Fastest Moving Geologic Formation

Macquarie University playing fields are not for the faint hearted,  and the prospect of being engulfed by on oncoming cliff  is surely creepy.  The fields, at least at the moment, are home to what must qualify as the fastest geological mover ever, the mobile cliff.  This gives an altogether different  insight into the term 'cliff hanger'.

Picnic without lightning

A brilliant Saturday morning in the Hunter Valley, stopped at Oakvale Winery - a fretwork of shadows on the grass and a picnic table with not much more than ants and dappled sunlight. Not a trace of thunder to be seen, the susshhh of traffic on tarmac, and from over my shoulder an amplified guitar - sharp and melodic repeats a bar.

Late Additions of Figures to the Keirle-scape

Something Alice-like happened in last Wednesday's Keirle Park sketch. Firstly there was no-one there,  and then nearly at the end I looked up and there were people and their dogs. I have attempted to convey  the ratio of people to park,  allowing that any perspective had not so much as left me but been a no-show, eg.  that large sign looming out of all proportion. The black pen additions also give some idea of dog per person,  but what I like about them is their feel of scribble. What are people after all but DNA scribbled in 3D?

Infra Dig - Two's Company, Four's Annoying

So, while all the folks in Lambertville have been speculating that Bart might have caught Mavis having a very casual coffee with Mr Farmhand, Mavis is mightily miffed that, in actual fact, Bart had asked Mr Farmhand along because he finds his perputual preparedness to dig, even to dig laminex, reassuring.  Now I have to tell you that Mavis's bland and cheery smile in this photo was a complete fake for the photographic purposes only. She was percolatingly peeved at Bart, so much so that she slapped him so hard her arm snapped off completely! This is quite serious for Mavis as she is made of baked Fimo. The question now is will she take the Sticky Tape Cure?

PS If you are wondering about that animal on the right, it it Mr Farmhand's new pet penguin, which he adopted from the Animal Shelter

Dust Jacketed - A Great Catch Up In Blue

Anthologization is an interesting business, poetry is one of the few genres, being economically contained so that 'representative' or thematic anthologies are feasible. So, it follows that any reader would be crazy not to avail themselves of the benefits. The interesting thing is that they divide poets sharply into those who are In the Book and those that are not.  I can report that I did get five poems in Australian Poetry Since 1788, which I am pleased about. All of the poems were from my first book Fishing in the Devonian, which has sadly sold out.  My smaller chap book Night Croquet the #93 Wagtail  is still available and  you can buy it online from link to Picaro Press.

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The Art of Reading & All Good Things Must End

When do you stop? That is in the context of when do you stop an exercise that had become something between a habit, an indulgence and a compulsion.  Here is the last  drawing on the last page of the 40 page notebook, which I started on the penultimate day in May with a drawing of Bart Brassica, and then shortly after took up the Robert Capa Prussian Blue Project. Not all the drawings have been blogged - some are too busy, the odd landscape orientation by and large fails, there are some ring ins, Brussels sprouts, beagles  and a tap. I am still not tired of Capa.  This fellow here, with his close study of the page, his angled foot exuding enjoyment, his shadow impastoed to the page might well be any diligent reader, such as oneself.

Wednesday is the New Monday - Back to Keirle Park

A term away from my weekly survey of Keirle Park and things are both same and different. Firstly, in that classic Australian rethink,  the goal posts have been moved. Where To is the next question 
The clover has had a chance to flower, there were four smallish black school shoes in different spots, some strange new signs, one admonishing people not to sleep in motor vehicles,  a little pointed in its citation of the Combi Van and strange markings in the fields. If one were looking to make a short story with these three things, it might involve Druids, late night meetings, sommiferous drugs and legislative  change - or at least a new by-law.

Great Thoughts Aloft - The Industrialisation of the Mind

As you can see another Prussian Blue Capa Derivative. If Wall Street catch  what's going on here,  some wily Financier - and I am not meaning that small confection of buttery pastry and japonaisery -  will list these on the Dow and ASX , perhaps even the Footsie, as Industrial Derivatives. And why not if one can trade Futures, ghost mortgages and currencies that drop like fermented fruit from abandoned trees? But somehow I dont think that it what our fellow here is thinking, how could there be room for such abstractions when you have a ton of metal to contend with?

Grey is the New Black - Lunch Scene at Tan Popo

Saturday lunch we beetled over to Tan Popo for Chai-Su Ramen and a Bento Box. The place was a-bustle with lunchers, except for one small member of the party - partly sketched in here - who had fallen asleep, Thomas the Tank Engine trainers little blue and red confections on his small feet. All the adults were wearing grey, black, or gray-green.Thank goodness for coloured hair elastics I say.  The perspective and allocation of space here has gone badly astray, I must work on ratios ( repeat x 20) . On the other hand lunch was entirely successful, the sashimi sparklingly fresh and the pork belly managing to be both crisp and tender, though it might be churlish to single them out as even the small piece of pickled radish, with its fine cross cut of near-floral filaments was delicious.

New, Next, Now - Unpacking Kaldor at the Art Gallery of NSW

Settling into a fold-out stool, in a cluster of art gallery visitors, the more flexible young fry folded up like pretzels on cushions  at the front, parents, grandparents and thy unaccompanied curious plumping out the crowd at the back, there is that "Ahhh" feeling as the the New, Next, Now show sets into motion.  Two whimsical dust-jacked workers from Art Storage? Meticulously measuring Curators? The silent characters - actors Russell Garbutt and Julia Cotton, founders of the now sadly retired Etcetera theatrical ensemble  - play with the ideas of collecting, stacking, wrapping and unwrapping in a whimsical homage to Christo- boxed and wrapped, Sol de Witt's units of construction, while Alek Danko's Log Dog is reprised in animated cardboard, and  Tony Cragg's 'bottle tree' and Ugo Rondinone's marvellous 'clockwork for oracles' are celebrated. While the links back to the art work might set up a satisfying sleuthing puzzle for the adults, the real delight was the celebration of wonder and transformation as we watch the characters find that it is these ordinary dust jacketed folk who are the artists.

Zeppelined Again or The Bang at The End of the World

Last Monday strolling over to the White Rabbit Gallery, we discovered the White Rabbit had checked his pocket watch, twitched his whiskers, saying 'Oh my, I'm late, I'm late' and bunny hopped backwards into the mirror.  The fall back position was a contemplation of the local street art.  While I would include the excellent fire hydrant ensemble below in this category, the ticket for the most profound use of the word "was" goes to the silently tick tocking bomb above.

Paper Moons & Menus : Sketchy Characters at Tan Popo

The three young women at the corner table in Tan Popo  look a little under impressed about the messy hair day I've given them, a little exacerbated by the slap happy lipstick. Still any dinner where not one but two paper moons shine down, pushing back the green inked-in night, is a fine thing.

Negativisation - The too much washing blues

So, it is the continuing study of Robert Capa, his photo of a boy watching a parade for the commenoration of the annexure of Belgium. Whatever is passing before him and the rest of the crowd in the original photo, including the woman next to him with a very elegant hat, it does not inspire joy. Here one small bit of wash got away from me, and in that mending way one proceeds in before I knew it the whole thing had taken on the aspect of a negative. That odd negative effect, of meeting another version of yourself, feels nostalgic, an intriguing state of being not at all yourself.