My young family and I are about to leave Sydney for the Southern Highlands, where I have a new teaching job for 2009. I can't wait. Although I love Sydney, I'm over it and craving new spaces, challenges and adventures. Change is to be danced with, laughed with, unfurled and embraced. Life is change; only in change can there be true experience.
LJ, December 15 2008.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE
A five minute train ride between Ashfield and Burwood Stations this afternoon took me thirty minutes because of a 'suspicious package' found in a car park adjacent to Strathfield Station. No trains were allowed in to the station for some time. I was 'alert, but not alarmed', as the Howard government suggested I be in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. I was a model citizen, really.
What the package found suspicious has yet to be ascertained by forensic squads!
LJ, December 11 2008
What the package found suspicious has yet to be ascertained by forensic squads!
LJ, December 11 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
TWO THINGS PUBLISHED LAST SATURDAY
Last Saturday, in the Review section of The Weekend Australian, I had a small piece published (entitled This (Displaced) Life) about a house crow that has been frequenting the beach side suburb of Dee Why, in Sydney's north, since early 2008. The house crow is an outstandingly rare vagrant to Australian shores. This is our fourth official record. I was lucky enough to see the bird back in March or April. Added to this, I had a small, silly thing on swamphens published online with The Sydney Morning Herald that day. Where would I be without avian inspiration? LJ, November 18 2008.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
THE CARIBBEAN'S STEEL SOUL
A week ago, in the epicentre of Sydney's Centennial Park, I came across a mob of West Indians picnicking on the periphery of Lachlan Swamp's dense, sweaty tangle of ferns and paperbarks. Jamaican flags were flying high. I got speaking with a dude with blonde dreads from Trinidad who was teaching a dozen kids how to play steel drums. The sound the kids produced en masse was extraordinary: I was particularly into their epic version of Blondie's The Tide is High. After they'd finished, I asked if I could grab some sticks and have a play on one drum.
I was unaware that steel drums (or steelpans) were made from 55-gallon drums that oil was kept in (Trinidad has had a long history of oil production). Steelpans have been played since 1947; the secret to playing them well is to strike them gently! You tune them with a hammer.
Jean Michel Jarre's leftfield Waiting for Cousteau (1990), is the only CD I've got that features the unusual sonic gleam of the steelpan. The Amoco Renegades played the instrument on that album. The amateur percussionist in me was enraptured by this accidental Sydney meeting with the Caribbean's steel soul.
LJ, November 16 2008.
I was unaware that steel drums (or steelpans) were made from 55-gallon drums that oil was kept in (Trinidad has had a long history of oil production). Steelpans have been played since 1947; the secret to playing them well is to strike them gently! You tune them with a hammer.
Jean Michel Jarre's leftfield Waiting for Cousteau (1990), is the only CD I've got that features the unusual sonic gleam of the steelpan. The Amoco Renegades played the instrument on that album. The amateur percussionist in me was enraptured by this accidental Sydney meeting with the Caribbean's steel soul.
LJ, November 16 2008.
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