Incomplete Elements - When is something too sketchy?

This is yet another sketchy sketch from my favourite Sydney ramen place Tanpopo, opposite the Oaks in Neutral Bay.  Looking back over the sketches, it would be the kind of distortion of truth that poets are so good at to say they have noticeably improved. It might even be that they have got worse, as here Julian, who is sadly leaving Tanpopo, looks a bit like Clark Kent. Is this the manga influence, or a cryptic reference to his amazing skills of food transformation?

Title Clues in Yoko Ogawa's Novel

Last week I read 'The Housekeeper + The Professor' by Yoko Ogawa. If you look closely at the image of the cover I've scanned in - and it is only in writing this that I paid attention to this detail myself - you can see that it was bought at LifeLine . Should I note the coincidence, that the characters in the story each are a lifeline to each other, though, naturally this should be the case in any good novel. The plus sign, instead of the more usual word 'and' or the ampersand '&' on the title page is also telling, Much of the connectivity in Ogawa's novel turns on the surprisingly properties of numbers, how they contain and reflect on each other. The number property that is the central metaphor in the first chapter is so wonderful, that, and perhaps I am a little susceptible to the eloquence of numbers, it bought tears to my eyes.  In case you haven't read it I will not spoil it for you by explaining here.  This is a just about perfect novel for me, understated, rich in mathematical metaphors, with a sense of realisation without any of the obvious tying up of ends that lesser writers resort to end a book. 

My only quibble is I feel slightly guilty that in buying it second hand I have deprived Yoko Ogawa of royalties. Perhaps CAL should consider this problem and create an option to donate royalties for writers?

The Cloud Hour - When White is Really Blue

It has been my fond misperception that clouds were mostly white. Was it all those early puffs of cotton woolliness daubed on the mid-blue skies of that grainy and forgiving art paper handed round in kindergarten? This turning blueness happened last Sunday afternoon, the harder I looked the bluer nearly all of that which was once white seemed.  What will go next? The grass? The stars?

By the Knitting of the Bollards - Dee Why has Treble Tribal Types

  In a move that suggest something of a psychedelic parterre, an Alice-esque take on bobbles, afghan squares and plain old stripes, these four bollards were all dressed up, knitta-style, and that they had no where to go was no problem at all.

Classic Tanpopo - Four People in Search of Story

What is dinner but a chance to tell a story?Or at least get one off the ground.  Of these four people all seemed intent on telling it like they would like it to be.  What else can one do?
Drawing-wise, mostly I lament my lack of skill with perspective, colour, shadow, the built environment and witty attention to detail but still it is fun even to get one percent of the scene collected, especially while eating something delicious, notably the grilled Kingfish jaw at Tanpopo.

A Peek at an Unpicked Peck of Unpickled Peppers

Bart is fairly glowing with the reflected radiance of this crop of Yellow Onomatopoeic Peppers. Or, more accurately this is how Bart refers to this variety of peppers, having been in something of a quandary of indecision ( a bit like a quarry but much more cramped, according to Frank Winkler, the self-declared local expert on rock breaking), and muttering Red Peppers? Yellow Peppers? Red Peppers? Yellow Peppers? Red Peppers? Yellow Peppers?,  without cease, until the Mr Farmhand, who has taken over the new nursery section in The Whistle Stop Floriste Shoppe ( to be known as The Whistle Stop Floriste Shoppe and Plant Emporium once Mavis Eggwhistle funds a space for the extra words on the front window, said Oh, For Pete's sake, enough with the Onomatopoeia, and plonked  three dozen seedlings down on the counter. Bart is hoping he can interest in Mavis in a short walk in the Peppers before they start to wilt, or succumb to a November frost.

Branching out with Knitteds

 Finding Knitta style woolens inside a garden? Brilliant! From a little ways off the woollified tree in this Rozelle terrace front garden seemed to have a humdinger crop of over-sized golden oranges. Closer up, they proved to be pom-poms, with an avant-guard striped garter stitch understory. And then there was the catch-all thingy on the budgy cage. This sets an inspiring  standard for serendipity.   More power to the knitting needle.

Eyes Down - Racing to the End of 1Q84

Marukami's novel, 1Q84, purchased in Tokyo last year, presents a  challenge, a strange book that gets stranger, it weighs in at close to 1,000 pages. With a theme Marukami comes back to again and again,  adolescents who fall irretrievably in love in High School, separated by circumstance but are always in search of their True Love. Yes, for the modern reader, this is the High Romantic platform mixed with so very weirdly and so well with the gothic fantasy, the uber otherness of multiple realities, that this boy meets girl story has more kinks in it than a packet of ramen. Here we see  Theo racing along the last chapter of the book just before a large a delicious bowl of Hokkaido Ramen arrives. Of course that tell tale yellow wall behind, not to say the name, means this is yet another Episode of Dinner at Tanpopo!

Diner in Blanc~ A Serious Case of the Dress Ups

Last Saturday I joined in what might be a very large dinner party, a picnic fresco y el blanco, a group of devoted foodies, and around 1,500 versions of what to wear when you're wearing white. The first Diner in Blanc in Sydney was picture perfect, as proved by a host of photo snappers both the kind in white, passerbys in their civvies, or the popular pre-Halloween option, fancy dress. The whole thing was glamorously gregarious puzzle for Sydney punters.

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