Hoola Tree - Annandale Goes Hawaian

There is no skirting the issue, this paperbark  just off Annandale Street has been hoola-ised.  That this tree shimmies is a certain thing, a kind of dance to the music of grass, an every little breeze seems to reveal the tree's knees, a Hopkinian sussuration, a benign and positive form of hooliganism. Will councils create dress codes for trees? Does make this blog post a hoola-gram?

Blinded by the White Light

 

Three days after I had been lucky enough to score a copy of Mark Flynn’s  new collection of short stories White Light,  my son, home from school, cast a knowing eye over me and said, What have you been doing? Nothing I said, a ridiculous smile o n my face, No, he insisted, you’re stoked, you’ve been up to something. It was true,  I had been reading O’Flynn’s story  ‘Stealth’  that morning and the elation had not worn off.

‘Stealth’, like stealth had crept on me. We were jogging along and I was thinking, hey all good but a bit blokey, and what about the kid, he’s not adding up.  But then, well, I can’t tell you what happened that flipped the story from droll to hilarious as that would be a spoiler but, even now a week later, the image of what I am not going to tell you makes me laugh. Then the whole story clicked together and the guy, Barry - the son, Ross Livingstone and the CFA were inter-meshed in a way that mixed the laconic with the absurd, blokey with feminine and the vernacular with the linguistically exhilarating just about perfectly.  When I was laughing a lot I heard myself say.’ I love you Mark O’Flynn.’. What I really meant, of course, was that I loved this short story by Mark O’Flynn, but hey anyone who can make me laugh like that is right up there.

Now I’ve finished the collection and have thought about emailing Mark O’Flynn to ask if he’s got more stories hidden somewhere but that would be a little too much like stalking. But perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to go find one of the novels he’s written!

White Light is published by Spineless Wonders

I'm Being Followed By a Snow Shadow

LIke an odd and hectic electric pole, or a bristling lateral tree, the shadow of the chairlift and its load of skies and skiers, lays down indigo, light navy, mid-tone cobalt, and so one gets to slide up and down the hill.

Idiosyncrasies of Phototaxis

In a spike of Zygopetalums one has rotated in a kind of botanical raspberry to its fellow flowers. Is this a my error in positioning and aspect of the plant, where experience has shown the critical thing is to bring the plant in before possums devour the stems with their honeydew promise.