Show Me The Treasure

Home Archive for February 2013

at 17:36

Grennan Castle subsides into its pasturage.

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The road from Ballyduff to Thomastown in County Kilkenny, runs along the valley of the River Nore, past Grennan Castle , now a picturesque ruin, the roof top grass as lush as any meadow. The castle's proud position is undeterred by the loss of carved lintels and window arches by vandals, its moat a remote memory in the

at 12:41

Sixties Dandelion Yellow at Tanpopo

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Sixties Dandelion Yellow at Tanpopo Image

There was something about the way this young woman's hair framed her face, that reminded me of a a character in an Ishiguro novel, a kind of demure resoluteness. But perhaps this a bit of wistful retro-fitting, a kind of post-hoc intertextuality bought on by finishing Ishiguro's short story collection 'Nocturnes'. After being so smitten with 'Never Let

at 12:06

Owlish Viewpoint in the Blue Mountains

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Owlish Viewpoint in the Blue Mountains Image

Spheroidal weathering, water wear, torsions of time and place, have given this outcrop, just below the ridge before Leura Falls, this owlish face creating a wide-eyed observer of valley. Spheroidal weathering, water wear, torsions of time and place, have given this outcrop, just below the ridge before Leura Falls, this owli... Spheroidal weathering, water wear, torsions of time

at 08:29

A Metaphor for Analysis

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At first it seemed obvious which one of these two parties had it together, who was the counsel and who the counselled, but then the more I consider each position, the more ambiguous it becomes. At first it seemed obvious which one of these two parties had it together, who was the counsel and who the counselled, but

at 16:57

Two Motifs for Urban Loneliness

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Why does the railway line curving away in the distance to nothing read as lonely? Perhaps it's the vision paradoxical endpoint, you believe it keeps going but your eyes tell you something else. Another contestant in Cliches of Urban Loneliness game is the desultory street fire. The Hanoians are good at these, the one below giving off a

at 22:33

Built to Cast

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Pure treasure, candelabras that celebrate and create a shadow garden of birds, flickering in the candlelight through trees that oscillate mildly. Pure treasure, candelabras that celebrate and create a shadow garden of birds, flickering in the candlelight through trees that oscil...

at 08:25

A Chekovian Moment in Hanoi's Military Museum

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A Chekovian Moment in Hanoi's Military Museum Image

There is something eerily elegant about this French pistol, suspended as if floating in time, in the Military Museum in Hanoi. In one way it can be seen as a potted history lesson - a French 'pistole' captured by a Vietnamese man used to fight the Chinese and Japanese. And in fulfillment of Chekhov's principle, if you bring

at 06:59

Politic Reqest to Maintain Political Awareness in Hoi Anefuse

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Politic Reqest to Maintain Political Awareness in Hoi Anefuse Image

Travelling around Vietnam one is conscious that one's political opinions may not always be the best thing to shout out about but this polite note in a historic 'tube' house in Hoi An insists that we maintain our view. The arrows above it, just out of frame, broadmindedly offer both the left and the right as ways of

at 11:37

Ceiling Charming, Restaurant Flawed.

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Ceiling Charming, Restaurant Flawed. Image

Lemon Grass Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, with its charming ceiling of umbrellas, is well rated in a couple of guide books and obviously gets a lot of tourists sent on from nearby hotels. The food is just decent but if it was in Sydney I would consider it seriously under-flavoured. So by local standards the chefs

at 13:30

Garcia Marquez wearing One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Garcia Marquez wearing One Hundred Years of Solitude Image

Continuing in my pursuit of rendering my favourite authors, or photographs, or both together, in broad strokes of Prussian Blue this redo is based on a wonderful photo of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez makes a little hat, a kind of half-way house, out of One Hundred Years of Solitude, at once alluding in its proximity to the source

at 11:56

Andrea Levy's Small Island

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Last week I finished Andrea Levy's Small Island, a compulsive read, sometimes bleak, more often funny, it illuminates, mostly in a kind watery grey light, a pivot point when the British Empire comes 'home' to roost. The central characters Hortense, Gilbert, Queenie, and a mostly off-stage Bernard have a nearly Shakespearean feel to them, their own soliloquies, their

at 18:11

Three Scenes from Cafe L' Usine in Saigon

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Three Scenes from Cafe L' Usine in Saigon Image

L'usine on Le Loi Street in Ho Chi Minh City is just right for mid-morning coffee, good espresso is hard to find in HCMC, though ordinary coffee shops are everywhere. L'usine iis all shabby industrial chic, perfect for that caught between two time zones feel of Ho Chi Minh City, part next week waiting to be completed and

at 12:11

Postcard from Hanoi - How Did the Chicken Cross The Road?

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Postcard from Hanoi - How Did the Chicken Cross The Road? Image

A few minutes trying to draw the 8.00am traffic as it dashes along Thy Truonghiet Street in the French District of Hanoi, reveals something about the ratio of motorbikes to bicycles. Heavens knows I would prefer to try catching the more sedately moving bicycle, so if anything my observation and recording bias would be with them, but even

at 12:37

Fashion Victims or Bag Ladies?

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Who could resist taking a photo quick snap of these plasticated mannequins, three still carrying on duty as normal, the fourth seemingly felled by the despair of wearing a large white plastic bag as a fashion statement. There is something about these long white plastic robes, that teeters oddly between the ecclesiastical and the mannequin-icidal. Bags not

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Curiosity Cabinet

As a child I thought there was a jewel box hidden in my parent's house, I imagined there was a cache of pink cut glass rings - the ones with adjustable soft metal sizing - laid out in pink foam in the nailed tight plyboard box in my brothers' walk-in robe.

Years later, I realised the box was really the back of the bathroom cabinet. I got a lot of enjoyment out of those pink glass jewels that weren't there. Imaginery treasures are curiously satisfying.

Here is a central point where someone who might be interetested can see what bits of words, some links to work published in journals and ezines, and images that I have made.

Absent Knowledge

We are talking about knowing certain facts,

and he says, I know all that or used to,

it is only that I can’t remember.

Is this not knowing or forgetting

what you know? Perhaps the head holds

a trace of what was there,

perhaps it is there but can’t find

the way out; maybe it was there but left,

or there was a rumour that it was coming

but never did,

like the promised holiday ,

in Pennant Hills. At eight years old

I would lie in bed at night a hardly contained

precipice of anticipation that time

would take me to Pennant Hills and a big house

with a swimming pool. I can see

the façade of the house, the curve

of suburban street, where that house

I never went to might be - or even was.

Though I know I never went, maybe

somewhere, there is an unborn memory

of being there, and I am thwarted by absent knowledge

from enjoying what I did not do.

Carol Jenkins

From Voices from the Meadow Wollongong Workshop Anthology 2007 ( Five Islands Press)

Bambiraptor

The Going Down Swinging # 25 -special double CD edition has at last unwrappped itself in Sydney, with a lauch at the Last Bastion of Civilisation last Wednseday 25 September. I still don't know what is in this CD it apart from my spoken word poem Bambiraptor as I was incarcarated in an invention called Good Mummydom. I hope every one else had a good time at the launch party.

The fossil Bambiraptor’s importance in the evolutional of dexterity and the dissonant name gave me this rave by Blanche (Street Car Named Desire) - here she makes a play for Bambiraptor believing his tough and powerful persona is lined with tenderness, like Stanley. This poem is one of my bids to get fossils to colonise and take over the myth as the substratum of literature.

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