MID-WINTER UPDATE

Over the daily deluges... delighted by all the starbursts of wattle in Morton National Park (particularly on monochromatic days)... coordinating almost one-hundred and fifty Year Eleven students at Magdalene CHS... trying to marry poignancy with wit and pyrotechnical variation in one-hundred and fifty lines of poetry on Aussie birds for the Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize (a chapbook is the prize)... feeling Hicks should make some money from his Guantanamo book which I read a whilst back (the man went through unjust crap none of us would want, or possibly cope with, so what's a little return?)... I'm up to over one-hundred and twenty birds on my hometown list... keen to see The Tree of Life... impressed by Rango which I saw with my son (there's a beautiful scene where Rango hits the road alone and dodges traffic and bumps into a Clint Eastwood doppelganger posing as mystic; Hans Zimmer's score is exquisite)... Bloc Party and The Cure dominating the stereo... wondering if Gillard will last as a PM... thrilled the Greens have balance of power... loving the varied shows at Exeter's art-space Gallery Eccosse (shout outs to Andre/Nina)... looking forward to trekking out to the precious mallee stretches and bluebush scrub reaches of Round Hill and Nombinnie Nature Reserves in central NSW in my next school holidays (bring on a Red-lored Whistler)...

LJ, July 22 2011