STURT POETRY BASH

I've put together a poetry bash at Sturt Gallery in Mittagong for August 21. I will be reading my work with luminaries Peter Boyle and Michelle Cahill, and celebrated local, Peter Lach-Newinsky. Starting time - 4pm. Entry fee - $10.

Come along and tune out of the Julia and Tony Show for a while.

LJ, August 10 2010.

INVASION SMAZION

Last Saturday, the good ol' Telegraph reported that 800 Indonesians 'could' be arriving on our shores. The headline shrieked and blared 'Invasion'. In Abbott and Gillard's televised debate on Sunday night, the 'boats' (we're not talking dragon boats or Sydney to Hobart yachts here) were mentioned several times. Ah, the doctoring, fashioning and promotion of boat people phobia - how our media and governments love it!

I'd like to know how many people in Australia actually fear refugees/asylum seekers. How many of us really think people smugglers are 'evil' or 'scum of the earth', to quote a couple of Labor leaders? I'd like to meet an Indonesian refugee and a people smuggler just to see what sort of person they are, so I could form my own opinion, not be manipulated by the rhetoric of Suits fostering and selling paranoia.

Every Australian government from now to the end of the world will campaign on the 'here comes the gruesome OTHER, ready to take our homes, our jobs, our children' theme. There are WW2 echoes of 'the Hun' and 'the Jap' here. There needs to be sensible discussion about the processing and accommodation of asylum seekers from our leaders, not empty words about stopping boats from departing their destinations and turning boats back. This will never happen in a sustained, effective way. As long as there's war, neglect, tribalism, global warming leading to rising sea levels, genocide, hatred, xenophobia, religious persecution etc. overseas there will be hopeless people fleeing countries that are a mess. We need to learn how to embrace these escapees.

Vietnamese, Polish, Italian, Greek, Armenian, Lebanese, and many other races, have helped shape Australia. Many of these people were escapees. As Mick Jones, in the immortal Big Audio Dynamite, once sang, 'Don't anybody know that this city was made of immigrant blood and money?'

LJ, July 28 2010.

TEN POTENTIAL AUSSIE BAND NAMES...

Deadset Nutbags
Azaria's 21st
Bogan Wagon
Where's Holt?
Bottle O
Inside The Rock
Chuck a U-ee
Howard as Beatboxer
When Keating Krumped
Spinifex

LJ, July 21 2010.

THE PRIME MINISTER AS WOOLLY RHINO

Julia Gillard makes me think of the woolly rhino - hardy, powerful, unflappable, chilled out and unconventionally attractive. And, of course, there's the nose/horn thing.

LJ, July 19 2010

NOT A COMPLETE DOG BOX

Currently, my life is all about the draining search for real real estate. I'm living and breathing dimensions, pest inspections, cosmetic needs, the search for cracks and rising damp, praying for extraordinary architectural bones and fitting economics. One local agent recently promoted a property by saying, "It's not a complete dog box". What an ambassador for the cause! I'm sure the incomplete dog box's vendors would've loved to have heard that.

LJ, July 15 2010.

IS THERE STILL TIME TO PAINT THIS LIFE?

Driving between Burradoo and Moss Vale yesterday, I passed a woman near a ute, who was standing by an easel, looking east. She was painting the almost gold fields by the Wingecarribee River.

I cannot recall the last time I saw someone painting by a road.

Maybe I've never seen this.

LJ, June 29 2010.

WINTER NOTES

A week or so back, at 8am, in minus 2.5 degrees, I had the pleasure of watching a party of five Flame Robins foraging in a cleared paddock adjacent to an abbatoir in Moss Vale. Unfortunately, the splendid males, with their electric red chests, weren't close enough for me to warm my hands. For the entire time, the cries of trapped bovines filled my ears. The sky was a washed out blue and frost lay everywhere like exhausted snow.

Two days back, at Fitzroy Falls, when the eastern escarpments beyond the immediate valley where the Falls centre themselves were painted with pink light, I showed my son his first Superb Lyrebird. The bird (a male - about six years old) was talking and screaming up in a tree, then it came down to scratch for invertebrates in the chilled earth ten feet away from us. The bird's vocalisations were extraordinarily loud. Steam came from its mouth as it mimicked the calls of six other birds (including a Pilotbird and a Satin Bowerbird) and pulled in the night as if a dear lost friend.

Looking forward to leading a birding trip for locals to the humbling green boulder, Tarzan vine and matted canopy kingdom of Barrengarry Mountain in early July.

Following the World Cup with interest. This will be anyone's Cup, with so many strong teams looking so listless, although I tip Argentina or Brazil to catch the glory. I think a t-shirt with 'Poor Harry' written on it could sell in Australia right now. Did he really deserve that red card?

Hoping my entry into this year's Blake Poetry Prize sings... whatever... Organising a couple of poetry events for the Southern Highlands - one, at Sturt Gallery at Mittagong in August, should be a small spectacular! Happy that local rag Your Times published a poem earlier in the month.

Questioning, yet again, why the hell we're over in Afghanistan, after the deaths of five Aussie soldiers in two weeks. I suppose oil is the answer. If only I could have a chat with Henry Rollins, Noam Chomsky and Sebastian Junger about American/Australian motives. Just how much of a threat are the Taliban to you and I? Sure, they're a worry, but do we need to be taking them on? An academic was on 2BL this morning saying that he can see Australian troops over there for another nine years of engagement. And at the end of that time, where will we stand? There will still be terrorism, fear and the burning of innocence.

Thrilled the Greens are polling so well currently. I think about 16% of responders are behind them. Will people actually vote for them on election day, however, or will it all be knee-jerk stuff stemming from main party disillusionment and confusion?

Teaching and teaching and teaching and hoping the students are getting something from it, as one does each year.

LJ, June 22 2010.