A Thousand Shades of Twilight

Back to the garden

 
(This is a detail from an album by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, photographer unknown, cheerfully bastardized by me)

The home renovations continue apace.

I am, of course, incapable of doing any of the hard handy work myself and instead spend my time fretting about the colour of tiles and so forth like the effete so-and-so that I am. It is an insidious, all-consuming disease.

The thing that bothers most a latent reflector like me is the number of snap decisions that have to be made on a daily basis. I am a person who shudders every time the mobile phone rings. Just as I am not a Festival person, nor am I phone person. Yes, it runs that deep. What is even worse is when, at the other end of the phone is a perfectly reasonable and helpful person demanding answers. Now.

The other day, the builder rang asking the one question I have been running away from for the last five years: What are you going to do about the front garden?

The front garden has always been My Great Folly. To be honest, it was never anything less than an Unmitigated Disaster. Amusingly, the front garden was notionally "better" than the back garden. I had already given the nod to razing the back garden. They found a deadly snake and a number of mice. Yes, it really was THAT house on the street. Children and frail old people probably cross the street to avoid walking past my house and its travesty of a garden.

Given that I am preparing the house for rental, the builder sensibly suggested getting rid of everything in the front garden and replacing it with nothing but a square of lawn. Clearly he saw the front garden for the bitter tragic joke it truly was. I, however, was slightly affronted and incapable of making a snap decision. I therefore asked for an evening to think it over.

I got off the phone, feeling a mixture of embarrassment and wistfulness. I knew that the the builder was right. Left to its own devices, that garden would eventually take over and strangle any new tenants in their sleep. And I would not feel great about that. But memories of my cluelessness in trying to establish that hot mess made me feel sad. It brought back memories of a dogged lonely independent streak mixed with a naive optimism. All those hours spent lugging over-full buckets of bath water about, cursing the sky like some latter day Jean de Florette. It is hard to admit that any five year project has been, in fact, a monumental flop. But who could argue with the stringy sad-looking bushes and shrubs pressing awkwardly against each other with obvious distaste, like passengers on a peak hour train in summer? All those tall things in front of short things. All those tortured twigs stuck in bone dry soil. Not to mention the weeds. And the 'hidden' river rocks. Oh, I threw the rule book out the window like the crazy fool I am. And it showed.

Strangely, though, I was hesitant to dismiss the front yard just like that. I always scoffed at cookie-cutter gardens. I scoffed at neat rows of iceberg roses or agapanthi, at box hedges that smelled like cat-wee. I wanted something wild, unpredictable and so very "me". On one hand, I thought that if I persevered, eventually there would be more of the successful "trial" and "less" of the cringe-inducing error. On the other hand, I was probably using the garden as an expression of an almighty sulk: So, I can't afford the beautifully landscaped Eden of my dreams? Well, then, I will just plant any old thing I feel like. Just you watch me!

I slept on it. I woke up. I rang the builder. I told him to get rid of the lot and lay down his square of lawn. His pound of flesh.

There was, however, one proviso: that he leave a metre of mulch around the edges. This means that The Madness can, and will, begin all over again. I smiled and told him I would fill it with rows of agapanthi. Like a good boy. But nothing could be further from my mind...

(Laughs evilly)

Praise the Lordi!

(Clip of France Gall singing Poupée de cire poupée de son by Serge Gainsbourg at the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest. Posted on Youtube by ZaaK54)

Ah, it is Eurovision Eve! The Happiest Night of the Non-Christian Calendar!

Some years ago I was quite taken aback when a work colleague (let us call him The Tall German,  to preserve his anonymity) breezily enquired whether I had watched the previous evening's Eurovision Song Contest. I responded with a curt, 'No, should I have?' What followed was a rather awkward and regrettable moment in which he reddened and mumbled something like 'I just thought it would be your type of thing...' Now, at the time I was a much more paranoid and highly strung creature than the reconstructed shrine to calm and self-love that you encounter today. Accordingly, I was slightly affronted at what I suspected was an unconscious slur against either:

1. My distant European heritage (a bit rich coming from a German, Tall or otherwise); or

2. My sexuality (a contest only The Gays could love!); or

3. (Most devastatingly of all) my taste-level.

In retrospect, I realise he meant nothing of the sort, and his comment was in fact, right on the mark. Of COURSE I  have since embraced Eurovision with a vengeance. What is not to love?

I searched long and hard for a clip that I could live with. As tempting as it was to inflict some Brotherhood of Man, Nana Mouskouri or the Unrockingest "Hard Rock" band on Planet Rock, Lordi,*upon you, in the interest of leaving my taste level unbesmirched, I settled on dear old France Gall singing a Gainsbourg tune. Now, the surprisingly useful and versatile phrase moi aussi aside, I do not speak a word of French. I have had to rely on Wikipedia for a precis of the lyrics. Apparently France is singing about how she is just a straw doll who knows nothing of real love. Boom bang a bang, then, it aint. Until the mythical Morrissey contribution to Eurovision finally surfaces, this will do the trick nicely.

(France Gall reminds me of my callow student days. I used to listen to hand-made cassette compilations of France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg and dream about Godard and Gauloise. As Shit Hot as this made me feel, the whole Left Bank act was undermined by the awful truth that I had not the foggiest idea what they were singing about. And those snippets of Gainsbourg which I could understand left me feeling slightly soiled.)

Anyway, as we say here, I best toddle as it is time to Warm the Set and Cool the Tinnies. And settle in for a night of celebration! A celebration of:

The Folly!

The Fleetingness!

The Flares!

The One Hit Wonders!

The Also-rans!

The Never-Wases!

The Wardrobe Malfunctions!

The Mis-spent Moments of Glory!

The Rapaciousness, Cheap Sentiment, and Corrupted Endeavour!

And the robust survival of a world where high mindedness, taste and fashion exist only to be cheerfully trampled into the ground by ineptly dancing feet. Sounds like a country I would be proud to call my own.

 

 

*PS Do not be taken in by Lordi's ghoulish appearance. They are the Bucks Fizz of the Monster World.

My precious

(Photo 'The warming ritual of teatime' by Carlo Bavagnoli from LIFE International Magazine, 24 February, 1964)

I often wonder what would be revealed about our lives if we all had some sort of aerial tracking device attached to us. Something flashing and neon-green that showed where we were at any given time? It would reveal how small or how large our worlds actually are. My world would probably be at the smaller end of the scale compared to, for example, some fabulously wealthy international jet setter (does anyone still qualify for that title? I mean, does anyone still only "jet set" and do nothing else with their time? Is anyone like Marie-Claire in 'Where do you go to my lovely?, where it is all "Agha Khan" this and "Sacha Distel" that? I sincerely hope so). 

Most days I could be tracked from bedroom to bathroom, bathroom to kitchen, kitchen to loungeroom, loungeroom to workplace, workplace to Mall or Market at lunchtime, Mall or Market at lunctime to workplace, workplace to station, station to loungeroom, loungeroom to kitchen and so on. And then there would be the weekly or fortnightly variations - the Friday night pub, the Saturday morning shop, the Sunday evening drive to get takeaway. I imagine us all as little beetles zooming or ambling along our well-trod paths, each travelling in our own unique invisble furrows which deepen as the years go by.

In a place like Adelaide, one mostly stays on the plains. And then sometimes one visits the hills. And then sometime one goes to the sea. Last night we went to the sea. I have been meaning to get there for the whole of this hellish season but it just seemed all too hard until the end of summer was in sight.

It was precious.

Dear Patient M and I bought our Vegie Burgers from The Stunned Mullet, made up names for socialites in a pretentious local magazine (that will remain "SA LIFE"), parked and sat near our usual spot overlooking the beach (wondering where the wall had gone), laughed at seagulls, walked almost (but not quite) from Henley to Grange, commented on how universally awful the beachfront architecture is (although how good it is that the Haigh Mansions Apartments have survived), imagined what used to there before the 80s, thanked the Lord that no one was playing beach cricket anywhere near us, noted the most conspicuous house of exhibitionists on the strip (it is better than Big Brother, I swear!), Dear Patient M watched me eat an icecream, and then we drove home and drank wine and looked at more magazines and spoke about our dream home. And then I got to admire the back of Dear Patient M's neck which never ceases to drive me wild with desire.

I think we had exactly the same evening, with all of the same ingredients intact, around this time last year. And possibly the year before. I find it comforting, marking the end of summer in this way. It gets richer with every year's manifestation, like a story retold. We realise we have had the same conversation before. I have noticed in life that most of us only have a finite number of conversations which we have over and over again with differing emphasis and embroidery depending on mood, perspective and state of sobriety. It grounds us, being in the same place we were last year but with an extra year's worth of experience.

As a youngster, I craved novelty. Now I think it is overrated. I am happy in my beetle-furrow in this old person's town. I watched a bit of the Bushfire Memoriam today and, felt, of course, a bit useless and sad. Which does not, of course, help anyone at all. I did not intend to watch it, having been a total ostrich about the whole thing, but something got me in. It was not the horse-faced royalty, politicians or the sometimes silly music, but, rather, the faces of people in the audience. Anyway, as cornball as it sounds, it made me think that the least I can do is enjoy taking the things for granted that I can take for granted. For as long as I can take those things for granted. Luxury.

And at the end of winter, I look forward to heading for the hills, and looking at the magnolias.

 

(And thanks to Elizabeth, for the lovely entry on her blog which got me thinking of the sea, and all things precious.)

Write your own obituary!

The images above and below, drawings by New Zealand medium and mystic, Gloria Harlington, apparently record the spirit world beyond the grave and explain much that has puzzled people down the centuries. They will fascinate people of many beliefs and of none. Well, people, consider yourselves fascinated!

While I confess to more than a little residual puzzlement, it appears that the following has been established re The Afterlife:

1. Everyone can fly! Hoorah!

2. Women have breasts like grapefruit. Good news for some.

3. Men still have to wear shoes. Bugger.

And, if the image below is anything to go by, one might well encounter Moses, Gollum and Lady Godiva. And, do not hold me to this, but quite possibly, one might encounter some ladies from the cast of Camelot.

I am pondering mortality for two reasons:

1. I always read the death notices and the obituaries in the local newspaper. I have done so ever since I was a child. My boss teases me about it: Surely, you're too young to do that! None of your friends are dropping off the perch yet, are they? Do some work, you morbid so-and-so. 

I just assumed that everyone did it. It makes me feel connected to the rest of the world in some way. And, besides,  people are endlessly fascinating.

Anyway, the other day I was reading the obituary of an elderly, renowned teacher. And, for some reason, the following description stuck in my mind:

Students remember her for two things - how attractive she was and how strict.

Naturally, my thoughts turned to myself and I got to thinking how I would be remembered in any obituary. But more of that later.

2. I am going away for work this week. The trip involves a long outback drive.

Now, I used to live and work in the country for a while a few years back. Being of an impractical bent, I had just (and I mean 'just' got my driver's licence) when I moved there at the tender age of 29. I had little choice in the matter as the job involved travelling from town to town on a daily basis. Luckily, nothing human got killed during my stint (although one 4wd suffered grievously and a few kangaroos unfortunately never made it from one side of the road to the other. And there may have been a lizard or two. Sorry animals. I was too bad a driver not to realise it wasn't necessarily a case of "it's you or it's me, buddy"). 

Every time I set out on one of these trips, I think about mortality. It is not just that there are constant reminders of it: the bisected animal corpses, the careening tyre marks on the road, the roadside crosses with their battered flowers. 

I do not think about mortality in a morbid way. Rather, it is more of an "it-is-what-it-is" kind of way.  Living in the country can make one cavalier about this stuff. It is a case of: There's nothing you can do about the long distances between A and B. So just get into the bloody car. And start driving.

So, at the risk of sounding presumptious, if perchance something should go awry on this trip, here are some pointers for my obituary.

His love, his family and friends were more important to him than anything in the world. Especially work.

He was never as well-read as he would have you believe.

I'd like to say that he gave 100% to everything he did. But that would be bullshit.

Oh, and despite occasional appearances to the contrary, unlike the attractive teacher, he was never, ever STRICT. Well, not in his heart.

The Garage Sales of The Living and The Dead

Today, in an effort to distract myself from my stomach, I visited an estate sale. I don't get to those very often. Usually I just frequent markets and The Garage Sales of The Living. As a result, I felt a bit wary - wary of encountering some grim reminder of mortality, or of encountering my own twinges of guilt about robbing a corpse.

But, as it turned out, I had nothing to fear. It was all rather jolly. The deceased's family were there, pitching in, there was an old tin kettle on the stove, and the sun shone fleetingly on the collection of garden statues (including a forlorn lamb that gave me a briefly-entertained come hither look) and other ephemera spread out on the back lawn.

Although others may find it ghoulish, I have no compunction about sorting through dead peoples' photos and personal effects. I sincerely love the idea that someone may do it to my photos one day. I'm sure that they will get more than a few belly laughs. Or perhaps,in death as in life, I'm over-estimating my own capacity to amuse.

And I've always believed in recycling. I think to hold on to everything can be morbid. Some things you have to lose along the way. And if someone else gets a kick out of your stuff, hurrah.

Even though the house had been stripped, the deceased was still a very real presence. There was a bowl of oranges on the table. A photo of a happy-looking elderly lady wearing a cowboy hat and dancing, both thumbs aloft. Floral frocks in the wardrobe. It was as if she'd just popped down to the deli.

The sale had already been going for a day and a half and was well-picked over by the time I got there. All I found was a book called "Mirais and Miranda Folk Song Jamboree". That was odd for three reasons:

1. I had never heard of M and M until a few weeks ago when I bought one of their records called "Songs of Many Lands" because I liked the cover.

2. On the same day that I bought "Songs of Many Lands", my very dear cyber-friend Elizabeth posted an image of one of M and M's albums on Flickr.

3. Here's a weird thing about me which I'm sure you'd never guess. I collect books of folk songs (if you could call seven books a collection). And a book of folk songs was the last thing I expected to find at this particular estate sale.

I love the idea of folk songs, the idea of evolution and regional variation, of timeless themes and archetypes crossing cultures. I love that there was that moment in the early 1970s when little Lutheran kids like me were taught songs like Havah Nagelah by State-funded 'Singing and Listening' programs broadcast on radios in primary schools. Those songs were accompanied by songbooks featuring illustrations that fascinated me - sometimes old engravings, sometimes 70s cartoons of pie-eyed types with frizzy hair and psychedelic duds. The images from M and M's Folk Song Jamboree which are featured here would not have been out of place in those books. And there was such an undercurrent of melancholy in those ol' tunes. I remember being particularly haunted by "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and "The Streets of Laredo" among countless others.  The earlier that kids learn that we all got to go some time, and that everyone fucks up, the better.

In closing, here's some spliced and mangled folk wisdom from the estimable Marais and Miranda. You can consider it my very own Folk-rap:

The Mountain is far.

My boat is drifting.

But

Keep a-rowing.

Keep a-rowing.

Keep a-rowing.

In the midnight hour they cried more, more, more (or: There was nothin' left but sawdust and some glitter Part 2)

So, while all they saw of the dramatic office restructure was the tip of a large and fracturing iceberg, the flailing feet of an upside down, spiralling duck and the creaking lid of a basket hungry for new cases, they did what any right minded people would do in their situation.

They went to a hotel, got drunk as lords and danced like a pack of loons to the strains of Racey and Billy Idol.

They danced and hugged and loved until even the jukebox was yawning. And the hotel had, quite reasonably, had enough, and ejected them, their wist and their bitterness into the long dark night..

*Strangely, "they" all resembled anonymous high-spirited Europeans from the 1940s..

There was nothin' left but sawdust and some glitter

I would love to say that this is a photo of me at work. But I won't say that, because that would be BULLSHIT. This is, in fact, a photo of Faye Dunaway the morning after she won her Oscar for Network, taken by Terry O'Neill in 1976. This image captures something of how I'm feeling at work this week:I am full of wist.

Over the past two weeks, there have been some portentous announcements about cuts. The devil will obviously be in the detail, which as of today, remains largely unannounced.  What I do know, however, is that the little team that has nourished me for the last 7 or so years is being disassembled with remarkable alacrity. Now, we all saw the storm clouds on the horizon for some time. We well knew that were living through the twilight of the glory days. No one's going to be out of a job. But it's still a sad, weird feeling.

So, as we embark upon our diaspora into the Realm of The Blue Meanies (to quote "Sigh", The Office Wit) all I want to say is this: "Don't forget, my beautiful bunch of misfits, that we did find each other. And that, for a flickering moment, we came together and had POETRY! We had MAGIC!" :)

(I write this safe in the knowledge that none of you are ever going to read this)

So, here's to the future! May it be bright! And ever may the breeze continue to be shot!

'Watching the approach of the fire' by Arnold Genthe, 1906. In the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

What's wrong with a little bit of Fragonard, then?

Today I went and sat with an old friend who had a baking stall at a Fashion and Design market (which shall remain nameless).  There were swarms of young fashionable types looking (but trying not to look) ever so pleased to be there - to see and be seen. There were young men with creative facial hair wearing girl's jeans. There were tall girls with their hair in buns, or shorter girls with precision-cut Mireille Mathieu basin-cuts, wearing an alarming array of dramatic shawls and ponchos. Everyone appeared self-assured from a distance. Up close, they appeared self-conscious. Almost touchingly so. And what was also touching was the knowledge that, sooner or later, these kids lives are going to change in ways that they could never imagine on this early winter's afternoon in 2008.

It made me reflect on the following:

1. How pleasant it is to be older and invisible. To see and not be seen. Which led to:

2. How all the things that seemed so vital when I was younger turned out to be, well, less than vital. Which led to:

3. All the friends, braincells, and sartorial rigour that I have lost over the years. Which led to:

4. My love handles.

Which, of course, led to Fragonard's The Swing.

Not really, but here it is anyway. Well actually it's not Fragonard. This image is from a piece on horoscopes in Woman's Day, January 1969. This lass was meant to represent airy Aquarians, Geminis and Librans. Her name was Mavis. I'm not making it up. And where Fragonard's swinger was light and gay, Mavis is melancholy. But that's the kind of site this is.

So here's to Fragonard, and The Great Fleeting Whatever...wheeee!