PILGER

John Pilger - activist, thinker, historian and champion of the left - has always been inspiring. His is an essential voice. I've used his books, such as A Secret Country in the classroom - his pithy writings help unmask our history's awkward, and at times horrid, buried truths.

In last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald, there was a piece by Pilger entitled 'When education favours division over diversity' (an excerpt from a speech he delivered at a recent Sydney Boys High School gathering) where he addressed life's successes and how we should assess ourselves as moral people. I love the manifesto/credo with which he concluded this piece - 'Go into the world and relinquish the safety of silence and make trouble - remembering the most important trouble is calling to account those who assume power over our lives.'

LJ, February 24 2010.

UNHAPPY FEET

I heard, through Adam Spencer's morning radio show on Sydney's 702, that there was a stand up comedy event at The Sugarmill in Kings Cross last Tuesday night. Punters apparently paid $8 at the door to see some spirited local talent. What they got, unexpectedly, for their $8, was Elijah Wood heckling in the audience, then (drum roll) Robin Williams (cymbal crash) stepping up to the mic to do an impromptu rant on Australia for half an hour. I love Robin Williams' old Saturday Night Live work. He's a maniacal, hysterical force of nature. Williams and Wood are in town making Happy Feet 2 with George Miller. My feet are unhappy because they didn't rush the rest of me to Sugarmill.

LJ, February 12 2010

CORDITE BITES

Australian poetry collective Cordite have an awesome egalitarian thang happening on their busy website... Poets can add their own lines to pieces currently under construction. Each poem begins with an opening line pulled from Cordite-published works penned by various Aussie bards, including Michelle Cahill and Peter Lach-Newinsky, whom I know. I've added a few lines here and there. Check it all out under 'Post-Epic' at www.cordite.org.au. My lines should be towards the end of about ten poems.

LJ, February 11 2010.

FEB

Here I am presuming once again that people out there in Twittersphere might give a toss about what my brain wants to let go of... anyhow... if I don't write I fade... I've got Groove Armada's Black Light on very high rotation at the moment (Fall Silent, Paper Romance, Cards to Your Heart and I Won't Kneel the killers)... buried, finally, in the dense, mesmerizing pages of Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap... happy with a new teaching job on the outskirts of Sydney... still marveling at the Southern Highlands' unpredictable weather cycles... I've downed my poetry tools temporarily... waiting for pleasing publishing and award news... still attempting to fathom the anarchy, despair and waste in Haiti now there are over 170, 000 dead... what is this life we stagger and dance through?

LJ, February 2 2010