Dispatches from the wilds of constructive criticism

(Wherein our intrepid hero proposes a little revisionism)

Brendan Nelson is a man betrayed. Not by his turncoat party-members, nor his inconvenient principles and unpopular beliefs, nor intractable politics or uncomfortable truths. No, Brendan Nelson is a man betrayed by his speech-writers. Those of you that watched, listened to, or read his sorry speech are sure to agree, it could use some work. The meandering monologue was filled with qualifications, misdirection, justifications and double talk – the true meaning behind the words carefully hidden. It is in some ways a miracle that anyone could divine the true meaning of his words – but fortunately the more enlightened minds of our nation were, at least, able to get the gist of it. The problem is that whilst all the polito-speak is perfectly acceptable for typical use in parliament, this was not a typical situation. It was one of those nationally defining moments that calls for one of those great lines: “Ask not what your country can do for you…“, “The only thing we have to fear…“, “I have a dream…“. I get the feeling, somehow, that Kennedy wouldn’t have had quite the same impact with “In these materialistic, self-centred times, it is important that we recognise the necessity of contributing the vital welfare of our nation, even at the expense of ourselves.”

The key, you see, is to do it succinctly. It is a cliché of “good writing” in fact, that good writing is short writing – and this was the real failure of Nelson’s speech writers. The speech was too long, and the real sentiment, whilst still pretty obvious, was nevertheless far too obscured by the gluttony of lazy speech writers. Nelson could have achieved a much better result with a far shorter speech; one more in line with his character and that of his party, one that truly gave us a glimpse of the workings of that magnificent mind – one guaranteed to be remembered and repeated as it echoed down the long hall of history. He needed, in fact, only say one line:

“I’m sorry… but it’s not our fault you’re a bunch of darkies.“

My services are available on either a freelance or contract basis, just as soon as Kevin Rudd repeals Work Choices.

Dispatches from the wilds of apologetica

The dream, dear friends, is at an end. Any hope that we might be an egalitarian and moral society has been quashed. The Liberal party, you see, has agreed to say “sorry”. To the naked eye, that might seem like a good thing, but remember:

True love means never having to say you’re sorry.

For so long, under the auspices of the Howard government, the Australian people loved their native inhabitants. We loved them stubbornly and unrelentingly. We loved them even though they didn’t love us back. We loved them even though they didn’t appreciate all that we had done for them. We loved them even though they didn’t deserve it. We loved them even when we held big marches to say that we didn’t. But now, with a few poorly-chosen words, we will wash that all away, destroying centuries of loving relationship. Now, with that last great bastion of tolerance and open-mindedness sailing off into the twilight, it is painfully apparent that our nation is at the beginning of a long painful decline into unthinking prejudice and intolerance. Farewell, John, we’ll miss you.

Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Unnoticed

(Wherein our intrepid hero quoth “Back door! Back door!”)

I went unnoticed
for the first time ever
today.
A strange sensation
for a walking mountain.
Ignored, invisible, unseen.
The bus driver closed the doors
as I prepared to disembark
Perhaps,
I tell myself,
he didn’t want to see me go.

Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Five-Ways

(Wherein our intrepid hero channels a bitter, acerbic Joni Mitchell)

Revitalised Five-ways
a marvel
of modern civic planning
broad footpaths
in these narrow streets
seems an impossible dream
for this narrow mind.
Bright, efficient street-lamps
to match those oh-so
bright, efficient sales-persons
that dot our boutique stores.
Wheelchair-friendly
pedestrian crossings
to match our wheelchair-friendly hills
and pavement cracks.
A much more manageable round-about
for those oh-so common public buses
that flood our narrow streets.
It resembles now,
it must be said,
a public space in western Sydney
as provided by your friendly development conglomerate
as per council requirements
16(a), (b) and (d).
The once grand round-about,
gone.
Stood there only twenty years;
“an insignificant historic blip“
(almost my entire life).
Banished, we are to understand,
for inconveniencing the buses
(which haven’t stood anywhere at all).
An inconvenience, I imagine,
quite alike
6 months of leaking ceilings
following a hail-storm
waiting for heritage-appropriate roof tiles
invisible from the street,
but quite spectacular
(I am assured)
for passing hot-air balloonists.
And now a less confusing intersection – 4 ways!
What a grand improvement
to that inconvenient heritage.
Revitalised Five-ways is many things
clean, flat, open, bright, logical
yes, it is many things,
but it is not Paddington.
The character-building footpath cracks
presided over by the Ancien Régime of Paddington
- her trees
all scrubbed conveniently away.
How fortunate, at least,
one needn’t walk too far
from this concrete veneer
to find Paddington again.

Dispatches from the wilds of (Oxy)Moronia

(Wherein our intrepid hero is confounded by absurd telemarketing)

Just a short anecdote, my doves, on a recent occurrence:  I received a phone call, whilst going about my day-to-day business, from a charming young chap interested in assisting my beloved employer in lowering his overheads, with regard to mobile phone costs. The premise of the offer was simple: this company (something-or-other-Tel) purchases telephonic services from Telstra at wholesale rates, which they then on-sell at “wholesale” rates. The part of this complicated financial arrangement with which we are most interested, however, is the summarised description of the service provided, which my good friend Shane (which may well have been his name) presented to me:

“We…” he explained in that semi-excited, quasi-enthusiastic tone common to telemarketers with breathtaking offers to share “…cut out the middle-man.“

It was at this point that I hung up.

To recap: Shane (for I am fairly certain that this was probably his name – I’m pretty sure it started with an “S” and had an “e” in it, and I don’t think it was “Steve”)  is offering to purchase wholesale phone access from our current phone provider, and then on-sell it to us. By thus inserting Shane into our telephonic billing cycle, we shall, Shane assures me, cut out the middle man.

Dispatches from Lost-Pennsylvania

(Wherein our intrepid hero attempts an adventure not unalike Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark)

 

I lost the pen that my father gave me for my 21st birthday. Naturally, I’m rather unimpressed. Of course, I’m not the sort of person to take this sort of thing lying down. Thus, I proceeded to plaster Newtown with the following poster. (Click on it for a larger version)

 

 

I received some calls as a result, but none from anyone who had found my pen. One caller did claim to have found it; I answered the phone and was greeted by a rather suspect English accent:

 

“I’ve found your pen. Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to take $400, put it in a duffel bag, and place it behind the headstone of Alfred Simpson*. Then you’re going to walk away. You will then be contacted with details of where you can retrieve your pen. “

“You know, you might have actually pulled it off if it wasn’t for the dodgy English accent”

[His voice changed slightly] “But I am English!”

[I laughed]

“Are you serious about this? Did you really lose a pen?”

“Of course. Why else would I do it? It’s very sentimentally valuable to me.”

“Does it even have any ink in it?”

“It’s a fountain pen, you can refill it.”

“Oh. Well, we’re all wishing you luck, then.”

“Thanks.”

“Will you put up posters to let us know if you get it back?”

“I suppose I could. Though you should know, your call: I’ve died a little inside now”

“Oh… well, I don’t feel so bad, now.”

“Glad I could be of service”

 

I also went around to the various art and stationery stores where one would be able to buy ink for my pen, and left copies of my poster with them. However, not having received any good news, I have decided to move on to the next stage of my plan; The Omega Protocol. Simply put, I’m writing a chain e-mail.

 

May god have mercy on my soul.

 

 

*I don’t actually remember the name he used, and you may consider the conversation roughly paraphrased, rather than taken verbatim.

Dispatches from the limits of taste

(Wherein our intrepid hero invents a new food-group)

At some point last night, roughly around 9:30, having attended the opening of “Forgot to Remember” at Somedays Gallery, I found myself, (with a few beers ‘neath my belt) debating the merits of a food combination. It was my thesis that like peanut-butter & honey, or strawberries & chocolate, it was an foregone conclusion that the combination of pizza and pancakes would produce a taste sensation hitherto unrivaled in the annals of culinaria. It is safe to say that I have no recollection of how this topic was broached, nor how I came to this conclusion, (though the fact that I most certainly was the one who had the idea in the first place may have had something to do with it) the fact that we were heading to Pancakes on The Rocks meant that I would soon be presented with the opportunity to rigourously test my theorem under exacting laboratory conditions.

On arrival I was disappointed (though not at all surprised) to discover that the fine institution of Pancakes on The Rocks was unwilling to furnish me with a half-pizza, half-pancake meal. As though that would stop me! Thus I found myself ordering both a short stack, AND an Italian Salami pizza – the rigours of science are not for the miserly – nor the faint of stomach. To this I added a strawberry daiquiri. Finally, my meal arrived and, remarking “This enterprise calls for a serious hat“, I donned my marvellous hat and partook of that first fateful forkful. The taste sensation was, naturally, unusual. It is a rare and precious delight, I find, to encounter a truly novel flavour these days. Widespread multiculturalism has ruined most chances of undiscovered delicacies – you should, as a good cosmopolitan, already have encountered them all. Nevertheless, I can happily say that truly, it was delicious. Indeed, my various compatriots were convinced to partake, and agreed that it was, on the whole, “not bad“. – A note, by the way, on the best method of consuming this delicacy: the maple syrup, properly applied, will substantially reduce the structural integrity of the pancake. Thus, support is necessary. Therefore, the best method of consumption is as follows: cut roughly equal portions of pizza and pancake away from the main body of food, keeping in mind that the combined amount should be appropriate for one mouthful. Put a small quantity of the provided ice-cream on top of the pancake, which should have already, of course, been liberally doused in maple syrup. Skewer the piece of pancake with your fork, and then lift it onto the piece of pizza, which you then skewer as well, the fork passing through the pancake into the pizza. The pizza then provides a stable platform to support the fragile pancake on the perilous journey to your mouth. If you have done this correctly, you should have a layered substance, in this order: ice-cream, pancake, pizza – with the pizza on the end of your fork.

Now, it would be folly to have gone to the effort of setting up an experiment merely to determine the deliciousness of a certain combination. Thus I did my best to attain as many useful results as possible, that I might furnish you, gentle readers, with said information. Therefore: on the arrival of my meal, one of my compatriots remarked “there’s no way you’re going to eat that“. What he meant, naturally, was that he speculated that the combination would be abhorrent, and I would find myself unable to complete the meal. Now, I tended to agree that I would struggle to complete the combination, but for very different reasons. I had no doubt that the combination would be delicious, but the problem was that as I was not allowed a bespoke meal, the only way of achieving the combination was by ordering two whole meals. Granted, I got the smallest order of pancakes that I could, but nevertheless, I was faced with a not-insubstantial quantity of food. However, on partaking of the meal, and its notable deliciousness, I found that completing the meal, whilst substantial, would not necessarily be an impossible task. Add to this my resolution to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the combination was workable, and it was clear that the plates would have to be left barren. And so I did. I even washed it down with what was, frankly, a sub-standard margherita. However, it cannot be denied that afterward, the sheer quantity of food consumed weighed heavily on my stomach, prompting my remark “you know you’ve had a good night when your chief concern is getting home without throwing up.” In conclusion, then, it can be said that consuming an entire pizza, a short stack of pancakes, a strawberry daiquiri and a margherita is not, really, a terribly good idea. What I would recommend, however, is sharing said concoction with a friend – a pizza and a regular stack should divide fairly well between two.

Just skip the margheritas.

You’re your own harshest critic

 

(Wherein our intrepid hero ponders the merits of vandalism)

On returning from the snow, I attend the opening of the art show Cross Currents at the MCA, which I considered to be pretty darn good, whilst also taking advantage of the opportunity to check out Primavera ‘07, which, to the contrary, I felt wasn’t so much a collection of art as a selection of young people showing off some clever tricks they’d figured out – how to make spray-paint paintings look like watercolours, making porcelain sponges, soap remnants and tupperware containers that look remarkably like the real thing, 3-Dimensional photo collages and hallucinatory video projections. The last of these consisted of an illuminated mattress, in the middle of a darkened room, onto which footage of a body slowly writhing beneath a sheet was projected. It was indeed an interesting sensation; watching this confluence of the 2nd and 3rd dimensional, writhing before your very eyes, was definitely akin to an induced hallucination. However, standing there, amongst a dozen or so strangers in the darkened room, all staring silently at the illusory body writhing on the mattress, with only the hiss of the air-conditioning audible, I couldn’t help but feel as though I were in the middle of a scene from one of the more bizarre 70’s movies. Something, perhaps, along the lines of The Holy Mountain, which, if you haven’t seen, I HIGHLY recommend.

I then wandered onto the second floor of the exhibit, where the aforementioned spray-paint paintings were, where I found my spirit stirred by the plaque with the title of a work, where “your” was incorrectly used instead of “you’re”. More than ever before I longed for a keyring red Sharpie, (the guerilla grammaticist’s best friend) and wondered how likely a lifetime ban on visiting the MCA would actually be enforced. In the end however, such ponderances were purely academic, as I was powerlessly penless.

Snowbound Sophistry

On the T-Bar, introductions are made. Discussions of one’s origins and length of stay follow (though usually in reverse order) comments on the weather and snow conditions follow this, typically accompanied by recollections of years past, or reports of conditions at other resorts. Then, as suddenly as it began, the brief association of strangers ends. On the chairlift, a lengthier discussion is afforded. Career and educational achievements and aspirations are discussed, dreams are carefully revealed, and apposite advice and anecdotes are almost always offered. Future paths are considered and dreams are changed as we sit through the icy-cool sky. Then, as the summit nears, the whispered promise of wisdom disappears into the wind, and for a brief instant, it seems as though, if the mountain were just an inch taller, the secrets of life itself would be discovered.