bodies and continue our journey to the best of our dysfunction.

This brings me to my original premise of the plight of the E-reader. It would not be surprising if the popularity of this latest electronic devise will go sky high. The canny retiree would be well advised to invest in Sony or go long on Kindle options and keep an eye out on Amazon shares. Our country and its Government are already generous in supplying hearing aids to the degenerative auditory of hearing impaired. The Prime minister would be foolish not to support generously the subsidizing of E-readers. The magic of the E-readers lies in that it can store thousands of books which can be read at different font sizes. All this is available in the palm of your hand and at the flick of a finger. The E-reader truly is magic and together with Pernod almost makes old age a dream come true…

This of course gives years of reading to those that are decrepit with batty eyes. It is not easy for those not tech savvy to download all the different features but just get your grand-kids to do that. I obstinately tried myself and now have eleven copies of Tolstoy’s’ “War and Peace”, not realizing that each time I pressed a certain page or button I would download yet another copy. I have yet to see my Credit Card account but now have eleven copies of over a thousand pages each of War and Peace together with Jules Verne Eighty days around the world and Rudyard Kipling’s, the Jungle Book. There is enough reading for at least a couple of years.

It just never stops; does it?

(With grateful acknowledgment to Frangipani, whereby, without her untiring support and encouragement, my E-Reader wonderment would most likely not have come to pass)

Reverence for Phar Lap’s Heart ,what about Patrick White?

Last week-end’s Australian Review featured a double paged article about a new book being published, almost two decades after the writer’s death, written by our national icon and Noble Prize Winner, Patrick White. It’s called ‘The Hanging Garden’. Its timely rescue from possible oblivion due to David Marr’s boundless admiration for Paddy whom he quoted as the ”most prodigious literary imagination in the history of this nation.”

Hang on; national icons, I thought they were Donald Bradman or Phar Lap. It is strange that our sport heroes continue to have a greater place in our admiration than our much more enduring artists. We can still read Patrick White or listen to our Joan Sutherland but somehow dead sport heroes seem to have priority over our artists. (Do people really watch old footage of Bradman swinging out with his bat?)Perhaps this is because there is very little public exposure of our deceased artists. We don’t easily bump into them, especially not in bronzed sculptures scattered around our public parks.

We all know that people in Russia are well provided with larger than life size bronze statues scattered around most of their public parks and open spaces. Those sculptures usually depict the heroic male farm worker holding a scythe or a stout busty female pointing a sheaf of wheat skywards with a clutch of children at her feet. It’s hard to take a seat anywhere in public and not be overlooked by the revolutionaries of Russia. Enormous Lenin’s also made those eating pirozhki at Gorki Central park of Culture and Leisure a rather noble and humbling experience.

Fortunately, the bronzed sculptures are not all heroes of revolution or political mayhem. Many are also of their writers, poets and other artistic giants. While I was there I saw many very pensive and good looking Pushkins about. The bearded Tolstoys seemed to feature much less in number. This might well be for technical reasons. It is not easy to cast a figure with large flowing beard and seated in a cane chair into a bronze statue. What do you think the pigeons would do perched on the cane chair?

We don’t revere our mayhem causing revolutionaries and political   wreckers to that degree. We would be very chagrined stepping out of the train at Wynyard being greeted by a life size Beazley on horseback. Can we imagine for one moment, after a big night out at the Bankstown RSL, bumping into a John Howard with cricket bat?

We do have a stern looking Queen Victoria at the entrance to the Queen Victoria Building near Sydney’s Town-hall. She hails from such a historical distance away that we accept her as easy as we do a park-bench. She served our calm Anglo history very well. The kids just love her too.

Captain Cook is peering beyond distant horizons. He just needs an occasional dusting of his binoculars. Not much further is a mysterious bronze pig whose snout gets polished together with coins being donated for the hospital just behind it.  I am not sure if the pig polishing and coin throwing is still connected to making a wish as well! The relentless march of history has a habit of finally blurring out the edges.

Another animal cast in heavy metal is the Gundagai drover’s dog. I could not see him at the spot he was supposed to be last time. Perhaps dogs roam around even after cast in bronze.  Maybe the drover’s tucker box was getting empty.

A weird and rather spooky relic of the past is the sad and somewhat forlorn sight of a large heart kept in a jar of alcohol. It is Phar Lap’s ticker. For those outside Australian territories and our horse ignorant young; Phar Lap was one of the fastest horses to run around a race course. It was a phenomenal winner, making lots of money for the punters. I can’t imagine the horse being too impressed if it knew its heart ended up being pickled inside a jar.

The omission of our well known artists cast in bronze seems to stick out somewhat. Mind you, not far from my place we do have that famous icon, a cricketer in tarnished bronze. His name is Donald Bradman. He is famous and certainly an artist with the bat & ball. People queue up to get their picture taken standing next to him. They arrive from all parts of the world, even Fiji and Pakistan.

Are we ready to grace our parks and public open spaces with sculptures celebrating our best in the arts. Why can’t we have our greatest writer, Patrick White being honored with a life size sculpture or even a statue? I know he would be horrified but he won’t see it. His ashes were scattered around Centennial Park.  He was always a bit grumpy when it came to bestowing recognition and fame on him. He would rather stay home than face the media or the hungry crowds.

He was a modest man. Even so, we do need to give greater recognition to our creative artists…For posterity.  For our children. They need to know and see our artists as well as the sporting heroes.

What about a Joan Sutherland in bronze, a corrugated zinc alume armored Sydney Nolan? Perhaps a Brett Whitely in shimmering stainless steel next?

Just let’s start first with Patrick White though. I can see him already, jutted jaw, his mouth firmly set, looking straight at us. A bit miffed but pleased about ‘The Hanging Garden’ also been published.